Chapter 2 - Self-Defense
The reason mercenaries don't want wars to end
is because war is their livelihood.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Seven years in the Republic of Korea Special Forces, nine years as a mercenary in the Middle East and Africa.
Machiavelli was wrong.
Regardless of my livelihood, I made up my mind to retire and ended my own war.
Money wasn't the problem.
It was nothing more than a sudden bout of PTSD that made me crave a peaceful, quiet life.
But Machiavelli was right. In the end, I threw myself back into war, fighting battles fiercer and more savage than any before.
It all began with something utterly trivial. And when all those trivialities piled up and I finally came to my senses—
I'd become a suspect accused of killing seven people.
Third Court, New York County, USA, 2024.
On the eve of sentencing, the prosecutor looks alternately at the papers and at me, then begins to speak.
"The Defendant served as a mercenary for a PMC—Red One, a so-called private military company—operating in Africa and the Middle East. Codename Nox. I've heard you were quite famous in that field—is that correct?"
"I don't know about being famous, but yes, I worked as Nox."
"What were your main duties?"
"VIP protection, safeguarding strategic assets, and serving as a tactical instructor."
"The Defendant suffers from PTSD and is currently receiving psychiatric treatment related to it. Is that true?"
"Yes."
The prosecutor pressed hard on my PTSD, his expression filled with unpleasant skepticism.
"Intrusive recollections. This includes vivid flashbacks in which traumatic incidents are relived repeatedly. Avoidant behavior. You've become socially withdrawn and avoid people, destroying relationships with family and friends. And then—"
Dissociative symptoms. You sometimes lose your sense of reality or have out-of-body experiences. During those episodes, you may experience hallucinations or hear things that aren't there.
For example, sometimes, the dead rebels from Africa or the Middle East suddenly appear and start cursing at me.
At first, I just thought, Well, if I die, I'm definitely going to hell
But sometimes, the opposite would happen.
There was a time when I gave a young man, who was trapped under the rubble of a building destroyed by a terrorist attack and dying in agony, a merciful death with a bullet. Occasionally, he appears and gives me a bright smile.
Oh, and there was also a woman who had been rescued after being kidnapped by Nigerian rebels.
Her wounds from abuse and torture were so deep that she died a few days after being rescued, but she never held back her blessings for me, saying I would go to heaven.
Anyway, whether it's curses or blessings, the random hallucinations and voices that appear out of nowhere are a shitty experience.
And I was going through that every single day.
"The Defendant's PTSD is entirely due to killings committed during the course of his missions. Defendant, as a mercenary, how many people did you kill?"
"Objection! This question is irrelevant to the current case."
The defense attorney quickly raised his hand and objected, but the judge overruled him.
"This is related to the defendant's propensity for violence. Please answer the prosecutor's question."
I was about to give a rough answer, but suddenly, I got curious myself. I glanced up at the ceiling, counting on my cuffed fingers.
After running out of fingers and folding and unfolding them several times, I gave up counting. I guess I'll have to drop the first digit.
"Nine—"
"Fifty-nine people!"
According to the records obtained from Red One, over the nine years he was active as a mercenary, the defendant took the lives of no fewer than 59 people."
What! Oh my god! Really? The courtroom erupted with shocked exclamations.
Has the boss lost his mind? The jerk hadn't shown up at court even once, so why did he turn over those records? And revealing that my codename was Nox—that's a problem too.
Shouldn't that kind of information have been destroyed?
I guess I left Red One a little too quietly. I was just imagining punching that grinning Red One boss in the face.
The defense attorney smoothly continued his argument.
"It's questionable whether the record of these killings is even accurate, but those killed by the defendant were no t innocent civilians. They were ruthless terrorists who kidnapped women and children and committed human trafficking."
When you mention terrorism, what pops into the minds of American citizens? Probably Osama bin Laden and the World Trade Center with planes crashing into it. The defense attorney was counting on that.
"Every American knows just how cruel and inhuman those people are! In fact, the defendant simply fulfilled his duties faithfully, standing on the side of justice to restore order and peace to those countries!"
Justice, yeah right—it was all for the money.
To be honest, whether it was the government forces or the rebels, they were all the kind of people who wouldn't even bat an eye if their own citizens were killed.
It's just that the side that hired me could claim a more noble cause.
There was really no difference between them.
Anyway, the defense attorney took the defendant's history of killing and glossed it over as justice, cleverly drawing out feelings of hatred and disgust from the jury. He definitely wasn't making all that money for nothing.
The prosecutor spoke up again.
"No matter who the victims were, the defendant killed 59 people. If there's such a thing as a walking human weapon, it would be the defendant."
"Objection, Your Honor! That statement insults the character of the defendant."
"Sustained. Prosecutor, please stick to the facts and leave out any personal opinions."
