Answering God's Call - Chapter 11

“At the very least, it looks like Fleming took these photos herself.”

“Why?”

“Putting something into the mouth like this usually means the perpetrator was enraged at the time of the crime. They would’ve been busy erasing traces, yet they still crumpled the photos and shoved them into the mouth? There could be various reasons, but it means they were furious. On the other hand….”

Tatyana hesitated briefly, then continued, “…It could also mean that by the time this body and the photos are discovered, they don’t care whether the truth comes out or not. They may have already fled, or they have something they can rely on. I don’t like admitting it, but it’s confident. Arrogant.”

Maybe they even want it to be seen that way. Tatyana’s gaze sank slightly as she assessed the degree of decomposition and the approximate time of death. They were further behind than she expected.

Looking again at the photos of Gilmore and the unknown woman, she asked, “Fleming was in Internal Affairs, so investigating staff makes sense, but she wouldn’t open an inquiry over an affair alone. The reason is probably this, right? Have you seen something like this?”

Tatyana held up the other photo. Studying the mark Gilmore had left like graffiti on the wall of the mailbox, Ruslan nodded slowly.

“It’s a code left when an operative can’t meet or wants to avoid surveillance. The meaning is set so only the parties involved can recognize it, but they’re generally similar. ‘I have information to hand over,’ ‘Let’s meet soon,’ ‘We can’t meet for a while,’ and so on.”

Plausible, but unexpectedly old-fashioned. Tatyana, who had neither stayed long in one place nor maintained prolonged contact with a specific informant, found this method novel and blinked.

Only the parties would know the meaning of the mark Gilmore left on the mailbox, but one thing was certain: this was in no way good news for Military Intelligence. From this single photo alone, there was no need for further evidence that Samuel Gilmore leaked classified information….

“He wouldn’t have taken only these two photos.”

Where would the film be? Flicking the photos, Tatyana stared blankly down at Fleming’s body. Suddenly, the shattered camera and its fragments flashed through her mind.

Tilting her head as if meeting the unresponsive Fleming’s gaze, she murmured quietly, “…Fleming had the film. Rather than had it, it’s more accurate to say it’s somewhere in this house.”

Before Ruslan could even ask how she knew, Tatyana issued quick instructions.

“I’ll keep looking here. Father, go call Branch Chief Hawkins. We need to report that we found Fleming. We have to recover the body… and search for places where the film could be hidden.”

As if Ruslan didn’t exist, Tatyana was absorbed in examining Fleming’s body. It would’ve been nicer if she had given him even that much attention. As he watched the woman, who looked smaller than usual from bending over, Ruslan’s gaze deepened.

It’s kind of cute, the way she focuses on something. She caught the smell of blood before I even entered the kitchen, and she found the bloodstains hidden under the mattress in one go… her five senses seem extremely developed….

Is it still too early? Should I watch a little longer?

After watching the back of Tatyana’s head, round beneath the veil, for a while, Ruslan dipped his chin as if meeting her eyes.

“As you ordered.”

***

When Ruslan returned to the yard after informing Damian Hawkins that they had found Fleming’s body and signs of Gilmore’s leak of classified information, Tatyana was sitting blankly beside the pit.

“You’re back?”

Tatyana acknowledged him calmly, as if she had already known he was hurrying over. Ruslan, who had bent down thinking he might have left her to examine the body alone for no reason, paused. No wonder her pronunciation sounded a bit slurred. Now that he looked, both her cheeks and jaw were moving rhythmically.

“…What are you eating?”

“Easter eggs. I was hungry.”

“….”

Ruslan belatedly noticed the pile of eggshells beside Tatyana and the pump dripping water, and his mouth fell open blankly. Whether he stared or not, Tatyana peeled another brightly colored Easter egg, put it in her mouth in one bite, and chewed slowly.

Even with the decomposing corpse right in front of her, Tatyana kept chewing in silence. She only turned her head when Ruslan dropped down beside her. She swallowed the egg and leaned her body away as far as she could.

“I washed my hands, but I might still smell like a corpse. It’s better to keep some distance.”

