Chapter 1392
Seizure
Chapter 1392 Seizure
As the helicopter drew closer, Milos's doubts grew stronger.
Those helicopters were not at the usual patrol altitude, but rather in a combat formation employing rapid low-altitude infiltration.
That's a fighting stance!
A subordinate rushed over to report: "Communications are disrupted, boss. All external frequency bands are experiencing high-intensity interference, and our external communications have been cut off."
"It's been cut off?"
Milos felt as if a large hand had suddenly reached out and gripped his heart tightly.
problem occurs……
Intuition told him this.
Something is wrong!
"Attention all personnel, level one alert."
Milos' right hand rested on the grip of his Glock 19 at his waist.
"Immediate emergency assembly!"
interference.
This word is like ice water poured down your spine.
Professional-grade, full-band, and continuous electromagnetic suppression requires forward-deployed electronic warfare aircraft or large-scale ground equipment.
This was not something that local armed groups or remnants of terrorists could have accomplished.
Milos returned to his room, grabbed the night vision goggles from the table, and rushed out into the hallway.
Looking eastward through night vision goggles.
Four helicopters emerged from the darkness of the early morning, their outlines gradually becoming clear.
Two Black Hawks and two Chinooks, their fuselages entirely coated with a matte black, radar-absorbing coating, without any markings or serial numbers, even the rotor hubs were painted black.
"It's special forces!"
Milos realized something was wrong and rushed downstairs.
At this moment, the sirens for the assembly were already sounding in the mercenary camp.
Two Black Hawk helicopters arrived first, suddenly pulling up their noses over the camp, with the MX-15 searchlights on their bellies simultaneously lighting up.
Two beams of light pierced the darkness like divine punishment swords, instantly illuminating the entire mercenary camp as bright as day.
Strong light not only causes blindness, but also creates an overwhelming psychological deterrent.
The two Chinooks landed directly on the open ground in the center of the camp.
The sandstorm whipped up by the rotor blades resembled a brown tsunami, engulfing the two nearest prefabricated houses.
Before the cabin door was fully opened, figures had already leaped out of the cabin.
They landed in groups of twelve without a sound.
It's not a jump, but a professionally controlled descent with the knees slightly bent to absorb the impact.
When they stood up, their guns were already pointed at their respective sectors, without any unnecessary movements.
Their equipment was not the standard equipment of regular special forces, but a more advanced experimental kit, enhanced tactical vests, helmets that integrated binocular thermal fusion night vision goggles and tactical HUDs, and SCAR rifles.
Ghost unit.
A typical product of the Pentagon's black budget.
"Attention all personnel within the camp!"
In the air, the sound from the helicopter's loudspeaker was digitally processed, cold and devoid of human emotion.
"We are the Joint Special Operations Command Direct Action Group. Pursuant to Secretary of Defense Emergency Order No. 7-11, we are now taking full control of this area. Everyone, lay down your weapons immediately, put your hands behind your heads, and kneel down. Resistance will be met with lethal force."
Milos pressed the intercom, his voice switching into the mercenaries' encrypted internal channel: "Don't fire, repeat, don't fire. Put down your weapons and do as they say. That's an order."
He knew how humiliating this order was.
More than two hundred elite mercenaries from the "Musician" company, each a veteran hardened by blood and fire, are now forced to surrender to a group of people who don't even show their faces without firing a single shot.
But he knew all too well the consequences of resistance.
The enemy's deployment demonstrates a precise understanding of the camp layout.
Two three-person teams headed straight for the generator room and communications station, while the other two teams took control of the armory and garage.
Most deadly of all, the high points surrounding the camp—the water towers, warehouse rooftops, and lookout posts—have already shown signs of sniper fire.
They are not taking over; they are performing a surgical decapitation.
More importantly, as the Chinook descended, the Black Hawk helicopter began to circle, its Sterling machine gun barrels, dark and menacing, pointed at the ground from the hatch.
Faced with overwhelming firepower and air superiority, ground resistance would be futile and meaningless.
Milos had just come downstairs when he saw Ryan walking down the stern ramp of the Chinook.
He didn't even glance at the mercenaries being disarmed around him; his gaze was fixed directly on Milos, as if he had already memorized that face from the file photo.
