Song Heping didn't intend to make a move from the darkness; hiding behind the cabin door, he silently stayed alert until the screams in the corridor gradually subsided. Only then did he slowly extend his gun around the door, sending two "peanuts" to the unfortunate soul who had just regained some consciousness.
Pop pop—
The forehead of the pirate who had killed his own companion burst open, with brain matter spraying from the back of his head. The man quickly fell to the ground without even a whimper, dying more cleanly and neatly than anyone else.
Jiang Feng, seeing this, gave Song Heping another thumbs-up.
He realized that he had seen someone who could fight with such fluidity.
Although he himself was fierce, something was missing, some indescribable feeling.
Watching Song Heping kill was not terrifying at all, not in the slightest; instead, there was a sense of enjoyment, like appreciating an art performance.
This reminded Jiang Feng of a term—born killer.
Exactly.
Killing is an art form as well.
Just a bloody one.
It suddenly occurred to him that he had never asked Song Heping where he had served.
Special forces?
Or reconnaissance?
Or maybe some famous armed police force?
After killing that unfortunate pirate, Song Heping made a hand signal to Jiang Feng to follow and cover the rear.
Then, raising his gun, he left the cabin to continue forward. As he passed the pile of bodies, Song Heping kept his gun pointed and quickly drew the Glock pistol with the silencer attached from his left hand, giving each of the bodies on the ground an additional shot to ensure they were off confessing to God.
"There are six dead here; I estimate they have fewer than twenty men left."
"Even if it's fewer than twenty, we still have to take on ten each."
"They don't even have night-vision equipment; as long as we drag them in here, taking on ten each doesn't seem so hard."
In the darkness, Song Heping's face broke into an easy smile.
Jiang Feng asked, "Where to next?"
This question highlighted the difference between him and Song Heping.
Jiang Feng's combat quality wasn't bad.
But it was limited to that of a good soldier, not an excellent commander.
Song Heping immediately pointed out the crux, "What do you think they want to do the most right now?"
Jiang Feng shook his head.
Song Heping said in a low voice, "Follow me."
With that, he took the lead and moved forward.
Less than five minutes after the two had left, several beams of flashlight appeared near the corridor where the previous gunfight had occurred.
The one leading was Sali, the boss who had orchestrated the interception of the cargo ship.
He had heard gunshots from the deck and knew there was a fight below in the ship's hold.
Seeing his men being severely attacked and sent to the Netherworld one by one as they boarded the ship, Sali was both shocked and enraged.
To board this damned cargo ship had cost so many lives.
If he had known these two security personnel aboard were so fierce, he wouldn't have come to touch this bad luck for all the money in the world.
This deal wasn't ad hoc, it was a contracted job.
Ad hoc activities for pirates rely on various fishing vessels on the sea to obtain information about cargo ships passing by, or the pirates themselves would pretend to be fishermen and loiter in these waters, striking when they see a suitable target.
Contracted jobs were different.
They involved someone offering a payoff to have one's own crew go to a specific area of the ocean to rob a certain ship.
Such jobs often had underhanded dealings behind them, such as shipowners committing insurance fraud, or having valuable items onboard with insiders collaborating.
The reasons varied.
As one of the pirate gangs active along the coast of Somalia, Sali's team had undoubtedly been the most dazzling upstarts recently, hijacking the most cargo ships in the past three months, thereby rising swiftly and being co-opted under the wing of a local armed organization in Somalia.
The benefit of joining these armed organizations was a more secure supply of weapons and ammunition, having protection on land, and having one's own territory.
This time, the superiors summoned Sali to take on a job worth one hundred thousand US dollars, to hijack a cargo ship on a certain sea route, kill everyone on board, and as for the goods and property, Sali and his men were free to loot as they wished.
Although one hundred thousand dollars wasn't an extremely high price for Sali's gang, it was a task assigned by their superiors, and he had no choice but to do it.
Pirates are generally reluctant to kill, since hostages are the most valuable, but considering the freedom to dispose of the ship and cargo as they wished, Sali begrudgingly accepted the job.
After all, offending the leaders of the armed organizations on land meant his little gang at sea would suffer.
Of course, Sali understood the pros and cons.
With only two security personnel, Sali believed based on past experience that dispatching just three or four small boats for a pincer attack would do the job.
Unexpectedly, the first group he sent lost seven men without even getting close to the ship, and they also lost a speedboat.