Chapter Eleven: Breaking Out of the Encirclement (Part One)

  Lin Ruo Lan is currently supporting Mr. Ma Ke in the primitive jungle, chasing after Geng Guo Hui and Yang Xin Xin at a rapid pace.

  For the entire morning, she followed Ambassador Han's instructions and stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Mark until after lunch when she was sent to the airport, during which time Mr. and Mrs. Mark never left her sight. Just as they were about to board the plane, Mr. Mark, who had been looking worried all along, suddenly said he needed to go to the restroom and then disappeared without returning.

  Han Teng, who was in charge of seeing Mark off, thought that Mr. Mark had been kidnapped by mercenaries and was frantically searching everywhere. Shen Xianghui hastily led his men to check the airport's surveillance cameras, only to discover that Mr. Mark had slipped out of the waiting room unnoticed.

  Lin Ruo Lan had been quietly paying attention to Mrs. Mark's expression, her emotions revealed a hint of anxiety, apparently having psychological preparation for Mr. Mark's disappearance. Lin Ruo Lan reported the situation to Shen Xiang Hui, and under Shen Xiang Hui's repeated questioning, Mrs. Mark finally admitted that her husband had followed the assault team into the mountains.

  Han Teng's face turned pale as he listened to Shen Xianghui's report, and his mind was in a mess. The Mark couple were national treasure-level experts, and if anything unexpected happened, he would be held accountable. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the dense cold sweat beads on his forehead, muttering: "What can I do? What can I do?"

  Sitting on one side, preparing to return home with Geng Guohui, Han Feng completely lost his mind. He had a few points of disdain in his heart and asked Lin Ruolan, "Lin advisor, did Jin Da and the others leave any weapons or equipment behind?"

  Lin Ruo Lan thought his question was a bit strange, but still answered truthfully: "In order to cover up their identities, they left all the weapons and equipment they brought with them. What's wrong?"

  Geng Guohui stood up and patted his clothes, "That's easy to handle, I'll bring the weapon and go find him, guaranteeing that the guest will be found."

  "But your injury hasn't healed yet, how can you go?" Lin Ruo Lan looked at the bandage on his abdomen, her face full of anxiety.

  "It's nothing, this little injury is no big deal. Don't worry about it. Where did you put the equipment? Take me to get it."

  Lin Ruo Lan thought about it and felt that this was the only way, gritted her teeth and said to Geng Guo Hui: "I'll go with you, otherwise if you can't communicate with him, even if you find him, he might not be willing to come back with you."

  Han Lei looked at Geng Guohui and Lin Ruolan with concern, thought for a moment, and since there was really no one else to send in the embassy, he could only say helplessly to Shen Xianghui: "They are military personnel, you take charge."

  "I'm going too!" A cold voice entered his ears, Geng Guohui sighed: "Yang Xinxin, what are you meddling with? Do you think it's possible to bring you along?"

  Yang Xinxin, who had been handcuffed and hadn't spoken a word in three days, looked at Shen Xianghui with a very sincere gaze: "Commander Shen, I guarantee you on my military honor that I will absolutely not do anything to harm the country again, I will never hurt my comrades again, please believe me! Please give me one more chance!"

  Shen Xianghui hesitated, not answering. Lin Ruolan looked at Yang Xinxin, who met her gaze and suddenly became painful and embarrassed, but quietly waited for Shen Xianghui's decision. A person's greatest enemy is oneself, and not everyone has the courage to admit their mistakes. Yang Xinxin's pain and embarrassment came from her admission. After understanding this truth, Lin Ruolan took a deep breath and said to Shen Xianghui: "I believe her!"

  Geng Guohui suddenly turned around, "Lin advisor..."

  Lin Ruo Lan waved her hand at him, "Don't say anymore, we need help, and at this time, I am willing to stake my life on choosing to trust my comrades."

  Shen Xianghui knew that time waits for no man, and the more he hesitated, the greater the possibility of Mr. Mark's unexpected move. He made up his mind and said to the guard escorting Yang Xinxin: "Unlock her handcuffs." He then turned to Lin Ruolan and Geng Guohui and said: "Time is pressing, I won't delay you any longer, be careful."

  Geng Guohui took two steps, then turned back and said in a low voice to Shen Xianghui: "Shen Da Xue, we will use the emergency radio station to keep in touch with you. If we lose contact for more than 3 hours or if Mr. Mark has not been found by 24:00 today, please notify the assault team of what happened here immediately."

  Shen Xianghui nodded solemnly at him, "I understand!"

  Geng Guohui and Yang Xinxin went to fetch the weapons, Lin Ruolan knew she couldn't help, so she went to ask Mrs. Mark about Mr. Mark's possible route.

  Opening the large wooden box containing weapons, Yang Xinxin picked up a 95 assault rifle and removed the magazine to check it, saying in a low voice: "Thank you for your trust!"

