Half an hour later, in front of the tent of the special operations team at Warrior Camp, Song Heping bent over on the grass, pouring a large bottle of ice-cold spring water over his head.
Having just co out from Mosul, the Seals were also rescued, Vincent had taken a bullet to the lower abdon, the injury was severe, and he had already been transported by helicopter to the hospital in the Baghdad Green Zone. Next, for better treatnt, he would either be transferred to Kuwait or to a base in Europe.
The high-tension and fierce gunfight made Song Heping feel as if the temperature in his brain had sharply increased, like a CPU operating under pressure, about to emit smoke.
The rescue just now was too thrilling.
It was literally arm-wrestling with the Grim Reaper.
During the entire SPIE evacuation tactic, just a bit of bad luck and the whole team could have been buried together.
Song Heping sotis felt his pressure was quite significant.
After all, so many lives were in his hands, a single wrong decision could lead to irreparable consequences.
Now he understood why, after many wars, grassroots military commanders often were the ones most likely to be overwheld. Their sense of guilt was the deepest because they had witnessed many brothers and subordinates lose their lives under their command, falling one by one before their eyes.
Very few people could remain indifferent, after all, humans are not machines; they have blood, flesh, and emotions.
The sa is true for a cook.
Look!
This guy had been continuously cursing the Seals ever since he got off the plane.
That's right.
It was almost to the point of poking his finger in soone's nose and cursing.
"You idiots almost got us all killed, entering the city at night? If you want to die, go do it yourselves, don't drag us down!"
If it had been a few hours earlier, the cook's cursing would definitely have led to a fight.
But after tonight's events, the Seal team mbers' spirits had been dampened quite a bit.
A few Seal team mbers just glared at the cook and then went into the tent, not coming out again.
The cook grumbled as he took a dical kit to treat the wounds on his face.
Woken up in the middle of the night and having to conduct a rescue operation, now that it was nearly dawn, no one felt like sleeping.
The next day at eight o'clock, they had to carry out a clearing operation in the city, so everyone simply set up a small stove outside the tent to boil coffee and drink.
Song Heping went back into his tent alone; a few Seal team mbers saw him and nodded slightly, but said nothing.
Song Heping knew that actually, these n were thanking him for his rescue tonight, just that they were too proud to say "thank you."
He responded with a smile, then went back to his bed and continued to open his laptop and take out a map to draw and doodle on.
At five in the morning, a notification of a new email popped up on Song Heping's computer.
Song Heping clicked to enter his email and saw a ssage from Ferrari.
"That was fast…"
Ferrari had never let anyone down.
Although compared to an action team mber, he was relatively safe.
Perhaps because of this, Ferrari was very active in collecting the information Song Heping tasked him with, and his efficiency was astounding.
Song Heping imagined how Ferrari had obtained the docunts last night as he opened the email attachnt.
The attached file was large, and indeed, after downloading and decompressing, it turned out to be the municipal engineering map of Mosul.
During Sadam's era, Illiguo had gone through a period of wealth.
It was also then that the world oil prices were rising, so oil-producing countries were not short of money.
Before the Iraq-Iran war, Mosul had undergone a major construction of sewers and water pipelines, thus leaving behind drawings.
Song Heping overlaid the engineering drawings with the map he had drawn before and sat there analyzing for half the night.
As of now, he still lacked quite a bit of information.
What he needed were the operation summaries of all coalition forces involved in the Mosul operation.
Generally, after military operations, participating troops would compile a detailed summary of the entire process from conception to planning to actual action.
This included very detailed information, such as where they faced enemy resistance, what the situation was like during the exchange of fire, what tactics the enemy employed, and what tactics they used to respond. Many enemy and own fire points would be marked on the map included in the report.
Right now, Song Heping needed this information the most to confirm so critical details.
And what he needed was not just data from the past few days but the combat summaries for the next few days as well.
However, the current attitude of Major Lonnie was truly infuriating; it looked like this arrogant new commander was not about to provide him with these classified materials.
He would only wait until the other party had no choice but to request them, guessing that his chances of success would be greater then.
Although "Musician" Defense had now signed the contract, it was ultimately assisting the Seal's operations, and since the Seals had failed twice already, he could easily deny any responsibility. This aspect was quite easy to explain.
But whether he could get his compensation depended on whether the overall Mosul operation achieved its tactical objectives.
But what of that?
Haste makes waste.
So things can't be rushed.
According to his own estimation, if the US Army continued this style of combat, even if they deployed more Seal Teams to infiltrate, there would be no help in eliminating the "Hunter" organization or killing the Mosul Reaper.
