In the dim night, a huge camp lies on the north bank of the Amazon River, like a jungle black panther ready to devour anyone at any time.
Fully armed soldiers walked by from time to time, and dazzling searchlights kept sweeping from every corner, announcing to everyone that the place was heavily guarded and inviolable.
After a day of noisy activity, most of the soldiers in the camp had already fallen asleep. As the commander of the defensive side of the exercise, Duarte was tossing and turning and unable to sleep.
As a veteran who had participated in the European War, it was the first time he received such an exercise order.
The adjutant beside him was also confused.
"Sir! You said that this Navy Special Tactics Research Group, a team of about 50 people, is brazen enough to raid our headquarters. Is this possible?"
Duarte looked through the small window of the tent at the dark night outside. He seemed a little uneasy. After hearing the adjutant's question, he rubbed his brow helplessly and said:
"I don't understand what they want to do! I have a garrison of 2,500 people. What effect can they have if 50 of them rush in?
But I don’t know why, but I always have a feeling of being uneasy.”
...
...
The adjutant looked at Duarte and saw that he seemed quite new and confident.
"Sir, rest assured! Since the exercise has made it clear that we are defending against their attacks, and we also know that they are coming to raid our camp, we just need to set up an ambush and wait for them to come.
Haven't you already quietly deployed personnel outside the camp?
As long as they make any move, we will soon discover them. Once we discover their whereabouts, I don’t believe that a team of fifty people can escape from the encirclement of our 2,500 people.
Besides, our mission is just to defend the camp.
I just can’t imagine how we could fail.”
But Duarte was not as optimistic as his adjutant.
"It's precisely because we all feel it's impossible that I feel weird!"
At this time, the adjutant seemed to have suddenly thought of something and said:
"Sir, do you think they are planning to charge directly into our camp with their powerful firepower?
Wasn't there a brand new assault rifle that was tested during the last landing in Fernando de Noronha?"
Duarte shook his head and denied it:
"That's impossible. Assault rifles are just rifles. They are not like heavy machine guns, which can completely change the way wars are fought.
No matter how fast their assault rifles fire, can they be faster than the many light and heavy machine guns in our barracks?"
"Yeah! Then what is the significance of this exercise?"
Duarte had no answer to his adjutant's question, so he could only sit in the field tent and ponder secretly, rubbing a drawing pencil in his hand back and forth. He didn't even notice that the tip of the pencil had been rubbed so hard.
The camp was silent for five full minutes, and neither of them could think of any useful clues.
Finally, Duarte looked at the night outside the window, stood up helplessly and said:
"I'll go check around the camp again to make sure all the visible and hidden sentry posts are in normal condition. You go notify the other battalion commanders and have them ready for battle at any time."
Upon hearing this, the adjutant quickly stood up and saluted:
"Yes, sir!"
After saying that, he turned and left.
Duarte also picked up the helmet on the table, opened the tent and walked out. Accompanied by the guards, he patrolled the huge camp back and forth, and only returned to his tent to rest after confirming that there was nothing missing.
Time passed slowly, and the clock unknowingly reached four o'clock in the morning. In several hidden corners in the northwest corner of the military camp, several dark shadows suddenly appeared behind several sentries silently. Only a few short groans were heard, and everything quickly returned to calm.
A soldier on sentry duty felt his mouth being covered by a powerful hand, and a cold touch came from his neck. A deep voice sounded in his ear:
"Tom, you're dead, please follow the drill rules."
Tom was very familiar with this voice. It was his former squad leader, Rez Vazquez. He knew that the other party had been selected for this Navy Special Tactics Research Group.
But what puzzled him was that, as a sentinel in this direction, he was very sure that he had been keeping watch very seriously without even blinking.
There was absolutely no trace of the other person where he was standing, but why did he suddenly appear behind him? This puzzled him.
He knew that he was out of this exercise, so he obediently didn't make any noise.
But he was very curious about how Rez Vázquez appeared behind him. With the faint moonlight, Tom saw a group of moving bushes that were quickly blending into the dark night.
If it weren't for the warning that just sounded in his ears and the cold touch on his neck that seemed too real, he almost thought he was hallucinating.
A clump of bushes actually came to life. If I remembered correctly, this clump of bushes was already next to me when I took over this post.
This reminded him of some unscientific and scary legends from his hometown, and his body shuddered for no reason.
Rez Vázquez had no time to consider Tom's feelings. At this moment, he was approaching the camp surrounded by barbed wire quickly and stealthily.
In less than five minutes, he arrived at the designated location. He raised his wrist to look at his watch to make sure the time was just right. He then gently made a sound with his mouth that was similar to the call of a jungle frog.
Soon, there were several responses from all around, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, realizing that everyone was already there.
He raised his head to take a look at the distance of the searchlight and the situation on the tall barbed wire, then took out a small wire cutter from his back. With ten clicks, he had cut a gap in the barbed wire that was big enough for one person to pass through.
