Mercenaries, I Will Be King Chapter 871 - 809: "Grim Reaper" Falls

Lieutenant Mitchell's finger hovered less than a centiter above the launch button, cold sweat sliding down his temples.

The red warning box on the screen flashed frantically, piercing alarms filled the control room.

"Locked! Locked! Locked!"

"Evade! Evade imdiately!"

He shouted frantically, but the order ca too late.

The SAM-6 missile tore through the air with its deadly tail fla, rushing towards the "Grim Reaper" in the sky at a speed of 2.8 Mach.

"Release counterasures!"

Mitchell roared as he slamd the electronic counterasure button.

On the screen, the MQ-9 "Grim Reaper" drone quickly dispensed a stream of magnesium flare decoy rounds, exploding dozens of brilliant sparks in the night sky.

But it was all too late.

To achieve a better attack effect, the drone had already dropped to a mid-low altitude of 3000 ters, the distance between the two sides was too close.

The radar guidance head of the SAM-6 remained unfazed—it had already locked onto the target's thermal signal characteristics.

The most fatal issue was that the drone was flying towards the direction from which the missile was launched—Song Heping had already estimated the general trajectory of the drone during the attack, deploying the air defense positions on the route it must take, truly a waiting ga.

Now the rabbit has co, and escape is simply impossible.

Boom—

The first missile exploded less than twenty ters away from "Vendetta One."

Preford fragnts ford a thirty-ter death net, instantly shredding the drone's right wing into pieces.

The fuselage fiercely flipped and plunged towards the desert; the last footage from the cara showed the rapidly spinning stars and ground.

"One hit! One hit!" Technician Thom's voice changed, "Signal connection lost!"

Mitchell's fingers danced over the keyboard, trying to control the remaining "Vendetta Two" to ascend and retreat.

But the second SAM-6 had already launched from the sa site.

This ti, the missile fragnt directly hit the fuselage center, blowing the $30 million MQ-9 into a fireball.

The control room fell into dead silence.

Eight screens simultaneously flashed with the red words "Signal lost."

Mitchell slowly took off his headset, his shirt back drenched.

Fifteen minutes ago, they were discussing where to grab a drink after completing the mission.

"Contact Langley."

His voice was as dry as desert wind: "Tell them... we completely ssed up, the other side was well-prepared..."

On the sand of Atlon Oasis, Song Heping put down the binoculars, a cold smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

He turned to look at Jiang Feng beside him, who was holding a military tablet receiving data uploaded from various air defense observation points.

"Two MQ-9s, confird downed." Jiang Feng's voice carried a restrained excitent, "Radar shows that the reconnaissance UAV has turned to escape, should we also shoot it down?"

"Let it run, that sucker is too high, hard to hit, don't waste the missile."

Song Heping nodded with a laugh, pulling out the satellite phone from his tactical vest.

He pressed the preset number, that was the Northern Sudan Governnt's Ministry of Defense phone number.

The call was connected almost instantly.

"This is Song Heping." He said fluently in Arabic, "Tell your Defense Minister, the ga has started."

Hanging up the phone, Song Heping raised his middle finger to the sky.

He knew that although the reconnaissance UAV at high altitude was retreating, it was definitely still filming the ground situation, including assessing the aftermath of the two attack "Grim Reaper" UAVs crashing, to be sent back to the headquarters for damage assessnt.

After the call, Song Heping picked up the walkie-talkie, starting to call his missile commander.

"Alz, you guys need to stay on position a bit longer, the combat alert can't be lifted temporarily, I'll have soone send over food and water, so eat well."

"Received, Boss!"

Alz's voice sounded utterly ecstatic.

He probably hit a major U.S. military drone for the first ti in his life.

Just this ti, enough for him to brag for a lifeti.

"Boss, I did well, didn't I?"

The guy took the chance to claim credit.

Song Heping quickly gave him huge satisfaction: "Good, well done, Alz, your personal reward is $300,000, my personal additional reward. Work hard, in the future I'll expand for you to a battalion, even a regint, make you the regint commander."

"Thank you, Boss! Thank you, Boss!"

Alz almost got too excited to speak.

Since retiring, his financial situation had been dire.

Special forces or army retirees in Africa at least could go mix as rcenaries, and the pay was decent.

He specialized in missiles, hardly any rcenary group had sothing like this for him to handle.

When his comrades recruited him for Song Heping's missile specialist command officer, Alz didn't even ask about the salary, he packed up and swiftly reported here.

Unexpectedly, the salary wasn't just not low, it was high, very high!

Extrely, extrely high!

$300,000 individual reward, plus $2 million in group commission...

Sweet!

From an impoverished African ex-retired officer straight into the wealthy class.

Now, even if Song Heping told him to rush up and block a gun hole, the guy wouldn't even blink.

"Boss, the video has been edited."

