Chapter 6 Chapter 5 Shootout

Fernando panted, pointed at the computer, and said, "The first person on the list is the leader of the anti-government guerrillas... This person is a criminal among criminals, and a devil among devils. He once slaughtered a village by himself. …When the name of Lina Andu is mentioned, children dare not cry at night!" When he said this, he paused, took another breath, and then continued: "There are three other people who are important figures in this guerrilla team, and they are all former officers and sharpshooters in the army." He stopped again and looked at us with an expression of surprise on his fat face.

We all understood what he meant. He wanted to explain that the bandits encountered by the expedition team were not ordinary bandits, but guerrillas with rich combat experience.Although the expedition team knew that it was not peaceful and equipped with sophisticated weapons, members like Dian Xiwei, or other geographers, had no combat experience at all, and the bandits were attacking in ambush, but the result of the battle was that the bandits The entire army was wiped out, it was incredible! For a moment, we couldn't help but look a little weird, Hong Ling first called out: "Isn't this situation similar to those three gangsters who robbed the bank?"

I already had this idea—or I can’t say it was an idea, it was just a feeling that the gangsters who attacked the expedition died strangely, similar to the gangsters who robbed the bank.But I just feel that the two incidents are equally bizarre, and I don't think that the two incidents can be treated as the same incident, because the two incidents have completely different backgrounds. Hong Ling obviously only thought of the similarities between the two things, but did not think further about the differences between them. When I looked at Hong Ling, Hong Ling had already supplemented her own thoughts: "What I mean is: in the two things, the one who had the absolute advantage died in the end, which is completely illogical. It can be said that They're similar."

There was a short silence, which indicated that everyone had no objection to Hong Ling's statement.Hong Ling was very happy, and asked Fernando: "How did those nine vicious gangsters die? If they also shot themselves to death, then the two things must be of the same nature." When Hong Ling was talking, she took the opportunity to make a face at me, because she still refused to use the ready-made word "suicide". Fernando took a breath: "Until now, we only know that they died in the gun battle. We will learn more about the details after we arrive." Zhang Taifeng sighed again and again, expressing his impatience with our discussion, obviously he was not interested in whether the two things had similarities, let alone how the nine gangsters died, and only cared about the whereabouts of the expedition team.

Bai Su said to him: "After the gun battle, the expedition team had contacted the police, so we know that they are safe, and even survived such a dangerous encounter, which proves that the expedition team has a very high adaptability, so there is no need to worry too much." Zhang Taifeng's answer was still a sigh——During the whole journey, Bai Su didn't speak much, and when he did, he only said words of comfort to Zhang Taifeng, and Zhang Taifeng also responded with a sigh as usual, the only difference was whether the sigh was long or short. I have something in common with Zhang Taifeng: I spend less time thinking about how the nine bandits died, but more time thinking about where the whole expedition went.

Because the death of the gangster is already a fait accompli, there is nothing to think about.However, the expedition team suddenly disappeared, but it was extremely mysterious, and it was worth making various assumptions. However, during the whole journey, I was still at a loss, but I had the same decision as Zhang Taifeng, and I was sure that the matter could not be solved by assumptions, it had to be investigated on the spot.So we all decided to get off the plane and rush to the scene immediately. Fernando also agreed with us. He gave orders through communication to allocate personnel and helicopters so that we could go directly from the airport to the mountains after arriving in Panama City.

Bai Su obviously had no objection to our decision, but neither she nor Hong Ling had any intention of participating. It seemed that they were more interested in the bizarre deaths of the three bank robbers. So we reached a decision to part ways, and Fernando first participated in the exploration of Bai Su's side, and at the same time kept in touch with me as much as possible. Fernando has repeatedly assured that the personnel and equipment he sent us are the best he can provide. I hope we will forgive me if we are not satisfied. Because he once said so, after getting off the plane, although Zhang Taifeng and I gasped at least ten times in the next twenty minutes, it was inconvenient to raise any protests.

First of all, the people who came to pick us up. Those two jeeps are very new, but they are almost completely unreasonable maintenance. It is impossible to find the temperament that police officers should have in them. Although I didn't say anything, of course the expression on my face already expressed the contempt in my heart. Fernando came to me and said in a low voice: "Don't look at them as inconspicuous. The four people I sent to you are the best in my opinion. .” He immediately called four people's names, so four people of different heights, fat and thin stood crookedly in front of me.