The four soldiers automatically formed a diamond-shaped guard formation.
Ryan made a very subtle gesture, his little finger twitching slightly, and the two soldiers immediately broke away and rushed towards the camp command room.
The other two remained where they were, while Ryan himself went straight to Milos.
The two met at the entrance of the command room.
“Miloš, commander of the 1st Battalion of mercenaries from the ‘Musician’ Company,” Miloš began. “Please show me your authorization documents and explain why you are taking hostile actions against Allied contractors within the Joint Operations Base.”
Ryan didn't even stop walking.
He walked past Milos, his body brushing against Milos's combat trousers, making a soft rustling sound.
Only after entering the command room and standing in front of the battle map did he take out a folded document from his breast pocket.
Expand the file.
White House letterhead, the Secretary of Defense's handwritten signature, and the Attorney General's countersignature.
The title is "Authorization Order Regarding Temporary Extension of Operational Authority".
The content is concise yet chilling: "The special operations group is authorized to temporarily control any personnel, facilities, and intelligence assets related to the operation, including but not limited to allied and contractor units, as necessary."
"Do you see clearly?"
Ryan's voice was as cold and sharp as a scalpel: "Now, I need you to provide three things: Song Heping's real-time location, his meeting plan with 'Maisour,' and the raw data of all your encrypted communications over the past seventy-two hours."
Milos took a deep breath.
Inside the command center, three communications officers from the "Musician" company were standing against the wall with guns pointed at them.
On the monitor screen, the entire mercenary camp is being systematically taken control.
"My boss is on a mission overseas, and his return date is uncertain. His location is classified as a secret."
Milos opted for the most standard response: "All encrypted communications are archived on your military servers in Baghdad as stipulated in the contract; you can check them as you please."
“Is that so?” Ryan’s lips twitched, not in a smile, but in some habitual twitch of his facial muscles. “Then I’m in charge here until he ‘returns.’ Now, take me to his quarters and his personal belongings.” This was not a request.
The soldier behind Ryan took a half step forward, moved his finger away from the trigger guard, and placed it directly on the trigger.
Milos paused for two seconds, then turned around: "This way."
Song Heping's living quarters in the camp were extremely simple.
A six-square-meter prefabricated house, a military computer, a cot, a field wardrobe, and a folding table.
On the table were a half-empty bottle of water and a well-worn English translation of "The Art of War".
There were no personal belongings in the room, not even a single photograph or a piece of clothing; it was so clean it resembled a temporary outpost ready to be evacuated at any moment.
Ryan stood in the center of the room, his eyes scanning the surroundings.
He did not immediately order a search, but instead conducted a thorough observation first.
The angle of the folds in the bed sheet, the distribution of dust on the table, and whether there are any discarded items in the trash can.
His gaze finally settled on the wardrobe door.
“Search that area thoroughly.” He finally spoke: “Cut open the mattress to check the filling, scan the bed frame with X-rays. Examine every corner of the wardrobe with an endoscope, and check the seams for any magnetic attractants. Scan every inch of the floor with ground-penetrating radar. Don’t even turn on the computer, just disassemble the hard drive for physical analysis.”
The soldiers began their operation.
One person took out a portable X-ray scanner from their backpack and slowly moved it toward the bed frame; another person used a fiber optic endoscope to reach into every corner of the wardrobe; a third person squatted down and used a ground-penetrating radar tablet to push it along the floor.
The entire process was eerily quiet, with only the faint hum of the instruments.
ten minutes later.
The soldier in charge of the X-ray scan reported first: "No abnormalities inside the bed frame, no hidden compartments, no concealed spaces."
The endoscopic operator then reported: "The inside of the wardrobe is clean. The back panel, bottom panel, and top panel are all solid composite boards with no interlayer and no magnetic reaction."
The soldier who scanned the floor concluded, "The ground below is solid; there are no voids or buried objects."
Ryan's expression didn't change, but Milos noticed that his left little finger twitched slightly.
That was a rare moment of frustration for him.
“Computer,” Ryan said.
The technicians had already disassembled the laptop and connected the hard drive to a black analysis device.
