Chapter 1822 - 1382: Friendly Reminder_2

This was taken by the Central Intelligence Agency reconnaissance team forty-eight hours ago.

A modified Toyota pickup, painted in the white of the United Nations Food Programme, with a 360-degree panoramic camera disguised as a luggage rack on the roof, slowly drove through the streets of Badi Town.

The body of the vehicle had bullet holes and scratches, looking no different from other aid vehicles shuttling through war zones.

The street was eerily empty.

Although Badi Town went through the 1515 occupation and subsequent recovery battles, according to United Nations data, there are still three hundred and twenty-seven residents, mostly the elderly, women, and poor people who cannot escape.

But on this street, there were no clothes hanging to dry, no children playing, no elderly sitting at the door smoking shisha and chatting.

The camera slowly swept across the target building.

The wrought iron gate was closed tightly, a heavy iron gate painted dark green, with the paint peeling off, revealing dark red rust underneath.

There are two peepholes on the gate, one high and one low, the high one about 1.7 meters, the low one about 1 meter.

This means the observer can choose to stand or squat based on the situation.

It's a very professional design, not something a regular residence would have.

The top of the wall has broken glass glistening in the morning light, but there are a few obvious gaps.

These are not naturally broken but carefully chipped away to create thirty-centimeter-wide observation ports.

From that position, one can clearly see the street in both the north and south directions, as well as the alleys on the east and west sides.

Song Heping paused the frame, zooming in on one of the gaps.

The edges of the gap were neat, the glass fractures fresh, without dust or rain marks, indicating recent cleaning.

He continued to play the replay footage.

The vehicle slowly drove past the north side of the building, where there was a small alley about two meters wide, piled high with construction debris and household waste.

But upon closer inspection, the arrangement of the rubble was unnatural.

It seemed to be randomly dumped but actually formed a staggered barrier that could effectively slow down personnel passing quickly, yet left a winding passage that required sideways traversal.

This is a typical defensive layout, obstructing the speed of an assault team while not completely blocking a route for retreat.

More suspiciously, several large concrete fragments were deliberately placed in specific positions, forming simple shooting covers.

The situation on the south side was similar.

Behind the building, there was a small courtyard, but the walls were four meters high, with no doors or windows, entirely closed off like a concrete box.

In the corner of the courtyard was a well, covered with a rusty iron plate, with a brass padlock hanging from it, shiny from frequent use.

There were repeated footprints around the wellhead, but no water fetching tools, no winch, no bucket.

Song Heping leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and gently pressed his temples with his fingers.

In his mind, he started reconstructing the entire scene:

A sixty-seven-year-old retired teacher living alone in an armed-to-the-teeth concrete fortress?

The surrounding neighbors were missing, and the street had been cleaned unusually well.

The building had an underground space, meticulously set observation ports in the walls, and defensive barriers around.

The backyard had a well, but no water-fetching tools, the cover frequently opened.

This is not a residence.

This is a safehouse, a stronghold, a hideout.

It could also be a carefully laid trap.

He opened his eyes and reviewed the operation schedule again.

The operation was set for six o'clock in the morning, the reason being "to utilize the lighting conditions at dawn, with enough brightness to identify the target while the morning mist provides some cover, and simultaneously avoid civilian activity peaks."

A very reasonable arrangement, but Song Heping knew there was another consideration.

At this time, a person's physiological alertness is at its lowest.

Yet, thinking of the configuration of the building, he felt something was off.

So he pulled up the real-time drone surveillance footage.

With fifty minutes until the operation started, an MQ-9 "Grim Reaper" drone was hovering at 3,500 meters above Badi Town, scanning in dual-mode of infrared and thermal imaging. There was only one heat source inside the building, located in the eastern room on the first floor, stationary, outlined as a seated human figure.

But the temperature distribution of the heat source was unusually even; in infrared imaging, a human body should have clear temperature gradients: the head, neck, armpits, and groin as hotspots, the extremities as cold spots.

But this heat source had no obvious gradient, the entire outline uniformly appeared in an orange-yellow hue, with a temperature variation of no more than two degrees Celsius.

This means it might be wearing thick insulating clothing, or...

Song Heping's fingers paused on the touchpad.

Or it might not be a real person at all, but a heat source simulated by a heating device.

He looked at the time: 5:07 AM.

There was still time, maybe it was still possible to make it.

But then he thought, after all, this was an American operation.

As a PMC Company boss, he had fulfilled his duty of warning them; saying more would be overstepping.

The contract didn't state he was responsible for US Army personnel casualties, Duke and Lemont were professionals, and Delta was the world's top Special Forces, they had their judgment.

Nevertheless, his professional ethics pushed him to decide to say something.

Just one thing.

The corridor lights were set to night mode, dim like a tunnel.

The command center was located on the second floor of the main building, requiring passing through three security checkpoints.

As an external support contract staff, Song Heping's access only reached the second gate, but the officer on duty recognized him.

Duty Lieutenant Jensen saw Song Heping, nodded in greeting: "Song, here to see the General? They're doing the final rehearsal."