Fernando introduced me to them: "This Mr. Wesley is a senior police officer of the international police. From now on, you must absolutely obey his orders until there are other tasks." I am not actually a "senior police officer of the international police". Fernando introduced me like this, of course, to avoid wasting words, and of course I don't need to make unnecessary corrections. However, I can also see that Fernando's introduction is not very useful. The four people who look more like gangsters than police officers just glanced at me lazily, and two of them finally ordered. Nodding, the other two didn't even respond at all.

Of course, Fernando should be their superior, and according to common sense, the superior conveyed the task to the subordinates, and the subordinates should at least answer loudly.However, there are many unreasonable things in the world, and we cannot correct them one by one. Fernando saw my dissatisfaction, and he whispered to me again: "Please believe me, these four are excellent talents, especially good at searching and surviving in the most difficult environments." I nodded irresistibly, and Fernando shouted to them again: "Introduce yourself to Mr. Wesley!" I took a step closer to them—in the middle of this step, they spoke at the same time, announced their names, and then revealed their identities in unison: "Sergeant of the Panamanian Police Headquarters."

Most of the names of the Panamanians have many syllables, which are very redundant and difficult to remember. The four of them said their names at the same time, and the syllables were mixed together, which made it difficult to hear.The reason why they did this was obviously to make it difficult for me to remember their names. Of course, they have no special meaning in doing this. Generally, "old fritters" police officers don't like to obey orders straightforwardly, and they especially like to make things difficult for the new leader. If the new leader cannot convince them, then the future work will be difficult. cannot be expanded. Zhang Taifeng is a police officer himself, of course he understands this key, so he immediately knotted his eyebrows and looked at me worriedly. Originally, I would not be able to remember their names if I only relied on their self-registration this time, but not long ago, Fernando once called the names of these four people. I know who they are. I believe that Fernando already knew that they would have such tricks, so he called them by their names first. Of course, it is also possible that Fernando himself wanted to test my memory, so he did so. I didn't stop, I continued to walk forward, came to them, stretched out my hand to them one by one, and called their names correctly at the same time. The attitude of the four of them changed drastically immediately, and they shook hands with me very formally. These four people have a certain place in the development of the story in the future.But I won't introduce them one by one, because they are not the main characters after all.So when they are mentioned later, they will be referred to as four of them or four...etc. This is for the convenience of telling the story. When I shook hands with them, I took the opportunity to look at them carefully, and found that although their appearance was not flattering, when I made eye contact with them, I could see their inner shrewdness without exception. I turned to Fernando and said, "Thank you for sending the best personnel!" Fernando was very happy to see that I finally accepted his words. He deliberately got angry: "What kind of talk is this! The disappearance of the expedition team in my country is our responsibility." I took a breath and looked towards Bai Su. Bai Su said: "I'll check the bank with Hong Ling first, we can contact you at any time." I nodded, and under Zhang Taifeng's sighs, I boarded the jeep with those four people, drove to a corner of the airport, and came to a helicopter. The helicopter looked very old, a medium-sized transport helicopter used by the US military. After getting on the plane, the four people introduced us to the equipment for this operation. The equipment can be said to be quite complete, especially the communication equipment. Everyone has two mobile phones, one can make long-distance calls, and the other is for the six of us to talk to each other-it can make the six of us connect as one As a whole, it will not be lost. This intercommunicating device is very important, allowing us to hold meetings and discuss everything within a range of three kilometers, even if we are more than one kilometer away from each other. The helicopter, piloted by two of the four, flew to the mountains, where the shootout between the expedition team and the bandits took place. After taking off, the four of them described to Zhang Taifeng and me what they had done after the expedition disappeared. The flight time was about three hours. During these three hours, the four of them explained their search process in detail. I just shook my head and smiled wryly, but Zhang Taifeng's face became more and more ugly.Because listening to what they said, there is really nothing wrong with the search work.In other words, their search has no results, and when we enter the mountains again, there will be no results. It turned out that the four of them, each leading a search team, set off in four different directions at the location of the shootout to find the missing expedition team. The expedition team had seven members and had a lot of supplies. Leaving traces, it is absolutely impossible to disappear without a trace, and it is unbelievable that their search turned in nothing. When I brought this up, the four of them smiled wryly, and their answer was: "Mr. Wei, you will understand when you arrive at the scene." At this time, my heart was full of doubts, and for a while I couldn't understand what they meant by saying that.My doubts include why they searched from four different directions. Couldn't it be determined from which direction the expedition