Answering God's Call - Chapter 5

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁠⁠⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁠⁠‘Your face looks familiar. Have we really never met?’

‘No. We haven’t.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

Crazy bastard. Familiar my ass.

Even now, more than a year later, it still feels absurd when she thinks about it again.

Absurd aside, that carelessness made everything easy. Earning the man’s sympathy, following him to the hotel, slipping a sleeping pill into his whiskey, switching the list.

So easy it was hard to believe she could defect like this.

A year and a half had passed since she had effortlessly fulfilled the conditions of her escape, been declared killed in action, and become one of the dead. A year and a half since she had successfully obtained Lytton citizenship and begun working as an agent for the Military Intelligence Directorate. A year and a half since she had spared the operative who had given only the alias Vicente instead of killing him….

Time passed quickly, without waiting.

Idly playing with the ends of her hair that had long since grown past the time it should have been cut, Tatyana cut off her pointless thoughts first when Svetlana Belov suddenly handed her a document.

“Take it. A new cover identity and mission.”

“I told you I’m on leave.”

“The job’s nothing difficult. It’s something you’re good at.”

“Should I drop to my knees in gratitude?”

“You might, once you know the details.”

Tatyana, who had been about to take the document indifferently, turned to look at Svetlana as if asking what that meant.

“There are two office workers from Military Intelligence who’ve been absent without leave for days. It’s presumed they ran off with classified information.”

“That’s a bit much. My knees might be cheap, but not cheap enough for that.”

“Listen to the end. One of the leaked files is a list of Lubyanka political prisoners and Military Intelligence executives who want to defect to Lytton. And among the names on that list, there’s a survivor who escaped from Cherkubo.”

“…The Cherkubo Gulag?”

Tatyana’s breathing stalled for a moment.

Gulags (labor camps) existed throughout Lubyanka, but the Cherkubo camp was infamous even among them. Once taken there, it was nearly impossible to come out alive because of the brutal polar cold and inhumane treatment.

And yet a survivor who escaped from Cherkubo. Was that even possible? As if unable to believe it, as if wanting to confirm it again, Tatyana asked back, and Svetlana nodded.

“He requested witness protection, saying he would testify at the international military tribunal about the atrocities committed at the Cherkubo camp during the Balder War and their true nature. It seems he has solid evidence.”

“…The international military tribunal is a war crimes trial targeting the defeated countries, including Dochen. I heard they’re preparing indictments.”

“Attention has been drawn to the defeated side first, that’s all. Even the Allied powers can’t be free from war crimes. All the more so if it’s true that prisoners of war and civilians from Dochen were massacred at the Cherkubo camp.”

“A massacre of Dochen prisoners of war and civilians…. What an interesting move. Lubyanka would be in serious trouble if that survivor opens their mouth. They’ve been desperate to hide it for over a decade.”

Tatyana’s expression turned ambiguous. After several rounds of talks, an international military tribunal was established in Telbekia of Lytton last summer, and an agreement was signed to prosecute and punish the major war criminals of the Axis.

Through various intelligence, she already knew that because of the international military tribunal, not only the defeated countries but also the victorious Lytton and Lubyanka were busy behind the scenes.

Behind the shield of the lofty cause of publicly judging inhumane war crimes to set the world order right, secret deals were being made, and all kinds of covert operations driven by stubborn ideologies were unfolding. As a result, covert operatives were more active than ever. There was no way she wouldn’t know.

What she heard in passing was mostly the same.

Prominent Dochen scientists and weapons developers who had secretly defected to Lytton in exchange for reduced sentences or immunity. Military units that cut off the label of war criminal by handing over records of all kinds of experiments conducted during the Balder War to the Allied powers….

So she had already thought that the much-talked-about international military tribunal was nothing more than a political show for civilians who knew nothing. Either way, she expected it to grow noisier, not quieter, as time went on… yet now they were going to put Lubyanka’s gulag on the stand.

She thought it was something that would happen eventually, but it chilled her to the bone to realize that even if she hadn’t been framed for killing an operations officer and had somehow survived, she would have ended up dying in Lubyanka anyway. As the family of a Cherkubo prisoner, it was obvious she would have been purged on some absurd pretext.

Licking her lips, which had dried without her noticing, Tatyana asked, “Who is that survivor?”

“I don’t know. This happened while Lytton’s Military Intelligence was reviewing the defection and witness protection positively and proceeding in secret. Judging by the lack of any notable movement, Lubyanka doesn’t seem to know yet, but it’s only a matter of time before they learn of the list’s existence.”

For now, since their interests align, Military Intelligence will grant whatever the survivor asks, whether it’s defection or witness protection….

Tatyana nodded and asked, “So?”

“We’ll stall with false intelligence as soon as the Military Intelligence Directorate catches on. In that window, resolve it. Find out everything: whether there are more leaked secrets, if so, how they were leaked, and whether there are additional accomplices. Verify the accuracy of the secrets and recover them.”

A Military Intelligence officer of Lytton who disappeared without a trace, signs that they leaked classified information, a breach in security. A Cherkubo inmate among the list of would-be defectors that might fall into Lubyanka’s hands, and the evidence of war crimes held by the political prisoner who escaped from Cherkubo….

Tatyana didn’t answer, only moving her lips, and lightly furrowed her brow. The job wasn’t difficult. It was just—

“…If that escaped prisoner really has solid evidence, would there be any records about my parents in it? Other things matter too, but… even just where they were buried… something like that.”

“You’ll have to confirm that yourself.”

“….”

Svetlana tilted her head and lightly waved the document Tatyana hadn’t yet taken. “Will you take it?”

Will she take it? Because the Lubyanka Military Intelligence Directorate treated most materials related to the gulags as top secret, it wasn’t just that she couldn’t access the Cherkubo autonomous district; the information available to Tatyana was extremely limited.

Who the political prisoners besides her parents were, which bastard had informed on them, where the bodies of her parents who were said to have died of an epidemic were buried, or whether they had simply been discarded….

All of it was information she had never been allowed to access no matter how much she struggled and survived on the battlefield, yet now she might be able to meet a gulag survivor directly. Not only information related to the gulag, but even confirmation of evidence of war crimes.

There was no reason not to do it.

No, she had to do it no matter what.

Even if that survivor didn’t know her parents, as long as there was even a thread of hope, Tatyana couldn’t ignore it. As if afraid Svetlana might take it back, Tatyana quickly snatched the document and asked, “…Are you assigning this to me on purpose?”

“Why would I?”

“What do you mean why? It’s Cherkubo, not just any gulag.”

“I brought it because I didn’t know you were on leave.”

“Who said I’m on leave? My leave just ended.”

Tatyana flipped through the document lightly, speaking in a joking tone.

“I’m so grateful. I don’t know if it’s okay to only get easy jobs….”

Her eyes, which had been skimming lightly over the cover identity’s name, age, occupation, and carefully constructed background, stopped midway and wouldn’t move further down.

The name was Anna Garcia, age twenty-two.

The same as her real age. But the occupation….

“A nun? Me?”

It was a real nun. No matter how many times she read it, it didn’t change. Startled by the rather unexpected occupation, Tatyana turned to Svetlana with a puzzled expression.

“Why, is there a problem?”

“No. Not really a problem, but….”

“I heard you don’t have a religion. Do you believe in God?”

Believe in God? Tatyana let out a burst of laughter like a spasm, as if she had never heard anything so absurd in her life.

“I don’t believe in that.”

If that so-called god truly existed, she wouldn’t be living like this. And was Tatyana the only one living ‘like this’?