10 p.m.

Alamo, a small town on the western border of Somalia.

The jeep's tires rolled over potholes in the asphalt road, and the stench of gunpowder crept in through the car window cracks.

Song Heping lowered the car window, vultures perched on the abandoned tank's gun barrel by the roadside, the rusted armor painted with the words "AL-SHABAAB" in white.

"Once we pass this checkpoint, we'll enter the Buntland-controlled area."

Nura wiped the slide of her SIG Sauer pistol with a headscarf.

In the rearview mirror, three child soldiers with AK-47s were dancing around a burning truck, one of them wearing Nike sneakers on his feet.

Song Heping's thumb slid across the tactical tablet, and the thermal imaging map showed a large area ahead, definitely requiring passage through a checkpoint.

The current situation in Somalia is utterly dire.

It's a complete chaos everywhere.

The entire country is basically in a state of anarchy.

There are hundreds of armed factions of varying sizes, some larger than others.

In some places, a single leader could pull together a hundred or so people and rule a territory, charging tolls from anyone crossing their land.

Being able to pay some toll is one thing.

Failing to pay and complaining might cost you your life.

At a previous checkpoint, Song Heping and Nura personally witnessed a driver being shot in the head for refusing to hand over his car to armed men, who wanted it after inspecting it.

The armed men dragged the body out of the car as if dragging a dead antelope, then whistled and drove the car away...

"Can Sajia's people be trusted?"

Song Heping posed a question.

"He owes me two lives."

Nura swerved the steering wheel to avoid a corpse lying in the road.

The remains still wore an unopened first aid kit on its waist, and swarms of green-headed flies formed a black whirlpool over the sun-exposed abdomen.

In front of the tin shack at the checkpoint, an armed man with a Mohawk banged on the car window with the barrel of his gun.

Song Heping noticed a gold-plated bullet necklace around his neck — a symbol of the Buntland Coast Patrol.

"Hey? An Egyptian?" The armed man suspiciously flipped through Song Heping's fake passport, suddenly pressing the gun against Song Heping's temple, "Brother, you don't look anything like an Egyptian!"

The air inside the car instantly froze.

Nura's hand quietly slid toward the Vektor SP1 submachine gun under the seat, but then heard Song Heping answer in Yunnan-accented Arabic, "I'm Egyptian-Chinese, a salesman for a tea factory. I'm here to promote tea to an old friend named Sajia, and if you don't believe me, I can call him for you."

As he spoke, he pulled out a container of black tea from the cardboard box at his feet and handed it over.

"Look, this is tea I procured from China, it's a gift for you, please have a taste."

The traditional beverage in Somalia is camel's milk, while some northern nomads enjoy treating guests with tea. The Dikir tribe and Lahanwen tribe serve guests with butter-brewed green coffee beans.

So, tea is a very popular commodity here as well.

The armed man opened the container, grabbed a pinch of tea leaves, and smelled them by his nose, then suddenly grinned, revealing gold teeth, "Ha! It's better than camel piss from Mogadishu!"

As he waved them through, Song Heping's peripheral vision caught sight of the Al Jazeera news playing inside the shack, the armed men gathered around the television had the same bandana-wrapped heads as the "Buntland" members who had previously attacked a fishing village in the Sinai Peninsula.

Two hours later, Song Heping and Nura finally arrived at Sajia's turf.

Sajia had previously said he lived in a villa, had over two hundred men, occupying an area of 14.6 square kilometers.

Small warlords like him were dime a dozen in Somalia, as worthless as pebbles on the ground.

Moreover, such small armed groups could be swallowed by other rising larger groups at any moment, with their leaders either becoming subservient dogs or facing beheadings.

Hence, Sajia was filled with a strong sense of crisis.

This time, hearing that Nura wanted to introduce a major arms dealer to him, capable of providing a constant flow of weaponry, Sajia agreed to meet.

After all, in a place like Somalia, guns mean people, and people with guns mean power.

This place is a jungle, where one is either a beast or prey, there's no other choice.

Once at the location, Song Heping understood that Sajia's "villa" was actually an abandoned former private hospital, long deserted, ramshackle, but spacious with plenty of buildings to accommodate him and his two hundred lackeys.

After notifying the sentry of their identity, Song Heping and Nura quickly met Sajia on the second floor, and after some formalities, got down to business.

"Are you crazy?"

Sajia smashed a whiskey glass onto the military map.

This small warlord had a prosthetic eye in his left eye and scars covered the knuckles of his right hand.

These were "glorious achievements" from his days as a lackey before his rise to power.

"You guys actually want to kill Abdul? Do you know how many people 'Buntland' has? Just their armored vehicles alone number twenty! Each armored vehicle is armed with Soviet-made 23mm anti-aircraft guns!"

His artificial eye gleamed with eerie blue light under the dim light.

Song Heping roughly understood.

The 23mm anti-aircraft gun he mentioned should be the ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun.

This thing was designed, trial-produced, and standardized in the early 1960s by the former Soviet Union, a classic dual-barrel 23mm anti-aircraft gun.

This weapon can defend against low-flying aircraft, and the gun includes two parallel-mounted 23mm autocannons, installed on the ZU-14 twin-barrel gun carriage.

Its artillery section uses the 2A14 model, with a single gun length of 2555mm, weighing 75kg, and a barrel length of 1880mm.

The cannon utilizes a transverse automatic machine and offers a high rate of fire, with a single barrel's theoretical rate reaching 800-1000 rounds/minute, and a combined rate truly astounding, capable of forming a dense fire web quickly.

Many African armed organizations mount this outdated weapon on vehicles for flat shooting, whose power is considered formidable here.

"Do you think Abdul is stronger or Mossad, the CIA, or Colonel Damar of South Sudan is stronger?"

Nura silently pulled up a video on the tablet – the moment Colonel Damar's skull was blown open by bullets, Song Heping was standing right in front of him.

But Sajia threw the tablet against the ground, "I don't know what you did over there, but here, if you plan to move against him on the 15th, you can forget about leaving Mogadishu alive. Do you even know what's happening that day? There will be thousands of armed organization members from all over Somalia, and it's a meeting organized by Abdul, intending to merge all the armed organizations into 'Buntland.' Understand? No matter how strong you are, are you as strong as the Americans' Delta Force and Rangers back in the day? Do you intend to kill Abdul amongst thousands of armed personnel? Are you crazy or am I crazy, and you still want to join forces with me?!"

Song Heping pointed to the jeep outside.

"Have your men fetch the large box hidden under the back seat in the car."

Sajia gave Song Heping a suspicious look and then ordered his men, "Go and bring the item inside!"

Soon, the large box was brought before them.

Song Heping opened the box to reveal an M72 rocket launcher and a rocket.

"I can provide you with two hundred of these."

His calm voice sounded like he was discussing a dinner menu.

"How many armored vehicles did you say Abdul has again?"

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com