Jack drove one car, with JJ in the passenger seat, holding her rifle for security. The other car was driven by Captain Torrance, with Gaspare, who had gained everyone's trust and was ard with an AK, in the passenger seat. Although the two pickup trucks looked a bit dilapidated, they were quite sturdy and durable. The passengers squeezed themselves into the back of the trucks.
Anyway, after the previous arduous jungle trek, so no one bothered to complain.
Coupled with having just witnessed a tragedy and the subsequent brief but bloody firefight, the passengers, including the three flight attendants, were all sowhat unsettled, and no one had the extra energy to think about anything else.
Looking in the rearview mirror at everyone helping each other get into the truck, with several n even offering slightly more comfortable seats to the won and hanging halfway off the side of the truck, Jack and JJ couldn't help but smile at each other.
This is the correct way to use leadership. Having personally experienced the imminent threat and witnessed the leader's abilities, no one would dare to consider leaving the group or challenge the leader's authority in the short term.
This can be considered a fairly successful case of psychology. Of course, the tragic fate of the Chingchong couple and the bald white man was sothing neither of them had anticipated.
Jack returned to the starting point with Gaspare, intending to rescue them if possible. After all, the idiots didn't deserve to die, and if they were betrayed, he had plenty of ways to kill them.
Unfortunately, these three were incredibly unlucky. No one expected such a large group of ard n with heavy machine guns.
It was just past noon, and under the blazing sun, two pickup trucks, one after the other, followed the dense tire tracks on the dirt road, heading due east, directly in the opposite direction from where the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas had left.
Luck aside, the pilot was absolutely competent. Even in the dire straits of an ergency landing, he was able to consciously observe his surroundings and spot the abandoned mine in the distance.
But now their luck has co to an end. The abandoned mine was at least twenty kiloters away as the crow flies from the landing site.
Moreover, to avoid revealing their location and to prevent alerting the mine's guards, they couldn't drive directly into the mine.
After driving along the bumpy dirt road for half an hour, everyone got out of the trucks. Jack and Gaspare continued driving for another ten minutes before hiding the two pickup trucks in the roadside bushes, then returned the way they ca.
This was no futile effort. The Abu Sayyaf group had captured only two hostages from a plane full of foreign passengers, and they certainly wouldn't give up so easily.
Although the bald old white man's confession had misled their search, by tomorrow at the latest, the four missing militants would make them realize what was happening, and the entire island would likely be swarming with locals searching for these foreigners.
Artificial cover-ups couldn't completely erase the traces left by a dozen or so people in the jungle, but Jack's knowledge taught him that these tropical rainforests in here have a downpour almost every day around 1 or 2 pm.
So he urged everyone to quickly disappear into the jungle, hoping the ensuing downpour would sowhat conceal their movents.
Thanks to the rain, the abandoned mine was in sight, and the anticipated downpour arrived as expected.
Although everyone was soaked to the bone, watching their footprints disappear into the raindrops behind them brought a sense of security and increased their admiration for the brave and intelligent Officer Jack.
The heavy rain provided excellent cover; the pounding of the large raindrops prevented even gunshots from traveling far.
Jack and Gaspare planned to raid the abandoned mine before the rain stopped, eliminating any potential enemies. This ti, Captain Torrance volunteered to join, leaving only JJ with her pistol and another young man to protect everyone.
The mine was quite large, but it had a separate work area: a four-story building surrounded by a three-ter-high barbed wire fence, which looked like a staff dormitory that also served as an office.
The thug nad Lonnu was right; the place appeared to have been abandoned recently. Although most of the barbed wire fence was rusted, it was largely intact, with only a few breaches.
Jack even found a makeshift trap in one of the breaches, with a spring-loaded buzzer connected to it by a transparent fishing line.
"Try not to make any noise, and don't shoot unless absolutely necessary. We don't know if that bastard lied about the number of guards."
Gaspare's stealth talent made him the obvious choice to be the lead scout; Jack almost couldn't keep up with him, let alone the middle-aged, overweight Captain Torrance.
[A/n: I don't know what to say, so except for precise shooting an muscle power, MC is a waste at anything useful, right?]
Seeing him turn back to give instructions, Jack and Captain Torrance nodded. By this ti, they had passed through the hole in the barbed wire fence and arrived at the entrance of the small building.
The door was long gone, the concrete walls were riddled with bullet holes, and several shell casings covered in verdigris lay in the corner. The windows on the first and second floors were almost all shattered; only a few rooms on the third and fourth floors remained intact.
The three quickly searched the first floor, which had been thoroughly ransacked. Apart from a diesel generator found in a room with its windows boarded up with wooden strips, all that was left were so rusty shelves.
They cautiously climbed the stairs to the second floor, only to find a stench of urine and nothing of value.
They continued to the stairwell leading to the third floor when suddenly a series of babbling conversations ca from upstairs.
Gaspare imdiately stopped, gesturing to the two behind him. Jack darted away, pulling Captain Torrance into a room on the side of the corridor.
The voices grew louder, accompanied by heavy breathing. Jack remained motionless, watching Gaspare, who had also disappeared into a room across the corridor. Gaspare quickly peeked out and held up three fingers.
'Three enemies?' Jack understood. He drew his captured machete from his waist, and then Gaspare's three fingers suddenly bent.
Jack was confused.
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