George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 238

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“Whether they support the treatment or not.”

It was infuriating to be asked to investigate and submit the demand for Super SARS treatment in Africa without even a proper diagnostic kit. I could understand ordering the CIA to investigate the demand since diplomacy wasn’t working properly and it couldn’t be left to each country’s discretion. But I couldn’t understand why they would even offer support when they couldn’t even handle diplomacy properly.

‘Well, to be honest, diplomacy hasn’t completely failed since influence was projected into Africa.’

In the past, the Atlantic Ocean served as a natural border, making Africa a distant neighbor compared to Europe in terms of diplomacy. This was true for both the United States and the countries of the African continent. In other words, both sides had been somewhat neglectful.

However, the situation on the African continent changed drastically as the United States began to exert direct influence through Sudan.

– Are you trying to kill me?

“Strictly speaking, we don’t even know if you have the disease.”

She was in her home country because of her illness. She had briefly returned for work but ended up catching the disease there. Catching a disease in the most developed country in the world—it was laughably absurd, considering how underdeveloped the medical field was there.

– The test results are in. I do have the disease. What should I do?

She said that and coughed. It was quite a large cough, and Kruger could clearly picture her coughing directly into her phone.

Worry? Worry my ass. He was more worried about being buried under her share of the paperwork. And by buried, he didn’t mean it figuratively. He might actually die without even screaming if he got buried under that mountain of documents. In fact, one of the desks broke because it couldn’t handle the weight, forcing him to spend the whole day re-sorting everything.

Of course, he made his subordinates do it, but it was so obvious that it would become impossible to handle at this rate that Kruger himself was starting to feel obligated to do it himself.

‘This is a big problem.’

– The department can’t function without me, right?

“I’ve practically raised all of Africa, what are you talking about?”

– Oh, you’re talking like you raised it all by yourself?

‘What a load of crap.’

If he swallowed his pride and conceded a hundred steps, he could nod and say that she had raised half of it. Without her help, taking control of the information network in Africa would have been a pipe dream. In short, the amount of work she handled was beyond imagination.

And in reality, even though he said this outwardly, he was secretly hoping for her to return as soon as possible. When he was dealing with her work, it interfered with the tasks Kruger used to handle. Then, when he handled his own work to eliminate the interference, her tasks would pile up again in a very short amount of time.

In the end, it was like a Möbius strip, constantly shifting around, driving him crazy. He wanted to entrust it to someone else, but there was no one suitable. More precisely, it was a ‘rank issue’ rather than a matter of skill.

– So, it turns out that what you were making such a big deal about wasn’t a big deal after all?

“Ah, in that case, the camouflage that each country put up worked very well. As I emphasized before, even if the whole world is talking like it’s nothing, you can’t hide it from people who handle information. This is a bigger deal than you think.”

Especially things like the emergency collection of treatment demand right now.

Since they couldn’t test, they couldn’t collect the data. Diagnostic kit? Such a thing hadn’t even been developed in Africa in the first place. They skipped the diagnostic phase entirely to minimize the process and started with treatment development, so this situation itself was a kind of gamble.

To be precise, it wasn’t that there were no diagnostic kits at all. Unlike the treatments that were all given to the United States, countries with spare capacity were producing them on their own. And of course, there were no such countries in Africa. Strictly speaking, Gabon, one of the wealthier countries in Africa, had just finished development with the cooperation of other countries and was entering a mass production system.

– But it’ll be over in a week, right?

“To be exact, it’ll be over in two weeks. It takes time for it to be delivered here. Still, it’s a relief that they take care of the people dispatched from the home country.”

Bush improved the treatment as much as he ran the CIA. You’d think the CIA would receive the best treatment, but the reality was different. High salaries come with a price. Where in the world is there a job that you can get for free, except for a parachute that falls from the sky? Kruger and a few other CIA agents’ high salaries were not at all proportional to their high workload.

‘Damn it.’

– Why are you swearing so much since earlier?

“When did I?”

– It’s obvious. You must have been muttering every time you answered in your head.

It was spot on. How many times had Kruger been so caught off guard? Was it when he was caught red-handed by his mother after stealing five ice creams from the refrigerator when he was limited to one a day in his childhood? The reason she could see through Kruger so well was because she had known him for too long on the front lines.

As he was thinking that, the phone call was cut off. He was wondering why since there were still things to say for work, but then he received a text message saying that she had sent what was needed by email. When he opened the email, it seemed that she was working even while lying in bed.

