Just as the footsteps were getting closer, and Song Heping even felt the guy above had already bumped into the plants by the water and saw the branches hanging over the cave entrance shaking, suddenly soone called out to the team mber who was very close to the target.
Hearing the call, the team mber turned around and left, no longer investigating the few odd rocks beneath his feet.
Half an hour later, Song Heping and Morins in the cave finally confird their safety.
"God bless."
Morins made the sign of the cross on his chest.
"That guy almost found us just now."
Song Heping took out individual rations from his tactical vest, which he had scavenged from a body.
The biggest benefit of having killed a few AGLAN team mbers was not the firearms and night vision goggles, but the food.
You must know that searching for food while being pursued in the jungle is a very dangerous thing.
Song Heping didn't plan to leave the water cave before nightfall.
"Eat sothing, you'll get colder if you don't."
He reminded Morins, whose face was already turning pale and lips were turning white from the cold.
"Hopefully, we'll find a signal on the mountain tonight. We just need a little bit of a signal to send a ssage out."
...
Colonel Jas was furious.
In the large tent of the frontline command post, he paced back and forth like a donkey about to explode, as if it would help lower his rising brain pressure.
This morning, after engaging the targets and losing seven AGLAN team mbers, the two important targets vanished again.
This made the previous boasts he had made in front of Lieutenant Colonel Freddie now seem like an outright joke.
The mont he received the news of the exchange of fire, Colonel Jas imdiately dispatched four jungle war experts leading the search teams to the vicinity of the river.
He even marked it on the map, arranged blocking positions and search routes, simulated the direction the other party would want to escape, and had his n block and search the area from different directions.
By the afternoon, the news from the front line was disappointing.
Nothing.
They didn't find anything.
And the heavy rain was the most damning thing.
Those raindrops, dense like bullets, had wiped away all traces left by those damn targets.
This also resulted in his jungle warfare experts being unable to effectively track the hiding places of their quarry.
By two o'clock in the afternoon, Colonel Jas couldn't sit still any longer. He boarded a helicopter and personally flew over the suspicious area he was responsible for, scouting through the jungle with an infrared heat scanner.
Other than the governnt army's search teams, he found no pleasant surprises.
Gone?
He found it incredible.
He could only assu that the search efforts were still insufficient.
"Freddie, I just went to the scene!"
After coming back from the firefight area, Colonel Jas imdiately called Freddie over.
"Those two sly bastards are hiding, and even with heat scanning mode, we can't find them. I reckon they've gone into a cave. What are your people doing? It's just a small area of jungle, we've surrounded it for nearly three days, and we still can't find them?"
The implication was that his n were not at fault, but yours were disgracefully inadequate.
Freddie did not argue with Colonel Jas's complaints but helplessly spread his hands and said, "Colonel, this is the jungle, full of caves, and even if there aren't any, they could dig one and hide. My n have done their best."
Colonel Jas said angrily, "If it hadn't rained so hard, I would've started a fire. I would set a fire if that's what it takes to flush them out!"
Freddie was at a loss for words.
He thought Colonel Jas had gone mad.
To catch two militants, he was actually considering setting the jungle on fire.
Once a blaze started here, it wouldn't stop burning for half a year, and it would definitely make headlines around the world.
By then, forgetting about whether or not it would burn the villagers around the jungle, even if it killed those animals, environntal organizations would probably jump around protesting in front of the Presidential Palace, cursing, and throwing stones.
"Freddie, we can't wait any longer."
After staring at the map for a full five minutes, Colonel Jas made up his mind.
"We need to put more n in that area, making sure to dig three feet into the ground if necessary to find them!"
"But, all my n have been dispatched, they are currently in the jungle." Freddie said, "If we need to mobilize other Special Forces, it'll take so ti."
"Isn't there an Army brigade on the outer blockade?"
Colonel Jas still focused on the map without shifting his gaze.
"Get them all over here, mobilize all the helicopters, drop them into that area, get the ground troops moving in, air and ground working together. I refuse to believe they're like rats that can hide underground; even if they are, I want you to dig them out!"
...
"Why are there so many helicopters tonight?"
In the jungle near Ta City, Morins lay in the grass, watching the helicopters fly over the night sky like big birds, with a bad feeling in his heart.
He looked at Song Heping next to him, who was also staring into the sky.
"We don't have much ti left..." said Song Heping.
Morins asked, "What do you an?"
Song Heping replied, "They are mobilizing troops. I estimate that as soon as they are in position, they will start a second major search. If the situation doesn't change, it will be very hard for us to avoid being caught. I've calculated that almost every ten minutes there's a helicopter passing overhead. Based on this rate, there must be at least a battalion deployed around here."
Morins felt a chill run through his body and shivered involuntarily, "Then what do we do?"
Song Heping said, "What do we do? What else can we do? Don't you believe in God? Why don't you pray to him now and see if he can help you?"
Morins said, "Why do you seem not to be worried at all?"
Song Heping replied with a sneer, "Worrying would already be my top priority if it helped. The problem is that worrying doesn't help. We have an old saying in our country, 'Life and death are determined by fate, wealth and honor are decreed by heaven.'"
