Chapter 980: Casting the Net to Catch the Prey

By the fourth day of drifting at sea, He Yuzhu and his group had not even caught a shadow of an M Country aircraft.

The others were able to keep their composure, but Captain Sun and Bureau Chief Zhang had wrinkles on their faces deepening day by day, their brows knitted like twisted dough.

Bureau Chief Zhang always felt that the people of M Country were not so easily fooled—it was impossible for the island to be without flaws; those soldiers must have set up a pocket formation in advance, just waiting for them to crash headlong into it.

He Yuzhu, on the contrary, was not very panicked.

He calculated to himself that the cave was hidden extremely deep; unless M Country dispatched thousands of people to conduct a carpet search cave by cave, it would be impossible to find.

In fact, the M Country side had indeed not relaxed for a single moment.

Seven warships headed toward the sea area in a grand procession, clearly intending to investigate to the end—the personnel of three ships had vanished into thin air, neither seen alive nor dead; if they could not provide an explanation for this, the top brass at the Pentagon would never let them off lightly.

The number of people searching the island directly exceeded one thousand, and they also hired a large number of local guides.

It just so happened that there had been several heavy rains over the past few days, and the shallow traces had long since been washed away for the most part.

Yet those trace investigation experts were highly skilled and still managed to find footprints of their own personnel in the mud, as well as a batch of strange footprints that did not belong to this island.

It was just that the foreign footprints were blurred, incomplete, and intermittent, making it completely impossible to determine the number of people who had landed on the island at the time.

This was all a backup plan He Yuzhu had arranged in advance.

He had not only cleaned up the footprints and residual traces of equipment, but also released a large amount of clear water from his space to wash away all remaining traces of evidence.

The more the trace experts investigated, the more panicked they became: not a single bullet shell, not a drop of blood, and not the slightest trace of a struggle could be found at the scene.

The hundreds of personnel on the three warships seemed to have just taken a stroll on the island and then evaporated into thin air.

When the news reached the Pentagon, the entire Staff Department exploded in chaos.

Hunter slammed the table hard, refusing to believe that this matter was the work of the Huaxia delegation—how could that group of refined diplomats silently annihilate the elites of three ships? It was simply a fantasy!

The conference room was in an uproar, and by the end of the argument, the vast majority of people had unexpectedly and unanimously reached the same conclusion: a supernatural event.

Hunter reported the results of the Staff Department's discussion to William, and William curled his lips into a cold sneer: "You have worked hard these days; it is not easy to carry such a heavy burden. Go back and get a good rest for a few days; there is no need for you to intervene in the affairs here anymore."

Hunter was stunned for half a second before he instantly realized that this was to remove him from his post. He did not argue, raised his hand to give a standard military salute, and silently exited the office.

The moment the office door closed, he knew his career was completely ruined.

Hunter was out, but William's layout still had to continue to advance.

He insisted that the disappearance of the personnel from the three ships was the work of "Shadow," and that He Jian in the Huaxia delegation was a member of the "Shadow" organization.

He quickly activated a subordinate who was in complete agreement with his own stance—Martin.

After some deliberation, the two decided to deploy troops along the entire First Island Chain, determined to trap the Huaxia delegation in this sea area.

In fact, William had already found out through other channels: the Huaxia delegation had not returned to their country at all.

The island garrison on the side of the "little days" and the troops of the "flying monkeys" were all mobilized to cooperate with the M Country military in setting up defenses.

They added garrisons to island after island along the sea route, setting up layers of checkpoints, wishing they could turn the entire sea area upside down.

By the fifth day at sea, the fuel gauge needle of He Yuzhu's patrol boat was already pressed against the bottom line.

The fuel of this ship had long since been exhausted; at first, he could secretly take diesel from his space to replenish it.

The trouble was that Deputy Captain Li was too pedantic and overly sensitive to fuel data, frequently running to check the dashboard, which made it impossible for He Yuzhu to find an opportunity to replenish the diesel silently.

Deputy Captain Li also had good intentions, fearing that the ship would run out of fuel and break down halfway, but this caution was about to drive He Yuzhu to his wit's end.

With no other choice, He Yuzhu could only intercept a merchant ship. He originally intended to follow the method used to intercept the Yamaguchi-gumi ship last time, but Director Li refused to agree no matter what.

