Chapter 1805 - 1376: Hell on the Screen (Part 3)

He turned around, ready to leave.

"We can provide help," Duke said behind him, "medical aid, chemical protection gear, air transport. Whatever you need, we can provide."

Song Heping stopped, but didn't turn back: "The condition is I have to help you find Misu."

"We need your cooperation. Civilians trust you and the Colombian Army more. If we forcefully search, it could cause unrest."

Song Heping turned around, looked at Duke, looked at Lemont, looked at the heavily armed Delta Force soldiers around them, and looked at the anxious civilians fenced off in the distance.

"Listen."

His voice was calm, but each word hit Duke like a bullet: "I won't stop you from searching. But I have three conditions: First, all searches must be supervised by Iraqi officials; second, no use of force, no intimidation of civilians, especially women and children; third, you must share the search results with me."

"What if I say no?" Duke asked.

Song Heping smiled, a smile devoid of warmth:

"Then I'll deploy a battalion, or two or three battalions, to 'invite' you to leave in the name of 'protecting Iraqi sovereignty and citizen safety.' You can try. See if your thirty Deltas are more formidable, or my soldiers who just pulled out of Titrick, burning with anger, are more formidable. And then I'll tell them, CIA and US Military knew early on that Titrick contained nerve agents, but didn't share specific intelligence."

The two stared at each other.

Outside the tent, the wind blew through the valley.

"Deal."

After a full ten seconds, Duke finally said: "But we need to start quickly. If Misu is really here, he will find a way to slip out."

Song Heping didn't respond.

He was already heading towards his car, talking to his deputy while walking: "Contact Jiang Feng, tell him the situation here. Then connect me to Samir; I need to know the real situation in Titrick."

When he got into the car, he took one last look at the evacuation point.

Eight thousand civilians gathered together, like a frightened flock of sheep.

Children were crying, adults stared blankly at the sky, and the elderly sat numbly on the ground, waiting for an unknown fate.

And among them, perhaps hides someone who knows the location of the supreme leader of the terrorist organization.

Song Heping leaned back in the seat, closed his eyes.

Fatigue surged like a tide, but even heavier was anger and a sense of helplessness.

Abu You was neither dead nor alive; Samir's vanguard was crippled; Titrick was now a city shrouded in toxic fog.

And the Americans chose to appear here at this time, not to help, but for their intelligence operation.

These bastards!

FUCK!

The car started and quickly left the evacuation point.

Twenty minutes later.

Joint command center.

The gigantic screen displayed seven different angles of drone footage of Titrick's devastation.

Song Heping stood in front of the screen, hands resting on the console, his face ashen.

The upper left corner footage came from a high-altitude reconnaissance drone, capturing the panoramic release of chemical weapons.

Yellow smoke clouds, like living creatures, surged from three different city areas simultaneously, then slowly spread with the wind on the ground, gradually merging into a curtain of death.

The edges of the smoke clouds were irregular, fluffy, and glistened with an eerie oily luster in the morning light, like the decaying innards of some giant beast spread across the city sky.

The upper right corner was a street close-up taken by a mid-altitude drone.

The footage showed a dozen government army soldiers trying to help retreat fallen comrades. One soldier dragged another who could barely walk, both wearing gas masks, but the dragged soldier had clearly lost consciousness, limbs limp.

Suddenly, a yellow plume of smoke surged from a side alley, instantly engulfing the two. When the smoke slightly cleared, the footage showed nothing but two collapsed figures on the ground.

Even more chilling was that one corpse continued to twitch afterward.

Not complete convulsions, but spasms of local muscles, the left leg routinely kicking, like the body still controlled by remaining nerve signals after death.

"Zoom in on that footage." Song Heping rasped.

The technician operated the console, drawing closer to the footage.

Now it was clear, the fallen soldiers' bodies were convulsing, and even through gas masks, one could imagine the pain on their faces.

One of them clawed at his throat area, even through protective clothing, the action was frantic and desperate.

The fingers curved into claws, nails had torn through the surface fabric of the protective gear.

"It's the combination of nerve agent and blister agent."

The voice of the technical officer was low: "It's estimated to be something like sarin and mustard gas. Sarin causes muscle spasms and respiratory failure; mustard gas causes chemical burns to skin and mucous membranes. From the color layering of the smoke, they might also have mixed in chlorine gas... this combination extends the death process, extremely cruel."

"Have you found Commander Abu You's convoy?" Song Heping asked.

The technical officer dared not answer, only shook his head.

Song Heping's gaze shifted to the central monitor, showing the last known area of Abu You's troop's recordings.

Four drones equipped with thermal imaging and chemical sensors spiraled at low altitudes, but the transmitted images were disheartening.

Thermal imaging displayed vast cold blue.

Low-temperature areas, typical thermal characteristics after chemical weapon release.

But amidst the blue expanse, a few scattered spots of red and yellow light moved.

"Wait, there's a sign of life here!"

The operator suddenly shouted, voice tinged with hope.

"Coordinates N34-27, E43-18, three thermal sources, moving north!"

Song Heping immediately walked to that screen, pointed at the footage, loudly asking: "Can you identify what it is?"

Footage zoomed in.

Beside a collapsed building ruin, three armored vehicles struggled through narrow paths.

The engine areas of the vehicles showed bright red in thermal imaging, while cabin positions had several blurry humanoid thermal sources.

"It's marked with Abu You Brigade!"

Another operator compared vehicle ID codes, "It's his command convoy! They're alive!"

"Deploy chemical protection teams to intercept them immediately," Song Heping's tight muscles relaxed on his face, "Ensure he is brought back alive!"