Mercenary I am the king

Chapter 1417 Return to the Base
Swift left the cubicle and walked out of the command center building.

The Green Zone was eerily quiet in the early morning.

Searchlights on the high walls swept slowly, casting moving patches of light on the concrete pavement. In the distance, the low rumble of diesel generators powered this sleepless military fortress.

Swift did not return to her office, but went straight to the dormitory area.

His single dormitory was at the far end of the second floor of Building C, with windows facing the interior of the green zone, making it relatively secluded.

Open the door, turn on the light, and lock it from the inside.

He didn't act immediately, but stood behind the door and listened for a full minute.

After confirming that there were no footsteps in the hallway and no unusual noises from the next room, they made sure there were no unusual sounds.

Then he walked to the bedside, knelt down, and pulled an inconspicuous gray suitcase from under the bed.

The box had a combination lock; he entered eight digits.

This was the date he first received a "gift" from Song Heping.

Click.

The box was opened.

Inside were twenty neatly stacked stacks of 100-dollar bills, each stack containing 10,000 dollars, all bound together with bank seals.

The banknotes are old, and the serial numbers are discontinuous, making them untraceable.

This is not a bribe.

Swift knew it very well.

This is a pledge of loyalty, and also a price to save one's life.

Two hundred thousand dollars is not an astronomical figure for a mid-level U.S. military officer, but it is by no means a small amount either.

More importantly, Song Heping conveyed several messages in this way: first, he knew Swift's value; second, he knew Swift's role in the Walker trade.

The deepest message is: Follow me, and you can live and even get rich; follow Walker, and you're doomed.

Swift picked up a stack of banknotes and ran her fingers along the edges of the paper.

The money was clean; it only smelled of ink and paper.

Song Heping's abilities are unfathomable.

Swift put the money back in the box and took a prepaid phone from a hidden compartment in the wardrobe.

The phone is an old-fashioned Nokia feature phone that can only make calls and send text messages. It has no smart operating system and cannot be remotely implanted with malware.

He bought it on the black market for $500 and a fake ID, intending to use it only to communicate with specific contacts.

Turn on the phone and enter the number you've never dialed before.

Press the dial button.

beep--

It only made one sound.

“Swift.” Song Heping’s voice came through the receiver, calm and clear, without a trace of drowsiness, as if he had been waiting for this call: “I guess Walker must be very emotional right now.”

Swift took a deep breath: "He saw the footage from the drone. Carlson is dead, the entire guard is wiped out, and fifty transport vehicles are gone. He's convinced it was you."

A soft laugh came from the other end of the phone, very soft, but Swift heard it clearly.

"What is he planning to do?" Song Heping asked.

“Initially, I wanted to report it directly to the Pentagon.” Swift chose to be honest: “I advised him to negotiate with you and offer to buy back the equipment at scrap prices. That was my suggestion to him, and it’s the only way to stop the losses at the moment.”

"He accepted?"

“I didn’t accept.” Swift paused, then continued, “Mr. Song, I must remind you, Walker has a powerful backer. If things really come to a head—”

"Lieutenant Colonel."

Song Heping interrupted him, his voice still calm, but with an indescribable sense of pressure: "Let me ask you a question. Would the people behind Walker really risk offending the owner of a defense company who dared to besiege your Mosul Joint Operations Group base and kill dozens of your men, all to protect a major who botched a multi-million dollar deal, left countless incriminating evidence, and allowed sensitive equipment to fall into the hands of unknown forces?"

Swift felt a chill run down her spine.

He had also heard about the previous siege and shelling of the Mosul base.

This matter had already spread throughout the US military stationed in Iraq, and everyone was speculating why Song Heping was not only unharmed but also able to obtain this contract for the disposal of "idle materials".

Looking back now, Song Heping's words contained a deeper meaning.

“You…” Swift’s voice was a little hoarse.

“I assure you, Major,” Song Heping continued, his tone softening slightly, “you will not suffer any losses in this matter. In fact, if you cooperate with me at the crucial moment, you will receive a generous reward, enough for you to enjoy your retirement in any country you wish to go to, under any identity you desire.”

The phone seemed to get hot to the touch.

Swift switched to her other hand to hold it, her palms were sweaty.

"What do you need me to do?" he heard himself ask.

“Now you just need to wait, and I’ll let you know what to do when the time comes,” Song Heping said. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll go to the base to see Walker. All you need to do then is remain silent, observe, and then, when you receive my orders… make the right choice.”

"The right choice?" Swift asked suspiciously. "What kind of choice?"

“Of course, it’s the best option for you.” Song Heping laughed. “Lieutenant Colonel, you’re a smart man. You know what the cost of choosing the wrong side is in this game. Walker is already a leaky, dilapidated ship, while there’s still room on my ship.”