  "I never trusted you!" Geng Guohui said coldly in a warning tone: "Yang Xinxin, listen up, if you dare to make any more excessive moves, I'll shoot you with one bullet!"

  "Rest assured!" Yang Xinxin said fiercely while loading ammunition into her backpack.

  Two people quietly sorted out their equipment, Geng Guohui hung the assault rifle on his chest, tied the jungle knife to his calf, put the 92-style pistol under his left armpit, and wrapped a special explosive waist pack around his waist, also filling his backpack with C-4. Yang Xinxin took an assault rifle, the 92-style pistol was also placed under her left armpit, and she had a silenced submachine gun on her back.

  "Mr. Ma had secretly taken a look at the terrain map of the crash site." Upon hearing this news from Mrs. Ma, Lin Ruolan hastily came to find Geng Guohui.

  "It seems he will follow the route of the assault team into the mountains, this is bad, the mercenaries who were deceived by the assault team may have discovered their mistake and are on their way back. We must hurry!" Geng Guohui handed the single soldier tactical radio headset to Lin Ruolan, teaching her to wear it properly, while signaling Yang Xinxin to also put on the headset, bowing his head to turn on the radio: "Radio tuned to B channel, now testing mic, 3, 2, 1."

  "Roger." Yang Xinxin pressed down on the intercom.

  "Wait a minute, we don't have GPS." Yang Xinxin rummaged through the box for a long time but couldn't find any trace of the GPS. In the depths of the mountain, without GPS positioning, it's very easy to lose direction.

  "I have it here." Lin Ruolan picked up the small backpack that had been by her side and took out the GPS left to her by Jin Hua, handing it over to Geng Guohui, "Jin... Jin Dadao left one for me when he walked away."

  Geng Guohui took out other things from his backpack and looked at them, smiling: "Jin Da thought of everything, even solving the problem of drinking water." He scratched his head, "How could I not think of these?"

  "Let's go quickly." Lin Ruolan shouldered her bag and was the first to head out the door. Yang Xinxin gazed at her back, a complex expression flashing in her eyes, while Geng Guohui growled: "Hurry up, what are you staring blankly for?"

  Driving the car provided by the embassy, following the route taken by the assault team to the mountainous area, it was strange that no trace of Mr. Mark was found along the way. Lin Ruolan anxiously kept looking at her watch, it was already 16:40, there were not many cars on this road, Geng Guohui stepped on the accelerator to the bottom, and the car sped away quickly. Suddenly he slammed on the brakes, "screech" the sound of the wheels touching the ground was ear-piercing.

  "What's wrong?" Lin Ruolan was thrown against the back of the front seat by a huge inertia.

  Geng Guohui didn't bother to answer, opened the car door and jumped out of the car, saying "You two stay in the car." He quickly ran across the road to a small grove on the other side, crouched down on the ground to observe something carefully, then used GPS positioning, and then used binoculars to gaze into the distance. About seven or eight minutes later, he returned to the car and restarted the engine.

  "What did you see?" Yang Xinxin asked anxiously as he didn't speak.

  "We've hit a snag." Geng Guohui's face was tense, with a hint of ferocity: "Judging from the footprints left in the woods, there are approximately twelve to fourteen targets who have hijacked the guests. They're heavily armed and entered the mountain from the small woods on the other side. We can't catch up if we chase after them from here. We need to take a shortcut and drive around to the front. I've checked the GPS, and there's a small road ahead that we can use to catch up with them."

  "Got it!" Yang Xinxin started checking the firearms, "It would be great if there was a sniper rifle. The 88 sniper in the box is Vice Captain Chen's favorite gun, I didn't dare touch it. If I accidentally damaged it, he'd throttle me to death."

  "Is it that serious?" Lin Ruolan asked in confusion: "It's just a gun, isn't it? If it breaks, he can just go get another one."

  "Lin, you don't understand, each gun has its own temperament. Although they look the same on the outside, every gun's rifling, trigger force and trigger travel are different. This margin of error is imperceptible to ordinary people, but in the hands of a professional sniper, it becomes fatal." Geng Guohui explained patiently.

  Yang Xinxin saw that Lin Ruolan was somewhat puzzled, and continued: "Deputy Captain Chen is the best sniper in our entire army, not one of them, but the best. So he takes extra care to protect his beloved gun."

  Geng Guohui kept the car at a speed of 120 miles per hour, and after listening to Yang Xinxin's words, he smiled incredulously: "You're late, you only saw that Chen is the best sniper in the army, but you haven't seen Jin Da's style back then. He was still the leader of the sniper platoon when I was a member of his combat team. Have you heard Li Bai's 'The Ballad of the Chivalrous Merchant'? 'Ten steps to kill one person, a thousand miles without leaving a trail. When the deed is done, wipe your sword and leave, deeply hiding your body and name.' It's simply Jin Da's portrait."