The prosecutor, changing the topic, asked,
"After retiring as a mercenary, the defendant settled in the United States instead of the Republic of Korea. Why is that?"
"I had U.S. permanent residency, and I happened to find a job here."
"The job was managing a private shooting range on Long Island, correct?"
"Rather than manager, I was just an employee."
"Yet you were paid more than the other employees—more than twice as much, in fact."
"Because I worked that much."
The prosecutor, with a smirk on one side of his mouth, turned to the jury and continued his explanation.
"That's right. The defendant worked that much. And the shooting range that employed him is suspected of being run by the Mafia."
The Mafia?!
A gasp rippled through the courtroom.
My defense attorney immediately objected in order to dispel any connection to the Mafia.
"Objection, Your Honor. The prosecutor is presenting suspicions as though they are established facts."
"There is circumstantial evidence that Mafia members repeatedly gathered at the shooting range for training. Of course, that alone doesn't prove anything illegal, but the police consider the defendant to be a training instructor for the Mafia. Isn't that correct?"
Everything the prosecutor said was true.
The shooting range was run by the Mafia, and its owner, a man named Victor, was a high-ranking member who served as legal counsel to the Mafia.
Back when Victor traveled to Syria on business, I'd worked as his bodyguard.
That connection led him to employ me as a Mafia training instructor when I was suffering from PTSD.
I owed Victor a debt of gratitude, so I didn't want to get him into trouble.
"It doesn't matter if a customer at the range is with the Mafia or a chef—if they ask me about firearms, I give them information. That's an employee's job."
"Do shooting range employees these days also teach close-quarters combat, or CQC?"
"I was just being nosy, that's all. It's like how soldiers can't stop talking about military stuff until the day they die. If you come by, Prosecutor, I'll show you too."
Apparently deciding he wouldn't get much further with that line of questioning, the prosecutor shifted the topic to the main incident.
"Three days before the incident, the defendant had a minor dispute with some of the victims. What was the cause of the argument?"
"They did this to me."
I pulled at the corners of my eyes with my fingers.
Anyone could recognize that as a racist gesture directed at Asians.
As expected, a murmur of dismay spread through the courtroom, and the prosecutor clicked his tongue before continuing.
"Since there were no witnesses at the time, the claim of racial discrimination is solely the defendant's word. Even if what he says is true, he had no legal authority to punish them. Yet the defendant killed six of them and left three others permanently disabled."
The prosecutor fixed his gaze on a section of the courtroom.
"The parents of the victims, who are here today, lost their beloved children. All they want is for the defendant to receive a fitting sentence according to America's strict and fair laws."
I glanced back over my shoulder.
Suppressing their rage, the victims' parents glared at me as if they wanted to tear me apart.
The prosecutor's statement ended, and now it was my defense attorney's turn.
I turned my head again and stared blankly at the wall.
"Racism is a very serious social issue. And the victims who hurled insults and taunts at the defendant were gangsters selling drugs in the Lower East Side. The defendant had encountered them several times before the incident and had put up with their offensive behavior in the past."
Of course, letting that escalate into murder was excessive.
But the real reason things spiraled so far this time was because the victims crossed the line afterward.
They just didn't know their limits and kept pushing, so I decided to teach them a lesson.
And then, out of spite, they actually tracked me down all the way to my home.
And in the middle of the night, no less!
"The victims broke into the defendant's home without permission and, like they were toying with prey, fired their guns at him. He barely escaped with his life, but he couldn't save the dog that had been by his side for five years. The victims chopped it to death with an axe—it was a horrific scene."
Oh, Max!
The only one in the world who ever welcomed me—my Max!
But now, I can't see that cute little butt wagging its tail between my legs anymore.
I'll never again feel Max's playful paw slapping me awake in the morning!
Shit, those bastards aren't even worth the dog they killed.
Rage started to boil up in me again.
I probably wouldn't feel any peace unless I stood their corpses up and blasted them with a shotgun.
As my emotions suddenly flared, my defense attorney, startled, put a hand on my shoulder to try and calm me down.
"Does the defendant possess a gun license?"
"...No, I don't."
"That's right. The defendant was an upstanding citizen—he wasn't the sort who would even think about guns, and he held no grudge against society. You can see this clearly from what happened on the day of the incident. Not only did the defendant not have a gun, but he didn't even bring a knife with him."
Instead, I brought a baseball bat.
The same baseball bat I used to play fetch with Max.
"The 9mm Parabellum bullets found in the bodies of the six deceased and the injured all came from firearms owned by the victims. And of those, only three had gun licenses—and all three were Mafia members."
I turned my head again and glanced over at the victims' parents.
There was a middle-aged man in a black suit, whispering something to the person next to him.
That man was Mafia.
A senior member of the Manhattan Mafia Family.
His name was Vincenzo Galluci—the father who'd lost his third son and three subordinates to me.