The phone hangs up.

beep - beep - beep -

The busy signal sounded particularly jarring in the quiet room.

Swift slowly put down her phone, removed the back cover, took out the SIM card, melted the chip part with a lighter, and then threw the remains into the toilet and flushed them away.

After doing all this, he sat on the edge of the bed without turning on the light.

Outside the window, the eastern sky began to turn a grayish-white.

At 4:21 a.m., dawn was about to break in Bakda.

Swift looked at the box of cash and thought about his twenty years in the military.

He graduated from West Point, served in the Rangers, was deployed to Iraq three times and Afghanistan once, and has three scars on his body. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

He was married and divorced, and had no children.

He has $180,000 in his bank account, but it will be another 5 years before he can receive his full retirement pension.

If you follow Walker's path, the best outcome would be to retire early with a stain on his record and live out the rest of your life in anonymity in a small town.

The worst outcome is military prison, or "forced suicide".

If you choose Song Heping...

He stood up and walked to the window.

As the sky brightened, the outline of the green area gradually became clearer in the morning mist.

On the high wall, the sentry's figure stood like a silhouette.

In the Amadea Valley, as the sun rises, it illuminates the burning wreckage and unidentified corpses.

A war has ended.

Another war has just begun.

Major Swift took a deep breath of the cold morning air and made his decision.

At 08:30 the following morning, 80 kilometers south of Bakda, on the outskirts of Alpha Base.

A convoy of three Toyota Land Cruisers kicked up clouds of dust stretching hundreds of meters along a bumpy dirt road. These vehicles had been professionally modified.

The vehicle body was fitted with additional armor plates, the windows were made of five-centimeter-thick multi-layered bulletproof glass, and the chassis was equipped with a V-shaped explosion-proof structure.

Song Heping sat in the back right seat of the second car. This position allowed him to observe the road conditions ahead while minimizing the risk of being ambushed and hit by a roadside ambush.

He was wearing khaki overalls and a faded tactical shirt, and his Salomon tactical boots were covered in the red dust characteristic of northern Iligo.

He looked no different from other contractors who came and went from the US military base every day.

"Slow down, the first checkpoint is 500 meters ahead."

Jiang Feng, sitting in the passenger seat, picked up the car radio microphone.

The driver lightly applied the brakes, reducing the speed from 80 kilometers per hour to 40 kilometers per hour.

The Alpha outpost was built on the site of a former Republican Guard barracks from the Saddam Hussein era.

After years of renovation by the US military, this place has become a fully functional tactical hub.

As the convoy approached the first line of defense: behind three layers of serpentine barbed wire lay a circular fortification constructed of sandbags and HESCO blast walls. Behind the fortification, two M-ATV mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles were deployed at an angle, with the muzzles of M2HB heavy machine guns on their roofs moving with the convoy.

Six U.S. soldiers and four Iligo government soldiers stood with their guns at the ready, all with their fingers outside the trigger guards.

This is the standard alert posture, both ready to fire at any time and avoiding accidental activation.

"Identification documents".

A U.S. Army sergeant approached the lead vehicle, his hand resting naturally on the grip of his M9 pistol at his waist.

His OCP camouflage uniform had the 101st Airborne Division's "Screaming Eagle" patch sewn onto his right arm, and three deployment stripes on his left chest, indicating he was an experienced veteran.

Jiang Feng lowered the car window and handed over three thick folders of passes.

Each book contains paper documents, an iris recognition card, an encrypted RFID chip, and biometric data.

The sergeant took it, first using a handheld scanner to read the RFID chip, and then checking the faces of the people in the vehicle against the photos on the tablet.

When it was Song Heping's turn, the scanner emitted a soft "beep," and a line of red text appeared on the screen:
"Priority Level: OMEGA - Highest level of non-military personnel access authorization - Restricted actions require approval from the base commander or higher."

The sergeant's expression changed slightly.

The ordinary-looking Asian man in front of me actually has the same access level.

"Wait a moment." The sergeant took two steps back and whispered into the microphone on his shoulder, "Checkpoint one, convoy number Tango-Seven, carrying Song Heping, an OMEGA-authorized personnel, requesting clearance."

A brief static noise came through the radio, followed by a clear voice: "Authorization confirmed, clearance granted. Command center has received notification."

The sergeant waved to signal.

Inside the fortifications, two soldiers struggled to push aside heavy steel barricades, making way for the convoy.

Three vehicles slowly drove into the base.

"What's the situation with Walker?" Song Heping asked, his eyes still fixed on the window.

“From 3 a.m. until now, he has made 19 phone calls to the 10th Division headquarters in Mosul.”

Jiang Feng retrieved the communication records from the tablet computer.

"He also tried to call your satellite phone seven times, and as you instructed, all the numbers were forwarded to voicemail. There are now three messages from him in the voicemail, each one more urgent than the last."