  Yang Xinxin was stunned for a moment, muttering in a low voice: "How did I not know?"

  The car slowed down after turning onto a fork in the road, and Geng Guohui glanced at the GPS coordinates before continuing to drive for about ten kilometers. He slowly pulled over to the side of the road, turned around, and said to Lin Ruolan in the back seat: "From here on out, we'll have to rely on our two legs."

  Lin Ruo Lan nodded, shouldered her bag and got off the car. Geng Guohui and Yang Xinxin sandwiched her in between them, with a distance of twenty meters between each person, quickly moving forward.

  The small forest is close to the highway, and there are local villagers' trails between the trees, which are not difficult to walk. After walking for about half an hour, the sky was completely dark. Geng Guohui, who was walking in front, suddenly squatted down and raised his palm sharply.

  "Something's up!" Yang Xinxin, who was behind Lin Ruolan, shouted in a low voice and rushed forward to push Lin Ruolan behind a tree to hide. Then she ran to Geng Guohui's side, squinting her eyes with the help of night vision goggles to take a closer look. In the grass thicket under the tree, there was a clear footprint, left by an American jungle combat boot. The footprint pointed towards the southeast direction, and the edge of the print was very deep, not yet blurred by the surrounding soft mud. The person who left the footprint had passed through here no more than two hours ago. Geng Guohui searched carefully on the ground, and in front of this footprint, he found another unclear footprint, also left by an American jungle combat boot. The two footprints did not belong to the same person.

  Geng Guohui carefully searched the surroundings with night vision binoculars, but did not find any suspicious targets. He slowly stood up and said in a low voice: "Reduce the interval distance, pay attention to search forward."

  "Understood!" Yang Xinxin nodded slightly and retreated back to the end of the line. The three people set off again, this time at a slower pace.

  As we move forward, more and more traces are found that the mercenaries left unintentionally, a stone kicked open by military boots, marks of gun butts on the mud under the tree, sputum spat on the ground.

  Geng Guohui stopped and said, "They are nearby, preparing for battle. Lin Shouzhang, you must stay at the hiding point later, don't come out casually."

  Yang Xinxin let Lin Ruolan retreat to a slightly farther distance, and she alternated with Geng Guohui to slowly approach the edge of the small woods. If they went forward again, it would be the vast primitive forest. Lin Ruolan almost tiptoed behind the two, afraid that she would make a sound and alert the invisible enemy. It was very quiet here, quietly eerie, as if something was hidden in the air around them, exerting pressure on them from afar. Lin Ruolan seemed to feel the presence of danger, and didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

  The situation was unclear, and Geng Guohui, who was walking in front, was moving forward at a crawling speed. After a long half hour, they entered the humid and dark primeval forest. In front of them was a black hole-like mountain valley, which looked like a monster with its mouth wide open under the faint moonlight. Lin Ruolan suddenly felt a chill run down her spine.

  Geng Guohui took out his laptop from his backpack, typed in a line of text "Found the customer, preparing to invite them over." He entered the password and sent it to the base via the satellite phone. Closing the laptop, he picked up the binoculars and began searching the mountain valley inch by inch. Suddenly, next to a giant banyan tree at the edge of the valley, a faint reflection flashed for an instant. He quickly adjusted the magnification of the binoculars and fixed his gaze on the banyan tree. Five minutes later, the reflection reappeared, and this time he finally saw clearly - the muzzle of a heavy machine gun protruded from behind the tree! From the shape of the muzzle brake, it was a DShK 12.7mm caliber heavy machine gun!

  "Damn it!" Geng Guohui took a deep breath, this heavy machine gun was blocking all their paths. Mr. Mark must have been taken captive in the valley, which meant they had to rescue him under the muzzle of this machine gun.

  He made a gesture to Yang Xinxin, and quietly retreated. Crouching on the damp ground, he whispered to Yang Xinxin about the reconnaissance results just now, "Nightingale, I'll sneak back from the flank to the rear of the machine gunner, wait for my signal."

  "You're injured and can't move easily. I'll make a detour to the side, wait for my signal." Yang Xinxin grabbed Geng Guohui's arm.

  "Obey orders!" Geng Guohui said in a low, stern voice: "Listen, the situation inside the mountain valley is unclear. We don't have thermal imaging equipment and can't conduct further reconnaissance, so we can only take risks! If I get hit, you must ensure that our guest and Lin are safely escorted back!" He took off his backpack, slung the assault rifle over his shoulder, pulled out a 92-style pistol, screwed on a silencer, and tucked it into his waist. With both hands gripping a dagger, he quietly crept towards the enemy machine gunner's rear according to the GPS indication.