After the searchlight went away, he looked in the direction of the patrol, confirmed it was safe, made a low insect sound, took off his camouflage, quickly passed through the gap, and held the barbed wire to facilitate the passage of the soldiers behind him.
Soon, everyone filed in quietly. Rez Vázquez restored the barbed wire very responsibly and quickly stood up. He lined up in a neat team with everyone else and joined the patrol.
But no one noticed that there was an extra team in the patrol.
They checked the passwords with other patrol teams in a formal manner and did not see anything unusual.
However, the patrol route of this patrol team did not seem to be fixed. They approached the core area of the camp step by step, until they passed a large tent and then disappeared silently into the camp.
About ten minutes later, fierce gunfire suddenly rang out outside the east gate of the camp, and the entire military camp was instantly awakened.
Duarte, who felt like he had just fallen asleep, sat up from his marching bag, quickly put on his clothes, took out a pistol from under his pillow, put it in the holster on his waist, and rushed out of the tent.
He glanced at the direction of the firefight, and the tense expression on his face finally relaxed. All fears came from the unknown, and as long as the battle started, he would no longer worry.
But what he didn't notice was that the guard standing guard at the door of his tent was gone.
Of course, he couldn't care about these trivial matters at the moment, and hurriedly walked to a large tent in the camp, which was where his exercise command center was located.
Raggedy officers were constantly coming in and out of the big tent, and the radio and walkie-talkie equipment inside had already started working.
Duarte, who had just opened the curtain and walked into the command center, saw an officer quickly walk up to him, stand at attention and salute:
"Sir, the enemy launched an attack from the East Gate. The firepower is very fierce. Our company on guard outside has already exchanged fire with the enemy. The commander of the company on the front line has just asked us for help."
Duarte heard this and nodded calmly:
"He's asking for help so soon, is he useless? Order him to hold his position and not to retreat without orders. At the same time, tell the companies on guard in other directions to pay attention to the enemy's movements and be careful of the enemy's feint to the east and attack in the west."
Upon hearing this, the officer stood at attention and saluted:
"Yes, sir!"
After receiving the order, the officer did not leave immediately. Instead, he looked at Duarte's neck carefully with some suspicion under the light in the tent. There seemed to be a large black stain.
Lieutenant Colonel Duarte noticed the officer's strange expression and said unhappily:
"What are you still doing here? Go and pass on the order."
The officer was a little puzzled when he heard this and said:
"Sir, your neck..."
Duarte was stunned when he heard this, he reached out and touched it, he felt something unusually sticky, he opened his palm and looked at it under the light, he thought to himself that something was wrong.
At this moment, several continuous dull "bang" sounds suddenly came from every corner of the entire command center, and then the entire command center was engulfed by thick smoke.
Before the officers could understand what was happening, they were choked by the smoke and fled from the command center.
At this time, the special forces team led by Rez Vázquez took advantage of the chaos in the command center and followed the soldiers in the barracks directly towards the east gate of the barracks where the firefight was going on.
After running out of the military camp, everyone turned around again and disappeared into the night.
The exchange of fire outside the East Gate stopped abruptly after lasting less than half an hour. The enemy's attack position was not discovered until the defending company, which had been under pressure, rushed out of the trenches and found it.
The enemy has disappeared.
When the company commander outside the East Gate reported the situation here to the headquarters, he was told that the exercise had ended, the headquarters had been destroyed by the enemy, and all the commanders, including Commander Lieutenant Colonel Duarte, had been wiped out by the enemy.
This not only puzzled the company commander, but even Duarte, who was standing outside the headquarters and watching the headquarters being engulfed by colorful smoke, was a little at a loss.
This was completely different from the kind of confrontation he had expected, and when he saw the black stickiness on his hands, he realized that he had been beheaded by the enemy long before he was awakened by the sound of gunfire.
And he didn't even know what was going on.
It was not until he was notified by the director's office that the corpses had recovered their freedom of movement and crawled out from various hidden corners that he had a rough guess.
"You mean to say that before you knew what was going on, someone slashed your neck from behind?"
Duarte asked in disbelief as he looked at the two guards who were supposed to be standing outside his tent, guarding him.
The two guards were also veterans. At this moment, their faces turned red. They unconsciously touched the black marks on their necks and lowered their heads in shame.
Duarte's face turned pale when he saw this, and he glanced at the faces of the people around him, but did not see any soldier from the special tactics research team.
This was really hard for him to accept, and he said in a calm voice:
"Does anyone know where they are now?"
Hearing this, everyone shook their heads in confusion.
At this moment, Duarte lowered his head with a dejected look on his face, and said in a voice that everyone could hear:
"That is to say, our headquarters was destroyed, and I, the commander, was killed, but we didn't even see the shadow of the enemy. Is that right?"
Everyone in the command center was silent, and no one dared to answer Duarte's question directly.
In fact, Duarte didn't need to ask, he knew the answer! But he really couldn't accept such a result.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