Song Heping's lips curled slightly: "Let him panic a little longer. Panic makes people make mistakes, and anger makes people stupid. What we need now is for him to be both wrong and stupid."

He took out a thermos from the armrest box and took a sip of strong tea.

The tea was Pu'er tea he brought from China, a deliberate sign of being an outcast in a land where people only drink sweet tea and coffee.

"Are the photos ready?"

Jiang Feng handed over a military-grade ruggedized tablet: "As per your request, the technical team has selected forty-two images, covering all key evidence points. All equipment serial numbers are clearly visible, the on-site environmental features are obvious, and the metadata of each photo has been processed, with complete and tamper-proof timestamps, GPS coordinates, and device serial numbers."

He pulled up the image library: "In addition, I also had the technical team create three sets of comparison images, placing the equipment numbers on the contract list alongside the actual equipment numbers in the on-site photos, connecting the corresponding characters with red lines. Even a complete novice can understand the connection within five seconds."

Song Heping swipes the screen.

The photos are of extremely high quality, clearly taken with a high-resolution device; some close-ups even used a macro lens.
Group 1: Burning armored vehicle wreckage.

Six light armored vehicles lay overturned or flipped on the road in various twisted postures, their charred metal frames still smoking.

One of the close-up shots is precisely focused on the waterproof paper pasted on the inside of the third vehicle's door, where the handwritten serial number range "AW-3477-89B to AW-3477-91F" is clearly visible.

This is precisely the serial number range of the batch of Switchblade 300 loitering munitions that Walker has refused to deliver to Song Heping over the past six weeks, citing "loss during transport due to an attack."

The second group: Stinger Block II missile systems scattered all over the ground.

Green fiberglass launch tubes lay haphazardly on the sand, some cracked, exposing the internal aiming unit and battery coolant assembly.

Under close-up shots, the white lettering on the tube is clearly visible: NSN 1440-01-678-9045 / SERIAL ST-5561-22C / LOT FY-2021-03. Next to it are several pried-open military transport crates, inside which are neatly stacked unopened BCUs (Battery Coolant Units) and aiming handles, each item with its asset tag intact.

Group 3: Corpses.

Or rather, it was once a part of the human body.

Song Heping specifically instructed that the corpses, dressed in full sets of top-of-the-line American equipment but without any identification markings, be photographed.

In the photo, a prone body is wearing a Crye Precision AVS tactical vest, carrying an Eagle Industries MOLLE backpack, wearing a $60,000 GPNVG-18 panoramic night vision goggles on its helmet, and holding an M4A1 carbine equipped with the latest SOPMOD kit.

However, the tactical vest had no name tag, no blood type tag, and no unit identification stamp.

This is a typical configuration for "unofficial personnel," possessing top-notch equipment while leaving no traceable information.

“Perfect.” Song Heping turned off the tablet and leaned back in his chair. “Professional, objective, and irrefutable. Walker’s expression when he sees this will be… quite interesting.”

The convoy passed the second checkpoint.

This area is already outside the core area of ​​the base, and the level of security has increased exponentially.

Everyone had to get off the vehicle and pass through double metal detector gates and millimeter-wave body scanners one by one.

Vehicles must drive into a dedicated inspection booth for a comprehensive inspection, including chassis scanning, X-ray examination, and explosive detection dogs.

Song Heping cooperated and completed all the procedures.

Upon arriving at the main building, Major Swift was already waiting in the lobby.

"Mr. Song."

Swift stepped forward, and the two shook hands for half a second longer than usual.

"Major Swift," Song Heping replied. "I heard Major Walker is in a hurry to see me?"

“He’s waiting for you in his office.” Swift stepped aside to lead the way, speaking in a voice only the two of them could hear. “He didn’t sleep all night; the footage from the drone nearly drove him to a breakdown. He’s convinced you did it, but he has no proof. Be careful, he might… do something irrational.”

“He will,” Song Heping said calmly, “but not today.”

The two entered the elevator.

Taking the opportunity, Swift quickly said, "He contacted a sergeant major in the logistics department alone this morning. That guy... has a reputation for handling 'dirty work'."

Song Heping nodded, showing no surprise: "As expected. Does he have recording equipment in his office now?"

“The regular lines definitely have recording capabilities. But I have arranged for someone to perform communication system maintenance at 09:00 sharp, which will result in a ten-minute ‘technical outage’ during which the recording equipment will be temporarily offline.”

Swift glanced at her watch: "It's 08:57 now. It takes us two minutes to get to his office. You have nine minutes of unmonitored conversation."

Upon reaching the elevator, before the doors opened, Swift said one last thing: "Be careful."

“OK, don’t worry,” Song Heping said. “I know how to deal with this guy.”

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(End of this chapter)