Episode 127
Rain that had started pouring since morning left puddles here and there in the streets. The sky was entirely the color of ash, the clouds having gathered in an ominous manner unlike the day before. People who, until just yesterday, had fanned themselves with faces exhausted from the heat now walked the streets without even using umbrellas, as if welcoming the downpour.
Isaac left the mansion early in the morning. He deliberately switched to a stagecoach partway through. His destination was a place called Billwest, located on the northern outskirts of the capital.
Isaac took a couple of coins from his pocket, paid the coachman generously, and sent the carriage off. The streets were shabby and gloomy, little changed from his previous visit. The people walking by were almost all laborers, so they spared Isaac not a single glance, looking straight ahead as they hurried toward their workplaces.
Holding a black umbrella and dressed in respectable gentleman’s attire, Isaac stood there. His head whipped around toward the distance. Two blocks away stood the safe house of the Special Forces Battalion where he had once served. He supposed it must have been reduced to rubble by now.
He slipped his hand into his pocket and took out a pocket watch. There was still about an hour left until the appointed time. Isaac started walking, blending into the crowd.
He soon entered a small café located deep in the alley across the way. The old man who owned the café didn’t spare him a glance, saying, “Leave the umbrella by the entrance.”
Instead of doing as the old man said, Isaac slid the umbrella behind his back. The leather handle—far too luxurious to be called merely an umbrella handle—was crushed and deformed in his grip. Between the ribs of the umbrella, something blade-like briefly gleamed in the darkness before fading.
Isaac sat silently at a nearby table. From the music box on the table right beside his, the same song played incessantly on repeat. Saint Marney’s “My School.”
Listening absently to the lyrics about missing old friends one could never meet again, Isaac tapped his finger on the table. Tap, tap. It wasn’t Morse code or anything of the sort. Yet soon, from nearby, came a tapping sound at regular intervals, as if in response. The sound of boot heels tapping against old wooden floorboards in rhythm.
Isaac raised his head toward the sound. At a nearby table, some man was buried in a newspaper, tapping his foot.
“Long time no see.”
The moment Isaac stared intently at the man, the old man stepped into his line of sight and spoke to him. Isaac nodded at the old man, who seemed to be greeting a somewhat regular customer. Despite having gone to the trouble of speaking first, rather than exchanging further words, the owner asked, “The usual?”
Isaac nodded and asked.
“Where is the ashtray?”
“If you’re going to smoke, move seats. Over by the window.”
Isaac nodded at the old man’s words, got up from his seat holding his umbrella, and walked off, ignoring the old man’s grumbling at the sight of the umbrella. As Isaac approached, the man who had been buried in the newspaper lowered it, revealing his face.
“I was just thinking I’d like a smoke myself.”
Naturally, it was a face he had never seen before.
However, Isaac looked down at the man with a cold gaze as he addressed him nonchalantly. Men who insisted on black suits regardless of the season. Their identity was obvious.
“If you don’t mind, might I borrow a light?”
The Intelligence Bureau. They had once cooperated with Isaac, to a certain extent. They moved in secret, loyal to the country in a manner different from Isaac the soldier.
The Queen’s hands and feet.
The man took out the cigarette case he was holding and smiled smoothly. Between the fingers gripping the cigarette case, a business card was visible. Isaac snorted at that cumbersome method of introduction.
“Go ahead.”
＊＊＊
When the appointed time finally came, it was not Jeremy York who entered the café, but a pale young boy who looked far too young. By then, Isaac was the only customer, so the boy approached Isaac’s table without hesitation, handed him a note, and quickly left.
An address was written on the note. It was a place Isaac knew. The address of some seedy hotel not far away.
Isaac left the café and entered the hotel. A middle-aged man who was drunk even in broad daylight was dozing off at the counter, but he only glanced at Isaac whether he passed by and went up the stairs or not, without saying a word.
Knock, knock. After a perfunctory knock, the door opened. Jeremy York was standing there.
“Long time no see, York.”
“It’s been a while. Please come in.”
The two soon sat facing each other across the table in the hotel room. How long had it been? He hadn’t seen him once since Isaac’s demotion, so it had been quite some time.
Before sitting down, York slipped his hand into his pocket, took out an old pocket watch, and placed it on the table. Even before Isaac demanded it, he was already desperately proving he meant no harm. Isaac watched in silence as York thoroughly turned out his pockets with disgusting diligence, even taking off his shoes.
