Chapter 43: Revenge Begins

  The current Desert Fox squad is highly cohesive, with deep feelings among comrades and excellent coordination. Commander Xie does not want either of them to leave the Desert Fox squad, which would greatly weaken its combat effectiveness. Commander Xie decides that after this mission is over, he will gather the two together for a good talk.

  Zhang Jia finally got the news, she found Xie Xiaoshuai to inform him that there would be a meeting at the Provincial Public Security Department the next day to discuss the details of this joint military and police operation. And told Xie Xiaoshuai that Ma Ge and Shoupihou had been secretly arrested several days ago, but these two were just small fries, nothing useful could be gotten from their mouths. The fat man never appeared again, after the ambush incident that day, the drug trafficking group went into hiding.

  Public Security Bureau conference room. Many people attended this meeting, including police, armed police and military representatives, who also had a video connection with the Myanmar side to discuss how to act together.

  After intense debate between the two sides, it was finally decided that they would jointly investigate villages and towns within their respective borders with the support of special forces to eliminate the armed forces of drug trafficking groups. When necessary, special forces from both sides could cross the border for combat operations, but on the condition that they could not penetrate too deeply, and both sides had designated a range for cross-border combat operations on their respective maps, roughly within a radius of one kilometer from the central point. This was the greatest concession made by both sides after negotiations, otherwise this joint operation might have fallen through.

  The next day, the operation officially began. The police, armed police and provincial military district mobilized a large number of personnel to participate, conducting door-to-door searches and carefully screening each person. The Sha Fox team used all the advanced detection equipment they had brought with them, including thermal imaging, life detectors, and sound amplifiers, to search for any hidden places such as basements or secret passages in the residents' homes.

  Xie Xiaoshuai and his team found the damaged equipment where the GPS sent its last signal, and this was where their search started.

  After several days of dragnet search, there was no progress in the case, and the people from the drug trafficking group seemed to have vanished. The actions of all parties were still ongoing, and almost all villages along the border had been searched, leaving only one last stop.

  It was a small village, with about 100 people living there for generations. The villagers were very simple-minded. When they saw a large number of soldiers and police entering the village, they looked a bit panicked, not knowing what had happened. After an officer from a minority ethnic group who spoke their language explained things to them, they all perked up and expressed their willingness to cooperate with the government's work.

  The search was conducted quickly, and it only took tens of minutes to complete without finding anything suspicious. As the troops were preparing to leave and continue their search operation, a villager came up to the officer and said something to him at length. The officer translated: "I'm a hunter, and I often go into the mountains to hunt. But a few days ago, a large group of horsemen suddenly appeared in the mountains, and after they entered the mountains, there was no sign of them. This group of people probably sends out a portion of their men every three days to purchase food from various villages, and the quantity is very large, with each purchase being enough for hundreds of adult men to eat for several days."

  This news is very valuable, thank you to the officer who asked clearly about the last disappearance of those people, and then led the Sha Hu squad into the deep mountains. The location is in a large mountain range at the border between the two countries. Here, the forest is dense, ordinary people can't walk, it's indeed a good place to hide. At the same time as the Sha Hu squad took action, the Burmese side also received the same news, and their special forces rushed towards Xiao Shuai's target.

  Both sides arrived almost simultaneously, fortunately the captain of the other side spoke Mandarin well, and there was no difficulty in communication between the two teams. Both parties agreed to split up and search for the hideout of the armed drug traffickers, and then launch a joint attack after finding the target. According to intelligence analysis, the enemy's armed forces were very strong, not something that one combat team could handle alone.

  The sand fox team searched until night, and only half of the large mountain range was searched. Satellite photos and aerial searches were useless here, as the dense forest blocked all visibility.

  Just as Xie Xiaoshuai was about to contact the joint forces to search the mountain together, four or five loud explosions were heard not far away. The sound came from the direction of the Myanmar special forces' search, and Chen Hongjun shouted: "They probably entered the minefield, hurry up and see if they have any casualties."

  When the desert fox squad arrived at the scene, they only saw the Burmese special forces clearing mines, with no casualties. The captain's face was heavy as he walked over to see Xie Xiaoshuai and his team approaching.

  "These people are too cunning, they've set up a large number of professionally laid landmines. Just now we disarmed one bait mine, but didn't expect that there were several timed bombs underneath it. As soon as the bait mine was removed, the trigger device started counting down. If we hadn't discovered it quickly, I'm afraid we would have all been done for today. Now, the explosion has probably alerted them, and wanting to sneak in quietly and take them out is no longer realistic."

  Xie Xiaoshuai also felt the severity of the situation, and he called Chen Hongjun: "You go take a look, how many landmines are there here, is it possible to dismantle some of them and open up a path up the mountain? Since they're defending so tightly here, I think we're not far from their lair."

  Chen Hongjun took out his self-made detector and started working. The direction Chen Hongjun pointed to, the detector emitted an alarm sound, and things turned out to be more serious than imagined.

  "Captain, it seems that this is not going to be easy. This place is full of landmines and bombs. If we try to dismantle them one by one, I'm afraid it will take us several days. By then, they might not even leave a shadow behind." Chen Hongjun's face turned solemn as he reported back to Commander Xie Xiaochuan.

  "If it can't be helped, then let's do it the hard way. Clear out the minefield for me." Xie Xiaoshuai thought for a moment before giving the order.

  Chen Hongjun took out a small rocket launcher, aimed at the minefield and prepared to fire. He turned around and winked at the Sha Hu members, signaling them to take cover. Seeing that his comrades were all safe, Chen Hongjun pulled the trigger, and in the instant the rocket flew out, he dodged behind a large tree, covering his ears.

  The rocket hit the ground and started rolling and exploding, all the way to a hundred meters away. All obstacles within this hundred-meter radius were cleared. The explosion of the rocket triggered a domino effect, detonating landmines on both sides, causing intense explosions that echoed through the valley, one after another.

  After all that, the rocket exploded and all the landmines were detonated in just a few seconds. When the explosions stopped, everyone came out of their hiding places to see a 100-meter-long, at least two-meter-wide open road surface formed before them.

  "How's that? The explosive bomb I made is still pretty good, right?" Chen Hong said with a pleased expression.

  Xie Xiaoshuai ignored him and led the charge out, now they are racing against time. The more seconds they delay, the more chances the drug trafficking group has to escape. Several people rushed through the minefield and didn't run far before seeing a huge cave, where people inside were organizing an evacuation, with horses neighing and people shouting in chaos.

  Wang Jizhen led the chrysanthemum snake to find a favorable terrain, set up an ambush position, and the Burmese sniper worked with Wang Jizhen. Two sniper teams formed a pincer movement, aiming at the target simultaneously.

  Two sniper teams had just gone into hiding, when the enemy sniper spotted them first. A bullet whizzed past the head of a Burmese special forces soldier.

  Two special forces combat teams quickly took cover, neither of them dared to stick their heads out, the enemy's sniper would take advantage of it and blow their heads off.

  At this time, both sides were at a stalemate, and neither of them took the initiative to launch an attack. The Sand Fox team was now in a high ground assault battle, and the enemy relied on the advantageous terrain to block their attack, causing great trouble for their advance.

  Chen Hongjun threw several smoke bombs at the opponent's front under Xie Xiaoshuai's instructions, blocking their line of sight. The Sand Fox team quickly dispersed in this gap and each found a favorable attacking position.

  The other side clearly also understood their intentions, and at the moment when the smoke bomb was thrown out, the bullets came over, only with low visibility and not much accuracy.