48 hours later.
The heatwave condensed into a transparent curtain among the ruins of the ancient castle. Through Major Yager's binoculars, the ancient buildings not far away were as silent as a tomb.
But he dared not continue the attack.
Only six were left.
They had launched two attacks since the night before, but neither had been successful, costing them two lives.
As a Mossad operations director, Yager had never encountered such a tricky problem—Song Heping and his people inside the building evidently had gained water and food, and even taken guns, bullets, hand grenades, and claymore mines from his dead subordinates.
This allowed them to make a stubborn resistance, enough to withstand the attacks of Yager's few remaining men.
Although he had his men deployed around the riverbed, tightly besieging Song Heping.
It was like a tiger catching a huge turtle, with the other side retreating into its shell, leaving Yager helpless.
Song Heping was obviously determined to wear him out.
It was a matter of seeing who could last longer in the desert.
He tried to contact and communicate with the rear.
But he received no promises—two "Black Hawks" had been lost and last night's operation was difficult to replicate. The Egyptian Army on the Sinai Peninsula seemed to sense something and had strengthened their surveillance and defense of the coastline.
The headquarters ordered them to wait.
To wait for the right opportunity, another team would be sent to support.
But according to the weather forecast, this would take at least three days, waiting for a thunderstorm, the best weather for secret operations.
After all, on this land, rain was hard to come by.
Staring at the desolate ancient building complex, Yager's molars ground together with a tooth-aching sound—just eight hours ago, that damn Chinese man had used a captured HK416 assault rifle to shatter the skull of his best assault team member.
Seeing his best subordinate fall into a minefield and his body blown into the air, Yager nearly collapsed.
But, an even more severe problem awaited him.
"Major, Group B has only 300 milliliters of water left."
The operator's cracked lips oozed blood, and the life-monitoring system on the tactical tablet showed that two team members' body temperatures had exceeded 39 degrees Celsius.
Yager tore open the velcro on his collar. Under his desert camouflage uniform, there was an old wound from the Gaza Strip, now throbbing hot right at the heart.
He wanted to rush in and tear Song Heping to pieces.
Meeting this Oriental was the worst nightmare of his life!
Now, he faced the dilemma of either launching an assault to take the building or staying here until he died of thirst...
It was a difficult situation.
"We need to take some action, otherwise we'll just die here. Now they are inside and we are outside, we are suffering more than they are..."
Yager looked at the sky.
Though it was dark again now.
The scorching scene of the sun during the day was still vivid in his mind.
Song Heping and the others had roofs over their heads, sheltering them from the sun.
He and his subordinates, on the other hand, could only build makeshift tents with waterproof blankets on the scorching sand to avoid being roasted like pigs under the burning sun.
"Major, the place is filled with mines... we can't..."
An operator moistened his cracked lips and voiced his thought with difficulty, "We might as well retreat to the seaside..."
"No retreat! The mission isn't complete! Mossad's assault team doesn't have unfinished missions!"
Yager roared, his eyes bloodshot.
The high temperature and lack of water, combined with several tactical failures, had driven him into a frenzied state.
Any mention of retreat or leaving deeply offended his nerves.
"We must launch one last attack. Either they die, or we perish!"
As each word squeezed out through his clenched teeth, the few surviving Mossad assault team members could hear Major Yager's teeth grinding.
Under the dome of the ancient building, Sara's moans echoed eerily off the stone walls.
When Jiang Feng shone his tactical flashlight on the wound, a swarm of sand fleas poured out from the rotting bandage.
"Quick, give me the silver sulfadiazine gel, her temperature is very high, it seems she's infected."
Song Heping shook out the captured medical bag onto the stone platform. The vacuum-sealed bag with Hebrew print glowed coldly in the moonlight: "And the thrombin powder."
Antonov's thick fingers gripped the surgical forceps, sending heavy nasal breaths over the wound. The camel-hide rope in Sara's mouth instantly went taut.
Suddenly, the HK416 assault rifle fired outside the old castle, the warhead exploded in a fan-shaped shower of rubble at the observation deck's gap.
Song Heping dived, instantly seeing Yager's figure flashing across a sand dune over a hundred meters away. The Hebrew man's deliberate exposure of his position was like both an outburst and an invitation for Song Heping to return fire.
"He's calculating the ballistic adjustments."
Jiang Feng, sitting on the ground, disassembled his assault rifle into parts and wiped the sand-dusted springs with camel oil. The HK416, this precise assault rifle, was less durable than the AK in desert sands, delicate indeed.