I Have Returned, but I Cannot Lay down My Gun

Chapter 732

"Currently, we are monitoring all of Manhattan based on intelligence provided by Cleaner agents and drone tracking. The New York National Guard's 107th and 442nd Military Police Companies are managing the refugees involved in the construction and work projects."

"You didn't forget to let a few of them go, did you?"

"Of course not. The ones doing suspicious things won’t even realize they're being watched from the sky. The Military Police Company is intentionally creating gaps in the security net, and we are monitoring those trying to slip through."

"Alright, let the reconnaissance mission begin."

A day passed. Then two.

On the surface, it seemed like the world was flowing in much the same way it had before, and in reality, not much had changed. The people living in Manhattan were waiting for progress, though only a slight amount seemed to be on the horizon.

However, those who understood just how huge the effort was knew it wasn't so simple. Few truly understood how much effort was required to maintain Manhattan.

Despite the high status of its name, Manhattan's original systems and sanitation were never particularly great.

Moreover, social infrastructure required regular maintenance, but the skilled workforce needed to carry out those tasks had moved on to either heaven, hell, or purgatory.

The lack of inspection personnel soon made its problems evident, and Manhattan was now struggling even to provide basic utilities like water and electricity.

But that wasn't all. The New York subway, which would be essential in the future, was terribly damaged. There were corpses stuck to the walls, and some stations had broken pipes spilling groundwater.

Until now, the priority had been dealing with the most dangerous issues, so these things had been ignored, but now that some foundation had been laid, there was a growing need for recovery personnel over military ones.

This was why Central Park had begun to gather people from both inside and outside HQ, paying them for their work while assessing the minimum amount of materials and personnel necessary to keep it running.

In the process, Dagger Team had taken on more important tasks, and personal autonomy was gradually being ensured for each member...

"…Well, I’ve sent some signals that those friends involved in shady dealings should be able to pick up. I wonder if they’ve caught on."

"They haven’t been too obvious, so I don't think it's a problem. There are just a few concerns being raised here and there."

"Is it the charge of aiding and abetting? I’d like to throw all those complaining voices into the construction site. They've gotten too comfortable. If we leave things be, Central Park might end up in ruins."

"Well, there’s not much we can do. People need to raise concerns too."

The operations officer nodded, and a silence followed.

Numerous operation updates appeared on separate screens. Among them were reports on the B-C class weapons, equipped with GPS beacons, that would be dropped via transport planes, expected to be ready within 2 to 3 days.

Intel collection had been slow, but that was normal. Civil operations, as always, could take weeks at best and months at worst, and the officers knew well that it was a battle of patience.

Still, the boredom was palpable.

"I wonder what those guys are up to right now."

"They're probably in standby, right? If suspicious individuals are up to something, we need to stop them."

"How long has it been since the operation ended, and they're already handling new tasks? Are we working them too hard? I wonder how long this will go on."

"…The drone’s tracking their movements. They're moving into a loosely defined security zone. Identity verification... We’ve identified Akhtar Mohammed Masood and Karim Abdul Alhajaz assigned to the India-2 area."

"What are they holding?"

"Looks like ordinary tools."

"Check their reputations. Do it now."

As the sound of keyboards tapping filled the air, the screens on the wall quickly displayed numerous images. The hologram automatically moved, displaying a list of people assigned to the India area.

A list of fewer than a hundred names appeared on the screen. Two of them, highlighted in red, were enlarged, and further details were recorded below.

The names were marked in a color close to reddish yellow. However, jumping to conclusions that the India area was full of extremists based on that alone was dangerous.

There were definitely some dangerous elements, but there were also plenty of innocent individuals.

One had to be careful of potential collateral damage.

"Where exactly are these people stationed?"

"…They’re near Bryant Park. They seem to have been assigned to park cleaning duties, but they’re currently moving east toward 42nd Street. There doesn’t seem to be anything around there…"

"Anything nearby?"

"Grand Central Terminal is in the area."

"...What?"

A brief moment of silence.

However, the silence wasn’t without reason. In fact, it was a result of the many pieces of information that had been scattered in his mind suddenly snapping into place all at once.

The reason was simple. The officers knew what had happened at Grand Central Terminal in the past—everyone knew what had occurred when the 107th Military Police Company was attacked near there.

Dagger Team, still not fully formed, had launched by helicopter and killed countless enemies. More than 200 people had been killed in that area.

The number of corpses was a serious issue, and it was easy to imagine what kind of scene awaited inside the terminal, but that wasn't important.

