How to locate?
Thinking about this issue, Song Heping made his way to the top of the hill.
Before he realized it, he had reached the peak.
A few villagers were cleaning up the debris and corpses left behind from the firefight the night before, carting them away with donkey carts, probably planning to drag them to so secluded spot and bury them in a hastily dug pit.
What intrigued Song Heping the most was seeing several children at the scene; they simply watched, laughing and chasing each other around, completely indifferent to the horrifying corpses.
This caused a wave of contemplation in Song Heping's heart. In Afghan, war and bloodshed had hardly ever stopped, whether from the late '70s, or because of foreign invasion or relentless civil strife, the common people had not seen many peaceful days and were accustod to death and slaughter.
The children who grew up in this environnt had a desensitization to horror that was unimaginable to children in the normal world.
Standing on the hill and looking southward, the hillside below was covered with poppy fields.
It was May, the flowering season, and the hills were ablaze with poppies of red, blue, green, purple, and various other colors, like a kaleidoscopic sea of breathtaking beauty.
If not for knowing the harm these things caused, Song Heping would have marveled at their sheer beauty.
The poppies had many other nas, like rival peonies or coquettish flowers; indeed, seeing is believing, and they certainly lived up to their reputation.
The growth cycle of the poppy plant was extrely fast; it only needed three to four months to be ready for another harvest, and Song Heping estimated that the poppy sea in front of him could be harvested again at the beginning of next month.
Their fruit's juice was collected and then crudely processed into paste, followed by transformation at factories into heroin, pressed into brick-like shapes with the unique stamp of the Golden Crescent, and handed off to drug traffickers to sell across the globe.
In places like Jabade Village, there was little that was noteworthy in daily life; in the village, Song Heping was looked after by soone assigned to see to his food and drink, and these past few days, Rabbani also stayed in the village. The three of them ate and slept in the sa room, bumping into each other at every turn.
Rabbani was quite distant towards Song Heping and Mist; Song Heping could see his dilemma.
Perhaps, in his eyes, both Song Heping and Mist were his enemies, yet also the lifelines he clung to for survival.
He didn't like them, but he had no choice but to work with them.
In their limited exchanges, Song Heping learned that Rabbani was actually sowhat different from the local Afghan youth.
Despite now being a local leader in the Revolutionary Brigade, just four years prior, he had been a university student studying abroad in the Middle East.
But war changed everything.
When he returned from abroad and ca back ho, he found that his holand had long since ceased to exist, and there was nothing he could do, neither stop the war nor save his country.
He had no choice but to join the Revolutionary Brigade, at least he could protect the family mbers he still had alive.
Hearing his story, Song Heping was reminded of Samir.
Their personal experiences and family situations were very similar.
However, he couldn't afford to show any sympathy towards Rabbani.
In an environnt like this, sympathy was worthless, survival was what mattered, doing the job well and staying alive, that was the key.
On the third day, everything that Song Heping had anticipated still happened.
In the morning, Rabbani ca early to find Song Heping, saying that he had received orders from above to take Song Heping and his group to Rudbar and to set off imdiately.
Rudbar was located to the south of Hanix, approximately 90 kiloters away.
The group didn't say goodbye to the villagers; they just grabbed their stuff, left the village, got into the vehicle, and headed south.
Before getting in the car, Song Heping instinctively looked up at the sky.
Niki had promised him that there would be drones patrolling the sky 24 hours a day, monitoring his and Mist's location.
At present, there were many things on him that could be tracked.
For example, the satellite phone, the laptop, and even the Lexus—all of them contained hidden location devices.
The most concealed was a micro GPS locator embedded in his belt buckle, ingeniously designed with a circuit board inside the tal buckle and copper wire hidden on both sides of the belt, serving as two antennae.
This device had a switch, which Song Heping had not yet turned on.
It would only be activated if, once at the processing factory, the guards of the Revolutionary Brigade searched them and demanded all communication electronics and personal items be left behind.
The battery inside didn't last long, at most six hours.
Once the battery was depleted, it ant that Song Heping's team would lose all contact, relying only on the drones that had been tracking them to provide their position to ISA.
"Is the processing plant in Rudbar?"
Song Heping, in the back seat, opened the map and asked Rabbani, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
"I don't know."
Rabbani coldly responded to Song Heping's question.
Perhaps concerned that such a reply might anger Song Heping, a few seconds later he added an explanation, "The processing plants change location every few months because the US Army's reconnaissance satellites and aircraft are often active here. Staying in one place for too long makes it easy to be discovered. The Revolutionary Brigade has over a dozen branches in Helmand Province, with one to three Ard Organizations under each branch, and I'm just the leader of one of those organizations. If it weren't for the fact that I'm fluent in English and the rendezvous point is on my turf, I wouldn't have had the chance to co into contact with the processing plant."
Song Heping believed what he said was the truth.
If the processing plants were so easy to find, there wouldn't be a need for him and Mist to take the risk.
He then asked, "So how do they usually collect the opium from the villages?"
Rabbani replied, "I am responsible for collecting the raw materials and sending them to the drop-off point for soone to take away. The Revolutionary Brigade usually sets a purchase price, pays according to that price, and then I take the money back, part as operating funds, and part is distributed to the villagers."
With Rabbani's explanation, the operation of the Golden Star Moon's drug network seed to reveal its unique structure.
This model appeared to be every man for himself, rather loosely organized.
But in reality, it was quite safe.
Song Heping also ca to understand why the US Army couldn't end all this with bombings and raids alone.
Because capturing any field of poppy cultivation wouldn't directly hit the core; the Revolutionary Brigade's drug trafficking network was like a centipede that isn't hindered much by the loss of one or two legs.
Moreover, fundantally, the situation here was similar to that in xico and Colombia—farrs have no other way out and, for survival, cultivate crops with higher economic value like opium or coca leaves.
This was not just a legal issue, nor solely a governance issue, but also an economic one.
The SUV drove on country dirt roads for a full two hours and finally reached the designated eting point—Rudbar.
This was a small town in the south of Afghan, close to Pakistan.
As instructed, everyone arrived at a valley in the wilderness outside the city and parked the car in the most conspicuous place.
"Do they know we're here?"
As Song Heping said this, he couldn't help but look up at the sky.
If Niki hadn't lied, there should be a surveillance drone watching them right now.
But he couldn't see the drone, probably because of its altitude.
Less than ten minutes after the group had been waiting on site, Mist, who had been leaning against the bonnet, suddenly straightened up and warned Song Heping, "Soone's coming."
After speaking, he moved to the driver's side, opened the door, and took out an AKM assault rifle.
"Don't panic."
Rabbani stopped Mist.
"Those are our people, the connection has arrived."
Dust clouds kicked up in the distance on the hillside as four Nissan off-road vehicles sped towards them.
Mist still stood by the driver's side, with the door open and his AKM assault rifle resting behind the door.
If anything was amiss, he could aim and shoot in the quickest ti possible.
Song Heping also slowly retreated to a position that would allow him quick cover—he positioned himself next to the front right-side headlight.
If a shootout started, he would duck behind the engine and the tires to return fire with his pistol, and he could also grab the AKM assault rifle from inside the car.
The several Nissan off-road vehicles quickly arrived in front of them and stopped about five or six ters away.
Song Heping's heart pounded furiously, and his blood flow quickened.
His biggest concern was where Adrian might be at this ti.
If he was in one of these vehicles...
Then that really would be trouble...
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