Chapter 1825 - 1383: Self-Detonation Ritual (2)

The two teams by the door pressed tightly against the wall.

BOOM—

With an explosion, the door flew inward, the hinges screeching with a metallic shriek.

"Enter!"

The team members surged into the building, clearing each room in pairs as practiced countless times.

The living room was barren, with only a few tattered woven rugs and a low table missing a leg. In the kitchen, the old gas stove was cold, and the cupboard held only three dirty plates and a cracked cup.

Yellowed newspapers and empty cardboard boxes were piled in the storage room, dust so thick it could hold a handprint.

Everything seemed normal. So normal, it was unsettling.

"First floor cleared. No threats."

"Staircase checked. Structure safe."

The staircase was made of concrete, with rusted iron pipe handrails.

Marcus led the way, taking two steps at a time, his gun always pointing towards the second-floor corridor.

At the top of the stairs was a short corridor leading to the doors of three rooms.

"Room one, cleared."

The first room was clearly a bedroom, only with an iron-frame bed and an empty wardrobe, the mattress even missing bedclothes.

"Room two, cleared."

The second room looked like a study, but the bookshelves were empty, not even a sheet of paper on the desk.

The door to the third room was tightly closed.

Marcus pressed against the wall by the door, pulling out a fiberscope from his leg pouch, a flexible fiber tube with a micro camera at the end.

He slowly inserted the fiberscope through the gap at the bottom of the door.

In the room was only a wooden chair, with a person sitting on it, facing away from the door.

The room had no other furniture, no windows, only a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting a dim light.

The walls were bare concrete, but on the wall facing the door was a symbol drawn with charcoal—a circle with an inverted triangle inside, a dot in the center of the triangle.

Marcus retracted the fiberscope and made a few concise hand signals.

Target confirmed, single person, seated facing away, room empty, prepare to breach.

Two team members positioned on either side of the door, a third member with a shotgun stood in front of it.

Marcus retreated to the other side of the corridor, took a deep breath, lungs filled with the scent of dust and stale air.

He pressed the comms button, reporting in a low voice: "Preparing to breach the target room."

In the briefing room, everyone held their breath.

"Execute!"

The shotgun handler quickly aimed at the door hinge position and fired.

BANG—

BANG—

At close range, the large pellets shattered the door hinges directly.

The wooden door swung open with a sound.

The team members poured into the room, their guns all trained on the person in the chair.

"Don't move! Hands above your head!"

The person in the chair slowly turned around.

Fadil Al-Hamid, sixty-seven years old, former Mosul teacher.

He wore a thick dark gray wool robe, his hair grizzled and sparse, his face deeply lined as if carved by a blade, but his eyes were unusually clear and bright, like polished obsidian under the dim light.

He didn't raise his hands, didn't panic, and even slightly curled his lips into an elusive smile.

"You've arrived."

He spoke in Arabic, his voice calm and gentle, as if welcoming long-lost guests, his gaze shifting to the clock on the wall.

"I've been waiting for you. Four minutes later than expected, did you run into trouble on the way?"

In the briefing room, the translator's voice came through the speakers, with a faint tremor even the interpreter himself didn't notice.

Everyone heard the sentence.

Duke's brow furrowed.

The expressions of the team members in the room instantly froze.

Something was wrong!

He knew the Special Forces were coming!

And this was a secret operation...

Marcus maintained his shooting posture, but the alarms in his mind were blaring so loudly that they almost drowned out everything else.

Too calm.

He had participated in forty-three hostage rescues and high-value target captures, seen all kinds of reactions from targets, including terrified screams, furious resistance, breakdown crying, feigned ignorance, even soiling themselves.

But he'd never seen such calm acceptance, as if this early morning raid was just a scheduled visit.

"Where is Misu?"

Marcus asked, his voice transmitted clearly back to the command center through the helmet mic.

The old man smiled, revealing sparse but white teeth.

"He's gone where he needs to. You'll never find him, just as you'll never find all the truths. You Americans are always like this, thinking you've seen it all, when in fact, you've only seen the part you wanted to see."

"What truth?"

Marcus pursued, while cautiously scanning the room with his peripheral vision. Empty, too empty.

No furniture, no personal belongings, even the dust was evenly distributed in an unnatural way.

The room had been cleaned, meticulously cleaned.

"The truth about the Seeder Plan."

The old man's gaze seemed to penetrate the walls, across dozens of kilometers, to stare directly at every person in the Mosul Base briefing room.

"About those who sow death in others' lands, claiming to sow freedom. About those who create hell with laboratories and formulas, yet call it scientific progress."

In the briefing room, Lemont quickly walked to the comms console, pressing the button, his voice higher than usual, but still controlled from losing it: "He's stalling for time! Subdue immediately! Now!"

But Marcus hesitated.

Zero point three seconds of hesitation.

Two decades of battlefield experience screamed in his head—not right, none of this is right.

The emptiness of the room, the old man's calmness, those words, that symbol on the wall.

This is a trap!

There must be explosives!

But he didn't know where the detonator was.

The old man bowed his head, beginning to chant softly in Arabic.

It wasn't a Quran verse, nor a common prayer, but a strange syllable, eerily fluctuating intonation of verse, like some ancient, nearly lost dialect incantation.