"Clear~"
"Clear~"
"Clear~"
...
Reports came in one after another from various directions—the area was fully secured.
"Cowboy~" Swagg pressed the PTT on his shoulder, and his exasperated voice echoed through the team's headsets.
Owen looked up toward the slope and saw their previously cooperative guide, now darting away like a rabbit, kicking up mud as he sprinted at full speed.
Owen rolled his eyes. Originally, Herman was supposed to be Bayev's responsibility, but due to a manpower shortage, Bayev had to join the assault. The job of guarding Herman had been temporarily handed off to the snipers on the slope.
Swagg and Fred hadn't worried much about Herman pulling anything. The guy was unarmed and couldn't cause much trouble. But to their surprise, he had seized the moment perfectly—taking off the instant their rifles opened fire.
Of course, the sniper team had noticed him running, but their top priority was neutralizing the targets. Besides, even if they gave him a full minute, he still wouldn't be out of their range, so they let him go for the moment.
Owen casually fired two shots. The 7.62mm rounds from his AK-12 cleanly shot off Herman's hat, but left him completely unharmed. Herman froze, rooted to the spot, not daring to move.
He was only about a hundred meters away. At that distance, Owen might not be able to call left eye over right eye, but if he said he'd shoot your left arm and not your right, he could definitely do it.
Sweat beaded on Herman's face like pearls. He fully understood that the two shots were purely a warning. If they had wanted him dead, it would've been done already.
Trembling, he turned around and looked toward Owen, who gestured. "Come back~~~"
Herman felt like he had just been pardoned by God himself and hurriedly trotted back, kicking himself the whole way for being so stupid.
The others laughed out loud without holding back, flustering Herman to no end.
A series of explosions rang out from the jamming vehicles. Omega's operatives were using grenades and other means to destroy the vehicles' circuit boxes. These systems were centered around the electronics and high-power transmitters—once those were destroyed, there was no quick fix.
"If you try that again, you know what'll happen..."
Owen said coolly. Herman quickly nodded, swearing never to pull another stunt. He hadn't grasped just how dangerous these people were the first time, when his eyes had been closed. But this time, he'd seen it all as he ran, sneaking peeks over his shoulder.
Despite being a surprise assault, the entire enemy position had been silently wiped out by just a few of them. Not a single alarm had been raised—it was unbelievable.
And those two snipers? Fine, maybe it made sense they were good. But the team leader's shooting was just as terrifying. When Herman recalled the bullet that had knocked off his hat, he felt a chill at the crown of his head.
This time, Bayev didn't hold back—he bound Herman's hands. If it weren't for the fact that the guy was still useful, Bayev might have already suggested Owen just finish him. As a seasoned survivor of countless battlefields, Bayev wasn't in the business of mercy.
…
Elsewhere, Chris was running for his life. Mike was dead. He was being hunted. He couldn't reach carrier command. It felt like the sky was falling. Exhausted, and with hope fading fast, Chris kept pushing himself. He was almost out of strength, and despair gnawed at him with every step.
Less than 150 meters behind him, more than twenty Serbian militia were chasing relentlessly. Once they picked up his trail, they had stayed on it like wolves—vicious and cunning.
Bullets occasionally whizzed past him, kicking up dirt nearby. Chris knew they weren't trying to kill him yet. If they had wanted that, they'd have done it by now. They wanted him alive.
He turned into a dense forest—his chance. Visibility inside was poor. If he moved quickly enough, he might be able to shake them.
But the ideal didn't match the reality. The forest floor was layered with soft leaves and loose dirt. Chris kept sinking in, struggling each time to free his foot. Instead of gaining ground, he was actually losing it.
Emerging from the forest, he summoned every last bit of strength and sprinted. However far he could run now was entirely up to divine intervention. He had nothing left. Just as the thought of giving up entered his mind, the ground beneath him vanished.
He fell straight into a deep pit—about two meters down. Luckily, he landed on something soft and wasn't injured, though his head was spinning.
When his vision cleared, Chris realized he was lying in a corpse pit. Bodies were strewn everywhere, mixed with mud and fluids, the stench overwhelming.
Covering his nose, he started to rise—then heard footsteps above. Panicked, he immediately dropped back down and rolled one of the bigger corpses over himself as a cover.
Just as he finished positioning the body, the footsteps reached the pit's edge. The Serbian soldiers were holding their noses as they approached. This was the site of a massacre from a week ago. The cold had slowed decomposition, but the stench was still unbearable.
The squad leader suspected the pilot was hiding among the corpses. When his men's search came up empty, he grew impatient and ordered them to jump in and look. Reluctantly, gagging from the smell, they obeyed.
"*%￥&..."
The Serbian commander, convinced the pilot was here, grew agitated as the search dragged on.
"RATATATATAT~~~"
He opened fire on the pit with his rifle, pausing between bursts—trying to scare the pilot into revealing himself. But nothing moved.
"RATATATATAT~~~"
He fired again. Bullets tore into the bodies, sending bits of mud flying, but no response. Maybe the pilot really wasn't here.
After a prolonged and fruitless search—both through shooting and digging—the Serbs still hadn't found their man. The commander scanned the area in other directions, uncertain if they'd missed him or if he was never here.
Eventually, he shouted an order, waved his hand, and his troops climbed out. They set off in a new direction.
Silence returned to the scene. Deathly quiet. Crows cawed in the trees. The air was heavy and strange, filled with a chilling stillness.
About ten minutes later, a rustling noise came from the pit. A figure stirred beneath the mound of corpses—it was Chris.
He slowly pushed the body off, sat up, and gasped for breath. Covered in filth, he panted heavily while muttering to himself: "Good thing I grew up watching Hollywood movies... they really thought that trick would fool me..."
______
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