Chapter 1927 - 1418: Return to the Base (Part 2)

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

Graduating from West Point Military Academy, serving in the Rangers, three tours to Iraq, one to Afghanistan, with three scars on his body, he earned the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart Medal.

He had been married, then divorced, with no children.

He had a bank account with 180,000 US Dollars and five years to go before receiving full retirement benefits.

If he followed Walker, the best-case scenario would be retiring early with a tarnished record and spending the rest of his life anonymously in a small town.

The worst-case scenario was military prison or being "suicided."

If he chose Song Heping...

He stood up and walked to the window.

The day was getting brighter, the outline of the Green Zone becoming clearer in the morning mist.

On the high walls, the silhouette of the sentry stood like a shadow.

And in Amadiye Canyon, after the sun rises, it would illuminate a field of burning wreckage and nameless corpses.

A war had ended.

Another war had just begun.

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

The following morning at 08:30, eighty kilometers south of Baghdad, outside Alpha Base.

A convoy of three Toyota Land Cruisers kicked up a dust cloud hundreds of meters long on the bumpy dirt road.

These vehicles were professionally modified.

The chassis welded with extra armor plates, the windows were five centimeters thick with layered bullet-proof glass, the undercarriage fitted with a V-shaped blast structure.

Song Heping sat in the right rear seat of the second vehicle, a position that allowed observation of the road ahead yet was not easily hit by roadside ambushes.

He wore khaki work pants and a washed-out tactical shirt, his Salomon tactical boots covered in Northeastern Illiguo's distinctive red dust.

This appearance was no different from that of other contractors entering and leaving the US Military Base daily.

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

Jiang Feng, sitting in the passenger seat, picked up the vehicle-mounted radio microphone.

The driver tapped the brakes, reducing speed from eighty kilometers to forty.

Alpha's outpost base was established on the site of a former Republican Guard camp from the Saddam era.

After years of modifications by the US Army, it had become a fully functional tactical hub.

The convoy approached the first line of defense: behind a three-layer barbed wire fence were circular fortifications made of sandbags and HESCO blast walls. Behind the fortifications, two M-ATV anti-mine and ambush vehicles were deployed at angles, the muzzles of their M2HB heavy machine guns following the convoy.

Six US Army soldiers and four Iliko Government Army soldiers stood armed, all with their fingers on the outside of the trigger guards.

This was the standard alert posture, ready to fire at any moment while avoiding accidental discharges.

"Identification."

A US Army sergeant approached the lead vehicle, his hand naturally resting on the grip of the M9 handgun at his waist.

His right arm of the OCP camouflage uniform had the 101st Airborne Division's "Screaming Eagle" patch, with three deployment stripes on the left chest—an experienced veteran.

Jiang Feng rolled down the window and handed over three thick pass folders.

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

The sergeant took them, first using a handheld scanner to read the RFID chips, then individually matching the in-car personnel's faces to the photos on a tablet.

When it was Song Heping's turn, the scanner emitted a slight "beep," and a line of red text appeared on the screen:

"Clearance Level: OMEGA - Highest-Level Non-Military Personnel Passage Authorization - Requires Base Commander or Higher Approval for Action Restriction"

The sergeant's expression slightly changed.

This ordinary-looking Asian man had the same clearance level.

"One moment." The sergeant stepped back two paces, reporting softly into his shoulder microphone: "Checkpoint One, convoy number Tango-Seven, carrying Omega authorized personnel Song Heping, requesting clearance command."

There was a brief static noise on the radio, then a clear voice: "Authorization confirmed, permission granted. The command center has been notified."

The sergeant signaled with a wave.

Inside the fortifications, two soldiers laboriously pushed open the heavy steel barrier, allowing the convoy to pass through.

The three vehicles slowly entered the base.

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

"From 3 AM until now, he has made nineteen calls to the Tenth Division Command Post in Mosul."

Jiang Feng brought up the communication records on a tablet.

"He also attempted to call your satellite phone seven times; as per your instructions, all numbers were redirected to voicemail. There are now three messages from him in the voicemail, with each one sounding more urgent."

Song Heping's lips curled slightly: "Let him worry a bit more. Panic makes people err, and anger makes them foolish. Right now, we need him to be both wrong and stupid."

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

The tea leaves were Pu-erh he had brought from home, a deliberate anomaly in this land where sweet tea and coffee dominated.

"Are the photos ready?"

Jiang Feng handed over a military-grade reinforced tablet: "As you requested, the technical team selected forty-two photos, covering all key evidence points. All equipment numbers are clearly visible, the site environment features are evident, and the metadata of each photo has been processed, with timestamps, GPS coordinates, and device serial numbers complete and unalterable."

He brought up the gallery: "Additionally, I had the technical team create three sets of comparison charts, aligning the equipment numbers on the contract list side by side with those in the site photos, connected with red lines. Even a complete layman could understand the link within five seconds."