Song Heping arrived at the camp headquarters and casually sat down in the chair that belonged to Major Lonnie.
"Major, I'm borrowing your desk for a bit, you won't mind, will you?"
Lonnie's expression was as if he had eaten shit, sickened yet unable to admit it: "I don't mind."
Song Heping placed his laptop on the desk, plugged it in, and then asked, "Where are those docunts?"
Lonnie called a serviceman over: "Have all the docunts been printed out?"
The serviceman nodded: "They're printed, quite a lot... Should I bring them all over, Major?"
Lonnie said: "Of course bring them all, hurry!"
His urgency in handing over the docunts to Song Heping was not because he was eager to cooperate, but because he knew there were many summaries.
The serviceman swiftly carried a large pile of docunts from the next room.
"Major, where should I put them?"
"Give them all to him!"
Lonnie pointed at Song Heping.
The serviceman, holding a thick stack of docunts, heavily placed them in front of Song Heping: "This is the operation summary of the coalition troops in various sectors for the past five days. Take your ti to look through them."
Mist glanced at the docunts, sowhat worried if it would be daylight by the ti he finished going through all of this?
He looked at his watch.
It was already seven o'clock in the evening.
"Song, do you need my help with this?"
Hearing that Mist wanted to help, Song Heping smiled and said, "No need, you can't help with this, it's sothing I have to do myself."
He then pulled a docunt from the top of the pile, quickly skimd through it after opening it, started flipping pages rapidly, stopped when he found important records, looked it over again, then picked up a pen and ruler and drew a line in his notebook.
Seeing this, Lonnie scoffed: "Take your ti, I'm going to find sowhere to wait, just call when you're done."
Without waiting for a response from Song Heping and his team, he went straight out the door.
Mist was sowhat annoyed.
Lonnie behaved so indifferently, as if the operation was his own affair and it had nothing to do with him.
Mist had seen his fair share of such officers in the Army.
But there was nothing he could do about it.
"Aren't you going to find a place to wait?" Song Heping looked up to see Mist still there and couldn't help but ask.
Mist shook his head: "I'll just wait here, if you need help with anything just call ."
Song Heping laughed.
Finally, he saw a sowhat normal US Army officer.
He quickly returned to his mode of intense work.
Mist watched Song Heping work from the side.
He found it strange how quickly Song Heping was flipping through the docunts; he clearly knew what he was looking for, finding the key information he wanted in the operational reports swiftly and then constantly working on his notebook and computer.
It seed the rumor that the rcenary leader from China was a master of tactical design was not unfounded but most likely absolutely true.
Mist couldn't help but stand up and move next to Song Heping, looking over at his notebook and computer screen.
What he didn't know, he was shocked to find out.
The handwritten notebook contained a very detailed map, and there was also an electronic map on the computer that appeared to be the layout of so kind of pipeline.
Looking at the terrain, his eyes suddenly lit up.
It was a map of Mosul's underground network.
"What does he want with these? Could it be..."
Mist seed to have had an epiphany, excited as if he had discovered a new continent.
There had been intelligence that the ard Resistance Organization in Mosul had constructed underground works within the city, but no one knew the exact locations.
The CIA had also sent people to investigate.
But the investigators all died.
No one ca out alive.
So no one knew the precise locations of the underground works.
Could the "Hunter" organization be hiding within the city's network of pipelines and sewers?
Quickly, Mist dismissed his own thought.
Mosul wasn't a place of abundant rainfall, and the scale of its underground network wasn't large, the pipes wouldn't be as spacious as those in the United States.
It seed unlikely to use the network for hiding...
Unless it was modified...
"Do you think they're hiding in the pipeline network?"
Although he knew it was impolite to interrupt soone at work, Mist couldn't resist asking.
As expected, Song Heping ignored him, muttering "hmm" before continuing his work.
Mist felt it was a aningless question and could only return to his seat to wait.
But his mind kept guessing.
What did that "hmm" an?
Yes, or no?
Ti ticked away, second by second.
Suddenly, it was ten o'clock in the evening.
Unable to hold back a yawn, Mist got up, stretched, walked to the entrance of the camp headquarters tent, and looked at the entrance of a nearby restaurant where people were coming and going.
It was the ti for the night shift sentry to change guard, and the soldiers coming off duty rushed to grab a late night snack.
Turning to look at Song Heping, he was still engrossed in his work.
He couldn't help but admire the professionalism.
"This is what professional ethics ans!"
"Song, do you want to buy you so late-night snacks?"
"Coffee."
Song Heping didn't even lift his head, sparing his words like gold.
Mist dared not disturb him and went to the canteen to buy two large cups of coffee and two hamburgers.
When he returned to the operation tent, he saw that Song Heping had already sat back in his chair stretching and all the materials on the table seed to have been moved. It looked like he had read through everything.
"Done!"
"Done?!"
Mist walked over with the coffee, ca to the back of the desk, and looked at Song Heping's laptop.