She said it out of consideration, but Ruslan didn’t react at all. As he stubbornly kept his place beside her, Tatyana glanced at him lightly, then froze. It was because Ruslan suddenly held something out.

Recognizing what was in his hand at once, Tatyana’s eyes wavered slightly. Knew you’d recognize it right away. Catching that expression sharply, Ruslan smirked.

“There was something similar in the cabinet, so it was easy to find.”

It was a candy box, very similar to the one Tatyana had once placed in Ruslan’s briefcase, the kind operatives use to pass inspections when delivering film containing classified information. Ruslan lightly shook the candy box and took out the film canister inside, showing a smug smile.

“The contents are similar too.”

“…Holding a grudge?”

“Ah, how boring.”

Ruslan let out a small laugh and lightly shook the film canister.

“We’ll develop the film later… did you find anything that could be useful?”

Tatyana, holding an egg as if debating whether to eat another, tilted her chin toward Jennifer Fleming’s body.

“The perpetrator did strangle Fleming, but the cause of death isn’t asphyxiation from neck compression.”

“Skull fracture?”

“Yes. We’d need an autopsy to be certain, but based on a visual examination, it looks like while being strangled, Fleming fought back and it turned into a struggle. After the struggle, as she tried to escape, the perpetrator struck the back of her head with a blunt object. There was flesh under her fingernails.”

Ruslan glanced at Fleming’s body and muttered, “Whoever it is, the scratch marks must be obvious.”

“They tortured her too.”

Pointing out the broken teeth, collapsed nasal bone, and injuries on the face, Tatyana stated only the facts, as if reading a column in a newspaper. At the word torture, Ruslan turned to her reflexively.

“Torture?”

“The bruising on her face and body, and there were marks of a chair placed in the bathroom. Looks like they sat her there and tortured her.”

Tatyana checked the eggshell caught under her nails and spoke casually, “It’s not professional work. They were just desperate to get what they wanted, so it was crude. I don’t know if the strangling was part of the torture or not.”

“…You can see all that?”

“Roughly. Enough to get the information I need. Wasn’t there anything in the records about what I learned at Lubyanka’s Military Intelligence Directorate training facility, or what I’ve been doing all this time?”

“My clearance is too low. But I’m willing to hear it if you tell me.”

Tatyana let out a small snort. Dream big. Why would I spell out, in my own words, all the things I’ve done — assassinations, tracking targets, torture, and every kind of intelligence work?

With a scoff, Tatyana lifted her brows as if to say not a chance, then peeled the egg in her hand and popped it into her mouth. Ruslan’s eyes widened slightly as he watched her finish four eggs in one sitting.

“You can really eat like that in front of a corpse?”

“What’s there not to eat? I’m not tearing into the corpse, and it’s not feeding me either.”

At the blunt reply, as if it didn’t matter at all, Ruslan nodded faintly, his gaze narrowing. Tatyana caught the look that tried to slip in and draw out information without missing a beat and snorted again.

“What are you curious about? Is it that you find it strange I can eat my fill next to a corpse? Haven’t you ever eaten beside dead comrades during the Balder War? Maybe you weren’t in the trenches, but from what I’ve heard, it was no joke.”

“…I didn’t spend that long on the battlefield. I spent most of my time in the cryptography department and the lab, extracting military secrets.”

“So you were on desk duty.”

“In a sense, yes, but….”

Ruslan trailed off, but Tatyana didn’t press further. Desk duty sounds easy, but unless you’ve experienced it yourself, there’s no point in judging whose work is harder. Words aren’t everything, and even if he called it desk work, the fact that he’d worked as an operative for nearly ten years before that proved he was no ordinary man. Making hasty judgments was out of the question.

Still, eating eggs next to a corpse must look pretty bad. Tatyana brushed off bits of eggshell stuck to her hands and pursed her lips. It might look grotesque, but—

“Do you want to eat first before we go to the photo lab?”

Just as she was about to brush it off, thinking it didn’t matter, Ruslan asked casually. As if she had been waiting for those words, Tatyana nodded. Even after eating the eggs, she still looked hungry. Watching her silently, Ruslan leaned in slightly.