Ultimate Firepower
Chapter 180 - 168: The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind

Chapter 180: Chapter 168: The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind

The airplane had started to circle.

They could already see the runway of Baghdad Airport.

Gao Yi was quite relaxed because what he needed to do was really simple - just land the plane and hand over Abdulla to Shaman’s men.

The plane aligned with the runway, landed, and glided along until the end of the tarmac. Then, instead of heading to the terminal, it followed a guide vehicle directly to one end of the airport—

away from the terminal building and near a few hangars.

This area was quiet and discreet, the kind where even a switch of hostages wouldn’t be detected.

At the end of the runway, there was a set of mobile airstairs parked alongside three other vehicles, with a few people standing by them.

When the plane stopped, Gao Yi didn’t rush to act, but patiently waited for the phone to ring.

Soon after, the phone rang.

"Below the plane are my men; they can board the plane to take the person and leave. If you need refueling or to check the plane, the staff at Baghdad Airport will provide," the voice on the phone said. "Additionally, you can rest in Baghdad. I certainly won’t trouble you any further."

"Thank you for Your Highness’s generosity and magnanimity. Please send your men up. I am very sorry, but Abdulla—he’s... still hasn’t woken up."

It was preferable if Abdulla were dead, of course, but being unconscious was also acceptable. In any case, it was better than him bouncing off the plane alive and well.

Abdulla had no external injuries and not a single sign of torture. This was actually very important. If there were signs of torture on Abdulla, it could mean that he had been interrogated, and if there were signs that Gao Yi had interrogated him, Shaman couldn’t just let it go.

Gao Yi gestured with his hand, "Open the cabin door."

The flight attendant went to open the aircraft’s cabin door, and the airstairs vehicle moved in to dock. Once the airstairs were in place, two men dressed in suits with solemn expressions boarded.

Gao Yi dragged Abdulla to the cabin door, not uttering any unnecessary words.

Neither did those who came to pick up the body.

There was an awkwardness in speaking now, so they might as well save their energy.

Two men—one lifted Abdulla on his back and the other assisted from behind—carried Abdulla off the plane. Once they reached the ground, they placed Abdulla in the back seat of one of the vehicles before squeezing in themselves.

The three cars began to drive off.

The butler had been quietly observing everything from the airplane window. After seeing the scene below, he suddenly said, "He’s as good as dead."

Gao Yi asked with surprise, "Oh, why do you say that?"

"If Shaman didn’t want to kill him, he would have had just one person put him in the back seat of the car. But the fact that two people squeezed him in between them means they’re worried he might wake up and attack the driver, indicating they’re concerned he might try to escape."

There is something to learn from everyone.

"That makes sense. What you said is very logical."

The butler gave a helpless smile and said, "It’s just that I’ve seen this sort of thing quite frequently."

Gao Yi was at a loss for words. After all, Abdulla had done Shaman’s dirty work and the butler handled Harold’s; he probably felt sympathy for the fate of someone like himself.

It was right then that Gao Yi noticed several cars approaching.

There were five in total, all military vehicles, quite conspicuous.

In this place, there shouldn’t be any vehicles other than the one guiding the plane, but now there were so many cars, and they were military ones. Most importantly, where did these vehicles come from?

There shouldn’t be any problems, right?

As soon as Gao Yi thought there shouldn’t be any problems, he felt a sense of unease because he had long realized that things supposed to go smoothly often didn’t.

Sure enough, the three cars that had just connected with Abdulla had not yet started when the newly arrived five blocked them in their spot. Although there were no machine guns mounted on the five military vehicles, a dozen fully armed soldiers did jump down from them.

The vehicle Abdulla was placed in was the middle one, which now seemed to want to back up directly, while the vehicles on either side seemed to block the middle one.

The soldiers were dressed in the uniform of the Iraqi Defense Army.

Who has arrived? What’s happening?

A group of Iraqi soldiers encircled the men sent by Shaman?

The people below began to converse, but Gao Yi couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. However, the events unfolded just a short distance below the plane and were clear to see.

Thinking of Shaman’s methods and his toughness, and then considering Harold...

Wait, Harold was tough too. He’d been detained for several days and had endured suffering without yielding.

Both sides were unyielding, and that meant trouble.

The biggest problem was that if one party backed down, the matter could be resolved quickly, but if both adversaries remained strong-willed, they would fight to the end.

Considering further, Harold was tough but his methods were far from clever, and his accomplices, or should you call them fools, how could any of them stand against Shaman?

If Harold had even half his son’s abilities, or a measure of Mu Tianwen’s wisdom to know when to advance or retreat, perhaps he wouldn’t have ended up in this predicament?

If that was Harold’s level, and yet he was the leader of many, then what could be the caliber of those he led? Could they still be hoping to turn the tides against the wind and thus meant to snatch Abdulla away?

It was daunting to think about; the more he thought, the more frightened he became.

Gao Yi couldn’t help but look towards Mu Tianwen.

Although Mu Tianwen was the youngest, Gao Yi felt that Mu Tianwen was the only person on the plane he could talk to.

"Astronomy, what do you think..."

