Chapter 43: Pressing Angel for Answers

The oil refinery had been built during Saddam’s regime. Now that war had broken out and Saddam himself had vanished without a trace, operations at the plant had naturally ground to a halt.

Although the staff had fled, the facility had never been bombed, leaving the infrastructure completely intact.

With its towering structures, intricate networks of pipelines, and mechanical complexes, the refinery offered numerous hiding spots, making it an ideal temporary sanctuary.

The group drove the vehicles straight into an abandoned office building. Once everyone piled out, Cook immediately ordered Queen to find a vantage point and stand guard.

That was the position she was supposed to occupy as the team’s sniper.

He then dispatched the two ISF operatives who had accompanied Samir to act as sentries.

As soon as they left, Cook blew a fuse.

He strode over to the vehicle and yanked Angel out by force.

Anyone could tell that Cook was consumed by rage.

He no longer treated Angel as a VIP whatsoever, showing zero mercy as he jerked her forward, sending her stumbling and crashing to the ground.

"Miss Angel, you need to explain to us what the hell is going on! Who is this Mr. J you came here to meet? Those people who engaged us in a firefight back at the dam were clearly special forces. I don't care what department they belong to, and I don't care who they are—what I want to know is why the hell you dragged these bastards down on our heads!"

The spearhead was finally pointed directly at Angel.

Cook drew his pistol and aimed it straight at Angel.

"If you don't give us a convincing explanation, I won't mind putting a bullet in your head and announcing to the world that you died in an attack."

Cook's interrogation echoed the question marks in everyone else's minds.

Although Angel had offered a sufficiently generous bounty, it was painfully obvious that this reward was a chocolate coating wrapped around poison.

It tasted sweet, but it was deadly!

For a five-man mercenary team, provoking national-level special forces was absolute suicide; no idiot would ever volunteer for such a thing.

Clearly, Angel had claimed she was here to conduct interviews and meet an informant.

Yet the person she was meeting was no ordinary informant.

None of them had anticipated this, and Angel had essentially dragged everyone down with her, plunging them directly into mortal danger.

"Are you out of your mind?! I'm your employer!"

Angel's face turned pale, but she forced herself to keep up a defiant front, putting on her employer's airs as she retorted, "You mercenaries get paid to do a job, and I'm just paying the bills! You have no right to question my business!"

Cook paused for a fraction of a second, then laughed. "Do you think this is your precious Lighthouse Country back home? Do you think this is a courtroom, you bitch? You're actually talking to me about rights?!"

Bang—

Without wasting another word, Cook raised his gun and fired a round straight into the ground right beside Angel.

"Ah—ah—ah—"

Angel immediately broke down completely.

Clutching her head, she shook it back and forth like a high-strung junkie in a nightclub, screaming more shrilly than a hog pinned to a slaughter table.

Grey Wolf spoke up. "Boss, there's no need for us to shoulder the reputation of murdering our employer."

Cook glanced back at Grey Wolf. "You think you can do better? You handle it."

Grey Wolf spread his hands. "My tongue isn't as sharp as yours."

After a brief pause, he added, "Though I do have a foolproof solution."

Cook asked, "What solution?"

Grey Wolf replied, "Drive her out and dump her in the town. It's crawling with Saddam's soldiers right now. They'll know how to take good care of an American, especially a woman."

Grey Wolf's words made even Song Heping side-eye him involuntarily.

That was a thousand times more brutal than simply killing her.

One had to bear in mind that the remnants of the former regime's army, fiercely loyal to Saddam, were desperate men now; nobody would be surprised by any extreme atrocities they might commit.

A live decapitation?

Or rape followed by murder?

Or locking her in a dungeon as a human shield?

Any of those were possible.

Sure enough, Angel wailed even more hysterically than before.

White Bear rubbed his backside, which had stopped bleeding but still hurt intensely, and bared his teeth as he offered his own opinion: "Just finish it quickly and cut the crap. Don't let her screech away here and draw the enemy over—that would be a mess. Hand her over to me, I'll take care of her, and then throw her into the oil refinery pit."

Seeing that everyone seemed hell-bent on sending Angel to her grave, Song Heping understood their anger; after all, they had nearly been wiped out entirely just moments ago, and anyone in their shoes would have snapped.

He had already suspected that Angel was hiding plenty of unspeakable secrets.

Now, those suspicions had finally been confirmed.

He was desperately curious about what kind of deep waters he had gotten himself dragged into.

He walked straight over to Angel, crouched down beside the disheveled and wretched foreign woman, and said, "Hey! Angel, listen to me. We're all reasonable people. If you tell us the truth, I'm sure nobody will give you a hard time. Look at everyone—why are they so angry? It's not because we're afraid to die; it's because you haven't been honest enough—"

Song Heping tried to soften his tone as much as possible.

He knew that brute force didn't always yield results.

Besides, Cook and the others had already played the heavy, and the foreign woman was practically on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Pushing her over the edge would do no good.

Putting aside the fact that they were already knee-deep in this mess and couldn't quit halfway through a job, they needed answers.

Even if they had provoked U.S. special forces, they needed to understand the ins and outs of the situation; there might still be a way out.

Otherwise...

He suddenly remembered that his entire set of brand-new gear had been stripped straight from the corpse of the dead man he had just killed, and a chill involuntarily crept up his spine.

He was the one who had taken that man's life with his own hands.

If that was a member of the U.S. special forces, how could they possibly let it go?

There was no military organization on earth that held grudges and sought vengeance quite like special forces.

If that was the case, his dream of striking it rich was shattered. Escaping Iraq and safely returning home would take an act of divine intervention.

Angel had always harbored a unique sense of trust toward Song Heping.

Hearing his gentle tone now, the emotions dammed up in her chest burst forth like a breached floodgate. She threw herself straight into Song Heping's arms, wrapped her arms around his neck, and wept bitterly.

Caught completely off guard, Song Heping found himself holding a full handful of crying woman. He froze for a second before reaching out to pat and stroke her back gently, murmuring words of comfort: "It's okay, just talk to us. Spell it out. Once you lay it all out, everything will be fine."

Grey Wolf and White Bear stood off to the side, casting disdainful looks at Song Heping, convinced the guy was just taking advantage of the situation to cop a feel.

Cook, however, saw right through it. Recognizing that Song Heping was playing the good cop, he shot Grey Wolf and White Bear a look to signal them to back off.

Sure enough, Song Heping's good-cop routine paid off. After crying for a while and under his steady guidance, Angel finally managed to choke out the whole story, piece by piece, spilling every single dark detail.

When she finished, the men present were utterly numb.

What the hell...

What kind of insane conspiracy had they stumbled into?

The Donkey-Elephant rivalry?

The Kelly Report?

The Pentagon?

Langley?

Congressional factions?

And the weeping, sobbing foreign woman right in front of them was actually the niece of that notoriously ruthless old witch?

Even Cook, who had never feared anything in his life, finally woke up to the gravity of the situation.

His mind raced, analyzing the entire situation and trying to guess which agency had orchestrated the ambush against them.

The answer invariably pointed back to Langley.

The mere thought of it made him draw a sharp intake of breath.

If that was true, Iraq was no longer safe for them.

If they were targeted by Langley, a tiny mercenary outfit like "Musicians" wasn't even worth an ant; someone could crush them to death merely by stretching out a foot.

Song Heping was equally shaken to his core after hearing the confession.

White Bear, the simplest-minded of the bunch, spoke up first: "Boss, let's take this foreign woman hostage, use her as human leverage to guarantee our safety, and get the hell out of Iraq! We killed their men. Whether it's the military or Langley, they're never going to let us off the hook!"