Mercenaries, I Will Be King Chapter 215 - 184 Failure in Waiting for a Windfall

Three o'clock in the morning.

Song Heping was awoken by the buzzing alarm in the camp.

"What's going on!?"

The cook rolled out of bed and hastily put on his coat.

Song Heping quickly dressed, put on his tactical vest, grabbed his gun, and ran out.

He didn't hear any gunfire.

It wasn't an attack on the camp.

"It must be those Seals who've run into trouble."

Song Heping turned to Grey Wolf who had run out of his tent and said, "Go back and listen to the radio, see if there's any news about them."

"You got it!"

Grey Wolf, seeing that the camp was not under attack, relaxed significantly and turned back to his tent.

Within a minute, Song Heping heard him calling out for him.

"Boss, they're looking for you."

"Looking for ?"

Song Heping paused for a mont and then ran back.

It seed there really was trouble.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have thought to contact him.

Coming through the radio was the voice of Deputy Commander Mist.

"Could it be trouble?" Song Heping thought to himself.

Generally, it's the team leader who is responsible for liaising with external units.

Now it was the deputy making contact.

It must be trouble.

Sure enough, Mist called out through the radio, "Song! Are you there! Are you there!"

"I'm here."

Song Heping muttered to himself.

He was surprisingly not calling the squad's code.

It was a private call from Mist to him personally.

"Song, we need help."

"What kind of help?" asked Song Heping.

"We've run into trouble in the city," Mist said. "Damn it! Soone suddenly ca upon the building where we were hiding, and we exchanged fire."

"What's the situation?" Song Heping asked.

Mist's tone sounded urgent, and behind his voice, one could hear intense gunfire and explosions.

"Our situation here is pretty dire, the ard militants have surrounded us, and we can hold on for now, but there are too many of them! They even used mortars and recoilless rifles against us!"

"What about Vincent?"

Song Heping got to the crux of the matter.

Mist replied with regret, "The boss is injured, it's very serious, the squad is under my command now!"

Song Heping asked, "What do you need to do?"

Mist replied, "Head to the camp command post imdiately, they'll arrange for you to get on a helicopter to co support us."

"OK!"

After ending the conversation, Song Heping said to the other team mbers, "Move out imdiately, carry night vision equipnt and enough ammunition, and gather in front of the camp command post right away. Hunter, is your M24 still available?"

"It's in the vehicle."

"Take it, we might need it."

"Disaster Star, bring two M72 rocket launchers."

"No problem."

Everyone was unclear about the situation.

But nobody defied Song Heping's orders.

After grabbing their gear, they all hurried to the camp command post.

On the way, Song Heping noticed that there didn't seem to be many US Army personnel coming out of the tents around the camp.

But many tents had lights on.

It ant people were up.

Yet the assembly was too slow.

Supposedly, a camp should have a duty team.

In ergency situations, the duty team should be the first to move out.

Now it seed that wasn't the case.

Mist had actually contacted him, indicating from this that the Seals didn't place much trust in the infantry of Warrior Camp.

Upon arriving at the front of the camp command center, the newly appointed Commander Major Lonnie was already waiting there.

He didn't look happy, whether it was due to insufficient lighting or a poor mood, his face was a dark mass.

"Hawkeye Team has co under fire with ard militants in Zone E, they need to be extracted from the war zone urgently. Black Hawk Helicopters are prepared and are waiting on the helipad. There will be two AH-64 Apache helicopters escorting you to the combat site. They're in Sector 5, point E, the specific coordinates are marked on the operation platform's GPS. Once there, mbers of the Seal Team will provide you with ground guidance and directions."

He gave a simple instruction and with a wave of his hand, said with inflated irritation, "Move out!"

After boarding the helicopter, the cook, while fastening his safety harness, loudly asked Song Heping, "Why are they sending us to rescue? Don't they have a duty squad?"

Over the sound of the chopper's blades, Song Heping pointed outside at the tents and said, "The Seals don't trust Warrior Camp's duty squad! We're sent to rescue because ground support won't arrive quickly. They're in Zone E, and it's estimated that it'll be at least an hour or even longer before armored units reach the firefight. By then, they're worried they'll be goners!"

"Damn it!"

The cook cursed again.

"Now they think of us?!"

He touched his jaw and felt the pain still there.

"Those useless bastards are thinking of us now?"

In the midst of so lighthearted banter, the Black Hawk Helicopter took to the air.

A Black Hawk Helicopter, accompanied by two AH-64 Apache Ard Helicopters for escort.

The Black Hawk Helicopter is a utility helicopter, generally equipped only with two Gatling guns for firepower output.

One at the main cabin door, and one outside the small cabin door behind the cockpit.

Even so, facing ground-to-air weapons, these two Gatling guns had sowhat insufficient firepower, in addition to their limited field of view and angles.

According to Arican rules, transport helicopters must always have ard helicopters accompanying them for cover when flying in war zones; otherwise, it's all too easy to be shot down. The Aricans have suffered enough of these losses to have learned their lesson well.

The distance from Warrior Camp to Zone E of District 5 was only 10 kiloters, a re blink of an eye for a helicopter.

After taking off from the camp, the helicopter ascended to about five hundred ters since it would have to quickly descend in the firefight zone; it was simpler to just go up to five hundred and hold there.

Five hundred ters wasn't very high. Song Heping sat at the edge of the cabin, and from afar, could see flickering lights in the direction of Zone E, and faint gunfire could even be heard.

