Black-Haired Internal Revenue Service SWAT Agent - Chapter 249



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Wait a moment

All the way home after seeing Team Leader Dawson, I was so upset that I couldn’t concentrate on driving.

I was dazed and missed the green light several times, and barely made it home while hearing honks and F-based curses from the cars behind me.

Even after parking my car on the side of the road in front of my house, I just sat there blankly in my car for almost an hour.

I keep thinking about what Dawson told me.

“The only people who do this kind of work until they die of old age are those who were born to do it. Does Kim think she’s one of the few chosen ones in the world?”

This was a contradiction to what I had thought back when I was debating whether or not to continue working as a member of the SWAT team, that it was my destiny to make a living doing what I was good at.

Am I truly a chosen fighter, a combatant, a warrior who can consider this my destiny?

Or, at some point, will I, like Jim Dawson, hit my limit and lose my mind, no matter what I’m good at, my destiny, or whatever?

Only after Enzo waved at me three times from the window of our house did I get out of the car and go up to the house.

As soon as you enter the second floor through the stairwell, Enzo’s nagging begins.

“Did you sneak out and eat something in the car? Like Korean ribs?”

I forced a smile at him.

In this mood, everything seemed tiresome and I had no motivation, as if I was trying too hard to even show that brief, dry smile.

I walked over to the table and plopped down on the chair.

As soon as I sit down, Hector, who, like Enzo, doesn’t know what I’m thinking, approaches me with his footsteps making a ‘knock, knock, knock’ sound.

As I pick up the jar of almonds on the table and offer him a snack, Enzo places an open bottle of Budweiser in front of me and says,

“I fed the kid a lot of (almonds) earlier, so don’t give it to him. Instead, quench his thirst with this.”

Still, I couldn’t ignore Hector’s gaze, so I took an almond out of the can, cracked it open, and fed it to my former savior.

After the guy eats it, he goes back to his seat, making a ‘thump, thump, thump’ sound.

I drank my beer in silence, and Enzo prepared to go to work at night.

As I pour freshly brewed coffee into an old thermos, he sneakily watches me.

I finished my beer and started to zone out again.

Soon Enzo brings me another bottle of Budweiser without saying anything.

Then she goes to the closet and continues to glance at me while changing into work clothes.

I couldn’t stand to watch so I said to him.

“I’m just feeling a little out of sorts, so don’t worry and go, Man!”

Then, after Enzo was ready to go out, he approached me.

Since he is a friend who knows a lot about me, he doesn’t say anything and just throws his fist at me.

As I nudge Enzo’s fist with mine, he nods once, grabs his bag, and heads down the stairwell.

After Enzo goes down to the first floor and goes out of the house, a sound of the security device being activated is heard.

I stared at my two hands holding the beer bottle on the table.

The whole time, what Team Leader Dawson said kept lingering in my head, and I felt dazed, as if I had taken some kind of sleeping pill.

Then I felt someone’s gaze from behind me, so I turned my head very slowly and saw Hector sticking his head out from inside his house and staring at me.

Even to an African grey parrot, I look very serious today.

However, several minutes after Enzo left, the sound of his muscle car starting was not heard.

Usually, I would go to bed after this guy started the car and I would hear the car drive away.

But today, for some reason, there has been no sign of departure yet.

Just in case, I walked towards the window with a bottle of Budweiser in my hand.

My worries were quickly put to rest when I heard Enzo talking to someone from the front of the house, as well as his signature hearty laughter.

As I opened the window, Enzo started the car just in time.

And then after a while, he turns the car back towards the city.

Who the hell were you talking to just now?

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

But after a while, the sound of someone pressing the password for the security device on the first floor door could be heard.

I instinctively pulled out my Glock 23 from my waist holster and ran toward the wall where the CCTV screen was installed.

A bitter smile comes out as my mind, which was dazed just a moment ago, switches to battle mode in the blink of an eye.

Before I could even see the person on the screen, opening the door and walking up the stairs, I heard his voice first.

“Hey, Taesik!”

The moment I heard Claire’s voice, the heightened tension was relieved, and it felt like someone had removed the stones from my chest, which had been heavy all along.

It’s like the moment when you feel like you’ve been mentally beaten by 100 people and then you face the paramedics who came to save you.

“Chicago Hotshot!”

Claire called out my nickname as she opened the stairwell door, and I called back at my girlfriend loudly.

“Hey, Florida Queen!”

As soon as Claire entered the stairwell on the second floor, I hugged her and showered her with kisses.

I had always thought of her and wanted to see her, but today, when I felt like I was suffocating in my own emotions and thoughts, I was so happy to see Claire that tears welled up in my eyes.

Claire senses something in me, who is holding her tightly and not breathing, while holding a travel Boston bag in one hand, and asks me right away.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

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At those words, he quickly released both arms that were holding Claire and smiled.

“Well~.”

In response to my answer, Claire put down her Boston bag and took off her scarf and gloves.

Then, he follows me towards the table and stares at me with the same gaze that Enzo and Hector had given me earlier.

* * *

Claire wasn’t in Chicago on vacation today, she was in it for work.

According to Florida Queen’s explanation, the current situation was as follows:

Maritime logistics are transported within Lake Michigan, which is as large as South Korea, and it is said that smuggled goods are frequently coming in from regions on the other side of the lake these days.

So the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Sheriff’s Office have asked for more assistance from CBP and the Coast Guard to take a more proactive approach.

