496: Chapter 493: The Battle, Can’t Stop.
496: Chapter 493: The Battle, Can’t Stop.
This day was a day of battle for Gao Yang and his team; from the moment Ivan was attacked, the fighting had hardly ceased, and yet only a little over four hours had passed.
Next, they still had to fight, to seize a campsite from the hands of drug traffickers.
Once they had a place to settle, they would then consider how to extricate themselves from Colombia.
The caravan sped along the No.
40 Motorway, with vehicles well dispersed.
Although there were few vehicles on No.
40 Motorway, there were still some.
Spreading out the fleet like this posed a problem when encountering roadblocks, but it meant they wouldn’t suffer airstrikes.
In the end, they encountered no roadblocks on the No.
40 Motorway.
Though planes did come again, with four passes over the motorway, the incoming aircraft never opened fire.
The No.
40 Motorway was in good condition.
To get to Camp No.
2, a fifty-kilometer journey would take less than an hour to complete.
But the drug traffickers were not lambs to the slaughter; at the very least, they would have sentries to avoid being attacked unawares.
Silently sneaking up and stealthily seizing a drug trafficker’s campsite – such a task was not a small challenge.
Gao Yang had no interest in engaging with the drug traffickers; he merely needed a place to land, where they could have enough time and conditions to treat and rehabilitate the seriously wounded.
As long as it was safe, the location didn’t really matter.
However, at the moment, he had no suitable place to settle.
Entering a town and expecting to avoid discovery by government forces was unlikely after several exchanges of fire.
Who knew what size the next military assault would be?
Entering the jungle, even if there was an unexpected occurrence, would not leave them as cornered as in a town.
Therefore, the campsite of drug traffickers was relatively safer, but how to get into such a campsite was the big issue.
To peacefully enter a campsite in the jungle did not necessarily require force, but whether it was a drug trafficker’s or guerrilla’s campsite, one either had to pay their way through or have connections that allowed acceptance by the traffickers or guerrillas.
Gao Yang and Nate lacked such channels.
Negotiating or buying their way in was more trouble than simply seizing it by force.
However, now that Grand Ivan was involved, there was a new opportunity.
Gao Yang made a call to Grand Ivan, asking him to help find a campsite where they could stay.
But before Grand Ivan could respond, Gao Yang and Nate also prepared to take one by force.
If Grand Ivan couldn’t find a campsite willing to take them in, or if there wasn’t enough time, Gao Yang’s team would have to target the selected Camp No.
2.
Even if fighting for just two days, or even one day, was the result, they had to do it, for although others could wait, the severely wounded could not be delayed any longer.
Grand Ivan was always efficient.
It took less than ten minutes after Gao Yang’s call for Grand Ivan to call back.
“Ram, I’ve found a campsite that’s willing to let you guys take refuge and rest, but it’s too far.
You’ll need to pass through Villavicencio City,” he said.
“That’s too far, and we absolutely can’t pass through another urban area,” Gao Yang replied.
Grand Ivan’s voice sounded urgent as he lowered his tone, “I’m looking for a place closer to you.
But since Bogota is under the control of the Colombian government, if we move southwards, we can reach FARC territory only by leaving the Eastern Cordillera range entirely.
Between here and there lies the realm of the drug lords and gangs.
I can’t reach any of them because their influence is too small; Ivan was always the one managing contacts with them.”
Gao Yang felt helpless; Grand Ivan’s problem was that he could only reach the top tiers of large forces.
For him, gangs that operated only around Bogota were minor players that hardly caught his attention.
But now, the very help Gao Yang needed was from such minor players that Grand Ivan typically disregarded.
After a brief silence, Gao Yang sighed and said, “There’s no other way, I don’t know if we can buy our way through with money.
If not, then we’ll stick to our original plan and keep fighting, seize a camp from the drug traffickers.
But you need to keep looking for someone who can help us, no matter if we manage to seize a camp or not, we must be ready to move at any moment.”
Grand Ivan also sighed, “I understand.
This is the most difficult moment.
I’m pulling in personnel and using all useful resources.
The people to support you will arrive in succession.
But within the next forty-eight hours, you need to be prepared to fight on your own.”
After finishing the call, Gao Yang put away his phone and shook his head at Nate, “No use, we’ll have to proceed with the original plan.”
Nate removed his helmet and ran his hands through his dazzling blond hair, smiling, “Then, let’s fight.”
With a gloomy expression, Gao Yang said, “Apart from continuing to fight, there’s no other way.