Three minutes later, the technician looked up, his tone puzzled: "The hard drive has been physically demagnetized, sir. It wasn't formatted; a strong magnetic field completely destroyed all the tracks. There's zero chance of recovery."
Only then did Lamont step forward.
"let me see."
He moved a chair over, stood on it, took a miniature screwdriver from his toolbox, unscrewed the smoke detector near the corner of the ceiling, and removed the casing.
There was no battery or circuit board inside, only a clump of wires roughly shredded with pliers and the remains of a microchip.
“This is the bug we installed 72 hours ago.”
Lamont calmly said, holding the wreckage in his palm: "The frequency is in the ultra-high frequency band, which is theoretically impossible to detect by conventional anti-eavesdropping equipment."
He moved to the desk, opened the drawer, and his eyes fell on the inside of the drawer's slide.
What was discovered this time was a fragment of a pinhole camera.
The lens was pierced by a sharp object, and the circuit board was broken in two.
Lemont inspected three pre-installed hidden surveillance devices.
Without exception, all the equipment was found and destroyed, and the method was clean and efficient.
It's not demolition, it's complete physical destruction.
"All three monitoring points were discovered and destroyed."
Lamont concluded, his tone revealing genuine surprise for the first time: "The sabotage occurred approximately twenty-four to thirty-six hours ago. That means he found everything as soon as he entered. This guy has been on guard against us all along."
Ryan finally showed a noticeable reaction.
He walked to the window, turned his back to the room, and silently watched the sky outside gradually turn white.
“Song Heping knew we were monitoring him,” Ryan finally said, his voice low. “He knew, but he didn’t make a fuss, didn’t change rooms, and didn’t even report it. He just… cleared the surveillance footage and continued to live here.”
He turned and fixed his gaze on Milos: "This proves two things: first, he had long anticipated this day; second, he never kept his truly important things in this room."
Milos remained silent.
Ryan walked up to Milos: "Do you know how serious this situation is?"
Milos shook his head: "I don't know."
Ryan took a step closer, bringing the two to within half a meter: "Major General Duke suddenly collapsed at the camp at 11:47 p.m. last night and was rushed to the hospital but died. The preliminary cause of death was determined to be acute myocardial infarction. But coincidentally, just three hours before his death, the Department of Defense Inspector General's Office had issued an arrest warrant for him for allegedly leaking critical intelligence that could endanger U.S. national security to unauthorized personnel."
Milos's breathing remained unchanged.
He had long since learned to control his physical reactions to any news, but his heart felt as if it had been struck a heavy blow.
Duke is dead?
How could an army major general who was alive and kicking yesterday and even greeted me when we met be dead?
“This means,” Ryan continued, “that all your current operational authorizations are null and void. More seriously, anyone who has had direct contact with Duke can now be considered a potential espionage agent. Wartime espionage, Mr. Kovac Milos, you know what that means.”
Milos knows.
Life imprisonment at Guantanamo, or more simply, "accidental death" on the battlefield.
"Now I'll give you a way out."
Ryan's voice returned to normal volume: "Tell me everything you know: Song Heping's exact coordinates, the time and place of his meeting with Maisuer, and his plan—what exactly he's going to do. If you tell me, you can get witness protection, a new identity, and sufficient resettlement funds. If you don't..."
He paused, letting the threat fester: "Then you will become, like the other people involved in the Duke case, a problem that needs to be silenced forever."
Milos's throat was dry, but he didn't swallow, as that would betray his nervousness.
“I need legal assistance. Under Section 1208 of the National Defense Authorization Act, contractor personnel have rights while in custody—”
"Article 1208 does not apply to hostile personnel during a national security emergency."
Ryan interrupted him: "The executive order the president signed at 2 a.m. this morning has made this clear. You are no longer a contractor's employee, but a suspected hostile combatant who is endangering national security. Cooperation is your only legitimate way out."
Ryan made a gesture, raising his index finger slightly.
Two soldiers stepped forward and stood on either side of Milos.
Their positioning blocked all possible angles of resistance.
“Take him to interrogation room number 2,” Ryan said. “Proceed with standard procedure.”
Asking for a monthly ticket! Asking for a monthly ticket!
(End of this chapter)