The Leader (2)
“……What the hell?”
The soldier froze while tying his boot laces and scooted backward on his rear.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you……”
The soldier who had been singled out spoke in a trembling voice. He was already intimidated enough, and now a massive black dog was shoving its face right up to him. It was no wonder he was terrified. The other soldiers tensed up as well, stopping their efforts to tie their boots and staring at Samsuk-i.
“Samsuk, come here! Leave that man alone!”
Jinwoo called out to the dog. He had no desire to watch the poor soldiers cower in fear, nor did he want to see a frightened soldier swinging a rifle butt at Samsuk-i. But the dog refused to back down and let out another low bark.
Arf!
Then it turned to look at Jinwoo, as if signaling you should come over here.
“……Why is he acting like this?”
Jinwoo, who understood the dog’s body language, tilted his head but slowly approached the soldier in question. That clever creature wouldn’t behave so strangely without reason. He needed to find out why.
“I-I wasn’t bitten! I swear it’s true!”
When the wizard who handled guns like magic approached with a K-2 in hand, the soldier raised his voice in panic.
“This…… this wound, I got it back when we took shelter in the billiard hall. I cut myself on broken glass……! There’s even a witness who saw it happen right beside me!”
He hastily rolled up his pants leg to reveal the injury. Just as he claimed, it was clearly a long, sharp cut. They had been too busy fleeing from zombies to receive proper first aid, so the blood hadn’t even dried yet.
“I’m not suspecting you of being bitten by a zombie.”
Jinwoo raised a hand to reassure him first. No matter how intelligent Samsuk-i was, the dog still couldn’t detect zombies any better than other animals or insects. So it wasn’t warning them that this soldier was turning. There had to be some other problem…….
“Haa……! Yes, thank you……. I…… haa……! I thought I was being suspected…… haa……!”
The soldier who had just been spared a death sentence placed a hand over his chest and let out a deep sigh. But Samsuk-i still wasn’t finished.
Pant pant pant—!
The dog pressed its nose into the soldier’s ration pocket, sniffed a few times, then looked back at Jinwoo. There was clearly something inside that posed a threat.
“What’s in your pocket?”
When Jinwoo asked, the soldier’s face, lit by the headlamp, turned deathly pale in an instant.
“……What? No, it’s nothing special……”
His expression and tone screamed that he was lying. Jinwoo gave a cold order.
“Take it out and place it on the floor. Slowly.”
“No, it’s really nothing……”
The soldier shook his head but didn’t waste any more time. He obediently pulled the item from his pocket and set it down.
Rattle, rattle—!
What rolled across the rooftop floor a couple of times before stopping was a 5.56mm round for the K-2.
“Is that the only one?”
Jinwoo asked without emotion. He had roughly guessed as much earlier, but seeing the shiny yellow live round under the light still made his head spin. Even though it was only one bullet, its presence meant they could no longer be considered unarmed.
“Yes! Just the one! And please don’t misunderstand! I didn’t hide it because I had some kind of ulterior motive or bad intentions. It’s just…… earlier…… if I got cornered in a dead end, I was going to use it to kill myself…… haa……! Getting bitten by a zombie is too terrifying, so I kept just one round……”
The soldier waved both hands wildly as he proclaimed his innocence. Jinwoo didn’t exactly look convinced, but he understood the man’s feelings completely. Even back at the Samcheok nuclear plant, some soldiers had kept a single round for the final moment. He himself had wandered through Gangwon Province, lost his K-2 with serial number 927307 to zombies, and been left with only a pistol. He had seriously contemplated turning it on himself.
“It’s the truth! I know it’s hard to believe after everything that’s happened……! I really wasn’t trying to deceive anyone! Today I saw my…… fellow soldier…… get torn apart and die right in front of me. It was so horrific, I just couldn’t……”
Tears of fear glistened in the confessing soldier’s eyes. Jinwoo calmed him down.
“Settle down. I don’t think badly of you. Now calm your mind, finish tying your combat boots properly, and then I’ll give you some disinfectant for emergency treatment.”
He meant it. But he couldn’t simply overlook this. No matter how poor the shooter’s skill, at close range a single bullet could still prove fatal. Jinwoo picked up the 5.56mm round the soldier had produced, then addressed the entire platoon.
