(June's POV)
After I killed the general, they buried him with honors.
Flags folded perfectly.
Soldiers standing straight.
Polished boots pressed into the ground.
Speeches about sacrifice, loyalty, and service.
From the outside, it looked like the country was saying goodbye to a hero.
From the inside…
…it was a cover-up.
I stood far from the crowd and watched them praise a man who ordered for people to be erased like files from a computer, like they were nothing, a man I killed because he betrayed me. A man who smiled in public while hiding secrets that could destroy lives and start wars.
The government made him look like a hero, when the truth was, he was not even close to being a hero. The government blamed terrorists and foreign enemies.
Because dead heroes don't answer questions.
But the truth doesn't die that easily.
Before China…
Before Wang…
There was Russia.
Months earlier, I was sent there for a job. A bio-chemical engineer. That's what they called him. A doctor who knows how to make bio-chemical weapons. I wasn't told much. Just that he was dangerous. That he was helping build something capable of changing the balance of the world, and planning on selling it to the highest bidder.
They told me that if he stayed alive, thousands could die. In order to protect people he had to die, along with what he was building.
They called it prevention. They always do.
I found him in a snow-covered city on the outskirts of Moscow. The streets were silent. Snow falling slowly under orange streetlights. Cold enough to freeze your breath before it left your mouth.
His name was Dr. Dmitri.
I set up my sniper rifle 1250 meters away, I could see his movements right from my scope. He was standing at the balcony, smoking his cigar, I could see his wife's movements in the house, I knew what I had to do. It was hard, but that was my Job, to clean up, to make things right. Too bad his wife was about to remain without a husband.
He looked tired. Like he knew what was coming.
I prayed for him like I always did with everyone I had killed...
"May the good Lord forgive you of your sins, may you die in peace, May heaven welcome you. Amen"
I slowly pulled the trigger once and final, it was a direct hit to the head, he fall off the balcony, quietly with no tracy. I watched him fall and hit the ground, blood splashed around him. I cleared my head and took a deep breath, it's done I whispered to myself. I packed up nicely and I disappeared from Russia before sunrise.
At that time, I believed I had stopped a threat.
Few days later I was told about China. They told me the same story. A scientist developing a bio-chemical weapon. A danger to humanity.
A man the world would be safer without.
So I did what I do best, and what I was hired to do. I erased him, am very good at what I do.
And months later… after I Killed the general… I came across an article online.
It was about Dr. Chan, the man I had killed in China, his family was paying tribute to him.
They spoke about his kindness. His research. How he spent years trying to help people. How recently, he wanted to leave a project he no longer believed in.
Then his son said one word. One word that stayed on my mind and made me think.
Betrayal.
That word cracked something inside me. And suddenly Russia didn't feel like prevention anymore. It felt like a pattern. Scientists trying to walk away. Engineers wanting out.
Men who knew too much. And someone deciding silence was safer than the truth.
That's when I stopped acting, and started chasing answers. I went to China. Off grid.
No records.
No trail.
No mistakes.
I met Wang, Dr. Chan's older son.
We met in secret inside a small café away from the city crowds. No phone records. No names. No cameras. Just two strangers pretending not to notice the fear sitting between them.
Wang told me his father had become terrified in the final weeks of his life. He said his father was working on a government project, a project no-one knew where the labs where, only that they picked them in the morning and blind-folded them and same when coming back.
The government threaten their families, and his father wanted out when he discovered what the government was planning on doing. He feared the people funding it. Feared what they were building. Feared what would happen if the truth ever escaped. Two days before his death, Dr. Chan gave Wang a pen drive.
Told him to hide it. Told him never to trust anyone connected to the military or the government. As Wang spoke, guilt sat heavy in my chest. Because I was the reason his father never came home that night. He asked me how I knew his father… I lied. I told him we used to work together.
Nothing more. After hours of silence, coffee, and careful conversation… he finally trusted me.
He handed me the pen drive. He told me it contained documents.
Black files. Classified reports. Sealed documents.
Different countries. Different scientists.
Same operation.
He had no idea on what to do with the information, I told him to never speak of it ever, or tell anyone, or it can have him killed as well. I told him I will give it to the right people to look into it.
I realised knowing too much is a problem.
And once you see the truth…
You become a problem and a target.
I needed to understand what was happening...