44 The Russian's Gambit: Part 20

"Why? Is your persuasion skill isn't enough?" Lizbeth crossed her hands as Abdul picked up his helmet. He wiped the helmet with his hands to clean it from the sand.

The person that was renting the horse looked disturbed. Either he didn't trust foreigners or he just didn't want to give his horse to them. The latter option seemed to be the option that made the most sense. Abdul was putting his hand on the trigger of his AK. He really wanted to shoot that insurgent sympathizer. If he did that, it would be a bad idea since the street was full of US soldiers.

They need a plan. Fast. They couldn't spend too long in Qaim or Amar's spy would warn him about the two people that were going to attack him. Lizeth had a good idea, maybe she could use her newfound ability as a woman, but in a country like Iraq, it was a terrible idea. So scrap that idea. Another idea was involving the person to go to an empty alleyway.

Lizeth poked Abdul's back. She whispered on his ears, "Abdul, could you make this person go to the alleyway over there," she said as she pointed her finger at an alleyway around the corner of the building.

Abdul scratched his head while smiling, "Sure, don't worry. I will do that," he came to that person again and debated in Arabic as Lizeth walked away from that spot. She went to that alleyway and searched for a hiding place.

That alleyway was a dead-end. The only hiding place was a dumpster, an empty barrel of oil, or a cardboard box. Of course, as a smart person, she chose the cardboard box. She went hiding under that cardboard box as she waited for Abdul to bring that person to that alleyway.

Shortly after, she heard the footsteps of two people walking in her direction. Of course, there was a sound of Abdul. Abdul was cursing in Arabic as that person was pinned down on the alleyway because Abdul kept pushing him to the alley.

That person kept walking backward until he walked passed the cardboard box. Lizeth ambushed him by pulling his legs to make him fell to the ground and choked him with her baton, "Phew," she retracted the baton and put it back on her pocket.

"Let's just hide it in the dumpster," Abdul said as he carried the body and hid it inside the dumpster. The dumpster smelled funny. Bodies. There were other visitors before him. He closed that dumpster and hope for the best. They looked around and glad that none of the soldiers noticed them.

They walked outside that alley and approached the horse that they were going to ride. Abdul asked her, "Habibti, you can right a horse right?"

"Mmmm, no," Lizeth answered.

"Get on the back then," Abdul helped her to get on the back of that horse. Lizeth got on the back of the horse and Abdul whipped the horse. The horse ran away from Qaim before the police or the US soldier asked them for an explanation.

The horse walked away from the city of Qaim and started traversing in the desert. The Iraqi desert was very big. Either that or the fact that the horse walked very slowly. Abdul was smoking a cigarette on his mouth. The fumes hit Lizeth's face. She wondered what kind of cigarette Abdul smoked.

"Abdul! The fumes, cut the smoke," Lizeth complained. She hated the fumes hitting her face.

"Why? Don't you also smoke?" Abdul asked her as he offered his cigarette. Lizeth isn't exactly used to smoking, but she sometimes smokes at the top of the roof of her school when no one was looking.

"No, I'm just bothered by the fumes that blasted to my face from your face," Lizeth took one of the cigarettes from Abdul's pocket and smoked it by using his lighter, "At least give me some will ya?" She puffed smoke right in front of Abdul's back.

"Yes, yes," Abdul said as he mounted an NVG on his helmet. Somehow, the horse started moving quicker once she started smoking that cigarette. She also wondered why the smoke on the cigarette colored blue.

She wondered whether her eyes were lying or the sun moved too quickly today. The horse seemingly moving at a speed similar to a Lamborghini if she wasn't wrong. The culprit was the content of that cigarette. It was a drug to manipulate the perception of time. The time was moving faster because of that.

They arrived at the edge of the village where Amar was suspected to be there. The sky has turned orange by the time they arrived there. Nobody hadn't noticed them since they were around 700 meters away from that village and they were hiding between the dead bushes in the desert. Both of them were looking through the binoculars.

The village consisted of 20 desert houses that were scattered around the village. As far as they could see, the village was guarded by multiple guards scattered around the village. If you observed the windows carefully, you could see multiple marksmen were scattered in each house.

They were armed with stolen weapons from both the west and the east. Some of them were armed with AR-15 series rifles like the M4 or M16, but most of them used an AK or SVD.

"This is going to be tough," Lizeth wrote her plan on her phone. She drew a rough sketch of that village and placed small dots for every potential hazard there. The infiltration must be done at night and quietly or they would have to fight more than fifty angry insurgents.

"I agree," Abdul attached a suppressor to his AK-74M. Lizeth explained her plan to Abdul. Basically, Abdul would infiltrate from the east and cleared the roof from the snipers. Lizeth would infiltrate from the north and went straight towards the main building while clearing the windows from the snipers. She would use her new [Focus] ability to neutralize the guard with deadly accuracy.

"I see, Habibti," Abdul understood that plan and he moved away from the bushes slowly to avoid detection from the marksman.