Chapter 41 Casting a Long Line and Catching a Big Fish

  After returning from Ma Ge's place, several people reported the progress of the matter to their superiors and sent over a photo of Pangzi, but there was no information about this person at all.

  Li Gang and a few others pretended to transport goods out, driving the Buick with the provincial government license plate, swaggering past the border inspection. After their car disappeared, a young man who had been tailing them, wearing ethnic minority clothing, also disappeared into the crowd.

  The intelligence staff stood on the observation deck, watching this scene unfold, clenching their fists tightly as things were going in the direction they had anticipated.

  That night, Xie Xiao Shuai and several others quietly slipped out of the rental house with large backpacks, without alarming anyone. As soon as they entered the forest, everyone put on their weapons and equipment from the big backpacks, applied camouflage oil to their faces, and disappeared into the dense foliage.

  According to the route map provided by Li Gang to Pangzi, several people rushed directly to the starting point marked on the route map, set up a disguise formula, and lay in wait. Yin Zhilin placed surveillance equipment all around, and the group took turns staring at the surveillance monitor inside the disguise formula, waiting.

  In the dense jungle, snakes, insects and ants were as numerous as cow hair. Although it was summer in the tropical jungle, the temperature at night was very low. When hungry, they could only eat compressed biscuits, and when thirsty, there was only ice-cold water in their canteens. Several people endured this environment for three days, and the excellent qualities of being particularly tolerant and able to suffer were well demonstrated on them.

  On the third night, there was finally some movement in the surveillance footage. Five Tibetan horses were carrying cargo racks, with objects on the racks covered in black cloth bags, making it impossible to see what they were. However, judging from the labored way the horses walked, it was clear that the load was not light. There were ten people herding the horses, two people walking alongside each horse, and all of them had empty hands, without carrying any weapons.

  Xie Xiaoshuai reported the situation to his superiors through radio, and they were told not to take action, as this might just be a trap to test the safety of this route. If they acted, it would only startle the snakes and disrupt all previous deployments. And let him rest assured that he trusted the police's means, even if these things were true, under the strict surveillance of the police, they would not flow into society.

  The sound of horseshoes faded away, slowly disappearing into the forest. Xie Xiaoshuai and his men left the camouflage formula in place and retreated back to the armed police brigade to replenish their supplies.

  Li Gang and the others did not return here in that Buick with a provincial government license plate, but secretly snuck back. Their reconnaissance mission was already complete, and they didn't need to appear again.

  That batch of goods was indeed just bait, and the police's detectives had been closely monitoring the group's movements. The group transported the goods to a logistics center, rented a large truck, and took them away. At the destination of the goods, the police found that they were all filled with salt. The cunning drug trafficking group actually played a trick, testing whether the route map given by Li Gang was a trap.

  This time, the Desert Fox squad carried nearly ten days of supplies and re-entered the jungle in ambush, continuing to squat in the camouflage formula. They didn't bring the border armed police with them, as jungle warfare was a specialty of their special forces unit. Xie Xiaoshuai had this confidence, and it wasn't necessary to mobilize such a large force to eliminate a group of ragtag armed personnel.

  After several days of ambush, there was another situation. This time the scale was larger, with fifteen or sixteen horses carrying goods, and thirty or so people following along. However, these people were very strange, just like last time, empty-handed and unarmed, and their gait didn't resemble that of trained armed personnel at all - they looked exactly like ordinary farmers. Only the leader, riding a horse and carrying a long knife, had a very relaxed expression, as if he wasn't afraid of anyone suddenly popping out to rob them of their goods.

  "This can't be that damned bait again?" Xie Xiaoshuai thought to himself, but he still reported the situation upwards.

  The other side thought that this was mostly a lure, letting Xiaoxiao and his team go. The Sha Huo squad watched as the horse team swaggered past them, several people getting angry and punching the ground with all their might.

