Chapter 52 - Episode 4: The Missing Mole

If all battles were like the one today, they would want nothing more. They even forgot about the mole that had brought them into such a situation.

“What?”

Captain’s good mood suddenly shifted. Emil’s face turned to stone as he continued reporting to him.

“Black is chasing down the survivors? He’s going to erase the Frolinat headquarters? By himself?”

“Yes sir!”

The continuous questions caused Emil to be on high alert.

“C’est quasi bordel! (What is this!)

Captain’s face turned yellow.

He must be insane to chase down the retreated rebel forces like that. Bodele was the enemy’s home ground. Even he didn’t know the breakdown of the numbers the 3rd brigade had.

If Black Mamba’s identity got revealed, their operation will not only fail, but they couldn’t guarantee the safety of their team anymore. The key to them returning home alive was exclusively in the hands of Black Mamba.

He wanted to beat the living daylights out of him, but he couldn’t do anything about someone that was no longer in front of him. He was doubtful if he could even beat him up…the faultless Emil got reprimanded for no reason instead.

“Why weren’t you able to take better care of your partner, huh? Even if it is Black, why does he think he can do this by himself? Huh!”

Captain’s voice rose at Emil as if he was Black Mamba.

“I apologize. Black is not someone who will listen if we try to stop him~”

“C’est mobe, shut up. You should follow Black and die with him.”

Angrily, Captain kicked Emil in the shin.

‘Damn, I knew this would happen! Who can stop him? Make me hear that I’m useless, damn punk,’ Emil thought.

Emil resented his partner as he felt the pain ringing in his bones.

Lattell team got tossed into chaos.

They couldn’t even track him. There was nothing to ride, and it was dangerous to move around in the dark without Black Mamba. If they were caught in the enemy’s radar, they would be forced to crawl into their own coffins. The anxious men were unable to register the many bikes that the guerrilla troops had left behind.

‘What’s up with everyone? Is the place on fire?’ Ombuti asked himself as he leaned, relaxed, under the shade of a boulder.

“Ombuti, lead the way. I at least think should follow after him,” Emil said anxiously, but Ombuti didn’t pay him any attention.

“Ha, he is a warrior of God. I don’t understand the reason you are all worried. If you follow Black, you will just get in the way.”

“Ack! If Black doesn’t return, we will shoot you dead too.”

“Go ahead!” Emil yelled angrily, but Ombuti didn’t budge.

Emil kept nagging at him, but Ombuti closed his eyes. He was tired of having to defend Wakil’s actions. No, it was because he was unable to calm his heart from his surprise over Wakil’s immense skills. He had no time to listen to the whining of a novice.

Ombuti closed his eyes and replayed the battle in his mind.

The battle of Toko Doam’s success was due to the perfect coordination between the heavy weaponry and the snipers. They had carried the majority of the battle within their favor with Wakil and the other six mercenaries and destroyed 140 of the rebel troops.

These men were professionals in turning a desperate battle into an artful success. The battles that he himself had fought against Frolinat in the past were mere child play. If these men had not been present, this team would have been mowed down like reeds.

Wakil’s shooting was scary as expected.

The Frolinat warriors were swept away as if swallowed by a large wave. Although they were the enemy, he felt sorry for them.

Even though he saw it with his own eyes, he still could not believe it. A human shooting at night without night vision goggles? A normal human is unable to resist blinking an eye when a bullet hits or an explosion sends shrapnel into the air. This was only possible for the immortal warrior, Azrael.

Ombuti was certain. Wakil was an immortal warrior. He was the manifestation of Azrael, the purveyor of death. He was proud to be part of the a battle fought next to Wakil.

Azrael was known as the angel of death. He had seven thousand legs and four thousand pairs of wings and was the face of fear. He held a list of those who would live, and once a name was written off that list, the owner of that name would die.

Whoever is targeted by Wakil will surely die.

Ombuti did not doubt for one second that the immortal warrior, Black Mamba, would succeed in his task.

Sergeant Mike headed toward Amju at 2300 hours.

It was an hour before the battle was to start. Aware of the guards, he directed the three pickup trucks to go in different directions. After circling around in the relative direction of Ekiya oasis, they arrived at Trident Rock at 2400 hours. As a result, the guards that were tailing them was currently searching for their presence in Ekiya.

Trident Rock had three boulders that looked like a trident spear. It was easy to find. Mike parked the pickup under the shadows of the boulders and waited for the helicopter.

Dudududu…

Ten minutes had passed, and Chinook’s loud motors could be heard. Mike placed about ten chemical flares to mark the landing location. Belman used a high-resolution lantern to signal them.

The delivery ended swiftly. The supplies were packaged compactly. Their correspondence ended as Chinook left with guidance from the rear lamps and the pickup trucks started to head back. They broke quite a sweat trying to load the large amount of equipment and rations quickly onto the vehicles. The Chinook left immediately after dispensing the goods.

Before Mike was able to organize all the supplies, they saw a flash and the sound of an explosion.

“Damn, they’ve started. Let’s go.”

As Mike hurriedly tried to start the pickup, Belman stopped him.

“Are you planning to ignore the Captain’s command?”

“Damn, I want to at least watch.”

“Our task is to collect the supplies. Captain and Black Mamba will take care of the battle.”

“You want to just watch as our comrades battle for their life?”

‘Maybe it’s time for this guy to die?’

Belman’s expression was strange. Troublemaker Mike was worried about their comrades? It was something that would make a camel laugh.

He wasn’t sure if this was how he really felt or whether it was just an excuse. Black Mamba had said that if someone suddenly changed, it was time for them to die.

“Black won’t like it,” Belman said in a low voice.

“Everyone is such a fan of Black Mamba. If Black doesn’t like it then I guess I shouldn’t.” Mike rolled his eyes as he started the engine.