“That’s enough. That’s enough, so state your business.”
Isaac said with a sigh.
York sat back down across from him as if he had been waiting for those words alone.
“…I have the original.”
“….”
“That falsified report. Since it was drafted on your end before the proper report even came down from headquarters, strictly speaking, wouldn’t that manipulated version be the original? Yes. So… I have that falsified report. The General’s side believes it was already destroyed, but….”
Isaac swallowed a hollow laugh and cut York off.
“So. You secretly siphoned it off and kept it. Incapable of trusting anyone, then or now.”
“…The only person I trusted without doubt there was you, Captain.”
Before Isaac could reply, York bowed his head.
“I am sorry.”
At York’s honest-to-a-fault apology, Isaac couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh. It was so absurd that he didn’t even realize he was clenching his fist so hard that his nails were digging into his palm.
“I know that no amount of apologies now would be enough.”
“It’s also my fault for viewing your childish side as nothing but endearing. York. I thought I was more calloused than anyone when it came to opportunists, yet I failed to recognize you right beside me. I was a fool.”
Bang. The moment Isaac finished speaking, he slammed his fist down as if to shatter the table. And before York could even react, he rose and grabbed him by the collar.
Due to the fierce strength, York’s collar pulled taut and his neck was constricted. York, whose haggard appearance had grown even more ghastly than when last seen, gasped with a reddened face but did not resist Isaac. He even closed his eyes, as if prepared to die if Isaac intended to kill him right then and there.
Isaac looked down at York’s hands, which remained neatly placed on the table as if to prove his harmlessness until the very end. Then, he let go of York’s collar almost flippantly.
Isaac exhaled his pent-up breath in a burst and slammed York’s gasping head down onto the table.
“So, you didn’t come find me now out of loyalty to those who were sacrificed.”
“…Kuh….”
“The General has started tightening the noose around your neck. That’s why you came to find me. Isn’t that right, York?”
“….”
“You know what I hate most.”
Don’t tell me such shabby lies.
At Isaac’s command, York stopped his feeble struggling and soon nodded slowly. Tears that had streamed out as a physiological response ran down the bridge of his nose and dripped onto the table.
“…It’s not… just me.”
York spoke as tears continued to stream down his face.
“The General is trying to eliminate… you above all else.”
“That day, we were supposed to infiltrate the Prince’s fortress and steal certain documents. Everyone kept quiet about it, but we had all roughly guessed at it among ourselves. Because Prince Hestolt’s death throes were continuing far too tenaciously given the scale of the rebellion.”
“….”
“We wondered if the Prince’s side was receiving help from a Sherman spy—and a fairly high-ranking one at that….”
Isaac muttered dully.
“Her Majesty the Queen suffered her own share of torment for failing to crush such a minor rebellion quickly. Her Majesty was convinced that those classified documents contained information on the spy. And….”
Isaac gripped York’s neck with all his might.
“Answer me. York. Was it the General who aided the Prince back then? Tell me who else is involved.”
Isaac recalled the smiling face of the Intelligence Bureau agent he had briefly spoken with before coming here.
This was merely a procedure to confirm the man’s words.
York, who had acted as if he would thoroughly tell only the truth, was now, absurdly, merely whimpering.
Strength involuntarily filled his grip. His fingers groped and found the point where York would suffer the most agony. Isaac, who had been about to torture him as naturally as if it were ingrained in his body, soon changed his mind.
He decided to change his question.
“The General had no intention of eliminating me, merely demoting and isolating me. He likely intended to keep me within his grasp until the very end, under watch.”
Whether that was due to the disgusting camaraderie of old days or not.
Isaac didn’t even want to hazard a guess at the General’s true intentions.
“But now he’s changed his mind and intends to eliminate not only me but even you. That General wouldn’t do something so rash out of mere panic unless he’s lost his mind. …Someone is trying to uncover the secrets the General had managed to conceal. Isn’t that right?”
York still didn’t answer.
But he didn’t deny Isaac’s words either.
“…It’s Her Majesty.”
Isaac muttered hollowly, as if solving a problem whose answer was already obvious.
Recalling the Intelligence Bureau agent who had calmly appeared at the meeting place with York after already having grasped all of his movements, he realized that the man’s words were indeed true after all.
“…We must strike… the General first.”
York, who had been silent as the dead, finally opened his mouth to speak.
“…Not just you….”
“….”
“For the sake of the woman who has become your family… as well….”