Mercenary I am the king

Chapter 1269 "Little White" from England

Twenty minutes later, next to the command vehicle, an area was temporarily marked with a pale white circle using glow sticks and vehicle headlights, forming a small interrogation area isolated from the surrounding darkness.

The prisoners were roughly dragged over by the mercenaries.

Their arms were tied behind their backs, their heads were covered with dirty burlap hoods, and they staggered as they were practically thrown into the center of the circle.

They knelt on the rough, gravelly ground, the stones digging painfully into their knees.

A burly mercenary roughly ripped off their hoods.

The sudden light made them both squint uncomfortably.

The door of the command vehicle was pushed open, and Song Heping appeared in front of the two men. He then slowly walked up to the two prisoners and stopped.

Using the light, he calmly observed them.

My gaze lingered for a couple of seconds on the face of the older Arab man. The clash between his hateful eyes and my calm, unwavering gaze was like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, without creating the slightest ripple.

Then, his gaze turned to the young white prisoner.

Song Heping's gaze lingered on that face, which was filled with fear, for a few more moments.

He could see the near-collapse despair deep in the other person's eyes, as well as a trace of instinctive desire to survive.

He had seen that look in the eyes far too often, mostly from the foolish young people who had been lured from all over the world and ended up struggling in this quagmire of war.

He spoke calmly in English, his voice low but clear enough to penetrate the night breeze: "Name? Nationality?"

This simple question was nothing short of a lifeline for the young prisoner who was on the verge of collapse.

He almost blurted out the answer, his thick British accent trembling with a hint of tears: "Jack... Jack Wilson... I... I'm English... from London... Please... don't kill me... I... I don't want to die..."

This guy speaks so fast it's almost a continuous stream, as if being a second slower would mean losing this one and only chance.

Upon hearing this, Song Heping chuckled to himself.

He glanced at the other person's crotch.

Wet...

Ha ha.

This is the easiest to break through.

Another foolish young man, lured by carefully crafted "holy war" propaganda and false "heroism" on the internet, has come from the relatively peaceful Western world to throw himself into this brutal war that he has no idea about.

The passion of idealism met the harshness of reality, and it was instantly extinguished...

He stopped looking at Jack's pitiful and pathetic appearance and refocused his gaze on the slightly older 1515 member.

This time, he switched to Arabic with a slight accent but exceptional clarity, his questions direct and cold: "Titrick, how many troops are in the city? Where are the main defensive positions? What is the command structure like?"

The older prisoner suddenly raised his head, his eyes fixed on Song Heping, as if he wanted to tear him apart with his gaze.

The veins on his neck bulged, and he spat a mouthful of bloody saliva at Song Heping with all his might.

Spit landed on the sand in front of Song Heping's feet.

"Infidels! Enemies of Allah! You cursed scum!"

He roared, cursing like a mad dog:

“You will go to hell! Never to be reincarnated! I will not tell you anything! Titrick will be your grave! Commander Az will crush you all!”

Faced with this insulting and provocative roar, Song Heping's face remained completely expressionless.

There was neither anger nor contempt, not even the slightest change in his gaze.

I've seen this 1515 molecule quite often myself.

The kind that's beyond saving.

For hopeless extremists, sending them to where they belong is what we should do.

His right hand hung naturally at his side, resting on the quick-draw holster.

A slight "click" sounded as the latch popped open.

He drew his Glock 19 pistol.

The movements were fluid and natural, without any unnecessary swaying, as if he were simply taking a cigarette out of his pocket.

Startled, Jack, who was kneeling on the ground, sat down on his backside and instinctively tried to move backward, but was held down firmly by the mercenaries behind him.

Song Heping didn't even look at the last expression on the older prisoner's face.

He raised his hand with lightning speed, the muzzle of the gun almost touching the other person's forehead, and then pulled the trigger without hesitation.

"Bang!" The sharp sound of a gunshot suddenly shattered the silence of the night.

The bullet, carrying immense kinetic energy, pierced through the skull in an instant, creating an even larger wound at the back of the head.

A red and white mixture, mixed with bone fragments and brain tissue, splattered radially onto the sand beside them.

The 1515 veteran froze abruptly, then collapsed forward, his face slamming heavily into the sand, and he fell silent.

Jack was completely terrified by this extremely cruel execution.

The veteran who was yelling like a mad dog just moments ago is now a corpse...

A few drops of splattered brain matter and blood, still warm, landed on his trouser leg.

He was trembling violently, as if he were having a malaria attack, and tears and snot were streaming down his face uncontrollably.