"Everyone, be careful. We'll enter the firefight zone soon, and I'll give the order to rappel down."

He got up and went to communicate with the two pilots near the cockpit, then returned inside the cabin.

By this ti, the aircraft had already reached the vicinity of Zone E, and the ard personnel on the ground had clearly spotted the three US Army helicopters flying in from outside the city, firing at them in hopes of shooting them down.

For the militants, taking down a helicopter was a rare feat of war, ideally replicating the scene of the Black Hawk's downfall in years past.

But the Arican pilots weren't fools either.

The two Apache Ard Helicopters led the way, opening fire wherever they saw muzzle flashes.

Since there were no armored vehicles within the ard organizations of Mosul City, the Apaches did not have Hellfire Missiles mounted for this mission. Instead, all four weapon stations were equipped with M-261 19-shot pods of 2.75-inch Hydra-70 rockets.

After firing, they still had the M-230E-1 30mm chain gun mounted under the nose—this gun had a normal firing rate of 625 rounds per minute, with a maximum rate of 1000 rounds per minute, and held between 1100 to 1200 rounds, capable of penetrating light armored vehicles or the weaker sides and tops of main battle tanks, as well as punching through building walls. The lethal radius for personnel was about 5 ters.

In front of it, the human body was nothing but mud.

Machine-gun fire sprang up from the ground, but as soon as muzzle flashes were spotted by the Apaches, they swooped in and bombarded the locations relentlessly.

Just a few rockets were enough to typically silence a machine-gun position in an instant.

Song Heping sat on the edge of the Black Hawk Helicopter's cabin, watching the Apache Ard Helicopters engaging with ground positions in a to-and-fro battle in front of them, it felt like a lively fireworks show.

Tracers zipped by, shooting past the Black Hawk Helicopter from different angles and then disappearing into the night's starry sky.

Occasionally, one or two RPG rockets would sneakily attempt to try their luck from the ground.

But none of this posed any threat to the Black Hawk Helicopter, which had already risen to a higher flight altitude.

The Black Hawk down incident in Somalia back then ultimately boiled down to the helicopters flying too low.

For helicopters flying above three hundred ters, RPG launchers tend to pose little threat.

Suddenly, a beam of light appeared from the rooftop of a dark building ahead.

Song Heping imdiately recognized that it was the beam of a laser pointer mounted on a Picatinny rail.

Often, US Special Forces personnel use it to mark targets or guide, as well as to indicate their own positions.

"They're there!"

Song Heping pointed ahead.

Suddenly, he saw another beam of light appear.

It seed to be coming from different positions between two buildings.

Looking at the distance, they were roughly more than seventy ters apart, but less than a hundred ters.

Grey Wolf pointed to the distance and asked loudly, "Boss, why are there two laser beams?"

Song Heping said, "I guess they've established two sniper positions."

Before his words could settle, a call from Mist ca through the headset.

"Nanny Team, I see you, we need support at two points, one of them to your left at the 10 o'clock position has casualties."

"You guys really have so nerve..." Song Heping couldn't help but mock, "With so few of you and yet you split into two points, you're really being greedy, as if your lives an nothing."

The Seal Team had lost one mber before, and now there were only five mbers left in the whole team. The advantage of having two sniper points was that they could control a larger area and provide mutual support in tomorrow's sniper battle. Even if one point was attacked, the other could spot the enemy sniper and take them out.

This would maximize tactical efficiency.

But this approach was not without cost.

The cost was greater dispersion of personnel, with each group having three people at most or two at least.

Generally, establishing a sniper point requires occupying a building.

With just two people, you can't watch both the entrance and the exit.

If you go to the rooftop, the ground floor is left unguarded.

If you are on the ground floor, what about the rooftop?

That's why Song Heping said they were being greedy.

Perhaps seeing the helicopter approach ant they were about to evacuate, the intensity of the ground assault increased, and despite the Apache Ard Helicopters providing cover from the sky, it seed that the ard militants were not the least bit intimidated. Instead, they surged crazily toward the two buildings where Mist and the others were located.

"Hurry up! We can't hold out much longer!"

Mist's voice ca through the headset.

"Descend quickly to support us! We need manpower!"

Almost simultaneously, a pilot on one of the Apache Ard Helicopters also made a report, saying that his ammo was running low and that he would probably have to retreat to replenish it in ten minutes.

It seed that imdiate ergency SPIE evacuation was imperative.

Otherwise, once the Apache left, the Black Hawk Helicopter definitely wouldn't dare to lower its altitude to carry out the SPIE extraction.

Song Heping watched the situation on the ground, listened to the reports coming through the channel, and did not imdiately reply to Mist.

The Black Hawk Helicopter pilot shouted over the channel, "Get ready, we will perform the SPIE extraction within three minutes!"

"Hold on!"

Song Heping suddenly stood up, walked out of the cockpit, and said loudly to the two pilots, "Can we do an SPIE rapid extraction here?"

SPIE rapid extraction, commonly known as "stringing sugar gourds," involves using specially designed ropes and harnesses to insert or extract a small ard squad into or from areas where a helicopter cannot land or takeoff.

The specific thod is for the helicopter to drop a rope, allowing ground Special Forces mbers to hook themselves to the harness, and then quickly ascend to lift the personnel before flying away.

After hearing this, the two pilots paused for a mont and then shook their heads like rattle drums, "No! Performing an SPIE extraction here is too dangerous! Are you insane?! Just the slightest mistake and we'd all be killed!"