202 Ambrosia Cartel: Part 9

"Commander Grant, how's your day?" Nathan asked Patrick.

"What? Commander Grant? Since when this base became so formal?" Patrick asked because of the sudden culture shock that he got due to the fact he didn't remember that the base had this much personnel. It was one or two people in the base beside the original contractor, but once Patrick took another look, there might be hundreds of new personnel inside of that base.

It was due to the fact that the Hitman team found a headquarter of a terrorist in the middle east and they took all of the personnel there as a new member of the HSDC since they were quite a capable soldier. It was evident by the high level of the combat team that had reached level 10. Lynn walked to Patrick.

"Well. Good news, I guess?" Lynn asked.

"What are you talking about? Of course, it's good news. More personnel equals more money. It's that simple isn't it?" Nathan said.

Patrick just nodded without saying any words. Clara had gone without leaving any traces of her existence. She just disappeared in plain sight as if she was never there. It might be one of the skills that Clara had since she was trained to be a bomb defuser unit which required a certain degree of stealth since being noticed by the enemy while detonating the bomb that the enemy placed equaled death.

Patrick was guided by Nathan while Lynn was guided by Laura. Both of them went in a different direction since those two had a different objective. Lynn's expertise was urban combat while Patrick's expertise was urban hacking combat. His combat style was similar to Alex, but Alex was more reliant on his hacking tool since he didn't like to use weapons when he could. He preferred more big-brained methods to kill the enemy.

The first thing that they saw after the hangar was the armory. The armory was a building which was very big with a lot of guns inside of it. The guns were loaded inside of a locker. Those guns were mostly HK416 since it was the standard-issue assault rifle that the HSDC had. It was no wonder if almost everyone that was stationed here holds an HK416.

The armory was full of people that were just freshly recruited by the hitman team. Some of them were wearing a combat uniform, like those who were defecting from the official army. Nevertheless, they would throw their identity and replaced it with a new one. They wouldn't be bound by their former law or their beliefs. Everyone was fighting for the same cause. They were serving under the commanders.

Patrick continued walking into the base. The next section was the motor pool that was filled with many vehicles. The vehicles that were there were used by the contractors for their long-range operation in the ground. Those vehicles were untouched and still clean. The only vehicle that was dirty was those two tanks that were used by the Hitman team. There were HUMVEEs, Strykers, and MRAPs.

Patrick didn't bother too much about it. His vehicle was the fighter jet so there wasn't anything that caught his interest in particular. He just wanted to tell Stacy and Ryan about the weird encounter with a mysterious squadron that he remembered from one of the games that he played when he was still in school.

The Su-47s squadron that was owned by the Ambrosia cartel. The dialogs that Patrick had heard with the weird squadron was so weird. It was about the king and the new world. The thing that worried him the most was the Panama thingy. Panama was the most suspicious thing that they called.

They eventually arrived at the intel building. The building was now filled with personnel. The secretary desk that was empty last night now was filled with a bulk man from Africa. He was tall and buffed up. His accent was the most noticeable thing from him. That person's accent was very African-ish. However, it didn't make any language barrier for them.

They walked past that buffed up man. They were heading straight into the command center where Stacy and Ryan were usually standing by. The photos must have been moved to the data facility inside of the base. The pictures that Patrick took were displayed on a very large display in front of the whole command center room.

From what it looked like, the cartel made another base of operation in the north of the formerly destroyed base of operation. It seemed to be that the cartel had access to advanced military hardware. For example, there was an automated turret located in the middle of the compound. It simply didn't make any sense for a cartel to have an automated turret that the U.S even rarely had.

Not stopping there, it also seemed to be a more advanced type of soldier being deployed in the area. Those sicarios were placed alongside the new base of operation to guard it. Their equipment was what one would expect from a United States special force. They were heavily armed and wielded a special kind of weaponry.

Other than that, the pictures only showed the random imagery of the forests that Patrick accidentally took when he was flying. However, Stacy skipped straight to the image of the mysterious Su-47s that were chasing him. The livery made Ryan remember something, but Patrick doubts that it was an important thing to be told to him.

"Gault."

Gault. That was the first thing that Ryan said once he saw the picture of the Su-47. It didn't make any sense for the others, but Patrick could understand the meaning well. Gault was an ace squadron in a well-known game and this squadron had many similarities to the squadron that was inside of the game.

Patrick sighed. "This won't be a smooth ride." Patrick looked closer at the pilots that were ejecting from the aircraft. Some of them might have survived and reported to their boss about the existence of the SDC.

"Panama? I hear your voice on the radio. You said Panama. Let's check it out." Stacy zoomed the picture out and switched to the map on the large display screen in the front of the command center. The map on the satellite didn't indicate that there was suspicious activity in the Panama canal.

Lynn had called Agent Herring beforehand, and he denied that the US had anything to do with the Panama canal. Lynn believed in him since Herring was viewed as a father by Lynn. She would always respect his decision by nature since it was just the way it was. The puzzle of the Panama Canal couldn't be solved by that low amount of intel. In short, they needed more intelligence than the sleeping king of Panama.

"I'll contact you guys later. In the meantime, make sure to get to know the other staff members that the Hitman team had invited to join this SDC. Good luck." Stacy walked away from the large screen in front of the command center. Patrick and Lynn didn't have any authorization to enter that room, but still, they would respect that decision and go back to his own room.

However, Lynn had a better idea. There was a shooting range in the corner of the lower deck, Lynn asked Patrick to join the shooting competition so he could prove that the Commanders were the people anybody didn't want to mess with. Patrick agreed with that and both of them walked side by side to the shooting range.

The shooting range was filled with much different personnel. Most of them were training with their sniper rifle or assault rifle. Patrick also grabbed his assault rifle and tuned the target into the hardest difficulty. Patrick pressed the red button in the middle and the simulation started. The targets started moving and Patrick used his [Focus] ability to slow the time down.

He didn't have any difficulty in tracking his target since the time had slowed down for him. He scored in the shooting range and broke the record that Charlie had given. Well, it wasn't a big surprise since nothing could defeat the amount of damage a rifle would give every minute. Nevertheless, Patrick started to know the other staff members.