He Yuzhu could not win against the other party and could only honestly pay money to buy diesel.

When the ship approached the Philippines, the fuel tank reserves were about to bottom out again.

Deputy Captain Sun was even more anxious than He Yuzhu. Seeing that the fuel was about to run out, he hurriedly found He Yuzhu and asked loudly: "Factory Director He, the fuel gauge is almost at the bottom! The remaining fuel can support us for thirty or forty nautical miles at most... What should we do next?"

He Yuzhu listened to everyone's anxious words and only felt a headache. Come to think of it, it was his own fault; he had specifically brought Captain Sun and Deputy Captain Li along, which had instead added many obstacles for himself.

"What are you panicking about? Yam Island is right ahead. Once we reach here, are we still far from Taiwan? We are almost at our doorstep, what is there to be afraid of?"

Deputy Captain Sun reminded him again: "Factory Director He, in my opinion, there is a high probability that there is an ambush on this island."

He Yuzhu could not help but laugh after hearing this, reaching out to pat his shoulder to soothe him: "Three warships full of soldiers couldn't trap us, so what kind of waves can that handful of scattered personnel on the island stir up?"

Deputy Captain Li, who had been silent the whole time, gained some confidence instead.

Now he trusted He Yuzhu from the bottom of his heart, with almost unconditional reliance—as long as Factory Director He stood at the bow, any massive difficulty could be overcome. He turned to Captain Sun and said: "Captain Sun, with Factory Director He here, there will never be any mishaps."

Captain Sun glanced at him sideways, secretly slandering in his heart: This person's change is too fast. A few days ago, he was targeting He Yuzhu everywhere, speaking with sarcasm in every sentence, and in just a few short days, he had become the most loyal follower behind the other party.

He pondered for a moment and still spoke with full worry: "Approaching the island in broad daylight, won't the target be too conspicuous?"

He Yuzhu waved his hand, his smile deepening, with a hint of cunning hidden in his eyes: "We will hoist the M Country flag and play a game of 'all is fair in war.' But this time, we must be decisive and ruthless. This kind of remote island should not have a large number of people active, but as long as dozens or hundreds of people appear, regardless of what clothes they are wearing, they are ten-to-one coming for us. Don't underestimate those people from M Country; all kinds of underhanded and dirty tricks emerge one after another; those people wearing civilian clothes might be hiding firearms in their hands."

Upon hearing this, Deputy Captain Sun nodded heavily, his eyes carrying the heaviness of someone who had been through it: "I agree with this. When we were fighting against the Vietnam troops back then, we suffered this kind of loss; enemy soldiers hid among the common people, occasionally firing cold shots from the dark, which was impossible to guard against."

He Yuzhu did not explain further, turned around, and summoned Director Li, Deputy Director Shi, and Deputy Director Long to one place, saying straight to the point: "Director Li, if a large number of people on the island surround us, we must absolutely not show mercy and must return fire directly. Otherwise, our entire delegation might very well be wiped out here."

"Isn't that a bit inappropriate?" Director Li still held onto the idea of not harming the innocent.

He Yuzhu did not back down this time, his tone very firm: "Director Li, if you refuse to nod, once the other side makes a move and we cannot return fire, I cannot guarantee everyone's safety in this matter."

It was the first time Director Li had seen He Yuzhu put on a stance of refusing to continue leading, and he was stunned for a few seconds before finally gritting his teeth and relenting: "Fine! As long as those people make the first move, we will open fire immediately."

After the bottom line for offense and defense was settled, the tense atmosphere in the cabin eased up quite a bit.

He Yuzhu calculated the distance, and when they were still more than ten nautical miles from Yam Island, he had someone hoist the M Country flag that had been prepared in advance onto the mast with a rustle.

The flag fluttered in the sea breeze, and the patrol boat was instantly camouflaged, sailing toward the island in a swaggering manner.

He Yuzhu's guess was not off by even a bit.

There were more than two hundred people ambushed on this island: more than one hundred and seventy active-duty Vietnam soldiers, and the remaining thirty were all elite forces drawn from Guam by M Country.

Everyone had changed into civilian clothes, and several snipers were also ambushed in the dark by the sea, just waiting for He Yuzhu's group of prey to walk into the trap voluntarily.