The bodies had been armed, and some of them might have even had rocket launchers. The firefight at Grand Central Terminal had been exactly like that.

The real question was how they knew about it.

'…The intel collection route doesn’t seem odd, no matter how you look at it.'

It had been a while since the 107th Military Police Company had been ambushed near Grand Central Terminal, so the information might have leaked in that time, or it could have come from someone outside HQ who was going around gathering information.

Either way, it didn't matter. The silent drone began to descend, and the overworked drone pilots moved the controls sluggishly, trying to track every suspicious movement.

So far, nothing had been definitively confirmed, but the goal was to gather data that would turn suspicion into proof.

When the drone carefully followed two civilians into a broken window, the scene that appeared on the screen was far from pleasant.

"…Damn."

"Had I known I’d see something like this, I would have skipped lunch."

"We’ve identified about ten individuals inside the terminal… I’ll scan their faces now."

The same process continued. As the drone captured their faces, cross-checking began against the list of registered individuals at Central Park.

Some were caught, while others weren’t. This made it clear. There were unregistered individuals involved in the act.

And that made more sense.

The fact that faces and identities were fully registered in the government network was something that Americans found hard to tolerate.

Plus, because the number of people in Central Park was insufficient for meaningful operations, HQ occasionally recruited people roaming outside, offering them food and supplies in exchange for outsourcing some work.

That was why more than half of the ten or so people were unregistered.

But that didn’t matter too much.

The real issue was what the drones were capturing.

"…Those guys are holding firearms."

"Yes. And next to them... it looks like they’ve stacked firearms. They seem freshly gathered, but that’s not the important part. There’s a pump that exploded under Grand Central Terminal…"

"So they’re wiping off the liquid from the firearms? Interesting idea. Let’s keep watching. We might still have some hope."

But it didn’t matter.

The two walked casually, holding the firearms they 'found'. It was hard to tell whether it was the stench of corpses that made them act like that, but one thing was certain: the evidence had already been secured by that point.

The two, clicking the dirty handguns, said a few more words and returned them. The drone had long since recorded and translated everything they said.

But there was no need to worry about that.

The bigger issue was the Artemis rocket launcher that had appeared.

"It was hard to get. Almost had to sift through the pile of bodies. Not sure if it works yet, though."

"Just in case... let’s check it. You never know when we’ll need it…"

"Well, we couldn’t gather everything in one go. The work’s been rushed, and some of the guys didn’t even know why we were preparing for this."

"Still not understanding the obvious, huh? We’re not going to be here forever. For now, we’re stuck here, but eventually, we’ll need land that’s just for us. Do you think those guys will just let us have that?"

"Hmm."

"Those who keep talking about ‘integration’ have already lost their will. Weak people who can’t even see the future are a huge problem. Muhammad would lament seeing this scene."

The operations officers laughed coldly as they listened to this.

The conversation continued.

"So, what should we do?"

"What if we blow up their ammo and weapons when they’re gathered? We could play the gunfire to make it look like an accidental shooting and provoke a fight between them."

"Ah, I like the way you think. Sharp minds, as always."

As always, when the higher-ups make a decision, someone has to make it reality. Once ethics are peeled away, the outcome is easy to predict.

The bitterly cold winter was passing, and the unbearably hot summer was coming.

"Seems like things are going oddly, doesn’t it? I’ve dealt with similar situations in Central Asia during civil operations. I never expected something like this to happen here."

"Yeah, I remember the Green Beret Q Course, Phase V. We used to gather intel and support operations like this not long ago. Seems like it was just yesterday, though..."

"From what’s been said so far, I don’t think we need to get involved."

"Maybe, but you never know."

The weather was heating up, and the atmosphere was also starting to boil.

Naturally, that wasn’t a good thing. It reminded me of a situation I once saw on the internet—a neighbor's house collapsed, and when I went to check, my own house had collapsed as well. The problem wasn’t that it wasn’t on fire yet, but that it was about to be.

The operations officers were urging us to rest, saying we wouldn’t need Dagger Team for this. Considering the current condition of the team, we couldn’t ignore their advice.

Still, we were all specialists in civil and infiltration operations, so we were briefed in real-time on the situation and advised on how to proceed.

In the meantime, I activated the memo function, trying to record all the useful intel and data I could process.

"Looks like those guys are focusing on quantity over quality. The ones who’ve been incited to act are all thinking the same way. Now's the perfect time for the deep cover agents to step in."

"What's the confirmed nationality of the suspects?"

"From what we know so far, they’re definitely Islamic and Chinese."

"Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all set up. What about Russians?"

"The Slavic numbers are very low, so HQ doesn’t consider them a significant threat."

