Half an hour later, in front of the tent of the special operations team at Warrior Camp, Song Heping bent over on the grass, pouring a large bottle of ice-cold spring water over his head.
Having just come out from Mosul, the Seals were also rescued, Vincent had taken a bullet to the lower abdomen, the injury was severe, and he had already been transported by helicopter to the hospital in the Baghdad Green Zone. Next, for better treatment, he would either be transferred to Kuwait or to a base in Europe.
The high-tension and fierce gunfight made Song Heping feel as if the temperature in his brain had sharply increased, like a CPU operating under pressure, about to emit smoke.
The rescue just now was too thrilling.
It was literally arm-wrestling with the Grim Reaper.
During the entire SPIE evacuation tactic, just a bit of bad luck and the whole team could have been buried together.
Song Heping sometimes felt his pressure was quite significant.
After all, so many lives were in his hands, a single wrong decision could lead to irreparable consequences.
Now he understood why, after many wars, grassroots military commanders often were the ones most likely to be overwhelmed. Their sense of guilt was the deepest because they had witnessed many brothers and subordinates lose their lives under their command, falling one by one before their eyes.
Very few people could remain indifferent, after all, humans are not machines; they have blood, flesh, and emotions.
The same is true for a cook.
Look!
This guy had been continuously cursing the Seals ever since he got off the plane.
That's right.
It was almost to the point of poking his finger in someone's nose and cursing.
"You idiots almost got us all killed, entering the city at night? If you want to die, go do it yourselves, don't drag us down!"
If it had been a few hours earlier, the cook's cursing would definitely have led to a fight.
But after tonight's events, the Seal team members' spirits had been dampened quite a bit.
A few Seal team members just glared at the cook and then went into the tent, not coming out again.
The cook grumbled as he took a medical kit to treat the wounds on his face.
Woken up in the middle of the night and having to conduct a rescue operation, now that it was nearly dawn, no one felt like sleeping.
The next day at eight o'clock, they had to carry out a clearing operation in the city, so everyone simply set up a small stove outside the tent to boil coffee and drink.
Song Heping went back into his tent alone; a few Seal team members saw him and nodded slightly, but said nothing.
Song Heping knew that actually, these men were thanking him for his rescue tonight, just that they were too proud to say "thank you."
He responded with a smile, then went back to his bed and continued to open his laptop and take out a map to draw and doodle on.
At five in the morning, a notification of a new email popped up on Song Heping's computer.
Song Heping clicked to enter his email and saw a message from Ferrari.
"That was fast…"
Ferrari had never let anyone down.
Although compared to an action team member, he was relatively safe.
Perhaps because of this, Ferrari was very active in collecting the information Song Heping tasked him with, and his efficiency was astounding.
Song Heping imagined how Ferrari had obtained the documents last night as he opened the email attachment.
The attached file was large, and indeed, after downloading and decompressing, it turned out to be the municipal engineering map of Mosul.
During Sadam's era, Illiguo had gone through a period of wealth.
It was also then that the world oil prices were rising, so oil-producing countries were not short of money.
Before the Iraq-Iran war, Mosul had undergone a major construction of sewers and water pipelines, thus leaving behind drawings.
Song Heping overlaid the engineering drawings with the map he had drawn before and sat there analyzing for half the night.
As of now, he still lacked quite a bit of information.
What he needed were the operation summaries of all coalition forces involved in the Mosul operation.
Generally, after military operations, participating troops would compile a detailed summary of the entire process from conception to planning to actual action.
This included very detailed information, such as where they faced enemy resistance, what the situation was like during the exchange of fire, what tactics the enemy employed, and what tactics they used to respond. Many enemy and own fire points would be marked on the map included in the report.
Right now, Song Heping needed this information the most to confirm some critical details.
And what he needed was not just data from the past few days but the combat summaries for the next few days as well.
However, the current attitude of Major Lonnie was truly infuriating; it looked like this arrogant new commander was not about to provide him with these classified materials.
He would only wait until the other party had no choice but to request them, guessing that his chances of success would be greater then.
Although "Musician" Defense had now signed the contract, it was ultimately assisting the Seal's operations, and since the Seals had failed twice already, he could easily deny any responsibility. This aspect was quite easy to explain.
But whether he could get his compensation depended on whether the overall Mosul operation achieved its tactical objectives.
But what of that?
Haste makes waste.
Some things can't be rushed.