140: Chapter 140 The Cairo Uprising! A Journey of No Return!

The adjutant's muscles were twitching all over. He practically stumbled to General Mubarak's side and whispered urgently into his ear in a voice so terrified it was out of tune.

The color instantly drained from General Mubarak's face, his calm and leisurely demeanor shattered by a fierce, murderous aura.

"What?!"

He pushed the table aside and stood up, making such a commotion that several surrounding delegations cast surprised glances his way.

"Communications in Cairo have been completely cut off?" Mubarak gripped the adjutant's collar tightly, his voice suppressed into a low roar. "The Ministry of Defense, the Presidential Palace, the National Television Station... none of the phones are getting through?"

"Yes... yes, General..." The adjutant's voice shook uncontrollably, tinged with a sob. "We... we contacted an intelligence station outside Cairo via Starlink. They said... said something seems to have happened in the city. Gunfire can be heard... troops are... are in a firefight..."

Mubarak's body swayed violently, and he was only kept from collapsing on the spot by his aides.

At this point in time, with the African Union Summit in session and almost the entire national leadership away, communication was suddenly cut off in the capital and a firefight had broken out.

There was only one answer.

A coup!

Someone had launched a coup while he was out of the country!

"Who is it? Who did this?" Mubarak's eyes were bloodshot. He stared at the adjutant as if he wanted to wring his neck right then and there.

"I... I don't know..."

Just then, Lin Zhou's phone vibrated slightly.

It was an encrypted message from He Jun, consisting of only two words.

"It's started."

Lin Zhou looked up, his gaze passing over the crowd toward the Egyptian delegation not far away, which was already in a state of chaos.

He saw General Mubarak quickly regain his composure as a military strongman after his brief loss of control. He began to shout orders to his subordinates.

"Immediately! Contact the airport! Prepare the private jet; we're returning home right now!"

"Notify all embassies and consulates abroad! Announce that a rebellion has occurred in Cairo and demand that no government recognize any illegal regime!"

"Get me through to..." He stopped mid-sentence, his facial muscles twitching as his expression became increasingly grim.

He wanted to contact the commanders of the units he trusted most back home, but he quickly realized that with conventional communications cut, he couldn't reach anyone at all.

Right now, he was a commander without an army.

"Go! To the airport!" Mubarak no longer hesitated. Leading his entourage, he didn't even have time to say goodbye to the Chairman of the African Union before hurrying out of the venue.

The entire delegation was shrouded in an atmosphere of panic and confusion.

Lin Zhou sat in his place, picked up the coffee on the table, and took a small sip.

He knew that for Mubarak, this departure would be a journey of no return.

Since Hassan, Fattah, and the others dared to act, they would never leave Mubarak any chance for a comeback.

That so-called "private jet" was nothing more than an aerial coffin meticulously prepared for him.

The Egyptian delegation's sudden departure caused a minor stir in the venue.

Soon, rumors of another coup in Egypt began to circulate throughout the hall.

However, the summit quickly returned to its normal order.

For these African leaders who were used to political storms, the internal turmoil of a member state was no longer anything new.

The sun would rise as usual, and the meeting would continue.

Cairo had already become a city shrouded in the flames of war.

Colonel Fattah, the "mad dog" personally promoted by General Mubarak, was now commanding the elite force he had honed with blood and failure in Bir Tawil to launch fierce attacks on various vital departments within Cairo.

The offensive was not smooth, however. In front of the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Defense building, they encountered the most stubborn resistance from the garrison troops. Soldiers loyal to Mubarak relied on sturdy buildings and pre-set defensive fortifications, using a dense net of fire to block every intersection.

Fattah's troops tried to use tanks as mobile fortresses to force their way forward, but they soon paid a price.

In the narrow city streets, the lumbering tanks became perfect targets for anti-tank missiles and RPGs.

Accompanied by two explosions, the two lead T-72 tanks were hit by rockets fired from flanking buildings. They were disabled on the road and burst into flames, instead blocking the path for the following troops.

The determination of the garrison's resistance exceeded the attackers' expectations.

But all of this was within Fattah's contingency plan. He watched the battlefield expressionlessly through real-time footage sent back by drones.

"Switch to the 'Demolition' plan," he issued a concise order into the communicator. "Give up the direct assault and utilize our firepower advantage."

This was a brutal tactic they had learned during the exercises in Bir Tawil. When facing a fortified position, do not engage in a pointless war of attrition in the streets; instead, simply erase it physically.

With the order given, the attacking force's tactics changed abruptly. The infantry and surviving armored vehicles quickly retreated, breaking direct contact with the defenders.

The next moment, the large-caliber mortars and self-propelled artillery deployed in the rear roared. Shells rained down densely, no longer aimed at suppressing personnel but directly targeting the key buildings held by the garrison.

Violent explosions echoed one after another as the reinforced concrete buildings shook and cracked under the heavy bombardment. Fattah's troops displayed a terrifying firepower advantage, performing a direct "forced demolition," destroying every building serving as a fortress of resistance one by one.

In the face of absolute firepower, the sturdy defensive fortifications became tombs for the resistors. As a key flanking building collapsed in a cloud of dust, the defenders' line and will crumbled with it, and the remaining resistance was completely buried under the ruins.

Though the offensive had its setbacks, the final result was even more thorough.

Personnel planted by the opposition within the military and police systems defected at the critical moment, opening the gates for the attacking forces.

In other major Egyptian cities, the situation was even clearer.

In many places, the change of regime occurred without any bloodshed. Once the core commanders were controlled, the soldiers below chose to surrender almost without a fight.

The network that Hassan's opposition organization had built within all sectors of Egyptian society for years displayed a chilling power at this moment.

As the afternoon session of the African Union Summit concluded, a dull explosion echoed in the skies over Addis Ababa.

A passenger plane that had been airborne for less than ten minutes exploded in mid-air in full view of the public, turning into a ball of fire that trailed black smoke as it plunged toward the distant mountains.

News soon arrived.

The crashed aircraft was the private jet carrying the Egyptian delegation.

There were no survivors.