As a result, my Florida Queen, a veteran agent of the Air Enforcement Unit of the CBP Florida Branch, volunteered to come.

Of course, you came here to spend more time with me, but coincidentally, as soon as you arrived in Chicago, you are about to regret it because of the bitterly cold winter weather.

But in these difficult times, knowing that my girlfriend is nearby already makes my heart feel warm.

Claire is making pancakes with the pancake batter Enzo prepared, wearing an apron over her coat, even though it’s cold inside the house.

First, he feeds me a few roasted pieces, even though I haven’t had anything to eat all day except coffee.

Florida Queen kept putting pancakes fresh from the pan on my plate as I ate them, but I felt better after eating something in my stomach.

And in the meantime, I told Claire everything about what had happened that day and what was on my mind.

“So, do you think Jim (Team Leader Dawson) will be okay?”

Claire asks as she stands at the table pouring syrup on my pancakes.

“Uh. Before I left, I contacted the other team members and asked them to keep an eye on Jim for a few days. As it happened, Chief Decker arrived at Jim’s house, so I came home too.”

I answered, then moved the untouched pancakes onto Claire’s plate and pulled out the chair for her.

Then Claire takes off her apron and sits on the chair.

As I pour syrup on Claire’s pancakes, she asks me cautiously.

“Back when that Parad Hassan guy was turning Chicago upside down, do you remember what he asked me back then?”

I remembered the time when Team Leader Decker’s comrade, Warrant Officer Jason Fuller, had killed innocent civilians, including children, to eliminate ISIS fighters in order to prevent a massacre of a village.

“Yeah, I remember.”

Immediately after my answer, Claire continued talking while carving a pancake with her fork.

“In the midst of chaos like Afghanistan or Iraq, not everything in the world is black and white. And surprisingly, the reactions of people to such situations are the same.”

As I put down my knife and fork and look at Claire, she says, not eating the pancake but rather cutting it with her fork.

“Some people who experienced the same incident survived just fine and later applied for another ‘tour’ (overseas deployment of the US military), while others immediately requested a change of position for the next tour or even refused the tour altogether and were discharged. The traumas they received on the same day, in the same place were different. And you can’t judge who was more severe and who was less severe by looking at the degree of their trauma. At least, in my opinion.”

I asked cautiously, watching Claire’s expression.

“Claire, how were you? In Iraq?”

Claire snorts at those words.

Claire, who had been making eye contact with me and talking to me just a moment ago, begins to show me the blank stare of Team Leader Dawson during the day.

I could tell what Claire was thinking just by looking at her eyes.

“One afternoon, as I was wrapping up my second tour after we had driven ISIS out of Mosul [Iraq’s second-largest city], there was a radio-triggered IED found in front of our Marine Expeditionary Force combat unit’s moving column. As the advance party was trying to clear it, sniper rounds came flying. Two of my squad members were lying on the road in the fucking Iraqi midday sun, and dozens of Marines in armored vehicles, trucks, and Humvees were just watching. As we got out of our vehicles to rescue the Marines, sniper rounds started to rain down again.”

I put down my fork and knife, crossed my arms, and listened to Claire’s story.

Even then, Claire continued to carve the pancakes with her fork as if she was crushing them into pieces.

“I was in the armored Humvee in the second formation, and I couldn’t stand to see my squadmates bleeding and dying from sniper rounds about 20 meters in front of me. So I threw a few smoke grenades and ran toward them with a first aid kit while receiving covering fire from the surrounding vehicles. And then….”

Claire said that and then put down her fork.

Then, he suddenly took off his coat, put it down, and let the neck part of his sweatshirt hang down, revealing the area around his neck.

There was a large scar near Claire’s collarbone, and Claire looked down at it and said,

“I was hit twice and fell to the damn asphalt. I waited for over three hours to be rescued, bleeding without even being able to stop the bleeding. There were dozens of abandoned houses along the road, so even if all the small arms and heavy weapons from our vehicles fired bullets, they couldn’t subdue the enemy snipers. In the end, the cavalry division of the Army rained down large-caliber mortar rounds and turned that residential area into the Stone Age, and only then were I and my squadmates, who were already dead, able to escape.”

Claire said as she picked up her fork again and started cutting into pieces of pancake.

“When I was discharged and working in Florida, every time I went out onto the asphalt in the hot sun, I thought back to that shitty afternoon outside Mosul.”

The moment I heard that, I raised my finger and asked.

“So? How did you overcome it?”

Then Claire looks at me and smiles.

Then he answers me while waving his fork at me.

“At least as far as I know, very few people ever overcome the trauma of a battlefield like that.”

“What does that mean?”

“Everyone gets used to that trauma and lives with it for their entire lives.”

The moment I heard those words, something like an indefinable shock struck my head.

Claire looked at me and spoke as if we were having a sweet conversation on the phone.

“Soldiers in combat zones and police officers on the streets don’t postpone or stop doing their jobs because of such trauma. They all endure the pain and quietly continue to do their jobs, and that’s why the world keeps turning.”

After Claire said that, she reached out to me and I quickly uncrossed my arms and took her hand.

Then, Claire pulls my hand, which she is holding, towards her mouth and says.

“Kim, it’s up to you to decide whether you’re going to continue doing your job with that trauma. But don’t let that trauma make you a hasty decision. Everyone lives with that trauma. Even if they’re not necessarily warriors who have to experience combat.”

I nodded slowly at those words.

Then I brought my other hand towards Claire’s cheek and Florida Queen rested her cheek against my hand.

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