“Possession of live ammunition is still not permitted. If any of you have hidden rounds like this man, take them out now.”
“Ah…… over here! I…… had the same thought……! J-just one bullet!”
“Me too!”
Before Jinwoo could press them further, soldiers began confessing from all around. There was no point in playing dumb when that huge black dog would sniff them out anyway.
“I’m sorry. The boys probably didn’t have any ill intentions. We…… are truly, deeply grateful to all of you.”
Second Lieutenant Seong circled the soldiers once, collecting the rounds, then handed them over with an apologetic expression. There were five bullets in total.
“I don’t consider it a bad thing. Now, Lieutenant, return to your spot and finish tying your combat boots.”
Yubin slipped the collected bullets into his ration pouch and gave the order.
“Use this to treat yourselves for now and pass it along. These are painkillers. There’s no water, but chew and swallow them anyway.”
Yubin pulled disinfectant, bandages, band-aids, and painkillers from his backpack and distributed them to the soldiers.
“Thank you. Um…… are we allowed to talk?”
The soldier who received the supplies asked in a subdued voice. Having his ammunition confiscated and being forced to sit in isolation probably made him feel like a prisoner. Yubin nodded readily.
“Of course. Feel free to talk. Just stay in your positions and converse normally. We need to be able to hear outside sounds, so please don’t get too loud.”
While this exchange took place, Samsuk-i majestically wove between the soldiers, conducting one final meticulous search of each man. Fortunately, no one else had hidden additional rounds. The dog let out a single light kung! sneeze before returning to Jinwoo and the Sheriff’s side.
“What the hell is with this guy? Seriously……”
The Sheriff, leaning against the railing, stared at Samsuk-i in open admiration. To pick out a single hidden bullet from a group of humans reeking of gunpowder…… The excellence of its nose was astonishing, but even more impressive was the fact that the dog understood the bullet represented a danger that needed to be reported.
“Were you some kind of gunpowder detection dog?”
The Sheriff asked while stroking Samsuk-i’s head. Delta teams didn’t use them, but he had heard from Chris or Jimmy that DevGru sometimes worked with bomb-detection shepherds on operations. If drug-sniffing dogs and explosive-detection dogs existed, then a gunpowder-detection dog wasn’t impossible.
“It really…… might have been something like that.”
When Jinwoo agreed and gave the dog a praising look, Samsuk-i puffed out its chest and showed off. The Sheriff grabbed both of the dog’s thick cheeks and stretched them into a smile, then joked.
“Look at you showing off the second you get praised. You’re practically human. You take snacks nicely, you find bullets nicely…… Aigoo, why can’t a clever guy like you smell zombies too? It would make things so much easier.”
Drip! Drip!
Saliva poured from the corners of Samsuk-i’s stretched lips.
“He growls at me when I touch him like that…… Anyway……”
Yubin, who had returned to his friends, spoke quietly.
“What are we supposed to do with these people now?”
“Ah…… right.”
The Sheriff finally returned to reality and clicked his tongue bitterly. Saving the men from zombies had been the right thing to do, but they couldn’t keep protecting eighteen soldiers—enemies who had been sent to capture or kill them—indefinitely.
And simply releasing them would be just as bad. With their clumsy combat ability, they would almost certainly be surrounded by zombies again before the day was out. Even if they generously shared thousands of precious rounds, the outcome likely wouldn’t change.
The fact that their presence and location were now known, even vaguely, was also troubling. They still had nearly three days before they could return to Big Island. Could they really afford to let such uncomfortable information leak?
“No, why the hell were only these guys left here?”
The Sheriff scratched his head, still unable to make sense of it. Dropping twenty soldiers with almost no real combat experience into a city crawling with zombies and then leaving them…… It wasn’t even forced deportation. What kind of merciless act was that? But if the goal had been to kill them through forced exile, they wouldn’t have issued so much ammunition.
“We’ll ask together when Lieutenant Cho joins us,”
Yubin muttered as he plopped down beside the Sheriff.
“……I’m thirsty.”
