London, MI6 headquarters, "Deep Well" command center.
The cold air hung heavy, like lead.
The sound of M's knuckles tapping on the alloy control console, thud, thud, thud, was like an invisible heavy hamr, slowly and stubbornly pounding on the tense nerves of every intelligence officer.
On the massive screen wall, the dot representing the "Seagull" was like a stubborn stain, firmly pinned to the electronic nautical chart of Alexandria Port's eastern anchorage, with a flashing green label beside it reading "Routine maintenance, AIS signal normal," which was glaringly visible.
Each flash was like a needle pricking deep into her ice-blue pupils.
"Madam, the third round of port checks is complete, the customs declaration for 'heavy engineering machinery parts' shows no logical gaps, and customs clearance records are clear."
The intelligence officer's voice sounded unusually dry in the empty space, as if his throat were filled with the dust of data streams.
"The Alexandria Port Authority's thermal imaging data comparison is complete; engine room temperature fluctuation curves from the past 72 hours match minimum maintenance power characteristics, with no abnormal peaks."
Another technical analyst added, sliding his fingers on the touchscreen to pull up the almost dead silent temperature curve chart.
"Communications filtering yielded nothing. Crew's family communications were all trivial—complaints about food, children sick, hotown olive trees..."
The head of the communications monitoring group shrugged, his tone carrying a hint of professional fatigue.
"Khartoum, 'Mole' confirms, Sam-6 core components transferred into military warehouse number 3, within 'line of sight' throughout."
The information from the North Africa Intelligence Station was concise and cold.
Piece by piece, the report data was like cold raindrops, each attempting to extinguish the fla of doubt inside M kindled by the tallic gleam in the corner of the Khartoum warehouse photos.
The surface information was flawless, so calm it was suffocating.
Yet she felt a sense of suffocation.
Sothing was wrong…
On the screen, the image of the rusted freighter swayed obstinately, deforming like the outline of a giant beast lurking beneath the waves.
The ship was too quiet, quiet like a volcano waiting to erupt.
Song Heping, that cunning Easterner, he must have a contingency plan!
But where's the evidence?
The clues?
The damned evidence was like Sahara sand, slipping through fingers without leaving a trace.
"Yager…"
She whispered the na, almost soundlessly, with a chill she was reluctant to probe deeper.
"Your technical barrier, truly…unbreakable?"
The instinct sharpened by countless bloody storms lingered like a poisoned thread, stubbornly entangled with her judgnt.
She had to act, couldn't wait passively.
She picked up the encrypted satellite phone and dialed a number code-nad "Sandstorm."
"General Sai Fu."
M's voice regained its usual calmness and indisputability, "The 'Sweeping Action' titable remains unchanged. Order your division to assemble twenty thousand troops at the border line between Libya and Northern Darfur within forty-eight hours, launching a full-scale assault on the 'Musician' defense base. Rember, the montum must be massive, they should feel the weight of a mountain overhead!"
From the other end ca General Sai Fu's voice with a hint of haggling, "Madam, gathering twenty thousand troops takes ti, logistics and supplies…"
"That's your issue!"
M curtly interrupted, "Mossad will provide so air support and intelligence coordination. Do your job! You've already received enough from us! Don't be too greedy, Sai Fu!"
She hung up with a decisive click, turning her gaze towards the intelligence coordinator for the Middle East.
"Connect with Tel Aviv, Yager in charge. We need to discuss the final deploynt details of the 'Masada' operation team. The SAS 'Chair' squad and their 'Alpha' group must be flawless."
...
Alexandria Port, eastern anchorage.
The salty sea breeze carried the scent of oil, rust, and the distant city's noise, blowing across the massive and silent steel body of the "Seagull."
This ten-thousand-ton old ship, like a stranded tired giant whale, floated on the sea near the harbor area.
On the deck lay rusted containers and canvas-covered "heavy engineering machinery parts," with a few sailors lounging against the ship's rail, their eyes watchfully scanning the distant port authority patrol boats, everything perfectly interpreting the definition of "routine maintenance."
Deep in the ship's cabin, the scene was entirely different.
The massive cargo hold was temporarily transford into a secret workshop filled with the unique slls of engine oil, tal, and high-voltage electricity.
Just opening the hatch on the deck, those missiles could be erected to shoot straight into the sky.
The air compressor roared deeply, mobile floodlights cast a stark white light onto several disassembled and partially reassembled Sam-6 missile launch vehicles and command cabins.
The rugged steel contours in the interplay of light and shadow were like the bones of prehistoric beasts, exuding a cold aura of warfare.
The man codenad "Iron Wolf" stands at the core position of the launch control module.
He is sharp as a razor, his movents carrying the efficiency unique to soldiers and precision ingrained in his bones, his face devoid of any excess expression; behind fraless glasses, his eyes are sharp like surgical knives, instantly stripping any device's disguise.
The equipnt in front of him is not the old consoles of Sam-6, filled with knobs and cathode ray tubes, but a portable military terminal.
The casing is pure matte black, without any manufacturer's mark, serial number, or even cooling holes, as smooth as a piece of future obsidian.