Do you think we should just make the enemy flee, or should we completely eliminate them without exception?
I think wiping out all the drug traffickers is meaningless; they’re certainly not an isolated camp.
Their allies are outside, and all they need to do is make a phone call, then our operation won’t be kept secret.”
Nate said without hesitation, “You’re right, but we still need to annihilate them completely, not letting a single one escape, and we must do it before the enemy sends out a message.
After seizing the camp, immediately prepare for defense.
If there’s an attack, repel them, if not, rest quietly.
If we can annihilate the enemy and prevent them from leaking the message, perhaps we can delay the enemy’s counterattack, and it’s possible that no one will discover anything even after we leave.”
To buy time, we must do many things that would normally be meaningless, but of course, to buy time, these meaningless things become meaningful.
If it were a rout, Gao Yang would be very confident with more than fifty men against over two hundred drug traffickers, but this is an annihilation battle where not a single enemy must be spared.
With such a small force, it’s really not possible to fight.
Having determined the desired effect, the means were not hard to consider.
Gao Yang spoke in a deep voice, “To annihilate the enemy completely and prevent them from sending out a message, we can only launch a night attack, and it must be a silent one throughout.”
Nate smiled and said, “Of course, a night attack.
The advantage of choosing the second camp is that we have been here before.
We are not exactly familiar with the terrain, but we’re not strangers to it either.
Taking down the camp quietly is difficult, but not impossible.”
Gao Yang picked up a watch, checked the time, and said, “It’s five thirty in the afternoon now.
When do we launch the attack?”
Nate thought for a moment and said, “We should wait at least until it’s dark.
The later it is, the better our chances.
It depends on the condition of the injured.
If we can’t wait too long, we’ll attack at sunset.”
Taking the camp is the main objective.
To annihilate the enemy without allowing them to send out a message would be the best outcome, but it’s not absolutely necessary.
Everything is for the severely wounded.
If waiting too long is detrimental to the injured, then we must give up on full annihilation and take the camp earlier.
Chloe’s vehicle was at the very front.
When her car reached the point where it was supposed to leave the road, Chloe’s car stopped at a fork in the road to act as a guide.
The scattered convoy began to leave No.
40 Motorway one by one, taking a smaller road.
The road was specifically built by the drug traffickers to make transporting cocaine more convenient; it led to nowhere else but the traffickers’ camp.
The road wouldn’t lead all the way to the camp though, as they only wanted it to reach close but not audaciously right up to their doorstep.
After entering the side road, the vehicles hadn’t gone far before entering forested areas.
This was the eastern foothills of the Eastern Cordillera.
Although it was close to the plains, it was still mountainous territory, more precisely the foot of the mountains.
After the side road entered the forest, it twisted and turned through the trees, with the sky mostly obscured by dense canopies.
Once in the forest, it was impossible to spot the regrouped convoy on the road from the air.
As for using infrared detection devices to search, one would have to repeatedly fly over this road as a highlighted search area, so, for now, the threat from the air was not a concern.
Driving straight towards the drug traffickers’ camp was indeed a bold move.
To avoid encountering traffickers’ transport vehicles, Gao Yang and his team’s only tactic was to let one car lead by three hundred meters ahead of the main convoy.
Finally, after a difficult ten-kilometer journey along the side road, they reached the end of the road.
At the end of the side road was dense jungle.
The traffickers would carry cocaine there by hand before loading it onto vehicles to cart it away.
The vehicles couldn’t go any further, so they were abandoned at the end of the road.
Nate got out of the car and said loudly, “Everyone spread out, keep your distance from the cars.
Some of you, go and monitor all four directions, making sure to maintain a safe distance of three hundred meters.”
Gao Yang walked over to Nate and asked in a low voice, “How much further is it?
Having come so boldly, could we have already been spotted by the traffickers’ sentries?”
Nate shrugged and said, “There’s less than four kilometers in a straight line, but we need to go around the mountain, which means about seven kilometers of walking.
There are paths trampled by the traffickers, so it won’t be too slow to travel.
By foot, it will take approximately two hours to get there.
The enemy sentries are usually positioned not far from the camp, at least that was the case when we last came.
Now, well, it’s down to luck, hoping they haven’t stationed sentries further out.”
Unless Gao Yang and his team planned to start searching from the moment they left No.
40 Motorway, there was nothing to be done if they were already discovered now.
To gain time, one must pay the price.
Gao Yang nodded and then called out to everyone loudly, “Guys, this is our final battle today, prepare to fight!” (To be continued.
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