140: Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Nine: Our Slogan Is 140: Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Nine: Our Slogan Is No one had expected that the very vehicle carrying them to safety was also loaded with the greatest fortune they had ever seen in their lives.
After a brief moment of astonishment, Gao Yang suddenly shouted, “What are you all standing around for?
Get the box down and check to see if there are gold bars in the box below!”
Li Jinfang stepped forward to help, and together with Gao Yang, they placed the box on top of the ground, then opened the box underneath.
Sure enough, it also contained six gold bars.
Gao Yang removed his helmet and swallowed, excitedly saying, “Glolov, this counts as jointly seized spoils of war, right?”
Glolov, also brimming with excitement, affectionately stroked the gold bars and said with a trembling voice, “This counts as a joint seizure.
According to mercenary rules, individual captures belong to the individual, joint captures are split among us all.
You’re the leader, so you take four bars, and each of us gets two bars of gold, just perfect.”
Gao Yang paused and asked, “If we’re splitting it equally, then why do I get more?”
Glolov just looked fondly at the gold bars and said, “Nonsense, officers always get better treatment than soldiers.
A leader willing to divide all the spoils is a good leader.
You’ve done well enough by offering such a huge fortune.”
Frey timidly raised his hand and said softly, “Sorry, I just wanted to ask, do I get a share as well?”
Gao Yang laughed heartily, “You’re in luck, these are seized assets, and you did contribute, of course, you have a share.
But as for your fee, it’s still a thousand US dollars a day, not a penny more.”
Frey’s eyes shone as he looked at Gao Yang, “Boss, I knew it.
Sticking with you, I’m definitely going to strike it rich.
Absolutely!”
Cui Bo grabbed Gao Yang by the collar, excitedly shaking him back and forth while shouting, “Brother Yang, buy me guns, the best ones.
I’m going to buy all the top snipers.
Damn, now I’m a millionaire too.”
Gao Yang shook off Cui Bo’s hand and said, “Stop babbling and hurry up and load the gold into the car.
Let’s get moving.
Damn, with so much money, who the hell would be a mercenary anymore!”
After hastily reloading the gold into the vehicle, everyone got back into the car, started the engine, and followed the tracks left by Hamis’s convoy.
Still excited, Glolov suddenly asked, “Gao, were you serious about what you just said?”
“What did I say?”
“You said, with so much money, who would still be a mercenary,” Glolov recalled.
Gao Yang paused for a moment and then began to seriously consider the question.
Indeed, with both cash and gold, he had almost three million US dollars.
It was a substantial amount.
Whether he invested it in a business or did nothing at all, it would be enough to enjoy life.
After pondering for a while, Gao Yang said solemnly, “Maybe we really should consider leaving this line of work?
Think about it.
We should have enough money, right?
We could start a business.
Altogether, we have over eight million.
We could start a company, stay together.
With so much money, should we still risk being mercenaries?”
Cui Bo spoke nervously, “I still want to be a mercenary.
That’s my pursuit, and how much money I have doesn’t matter to me at all.”
Glolov hesitated before saying, “I also dream of retiring to a peaceful life, but I’m only good at fighting, and I don’t know if I can blend into normal life.
Plus, Yelena costs over three hundred thousand dollars a year.
The little over a million I have doesn’t seem like enough.”
Frey said excitedly, “Of course, we should keep going.
My dream is to become a wealthy tycoon.
The gap between a millionaire and a tycoon is quite big.”
And Li Jinfang said indifferently, “I don’t really care.
You know my situation.
Besides being a mercenary, I don’t seem to have any other options.
If I dare to show my face, I would definitely be caught and executed.”
Hearing Li Jinfang’s words, Gao Yang said with a mournful expression, “It seems like the two of us either have to live the rest of our lives in anonymity, or if we want to do something else, we can only be mercenaries.
Now we could arrange fake identities and stay in Africa, but I don’t want this kind of life.”
Cui Bo said nervously, “Brother Yang, we’re prospering now, you can’t tell me you really don’t want to be a mercenary anymore.”
After contemplating carefully, Gao Yang still shook his head and replied, “I think I should just stick to being a mercenary honestly.
Well, how do I put it, although it’s indeed a bit more dangerous, it seems I’m actually quite suited to this lifestyle.
And besides, it’s better to fight in wars than to live in constant fear of being tracked down by Interpol or something.”
Glolov hesitated for a moment before stuttering, “Gao, maybe, you should reconsider.
You know, Yelena is still waiting for you, um, perhaps you could go to America and be with her?”