From the first day of the operation, Song Heping had seen that they were dood.
He decided to patiently wait.
As the commander of Warrior Camp, Lonnie faced much more pressure than himself.
Lieutenant Colonel Mandres was dead.
One Seal killed, one wounded.
Such results, sent back to the headquarters in the Green Zone, were likely to get them a thorough scolding from Peter and the other generals.
Dawn ca quickly.
The clearance operation of Warrior Camp was launched again.
During the day's operations, the mbers of the Seal Team beca exceptionally cautious.
Mist, acting as the team leader, no longer adopted Vincent's previous reckless tactics but chose to move forward with the troops carefully, step by step.
By the end of the day, his tactics had proved to be safer and more secure.
Major Lonnie, with the lesson from before, didn't show up in open areas all day, spending the entire ti in his armored command vehicle, directing his troops via the radio.
"Song, the Seals are also slacking off."
The cook was the most gleefully schadenfreude of everybody.
Because his jaw still hurt.
Lying on the ground, Hunter tilted his body and turned back to the cook, "Actually, it's good for us. If they play it safe, we don't have to go all out. Look at last night, how dangerous it was; we were just lucky. A single RPG and we'd all be collecting 'boxed lunches'!"
Grey Wolf looked in the direction of the Seal Team, and after being lost in thought for a while, asked Song Heping, "Why do I feel like the Seal Team has given up?"
Queen said, "One killed, one wounded, and it's only the second day. What else can they do if they don't give up? They would like to fight face to face, but unfortunately, the Mosul Reaper hasn't even shown them his shadow. How can they fight?"
Song Heping said, "I guess their morale has been hit. Today you saw that they all advanced together with most of the force; probably they have no better ideas to deal with the 'Hunter', so they dare not take risks."
Grey Wolf said, "Boss, weren't you sketching over there? Do you have a good plan?"
Song Heping shook his head with a bitter smile, "It's hard to explain to you. Once I get the data I need and have made the final plan, I will tell you all."
Grey Wolf asked puzzledly, "What data do you need? If it's intelligence, you should ask Ferrari. Otherwise, why pay him?"
Song Heping replied, "He has already been a great help, probably still suffering from back pain. I won't bother him now. What I need is the operation summaries from all troop sectors in Mosul."
He turned to Grey Wolf, "Can you help get that?"
Grey Wolf was stunned and quickly shook his head, "Those are classified. You're asking the wrong person. Even if I held a gun to Lonnie's head at the camp headquarters, he couldn't get them for . That data is only available to Brigadier General Yue Ke, the person in charge of this operation. Are you asking to rob the operations command center?"
Everyone was amused by his response and laughed.
White Bear advised Song Heping, "Boss, don't bother anymore. We could just give up on the one million dollars. It's better than losing our lives here. To be honest, this Mosul Reaper is the most formidable sniper I've ever seen. No one wants to lose their life here. As rcenaries, making money is good, but we also need to survive."
The others unanimously agreed.
Everyone concluded that it wasn't worth the risk.
But Song Heping wasn't looking at the one million dollars.
He had bigger ambitions.
Just as Ferrari said, this operation wasn't just about one million dollars. It was a steppingstone to opening doors to high-level connections within the US forces in Iraq, a chance to prove the value of his team.
Therefore, for the sake of this cause, he had to take down the Mosul Reaper.
But just as White Bear and the others said, the Mosul Reaper was indeed a master.
Competing against him, one misstep could lead to total defeat.
The next day's operation had no highlights.
The Seals had chickened out.
Warrior Camp and Sword Camp had also beco timid.
Song Heping and a few brothers watched the day unfold as if it were a standardized Arican movie—advance, encounter resistance, call for support, bomb, advance again, encounter resistance again, call for support again, bomb again...
By the end of the day, they'd just sat on the rooftop all day watching the coalition forces setting off fireworks.
Besides killing a few scattered militants, Sword Camp lost two Humvees and suffered more than thirty casualties the next day.
The data from Warrior Camp looked a bit better; two dead, three injured.
Song Heping felt that Lonnie was even more incompetent than Mandres.
He was simply slacking off.
It seed he planned to get through this operation without any achievents or failures and then go back to report and drop it.
Lonnie wasn't in a hurry, but Song Heping started to get anxious.
He had to rely on Lonnie for the data. If Lonnie felt no pressure to accomplish his mission, he also had no motivation to assist him, which was crystal clear.
By the fourth day, Song Heping himself was starting to feel desperate.
Just then, soone suddenly ca to him, turning the previously dim prospects around suddenly, giving Song Heping a glimpse of hope.
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