A subordinate crawled out from the tent and handed over an encrypted hard drive.

"Included is the full radar recording of the UAV invasion of the airspace and infrared footage of the missile strike."

Song Heping took the hard drive and weighed it in his hand.

This small tal block holds a bomb that could shock Washington.

"No photos of the UAV wreckage yet?"

"Not yet."

"Go, take photos of the wreckage of the two crashed UAVs. Rember, I want details—the badges, markings on the wreckage, and the numbers and features on the circuit components inside. Take clear shots."

"Yes, I'll do it right away!"

After the subordinate left, Song Heping summoned Henry.

"Henry, after he completes the task, send the information to Al Jazeera, BBC, and all mainstream dia. Also, post it on the Dark Web and the Internet."

He commanded.

"As for the headline... it has to be catchy... Let's use 'US Army UAV illegally invades Sudan airspace and gets shot down.'

"Going this big?"

Henry's eyebrow twitched.

"We're already at the betting table, do we really have a choice? Play big; now surrendering isn't even an option."

"OK!" Henry nodded, "I'll handle it."

Jiang Feng ca over and handed Song Heping a cup of coffee, "Pence should have received the bad news by now."

Song Heping sipped the bitter liquid and looked to the northern sky.

The sunset had settled at the horizon, casting a golden hue over the desert and oasis scenery.

Be it the charming scenery or sothing else, Song Heping found everything very beautiful, inexplicably comfortable.

"This is just the beginning," he said softly, "I'm not aiming to just shoot down a few UAVs, but to make the entire CIA pay for their arrogance."

Washington D.C.

CIA Deputy Director Pence stood before the electronic map in the White House Situation Room, feeling his stomach slowly turning to ice.

The National Security Advisor, Ellis, had just hung up from a call with the Pentagon, his expression so dark it seed like water could drip off it.

Beside him was Director Vincent, with a constipated look—he had arrived earlier than Pence and already faced a scolding.

"Two MQ-9 UAVs, carrying Hellfire missiles, entered sovereign airspace without authorization."

Ellis said word by word, as if sentencing soone, each word hitting Pence like a slap to the face.

"And they were shot down by the other side using Soviet-era anti-aircraft missiles. The President wants to know, Director Vincent, Deputy Director Pence, whose bloody idea was this? Can you tell !"

Ellis's expression was ferocious.

Pence's temples throbbed.

He glanced at the clock on the wall—it had only been five hours since the UAVs were shot down, and the video released by Song Heping was already a storm on social dia.

Al Jazeera was looping footage of the missile launch, subtitled in three languages with "US Army invasion of Sudan sovereignty."

"This was a precision strike against a high-risk terrorist target."

Pence chose his words carefully.

"The target, Song Heping, is linked to multiple attacks on US interests and is on our KB key figure list. Recently we obtained his coordinates, and thus planned this operation for a decapitation strike, but before the operation, we sought detailed legal advice from the Justice Departnt—"

"Bullshit!"

Ellis exploded like a cat with its tail stepped on, slamming the table and shouting, "The Attorney General just inford he never provided any legal reference docunts regarding strikes within Sudan! The President was supposed to have breakfast with the UN Secretary-General this morning, how do we now explain the presence of US UAVs in an African nation's airspace?"

The Situation Room door opened, and the President's Chief of Staff, Jackson, walked in briskly, holding a tablet.

"The Sudan Foreign Ministry just held a press conference."

His voice tense, as if a piece of iron was stuck in his throat.

"They presented radar record evidence of US UAVs invading their airspace multiple tis within ten days and demanded an ergency UN eting to discuss the incident."

Pence felt a wave of dizziness.

He realized he had fallen into a ticulously designed trap—Song Heping had intentionally shown signs of leaving the camp to lure them into a hasty action.

Those regular daily routines, the training scenes deliberately presented to satellites, were all performances.

"I need a face-to-face explanation with the President."

Pence rubbed his palm sweat-soaked and made a final struggle.

Ellis gave a cold laugh, "The President said he doesn't want to see you until he's ready for a press conference. Now, tell , were there any traceable US identifiers on those UAVs?"

Pence swallowed, "According to standard procedures... we remove all identification markers."

"So it's a black op," Ellis concluded, "Unauthorized, deniable, yet caught in the act. Mr. Vincent, you know what happens next."

Pence certainly knew.

Whenever such black ops cause international conflict, soone has to take the fall.

And this ti, it's his turn.

"I'll prepare my resignation letter," he said softly.

Ellis shook his head, "The President wants more than just a resignation. He wants a complete overhaul of the Special Operations Departnt from top to bottom. By noon tomorrow, deliver a list of all personnel involved in this operation to my office."

As Pence walked out of the West Wing of the White House, the eastern sky was just turning a pale white.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Jasper's number.

"Purge all files related to 'Blood Vengeance,'" he said briefly, "We've been terminated."