Chapter Thirty-Seven
Seoul, South Korea
June 25 -- 12:50 UTC/9:50 pm local time
Viper felt cold and hot at the same time. He hadn’t known that was even possible, but now he knew only too well. It hurt to breathe, and every time that he coughed there was blood. The people around him kept glancing at him with concern. He knew that he must look like an awful mess to them. He hadn’t dared look into a mirror in at least a week. He wore a knit cap on his head to cover his bald head; a small consideration for the sensitivities of the others.
In truth he knew that he should already be dead. Adder had lasted only eight days. Viper thought the only thing keeping him going was the need to see the day of reckoning for himself. He had been a member of the new revolution, the Violet Dawn revolution, since the very beginning. He had been the one who convinced Mamba--the leader of the revolution-- to stay the course when that man had his moments of doubt. It had been Viper who had directly overseen the project that birthed Fireblossom. The thought of dying so close to the day of reckoning, when the last act of the glorious revolution would begin, was truly horrifying to him.
So he hung on. He lived. He took life one breath and one heartbeat at a time. And he would see it. He had to wait just one more day, and all the pieces would be in place. The destruction of the city of Los Angeles had been premature, but it had heartened him greatly to hear of it. In the following weeks, in the aftermath of the day of reckoning, millions would die, but out of all of that death, out of the carnage, something great would be born. One Korea to rule over the broken nations that had dared stand in its way.
He smiled at the thought of it. Across the room a young woman--he had forgotten her code name, though he was certain she had told it to him at some time or other--turned toward him and flinched away when she saw his smile. It was probably the missing teeth that put her off. Or the flaking skin.
Viper hated feeling useless as his comrades bustled about around him, taking stock of their weapons and inventory, going over maps and making last minute decisions, while he just sat in a corner dying.
Viper closed his eyes. He was so tired. He wanted to sleep so badly, but he was terrified every time he fell asleep; he was convinced that was how he going to go out, in his sleep. He forced himself to open his eyes.
He felt a cough coming on and held it in; he didn’t want to see more blood coming from his body. It was bad enough what he saw whenever he had to use the toilet. The tickle in his chest subsided, and he considered it a small victory. He pulled his jacket around him a little tighter as a chill ran though his body, making him shudder.
There was a noise outside, and one of his comrades moved to a window to peek out, moving the curtain aside just enough to see outside.
“Is somebody…there?” Viper wheezed.
“No, sir,” the man said as he let the curtain fall back into place.
Viper smiled inwardly at the show of respect from the man.
A woman came over to the corner where Viper sat in an old wooden chair, and she offered him a glass of room temperature water. Viper thanked her and drained the glass, thinking how much more he would have enjoyed it if it were ice cold. The woman smiled sweetly at him before taking away the empty glass. Viper sat back and closed his eyes again, though he was determined to not allow himself the comfort of nodding off. In less than a minute he was asleep anyway.
Viper was jerked awake as one of the windows shattered inward as a projectile came sailing through it. There was a moment of shock in which everybody stared dumbly at the metallic canister that rolled across the floor until it came to rest against a wall. Then the canister started expelling a noxious cloud of gas, and pandemonium broke loose. Discipline and order broke down in mere seconds as everybody started to do a thousand different things at once. Some of Viper’s comrades went running for the storeroom for gas masks, while others rushed to get their guns, and still others headed for the closest exit they could find.
As one comrade opened a door and stepped outside a hail of gunfire erupted, virtually tearing the poor man apart. That served to dissuade anyone else from attempting to flee the house. Gunfire was returned, with shooters firing blindly out of windows as they closed their eyes against the tear gas that was quickly filling the room.
Viper, who had hit the floor as soon as he realized that they were being gassed, covered his mouth the best that he could with the edge of his shirt as he crawled about in search of safety. More gas canisters sailed into the house through various windows. Though the fumes were rising up from the ground, there was enough gas even at floor level to irritate his already badly damaged lungs, sending him into a coughing fit. He spit up some blood into his shirt.
He continued to crawl as two of his comrades fell to the floor with multiple bullet wounds from the gunfire that continued to pour in from outside. Viper managed to fight the coughing spell and resume his belly crawl. He wound around the two dead men, and then a third. He made it out of the large central room and out into a hallway.
His eyes and lungs felt like they were on fire, and his sinuses felt about the same. He could see the open door to the storeroom where the cell’s supplies were kept. He took as deep a breath as he dared and held it as he stood up and made a dash for the storeroom. He quickly found a gas mask and slipped it on, his breathing now a series of ragged gasps as he struggled to clear his lungs of the noxious gas.
When he felt that he could breathe normally again, Viper stepped out of the storeroom and back out into the hall. With the immediate task of finding a way to breathe in spite of the gas done with, he knew what he had to do next; he just hoped that he could do it in time. He made it to the stairs just as he heard the shouts of the enemy soldiers as they entered the house in force.
Viper climbed the stairs as rapidly as he could, even as his legs wanted to give out, even as every part of his body just wanted to lie down and never get back up again. With each step it felt as if he were wearing lead weights strapped to his ankles, but he fought against that weight, fought against his own failing body even as it betrayed him, as it threatened to betray his plans and his honor.
As he made it to the top of the stairs a line of bullets tore up the wall near his head, missing him narrowly. He didn’t even notice. Viper made his way down yet another hall, stopping at a bedroom door. He knocked just once before opening the door, and was nearly shot by a comrade who was standing guard.
“It’s me,” Viper said. “Don’t shoot.”
The guard came closer, his gun still raised. The guard came close enough to see Viper’s sickness-ravaged face through the faceplate, recognizing him. The guard lowered his firearm and saluted. Viper waved away the salute.
“Guard the door,” Viper commanded.
The guard nodded and closed the door behind his superior, standing near it, ready to fire on anyone who entered. Viper walked across the room to a tall wardrobe, an old wooden thing that looked like it had seen better days. He swing the doors open to reveal the large safe that stood within. There was a keypad, and Viper quickly punched in the six digit code. A red light flashed, letting him know that he had entered the wrong code. He entered the code again, and again got the red light.
Viper took a moment to breathe. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. He tried again, and this time the light flashed green. He opened the thick door of the safe. There were a series of shelves inside; all of them were empty save for one. A black box, made from steel that was lined with lead, stood alone on that shelf.
Viper grabbed the bottom edge of the shelf and slid it out. He opened the black box as the door slammed open. He worked his fingers around the instrument that lay within the box, as the guard who he had commanded to watch the door was cut down by gunfire. He picked up the instrument and turned to the enemy as they stormed into the room. He opened his mouth to speak, to proclaim victory with his last, dying breath, and to praise the glory of the revolution. But he never got a chance to say anything. A single bullet was fired, and
it drove a hole through the mask before continuing on into Viper’s head, exiting the back and leaving a raw, gaping hole.
The person who fired the fatal shot lowered her weapon. She moved over to the dead man, bent down and clawed the deadly instrument from his grasp. She understood now why nobody saw the North Koreans carrying anything off the ships--the device itself was small enough to be carried around in a coat pocket. She placed it back in its black box, closed the box, and carried it downstairs, followed by the uniformed soldiers who had made it to the second floor of the house with her. All of the terrorists had already been neutralized on the first floor. The woman carrying the box stepped out of the house and walked up to a man who was wearing a bulletproof vest over his dress shirt and tie. The woman took off her gas mask and presented the black box to the man.
“Commander Junseo,” Captain Violet Rhee said. “This is it. This is Fireblossom.”