Jinwoo licked his parched lips. There was water in his backpack, but he didn’t have the heart to drink it alone in front of the soldiers. His friends decided to wait until the special forces team returned with supplies.
Vroooooom—!
Their hearing, dulled by the earlier gunfire, must have been recovering. The distant exhaust note of the Zen Coupe could be heard intermittently. That meant Cho Cheol-woong’s vehicle had drawn significantly closer and would soon return.
“Once we learn more about Chairman Hwang’s daughter, how do you think Lieutenant Cho will react?”
Jinwoo asked while keeping watch on both the soldiers and the road below the railing. If the name Hwang Nayeon came up from these men’s mouths, Cho Cheol-woong would undoubtedly find himself in an extremely awkward position. Yubin pulled up his zip-up hood to ward off the cold and sighed.
“Huu, I don’t know……. I think that’s the biggest landmine we’re sitting on. If her story comes up while they’re being questioned, it might be better if we warn him in advance.”
“What exactly would the warning be?”
“To not interfere with or try to stop what we’re planning to do.”
“You think a warning like that would work?”
Jinwoo muttered, sounding only half convinced. The Sheriff and Yubin, who had never been soldiers, might not fully grasp it, but the position of special forces team leader was like a towering structure built on an enormous foundation of pride. He wondered whether such an elite officer would actually listen to a warning from a bunch of kids in their early twenties.
“Given how far things have progressed, he probably won’t stubbornly insist on his own way…… but just to be safe, let’s set up a signal. Um……”
Yubin thought for a moment, then removed his headlamp.
“This is the signal.”
“So if you take off your headlamp while talking to those soldiers, I aim at Lieutenant Cho?”
As expected from his quick-witted friend. Jinwoo immediately understood what Yubin wanted to convey. Yubin nodded and fastened the headlamp band back onto his head.
“Yeah. That should make our position a lot more persuasive. When I take the lieutenant and that Second Lieutenant Seong over there somewhere to start questioning them, you move slowly and hide without being noticed. If we go down to the lower floor and enter a room, pretend to be curious and follow us.”
Yubin pointed at the concrete rooftop structure and shared the plan up to the second contingency. Once the number of special forces members increased and they could easily handle guard duty and zombie surveillance, there was a high chance they would move the interrogation to a closed space downstairs. After outlining various scenarios, Yubin gave a light shake of his head.
“Still…… I don’t think it’ll spiral that badly. It’ll probably…… go well.”
“What should I do in that case?”
The Sheriff asked about his own role.
“Sheriff, you follow someone else. They’ll definitely cross-examine at least two people. But……”
Yubin stared at the man’s face, still splattered with zombie brains, and added shortly.
“Don’t start any fights.”
Cho Cheol-woong arrived at the building in Seongsu-dong roughly twenty minutes later, after linking up with the team members who had relocated Master Sergeant Hong to the base.
“I heard the general outline. We really…… owe you a tremendous debt! Thank you!”
The moment he saw Yubin, Cho Cheol-woong grabbed his hand tightly and expressed his gratitude first.
“No, it’s not something you need to thank us for……”
Yubin shook his head awkwardly. After all, they had been the ones to suggest the rescue operation. In a sense, Master Sergeant Hong was the victim, and providing the serum had been the right thing to do. But Cho Cheol-woong showed no sign of releasing his hand.
“If that guy had been lost…… I really wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself. You three are like my benefactors.”
Cho Cheol-woong tightened his grip further and slowly shook his head. Having driven with dozens of cartons of lit cigarettes in the trunk the entire time, an overwhelming stench of tobacco rolled off him with every movement. If the Sheriff’s earlier smell had been a three, Cho Cheol-woong was currently at a fifteen or sixteen.
“Umm……”
The cold was beginning to bite, but Yubin decided not to ask for his jacket back. He would rather endure the freezing wind than wear clothes soaked in that awful stench.
“Here, this is your jacket. The key’s inside.”
Beside them, Staff Sergeant Choi removed the Gore-Tex jacket and returned it to the Sheriff. The Sheriff took one sniff and grimaced.
“Ugh! The smell, fuck! This isn’t something a human should wear. Blech……!”
After a light dry heave, the Sheriff shook the jacket vigorously in the air. The deeply embedded odor refused to fade. He sniffed the smart key and muttered worriedly.