“Damn it. I’m so glad that the international call charges don’t come out of my account.”

He put a cigarette in his mouth. But he couldn’t get any taste out of it, so he stubbed it out without even burning half of it. He unfolded the world map that was changing every moment.

‘They’re always talking about digital, but they don’t digitize things like this.’

Strictly speaking, it did exist. However, it wasn’t installed in the African branch yet. It was said that support for the African branch would be expanded soon, but who knows if that “soon” would be a year later or three years later? Well, it was quite unusual for a new branch to receive support up to this point, but it was a bit shabby for a branch that would become the core of Africa in the future.

In fact, the world map in front of him was also outdated. It was because North and South Korea had been unified. In the world map in front of him, South and North Korea were still divided by the 38th parallel.

‘But it probably wouldn’t be much different even now.’

They were unified, but nothing much had changed. The North was still poor, and the South was still rich. But once capital flowed in, the Korean peninsula would be greatly changed in just 10 years—whether for better or worse.

“No matter what, there won’t be a re-division in 10 years.”

Once you decide to divide, that force must have the power to do so, but there’s no way they’ll have the power. No matter how messed up it gets, once the livelihood improves, they won’t want to go back to the old days. Of course, there would be some people like that, but they would be a very small minority. And in the long history of mankind, there has never been a case where a country was overthrown by a very small minority.

“Damn it. I didn’t mean to think about this.”

Kruger turned his eyes back to Africa. The terrible borders full of straight lines drawn by the invaders for their convenience during the age of imperialism came into view.

‘Damn it.’

Moreover, there wasn’t just the treatment demand survey. He had to provide information needed for the documentary production. Not information needed for promotional purposes, such as what’s famous and what’s delicious in which country. They were asking for information such as which places are dangerous and which are not.

He wanted to dismiss it with ‘Everything is dangerous except for the famous tourist attractions you already know! If you understand, get out of here!’, but since this was a direct order from the President, he couldn’t just reject it by telling them to screw off.

This comparison was the fastest way to make people realize that they were ‘living well’. There is something that people living in developed countries hear at least once in their lives: ‘Be grateful that you were born in this country. What would have happened if you were born in Africa?’

Isn’t human nature truly fickle? They only feel gratitude when they witness those who are worse off than themselves?

Even if there was only this much work, he would be so grateful for the fact that he was living in this world that he would be kissing the ground while crying. But the work he was in charge of, including both big and small tasks, totaled 183. This was definitely not a normal workload.

He volunteered out of a desire to get ahead, but this was too much. It was an amount that would be difficult for an ordinary person to handle even one a day. But if you asked if it was far beyond his ability, that wasn’t the case either. However, that didn’t mean he had any余裕 [room to spare], and even if he mobilized all of Kruger’s abilities, his workload was barely within the normal range.

“George W. Bush, you’re the best of the masters I’ve served.” (Note: Sarcasm)

Kruger muttered, throwing the documents down with a thud. Of course, it was sarcasm. Even his father didn’t run the CIA like some street thug. In fact, at this point, it was hard to tell whether it was the CIA or a high-end workforce at a private detective agency stuck in a New York building.

‘Well, I would have done well even if I did that job. I would be earning more money than I am now. But…’

He could never taste this much power in such a civilian job. Ah, the power to know the color of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s president’s underwear just by sitting in an office chair and wanting to, and the power to make that president flinch with just one letter.

‘My end won’t be the head of the African branch, right?’

That couldn’t be. Even if he was afraid of someone who knew a lot of the collusion between Africa and the United States, if Kruger had the mind to do so, he would willingly send him back to the mainland. He was afraid on the one hand, wondering if he would be assassinated.

‘At least I have no choice but to live as cleanly as possible during this administration.’

The safest way was to become one with them, but if he embezzled illegal wealth under the current president and got caught, he might be beheaded as an example. Of course, even if he was beheaded, he wouldn’t really be beheaded, but for a person who lives for power and ambition, demotion was no different from being beheaded.

Perhaps, in a state of being driven to the brink, he might be found as a Hangman [a card in the Tarot deck symbolizing endings and new beginnings] when the brilliant morning sun rises the next day.

“Ah, I want to go back to Atlanta even more today.”

Even while grumbling like this, his hands were diligently scribbling down candidate countries to be used in the propaganda documentary.