Blaze

Suho's Chase

~_____~

It was kind of awkward sitting alone in the backseat of Lay's car. Chorong wasn't close to Lay. She had heard about him from a few people, but had never had the chance to meet him until now. And even now she hadn't had the chance to share even a word with him. What was new to her was that Victoria and Lay were from the same Police Academy. Chorong had never heard of Victoria, but she had heard several things about the SWAT unit and the kinds of missions they'd gone on. Inside her head she saw troops of soldiers with large rifles and guns silently crawling through the woods to surround and attack their enemy. She wasn't exactly sure about the kind of things they did though.

"I accompany the officers out on missions and we stake out criminals together," Lay explained, "if nothing's up I mostly stay at the division to run paperwork. I guess it's similar to the things Kim Namjoo does, but our jobs aren't on such a wide scale as theirs. How's the SWAT unit? A lot of deployment work?"

"Actually, yes." Victoria nodded. "There's been a few high risk operations, but they weren't so bad. The elite units we work with are well trained so they know safety and how to conduct strategies."

"Anything scary?"

"Searching for a bomb after a hostage situation," Victoria told, "the hostage negotiator, Park Chun Hei, had to stay with us for 64 hours. One of the negotiations that took the longest time to complete."

"What about the bomb?" Lay wondered.

"Three minutes before it went off, found it hidden under a floorboard. Nasty idea," Victoria finished. "I'm not sure whether to call it a successful or horrible operation."

"But you saved the hostages, didn't you?"

"Could have," Victoria emphasized the two words, "under less time." Then she twisted her head back and Chorong quickly leaned back into her seat afraid that Victoria might make some comment about her eavesdropping, if it could be considered eavesdropping at all. "What about you?"

"M...me?" Chorong questioned putting a hand on her chest.

"Assistant Inspector Park Chorong, right?" Lay questioned glancing into the rearview mirror. "You're related to District Attorney Lim, right?"

Chorong tried to bring up a smile, but only the corner of her lips edged up which didn't really help with the smile at all. She slightly nodded her head. She didn't want others to think that she used her connections to get to where she was. She had a whole family with connections and lines in the Police Department. Rumors had often spread around her during her trainee days that she'd used her uncle to get into police school even when her high school grades were hopelessly low. Truth was, her father had had her uncle add in a few helpful words for her, but she'd done pretty much everything with all the effort she could muster up.

Chorong suddenly felt very small in front of Commander Lay and SWAT team leader Victoria Song.

"Yes..." she quietly answered, "but I don't do as much as you two. I have no experience with human or drug trafficking. I've only gone on site to help the forensics team inspect homicides."

"And that's what we'll be doing a lot, excluding the homicide. I don't think we'll be doing that," Victoria said turning around to look at her. Chorong almost shied away from how kind she was. "Lets work well together."

~_____~

Lay glanced around at the gray buildings and the dark smoky alleys around them. He could tell that these dark buildings served as homes for the less well-off people. There were barely any children around since it was still early noon and they should be in school. Parents would be at work and if there were any elders they'd most likely be inside their tiny apartments.