For reference, the Mafia that hired me was Irish.
Vincenzo belonged to the Italian Mafia.
As luck would have it, those two Mafia organizations were currently at odds over control of business in Brooklyn.
And in the midst of this, I killed the son and subordinates of a leading Mafia figure—so the whole conflict had nearly escalated into a full-on bloodbath.
Of course, neither side actually wanted that.
As soon as this incident happened, the Irish Mafia—the ones who hired me—immediately drew a clear line between us.
They fired me from the shooting range right away and offered no help whatsoever with my defense.
Not that I was disappointed by it.
After all, I was the one who caused the incident, and I didn't want to bring any trouble to Victor, who had hired me.
Right now, the matter at hand was between me and a grieving father.
In other words, it was a fight with an Italian Mafia executive.
When our eyes met, Vincenzo twitched the corner of his mouth. The look on his face was strange.
He looked like a fisherman contemplating how to cook the fish he'd already caught.
And really, Vincenzo had the kind of power to do just that.
Everyone in the courtroom knew it, too.
They knew this wasn't going to end easily.
That the Mafia boss who'd lost his child was going to have me killed—brutally.
But there was one person in that courtroom—me—who disagreed with them.
Even if I die, I won't die alone.
If you want to come after me, be prepared for heavy losses.
Because I'm capable of that much.
I sneered at Vincenzo, then looked straight ahead again.
The prosecutor asked,
"While you were detained awaiting trial, you read books. Do you usually enjoy reading?"
"It's a hobby of mine."
That's true. I used to be called the 'mercenary who reads.' But now this damn prosecutor is mocking my hobby.
"If you have PTSD, are you really able to read books?"
"It's not as bad when I'm reading."
"So, what do you mostly read?"
"I'm not picky. If it has words, I'll read it."
"I see. But for some reason, you read over ten books on the Mafia while in prison. Did you want to become a Mafia member? Or were you planning to wage war against them?"
All eyes in the courtroom turned to me.
The victim's father, the Italian Mafia executive, also looked at me with curiosity. I looked at him and spoke.
"Aren't you curious, Prosecutor? How did the Mafia become so deeply involved in this country's politics, economy, society—even in the courtroom itself?"
My defense attorney, flustered, wiped his forehead with his hand. The judge frowned, clearly showing his displeasure at my remark.
Needless to say, the jury was taken aback, and even the prosecutor's face reddened in anger as he raised his voice.
"Are you suggesting the Mafia is influencing the proceedings of this court? Your Honor, the defendant is insulting this sacred courtroom!"
"Sustained. Defendant, you are to retract your statement."
"I only spoke about what I read in books."
Despite the judge's repeated requests, I refused.
In reality, there have been more than enough cases of the Mafia interfering in trials.
Bribing juries, threatening witnesses, buying off judges—you name it.
Most of these are historical cases, and though times have changed, I still believe their influence persists.
"For contempt of court, regardless of the case, I am fining the defendant $1,000. Prosecutor, please make your closing statement."
Believing he had gained the upper hand, the prosecutor launched into a passionate address to the jury.
"The defendant, under the delusion of enacting justice, took the lives of six young men who had many years ahead of them. There are still victims who, six months later, have not recovered enough to leave the hospital. What the defendant did goes far beyond 'reasonable force.' The fact that he seized and used a gun clearly demonstrates an intent to kill."
Therefore, classifying this as first-degree murder, the prosecutor called for the death penalty, insisting it would serve as a wake-up call to society.
As reported in the newspapers, the possible outcomes for this trial spanned a very wide spectrum.
In complete contrast to the prosecutor, my defense attorney argued for my acquittal on the grounds of self-defense.
"On the day of the incident, if the victims hadn't used firearms, this could have been resolved peacefully through conversation. The defendant never intended to kill them."
However, nine armed men threatened my life.
"Therefore, the defendant's actions fully meet the requirements for self-defense under New York state law, which permits the use of reasonable force when one's own life or the life of another is in immediate danger."
After the closing arguments, the jury moved to the deliberation room to begin their discussions.
I returned to the Manhattan Detention Center in New York City to await the verdict. My attorney offered me heartfelt advice while speculating about the outcome.
"Given the judge's tendencies, even if you're found guilty, you'll probably get around ten years or less. If you post bail, you might be able to shorten it even further. The real problem is inside the prison. There's no question—they'll try to eliminate you in there, Mr. Choi. You know exactly who you're up against."
"And what if I'm acquitted?"
"That would... actually be even worse. If the jury lets you off after you killed six people, it'll likely mean they were bribed. That's as good as an open declaration that the Mafia plans to execute you on the outside."
If it's a Mafia boss.
For his son's revenge, I figured they might capture me on the outside and orchestrate a brutal execution.
And then, two weeks later, on the day of the final verdict.
I was released on the grounds of self-defense.