Chapter 71: Headshots Every Time—This Is True Professionalism

The government forces had tanks and armored vehicles, with nearly two hundred soldiers remaining. The number of anti-government guerrillas was unknown, but the fact that they dared to confront the government troops head-on meant they had dispatched considerable forces. Moreover, the guerrillas were equipped with heavy personal weaponry.

On their side, Xing Xiaolong and his team numbered only eight. Even though the seven with him, led by Tiger, were all former special forces with individual combat skills that far outstripped both the government troops and the rebels, the sheer disparity in numbers was undeniable.

Entering the battlefield to rescue hostages was an act fraught with peril—a mission where the odds of survival were slim at best.

Fortunately, fearing that the hostages might be caught in the crossfire or struck by stray bullets or shells, the government forces had preemptively evacuated them using armored vehicles and a convoy. The officers of the government army could never have imagined that a group of elite PMCs was still hidden nearby.

The decision to move the hostages out of the combat zone was, tactically, the most reasonable one. Yet, by a twist of fate, it provided Xing Xiaolong and his team with the perfect opportunity for a rescue.

…

After preparing the grenade launcher, Tiger dug a hole in the middle of the village road, fashioned a makeshift mine with plastic explosives, and expertly camouflaged the surface. At a glance, there was no sign the road had ever been disturbed.

Tiger completed his work in less than ten seconds before the government convoy escorting the hostages finally emerged from the village's battle-ravaged center.

As the convoy sped toward them, Xing Xiaolong asked, “Captain, it seems the government troops are here to rescue people too. Why don’t we just let them go?”

To his mind, if the government forces were rescuing hostages, they would probably hand them over to the peacekeepers or foreign embassies—essentially the same mission as theirs. There seemed little need for further interference.

Tiger shot Xing Xiaolong a peculiar look, the kind he used to give to new recruits who knew nothing upon joining the army. Then, grabbing the drinking tube at his collar, he took a deep swig of vodka, loaded a rifle grenade, and said, “On this strange continent, let me give you a piece of advice: never put your trust in any government institution here. Otherwise… heh, you’ll end up missing what it feels like to be alive.”

“Alright,” Xing Xiaolong replied, falling silent as memories of the government troops’ atrocities since entering the village surfaced. Trusting them to return the hostages safely to the embassies truly lacked even the smallest shred of credibility.

At the head of the government convoy was a BMP-15 armored personnel carrier. Three armed pickup trucks followed, two of which were fitted with heavy machine guns, while six soldiers rode in the bed of the middle truck.

“Everyone, get ready…” When the convoy was less than fifty meters from the village entrance, Tiger gave the order through his earpiece, “Three, two, one—open fire!”

Xing Xiaolong hadn’t understood what Tiger was counting down for, but as soon as the countdown ended, the answer exploded before his eyes—a scene as shocking as it was visually violent.

A 12.7mm sniper round, fired from several hundred meters away, struck the head of the government gunner manning the heavy machine gun on the last pickup. The right side of the man’s skull was blown clean off. Brain matter, blood, and flesh sprayed across the nearby wall like the remains of a smashed watermelon.

Xing Xiaolong frowned at the grisly sight, but only slightly; he was becoming more accustomed to scenes of death.

The assistant gunner, his face spattered with blood, was so terrified after witnessing the sniper’s work that he stood up and shouted atop the truck, “Sniper, there’s a—”

But before he could finish, four black gun barrels appeared simultaneously from behind houses, walls, and rooftops on either side of the road.

A storm of bullets from four fully automatic rifles hammered down on the convoy, with the crossfire focused on the driver’s cabins. In an ambush, the drivers are always the first targets.

Black Fox and her team of three PMC veterans lived up to their reputations as elite soldiers; their marksmanship was flawless, each one a sharpshooter of the highest caliber.

In the first volley of concentrated fire, the assistant gunner’s throat was pierced, blood spurting as he tumbled from the truck bed, clutching his neck.

The drivers of all three pickup trucks were hit almost simultaneously, gasping their last breaths. Without drivers, the vehicles lurched forward blindly for a dozen meters. The first rammed into the rear of the armored carrier and came to a stop, while the other two swerved off the road.

Because Black Fox’s team had prioritized the drivers, only two of the soldiers riding in the second pickup’s bed were grazed by stray bullets. They leapt from the vehicle, using the trucks and roadside buildings for cover, and opened fire on the PMCs to hold them off, hoping to buy time for reinforcements from the government troops still fighting in the village center.

On the pickup stopped by the armored carrier, the machine gunner swung the only remaining heavy weapon toward the rooftops on the right.

Before he could pull the trigger, his head exploded like a watermelon—another 12.7mm sniper bullet, its immense kinetic energy and the resistance of the skull causing the round to tumble and cavitate, did its gruesome work.

With both machine gunners down at the start, nearly a third of the government troops were killed or wounded, and all three pickups disabled on the road. The mission for Black Fox and her team had been executed with professional excellence—truly, a cut above the rest.

The armored personnel carrier, its tough exterior undamaged, seemed to realize its attackers were no ordinary force; perhaps it even mistook them for rebels, who were known to possess anti-tank missiles.

Rather than joining the fight or firing its 73mm low-pressure smoothbore gun, or even using its machine gun ports, the APC made the canny decision to abandon the disabled pickups and continue charging toward the edge of the village, engine roaring at full throttle.

When the armored carrier was less than ten meters from the village exit, an explosion erupted beneath it. The blast wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate the hull like a mine, but it was significant—enough to lift the ten-ton vehicle off its tracks for a moment.

Luck was on the side of the armored carrier; though the relatively vulnerable track was hit, it wasn’t severed.

“Damn it!” Tiger cursed in Russian. The high-explosive plastic charge hadn’t managed to destroy the carrier’s track as planned, and with that failure, the tide of the battle had turned against them. How could he not be furious?