“If the jacket smells this bad, the car must be a complete ashtray……”
“That car can’t be used anymore. We’ll find a new one together tomorrow.”
Cho Cheol-woong spoke with finality. Both front and rear windshields were shattered, the side mirrors were gone, the roof was riddled with bullet holes, only one headlight remained, and the fuel warning light was on. It was honestly a miracle the vehicle had endured such extreme abuse.
“We can talk about those minor details later……”
Cho Cheol-woong patted the disappointed Sheriff’s broad shoulder, then turned toward the soldiers sitting in two groups.
“First, let’s speak with their leader. We need to find out why only these men were left behind.”
“That man is the second lieutenant,”
Yubin said, pointing at Second Lieutenant Seong. Cho Cheol-woong strode over and stopped in front of him.
“Second Lieutenant.”
“Second Lieutenant Seong Ju-seong!”
Second Lieutenant Seong, who had been frantically gulping down the bottled water he had just received, tried to leap to his feet but stumbled over his tied boot laces. Cho Cheol-woong caught him before he could fall and spoke in a tone that was appropriately stern yet appropriately gentle.
“Untie your combat boots and follow me.”
“Yes sir!”
Second Lieutenant Seong obeyed immediately. Although Cho Cheol-woong hadn’t revealed his unit or rank, his speech and bearing carried an aura that instantly conveyed he was a far superior officer. The charisma radiating from his one-eyed face was equally overwhelming.
Cho Cheol-woong led him to a small conference room on the lower floor, opened the windows wide, and put a cigarette between his lips. He then looked back at Yubin and Jinwoo.
“Care for one?”
“No, we don’t smoke……”
When Yubin waved his hands in refusal, Cho Cheol-woong offered the pack to Second Lieutenant Seong.
“What about you?”
“Ah…… thank you, I’ll smoke!”
Second Lieutenant Seong hesitated briefly before taking a cigarette with a trembling hand. Cho Cheol-woong lit it for him, sat down, and exhaled a long plume of smoke.
“I’m going to ask you several questions. Answer honestly and with sincerity.”
“Yes, understood!”
Though the cigarette made him slightly dizzy after going so long without one, Second Lieutenant Seong answered clearly and without hesitation. He apparently had no intention of lying to the people who had saved their lives.
“You belong to the Invincible 1st Corps, correct?”
The five warlords in the South Area had all given new names to their units. The Invincible 1st Corps belonged to Major General Park. The Strongest 1st Corps was under Lieutenant General Shin, the Supreme 1st Corps under Lieutenant General Jeong…… They all clung stubbornly to the number one and claimed to be the 1st Corps, yet fearing it would cause confusion, each added a modifier. It was such idiotic behavior that it wasn’t even funny.
“Yes, that’s correct!”
Before the second lieutenant could finish answering, Cho Cheol-woong fired off the next question.
“What was the reason for your deployment to Seoul today? What mission were you given?”
“Ah, that…… we were ordered to locate a female officer who had become a zombie.”
“A female officer who became a zombie?”
Cho Cheol-woong’s brows drew together. He had considered various possibilities, but this answer fell completely outside any of them. Honestly, he had never even imagined hearing such a response.
To mobilize so many helicopters and troops just to find one dead female officer…… it made no sense. Yet the second lieutenant’s face showed no sign of deception. Then what exactly had she possessed?
“There were no other orders? That was it?”
“Correct. Our mission was to find a zombie wearing a female military uniform among the others. We were told that since she hadn’t been bitten long ago, her uniform would still be relatively clean.”
The more Cho Cheol-woong listened, the deeper the mystery became. Arms still crossed, he tilted his head.
“A female military uniform zombie with clean clothing? Is that truly all the information you were given?”
“No. They also told us the officer’s name. If we found a matching zombie, we were to secure it first and then verify using the name tag……”
Even so, it wasn’t particularly valuable information. No matter how male-dominated the military was, female officers were hardly rare. Cho Cheol-woong snorted.
“Really? Then let me hear the name of this great zombie officer.”
“Yes!”
The second lieutenant swallowed dryly and continued.
“It’s Major Yoo So-jin.”