Chapter 7
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It was only a matter of moments before people were screaming and ducking under their desks. Sasha knew the unreal, distant sound all too well. The sound of gunfire. Sasha looked back, red-faced, and then someone fired. A gush of blood from the back of the man’s head splashed across Sasha's face. He fell to his knees on the ground like a tree struck by lightning. Sasha wiped her face with her sleeve.
Blood. It smelled familiar and was a familiar color. Everything in front of her was a blur, except for her acute hearing, which made even other people's breathing sound as clear as her own. The sound of footsteps, heavy and dull, filled the office. Soldiers like black wolves, their armbands slung over their shoulders, the heavy metal of their machine guns clanking against each other, and Sasha crouched on the floor, her hands covering her heightened sensitivity. Unshredded documents fluttered through the air.
Someone kicked the door of the office with their boots. Whe heard Mr. Boban shouting. Men shouting at each other, then the dull thud of a blow. It was an unannounced raid, and they were the Dochen. Something has been discovered, and it could be her. She had to run. Sasha crawled across the floor, shivering. She flattened herself as much as she could and crawled from chair to chair, desk to desk, hiding. She couldn't even breathe. At times like this, she wished her heart would stop beating.
"There's a rat."
It came from directly above her head. The next moment, a sinister hand grabbed her hair and lifted her up.
"Ouch!"
For the first time since she was nine years old and a shell exploded under her nose, Sasha screamed with all her might.
"Where are you sneaking off to, you little rat?"
He was a well-dressed soldier in a pristine military uniform. The image of him pinning her parents down in front of a cliff and riddling them with bullets stuck in her retinas. Just looking at Dochen's uniform made her shiver and shake. She felt like she was going to pee with fear. She could see the rank patch on his chest. Thanks to her work in a field hospital, she could read a soldier's rank. It was a colonel. A colonel in the military state of Dochen. Sasha stared at him with fear in her eyes. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her against the wall. With a bang, she hit her forehead and slid to the floor. The next moment, she was completely unconscious.
"Treason! Treason! In this day and age, a politician, even a politician of the Alliance!"
Karel slammed the desk down, the medals and stitches on his clothes rattling. A lock of pomade-combed, white-brown hair spilled over his wrinkled forehead.
"Calm down. Karel. That won't make the situation go away."
The man spoke nonchalantly, taking in the sun outside the window. His voice was almost indifferent.
"We can't even decipher the Allied ciphers, and we've only captured a handful of spies so far!"
"That's probably true of the Allies as well."
The man swirled the brew in his hand. His immaculately dressed white livery shone as brightly as his silvery-white hair.
"Neither of us would be able to keep our jobs if Clerk Raoul knew, and it would be a risk to my neck as well as yours. In any case, this is our business."
Karel didn't want to get into any more trouble. All the complicated matters had been entrusted to John, and he had performed his duties faithfully. But the problem lay in the fickleness of Clerk Raoul, who would reward him one day with a medal of honor and another day take it away and throw him in prison. Recently, however, Raoul had begun to tip off the secret service about his latest affair. Perhaps he was conscious of John's popularity.
All Karel wanted was to stay out of trouble, collect a huge bonus, and plan for his retirement. To do this, the most important thing was the stability of his position and the counterintelligence service, and in order to maintain it, he had to be untouchable. For example, the current situation, where the head of the regime was in league with the Allies, shouldn't have happened in the first place.
"You know that, His Excellency has no mercy."
"I know."
"It's always been a slippery slope, but we've gotten along just fine, haven't we?"
Ever since the barbed wire fence on the border, the DoC and the Allies have been in a state of Cold War, peaceful on the surface but more intense than when they were bombing each other's soil with missiles. Each side built more towers to show off their size, and then made bets on who would fall first. In the end, it all came down to information and money.
"Keep Mr. Boban's affairs under wraps so that no further word gets out. No more betrayals, no more waiting. One more play at the hands of the Allies and you and I will both be shot."
Karel seemed overly nervous, so the man didn't argue further. Instead, he quietly set the mug of ale he was holding down on the table.
"If you'll excuse me, Captain."
"Next time you come in, you'll bring something that's palatable to Clerk Raoul. Or better yet, bring him the head of a useful bastard, or I'll blow both of your heads off."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He walked out of the room and down the long corridor. At first glance, he looked more like a ruffian than an officer. The man rubbed a hand over his sun-scorched eyes. Each person he encountered in the corridor stood and saluted him with a loud, booming voice. People didn't breathe until his back was completely out of sight. John von Willendorf. He was as much the devil to the DoC as he was to the Allies.
The day was clear, the sun was as warm as ever, and the gardens outside the window were as rich and romantic as those in the fall before harvest. His eyes, squinting in the sunlight, sparkled like a child's.
Sasha, on the other hand, was all darkness, except for a single beam of light ahead of her, and she couldn't tell if it was sunlight or a low fluorescent lamp hanging from the ceiling. The damp, cold floor, the sickly scent of blood, and the cold.
A moment later, the flesh-ripping pain hit her once more: someone had poured another stream of cold water over her unconscious body. She floundered like a drowning person, gasping for air.
"I can't do this to you already. Miss. The sun is still high in the sky. It's not time for bed."
At first, she tried to fathom how long she had been trapped here. She tried counting her heartbeats and using them as seconds to estimate the time. The first few times, she even tried to resist, but now she didn't want to do anything. She felt helpless and just plain scared and afraid. Counting the days she hadn't slept was no longer meaningful.
Her nose was bleeding and her head ached like it was going to break. There was no place that wasn't swollen, no place that wasn't in pain. She was dazed all day, had tinnitus, and felt as if she was lying in a thorn bush, painful and cold. She would give anything to get out of this pain.
"What did you give Boban?"
Sasha lay on the ground and shook her head weakly.
A booted foot kicked her in the side. Sasha screamed and coughed.
"What did you give Boban!"
She didn’t know. The only thing she gave Boban was the one piece of clothing he asked her to bring him.
"What were you trying to give him!"
No matter how many times she told him, he didn't believe her. All she brought was a change of underwear and clothes and 40 bahk. Unable to answer anymore, she could only gasp and tremble.
"If you had tears streaming down your pale face, all the men would have fallen for you, right?"
Sasha shook her head paroxysmally. Colonel Dieter picked at her broken, dead nails. Her fingertips crackled with torture on the cold floor. The slightest touch sent a tsunami of pain through her.
It hurts.... It hurts so much....
"Okay. So let's go back to the beginning. What were Jared's instructions?"
"Boban, I need information...... from Senator Boban."
With a harsh snap, Dieter slapped her face. Sasha groaned again.
"There's no way Jared sent you to spy on that stupid old man, he doesn't know anything. The guy crawled like a dog to the top to get a seat on the council, and he has no ideas! He was trying to use Boban to make contact with someone, Sasha Laurent!"
"......No....... I, I'm...... oh!"
He yanked Sasha by the hair. The stone beak on the uneven floor cut her sharply from hip to toe. Dieter plunged Sasha's head into a tub of water. Her feeble struggles were futile under the vicious grip. When the strength drained from her flailing body, he pulled her frail head up.
"You want a painful death, then keep pretending you don't know. You'll never get out of here alive, because no one will come to save you."
Then he plunged her head back under the water. Her body shuddered as if she had been electrocuted again.
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