He turned to Morins, "Whether it's you or , why fear death when we've chosen this path? At worst, we die, that's all."
Morins fell silent for a mont. He couldn't refute Song Heping's words but still couldn't help asking, "Don't you have any family?"
Song Heping said, "Yes, I have a younger brother and sister, but they're both adults. I started saving a large sum of money for them as soon as I got into PMC, so if I die, they won't suffer."
He then asked, "What about you?"
Speaking of family, Morins's face began to blur.
It took a long while before he said, "Dead. All killed in the governnt army's encirclent."
Song Heping was slightly startled; he seed to understand why those ard organizations and the governnt army fought to the death.
He didn't want to try to persuade them.
"Don't talk of kindness to others without having walked in their shoes."
"Morins, in our tradition, you are what's known as a 'lone doom star.'"
"Lone doom star?" Morins asked, "What does that an?"
Song Heping said, "It ans you have an extrely tough fate, everyone around you dies, but you just don't. So, I think you won't die this ti either."
Morins suddenly laughed, "Then aren't you afraid?"
Song Heping shook his head, "I have an even tougher fate than you."
The last helicopter swept across the sky, and Song Heping looked at his watch—the ti had already reached nine o'clock.
"There's one more kiloter of mountain road to go, we aim to climb that mountain by eleven at the latest."
He glanced at Morins, "I hope we both are tough fated and won't die, but if there's no signal when we reach the top, we might have to make a hard push."
Feeling spirited, Morins nodded, "Let's push through! I refuse to believe that after all these years, after so many encirclents I have survived, I would die on this mountain tonight."
Fortunately, they had acquired night vision devices from a few AGLAN team mbers in the morning, which were now fully proving their worth.
The nightti walk was relatively smooth, but barely a kiloter out, Song Heping suddenly pulled Morins behind a tree to take cover.
"There's soone ahead."
"Where?!" Morins looked around but saw nothing.
"10 o'clock position, about 200 ters."
Crouching behind the tree, Morins cautiously peeked out his head.
"Stop looking, be careful not to get spotted yourself."
After thinking it over, Song Heping said, "We're running out of ti. Circling around them will only waste more ti, we have to take them out."
"Let them go?" Morins said, "Firing our guns will definitely alert the others."
Song Heping said, "Then we'll have to move stealthily. You keep watch here, and I'll be right back."
After checking the silencers on his assault rifle and pistol, he told Morins, "Old rules, if you hear a bird call, move towards ."
"Okay..."
Morins was about to remind him to "be careful," when Song Heping had already vanished into the depths of the jungle.
At this mont, 200 ters away from Morins, a small governnt army squad was leisurely searching ahead along their predetermined route.
"Damn Aricans! Making us climb mountains late at night, are they crazy?!"
"Be careful where you step, there are snakes out at night..."
"Curse those Aricans, I don't know what's wrong with AGLAN's commander, just doing whatever the Aricans say..."
"They are the Green Berets, people from the Arican Special Forces. By the way, should we slow down? Let's not push too far ahead... I heard a whole AGLAN squad of seven n died this morning."
"All dead?! Weren't there just two of them? Since when is ELN so powerful?"
"I heard it's not that ELN is powerful; it's soone else, an arms dealer who ca to sell weapons and got trapped..."
"Sergeant, let's slow down, let's not stick our necks out too much..."
"Alright, let's go slower, and make sure to keep up, don't get lost..."
As they continued to grumble and chat along the way, a dark shadow suddenly appeared behind the soldier who was covering the rear.
The soldier felt a strange presence at his back as if sothing was there...
He was startled and quickly turned to see if it was so kind of wild animal.
Before he could turn around, a large hand reached around from behind his neck, clamping over his mouth.
Before he could call out or struggle, a sharp survival knife savagely slit from the left to the right of his throat.
The knife cut through his blood vessels and windpipe in one swift move.
In his panic, the soldier forgot to reach for his gun and instinctively raised his hands, grabbing the iron-hard hand, trying futilely to pry it open...
So ti passed.
"Huh?"
The squad leader walking second in the line thought he heard a strange rustling sound from behind, like the scraping of plants when an animal drags sothing.
He turned around, aiming his gun behind him.
"Bilal!"
He called out the na of the soldier behind him.
The squad was stretched out in a single-file line with a 5-ter gap between each man; Bilal was right behind him.
Normally, he should have been visible with just a turn.
But now, there was no one in sight.
Not only was Bilal missing, but so was the man behind Bilal.
A squad of five n.
They had been chatting just monts ago, and now, in the blink of an eye, there was no one behind?
Tat-tat-tat—
Suddenly, gunshots sounded from behind.
These weren't the usual gunshots they heard; it was clear they were fired from a pistol fitted with a silencer.
The sergeant's hair stood on end, and his scalp tingled in an instant.
He whirled around just in ti to see the vanguard, who had been walking in front, fall to the ground.
Tat-tat—
Before he could raise his gun, two bullet holes appeared on his forehead.
The sound of his skull shattering was eerie in the night.
The sergeant fell stiffly.
A dark figure slowly approached, letting out a soft "huh" before squatting down to check the bodies.
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