Chapter Seventeen: Breaking Out of the Heavy Encirclement Seven

  After walking east for three hours along the route agreed with Jin Huang, Ma Ping walked at the front of the team, opening up a 20-meter gap with the small team behind him, swinging his machete to cut off the intertwined vines and clear a path for the team.

  The sky is near dawn, and a faint morning mist floats among the trees. In the distance, the continuous mountain peaks are vaguely visible.

  Chen Jianfeng had a strange feeling, this feeling was elusive and intangible, he couldn't grasp it clearly, nor could he judge its specific direction, which made him feel extremely uncomfortable due to his inability to control the overall situation, with an eerie expression.

  Long Fei ran up to Chen Jianfeng with his gun, gazing vigilantly in their direction of watch while asking in a low voice, "What's wrong? Why do you look so troubled?"

  Chen Jianfeng vigilantly stared at his defensive angle, without turning his head, and replied: "Don't you think it's a bit suspicious? We haven't even encountered a patrol team on this road. The opponent isn't stupid, after losing control of us, they should have thought that we would make a deep detour attack. Why didn't they send someone to search for our tracks?"

  Long Fei stopped in his tracks, stood still for a moment, and then hastily caught up with Chen Jianfeng, laughing and saying: "It's interesting." He revealed a mouthful of white teeth, just like a hungry wolf ready to pounce on its prey. "I've always had something I couldn't understand," he said. "The enemy army didn't implement electronic shielding against us, which I can understand - they wanted to be able to monitor and find us. But why did they implement electronic shielding in the A1 district where Cold Arrow passed through? It's not a strategic location, nor can it defend important targets. There was no need to go to such great lengths."

  Chen Jianfeng suddenly stopped in his tracks, and he suddenly understood what that uncomfortable feeling was. He said in a low voice: "Stop advancing!" He took out the 1/25,000 topographic map and spread it on the ground, then knelt down to study carefully the relationship between the crash site coordinates and the electronic shielding zone, deducing the enemy's intentions.

  The squad members immediately sprang into a silent, agile crouch, forming a circular defensive perimeter around themselves, vigilantly watching their own defensive angles.

  Looking at the map carefully, Chen Jianfeng couldn't help but furrow his brow. The crash site was located in B3 district, a full 280 kilometers away from the enemy's electronic shielding zones of A1 and A2 districts. As an expeditionary force in a foreign land, it made no sense to disperse their limited supplies and troops across such a vast front line; instead, they should focus all their efforts on defending the plane wreckage, waiting for the rabbit to come to them.

  Long Fei crouched beside him, looking down at the map with his head bowed. "The A1 area where Cold Arrow and Lao Chao lost contact is less than 30 kilometers away from the highway. It's strange, they've marked the electronic shielding zone so large, what are they trying to do? The opponent is a veteran soldier who has experienced many battles, and shouldn't have made such a low-level mistake."

  "I get it, the crash site marker is fake! That's a trap set for us!" Chen Jianfeng said affirmatively: "The real crash point is at the core of the electronic shielding zone!"

  A loud clap of thunder made him jump up: "It's bad, we have less than four days left, how can we find their core area in such a short time?" The new situation was very unfavorable for the rapid strike team, and it would definitely take huge casualties to gnaw on this bone, and time couldn't be wasted.

  The situation is indeed complicated. Long Fei narrowed his eyes as he gazed at the horizon where the dawn was breaking, "It can be confirmed that the person who provided us with the coordinates has already been bought by them. They went to such great lengths to lead us on a wild goose chase, which means that the goods cannot be transported within ten days. What we need to do now is to break through their encirclement and head towards the electronic shielding zone as soon as possible."

  "Cheetah doesn't know the situation, what to do? Should we wait for him?" Lei Meng asked worriedly: "He's bringing two untrained people, what if they rush into the encirclement, won't that be troublesome?"

  Chen Jianfeng deduced on the map for a while, then pointed to the horizontal S River on the map and said: "The cheetah will not lead people to chase us along the original road. He must choose a relatively close A2 area to cross the S River to meet with us. We only need to move towards this point and cross the river from here. We will definitely meet him."

  Lin Jie hesitated for a moment before speaking out the words that had been bottled up in his heart: "What if the snow leopard is nearby but we're searching far away?"

  "Cheetah? That guy has been through a hundred battles, his nose is sharper than a dog's, I'm afraid he's already sniffed out that something's not right." Long Fei patted Lin Jie's shoulder with a smile, without a hint of worry. "Looks like you still don't quite understand Cheetah, in the special forces squad, only when everyone thoroughly understands each other can they cooperate seamlessly and leave no openings for others to exploit."

  Lin Jie smiled awkwardly.

  Chen Jianfeng glanced at his watch, 6:30. He pointed to the forest behind him and said to Ma Ping, "Tie the dismantled radio transmitter to a tree, turn on the switch, set up an irregular defense circle in the forest, lure the enemy here, and make it convenient for us to break through."

  He calculated the route on the map and pointed to the S River, saying: "Here is 120 kilometers away from the S River, it is expected to take 15 hours to arrive. Everyone should travel lightly, only bringing weapons, ammunition and necessary supplies, let's move!"

  The team members went to sort out their equipment, and Long Fei took Lei Ming to dig a big pit in the woods, burying all the excess materials cleaned up by the team members. Then they covered it with the turf that had been dug up on one side of the pit.

  After everything was arranged, Chen Jianfeng gave a low command: "Jackal vanguard, advance in two directions, Leigong will cut off the rear, pay attention to eliminate traces, set off!" Along with his low shout, the entire squad quickly shrank and disappeared into the dense forest.