  Lin Ruo Lan crouched in a clump of waist-high grass, following Yang Xinxin's instructions. With the help of night vision goggles, she held her breath and watched as Geng Guohui's figure disappeared behind a large tree.

  Geng Guohui crept up silently behind the machine gunner, who was lying on the ground as if asleep. His left hand suddenly reached out from behind and locked onto the machine gunner's throat, crushing his larynx with a squeeze. His right hand plunged a dagger into the bandit's ear hole. The machine gunner's body convulsed violently, and Geng Guohui dragged the corpse into the shadows. He lightly pressed on the wound in his abdomen, which was throbbing with pain, and tapped three times on the transmitter, signaling "clear".

  Yang Xinxin let out a sigh of relief, crawling on all fours to the entrance of the mountain valley, and listened carefully with her ear to the side. There was no sound inside the valley. She exchanged a surprised glance with Geng Guohui, using hand gestures to indicate that she would go in first. Geng Guohui shook his head, signaling her to remain quiet. He crouched in place, holding his breath and "observing" the environment inside the valley with his ears. The forest was very quiet, and he heard three steady breathing sounds and one rapid, unstable breathing sound. The irregular breathing frequency indicated that someone's heart was racing with fear - this must be Mr. Ma.

  Geng Guohui clearly heard the location of the mercenaries and signaled to Yang Xinxin to get ready. Yang Xinxin drew out a 92-style pistol with a silencer, retreated to the edge of the mountain valley, and stood still against the wall, both hands gripping the gun and aiming at the exit of the valley. Geng Guohui slowly hid behind a tree five meters away, bent down to pick up a small stone and threw it towards the valley. "Thud!" A sound rang out.

  "What's going on, Nick?" came the alert question and the sound of a rifle bolt being pulled. Footsteps approached from outside, an AK47 barrel poked out, Yang Xinxin sprang up like lightning, her left hand grasped the AK47 barrel, pulling it outward, the mercenary was dragged out of the mountain valley before he could react, Yang Xinxin's right hand holding a 92-style pistol pressed against his temple and pulled the trigger.

  "Ugh!" The filthy blood spurted out, and the mercenary slumped to the ground, soft and limp.

  The mercenaries left in the mountain valley were startled, accompanied by the crisp sound of AK-47 assault rifles, a string of bullets flew over Yang Xinxin's helmet, and the strong airflow made her immediately lie down on the ground.

  Geng Guohui threw two flash grenades into the mountain valley with a wave of his hand, shouting "Flash grenade!" at the same time as Yang Xinxin closed her eyes. As the strong light from the flash grenades flashed, the mercenaries who were blinded by the light couldn't find cover and were completely exposed to Yang Xinxin's gunfire. However, they still refused to give up and continued firing back, with intense gunfire sounding "tat tat tat" as bullets rained down like a swarm of locusts, splintering the trees around the mountain valley into wood chips everywhere. One stray bullet whizzed past Geng Guohui's right shoulder with a "whoosh".

  Yang Xinxin raised her pistol and silently pulled the trigger, firing a whole clip of bullets into the bodies of the two mercenaries. The mercenaries fell to the ground, twitched a few times, and then died.

  Geng Guohui didn't care about his own bleeding wound, holding a submachine gun and rushing into the mountain valley. He pulled up the frightened Mr. Mark, cut off the rope binding him with a dagger, carefully checked him from head to toe, confirmed that he was not injured, then shouted at Yang Xinxin: "Take advantage of their people haven't come back yet, let's retreat quickly!"

  Mr. Mark crossed himself repeatedly on his chest, muttering: "Thank God! Thank the Almighty Lord! Thank Saint Mary! Thank..."

  Yang Xinxin put the grenade without a fuse under the three corpses, grabbed Mr. Mark and asked Lin Ruo-lan, who had just run into the mountain valley: "Lin advisor, what did he say?"

  "He said thank God." Lin Ruolan hastily pulled out a hemostatic bandage from the first-aid kit, intending to dress Geng Guohui's bleeding wound, but was stopped by him. He snatched the bandage and randomly wrapped it around his wound: "We have to get out of here quickly, this time we're lucky, but their people will hear the gunshot and soon they'll be chasing us in this direction. Nightingale, pull the guest and run towards the highway."

  "My god, thank what god? Can his god save him?" Yang Xinxin pulled Mr. Mark and ran towards the direction of the highway. Lin Ruolan followed closely behind her, with Geng Guohui holding a gun at the end.

  They had just run to the edge of the woods when a loud "boom" sounded, and a flare was shot into the sky. The four of them were exposed in the bright light of the flare, and they encountered the mercenaries on the narrow road. The crisp sound of AK47 gunfire echoed loudly in the silent night, and dense bullets flew towards them like a gust of wind, blocking their way.