Mercenary I am the king

Chapter 954 The Ghost Returns
Towards the northern mining area.

Inside Lumar's command vehicle, the air was as still as lead.

The communications officer tossed and turned the knob in vain, sweat rolling down his forehead, only to be met with a harsh rustling sound or utter silence.

The messengers sent out to contact friendly forces disappeared without a trace.

"General..."

The adjutant's voice was dry and hoarse, filled with an apocalyptic despair, "We...we're completely cut off. The capital...I'm afraid it's already fallen..."

Lumar's eyes were bloodshot, like a wounded lion cornered in a desperate situation.

A profound sense of frustration and the anger of being manipulated consumed his reason.

"Who?! Who is pulling all this tonight?!"

He couldn't understand how, in just a few hours, the Commander-in-Chief of the National Defense Forces, who commanded tens of thousands of elite troops and wielded immense power, could become a "bandit" abandoned by his country, betrayed by his allies, and left isolated and helpless.

The capital has fallen, communications are cut off, and other troops stand by indifferently…

He felt as if he were trapped in an elaborately woven, suffocating nightmare.

"Order!"

Lumar's voice was hoarse and distorted with extreme anger, "All troops! Turn around immediately! Full speed ahead! At all costs! Target—Butare!"

Although he knew perfectly well that when his exhausted army arrived after trekking hundreds of kilometers through the desert, all that awaited them was a newly established regime and cold gun barrels.

Even at the fastest speed, it would still take two days, after all, it is still more than 400 kilometers away from the capital. These six brigades are all armored brigades, and the tracked vehicles can only travel 200 kilometers a day during forced marches, which is already the limit for this unit.

But this was his last, desperate shred of dignity as a soldier.

The National Radio building in Butare, the capital city.

Under the stark white light from the backup power supply, the equipment had been debugged, and the red "ON AIR" indicator light shone coldly.

The hunter captain shoved a cold microphone into the sweaty, trembling hands of the national television's chief anchorwoman, leaving no room for doubt.

A printed statement lay on the sleek console in front of her.

“Read it. Not a single word is wrong.”

The hunter's voice came through the gas mask, carrying the metallic scraping sound.

The female anchor's face turned deathly pale, and her lips, painted with exquisite lipstick, trembled violently.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she opened them again, she forcefully suppressed the fear that was about to burst out of her throat.

She tried to make her voice sound steady, even with a hint of righteous fervor, and through the radio frequencies that had not yet been completely suppressed and the television signals that had just been partially restored, it instantly spread to every corner of the Republic of Seine:
"Citizens of the Republic of Seine! This is the Butare National Broadcasting Station. We are now broadcasting an emergency national statement!"

"In the name of the nation and the people, we solemnly declare: Former President Touré and his corrupt clique have betrayed the country, colluded with foreign enemies, plundered the people's wealth, and implemented tyranny. Their rule has completely lost its legitimacy and is despised by the people!"

"Inspired by the will of the people and supported by the righteous forces of the army, a great transformation to cleanse the filth and restore national sovereignty and dignity has arrived!"

"The tyranny of Touré has been overthrown! Order is being rapidly restored in the capital, Butare!"

"At this critical juncture for the nation, the Provisional Committee for the Salvation of the Republic of Seine, composed of the Isis family, patriotic generals, and dignitaries from all walks of life, is hereby formally established! The Committee will temporarily exercise state power to ensure social stability and to prepare for a free and fair national election as soon as possible!"

"We call upon all armed forces to exercise maximum restraint and immediately obey the orders of the National Salvation Committee! All government officials must remain at their posts and maintain the operation of the state apparatus! Citizens, please remain calm and stay at home, and believe that the National Salvation Committee will lead Sena to peace, independence, and prosperity!" "A new dawn has arrived! God bless Sena!"

This announcement of the new order, like an invisible shockwave, swept through the city in darkness and reached as far as London…

MI6 headquarters in London.

The reflection of the Thames River flowed serenely and elegantly across the floor-to-ceiling windows of Ms. M's office.

She was signing her name smoothly on a report on Middle East risk assessment with a Montblanc pen.

"boom!"

The office door was suddenly kicked open.

The chief African affairs officer turned deathly pale, even forgetting the most basic etiquette, his voice distorted with extreme terror: "Madam! Sena! A military coup has occurred in Sena! Butare has fallen! Touré is trapped in the presidential palace! The national radio has announced the establishment of a 'National Salvation Committee'!"

Ms. M's Montblanc pen fell with a "thud" onto the expensive Isfahan handmade carpet, the deep blue ink instantly spreading into an ugly stain on the intricate pattern.

She looked up abruptly, her eyes flashing with shock that was almost uncontrollable for the first time: "A coup?! Who?! Where is Weber?!"

“Weber…and all our stations in Butare…are completely out of contact! The last signal was 3 minutes before the power went out, reporting ‘all is calm’! The coup forces call themselves the National Salvation Committee, backed by Isis and some military personnel, with a complete combination of civilian and military officials. The speed, professionalism, and destructive power of the entire operation…far exceed the limits of Sena’s capabilities!” The analyst spoke as fast as bullets.

Ms. M suddenly stood up, rushed to the huge world map, and jabbed her slender but powerful finger hard at the point in central Africa—the Republic of Senegal.

In her mind, countless fragmented pieces of information raced and collided like a high-speed train—the strangely vanished white dot on the satellite image of Mount Galeby…

An unusual "ghost town" in the northern Seine mining region...

The biggest beneficiary of the thwarted southward advance of the Kold forces…

The unusual flow of funds and resources by the Isis family recently…

And this lightning coup, so precise and swift as a surgical operation, was chilling!
All the clues were instantly connected by a cold, invisible thread of logic, all pointing to the same person.

A name she thought had been completely erased from the physical realm by the CIA's thermobaric weapons appeared before her eyes with chilling clarity and mockery, as if returning from hell!
“Song…he…ping…”

Ms. M's voice was as deep as if it came from the bottom of a frozen lake, each syllable filled with shock, anger at being fooled, and a hint of...

The solemnity of meeting a worthy opponent.

"He...is not dead. He orchestrated all of this."

She finally saw the truth—why the coup was able to perfectly evade MI6's eyes and ears.

How can a country's central nervous system be paralyzed so effectively?

Because the mastermind behind the scenes is a "colleague" who is equally adept at the rules of the intelligence game, skilled in special operations and strategic deception, and knows the weaknesses of Western intelligence agencies like the back of his hand!
She whirled around, her eyes burning with a cold flame: "Activate emergency response measures, adopt the highest level of alert! Utilize all resources—satellites, listening stations, dormant agents, hacking resources—I need the core list of the Sena National Salvation Committee within 24 hours! Especially the exact location of the mastermind! And..."

Her voice was like a poisoned icy blade, “Contact the Americans immediately and share intelligence with them, especially their summary report on the operation in the Gelby Mountains. See if we can confirm that Song Heping is really dead! If he is not dead, tell the Americans that we are willing to cooperate with them to put pressure on the UN and request that peacekeeping forces be sent in!”

London outside the window is still bathed in the glorious lights of its former empire.

But Ms. M knew that a storm stirred up by ghosts had already descended upon the African continent, and at the center of this storm, the man who had returned from hell—Song Heping—had his scepter ruthlessly seized the throat of the Republic of Sena.

(End of this chapter)