by Donald Ha
"What do you want?"
Jackal should not let them look down on him.
His body was in the worst condition, but Jackal asked calmly. But his legs shook and he felt a strong wave of nausea.
"Nothing important. I just heard something interesting."
"I'm busy at the moment. I have an appointment."
"An appointment? What appointment? The night is long enough."
"It seems that Captain Grace wants to see me."
"Captain Grace..?"
"I work for him."
It was a lie, but the effect was certain.
Huiziga's smile just disappeared.
He seemed to know Captain Grace's name, which meant that he knew the secret behind him.
Captain Grace manages all secret operations in Berlin on behalf of the U.S. It empowered him with authority that surpassed his rank.
"That's interesting. OK."
But Huiziga's smile showed up again. He glimpsed at Hans and stared at Jackal.
"The Devil of Cherbourg is working for the U.S, huh?"
As Huiziga raised his hand, more than ten men showed up from the darkness.
Only then did Jackal figure out what had happened.
'So that’s what happened.'
Taking a glance at Hans, who was standing in the distance with a bitter look on his face, Jackal stuck his hand into his army coat.
‘Hands up, Jackal! If you don't want to get riddled with bullets."
The pistol in Huiziga's hand was aiming at him.
Jackal, with a faint smile, slowly pulled his hands out of the jacket
"Can I say my last words?"
"Whatever you want."
Huiziga grinned.
At that moment, his eyes caught something shining.
The shiny object dropped on the floor from Jackal's overcoat.
Spiiin.
After the object stopped spinning, Huiziga could identify what it was.
2 short pins made of metal.
Huiziga knew what it meant, and Jackal's words that followed made it certain.
"I just pulled out the safety pin."
"Lie down! Right now!"
With a cry, Jackal's hands stretched toward the sky.
Two stick grenades caught everyone's attention as it flew under the moon partly covered by clouds.
"Grooooan...."
There was a monster crawling on the floor with a strange groan.
The monster was crawling with his two hands as if could not use his legs. His body was all covered in blood and he was throwing up blood."
Leaving a trail of blood on the empty streets,
He arrived at a dead end.
There was a hatch covered by all kinds of stuff.
The man opened the hatch and dropped inside.
Thud.
He fell into the darkness with the sound of something breaking.
"Uggh..."
With a moan, he stared at the light coming from the other side.
A little girl appeared from the light.
It was a blond girl with crutches.
She stared coldly at the injured man.
"You look real bad, Jackal."
She raised her crutch and turned Jackal's body over.
With a moan, Jackal's body turned and his bloody face appeared.
"Who’s chasing you? Are they the Wulins?"
Jackal shook his head even as he was losing consciousness.
He thought everything would come to an end if he could not answer the question.
Marie-Louise observed the situation outside as she concentrated on the sounds.
She heard men running and shouting.
"It must not be the Wulins."
After a short whisper, she turned her eyes to Jackal once again. She approached him and observed his wounds.
"You have an Inner force deviation and you have a serious wound. You're lucky to be alive, Jackal"
But it did not last long.
Something beamed in Marie-Louise eyes while she was she observing Jackal.
"Wait, this is..."
The inner energy that came from Jackal's veins was considerable. Because Jackal trained Wugong in an expedient manner by himself, the purity of his inner force was compromised, but the absolute quantity of the inner force that was supplied at a time was enough to surprise Marie.
She smiled playfully at Jackal's bleeding face.
"You are a lucky man, Jackal. The reverse flow of the inner force deviation served to expand the energy blood veins. You just accomplished many years’ of achievement at one time."
But the shadow of death already started to appear on Jackal's face.
It didn’t matter if one accomplished a year's achievement or several decades’ of achievement. It was all over when you died.
Marie-Louise put her hand off Jackal and stood up with her crutch.
"Anyway, it's unlikely that you will survive."
"There!"
A man's cry was heard from not far away.
It's probably a man pursuing Jackal.
"Now, what shall I do?"
Marie-Louise's eyes clouded with darkness.
Chapter 7
It’s been awhile since Berlin was bustling with energy.
The 7-year-long war had finally come to an end.
The chapel bells rang out, and the diffident people came out to celebrate the end of the war.
The soldiers just let the people of the defeated nation enjoy their happiness for the day.
Meanwhile, there was a group of people banging their heads together to figure out how to rebuild the world after the war.
There was a standoff between the Soviets’ Communist camp and the Americans’ Free World.
Berlin was becoming the center of that expected battle.
“What happened to that Asian?”
America’s most trusted and shining lance of freedom.
Major Grace recently started looking for a man.
“We have so much to do!”
The Asian was called Jackal.
The person who brought information on Jackal’s whereabouts was a local informant called Freiherr.
“I heard that he was killed by the Huiziga’s group.”
