by Donald Ha
“Now, admire my ass.”
He felt a strong energy burning in the engine room.
His pursuers will probably have a hard day today, following him around.
Until they get lost in the flood of meaningless information.
Chapter 6
A document was delivered to James McCauley.
On the front page it was written "Report on the 13th, vol.1."
"....."
James McCauley read the document expressionlessly. The document was about Marie-Louise.
"Just as I thought... A French woman."
The father of the 17 year old girl was Croix Lane, a Frenchman from Ile-de-France. As a Huguenot, he left France and after passing by Netherlands, finally settled in Frankfurt, Germany, as if he was trying to keep the tradition of his ancestors. In Germany, he married a Jewish-German named Erika Lewinsky and had a son and a daughter.
There was nothing special about the man who passed away at the age of 48. He was a carpenter, but was not popular compared to his German counterparts as he worked as leisurely, as expected from French.
He worked as a laborer in the cargo handling area at the railway and stayed there until he was killed by the bombing led out by the Allied forces in 1944.
There was nothing special to be found in the documents that came from France and Germany.
He was a typical lower middle-class laborer, with no special achievements.
His wife, Hannah Lewinski was pretty much the same. Graduating from school with low grades, she didn't work and then lived the rest of her life as a housewife after marrying Croix Lane.
But her death was miserable. Because she was partly Jewish, she was dragged off to Auswitz. She died in pain just like the other unfortunate Jews.
Her remains were never to be found.
The problem was the offspring.
James McCauley stared at the eyeball inside the glass jar. The red eyeball in formaldehyde, which looked like ruby, was staring straight at him.
It was an eyeball that was taken from someone's eye socket.
James McCauley stared at it whenever his mind was stuck.
"Why do you keep coming back to this world? Are you not sick of the loss, pain, and death that repeats forever?"
But the eyeball didn't answer.
It just continuously stared hollowly at some point in the room.
Knock, knock.
A knock echoed in the room.
James McCauley covered the scattered documents and said,
"Come in."
The knob turned and the door opened.
A man in a U.S army uniform appeared.
He bowed to James and said in a businesslike fashion,
"I have finished the search that you ordered."
"The results?"
"I could not find her. She seems to have fled to the Soviet occupation zone as expected."
"Soviet occupation zone."
James McCauley’s forehead wrinkled.
A low sigh came from his mouth.
"Should I push ahead with the search?"
The man asked in a careful tone.
James contemplated for a moment, but shook his head.
"It's not time yet. There are some bad rumors going on."
“Bad rumors?"
"Yes. I ordered a pursuit unit to trail a hyena and they accidently discovered it."
James McCauley poured the whisky into a cup and drank it in once gulp.
"What did they see?"
As the man asked, James said with sigh,
"They reappeared. The ones that disappeared after being defeated by us."
"By 'they'... you mean?"
"I think you got it. They’re the ones who wander in the streets of Berlin at night wearing Soviet uniforms."
At that moment, in a Soviet field hospital.
A group of men in Soviet uniform went into the hospital room.
There was one bed in the room and on the bed laid a giant man.
The man in front of the group stared at the patient on the bed.
"Is this Andrei Popov?"
As he asked, a man behind him took out a photo and compared it to the patient.
But the patient's face was injured beyond recognition.
"That won’t be necessary."
The middle-aged man with blue eyes approached the bed.
The tag on the bed read 'Andrei Popov.'
The man observed the patient.
It was not long before he reached a conclusion.
"It’s obvious. It's the work of Wugong."
"Wugong...?!"
Fear spread among the men who were standing behind him.
"Don't be frightened, comrades. The Wulins are not as strong as you think."
The middle-aged man smiled.
It was a smile that showed his fearlessness.
"If you know how to react, they aren’t any different from ordinary street gangs.”
The fear in the men's faces started to fade away.
The middle-aged man looked at his men and said,
"Find the person who did this damage."
*
"I don't think this is going to work."
Hans's face showed reluctance.
"Just keep watch, stop worrying. I'll take care of it."
On the other hand, Jackal was confident.
He stared at the house in front of him with sharp eyes.
Two floors. There was a high fence around it and a small garden in front of the building.
Two Soviet soldiers were guarding the entrance.
Perhaps there are more guards inside the building.
Today, Jackal had to rescue a man named Knyphausen who was being held hostage in the building.
Knysphausen was a very capable scientist who was set to be sent to Soviet territory tomorrow.
It was against the US's interest that he worked for the Soviets. So Captain Grace gave a mission to Jackal.
Jackal thought of the target in his mind. The image of Captain Grace's bald head flashed in his head.
"The job is simple. Rescue the doctor and bring him here. But if the rescue cannot be done.... make him unable to work for the Soviets."
