Over ten hours later.
The twilight painted the "Razorback" a piercing blood-red, like a massive wound.
The enormous GNA armored convoy rolled with a dust storm, like a belated funeral procession, finally reaching this land of death.
General Sayif sat in the armored command vehicle's seat, his face pale as paper, fingers spasming uncontrollably.
As his jeep drove over the charred wreckage and dried deep brown blood scabs and stopped beside Duan's corpse covered only by a symbolic piece of cloth, Sayif stumbled out of the vehicle, tearing the cloth aside.
With just a glance, his stomach churned violently, he turned abruptly to hold the car door, vomiting intensely, even emptying his bile, making dry retching noises from his throat.
"Gen...General...Lieutenant Yarif...found...also...all SBS people...completely...destroyed...our men...bodies...spread all over..."
The aide's voice carried sobs and a bone-deep fear.
Sayif, with trembling hands that could barely grip, pulled out the satellite phone, using all his strength to dial the number leading to London.
London, MI6, top-secret operations command room.
On the enormous electronic screen, images returned from the spy satellite were cold and brutal—the Sahara Desert, the "Razorback" Wind Rock Area, like a ravaged ant nest, scattered with charred wreckage, dense corpses casting long, twisted shadows in the sunset.
In the command center, the air thickened like lead, oppressive enough to make breathing difficult.
Ms. M sat behind the wide desk, holding a cup of tea long since cold.
Overnight, the wrinkles on her face seemed to deepen enough to strangle flies, the sunken eye sockets filled with web-like blood vessels, yet her gaze remained sharp as a scalpel, fixed on the screen's death zone.
She listened to Sayif's incoherent, overwhelmed report, throughout saying nothing.
The surrounding aides and officials were silent, even their breaths cautious.
The "Throatslit" operation, thoroughly, irreversibly failed.
A highly resource-consuming elite SBS team was lost, a brigade-scale dependent army was lost, and it shattered her meticulously planned, foolproof elimination plan. This was not just a military defeat, but a devastating blow to MI6 and her personal authority! Shame gnawed at her heart like a Poison Snake.
Song He Ping… This name in her mind was like a red-hot branding iron.
She knew such a person too well, vengeful and with a will like steel.
The rivers of blood on Razorback would not be his endpoint, merely the beginning of his revenge!
A cold, ominous premonition, like the desert night wind, instantly swept over her.
Amidst this suffocating silence and Ms. M's internal turbulence of immense anger, frustration, and that lingering chill—
Bzzzzz—
Ms. M's top-secret satellite phone buzzed sharply, abruptly, insistently, shattering the command room's suffocating silence.
Everyone's gaze was instantly magnetically focused on the phone whose screen had lit up.
Ms. M's eyes were fixed on the flashing indicator light of the phone. After a few seconds of absolute stillness, she reached out, picked up the satellite phone, turned, walked towards a single room in the command center, gently closed the door, and locked it.
Then, after ensuring no one was around, her fingertip moved exceptionally slowly, with a near-cruel ritualistic motion, firmly pressing the hands-free button.
A voice calm without a ripple, yet with a Sahara wind and sand-tempered gritty texture, spread through the speaker, clearly, coldly filling the ears.
"Madam. I am Song Heping."
The voice was like a cold blade scraping across ice, with a metallic texture.
He had always remembered her number.
"On behalf of 'Musician' Defense Company, I hereby announce: From this moment on, all official and unofficial British interests, personnel, and assets in Libya will become targets of our unrestricted, indiscriminate attacks."
"Until the last British soldier, agent, mercenary, leaves with your bloodstained ambitions and nauseating greed, completely, eternally, from this land like driven dogs!"
"The Saharan wind may blow away the bloodstains on Razorback, but it cannot disperse the blood debts etched into bones. The war you've launched has ended. Our revenge starts now."
"Good luck—in the upcoming nightmare."
"Beep—"
With the busy signal sounding, the call was decisively cut off, with not a trace of procrastination.
Only the monotonous, hollow, abyss-reverberating busy signal remained ruthlessly echoing in her ears, playing the most desperate finale for the "Throatslit" operation, and for Ms. M's current mood.
North Africa.
The remnants of the sunset cast long, lonely shadows on the desolate Gobi Desert of Northern Darfur.
Song Heping's convoy, swept along by the Sahara dust, drove into the Musician Defense Company's secret base located here, like weary wolves returning home.
The base's outline appeared particularly stark in the twilight, with its high walls, watchtowers, concealed hangars, and warehouses, silently speaking of its stringent defenses.
The vehicles came to a stop, doors opened, General Haftar, supported by guards, stepped onto the solid ground, glancing around, a hint of complex light flickering in his tired eyes.
Behind him, the remaining hundred or so soldiers quietly dismounted, bearing the Razorback's blood and smoke, their fatigued yet sharp eyes like those of wounded yet still tooth-baring beasts of war.
Employees at the base, also musicians, cast either scrutinizing, sympathetic, or indifferent gazes.
This ragtag group is General Haftar's last stand and also the gamble entrance ticket for the "Musician" Defense Company.
One hour later.
Inside the base meeting room.
The thick wooden door isolated all external sounds.