team left the shootout site? I didn't ask a question, because since they said that I had to go to the scene to understand, now that I ask, they must still use this sentence to answer me. Of course, we can only wait until the scene of the shootout. At that time, I had already imagined that the terrain of the shootout scene might be very special, but no matter how I thought about it, it was difficult to get close to the actual situation.I will describe the special geographical environment of the scene in detail later-this is quite helpful for understanding the development of the story. In fact, before arriving at the scene of the shootout, I was already amazed by the geographical environment I saw. The helicopter was above the river and flew towards the upper reaches of the river. I knew that the destination was a mountainous area, but I was still surprised when I saw the majestic mountains in front of me. Generally speaking, the feeling of high mountains is not obvious when viewed from the air, but the high mountains in this area are very steep, even if viewed from the air, the mountain peaks still give people a strong sense of oppression. This shows how dangerous the mountain is if it is on the ground. The water of the river starts to become turbulent when it approaches the mountainous area. The closer the mountain is, the more turbulent the water is. Because the river is full of waves, it feels like the sound of rushing water can be heard-in fact, because the helicopter is very noisy, Of course you can't hear the sound of water. The river rushes out from the mountains on both sides, and the two mountains form a canyon. At the bottom of the canyon, it is about 300 meters wide. There are no roads on both sides of the canyon, only big rocks that have been washed away by the turbulent river for many years. Those big rocks are all extremely smooth, and you can imagine how difficult it is to walk along the river. Seeing such a scene, I couldn't help expressing my admiration for the courage and perseverance of this expedition team, especially Dian Xiwei—she is a typical urban woman, but she was not scared back by this harsh environment. Before I could ask a question, the four said, "The expedition team is advancing along the left bank of the river." At this time, I also discovered that on the left side of the river, there are still some places for people to advance, while the cliffs on the right side are all cliffs, almost straight up and down, not to mention people, even apes, I am afraid it is difficult to climb. I really didn't expect to see such poor mountains and bad waters before officially entering the mountains. It's hard to imagine what it will be like after entering the mountains! After the helicopter flew into the canyon, it specially lowered the flight altitude, of course, in order to be able to see the terrain below more clearly, which made it even more thrilling. I saw that the river surface, nearly 300 meters wide, became narrower and narrower as we went forward, and the water became more urgent. The emergency is like a large reservoir with its gates opened. I thought to myself, what a pity that such terrain, which can be called the site of a hydroelectric power station made in heaven, has not been utilized. The helicopter continued to fly forward, and when the river gradually narrowed, the water flow became more and more surging, and the waves splashed were at least 100 meters high. Although the helicopter was flying in the air, it seemed that it could be swallowed by the waves at any time. There are quite a few people in the world who like a sport called "rapid rafting" - drifting down the rapids in a rubber boat.They should come here and try it out and see how it turns out. In ancient Chinese records, there are often descriptions of dangerous rivers, saying that "even a goose feather will sink", but the current river water, I think even the air will be swept down by the rushing river water, sinking to the bottom of the river, and never floating again. not come up. Zhang Taifeng was also dumbfounded, he couldn't help muttering: "What are you doing in this kind of place! What are you doing in this kind of place!" On the one hand, I was horrified, and on the other hand, I admired the courage of Dian Xiwei and other expedition members.We use advanced means of transportation to fly in the air, and we can’t help but feel thrilled. The expedition team has to walk on the shore, not to mention physical difficulties, but it is even more difficult to overcome psychological fear—the geographical environment here is The creation of nature, and compared with nature, human beings are too small! I estimate that this kind of rapids is about 30 kilometers long. When the river is at its narrowest point, it can be seen as a waterfall falling from the sky—the drop is not very large, not more than 20 meters, but its momentum is majestic , even the so-called world's largest is far behind! Seeing such a situation, it is really hard to imagine what it will be like going forward.The previous scene was indeed completely unimaginable.After passing the narrowest part of the canyon—only about fifteen meters, the front suddenly opened up, and the cliffs on both sides suddenly separated to the left and right. After going out for more than one kilometer, the mountain continued to move forward. Due to such a sudden change in the mountain, looking down, the river is no longer there, and what you see is a large lake that is very calm and sparkling. The blue sky and white clouds are reflected on the water. Compared with this sinister situation, it is simply two worlds. At this time, the helicopter turned to the left and lowered its altitude. I saw that on the right bank of the "big lake", there was a row of platforms each about 50 square meters in size, stretching forward, with a total of more than 100 platforms. And when the helicopter was lowered to a certain level, I could see the wonder of the "Great Lake" more clearly. I saw the helicopter's wings rotate, and after the