Mike, who had a lot of war experience, knew how important these supplies were to their ongoing survival. It was just that he was aroused by the prospect of the adrenaline he felt in initiating murder. Still, his instincts could not surpass the fear of survival that Siberia instilled in him.

Not very long after, the sounds of war subsided. The gunshots of Dragonov rang through the air for some time, then that too became quiet. It hadn’t even been 20 minutes.

“How did it go?”

Miguel’s eyes shook nervously.

“You’ll see once you get there.”

As Mike started the engine, Belman and Miguel got into their own respective driver’s seat. The three pickups turned to head north.

“What is this!”

Mike felt surprise, relief, and disbelief all at once.

His surprise was at the sad war scene.

His relief was that his comrades were all okay.

His disbelief was upon finding out about Black Mamba’s compulsive action.

The people that demanded they immediately go searching for Black Mamba were the higher ranking officials that had joined their team later: Sergeant Belman, Sergeant Morris, and Corporal Sean Migual.

“Turn on the headset.”

At Miguel’s words, Mike got angry. “Are you stupid? The headset only works within 1500.”

“We can follow their tire tracks,” Belman suggested.

“No. It’s night now. How could we possibly find him in this wide place with swamps and the desert? If we get in their radar, we are done for,” Burimer objected.

The original members of the team were against searching for him. They all knew the extent of Black Mamba’s skills.

It would be really difficult to find him.

The rebel army and Black Mamba had been sucked into the dark desert. If they had a search dog that could track them by their smell it would be one thing, but they were not dogs.

“You all still seem to not know Wakil very well,” Ombuti, who had been sleeping, said as he approached them. Everyone’s gaze fell on Ombuti.

“Wakil is Azrael before he is a sniper. He could bring back Mitterrand’s pubic hair if he decided that he wanted to. The jackals can’t harm a lion. All we can do is wait.”

Their gaze, which had been directed at Ombuti, switched over to Captain’s mouth.

“He’s not wrong. Let’s put our trust in Black Mamba. If we lose our way during the pursuit, we could be counter-attacked.”

Captain put to rest the idea of chasing after them.

He decided to just trust in Black Mamba’s skills. They had all experienced Black Mamba’s close-contact fighting skills. Black Mamba had the capacity to survey and hide in ways they couldn’t even understand. You couldn’t stop a person that could hide and kill someone without any notice, and that was the type of person Black Mamba was.

He secretly hoped that Black Mamba would be able to completely erase the enemy’s headquarters. If the Habib army’s head was cut, it would greatly help in maintaining the survival of the Lattell team.

The seven remaining members and Ahmud revved the throttle as fast as they could. The sniper who only targeted their heads was the manifestation of fear itself. The back of his head tingled. They were ravaged by the fear of being caught by the neck by the devil himself. The losing soldiers ran for their lives back to the main headquarters.

The time that Ahmud had gotten out of Toko Doum and arrived at Koro Mojanga was one in the morning. It had been a mere two hours since he dragged his remaining men out of battle.

Frolinat’s 3rd brigade was in a state of emergency.

The headquarter barracks had over ten rooms. There were now not many soldiers left in the large barracks, which had once housed one thousand men. There were only 108 left, including the guards.

Fifteen minutes after Ahmud pulled his soldiers out of the war and arrived at headquarters, the angel of death who had followed behind them arrived there also.

Black Mamba hid the bike 3km away from his final destination. He did not want to run a 25km marathon to return back at night. He strolled casually to the rebel camp as if taking a leisurely walk.

Black Mamba’s pursuit was extremely spontaneous.

He was extremely stressed out by Frolinat’s constant stalking and attacks. He was full of anger and annoyance at the filthy humans who had caused Chartres’s injury and a bomb out of a suicidal child soldier.

His uncle’s place had always been crawling with bugs. There were especially a lot of fire ants. If bitten by one of those pesky little things, it itched, and if he scratched it, his skin would swell.

Unable to stand it any longer, he found the fire ant hill and poured gasoline into it and set it aflame. To Black Mamba, Frolinat was no different than those fire ants. If the fire ants kept crawling out, he had to just destroy the anthill. He was intending to erase their entire headquarters.

If were are too many of them to handle, he could wreak havoc on as many of them as he could, then make a run for it. He was sure that he would be able to escape, whatever the situation. At least as long as he didn’t meet anyone like himself.

The first quarter moon lit the night blue and cast a long shadow on the desolate earth like a shining white smile. The items in his backpack that would be used to erase life were the Dragonov and the kukri.

The Frolinat 3rd brigade was located at a higher location than the rest of its surroundings.

The surrounding 200m outside the walls were cleared of everything. It made it that much easier to keep guard of the place.

Swish! Black Mamba ignored gravity and shot up into the air. He landed on a eucalyptus tree 10 meters up and calmly surveyed the area. The night was long, and he had enough items to enjoy plenty of fireworks.

Three hundred meters away, he could see a shabbily made wooden guard post. There was six total, each 150m apart. Ten meters up was a searchlight.

The searchlight spanned the area, then passed by him.

“The poor fools seem to have everything that they need.”

He calculated the pattern of the searchlight and smiled. The time between each cycle was 1 minute. In 1 minute, even the slowest of them could run 300 meters. He only needed 20 seconds.

The silent killer, Black Mamba, was on the move.

Like Quetzalcoatl, he sped through the darkness as elegantly as lightning. He didn’t even have to worry about the searchlight.

Black Mamba jumped over the three-meter high wired fence. He was wearing a grenade box on his shoulder, but it didn’t hinder him at all. He blended into the shadows then slowly climbed up the pillar. He looked like a snake slithering up a tree to steal the eggs of the unassuming swallow.