132. The Britons Waiting to Die (Fourth Bonus Chapter: 30 Monthly Tickets!)

Bang!

He pulled the trigger and shot the rebel who had exposed his head. Hearing Li Changjiang order him to retreat over the communicator, the Russian did not hesitate for a moment before turning and sprinting down the corridor behind him.

“Run! Damn it, they’re catching up!”

The bullets chasing them from behind made their scalps prickle. The three men happened to converge at the stairwell, and the Russian shouted to Li Changjiang and Elisa from a distance.

“Get moving!”

With a thunderous boom, the Russian tossed a tactical grenade into the corridor to cover their retreat. The blast wave and rolling smoke immediately held up the pursuers for several seconds. By the time they charged into the stairwell, the three fugitives had vanished.

“They’ve gotten away! After them!”

They raced downstairs in one breath.

Li Changjiang immediately contacted Tank and the others, who had already begun moving toward the rendezvous point.

“Tank! Tank! We have people pursuing us. Go directly to the second designated position and meet us there.”

“Understood, Chief! We’ll wait for you there!”

Meanwhile, after receiving Li Changjiang’s order, Angel and the others immediately set out again, advancing toward the outer perimeter of the Libyan defensive line. According to the original plan, they were supposed to regroup at the first rendezvous point after rescuing Elisa, then break through toward the eastern border. But circumstances had changed, forcing them to cross nearly a kilometer of rebel-controlled territory and make their way to the second rendezvous point.

Less than three hundred yards behind them, barely three minutes after the Russian and Li Changjiang had rushed out of the prison with Elisa, more than a dozen pickup trucks and an off-road vehicle screeched to a halt outside the prison gates.

Bang!

The doors were pulled open, then slammed shut.

A Libyan soldier in olive-green fatigues stepped out of the off-road vehicle—or rather, a rebel.

“Colonel!”

“Where are the mercenaries?”

“Report, they—they’re dead!”

“Dead? Then you can go and die too!”

Bang!

The sudden gunshot and the blood spraying from the back of the rebel leader’s head silenced everyone.

Harps calmly drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the barrel of his golden pistol. Only then did he turn toward the opposite side of the passageway, his expression terrifyingly grim.

“I knew those damned mercenaries couldn’t be trusted. They’re trying to leave the city from here. Go after them immediately.”

“Yes, sir!”

The pickup trucks behind him started at once and sped off in pursuit of Li Changjiang’s group. Taking the satellite phone from the officer behind him, Harps’ frightening expression soon softened.

“Find those damned Britishmen. And remember—leave a few alive for me.”

“Yes, General Halide.”

He put away the phone.

Halide’s order quickly gave Harps a new target.

The British?

Hmph! Those Britishmen thought no one knew what they were doing inside Misrata. But this was Libya, their territory—and Misrata was not a large city.

Since the British refused to deploy their ground forces, why not let them suffer a little themselves?

The British would probably never have imagined that General Halide of the Libyan rebels would once again use the same tactic and turn the spearhead of the attack against them.

The Americans had already suffered once. But because of the interests binding the two sides together, the Americans had chosen silence.

After leaving the prison, Li Changjiang and the Russian kept charging toward the rendezvous point without even pausing to catch their breath. Their legs gradually grew heavy, as though filled with lead. They had been fighting continuously since the previous night, and their taut nerves had long since reached the limit of exhaustion. Now, they were relying entirely on sheer willpower to keep forcing their way out.

There was not much time left.

Meanwhile, more than twenty minutes had passed since Li Changjiang and Batla had led their respective groups away.

“James, how are you?”

“Mr. Clark, I’m feeling much better. Thank you.”

“Mason! How are you?”

“I’m fine, sir!”

After checking on each of the agents wounded by Li Changjiang, Clark’s confidence immediately began to swell once more.

And good news soon followed, one piece after another.

“Mr. Clark, we’ve made contact with the Dartmouth.”

“Excellent! Tell them our current position and have them find a way to extract us.”

Clark was indeed very confident.

If they had not been trapped inside the command room beneath this building, he believed his agents would have been capable of dealing with any enemy.

“Sir, they said they’ll arrange support as quickly as possible.”

“Damn it, I don’t want ‘as quickly as possible.’ I want it now—immediately! Do you understand? Tell them I have intelligence involving national security at the strategic level. They must come and evacuate us from this damned place at once.”

“Clark, the mercenaries are gone!”

As soon as he finished speaking, Agent Will, who had been directing the agents’ operations, returned with news that made Clark let out a long sigh of relief.

“They’ve withdrawn?”

“Yes, they’ve left! But I think we need to evacuate immediately—to break out now instead of waiting here for those damned rescuers, Clark!”

Compared with Clark’s optimism, Will was far more cautious.

The damned Dartmouth was hundreds of miles away, perhaps even farther. There was no way it could arrive in time to provide assistance. Rather than sit around and wait for death, they should break out.

“Well done, Will, but I can’t listen to you. I’m responsible for everyone here, including you, Will. We have fifty British citizens with us, and every one of them deserves to leave safely.”

“Fuck!”

Will cursed furiously.

There was no way he could shake Clark from these damned ideas.

Stay here?

Staying here meant certain death. Damn these bureaucrats.

“Will! Will! Fuck—damn soldiers!”

When Clark saw Will turn without a backward glance and charge toward the basement entrance, he became frantic.

These agents were not truly under their control. In the beginning, in order to restrain the excessive growth of MI5, its founders—and later its administrators—had decided that the agents carrying out missions should not officially become members of the organization.

The idea had been sound, and the results had initially been effective. It had indeed weakened MI5’s authority, but it had also produced disastrous consequences.

After leaving the command center, Will quickly realized that the situation had slipped beyond his control. Although the mercenaries had placed enormous psychological pressure on them, they had also provided some crucial intelligence. At the very least, they now knew that Khamis’s government forces had launched an offensive—and, more frighteningly, that mercenaries had already infiltrated the city.

“Will, what did he say?”

One of the agents immediately came over, his expression extremely tense. The mercenaries who had appeared out of nowhere had already placed considerable pressure on them.

“Damn it! Clark refuses to leave.”

“Fuck! How can that be? Does he want to wait here to die? Bastard.”

At the entrance, Will and the other agents wore anxious expressions. The war continued to deteriorate, and the worst part was that they were being forced to hold out in a place where fighting could erupt at any moment.

“Will, we have to go!”

“Go? Where? You mean—”

Good God! What was that?

Before Will could finish, the corner of his eye caught sight of something streaking toward them from the rooftop of a low building outside the entrance—a trail of white smoke.

Damn it!

An RPG!

“Fuck! RPG! Get down!”

To be continued.

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