The battle began right on schedule. The rebellious police force charged in aggressively without making any attempt to conceal themselves, approaching the camp along the road from the west. They immediately unleashed a barrage of light and heavy weapons against the defenders' outer perimeter, and the front-line positions were breached almost at once.
"Those police are no pushovers. Their mix of rapid and sustained fire is well coordinated, and their assault route is carefully planned. Are they really just police, not regular troops?" Watching the guards retreat in disarray via satellite surveillance, forced to establish a new defense around the camp, the assault team member Weather Witch had sent back was full of doubt.
Saber sneered. "Police, my ass. If those aren't elite Ten Rings troops, I'll eat this computer."
"Like hell you will," Xiang Qian shot him a cold glance. "This computer's mine. If you want to eat one, buy your own."
"So Kuliya's armed police have been completely infiltrated by the Ten Rings. Hashimov's ties to them run deep. We can't even rule out that he's a member himself." Vector slipped into her role as an intelligence analyst. Intelligence and logistics, along with tactical support, were among her responsibilities in the Special Task Force.
Fortunately, the situation didn't continue to deteriorate. Though the joint force had been somewhat lax about the counterterrorism operation, they had still followed battlefield regulations when first setting up their command center. The area around it was centered on the command post, with its various barricades and fortifications still intact. Unless the enemy had heavy armor or could bring down heavy fire, lightly equipped troops alone would have a hard time breaking in. That was why Xiang Qian and the others could still trade barbs and banter.
Xiang Qian was still waiting to see what the Ten Rings would do next. Before, he'd been only sixty or seventy percent sure that Temugin had something up his sleeve. Now he was almost certain.
Fifty elite fighters capable of holding their own in a defensive battle against a numerically superior regular army were already a major commitment for the Mandarin's organization. They wouldn't be thrown away as cannon fodder on a whim.
Xiang Qian didn't have to wait long. The first change on the battlefield came right away: two police riot-control armored vehicles drove past the insurgents' skirmish line and punched into the guards' defenses like a pair of nails. The firing positions on their roofs, originally fitted with grenade launchers, now held heavy machine guns. Large-caliber rounds poured down on the guards like rain, drawing a chorus of screams.
The guards immediately returned fire. Their second- and third-line positions quickly concentrated their fire, and a dense web of bullets enveloped the breach the armored vehicles had opened. But they were only police riot-control vehicles, and their thin armor was no match for machine guns of similar caliber. As one vehicle began to reverse, a hail of bullets struck its engine. It coughed twice, belching thick black smoke from the front, then ground to a halt. A few seconds later, a dazzling burst of flame erupted from its nose, and the next moment a deafening explosion blew off its roof, turning it into a giant fireball.
The defenders' morale surged, and their soldiers let out excited howls as they temporarily drove back the attackers. But before they could press their advantage and take out the other armored vehicle, two missiles came screaming down from the sky. The heavy machine-gun position was blown to pieces in an instant.
"Javelins," Saber said in a low voice. The missiles' attack trajectory was unmistakable: they were the infamous American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles.
The appearance of the Javelins dealt a blow to the defenders' morale just as they had begun to rally, and their counterattack faltered. Worse, they hadn't managed to destroy the second armored vehicle before their machine gun was taken out. It stopped reversing and resumed pouring fire onto the defenders. There wasn't another effective anti-armor weapon to be found in the camp. It wasn't fair to blame the joint force for being unprepared. This was a command center, not a frontline combat unit. No one had expected it to be attacked, much less by assailants with armored vehicles.
By ordinary logic, there was no need for heavy weapons against terrorists who usually hid and ran as soon as they struck. At the start, the joint command center's plan called only for infantry. The armored battalion stationed in the second line had been brought out by the Tajik military to show how seriously they took the operation—and to make a good impression. But given the situation now, that battalion had become the command center's best hope of turning the tide quickly. Even through the tent, Xiang Qian and the others could hear someone shouting themselves hoarse as they ordered the armored battalion to reinforce them.
It was at that moment that a string of explosions suddenly erupted on the eastern side of the camp, which had been quiet until then. The blasts ran in an almost straight line from the outer perimeter to the edge of the camp. It looked as though a cluster bomb had landed there.
But everyone soon realized they were wrong. There was no cluster bomb. A figure burst out through the flames and explosions, utterly untouched by the earth-shaking blasts and scorching fire. Great tongues of flame swirled around him, chasing the defenders behind their barricades, yet never coming close to his body. They flowed through the air with every sweep of his arms, followed by one thunderous explosion after another.
Wherever the explosions reached, the defenders lay dead or wounded in heaps. A gaping hole had been blasted in their otherwise intact defensive line. Behind the flames, a squad of more than ten men rushed in, spreading out to cover the arsonist's flanks and rear as they methodically cut down the defenders' resistance with a steady mix of rapid and sustained fire.
Watching the unbelievable scene before him, Xiang Qian found it strangely familiar. As a child, he'd watched lion and dragon dances at the Lantern Festival. The man's movements as he controlled the flames reminded him of the performers who wielded the dragon's head.
The flickering firelight illuminated the newcomer's face, and Xiang Qian recognized him at a glance. The man who had arrived amid flames and explosions was none other than the target of their mission: Temugin, the legendary son of the Mandarin.
Seeing their target appear, Xiang Qian didn't get worked up. He lowered his body and calmly gave his orders. "Vector, go back to the command center and take all our noncombat personnel to the safe zone. Team Two, escort them. Team One, take up positions and provide suppressing fire."
Orders came one after another, and the speed and decisiveness with which they were carried out showcased the Special Task Force's capabilities. Vector's teleportation ability ensured the evacuation would be safe and efficient. The assault team members were all battlefield veterans, so Xiang Qian didn't need to worry about how they deployed their firepower.
Only after everyone had taken their positions did Xiang Qian turn to the one man who had stayed behind, a teasing smile on his face. "Well? Didn't I tell you that you'd only get to see the main event if you stayed here? Capturing Temugin alive is the only real show in town, so don't mess it up."