The easier way is to simply kill the doctor.
But Grace promised a huge bonus if he could bring the doctor alive.
He was not a humane person, but he always kept his promise when it came to money.
"Jackal, I don't think we should do this."
Hans showed his reluctance again.
Jackal felt a little angry.
‘Didn’t you just say you'll follow my orders a moment ago?'
Recently, Jackal acted alone for most of the time.
As he started working for Grace, he didn't have to work with the hyenas and after learning Wugong from Marie-Louise, there wasn't much need for brute force.
There had been a time when Hans Graham was necessary for Jackal, but that wasn't the case anymore.
Unless, it was a job which required more hands.
Anyway, for this reason, there was no reason for Jackal to work with Hans Graham, but then Hans begged Jackal to give him some work.
As he knew Hans's shy character, he was reluctant. But he took Hans along with him upon hearing that Erika was starving. However, he only kept sighing and saying pessimistic words all along the way.
'I should not have brought him here.'
Jackal regretted his decision.
"Jackal. This is too dangerous. I am advising you as your comrade. You could get killed."
"It pays because it is dangerous. We can't keep on searching corpses and garbage."
"It's better than dying."
"I'm not going to die."
"What makes you so certain?"
Hans let out a sarcastic laugh. His eyes flashed as he stared at Jackal.
He was definitely angry. But it was the same with Jackal.
"I don't know about you, but I fought really well in the last war."
"Better than a 1st grade iron
cross?"
The 1st grade iron cross was a trophy given only to the ones who made extraordinary accomplishments during the war.
Hans Graham had the 1st grade iron cross.
He always showed off this fact to the others to prove that he was a capable soldier.
However, the medal did not work on Jackal.
"Wasn’t the cross given to everyone at the end of the war?"
Jackal had a sarcastic smile on his face.
"What?"
Hans's face twisted with anger.
"Didn't they let anyone who wanted to just take the cross during the Battle of Berlin?"
That was the honor of a crumbling nation.
Jackal stared at the cross.
It was the cross that even 14 year old boys, who should have been studying at school, took from the top of the box and put it on the uniform that was too big for their size.
"What you said cannot be forgiven, even for you."
For Hans, the iron cross was everything.
Hans stood straight in front of Jackal.
He was two heads taller than Jackal with broad shoulders. On top of that, Hans had experience in wrestling. His muscles and movement was different from that of a normal person's.
"I’m not going to say sorry"
However, Jackal didn't back down an inch.
Jackal was no match for him before, but now, Jackal had his engine room that was getting stronger day by day.
"....."
Hans stared at Jackal for a moment, bit down his lip in rage and pounded the blameless wall.
"Damn it!"
Hans remembered.
How Jackal knocked down the famous giant named Andrei Popov.
The fight where Jackal knocked down the giant with his bare hands was inscribed deeply in Hans's memory.
"... I'm out."
Hans said despondently. His physique seemed smaller.
"......"
Jackal didn't say a word and stared at Hans's back as he disappeared into the darkness.
"Phew..."
He let out a sigh as Hans disappeared.
‘That was a meaningless conflict. Normally, I wouldn't have had such problems..'
He knew that Hans had a lot of fear and complaint, so he was used to it.
But today it seemed that he ran out of patience. It was not a big deal, but he felt a strong pang of anger that made his hair stand on end.
Or perhaps it was the heat of the engine room that was burning in his stomach.
‘I guess I’ll go beg his pardon with some delicious food later.’
But now was the time to focus on the target in front of him.
Jackal regained his cool and keenly observed the house in the darkness.
“……”
In the darkness, Jackal closely observed the guards.
He looked at their habits, where they were looking at and listened to what they were saying.
This was all precious information to Jackal.
By understanding what kind of men the guards were, Jackal could grasp their sense of responsibility, their capabilities as a soldier and how important they considered the mission.
“Damn, time is going really slow, I want to get to my bed and get some sleep.”
“Why don’t you stop gambling? You’re always tired since you stay up all night and play dice.”
After 30 minutes, he could hear what they were talking about.
Judging from their conversation, they didn’t seem to be very capable soldiers.
He could not feel any tension in their actions.
They leaned against the wall, sat on a chair and drank from the bottle of vodka in their pockets as they chased away sleep with meaningless conversations.
To test them, Jackal took a small stone and threw it at the wall near them.
Tap.
A weak sound dissipated in the night air.
Jackal stooped down and observed the guards’ reaction.
But the guards didn’t show any reaction to the sound.
After 5 minutes, Jackal threw another stone, as small as the previous one, to make a similar sound.
Tap.
Again, the guards didn’t show any reactions.
‘I guess they can’t hear a weak sound like this.’