"Can’t argue with that."

The real problem was the number of people.

We had no idea how many were involved or how they were connected, so even with solid evidence, we weren’t acting immediately. That was the sensible course of action.

One of the officers had said that the situation was akin to disarming an IED with ABC weapons inside. It wasn’t as dangerous, but if it went south, it could be fatal for HQ.

"The Islamic side is divided so badly it’ll be tough for agents to infiltrate, but there’s a chance with the Chinese side. Legion’s Chinese, after all."

"That option’s under consideration."

"Alright, do everything you can. If you need anything, ask. We’re capable of handling everything from interrogation to intel gathering."

"Understood. I think we’ll have a request soon. Not certain, but I think there’ll be a search request in Chinatown soon."

"Hmm."

Chinatown.

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t paid much attention to how Korea Town was doing here. The reason was simple: as long as I had food to eat, I didn’t care much. Bread, pasta, meat, anything. There were times I craved something spicy, like kimchi, but occasionally, a little spicy food would pop up, so I was good.

Anyway, I was so busy that I didn’t have time for homesickness. I was just grateful to have enough food to fill my stomach.

Anyway, I had a good guess about what had happened to Korea Town and Chinatown.

To be specific, Chinatown was right above Two Bridges. Everyone knew what happened there.

Two Bridges had been hit with hundreds of tons of white phosphorus and turned to ash, and Chinatown hadn’t escaped it entirely. Probably about half of it had burned down horribly.

Everyone knew this, so Dagger Team asked:

"I wonder if there’s anything left over there."

"If it wasn’t completely burned down, there’s likely something left. Before everything went to hell, the FBI had discovered a secret police station in Chinatown. HQ plans to investigate every little possibility."

"A secret police station still operating in Chinatown, controlling the brains of the Chinese detainees in Manhattan? Given the timing, I’m not sure if this even sounds like a joke anymore."

"That was a fun joke, but honestly, there might be something to it. Unless we have proof that the direct line has been completely severed, HQ will consider this seriously."

"…In New Haven, someone openly messed up and handed over strategic weapons. So it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility."

Logan, who had been lazily lying on the bed, muttered something.

Everyone else was thinking about what to do next. I wanted to contribute something, but honestly, I didn’t have many ideas. Occasionally, a good suggestion came to me, but...

"Well, there’s a Russian consulate in Murray Hill. Let’s poke around there, too. We need to try everything. By the way, I don’t understand how these religious zealots have stayed in America for so long."

"Nobody knows. They probably always were here, and we just didn’t know. It’s better to consider ourselves lucky that we’re catching them now."

"Yeah, we’ll have to move quickly, Chinatown or not. I never thought we’d be able to rest comfortably in Central Park."

"Haha… Alright. I’ll pass that on."

The communication briefly paused, and the senior officers glanced at each other before adding:

"So… Anyone here speak Arabic?"

"I know Pashto. Spent some time there."

"Well, if you can do Pashto, you should be able to handle Arabic. It’s the same alphabet."

"By that logic, anyone who knows a Romance language can speak French, Italian, Spanish... Didn’t know I could speak seven languages."

"Stop picking on the details. Do you want to keep doing that?"

Logan then tackled Olivia. Of course, it wasn’t anything inappropriate, he literally just knocked her down like a hamburger.

Anyway, I quickly understood why this conversation was happening. The Icarus operators were highly trained agents who could respond to any situation, even acting as deep cover agents.

I was still struggling to learn Russian and Chinese, so it was clear how big the gap was.

While I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, one thought suddenly crossed my mind:

"…So, we’re loosening things up a bit to see how the situation unfolds, right? Intentionally relaxing security?"

"Yeah."

"Well, if we cause a big commotion, then let civilians handle less important tasks, something might pop up. I think the ones plotting something will try to place their leaders in positions like law enforcement."

"…Hmm?"

A brief silence followed.

"…That’s a bit of a radical idea for now. If we loosen things up too obviously, they might catch on, but on the flip side, as long as we’re careful, it might work."

"If they choose law enforcement officials, they’ll pick people who can be ignored if they need to step away for some reason. They could even steal supplies."

"Allowing some slack within a controlled environment is always effective."

"Ah, our rookie. Thought you were quiet for a bit, but you’ve come up with something!"

Was that it?

I looked around with a dumbfounded expression, but the response came quickly when the mutated veterans began patting me on the back, with a proud look on their faces.

Surrounded by excessive kindness and soft, squishy pats, I was the only one who hadn’t caught on yet.

What in the world was going on?