487: Chapter 487 Seven Seats for Five Thousand People

"The third shot. It missed."

Seventeen kilometers outside Kuching, a PHL-191 rocket launcher had just completed its third volley.

The launch tubes were still emitting scorching white steam, and the commander had already seen the impact point through the scope—it had missed the target building by thirty meters.

It wasn't that the artillery crew couldn't aim; it was that the target building had been cleared out the night before.

"They're dismantling the command post." The commander handed the scope data to the fire coordinator. "Yesterday's satellite imagery showed this was the brigade-level command post for the remnants of the 12th Division. At 3:00 AM today—they moved the radios, sand tables, and operation maps all down to the underground parking garage."

The fire coordinator was a Death Soldier trained by Old K, designated Lin Xiao-9.

He took the data, glanced at it, and marked an X on the map with a red pen.

"Then we'll blow up the underground parking garage."

The fourth rocket landed at 4:11 AM.

The 2,000-pound bunker-busting warhead pierced through two concrete floor slabs and detonated on the second underground level.

The shockwave surged out from the parking garage's ventilation shaft, carrying with it fragments of sand table models, charred operation maps, and twisted radio casings, spraying them onto the street above.

Mixed in the pile of debris was half a scorched duty log; the last recorded time was 03:47— "Per the brigade commander's order, all communication equipment is to be moved to the basement. They can hear us talking."

The Vega system had already infiltrated the radio communication network of the Kuching garrison twenty-four hours ago.

It wasn't eavesdropping—it was a direct takeover.

Zhang Cheng's electronic warfare unit had turned the garrison's communication channels into their own propaganda platform.

Every two hours, all walkie-talkies, encrypted radios, and military cell phones of the Kuching garrison would simultaneously pop up a voice message.

The voice was broadcast in Malay, with a calm pace, and the background audio was a live recording of Anwar signing the "Strait of Malacca Permanent Joint Management Agreement" in Putrajaya.

The message content was different every time.

The first message was a recording segment of Rashid being interrogated in a safe house in Putrajaya—in the recording, he personally admitted to accepting a five-million Hong Kong dollar kickback from an American arms dealer.

The second message was a screenshot of the bank statements of the coup's high-ranking officials in a private bank in the Cayman Islands, with seven zeros following the account balance.

The third message was the most lethal—a list of pension payments for fallen soldiers.

The list contained the names of fallen soldiers from two regiments of the Kuching garrison, totaling 420 men, with the total pension amount per person working out to less than 2,000 ringgit.

At the end of the list was a line of text: "A pension of 2,000 ringgit—is that enough to buy a plane ticket from Kuching to Jakarta?"

"Shut them off." Brigadier General Ibrahim, commander of the remnants of the 12th Division, ordered his communications officer, "Turn off all radios. Do not allow anyone to turn them on."

The communications officer stood still.

The walkie-talkie in his hand was playing the fourth message—this time it wasn't audio, it was video.

The video showed the scene of the mutiny at the 3rd Battalion in the suburbs of Kuching; the battalion commander was tearing up the Malaysian flag and sewing a white flag out of bandage sheets, while over three hundred soldiers behind him piled their rifles at the entrance of the battalion headquarters.

After the video finished playing, a voice came through the walkie-talkie.

It wasn't Anwar, and it wasn't Rashid.

It was Zhang Cheng himself.

"Officers and soldiers of the Kuching garrison. Your brigade commander has booked a Gulfstream G550 to Jakarta, departing at 2:00 AM tomorrow. There are only seven seats on the plane. There are five thousand of you. Ask him—where are the tickets for the other four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-three people?"

Brigadier General Ibrahim's face changed color rapidly under the dim lights of the command room.

He had been promoted temporarily after the coup—the original division commander had been detained by Anwar's supporters on the night of the coup, and this mess had been dumped on him.

Three days ago, he had heard the brigade commander reciting a flight number over an encrypted phone in the hallway, and the other party had said, "Seven seats are enough." He had thought at the time that it was to arrange for the evacuation of family members.

Now he knew who those seven seats were reserved for.

Ibrahim turned to look out the window—there was nothing outside but the curtain of rain at 4:00 AM.

But he knew that the staff officers were no longer looking at him.

"Get out, all of you." He said.

The five staff officers exited one by one.

When the last person closed the door, his fingers paused on the doorknob for a second. Ibrahim saw this detail—he knew what that second meant.

It was hesitation, not hesitation about whether to leave, but hesitation about whether to sell him out as well.

4:40 AM.

A mutiny occurred in the 3rd Battalion of the 8th Infantry Regiment of the Kuching garrison.

The soldiers didn't hang a white flag like the 3rd Battalion in the suburbs—they directly surrounded the battalion headquarters.

Battalion Commander Colonel Harun was woken from his sleep by his adjutant, who shoved a cell phone into his hand.

The cell phone screen displayed a photo taken when Rashid was captured alive by Night Owl—Rashid was missing a piece of his left ear, his right wrist was fractured, he was kneeling on the ground, and behind him was the signature page of the anti-Chinese decree.

Below the photo was a line of text: Your commander is already prepared to run away. What about you?

After Colonel Harun finished looking at the photo, he looked at the gun in the adjutant's hand—the adjutant hadn't drawn his weapon.

He had simply moved his sidearm from his waist to his chest, muzzle pointing down, with his thumb pressing on the hammer.

This was not a threat; it was a stance.

"What do they want?" Harun asked.

"To stop risking our lives for the coup plotters." The adjutant said, "Colonel—the brigade commander's office was blown up by a bunker-buster three hours ago. The brigade commander himself wasn't inside; he went to the port yesterday afternoon. The brothers know about this."

Harun stood up and walked to the battalion headquarters window.

Outside the window were the streets of northern Kuching; the rain had stopped, and it wasn't dawn yet.

In the direction of the Riverside Park in the distance, the beam of a searchlight swept across the night sky. He gazed at that beam of light for a full two minutes.

Then he turned around, unholstered his sidearm from his waist, and placed it on the desk.

"Notify everyone—lay down your arms. Open the battalion gates. Wait for the Myanmar Army to enter the city."

The adjutant asked: "What about the brigade commander—"

"He went to the port." Harun picked up the cell phone and wiped the rain stains off the screen with his thumb, "The port has been sealed off by the Myanmar Navy. He can't board the plane, and he can't get out to sea. Let him figure it out himself."

Fifty minutes later, the battalion gates opened.

The rest of the Kuching garrison did not know the news of the mutiny.

Their radios were all taken over by Vega, and any internal communications would be automatically replaced with Anwar's speech and Rashid's interrogation recording.

Several scattered companies of the remnants of the 12th Division were still building barricades in the south of the city.

They saw three armored vehicles approaching from the north—they were M1A3 tanks of the Myanmar Titan Division.

The tanks didn't fire. The tank turret hatches opened, and what emerged from the vehicles wasn't the faces of Myanmar soldiers, but the adjutant from the mutinying Kuching troops.

He was holding a handheld loudspeaker.

"I am Mohammad Ali, Deputy Battalion Commander of the 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment. Our battalion has laid down its arms. The brigade commander fled to the port last night, and the brigade command post has been destroyed. Any orders you receive are from non-existent superiors. Stop fighting."

The soldiers behind the barricades looked at each other.

A machine gunner stood up from the sandbag bunker, took off his helmet, and wiped the rain and sweat from his face with his sleeve.

A sound rang out from his walkie-talkie—it wasn't an order from the command headquarters, but the last voice message pushed by Vega.