“What? The Huiziga’s group? He’s just a hunting dog working for the NKVD. Why were they going after Jackal?”
“I don’t know the specifics. But there’s a strange rumor going around.”
“What?”
“That Jackal is the Devil of Cherbourg.”
Hearing this, Major Grace snorted.
“You have got to be kidding me. Why would the Devil of Cherbourg be doing things like that? Stop talking nonsense and find out where Jackal is. The least you could do is bring his black hair to me, if he’s dead.”
After Freiherr left, Major Grace put a cigarette in his mouth and took a deeply breathed in, hard enough for both his cheeks to hollow out.
“Phew….”
With a deep sigh, smoke flew out of his nostrils.
“The Devil of Cherbourg….”
Major Grace had also heard rumors of the Devil of Cherbourg.
A man who had used multiple counts of sabotage to go through the city like a ghost and paralyze all the ports of Cherbourg, a city controlled by the Allied Forces.
All of the important plans and strategies in the city had crumbled because of one man.
The Allied Forces, especially the Americans, had been chasing after the Devil of Cherbourg, because his abilities would be very useful.
But things had changed now that the war was over.
Now, there was no point in finding him other than to put a defeated troop on trial.
‘If I could have him working for me, what would it be like to be able to control him?’
Major Grace remembered the story of the golden goose that he had read to his son back home.
But the local informant had brought bad news.
Jackal had died at the hands of a bunch of hyenas.
Though it was something that happened often, he couldn’t believe that the Devil of Cherbourg could die in such a way.
“For him to die here like this… makes him nothing but a normal human being.”
Watching the smoke disperse in the air, Major Grace threw the remnants of his cigarette butt on the floor and stomped it out with his boots.
An unexpected shadow loomed over his boots.
‘It’s that guy again.’
A man he couldn’t figure out.
James McCauley was standing in front of Major Grace.
“I’m here because I need to ask for a favor.”
His voice was calm and sincere as always.
“Yes, it’s about the blond girl you were talking about before, right? My informants are looking for her. My informants are searching all of the cathouses. They’ll find something.”
Major Grace was not fond of this mysterious man.
Seeing him hanging around the superior officers showed Major Grace that he wasn’t just a normal person. Grace had the ability to know if a person would be of use to him or not.
And to him, the man called James was a person who would be of no use.
“That’s not what I’m here about.”
‘Now what?’
Major Grace’s face momentarily twitched in displeasure.
“I’ve already told your superior officers, but there’s about to be a small disturbance in the Soviet territories. I’m here to ask you to look the other way when it happens.”
Hearing this, Major Grace’s eyes widened as he asked.
“What? Am I hearing correctly?”
It could happen. A disturbance in none other than Soviet territory? If something went wrong, it could be the start of a second, no, a third war.
James McCauley’s reply was so bland that it surprised him.
“We’re going to start a local war.”
He had a practical smile on his face.
That night, the Soviet troops witnessed a curious sight.
They saw unidentifiable black shadows, illuminated by the dim light of the moon, jumping between buildings and moving quickly.
*
Taking part in a new group meant taking on the task of getting used to new rules. That wasn’t an easy thing to do.
There would always be people who wouldn’t like him for no reason or those who would see him as encroaching on their territory.
Hans was having a hard time getting used to the new group. The Huiziga group was a large one with over 100 hyenas.
As they were mostly loners, no one was really welcoming new members, and just put them on the bottom of the food chain.
Especially, if those members came with a history.
“Hubert was a great guy. But he was killed by Jackal.”
“I agree. He was dealt a meaningless death.”
The people spoke, knowing Hans could hear them.
But they had a reason for doing so.
Hans was allowed to join the Huiziga group, only if he brought the Devil of Cherbourg. They had planned to hand the Devil over to the Americans, and divide the profits.
But he wasn’t able to catch the Devil of Cherbourg, and had even resulted in someone’s death. Hans, the informant, had returned without a single scratch on his body.
There was nothing weird about everyone being angry.
“But, is Jackal really the Devil of Cherbourg?”
“That’s what I want to know. Wasn’t he digging through trash dumps with the cowardly wrestler that even we wouldn’t touch? How could he be the Devil of Cherbourg?”
The cowardly wrestler was the nickname that the Huiziga group had given Hans.
Hans, who had been in the corner nursing a drink, felt himself slowly reaching the limit of his patience.
“What do you know? Jackal is definitely the Devil of Cherbourg. I saw it with my own eyes.”
He stood up and shouted, which temporarily startled those around him before putting smirks on their faces.
“Where’s the proof?”
One man stood up and spoke.
“Give us your proof. Evidence.”
“He broke through the siege by himself and entered that bunker, didn’t he?”
“But he was close to dying by the time he got in. He’s a dead man if there are people waiting for him to come back out. Is that the limit of the famous Devil of Cherbourg?”
