Thirty minutes later, Duke's phone rang again.
"It's settled, all your conditions are accepted!" His voice was almost squeezed out through his teeth, "Song, attack immediately! 1515's people have already rushed into Rose's building!"
"Agreed? Alright." Song Heping's tone was calm, "Don't play tricks. I hate people who don't keep their word—since I can intercept Ahmed, I can also send him back to Hulmatu."
"Damn it!" Duke cursed, "Do you think this is the time to haggle? I guarantee you in the name of the Pentagon and the White House! Song, proceed immediately!"
"OK."
Song Heping hung up the phone and turned to Jiang Feng: "Begin the operation."
"Understood!"
Jiang Feng knew that in this round, his old squad leader had won yet again.
Thirty seconds later, the first "Kornet" anti-tank missile trailed flame as it launched, marking the beginning of "Operation Snake Hunt."
The missiles came from Company A's third platoon ambush position—three camouflaged Hummers hidden behind weathered stone pillars, with launchers eight hundred meters away locking onto the leading BTR-80. The 23mm autocannon on the turret was still firing aimlessly as if conducting a reconnaissance by fire for the convoy behind.
Hit.
The turret was blown off entirely, causing the ammunition inside to detonate and a secondary explosion to send a column of fire over twenty meters high, blooming like a hideous flower against the breaking dawn.
The blast wave kicked up sand, forming a temporary wall of dust.
Immediately, pre-set explosive devices were remotely detonated.
Engineers had infiltrated along the highway the previous night, burying anti-tank mines and pre-fabricated fragment explosives at key points. The chain explosions stretched along the road like a lit string of death firecrackers.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Three trucks loaded with ammunition were overturned, the fireballs from the explosions engulfing everything within a thirty-meter radius. Shattered metal, torn bodies, and burning supplies were thrown into the air, turning into a rain of blood as they fell.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
The 1515 soldiers awoke from their stupor, scattering like an ant nest being stirred. Officers screamed, trying to organize a counterattack, but the communication channel was filled with screams and explosions, making it impossible to transmit orders.
At this time, the first battalion's mobile unit attacked.
Twelve armed pickup trucks charged from three directions, each mounted with heavy machine guns or automatic grenade launchers. They moved like a wolf pack on the battlefield, constantly shifting positions, reaping lives with concentrated fire.
The 1515 soldiers took cover behind the truck wreckage to return fire, but their AK-47s and PKMs were completely suppressed in both range and accuracy.
Five kilometers away, the second battalion's mortar squad had long been deployed at a concealed position and now began fire coverage. Eighty-one-millimeter mortars poured shells at a rapid rate of ten rounds per minute, pre-fabricated shrapnel bombs bursting in the air, spreading steel shot in a fan shape over the entire area.
Even more lethal were the snipers.
From vantage points, sniper teams using .50 caliber anti-material rifles and 7.62mm high-precision sniper rifles picked off high-value targets one by one—the officers waving pistols to command, the gunners operating heavy machine guns, the artillerymen trying to set up mortars...
Each gunshot meant the fall of a person. Fear spread like a plague.
Fifteen minutes after the battle began, the 1515 rear guard had lost effective command. Surviving officers howled over the radio, but the channel was thoroughly jammed. The unit was in chaos, each fighting for themselves.
"Break through to Hulmatu! Everyone move toward Hulmatu!"
A commander with a face full of blood waved an AK-74, trying to rally the stragglers.
But they had barely rushed out a hundred meters before running into a pre-set death trap—Song Heping had deployed a reinforced platoon at the riverbed's only exit, wielding a firepower net of three M2HB heavy machine guns, five Kornets, and over twenty machine guns like the Grim Reaper's scythe.
Any vehicles and personnel attempting to break out were instantly shredded.
Twenty-five minutes into the battle, most of the resistance ceased.
The surviving 1515 soldiers knelt on the sand, raising their weapons above their heads, shouting in Arabic: "We surrender! We surrender!"
However, Song Heping's orders had long been issued: time is of the essence, do not accept surrender, hit fast, kill quickly, retreat rapidly!
The machine guns in the firepower platoon didn't pause, not even for a second.
A rain of bullets sprayed over the kneeling crowd with hands raised.
The first round of mopping fire took down more than twenty people in the front row, bullets thudding into their bodies with muffled thumps, blood blooms following in succession in the morning fog.
Some tried to get up and run, but barely arched their bodies before their spines were broken, falling to the ground in convulsions; some curled up covering their heads, only to be struck in the neck by ricocheting shots, arterial blood spraying several meters away.
"They're going to kill us all!" realized a bearded veteran, crying out in despair.
But unfortunately, everything was too late.
Once an army lays down its weapons, its morale becomes like a flood breaching a dam, irretrievable.
The heavy machine guns continued their roar, shell casings falling like rain to the ground.
The kneeling crowd fell over en masse, the sand soaked to a deep brown by the blood.
The mortar barrage was redirected here, shells hitting the crowd, bursting into bloody mist.
Occasional sporadic return fire was quickly drowned by more intense firepower.
Grenade launchers fired high explosive rounds into the mass of people, fragments flying, severed limbs soaring; a soldier tried to pick up an RPG from the ground, only to have his skull blown open by a sniper's shot.
In just fifteen minutes, the gunfire gradually subsided.
The riverbed was littered with bodies and smoldering wreckage. The smoke carried the stench of blood and the nauseating odor of burning flesh into the air.