At this mont, its screen is refreshing a waterfall of code flows at a dizzying speed; the green characters flow as if they have life.
Vasily, a veteran technician who has crawled and fought in the Sudan desert for half his life, considering himself used to all kinds of bizarre modifications and violent hacks, now feels like an apprentice walking into a high physics laboratory for the first ti.
His mouth slightly ajar, eyes wide open, his soiled hands reflexively wiping on his work pants, fixedly staring at the fist-sized black module next to the "Iron Wolf" terminal, flickering with a dim blue indicator light.
The material of that module is neither tal nor plastic, with a cool and delicate touch, its surface covered in microscopically small heat dissipation fins almost indistinguishable to the naked eye.
Several thick military-grade data cables with self-locking clasps, like intravenous tubes of a surgeon, are crudely "grafted" onto the old guidance radar fire control system interface of Sam-6—the interface even forcibly filed off part of the protective casing to fit the new socket; the other end is firmly inserted into the sa cold socket at the bottom of the black module.
Throughout the grafting process, "Iron Wolf" did not use any standard adapters, relying entirely on brutal physical connections and low-level protocol penetration.
"Iron Wolf's" fingers dance a ghostly trail on the virtual keyboard, fast enough that only a blurred outline remains.
A series of instructions complex enough to make Vasily's scalp tingle, completely beyond his knowledge system, are inputted.
It is not common military programming language but more like a highly compressed cryptography filled with mathematical symbols and abstract logic.
"Initiate 'Heavenly Eye' protocol, summon orbital numbers: SIGMA-7, KAPPA-3, OGA-9... establish synchronous gaze link.
Target area: grid coordinates N31.47, E35.01, altitude threshold: 8000 ters to 20000 ters, target characteristics: twin-engine heavy air superiority fighter, infrared signature database comparison: F-15I 'Thunder' priority." His voice is low and clear, each directive word fired like a cold bullet.
The terminal screen suddenly changes!
No longer a cascade of green codes, a highly abstract, near-perfect 3D globe model instantly erges, hovering at the center of the screen, rotating at a comfortably slow pace.
The surface of the sphere clearly outlines continents, with oceans a profound blue.
Several small points representing different orbital satellites—so displayed in stable white, so flashing gold representing high orbit, so as ghostly blue symbolizing low orbit reconnaissance satellites—are silently gliding along the preset paths, their trajectories clearly visible.
The focus of the model, after "Iron Wolf" entered the last coordinate parater, like being nudged by an invisible giant hand, leaps thousands of kiloters, precisely locking onto a region marked bright red, representing Nevatim Air Base within Daishe Bird Country.
A tiny, constantly flickering red triangle, like a blood-dripping arrow, slowly moves from a hangar position towards the runway!
"Oh God..."
Beside Vasily, the young technical assistant Andre gasps coolly, reflexively drawing an Eastern Orthodox cross on his chest, then suddenly covering his mouth, his face instantly turning pale.
He recognized the code for that base; it is one of the core nests of "Thunder" (F-15I)!
What is displayed on the screen is not a simulated deduction but almost real-ti satellite surveillance footage!
Vasily's heart feels as though a cold, invisible hand is clenching it fiercely, pulling it up to his throat, nearly suffocating him.
He has seen missiles lock onto targets countless tis, from primitive radar beam guidance to advanced mid-course instruction correction plus end infrared imaging, but never like this...
"God's-eye view" fashion!
This is not Sam-6 at all!
This old Soviet-era air defense system that should have been phased out by ti now seems to be forcibly injected with a new soul!
That rotating globe model, those satellites gliding along their orbits, the precisely locked dynamic airbase...
All this signifies that there is more than one pair of eyes in the sky!
They are cooperating, "staring," capturing every start, taxiing mont of a fighter jet in a distant base and feeding that information via the mysterious black module directly to the Sam-6 that was supposed to be "blind"!
He feels a dizziness from the total overturning of technical belief and a fear akin to desecrating a god.
His Adam's apple rolls difficulty, dry lips move a few tis with disbelief, horror and a barely suppressible technical fervor, squeezing out a sentence through his teeth:
"This... this 'eye'... is... is from where? God... the Aricans? Or... yourselves..."
His gaze fixedly on the black module flickering with dim blue light, like an abyssal eye, as if trying to penetrate its cold shell with his sight.
"Iron Wolf" finishes pressing the last confirmation key without any pause, not even glancing at Vasily.
His gaze remains locked on the screen where the F-15I signal simulating acceleration taxi on the runway.
Only a voice, cold without a trace of warmth, like the friction of quenched steel plates, falls in the narrow, noisy module:
"Don't ask what shouldn't be asked."
That voice like iced steel needles instantly pierces through all of Vasily's swelling curiosity and exploration desire.
Vasily abruptly shuts his mouth, as if strangled by an invisible force, cold sweat forming densely on his forehead.
"Connection complete, system online. 'Heavenly Eye' link stable."
"Iron Wolf" reports to the miniature microphone on his collar with a voice devoid of fluctuations.
A few seconds later, his terminal receives an extrely concise encrypted response: "'The Big Ship' received. Awaiting 'Seagull' to sing."
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