Chapter 43

The biggest mistake was that they had not been on guard. However at home they may have been, whoever relaxed their guard deserved to die.

The second mistake was that they had underestimated the enemy.

They should have lured the enemy into an open area and surrounded them with their armed trucks and bikes. They had been idiots lured into the rocky hills because they didn’t utilize their equipment properly. Ahmud scoffed at Musta for being unable to read the situation appropriately and being taken at Uldi Hamarl by the Lattell team. If humans knew their futures, how boring the world would be!

It had been two hours since he figured out the location of France’s special forces.

Thankfully, they approached the center point of the place they had been lying in wait at.

Ahmud left his main troops 20km away while moving with 60 of his men on bikes. He was planning to do a blitz attack after proper surveillance and cutting off their resources.

Three kilometers away, the pickup truck was slowly coming up the hill. Ahmud felt so much joy at watching the frogs crawl up into their net.

Because Musta had been buried in the red stream, all of Habib’s warriors had been in grasp’s reach. Ahmud’s ambitions grew. If he destroyed France’s special forces and took over Makombo, he could grow his commission from 11 to 12.

The leader of the northern army, Ahmud!

Just thinking about it made his heart race.

As Ahmud was lost in sweet dreams, Captain was stuck in a harsh reality.

Captain tended to sweat a lot. He strangely drank coffee with salt in it. He had salt capsules the size of an aspirin that he kept as supplements. He could gulp them down without water. Paul always drank his coffee with salt in it.

Although there was no evidence for it, he strongly believed that the salt given out in the army was mixed with drugs. He also carried the weird notion that strong coffee decreased the effects of the drugs. The taboos that mercenaries believed in had nothing to do with common sense.

Cough, cough!

Captain, who had been drinking the salted coffee, coughed harshly as if his throat would come out. After coughing violently, Captain spit out the coffee into his hand.

“Fuck, what is that!” Paul yelled out loud.

A black mass was wiggling in his palm. It was a large gadfly. The gadfly that had been going down his throat and then coughed back up was wriggling. It had been aiming to get some blood when it was seduced by the sweet scent of coffee and had fallen into it.

Captain pressed the gadfly between his thumb and index finger and squashed it.

“Ugh, disgusting!”

He wiped his hands on his pants with his expression full of annoyance.

Ombuti smiled with his teeth showing.

“Captain, flies and gadflies are not a good source of protein. If you want to gain some nutrients, you should be eating grasshoppers or beetles like Black Mamba.”

“I know. This one just happened to have found a place to commit suicide. How desperately it must have hated Chad to want to commit suicide.”

“Is that the reason?”

Ombuti stood numbly.

Even joking around wasn’t funny when their faces were completely covered as they were. It was because they couldn’t read the other person’s facial expression.

Black Mamba had known that the gadfly had flown into Captain’s coffee, but he had let it be. It would have been a protein boost if it ended up in his stomach anyways.

“Wait! Ombuti, slow down.”

Ombuti stepped on the brakes and slowed down. Black Mamba’s face stiffened. It was the leaden smell of metal and gun powder. His sensitive nose picked up on the smell floating around in the air.

He used his sensory skills, but it was hard to catch it. It was from extremely far away. He predicted that the location of their hideout was 1000 meters away atop a boulder on a hill.

“Captain, there are a lot of gadflies in the area.”

“Wakil, which one is it?”

Black Mamba felt awkward with the nickname, but Ombuti insisted, so he now just accepted it.

“In the hills within the area. Distance is one thousand meters. I am not absolutely certain.”

The hills that they could barely see out in the distance were not that high up. The hills rose up 3~6m in height and were spread wide like a wall. It would be difficult to try to go around it.

Captain held up his binoculars and looked left and right towards the hills in surveillance.

“I don’t see any danger signs. Ack!”

Captain was shoved down into the dashboard like a rag doll. He had been dragged down by Black Mamba’s rough hands.

“Tango!”

Before Black Mamba even finished talking, gunshots rained on them like hail.

Captain opened his headset.

“It’s them. Spread out.”

Ombuti roughly turned the handle, but he was too late.

From up in the hills, a 7.62mm bullet shattered their front window and pelted the body of the car. The fender and doors soon became ragged.

Tatatata-

Soon after, the noisy sound of gunshots started to be heard.

“They’re not going to be easy.”

Ahmud clicked his tongue. They had figured out their attack a step too soon. A surprise attack was no longer possible, so all they could do now is engage in a full-out war.

“Shooters. Get the two in the front.”

From both the right and the left side, Degtyaryov machine guns fired. The Degtyaryov machine gun was created in 1928 by the Soviets in Degtyaryov. It was designed with a drum that held 47 bullets at a time.

Degtyaryov was able to shoot 1500 meters and was an antique that had been used by the Soviet army in World War II. It was built simply, and its use was easy. Frolinat had received three thousand of these antiques from Liberia. Because of the number of bullets it could hold was set, its consecutive shot ability was limited; however, its power of destruction was just as good as the contemporary machine guns.

The double shooters were at a distance of 800 meters away, where their smaller guns could not reach them. The tag team of the 4 machine shooters were highly dangerous. The three pickup trucks that had been following the lead of the one in front dispersed like scared spider babies.

“Charlie Delta, move side to side. Bravo, increase the distance.”

Hearing Captain’s command, the Bravo driver, Morris, hurriedly turned the pick up around and retreated.

Jang Shin jumped out of the pickup after grabbing the MO60 from the equipment trunk. With Mike’s help, Jang Shin was able to prep the grenade launcher with amazing speed.

Ahmud smiled crudely.

He was surprised by the speed of the enemy’s reaction, but it made no difference. There was nowhere for them to run. For maneuvering, his troop’s bikes were much more efficient. Killing a rat stuck in a trap would take very little effort.