He cried out incoherently, his voice shrill and desperate:
"No! No! Please! Don't shoot me! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! Everything I know!"

Song Heping expressionlessly lowered his gun-holding hand, skillfully inspected the weapon, and then smoothly holstered the still-warm pistol back into the holster on his waist.

Having done all this, he calmly turned his gaze to the completely devastated young Englishman and said in a low voice in English:

“Very good. Jack, now tell me, are there many ‘foreign warriors’ like you in Titrick City?”

Jack seemed to have grasped the only way out, nodding frantically with such exaggerated movements that he almost snapped his neck.

He rushed to confess, his voice thick with tears, fearing that if he spoke too slowly he would suffer the same fate as his companions:

“There are…some, not many, maybe…maybe a few dozen…mainly from Europe, from Britain, France, and Germany…and…a few Americans…they…they don’t really trust us, so they usually have us guard the perimeter or be cannon fodder…”

"How many troops are stationed in the city? Who is the commander? In which direction are the defensive fortifications mainly concentrated?"

Song Heping's questions came like a machine gun, clear, direct, and without any unnecessary words.

"I...I'm not sure of the exact number...I really am not sure..."

Jack tried hard to recall, his thoughts somewhat muddled due to extreme fear, but he forced himself to concentrate, for this was his only hope of survival.

This guy in front of me is simply...

If I say one wrong word, I'll probably lose my life.

“But…but recently a lot of people have come! A lot of trucks, coming from Ozam…There are at least 20,000 people in the city now, maybe more! The commander is…it’s Az Omar, he…he’s ruthless, I heard he personally executed deserters…The defenses…the defenses are mainly in the north and west of the city, facing the direction you came from, they’ve dug many deep and wide anti-tank ditches, buried countless landmines…and…there are also many snipers, specially positioned in high-rise buildings, like the post office building, school buildings…They…they say they’re going to let you in, fight in the streets, wear you down…”

He poured out everything he had seen, heard, and even guessed from other prisoners' casual conversations, without reservation, in fits and starts.

This includes information such as the approximate troop deployment area, the possible locations of important command posts and supply depots, and that "foreign soldiers" are usually deployed in relatively dangerous forward positions where they are most likely to be the first to engage the enemy.

Song Heping listened quietly, occasionally interjecting with a question or two about key details, such as the specific width and depth of the anti-tank trench, the approximate distribution density of snipers, or the equipment status of the newly arrived troops.

His brain was working at lightning speed, like a highly efficient computer, cross-referencing, comparing, and piecing together the fragmented information provided by Jack with the footage captured by the drone's high-altitude reconnaissance.

When Jack could no longer extract any valuable information and could only repeatedly plead, "I've told you everything I know, please let me go," Song Heping gave Milos a subtle wink.

Milos understood and waved to the side.

Two ruthless mercenaries immediately stepped forward, covered Jack's head with the hood again, and, ignoring his weak struggles and whimpers, dragged him away from the makeshift interrogation room like a bag of garbage, disappearing back into the darkness.

The fate of this bewitched British idiot—whether he will be taken hostage, forced into labor, or ultimately disposed of—is still undecided.

But at least, he managed to save his life before Song Heping obtained and verified the intelligence.

Jiang Feng, who had been standing to Song Heping's side and slightly behind, watched Jack being dragged away, then looked down at the already stiffening corpse on the sand, and whispered to Song Heping:
"Old squad leader, it seems you guessed right again. That old bastard Bakdadi has gone all out to turn Titrick into an impenetrable fortress. He's clearly going to fight us to the death here."

His tone carried a hint of worry; the disparity in troop strength and the formidable city defenses were indeed real difficulties facing them.

Song Heping did not answer immediately; his gaze passed over the corpse at his feet and fell in the direction of Titrick.

"A fight to the death?"

He shook his head slightly, as if he had heard some absurd joke.

"Sometimes I really don't understand why these Middle Eastern terrorists all think they're gladiators in an arena, insisting on finding someone to fight face-to-face one-on-one?"

His tone was filled with extreme contempt, "Who the hell would have a brain full of shit to give up their advantages and engage in this kind of head-on war of attrition with them?"

He withdrew his gaze and turned to Jiang Feng:

"Go and inform Samir that he will assemble in the operations briefing room in five minutes."

Finally, he shook his head again and muttered his assessment as if to himself:

"These idiots! They've fought so many battles against us, and they haven't improved at all. They don't even feel like a worthy opponent!"

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(End of this chapter)