  "It seems that these people are not simple, no wonder the police can't handle them, they're as cunning as monkeys." Li Gang said gritting his teeth.

  Caihua Snake slammed a walnut on his helmet: "Are you stupid? Which high-level crime syndicate doesn't have a military strategist-like figure? If they're really stupid enough to use this route directly, they'd be finished long ago. Do we need to go undercover to gather intelligence?"

  Xie Xiaoshuai also smelled a different smell, indeed as the vegetable snake said, this group of people is not simple, did he overestimate himself? He didn't think much and could only take it one step at a time.

  A few people were about to leave the ambush point after nearly ten days, and Xie Xiaoshuai was preparing to lead the team back to replenish supplies. Suddenly, the monitor had a movement. A fully armed scout appeared on the screen, this person slowly advanced his eyes scanning around, confirmed that there was no abnormality, blew a whistle, and the team behind him slowly moved forward.

  After scouting twice, they actually took action during the day and did the opposite. This time, the team was greatly expanded, with at least hundreds of horses carrying goods, nearly fifty people fully armed as guards, plus dozens of horsemen, stretching for one or two hundred meters.

  The movements of these dozens of armed guards were very professional, with a typical reconnaissance team leading the way, followed by personnel advancing in coordination, forming intersecting firing points, and quickly taking cover to fire once they came under attack. The weapons they carried were all standard-issue, their faces smeared with camouflage paint making them unrecognizable, and they wore complete sets of individual combat gear, including clothing, shoes, and helmets, which was on par with the equipment worn by Xiaoxiao's special forces team.

  In the center of the cavalry, a lean middle-aged man rode on horseback, with a combat squad specially guarding him beside him. One person held a sniper rifle to look for hidden targets everywhere, and it seemed that they were protecting a very important figure.

  Xie Xiaoshuai quickly reported the situation and fully described what he saw at the scene, and asked for instructions on how to take action.

  The other party agreed to Xiao Shuai's request, but had a requirement, that is, they must capture the heavily guarded important figure alive, and the others can be killed on the spot.

  The Desert Fox squad immediately adjusted their combat position and prepared for battle. With a single order from Commander Xie, several smoke grenades were thrown into the center of the cavalry unit. Within seconds, the smoke spread, making it impossible for those inside to see outside. Wang Jizhen first shot the sniper in the head, and with his second shot, he took out the commander of the opposing squad. The other members of the Desert Fox squad also targeted their own targets and began firing, taking down ten people in the first round of shooting.

  The other side reacted quickly, immediately finding a favorable terrain to hide and wait for the smoke to disperse before counterattacking. Their marksmanship was accurate, with bullets hitting right in front of the Sand Fox team's hiding spot. The alternating fire from dozens of people directly pinned down the Sand Fox team, not even daring to raise their heads.

  "An ambush, retreat quickly!" The lean man shouted and immediately turned his horse's head to prepare for escape. With the cover of professional armed personnel, the cavalry quickly turned around and began to withdraw, and those groomers surprisingly did not panic, under the command of that lean man, they withdrew from the scene in an orderly manner.

  Wang Jizhen found an opportunity to exchange fire with the enemy, and with one shot, he knocked down the horse ridden by a sturdy man. The man fell to the ground along with his horse, and one of his feet was also pinned under the horse. However, this exposed Wang Jizhen's sniping position, attracting a dense barrage of bullets that forced him to take cover.

  Chen Hongjun saw on the screen that several groomsmen lifted up the horse and took out the man, who was being supported as he began to retreat. Before long, he would disappear from view. In his anxiety, Chen crawled forward for fifty or sixty meters, and at a distance of fifty meters from the man, he reached into his pocket and threw something into the man's pocket. Seeing his handiwork, he secretly congratulated himself, finally understanding the purpose behind Xie Xiaoshuai making him practice accurate throwing five hundred times a day. It turned out that at critical moments, it really could play an unexpectedly important role.