The man’s words had the others laughing.
Hans could feel a fire burning inside him.
‘These damn guys are really testing me.’
He gulped down some vodka straight from the bottle and got up from his seat.
“Jackal is amazing. There’s nothing he can’t do alone. He’s great with weapons and is smart. A man I recently met recognized Jackal. He called Jackal the Devil of Cherbourg. If that’s not proof enough, then what is?”
“What? I thought you were going to give us some concrete details but all you’ve got are stories based on speculations? And who is that man? Bring him here so we can hear it for ourselves.”
The man who was standing up spoke and those around him began laughing.
“…..”
Hans was not great with words and had not been very educated.
He knew that he wouldn’t be able to win in a battle of words. But his pride made him feel like he should say something, so Hans kept thinking till he remembered something.
‘Yes, they’ll believe me if I say this.’
Hans smiled and turned to the men who were glaring at him before he spoke.
“Do any of you know Andrei Popov?”
As soon as that name was said out loud, a few of the men nodded.
“Andrei Popov? Of course. He’s that bear-like Russian.”
“I know him well. He’s quite an interesting guy.”
“Yeah. There’s no one here who doesn’t know him. I heard he was hospitalized.”
It had the intended effect.
Hans Graham looked at them and spoke in a low voice.
“It was Jackal. The one who beat Andrei Popov to a pulp.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t believe it, even though I saw it with my own eyes.”
Hans Graham could feel the gazes directed his way were slowly changing, and he began talking about the things he had seen.
“So, let me ask you. Could Jackal have done that if he wasn’t the Devil of Cherbourg?”
His story found its way to Huiziga’s ears.
“What? That’s what Hans Graham said?”
Huiziga smiled.
“Good. Considering how much damage we’ve incurred because of that coward.”
He immediately sent the information to the NKVD officer he knew well.
The NKVD enforcers arrived at Hans’ house late that night. When no one answered at their knocks, they broke the lock and entered. Discovering Erika alone, they asked for the whereabouts of Hans.
“Where is Hans Graham?”
“He’s.. probably at Jackal’s house.”
Erika’s face was frozen with fear and she didn’t know what to do.
The NKVD enforcers went down the stairs and forced themselves into Jackal’s home.
Hans was drunk and going through Jackal’s belongings.
“Damn it. Where is it? The money he hid!”
The NKVD enforcers beat Hans, who hadn’t found anything, to the brink of death and dragged him down the mansion stairs.
Erika was hiding in a corner, eyes wide with fear as she took in the sight.
“Jackal… Where is Jackal?”
The door of the house she’d lived in was broken.
The safe world she’d known had suddenly become full of danger.
“Hey, lady. Need some help?”
The strange man smiled and approached Erika amidst the chaos.
Erika quickly ran away from him and entered Jackal’s home, locking the door behind her.
“Hey, lady. That’s the Asian’s house. Going in
there without asking isn’t wise.”
Hearing a banging on the door, Erika hid herself in a corner and prayed.
‘Jackal.. where are you? Please come back soon.’
*
*Clang! Clang! Clang!*
The sound of the hatch being banged on from the outside rang out.
But they could not open it.
This is because hatches were constructed so that they are unable to be opened from the outside.
Though the story would be different if they had explosives with them, most Soviets did not carry enough to create an explosion big enough.
That meant that hatches were able to shield those inside from most dangers.
Marie-Louise was staring at Jackal, who was lying on the floor, with cold eyes.
“Now, let’s start the surgery.”
Marie-Louise spoke with a kind voice, despite the fact that Jackal probably couldn’t hear her, and placed both her hands on the lower half of Jackal’s stomach.
“…..Ah.”
While breathing out, she moved the inner force she had saved up into Jackal’s engine room.
“….Ugh.. Ugh..”
Small whimpers escaped Jackal’s lips.
Barely conscious, Jackal experienced something he’d never felt before slowly flowing into his body.
It felt like standing inside a large waterfall that was pumping water on him.
That energy started in Jackal’s engine room, and helped heal the damages littering his body that he had incurred.
It was like wiping away the residue clogging a pipe in one go.
“Cough!”
As the inner force healed his body, Jackal began coughing and dark blood dripped from his mouth.
Marie-Louise helped Jackal sit up before she stood behind him, carefully maneuvering her foot that had a splint on it to support Jackal’s spine while placing both hands on Jackal’s muscular chest.
“This is probably going to hurt.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she pushed up against Jackal’s spine with her knee while pressing down on Jackal’s chest with her hands, with enough force to almost break bones.
The pain that came from both sides had Jackal open his eyes, but his pupils were not focused, like the pupils of a dead fish.
It wasn’t that he’d regained his consciousness; his eyelids had opened reflexively because of the pain.