The pipeline map on it was now covered with dense webs of various colored lines drawn by Song Heping, looking like a spider web.
"What is this? Just this?"
Mist didn't understand.
While drinking his coffee, Song Heping asked, "Can't you tell what I've marked?"
Mist clicked the mouse to enlarge the image.
He saw that the lines all seed to connect to certain points, each marked with X icons of different colors, with Arabic nurals as suffixes—so were 1, so 2, so 5, varying in number.
They were obviously firefight locations.
Each firefight location was connected by different colored lines, dozens of lines crisscrossing each other, looking very irregular, without any apparent pattern or regularity.
"Are these all firefight locations?"
"Right."
Song Heping asked, "Ever heard of the cross thod?"
"What cross thod?" Mist was stunned.
Song Heping said, "Haven't you learned about working with maps and tactical mapping? You don't understand the cross thod?"
Mist's face flushed as he said, "I've studied it, but I've never heard of the cross thod."
Song Heping explained, "These are all the locations where 'Hunter' snipers appeared in the past five days, marked based on the content of post-operation reports from all the units involved. Look at these points—"
He pointed to a few blue X1 points, "These are the sniper locations used by the snipers we encountered on the first day. Do you see anything?"
On the first day of the operation, there were three sniping positions.
One was right when we entered the small plaza, where Raul was shot dead with one bullet.
Another was where Chris countered and shot a sniper dead.
There was also one at point E, where a mysterious sniper took out Lieutenant Colonel Mansfield who had just dismounted.
Song Heping connected these points with lines.
"Their direction of retreat?" Mist wasn't dumb, he started to see so aning.
Song Heping said, "Exactly. Mosul is so large, it would be very difficult to find a few or even dozens of snipers within. However, their movents must follow so pattern. Assuming their headquarters is sowhere in the city, then the first sniping positions they set for ambushes in the morning will move to the second after completing their tasks; they retreat to the second position to lie in wait for their targets to appear..."
"A good sniper often has a contingency plan before acting, which includes planned sniper positions, backup locations, escape routes, ergency evacuation plans, and so on. In an ergency, they evacuate quickly, often using only one or two positions, but if their sniping missions go smoothly that day, they will use multiple planned sniper positions, strategically slowing down the advancing coalition forces in the city and demoralizing them."
"So, connecting these points together reveals their general direction of retreat and route. 'Hunter' is not just one person; there are several groups, divided into many small teams operating sniper tasks in different city zones. No matter how they vary their tactics, the retreat routes they plan the night before all have a general direction, leading them back to their hideouts..."
As he spoke, Song Heping picked up a pen from the table and continuously traced along the lines.
"By extending these lines, where several or even dozens of sniper teams cross in their retreat directions, you'll find—"
He drew a circle at the intersection of all the lines.
"They all lead back to roughly the sa area, almost pinpointing a specific small district—the Rashim District."
Mist's eyes slowly lit up, like a lamp ignited in the darkness.
He picked up Song Heping's notebook and studied it over and over, then looked again and again at the map on the laptop screen.
"Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"
"Brilliant, huh?" Song Heping laughed, "You an to tell Seal Team mbers really don't understand this? Haven't seen the world much, eh..."
As he said that, Song Heping used the mouse to draw a small circle on a location in the Rashim District.
"See this? There's a drainage inlet here; it's a convergence point for all the pipeline networks in Mosul, hence it's very spacious. It leads to a huge underground water storage tank. Due to water scarcity here, I've read the relevant data, and it was designed with the intention of collecting rainwater during the rainy season and storing fresh water for the dry season, so the underground tanks are empty during the dry season. Converting it into an underground facility would save a lot of effort, or even if they use it directly, they can hide a lot of people."
Clap, clap, clap—
Mist couldn't help but clap his hands a few tis, giving a thumbs up.
"Song, I'm convinced by you, I believe your deduction is correct! I need to report this to my superiors right away."
"Report my ass! What's the rush?" Song Heping stopped the excited Mist, "You think just because it's likely there, you can kill them all? Up until now, I've read all the reports, and nobody has been able to get into that area; you couldn't even push forward to Rashim Street. What are you happy about? Why don't you try to lead a charge in there now and see if you can make it there alive?"
"Right..."
Mist's face fell.
He had to face the fact.
In the past five days, not a single clearing force in any direction had been able to advance to Rashim Street, located near the city center.
So what if they knew that's where the enemy was?
"I think the Air Force can be called in, use the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator to deal with them, and wipe out those snipers in one fell swoop!"
The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator can penetrate 60 ters of reinforced concrete, making it effective against targets hiding in underground bunkers.
"No,"
Song Heping vetoed Mist's idea.
"Why not?" Mist said, "Even if we can't precisely know where the entrance and bunkers are, why not just drop a few more bombs?"
Song Heping looked at Mist with disdain: "Do you guys really not consider civilian casualties? Civilians aren't people to you? Don't you have any idea how powerful that thing is? You just drop it?"
A scolding left Mist speechless.
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