After another 5 minutes, Jackal threw a bigger stone at the wall.
Tap.
The sound was a little bigger this time.
“Hey, what was that?”
“That’s probably just rats running around.”
Jackal heard the whole conversation.
‘So, I guess they can hear sound as big as this.’
He collected another piece of precious information.
Jackal stood up in the darkness.
Like a ghost, he silently walked to the back of the house.
The building was surrounded with a beautiful stone fence, about 2.5 meters tall.
On the top of the fence, there was a round-shaped barbed wire, so it seemed to be hard to cross. Jackal caught a grasshopper, stuck it on a wooden stick, and tapped the grasshopper on the barbed wire.
*Chiiik*
Once the grasshopper touched the wire, it burned with a small explosion. The smell of smoke coming from the burned grasshopper stung his nose.
“I guess that’s why there are so few guards.”
The only way into the house seemed to be through the main entrance where the two guards were.
But, how was he going to get past them?
Even if he had strong powers, it was still dangerous to show up in front of them.
They were brainwashed that the corpses of Germans were an art and a revolution, and several mistaken killings were not taken seriously.
“Hmm….”
Jackal concentrated.
But he couldn’t start a firefight.
There may be other Soviet soldiers in the house and there could be reinforcements nearby.
It was almost impossible to rescue the hostage all by himself.
Jackal looked again at the barbed wire.
‘If I can find the power source of the wire…’
The public electricity was not yet repaired.
So there must be a generator nearby.
A generator always made a lot of noise.
Jackal walked along the fence and listened closely for the generator.
Soon, Jackal heard a weak sound.
It was the sound coming from inside a sewage pipe sticking out of the ditch, behind the building.
The pipe seemed to lead to the interior of the building.
‘Hmm… I think a person might be able to go in.”
It was an unexpected discovery.
He normally would not have chosen this path because Jackal had a weak stomach and he didn’t try something that would stimulate it.
But it was different this time. The jolting heat inside his body had changed his characteristics.
“Whew… this is f*cked up. Do I really have to do this?”
Jackal took out his scarf, put it around his mouth and nose and went inside the pipe without hesitation.
“Ooof!”
Even with scarf, the nasty smell of the sewer hit his nose. As he suppressed vomiting, Jackal clenched his teeth and crawled forward.
He could hear the generator more clearly as he went deeper.
When he finally got past the filthy sewage and the mice living in it, a hatch appeared.
‘Hmm… what’s this?’
It was an ancient hatch that seemed to have been made hundreds of years ago. The surface was rusty and there were words written on it which Jackal could not read.
‘It’s Latin.’
He didn’t understand what was written on the hatch, but he knew that there was something beyond it.
Before he opened the hatch, he looked around the vicinity and then grabbed the handle and turned it powerfully.
‘It’s not budging at all.’
Before, Jackal might have simply given up, b
ut now he had the incredible power of the engine room.
Jackal focused and concentrated his inner force jolting in his engine room.
He recalled something Marie-Louise had said before.
“The real power comes from rage. Think of the beings that distressed you, that distresses you and also think of revenge. So that your rage may burn everything up.”
With a meaningful smile, the image of the green-eyed girl faded into the distance.
Jackal held his breath and let the inner force in the engine room rage on.
Rage, revenge, pain, enemy.
He repeated these negative words in his head like a prayer.
Flash!
A flash of madness started to burn in Jackal’s eyes.
An incredible power started to rage throughout his body.
clank-
Jackal grabbed the handle of the hatch and turned it.
*Creeeeek*-
The hatch, locked down for hundreds of years, started to give in with a spooky metallic sound.
He thought that the Soviet soldiers might hear the sound of the hatch, but he couldn’t stop turning the hatch that was already giving in.
*Cluck.*
The hatch finally opened.
“Whoa…”
A dusty room covered with spider webs and mold showed up before Jackal.
The walls of the room seemed to be hundreds of years old, like the hatch.
“This house seems to be very old.”
There were many old houses in Europe.
Some of them even dated back to the middle ages.
This house must also be one of those old houses.
The room seemed to have been abandoned for quite a long time.
There were no objects that stayed intact. Only small fragments that used to be something laying on the floor.
Soon, Jackal found a stairway leading up.
He carefully climbed the stairs. The end of the stairway was blocked by a wooden panel.
“…..”
He turned off the lantern, put it in his pocket, and carefully removed the panel.
Sheesh-
With the sound of a cloth being dragged on the floor, a faint light stimulated Jackal’s eyes.
‘I’m a lucky man.’
He had successfully infiltrated the house without being detected. That would mean that he could escape easily it too. He only had to go back the way he came from.
Jackal quietly went into the house and looked around, trying to find the Doctor.