Gao Yang laughed awkwardly and said, “Forget it, I can’t just walk away and leave you guys behind.
Without me, you all wouldn’t have it so easy.
Plus, now I feel being a mercenary is actually not bad.
Let’s continue to strive.
Who knows, our Satan Mercenary Corps might even become a large mercenary group in the future.
Our goal is…”
Before Gao Yang could finish, Cui Bo chimed in, “To not have any cavities!”
Gao Yang stretched out his hand, slapped Cui Bo hard on the head, and loudly declared, “Stop interrupting.
Our goal is to take down Blackwater, take down EO, and make the Satan Mercenary Corps the number one in the world!”
The group shouted along with Gao Yang, but no one really took his words seriously.
It was just a joke said casually.
After all, Blackwater Company or EO Company were huge enterprises, not to mention buying an armed helicopter— all of Gao Yang’s group’s money put together wouldn’t be enough.
Only Cui Bo solemnly suggested, “Brother Yang, EO Company has already disbanded, and Blackwater Company has changed its name.
Shouldn’t we change our slogan?”
No one paid any attention to Cui Bo, and after a bout of laughter and excited chatter, Glolov suddenly said, “You know, I was actually hesitating whether we should go rescue Abdul.
We just got so much money, and it would be a shame to get killed before we could enjoy it.
But after thinking it over, Abdul once saved me, and I just can’t leave him behind.”
Gao Yang smiled awkwardly and replied, “Actually, I had the same thought, but then on further thinking about how Abdul and Morgan helped us so much, well, my sense of heroism once again took over.”
Frey blurted out, “We can’t abandon friends, but we can handle the gold first before we attack if necessary.”
Frey’s words made everyone nod in agreement, and Glolov added, “We can entrust the gold to Uriyangko for safekeeping.
He’s quite reliable.
I think there shouldn’t be a problem.”
After pondering a moment, Gao Yang said, “When the time comes, we’ll see.
If necessary, we’ll just have to entrust the money and gold to Uriyangko.”
Carrying around such a large sum of money was indeed worrisome, especially since it was the largest amount they had ever seen in their lives.
However, rescuing Abdul was imperative and couldn’t be delayed.
One wonders if this could be considered a happy dilemma.
After the car had traveled about twenty kilometers through the desert, clusters of lights suddenly appeared ahead.
Li Jinfang immediately turned off the car’s headlights and switched to driving with low-light night vision goggles.
Gao Yang checked his watch—it was 9:30 PM.
He told Li Jinfang to slow down and observed the tire tracks on the ground carefully.
They followed the tracks all the way to the outskirts of a town twinkling with lights.
When they could make out the outlines of buildings in the distance, Gao Yang asked Li Jinfang to stop the car.
Taking the M1A fitted with a thermal imaging scope and only the equipment needed for combat, he and Li Jinfang, traveling light, began to advance on foot, following the tire tracks.
Although Gao Yang wasn’t sure if Hamis’s convoy had stopped in Tayr Hunay, he had to scout the area before deciding whether to proceed.
Tayr Hunay hadn’t fallen into the opposition’s hands yet, as its strategic position wasn’t very significant, nor was it a transportation hub.
It was one of the few towns still under Gaddafi’s control in Libya, and Gao Yang had to prepare to face the entire town as an enemy.
When they were about to reach the edge of the city, Gao Yang suddenly stopped.
He crouched and examined the tire tracks closely, then said in a deep voice, “They’ve deliberately swept away their tracks, but it’s still discernible.
The convoy turned here.
We’re lucky; the wind hasn’t blown at all until now.
If it had, tracking them would have been very difficult.”
Li Jinfang also crouched down to look and then asked in confusion, “How did you learn this?
All the sand here looks the same to me.”
Gao Yang smiled and said, “In Sudan, I learned to distinguish which one was the injured antelope from dozens, even hundreds of footprints.
Of course, that kind of job wasn’t usually mine to do; the Chieftain did it.
But we also had to follow and identify it as practice and to confirm the Chieftain wasn’t mistaken.
Over time, it became hard not to learn.
Now, this difficulty is nothing.
I’ll take you to the Sudanese Grasslands sometime to see for yourself.
Let’s go.”
Gao Yang turned almost ninety degrees on the spot and continued to search along the swept traces.
He felt more confident now that Hamis was here; otherwise, nobody would have bothered to clean the vehicle tracks.
It was Abdul’s luck that he wasn’t fated to die yet.
A gust of wind, even a breeze, would have buried all traces in the sand, but fortune favored both Abdul and Gao Yang as there had been no hot winds, which were very common in the desert summer.