  The squad marched quietly for two hours, crossing a small stream flowing into the S River. Twenty meters ahead, Ma Ping carefully led the team around a thicket of bushes. Operating behind enemy lines, they dared not leave too many traces. Once the enemy discovered their tracks and gave chase, it would be trouble.

  Ma Ping suddenly raised his hand to signal a halt and quietly hid behind a dense thicket in a depression.

  Chen Jianfeng pointed behind him at Lin Jie, indicating for Lin Jie to guard the rear. Lin Jie silently retreated to a large tree and picked up his SVD sniper rifle, making an "OK" gesture with his hand.

  Chen Jianfeng carried a sniper rifle and pushed aside the weeds in front of him, quietly running towards Ma Ping.

  Ma Ping pointed to the forest in front of him and said in a low voice, "About 500 meters ahead, a dirt road was found, and more than ten footprints that didn't belong to the same person were continuously discovered along the side of the road."

  "Lei Gong and Bai Hu are monitoring the movements on both flanks. The jackals and I will sneak in for reconnaissance!" Chen Jianfeng gave the command with hand signals.

  Long Fei nodded in understanding, and Lei Meng hugged his gun to guard the two wings separately. Chen Jianfeng and Ma Ping aimed their guns at the dirt road, quietly waiting for three minutes. Listening carefully, except for the "whooshing" sound of the wind, the rustling sound of leaves, no other sounds could be heard.

  Ma Ping was about to stand up when Chen Jianfeng suddenly pressed him down. He sniffed the damp air, and in the midst of the decaying leaves' scent, he detected a faint smell that didn't belong to the forest. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but he thought hard. Suddenly, an idea flashed through his mind, and he whispered: "It's car exhaust! Open the thermal imaging instrument for a search."

  Ma Ping quickly set up the thermal imager, and after observing for a while, "Two military jeeps, stopped at 10 o'clock direction, 800 meters away from us, with an interval of about 20 meters between the vehicles, six personnel! There is a large-caliber machine gun on the vehicle. It looks like two patrol cars."

  "Want to take a ride?" Chen Jianfeng asked leisurely, with a blade of grass in his mouth.

  "Think!" Ma Ping's eyes lit up with an excited response.

  Chen Jianfeng smiled slightly and quietly retreated back to the team members with Ma Ping, saying in a low voice: "White Fox, Jackal launch a surprise attack, Mountain Eagle covers, Lei Gong cuts off the retreat route, I'm going to catch a live one."

  The team members screwed silencers onto their gun barrels and gave him a thumbs-up.

  Lin Jie hugged his gun and crawled to a new location less than 100 meters away from the dirt road, setting up a new sniper position. He then signaled to Chen Jianfeng: "In position, target clear."

  Chen Jianfeng and Long Fei, taking cover behind the waist-high grass, crawled slowly towards the jeep. The situation around the jeep was now clearly visible. Neither of the two jeeps had a canopy, and three enemy special forces soldiers were sitting on the ground beside the vehicle, drinking coffee. Apparently feeling hot, they hadn't put on their combat uniforms properly, with their collars open revealing thick chest hair, and their assault rifles carelessly placed beside them as they laughed and chatted loudly.

  One driver was busy adding water to the vehicle's radiator, with the hood propped up on one side. Another driver stood beside the car, leisurely chewing gum. A special forces soldier with an assault rifle slung over his chest urinated under a nearby tree.

  Lei Meng covered Chen Jianfeng with his rifle, Chen Jianfeng pointed to Lin Jie the enemy soldier who was urinating, Lin Jie nodded slightly, and moved the muzzle of his gun slightly to the left, putting the target in the crosshairs.

  Long Fei and Ma Ping slowly advanced, searching with their AUG assault rifles, and circled around to the left side of the jeep, only 20 meters away, entering the attack launch line.

  Chen Jianfeng crawled to a position less than 30 meters away from the driver of the first car. After a brief pause, he waved his hand and suddenly jumped onto the dirt road, flipping out a combat knife with his right wrist and covering the driver's mouth with his left hand, pulling him into his arms. The tip of the combat knife hovered less than 1 centimeter away from the driver's eye socket as Chen growled in fluent American English, "Move and you're dead! Nod if you understand." The driver immediately went limp, nodding vigorously to indicate that he understood.

  Just as Chen Jianfeng jumped up, Lin Jie's sniper rifle made a soft "puff" sound, and the enemy soldier under the tree fell silently to the ground with an extra hole in his head.

  The driver of the second car heard a strange noise, closed the hood, rolled and crawled to open the door, got into the cab, started the car and was about to escape.

  The enemy soldiers chatting on the ground immediately jumped up and fired at Chen Jianfeng, their fingers had not yet touched the trigger, Long Fei and Ma Ping took a step forward onto the road, Ma Ping did not hesitate to continuously pull the trigger "pa, pa, pa" three light sounds, three enemy soldiers' heads heavily hit the car and bounced back, falling backwards.

  Long Fei's feet didn't stop, the corpse hadn't completely fallen to the ground before he rushed towards the car, catching up with the Jeep that had already started and flipping over onto it. His hands moved like lightning, his left hand grasping the driver's wrist, his right hand grabbing the driver's throat and squeezing hard. With a "crack" sound, the driver's body went limp and collapsed in the driver's seat, staring fixedly ahead with eyes full of terror. The Jeep let out a screeching sound as it swerved heavily to a stop on the road.