Ombuti put his head down low and maneuvered the pickup in a zigzag motion.

The bullets pelted the side of the pickup truck. The bullets whizzing past their ears made chills go up their spines.

“Ombuti, left,” Black Mamba screamed. Ombuti reflexively turned the handle to the left.

Crash! In the direction of the path of the pickup, an RPG bomb came flying at them and exploded.

“Ack, why is an RPG flying all the way here?” Captain, who was covered in dust, yelled.

An RPG that usually only had a range of 300m flew in from 800m away. It was a situation worthy of Captain screaming.

“Oh no, they are trying to ignite our fuel.”

The shrapnel destroyed the fuel tanks. The moment Black Mamba finished his sentence, the back of the pickup truck burst into flames.

“Ya ili hai, hari keu! (Oh no, it’s fire!)” Ombuti yelled. Arabic came out because he was in a state of panic.

“Mette bu ah rabhi! (We have to hurry and escape!)”

Black Mamba grabbed the panicking Ombuti by the back of the neck and jumped off of the vehicle.

“Ya ila hai!” Ombuti screamed as he hit his head on the windshield. Captain, who had been in the back seat, also jumped off. Aflame, the speeding pick up made a loud noise then exploded. They had paid the price as the leader.

“Get down.”

Black Mamba shoved Ombuti into cover then jumped out like a puma.

“Oh no!”

He clicked his tongue. The gun in his hand was an AK gun. Even a god could not extend the limits of a gun’s shooting range.

“Black Mamba! It’s the bikes,” Captain yelled.

“Damn, shit!”

He couldn’t help but curse. From behind the hills, about ten bikes were flocking toward them. They split side to side as they sped in their direction. They were trying to get rid of the backups.

“Black, catch.”

Captain threw him his Dragonov. Black Mamba didn’t even look back as he turned his hand and caught it. He placed himself behind a small boulder so that it would act as a shield, then started to shoot.

Bang- bang- bang-

He grabbed the gun, got into position, marked his target, and shot them all in one breath.

“Hola!”

Captain and Ombuti both clenched their fists. The charging bikes consecutively fell into the ground one by one.

Even fast-moving targets can be easy prey for snipers as long as there were no obstacles in the way. While Black Mamba got rid of the five coming from the left, Mike and his teammates got the five from the right.

“How could this happen, stop!”

Ahmud, in shock, hurriedly stopped the bikes from popping forward. The bike squad had been obliterated in a mere 5 seconds. He got chills. He had only heard about this formidable foreign sniper team.

“Is the grenade launcher ready?”

“We’re ready.”

While Ahmud was yelling commands, Captain was also yelling.

“Jang Shin, did you sell the grenade launcher to a peddler?!”

Boom!

As if in answer, a 1.8kg bomb rang clearly in the distance. The 60mm M24 bomb flew 238m per second at them at a comparatively slow speed. 3 seconds later, the bomb exploded in the center of the hills.

The machine gun was an easy way to take out the enemy. Although they were dealing with guerrilla warfare, the team used the machine gun as a back up in emergency situations.

The French used the MO60 machine gun, which weighed 21kg. It had a range of 3500m, and its speed was its specialty. Unable to find the high-speed automatic gun, Captain had cried his way to get his hand on this weapon.

Boom! At that moment, a grenade came flying at them from a distance.

Jang Shin covered his head and shrank out of sight.

“You idiot! It’s an empty can ten meters away. Catch their grenade launcher.”

He kicked Mike’s butt.

Jang Shin jumped in surprise, then attached the legs to the bottom of the launcher to change it to a shorter range shooter.

“Two, three, zero”

As Mike shouted out the position numbers, Jang Shin had already calculated the power, angle, and direction of the shot.

Boom!

The second shot fell squarely into the hills at their target. After coming to his senses, Jang Shin had sent the second bomb flying precisely at his intended location.

“Okay!”

Mike excitedly waved his arms. Sergeant Mike had come to his senses after being beaten senseless by Black Mamba. He was doing his job in assisting Jang Shin without a single complaint.

“Wáng bā dàn, eat that.”

Boom- boom- boom-

With the help of Belman and Mike, Jang Shin was able to launch the grenades in his unique fashion. To utilize the MO60 mine thrower, it required four positions: shooter, loader, ammo, and observer. Jang Shin was the shooter and observer, Mike was in charge of ammo, and Belman was the loader.

Jang Shin sent a bomb flying every 3 seconds. Belman, who had been in charge of refilling the gun powder, was struggling to keep up with the demands.

“You punk, give us a chance to straighten our backs.”

The immense speed in which it was being launched caused Belman to yell at him.

A grenade launcher was poor in accuracy and not efficient. As a consequence, the grenade launcher was usually used for regional targets instead of single location targets. Jang Shin changed this logic. He was the only shooter who could use a grenade launcher to attack specific targets. With Jang Shin’s skills, he was able to aim precisely and launch the grenade exactly into the hills where the enemy were hiding.

A grenade launcher is difficult to maneuver because of its barrel and leg attachments. On the other hand, it was able to launch bombs long distances. Its range in distance and diameter of damage was much greater.

Boom- boom- boom-

“You’re doing great!” Captain exclaimed as he observed the results.

The M24 bomb Jang Shin launched successfully fell 3m from his target and exploded his shrapnel in a 15m x 15m diameter. The Frolinat guerrilla forces were unable to escape the raining pieces of metal falling over their heads.

Jang Shin launched bombs in 10m increments. In 2 minutes, he had taken 40 shots. He alone had obliterated their cover. Frolinat was in disarray. On top of the hills, the Ahmud troops had met their destruction.