Chapter 1993 - 1445: Head-On Strike

"The wolf pack has emerged from the cave."

The encrypted channel carried the voice of the lead scout from the forward reconnaissance team.

Milosh Krajishnik did not respond immediately. He lay on the roof of a dilapidated mud house,

covered by a multispectral camouflage net that blended him with the surrounding ruins, making it difficult even for professionally trained eyes to spot a living person lurking 300 meters away.

He slightly moved his right index finger, adjusting the sniper scope to its maximum magnification.

In the scope, the convoy of the Dulaimi Tribe slowly turned at the Dry River Valley exit.

The first armed pickup truck drove out of the valley first, the M2HB heavy machine gun mounted on its rear glistening with cold metallic sheen under the setting sun. The machine gunner was a young man in his early twenties, black hair peeking out from the edge of his tactical helmet, unable to conceal his excitement.

Behind him, the second, third, and fourth pickup trucks drove out in succession, their formation gradually shifting from vertical to horizontal, forming a standard encircling layout.

Milosh grinned, revealing a row of yellowish teeth stained from long-term smoking.

It was a veteran's smile upon witnessing a rookie's bold move fall into a trap.

"Let them come another kilometer closer."

He whispered into his throat mic.

"Received."

Four voices almost simultaneously responded through the headset—Commanders of the first mortar squad, second mortar squad, anti-tank missile team, and left wing machine gun position, all waiting for this command.

Milosh did not look back.

But he knew within a 200-meter radius behind him, twelve M-ATV mine-resistant vehicles were lurking in the shadow of an abandoned farmhouse, engines idling, their exhausts specially modified to suppress thermal signals to the minimum.

Twenty Hummers equipped with additional armor were positioned on both flanks, each armament station on their rooftops unlocked, with 12.7mm bullets silently lying in their ammo chains, awaiting to be chambered.

Eight 120mm mortars deployed in a semicircle in the dry riverbed depression, the gunners maintaining a uniform half-kneeling posture, left knee touching the ground, right hand supporting the mortar shell base, just awaiting a single command.

Over ten kilometers away, a Mi-17 helicopter was circling at an altitude of 3,000 meters.

Song Heping sat behind a cabin window, holding a thermos cup, his gaze fixed on a tactical tablet.

Milosh didn't need to see to know that his boss was examining this enormous net he had personally woven together.

"Ten seconds."

Milosh's voice diffused steadily through the encrypted channel.

He did not shout "Prepare."

Everyone in Team A had been preparing since they arrived at the battlefield.

First mortar squad's gunner adjusted the aiming handle, the dial indicator precisely pointing to preset coordinates.

"Five seconds."

The Dulaimi Tribe's convoy completely exited the Dry River Valley, their formation fully spread.

The leading three pickup trucks accelerated to sixty kilometers, the machine gunners within crouching low, fingers resting on the triggers.

Milosh looked at Abdul-Razak's nephew, the young man named Hamudi standing in the co-driver's seat of the first pickup, waving his ever-present AKS-74U short assault rifle, gesturing to the convoy on both sides.

This was the tribe's customary tactic—frontal assault to draw fire, flanking encirclement to cut off retreat, followed by overwhelming numerical advantage to segment, encircle, and obliterate the convoy.

Milosh nearly laughed aloud.

The last time Dulaimi Tribe engaged regular forces head-on was seventeen years ago during the US invasion of Iraq.

What they learned in that war was merely how to use roadside bombs to attack patrols, how to trade lives in urban street battles. They never faced a professionally trained, modern mercenary-backed small professional army head-on.

They didn't know what "precision fire coverage" meant.

"Zero."

Milosh's thumb pressed the "confirm fires" button on the tablet.

Three seconds later, the first round of artillery shells' piercing screeches reached the eardrums of the Dulaimi Tribe.

Hamudi just opened his mouth, not yet uttering the first syllable of command, when a 120mm mortar shell exploded five meters to his right.

Boom—

Shrapnel scattered at supersonic speed, slicing through the air like thousands of invisible razors.

Hamudi's machine gunner's upper body remained on the spot, while the lower body had crashed onto the scorching sand.

Blood rushed from the abdominal cavity, seeping into the sand at a rate impossible to match by the shrapnel's dispersal speed.

"Ambush—"

Hamudi's voice was completely shredded by the explosion of the second shell.

Third shell.

Fourth shell.

Tenth shell.

Eight mortars, firing at a theoretical rate of thirty rounds per minute, unleashed rounds upon this area of less than 0.3 square kilometers.

Every shell hitting the ground sent waves of sandy soil outward, with shrapnel spreading in a conical pattern, harvesting all flesh exposed to air.

This is not precision strike.

This is industrialized slaughter.

Abdul-Razak was thrown off his vehicle by the blast in the third second of bombardment.

The old chieftain first picked up a rifle forty-three years ago, launching rockets at Israeli armored troops from caves in Lebanon's mountains. He had experienced five coups, three civil wars, two major urban street battles against the US Army.

A piece of shrapnel remained embedded in his left knee, aching faintly on rainy days.

The shockwave of the explosion threw his body into the air, his back violently colliding with the pickup's side bar, breaking three ribs instantly.

He lay on the molten ground, ears consumed by an incessant sharp buzzing, like ten thousand mosquitoes simultaneously fluttering their wings inside his skull.

He struggled to lift his head.

The world flowed in slow motion.