485: Chapter 485 Stepping Over Her

The mercenary with the Scottish accent flipped his cigarette case over to lick the tobacco inside; the tobacco was wet and tasted like mud when chewed.

"Barrett said—"

"What did Barrett say?" He threw the cigarette case into the muddy water. "When was the last time he contacted us? Twenty-four hours ago? He said 'strategic withdrawal,' but to where? We've been squatting in the mud for three days, while Barrett is drinking whiskey in Manhattan."

No one replied. The only sound in the foxhole was the dripping of muddy water.

Shafiq curled up in the corner of the foxhole. During the ambush on the western slope of Mount Kinabalu three days ago, Lin Yaxing's blade had missed by three centimeters when it came down—Lin Xiao-7 had deflected the hilt with the back of her hand at the last moment and said one word: "Alive."

The blade had sliced diagonally from his collarbone to his sternum; no bones were broken, but the wound had festered in the hot, humid swamp. He had wrapped the wound in torn field bandages that hadn't been changed in three days; the pus and blood had stuck the fabric to his flesh, and every breath pulled at it with pain.

Rainwater flowed down from the edge of the pit and trickled down his neck into his collar.

He had only three javelin missiles left, and the spare batteries had been soaked into scrap metal in the standing water of the trench.

He knew the outcome once his ammunition ran out: either death right here or being captured alive.

He recalled the last telegram sent by Black before he was killed—the Major who, after smashing his satellite phone in a cave and attempting to break through on foot to the coastline, had run less than two hundred meters under the sniper scope of Lin Xiao-4.

The telegram was only half-sent: "They're not soldiers. They're—"

The signal cut off.

Even now, Shafiq didn't know what the rest of Black's sentence was. He didn't understand that these people were neither soldiers nor Death Soldiers, didn't understand why the fallen team members had shotgun pellet wounds, and didn't understand why there were machetes wrapped in black tape among the captured weapons.

Before he was captured, his subordinate had told him— "Those people aren't all soldiers. There's an old man, wearing a white shirt, holding a machete." He hadn't believed it. Not until he personally dug hunting guns and harpoons out of the captured weapon crates.

He only knew that the pursuers didn't have more guns than his team, but every bullet was aimed at the head. The fallen mercenaries had a bullet hole right in the center of their foreheads, with a wound diameter of less than a centimeter—the marks of an AK rifle being aimed precisely from a distance of less than a hundred meters, not random spray fire.

When the machetes struck the car doors, they split the steel plates; what seeped out of the cracks in the steel wasn't blood, but rainwater.

Shafiq was thinking: Who exactly is the hunter, and who is the prey.

He knew now—it didn't take months to go from hunter to prey, only a single moment.

That moment was when Lin Xiao Squad found that Blackwater operation log in Lahad Datu, with Black's signature written prominently on the cover, the ink of the signature soaked by rain but the handwriting still clearly legible.

He had been there at the time. Not for the signing, but for the execution. He had personally set up the blockade at the entrance to Xinyaowan Village, and when that pregnant Hakka woman fell in front of the blockade, he had ordered that her body not be collected.

Now he was the prey. Everyone who had signed was prey.

At 3:50 AM, Lin Yaxing's hunting gun squad found the last hiding spot.

The stronghold was hidden in a piece of primeval rainforest deep within the peat swamp, surrounded by swamps, with only one hidden path leading to the outside world.

Shafiq's guards had set tripwires on the path—but the tripwires had been discovered in advance by the Lin Xiao Squad members, and the fuses had been removed.

Shafiq was still in the dark—he didn't know the tripwires had been disabled, and even less did he know that the coordinates of his hiding spot had been marked.

Lin Yaxing crouched on a fallen dipterocarp trunk three hundred meters from the stronghold, observing the camp through night-vision goggles.

The shrapnel wound on his right rib was still wrapped in jungle herbs, and every deep breath pulled at it with searing pain.

His son, Lin Ziqiang, had stuffed two captured morphine needles into his pocket before they set out, but he hadn't used them— "Fight first, then shoot up." He had only said these four words.

Lin Ziqiang crouched at his side, the old-fashioned hunting gun on his shoulder having been replaced with a brand-new AK-203.

"Remember," Lin Yaxing said to his son, "Where did your grandfather die?"

"Singkawang."

"What gun did he hold?"

"A Hakka long saber."

"Correct. The rules of Lanfang Republic—blood debts are repaid with blood. No guns, use blades."

Lin Yaxing drew that Hakka long saber from his waist, the two characters "Lanfang Republic" on the hilt hard as iron under the moonlight.

At 4:00 AM, the raid began.

Four soaring dragon drones took off from the temporary airfield on the eastern foothills of Mount Kinabalu, flew over the peat swamp, and arrived above the stronghold.

The first laser-guided bomb smashed through the southern guard post of the stronghold, the blast wave blowing the roof of the guard post up onto the canopy of a dipterocarp tree ten meters high.

The second bunker-buster bomb penetrated the command tent in the center of the stronghold, the warhead detonating inside the tent after a half-second delay—Shafiq's communication equipment and satellite phone were instantly blown to pieces at this moment.

Before the crater had even cooled, Lin Xiao-7 had already led her squad to launch an assault from the western rainforest.

The optical camouflage shifted to the grayish-brown of rotting tree trunks in the rainforest, and the twelve team members dispersed into a wedge formation, advancing toward the core area of the stronghold.

She used her gloved hand to make gestures, and the team members behind her touched the ground, turned sideways, and mounted their guns in sequence, their coordination like the gears of a clock.

But this time, the Hakka hunting gun squad was ahead.

When Lin Yaxing charged into the east side of the stronghold with his Hakka long saber, Lin Xiao-7 had just cleared the remaining enemies from the west guard post.

In her night-vision goggles, she saw the old man's white shirt standing out conspicuously amidst the gunfire—he held the long saber in one hand and a hunting gun in the other, shouting something in Hakka.

Behind him, Lin Ziqiang led a dozen young men surging into the stronghold, the sound of AK-203 bursts mixed with the dull roar of hunting guns echoing in the rainforest.

Shafiq crawled out of the collapsed command tent, covered in mud and water, a chunk of flesh shorn off his left shoulder by shrapnel, blood and mud mixing and dripping down.

The saber wound Lin Yaxing had inflicted three days ago reopened as he crawled, pus and blood soaking through the bandages.

His sidearm had been blown away in the explosion, and he was unarmed. He slumped to the ground and looked up ahead—

Lin Yaxing stood before him.

The tear in his white shirt from shrapnel was still oozing blood, and his bare feet stepped into the mud.

He gripped that Hakka long saber, the tip pointed downward, raindrops clinging to the blade, glistening with a cold light in the pre-dawn twilight.

He stood there just like that, like a dipterocarp tree.

Shafiq stared at the blade, which was pointed directly at him. He couldn't understand Hakka, but he saw the two characters on the hilt.

Lin Yaxing pulled a laminated photo from his bosom—a copy of the Lahad Datu operation log, the page for Xinyaowan.

He held the photo up before Shafiq's eyes, his finger pointing at the executive's signature at the bottom of the page.

"This name, you signed it."

Shafiq stared at his own signature. The signature, soaked by rain, was just as clear as the one in Black's log.

"Xinyaowan." Lin Yaxing read the names one by one, his Hakka accent heavy as mud. "Lin Xiu'e. Seven months pregnant. When you ordered the village sealed, she fell in front of the blockade, and you let your subordinates step over her."

He turned to the next page.

"Lin Zihao. Twelve years old. Under the basketball hoop. He was still clutching the ball when your men opened fire."