The outskirts of Sawinu City.
Song Heping stood behind a hastily constructed bunker, holding a night vision binoculars, his view filled with the hellish scenes of street warfare.
Tracer rounds frenziedly zipped through the ruined buildings, weaving a web of death.
Mortar shells crashed down, raising towering dust waves mixed with rubble and dismbered bodies.
The earth-toned figures of Haftar soldiers struggled to advance amidst the debris, relentlessly suppressed by intersecting gunfire behind broken walls and ruins.
Each flash of explosion illuminated the twisted bodies and dark red blood stains pooling into streams within the ruins.
Minute by minute, ti slipped by, yet the progress of the battlefront remained suffocatingly slow.
Sayif's three thousand reinforcents and the arsenal on the Marlin Fish were like a sword hanging overhead, less than three days' journey away from Sawinu.
With every passing minute, the anxiety multiplied.
"This won't do..."
Song Heping muttered to himself, "Seems like I'll have to lead the team personally."
Haftar, right beside him, was startled, "You?"
"Sotis the leader has to risk his life too," Song Heping said calmly, "If we don't capture Sawinu, you and I both lose everything."
The implication could not be clearer.
This battle was of utmost importance.
Failing to seize it ant there would be no place for Haftar and Song Heping to stand in Libya thereafter.
Neither the Aricans nor the British would ever grant them a second chance.
Pushed to the brink, the combative gene in Song Heping's blood began to rage again!
Suddenly, the satellite phone in his pocket quivered violently.
This ti it wasn't a ssage—it was a call!
Song Heping abruptly lowered the binoculars, pulled out the phone, and answered it.
"Hahahaha!"
On the other end, Henry's voice, so excited it almost changed pitch, ca through clearly amidst the sounds of gunfire:
"Boss! Just now! Right just now! Jebut! Marlin Fish! It's blown up! The whole intelligence community is talking about it! The ship...the ship sunk! Marlin Fish sank! Hahaha! It sank! Soone really went and blew it up and managed to do it!"
Song Heping's hand holding the phone shook slightly.
The deafening sounds of gunfire at the Sawinu front seed to recede into the far distance at that mont.
He slowly raised his head, his gaze piercing through the smoky, blood-tainted air, and directed it toward the dark horizon in the south.
That was the direction of Jebut.
A fifteen-billion-US-Dollar bounty, an explosive fuse he had long foreseen, rely awaited its inevitable ignition.
The United States appeared so strong and invincible.
But the price of arrogance was global enmity.
No matter how towering and luxurious the Empire State Building was, it couldn't withstand the termites quietly breeding in its shadowy corners.
The only difference lay in which ant ultimately gnawed through the fatal load-bearing beam.
He uttered just three words into the phone: "Got it."
Then decisively cut off the communication.
Ti seed to flow back to normal, with the sounds of gunfire filling his ears once more.
Song Heping slowly turned, his gaze sweeping over Haftar.
The corners of his mouth gradually lifted into a slight smile.
He knew, this explosion not only sank Sayif's hope but also struck precisely at Washington's nerve, acutely sensitive due to the mid-term elections.
"Haftar."
Song Heping's voice, though soft, was like an ice pick, accurately chiseling through the surrounding clamor and penetrating Haftar's chaotic consciousness, "The Marlin Fish sank."
"What!? Marlin Fish?"
Haftar's body jerked, as if hit by an electric shock.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say sothing, but nothing ca out.
After a good few seconds, he finally regained his ability to speak.
"Sank...sank? Really...it sank?"
The massive impact kept his thoughts in a semi-stalled state.
"We won."
Song Heping smiled, "Now, even if Sayif's three thousand reinforcents appear on the horizon tomorrow, they can't save the situation. Without the Marlin Fish's resupply, their ammunition reserves won't hold out for a week in Sawinu, this at grinder."
He paused, his gaze once more into the smoke-filled front line.
"Now, the news needs ti to fernt. You must imdiately notify all commanders on the front lines to stabilize the current battlefront! Cease large-scale offensives, switch to defensive attrition warfare! Our ammunition supply line will arrive no later than the day after tomorrow, and then..."
Song Heping's voice suddenly turned cold, his gaze directed to the battlefield, "If they haven't withdrawn from Sawinu by then, use heavy artillery and aerial bombs to wipe this district off the map!"
Soon, Haftar's orders were transmitted via radio waves, instantly relayed to every company-level command post of Haftar's forces at the Sawinu front.
The frenzied assault ca to an abrupt halt.
Originally, under the pressure of the supervisory team, the soldiers trying to tear open the line of defense against the fierce firepower of the GNA quickly retreated like a receding tide into their respective shelters, broken walls, and basents.
The intense gunfire suddenly thinned out.
In a short period, Hafter's forces retracted their fangs, turning to a patient siege, using sustained, low-intensity firepower to slowly bleed their prey dry.
anwhile, on the other side of Sawinu City, in the GNA command post—a basent half collapsed by bombing, barely reinforced with sandbags and steel plates—the atmosphere was heavy, as if filled with lead.
The hoarse report from the front-line commander over the radio carried an unconcealed panic: "General! Haftar's n suddenly pulled back! The attack stopped! They... they're reinforcing their positions, like they're waiting for sothing!"