Gao Yi’s mouth was faster than his brain; the words had slipped out before he had figured out what to ask.

After hesitating for a moment, Gao Yi finally said, "What do you think about those new cars that arrived?"

"Who might they be?"

Mu Tianwen seemed a bit puzzled. He might be very smart, but after all, he was too young and inexperienced. He was the type who could strategize brilliantly on paper, but when it came to actual execution, it was natural for his immaturity to show.

After hesitating for a moment, Mu Tianwen asked in surprise, "Weren’t they arranged by you?"

"No, my gut tells me something is not right."

Who would dare to confront Shaman, especially at this time? Who needed to oppose Shaman?

Other than Harold and his group, Gao Yi could not think of any other possibilities.

His mind was still full of questions, but soon Gao Yi’s worries became reality.

He saw the leading officer suddenly raise his hand and fire a shot, hitting the driver’s seat of the middle vehicle.

Everything happened so fast, Gao Yi stared in shock.

Mu Tianwen exclaimed, "A trap!"

The stair truck had already started to back away, and the flight attendants were closing the cabin door when Gao Yi yelled, "Don’t close the door!"

The butler exclaimed in alarm, "Close the door, take off quickly!"

Gao Yi shouted angrily, "Don’t you dare close that door!"

The flight attendant stood there, dumbfounded, not knowing what to do. At that moment, Mu Tianwen, struck by inspiration, told the flight attendant, "Don’t close the door!"

Gunshots rang out from outside. Harold, who had been feigning sleep on the bed, jumped up, his face panic-stricken, "What’s happening? Has Hamman sent someone to kill us?"

Gao Yi roared at Harold, "I’m fighting to save you, and you plot against me?"

Bad news, really bad news. Although Abdulla had already been handed over, how was Gao Yi supposed to make Shaman believe this had nothing to do with him?

Harold stared blankly and said, "I didn’t do it! It has nothing to do with me! It really has nothing to do with me!"

Mu Tianwen anxiously said from the side, "It’s not my father, I swear it’s not him!"

If Abdulla got snatched away, no matter who did it, Gao Yi and the others would be the first to suffer the consequences. The worst part was not knowing whether Feng Biao was safe or not. If Shaman, in a moment of anger, decided to simply kill Feng Biao, it would be such a miscarriage of justice.

Gao Yi turned to Harold, beside himself with anger, "Who else could pull off such a stunt in Baghdad!"

Harold replied blankly, "I don’t know, there are too many, so many people could have done it..."

It was all too late now. At least twenty soldiers got out of the five vehicles. They shot at Shaman’s men without much discussion, firing first to shoot everyone on two vehicles and, targeting the driver of the middle vehicle, smashed the back windows with their rifle butts and, after forcing the people inside to get out, coldly executed them without any hesitation.

Then one man dragged down Abdulla, who was still unconscious.

Gao Yi didn’t understand what they were saying, but he could at least make out that at least three people cheered simultaneously.

They were cheering because Abdulla wasn’t dead.

Now the stair truck had already driven a dozen meters away, and upon hearing the shots fired, they floored the gas pedal and sped off like lightning.

The officer who had led the shooting looked up at Gao Yi’s plane, eyeing the still opened cabin door as if he was about to order his men to fire at the plane in the next instant.

A man in a suit shouted, and then, with arrogance, the leading officer put his pistol back in his waist and with a wave of his hand, led the group, taking Abdulla with them, and sped away.

They came quickly and left just as fast, without taking any action against Gao Yi and his companions.

Gao Yi was unable to intervene. The plane’s cabin door was five or six meters above the ground, a height he could jump from, but what could he do once he landed?

The butler said with a trembling voice, "Such skill, they are not... not our soldiers."

Harold immediately said, "Definitely not from the National Intelligence Bureau; they’re not that capable."

Gao Yi felt a chill in his heart and said, "They’ve been watching us in the dark, which means they were prepared before we landed. The position our airplane is in now, there’s only one taxiway for the aircraft’s ground movement, deliberately isolated to prevent vehicle escape. They didn’t use headlights and suddenly turned them on when they were right up close. This was premeditated."

Looking at Harold, Gao Yi said in a low voice, "If someone hadn’t leaked the news in advance, they couldn’t have been so ready."

Harold was dumbstruck. He spread his hands in a helpless gesture, "It wasn’t me, I didn’t leak any news!"

Mu Tianwen said anxiously from the side, "Father! You’ve been betrayed; your cohort has abandoned you!"

Mu Tianwen was trying to save the situation for his father.

Gao Yi’s mind was in disarray. From his experience, the National Intelligence Bureau’s agents really weren’t this skilled.

The operation was too swift, simple in appearance, yet the tactics were delicate; the timing of the shots, their precision, and the personnel’s positioning—considering all the details, it seemed unlikely that Shaman’s subordinates from the National Intelligence Bureau could handle the situation with such efficiency.

"Who could it be..."

Gao Yi looked at Harold and then asked harshly, "Who could it be? CIA?"

After a moment of stunned silence, Harold nodded vigorously, "CIA! It’s all about the CIA!"