Niki's excitent didn't last two hours.
Because Thom ca to report again.
"Major, they've entered the town and seem to have switched vehicles, we've lost sight of them!"
"How is that possible?!"
Niki turned to look at the drone footage.
The MQ-1 Predator was still in the air, its cara pointed at the town.
But one look at the footage, and Niki knew there was a big problem.
The Afghan border town nestled among the rolling hills was a crucial node for border trade.
Though the town was small and the streets narrow, a bustling crowd surged through it like a raging tide.
The streets were congested with traffic, and pedestrians were everywhere. Because the town was on a highland where ultraviolet rays were ferocious, the street vendors liked to set up shades to block the sun.
This ant that from the air, even the roads were often invisible, with just the occasional glimpse of a moving vehicle's roof through the gaps.
And because this was a center for border trade, there were plenty of vehicles around.
Although Nissan off-road vehicles were easy to recognize here, once Song Heping's Nissan entered the town, the drone lost track of the target.
The drone operators in Nevada were simply unable to lock onto the target in such an environnt.
All they could do was helplessly inform the ISA that they had lost the trail.
"Control just sent word, they can't lock onto the Nissan off-road vehicle, and we've lost them now."
Thom helplessly spread his hands.
Niki instantly went ballistic, "FUCK! What's the damn point of these drone operators?! Didn't they get trained to lock onto targets in complex environnts?! Shit! Losing them here... they must be close to their destination by now!"
Rage was useless for solving the problem.
After venting, Niki still had to face reality.
"Have the drone fly around the town, lock onto and recon any vehicles leaving, see if they can catch a glimpse of who's inside through the windows or windshield or sothing!"
"Yes, Major."
Right now, no one dared to ask Niki an extra word.
Thom certainly didn't want to touch this tigress's rear.
"Right!"
It seed Niki rembered sothing.
"What about the signal?! Didn't we have a tracking signal before? See where it is now!"
"The signal's gone…"
Thom regretfully inford Niki.
"Just five minutes ago, it disappeared."
"How can this be such a coincidence!"
Niki sowhat desperately grabbed his hair.
...
While the command center was going crazy, in a warehouse in the border town, Song Heping kept looking at his watch.
Rabbani ca up to him and asked, "Hula asked to ask you, what's the deal with Mist, still in the bathroom? If he doesn't co out soon, soone's going to have to break down the door."
Song Heping looked at Hula, who lifted his wrist, pointed at his watch, and signaled that ti was pressing.
"Damn it."
Song Heping cursed inwardly.
Mist was indeed a handful.
The guy had rushed into the bathroom as soon as they arrived and had not co out since.
Song Heping guessed he was trying to remove the tracker.
After all, the old man's place was really unreliable for such a thing.
Just think about it, sothing as hard as a lighter, shoved in there and jostled on bumpy dirt roads for over two hours—It would've been a miracle if it didn't cause bleeding.
Along the way, Song Heping occasionally glanced at Mist, noting his expression.
The guy was drenched in sweat.
At one point, Hula also noticed it, and concernedly asked Mist if he was too hot, if the air conditioning was set too high, and considerately turned it down a couple of degrees.
But only Song Heping understood why he was breaking out in cold sweat.
Moreover, more than two hours had passed, and the miniature battery hidden in the lighter was likely running low on power.
Mist likely intended to take it out and turn it off, preserving so battery life until he reached the destination, where he would then turn it back on to mark the position.
"Tell Hula that my friend has a stomachache," he said.
"Okay."
Rabbani had no choice but to go back and deal with Hula.
After all, he was now in cahoots with Song Heping and the others.
To say that Mist had a stomachache was just an excuse, at least in the eyes of Song Heping.
But Mist really did have a stomachache.
The lighter inside his body had been poking at his rectum all the way, not knowing if this was the reason, he felt an intense urge to defecate throughout the journey. Now that he had finally arrived in the town, he couldn't wait to relieve his physiological needs.
By the ti he dashed into the restroom, bit onto the toilet paper, and swiftly opened the floodgates in the fastest speed possible, he suddenly rembered sothing extrely critical, and he imdiately slamd on the brakes to close the gate.
But it was still too late...
Mist looked down to find the lighter with the tracker in the latrine below, only half-visible as it floated in the feces-infused water, like a drowning unfortunate soul.
"FUCK!"
Mist instinctively wanted to reach in to fish it out.
But he quickly abandoned the idea.
Because the lighter was a straight two ters away from him, out of reach of his hands.
To retrieve the lighter, he would have to jump down.
But the latrine was too narrow...
He could only watch as the most critical tracking device slowly sank into the sewage, waving goodbye to him.
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"
The sudden ergency completely wiped away Mist's urge to shit.
He looked around for a handy tool to fish out the lighter.
And, believe it or not, he actually found one.
Because the latrine was surrounded by a fence made of small wooden sticks, in the form of a makeshift hedge.
Overjoyed, Mist quickly pulled out a stick to use as a retrieval tool, actually laying beside the latrine, enduring the nauseating stench, attempting to rescue the lighter from that unspeakable pit.
But the stick was too small, and the pit too large.
Fishing around, he caught nothing but so indescribable stuff.
Thump, thump, thump—
The door of the latrine was heavily knocked a few tis.
The simple hedge door seed to be on the verge of collapsing.
Mist heard soone shouting outside, but couldn't make out what was being said.
However, the tone seed to be hurrying him to co out quickly.
Caught between the lifesaving lighter and the urging from outside, Mist felt like an ant tossed into a hot frying pan.
When the knocking on the door continued for the second ti and Mist's stick was still coming up empty, he furiously threw the stick away and stood up with a roar.
"OK! OK! I'm coming out! What the hell is there to rush!"
In the end, he could only clean himself up, pull up his pants, and walk out the door with an angry face.
When he got back to the warehouse, the car was already waiting.
Hula told Song Heping that they were not far from Neibastai, but for safety, they had to change vehicles.
The new car was an old Volkswagen van, or what is commonly called a "bread van", but it was very old. The rear half had been sawn off to create a cargo area, which was covered with a tarp.
Everyone got on the vehicle, and Song Heping saw two rows of homade seats on either side of the van.
Hula didn't sit with them, instead taking a seat next to the driver.
As soon as Mist boarded, he quietly told Song Heping that he had lost the tracker.
Song Heping was shocked.
After the vehicle switch, the drones might not be able to recognize this car.
If the tracker was lost, it ant that he and Mist had lost the last line of communication with the ISA headquarters in Kandahar.
Suddenly, the situation beca complicated, and a grave scenario was once again laid out before Song Heping.
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