Mercenary I am the king

Chapter 795 A Complex Web of Relationships
Langley headquarters.

Pence stared at the images transmitted back by the drone on the big screen.

The survivors of Delta Force were collecting the bodies of their fallen comrades, with several Black Hawk helicopters parked nearby.

Medics and team members carried bodies wrapped in black bags onto the helicopter.

However, Song Heping was not seen in several drone search footage.

His face was ashen, his lips trembled slightly, and then he slowly picked up the red phone and dialed the number for the White House Situation Room.

“Sir, we may need to discuss a backup plan.” His voice was unusually weary. “Song Heping is more difficult to deal with than we imagined.”

A few minutes later.

As the perpetual motion ball on Pence's desk traced its parabola for the third time, the assistant outside heard the sound of metal shattering glass and hitting the ground.

The titanium alloy sphere struck the oak floor, creating its eighth dent, and rolled under the filing cabinet like a dud cannonball.

This ornament is Pence's favorite ornament.

The assistant once asked about the origin of this ornament.

Pence told him that the gadget would help him stay calm.

Whenever he encounters difficulties or suffers great pressure, he gently pushes the metal ball on top, and the back-and-forth collision of the metal ball produces a "tap-tap" sound, gradually calming down in the monotonous and simple mechanical movement.

"Thirty-seven minutes! Thirty-seven minutes!"

In the office, Pence roughly loosened his tie, the veins on his Adam's apple throbbing.

"They escaped in just thirty-seven minutes!"

The LCD screen on the wall was still playing footage transmitted by the drone: several silicone dummies lay on the sand dunes, and infrared electronic decoys flashed mocking red lights.

These were left behind by Song Heping when he evacuated.

The goal was to mislead Carter and his crew in Delta Force into believing there were still enemies around, so they wouldn't dare leave their positions and would just hold out until reinforcements arrived...

The secure phone on the desk suddenly vibrated.

Pence gripped the receiver with enough force to crush a walnut: "I said no—"

“Calm down, Pence.”

Richard, the head of the Department of Defense's Special Operations Division, spoke with a static-filled voice.

"I looked at the satellite photos; they left tire tracks in the northwest corner of the oasis."

Pence's fingers left five white marks on the edge of the table.

He recalled the scene in the situation room three days ago—the "iron wall encirclement" that the staff had so confidently promised, the digital sand table marked with red arrows, and the last set of coordinates sent back by Delta Force.

Now they're all worthless paper, along with the lives of more than twenty Green Hat team members, lost in the North African desert.

“Richard, I feel we don’t know Song Heping well enough. You should have evaluated him during his cooperation with the military in Iligo. This is your supplier recruitment process, which Peter handled. This guy never handed it over before. Now I want all the information he has about Song Heping.”

He picked up the box of mints on the table, poured out a handful, threw them into his mouth, and chewed them up.

The click of a lighter and the sound of someone taking a deep drag on a cigar followed by a hiss came from the other end of the phone: "Are you sure? Peter didn't give you all the information?"

"I'm sure!"

"what……"

Richard seemed somewhat surprised.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you just called him directly? You know Peter, you’re old friends, why go through the formalities with me? That would take a long time.”

"This is an emergency! I need the information immediately!"

"Then let's just go directly to Peter, that's the most direct and quickest way."

Richard didn't seem to care about it.

This surprised Pence.

The Green Berets and Delta Force were both their men, and now they were suffering heavy losses, but Richard sounded completely unconcerned.

It was as if the person who died was not his.

"You two are direct superiors and subordinates. If I ask him directly for it, under what pretext?"

“Assistance, in the name of assistance, or you can go to the White House security advisor and ask him to approve the paperwork for you.”

"Damn it! What are you doing..."

He was about to say that Richard was making excuses when he heard a busy signal.

Richard actually hung up on him...

“FUCK!” Pence slammed the receiver back onto the landline.

His distorted reflection was shown in the floor-to-ceiling window, his tie hanging askew around his neck like a noose.

He opened the safe and pulled out a black folder labeled "Musician Operation".

In the photo on the first page, Song Heping is raising a glass on the terrace of a villa somewhere in Mosul, with several figures in military uniforms circled by a marker—including Peter's damn smiling face.

Everything seems obvious now.

Pence knew that the military leaders had always had their own cliques of vested interests.

If Song Heping provided them with benefits during his time in Iraq...

definitely is!

there must be!
Otherwise, how could they have secured transportation contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars?!
"A den of snakes and rats!"

He roared in frustration once again.

The sunset at Atron Oasis paints the Yade Plateau the color of blood scabs.

Song Heping squatted by the spring, his tactical dagger carving furrows of varying depths in the sand.

"here."

The tip of the knife poked at the limestone plateau two hundred meters northwest of the spring.

"The command center was built beneath the rock strata, with only observation posts remaining on the surface."

He then drew three radial lines.

"The underground passages lead to the weapons depot, the helipad, and the emergency evacuation point."

Jiang Feng licked his chapped lips: "Old squad leader, will the Sudanese agree to give us this land?"

"Of course, the question is, what do I give them in exchange?"

"What exchange? Money?"

"No, three months to help them retake the oil fields in the north."

The satellite phone suddenly vibrated in my pocket.

Song Heping took it out and glanced at the number. His eyes lit up slightly, and a smile appeared on his lips.

"Old friend, it's been a long time since I've heard from you. What's wrong? Aren't you afraid of getting implicated if you call me?"

“I had no choice. You just wiped out a Delta Force team and two Green Berets in Sudan and Chad. Things have gotten out of hand, Song. Haven’t you considered the consequences?”

It was Peter's voice on the other end of the phone.

“Of course I’ve considered it, but I have no other choice.” Song Heping said calmly, “If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t be going against the world’s top three intelligence agencies, would I? Besides, it’s not me who wants to kill your American soldiers, it’s your American special forces who want to kill me. Do you expect me to just offer my neck for them to stab? That’s not my style.”

"Ugh……"

Peter sighed on the other end of the phone.

"You must have something important to say if you're calling me at this time, right?"

“Yeah, Pence’s gone mad. He’s been chasing me relentlessly, demanding all your documents from your time in Illigo, including detailed information about your company. He asked for them once before, and I refused. But this time, he’s pressuring me through the White House and the Pentagon, so I had no choice but to give them to him. I’m calling you just to remind you to prepare early. The documents involve a lot of secret accounts, and you need to clear them out…”

Peter's meaning was obvious.

He was worried that the accounts Song Heping had used for private transactions with him might not have been properly dealt with yet, and that this might implicate him.

It wasn't actually to help Song Heping, but rather to help himself.

"Don't worry, my old friend, I've already made arrangements."

"I can rest assured that."

Peter breathed a sigh of relief.

"You owe me another favor, old friend."

Song Heping said into the phone, his eyes fixed on the distance.

"Remind Langley and those clowns that they'd better not mess with me again."

After that, he hung up the phone directly.

Bakta Green Zone.

When Peter hung up the phone, a circular water mark appeared on the table from the shaker of his whiskey glass.

"Damn Pence... why did you have to mess with Song Heping of all people..."

(End of this chapter)