Far away in the GNA headquarters in Tripoli, Sayif stood by the radio, looking puzzled.
Retreated?
Stopped attacking?
Could they have given up on Sawinu?
"No matter what tricks they're playing, hold your ground! Hold your ground! Our reinforcents and ammunition are almost there! The Marlin Fish is on the way!"
Sayif seed to be cheering himself up, as well as intimidating his subordinates, "Tell the front-line soldiers, anyone who retreats will be shot on the spot! Hold every building!"
However, after putting down the radio earpiece, a sense of foreboding silently grasped his heart.
Hafter's forces' abnormal actions were eerie.
Despite having the initiative in the attack, why did they suddenly stop?
What are they waiting for? Could it be...
A terrifying thought popped up uncontrollably.
He rembered that $1.5 billion reward.
Sayif shook his head abruptly, trying to dispel the thought.
No way!
Absolutely impossible!
The Marlin Fish is an Arican ship!
Who would dare move it?
Who could move it?
That ship is his last hope, his only card to turn the tide!
If even that ship had a problem...
He couldn't help but beco agitated, the sudden news making him even more restless.
Ti had never felt so slow and heavy as at this mont.
A few hours later, on the other side of the ocean, the sea outside Jebut Port, thoroughly churned by the explosion, had beco the center of a global dia storm.
Sharp sirens pierced the tranquility of dawn, as multinational warships and rescue vessels shuttled like sharks that had slled blood, across a sea surface stained with large oil slicks, twisted tal fragnts, and various indescribable remnants of packaging boxes.
Dense black smoke columns stubbornly rose into the sky, forming a hauntingly tragic picture against the rising sun.
Cara lenses with high magnification greedily captured every detail: burning flas on the sea, remnants of ammunition boxes marked with clear US military supply codes (NSN) retrieved by rescue personnel, and even so parts of TOW or Javelin missile launch tubes that hadn't been completely destroyed...
These images were instantly transmitted to every corner of the world via satellite signals.
In the heart of Manhattan, New York.
On the top floor of a skyscraper.
This was the headquarters of the "Horizon News Group".
In the control room, the massive screen was divided into live broadcasts from Jebut, images from the White House press conference, and public sentint heat maps on various social dia platforms—all dominated by keywords such as "Marlin Fish Explosion", "Arms Cloud", "White House Denial".
Angel stood in the center of the control room, dressed in a sharply tailored dark grey suit, her blonde hair neatly tied up at the back.
She was now the helmsman of the "Horizon" News Group.
But few knew that the biggest behind-the-scenes investor when the Horizon Group was founded was Song Heping, before he was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) by the United States.
This dark chess piece, set quietly by Song Heping before being sanctioned, had finally been pushed to the center of the board.
And it was aid precisely at the White House's most vulnerable, the critical mont the Donkey Party feared most—a crucial point right before the midterm election voting day.
Angel's gaze swept over the TV screen where the White House spokesperson was answering reporters' questions with a facade of calm, attempting to divert the cause of the explosion to "an accident" and claiming "so regular supplies for the Peacekeeping Forces" were on board.
A cold sneer curled the corners of her mouth.
After watching for a while, she picked up the internal communicator, her voice clear and calm, imbued with undeniable authority, instantly spreading throughout the news center:
"Attention everyone! Initiate the 'Tsunami' plan, top priority! I want Jebut's footage rolled out 24/7, especially those ammunition remnants with US military markings! Zoom in! Full close-up shots! Loop play! Get in touch with our reporters on the ground, acquire firsthand witness accounts from dock workers and nearby fishern at all costs regarding the explosion's power! Emphasize the explosion's scale! Emphasize that such a scale of explosion couldn't possibly be caused by 'regular supplies'!"
Her speech rapid and instructions clear:
"The data analysis team should imdiately dig into the background of the Marlin Fish, uncover any possible links to US defense contractors, the CIA! Make it into infographics! The more intuitive, the better! The faster, the better! Social dia team, push hashtags like #MarlinFishLies, #WhiteHouseArmsGate, and #WhoBlewUpJebut! Find famous comntators and military analysts, reach out to think tank scholars, especially opposition Donkey Party congressn and Republican dia! Equip them with ammo, have them question and demand urgent Congressional hearings!"
"Rember, our core narrative: this is a ghost ship laden with deadly arms, blatantly violating the UN arms embargo, and intending to exacerbate Libya's humanitarian disaster! And the White House is lying! Fan the flas in the swing states, burn into the backyards of those Donkey Party congressn who are trying to save their seats and are feeling the heat!"
The entire "Horizon" news center instantly started running like a precision war machine.
The sound of typing rged into a fast-paced downpour, phones rang continuously, reporters quickly broadcast in front of caras, and technicians rapidly edited the most impactful footage.
Angel walked to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the city symbolizing global power below.
Song Heping's words echoed in her ears: "Angel, the wind has risen. Burn the fire to the White House's eyebrows, to the Donkey Party's midterm election voter base. Leave them overwheld and too busy to attend to other concerns."
She picked up her phone, wrote a coded ssage, and hit send: "'Tsunami' has been initiated."
Soon, she received a reply, a single word—"Good!"
User Comments
0 comments from readers