splash was stirred up, the underwater pebbles emerged from the water. The large expanse of "lake water" that I saw was extremely shallow, no more than ten percent. In such shallow water, if a person wades through the water, the water will soak up to the ankle at most. It is conceivable that after the arduous journey, the expedition team felt so relieved when they saw such a beautiful, calm and fairyland-like environment.It is even more conceivable that Dian Xiwei, who is very active, must scream and run into the water, and let the water spray surround her body, forming a moving picture. I believe Zhang Taifeng was thinking the same, because he showed a very intoxicated expression.However, what the four said next completely destroyed the beautiful picture we imagined.They said: "We have long discovered that this large area of ​​shallow water has excellent scenery, so many platforms have been set up on the water for tourists to camp. The bandits are on the tenth and eleventh platforms, pretending to be campers, Wait for the arrival of the expedition team, and make a sudden attack on the expedition team." In such a beautiful environment, the expedition team was in a happy and relaxed mood after a arduous journey. Bandits with rich combat experience suddenly launched an attack, which was simply an inhuman massacre. Compared with the fairyland-like environment in front of him, the gangster's behavior is really ugly to the extreme. By this time the helicopter had landed - directly on the water. Neither Zhang Taifeng nor I got off the plane right away—we were thinking about the same problem: under such circumstances, the expedition was ambushed, no matter from which point of view, it was completely unreasonable.They should not even have a chance to take up arms, they will be massacred! But the result was that the bandits were wiped out! What exactly happened during this period to form such a completely upside-down result. And when I was trying to find the answer to this question, it suddenly occurred to me that the pattern of the incident was very similar to that of three gangsters robbing a bank-the party that should be killed did not die, while the party that had the upper hand was inexplicably killed. die. Two of the four people jumped out of the helicopter first, and the other two were obviously waiting for us to get off the plane. I said to them: "It seems that there should not be a gun battle because the gangsters attacked and the expedition team did not fight back at all." Opportunity." The two replied: "According to our analysis, it should be so. But when the incident happened, there was no one else except the expedition team and the bandits. So no one knew what was going on except the expedition team." .” I took a breath and got off the plane with Zhang Taifeng. The water only soaked the insteps of my feet. I walked forward. The boulders under the water were very slippery. I didn’t know until I got into the water that the current in this large expanse of water was actually very fast. Because the surface of the water is too vast, it can't be seen.And this large area of ​​water flows to a narrow outlet, which forms the turbulent water at the outlet. The two people who got off the plane first had already boarded the platform, which was about one meter above the water.When Zhang Taifeng and I approached the platforms, we could see bloodstains on the two platforms that hadn't been washed clean. The bloodstains were so extensive that it looked shocking. Judging from the bloodstains on the platform, it is easy to speculate that the situation at that time was: the expedition team arrived, and the bandits on the platform attacked the expedition team. It is said that it is difficult for the expedition team to fight back when they are completely unprepared, but the bandits were shot and died on the platform. I jumped onto the platform and asked the four people, "The bandit was shot and died, was it because of the expedition's counterattack?" The four said: "No one knows what happened at that time, but the result of the autopsy on the dead gangster is that all the bullets that killed the gangster came from the guns used by the gangster." I was not particularly surprised by such an answer, and I asked again: "All the culprits committed suicide?" The four answered very cautiously: "It should be said that the bandits on the two platforms suddenly shot at each other." Zhang Taifeng and I glanced at each other, and we both thought the same thing—the gangsters shot each other to death, this abnormal situation, and the suicide of the bank robbers can also be said to be in the same pattern. In other words, what happened here was of the same nature as what happened in the bank. This is something we didn't expect when we came here.I feel that I need to contact Bai Su immediately, because this discovery has greatly inspired and helped her investigate the strange things that happened in the bank. I saw Zhang Taifeng's anxious expression, and I knew that he only cared about the whereabouts of the expedition team, and he would not care about anything else. I came in front of him and said in a deep voice: "I think the disappearance of the expedition team is closely related to the strange things that happened. If we find out why such strange things happened, we can understand why the expedition team happened." Missing." Zhang Taifeng said with a crying voice: "I know! But, can we immediately find their whereabouts, don't waste any more time." In principle, I also agree with Zhang Taifeng's statement. I took out my mobile phone and prepared to contact Bai Su. At the same time, I looked around and imagined the direction of the expedition team's actions after such a strange thing happened. After taking a closer look at the surrounding environment, I realized why the four people just said that I would know when I arrived at the scene, why when they searched, they were not sure which direction the expedition team left from.Because there is water all around, of course the expedition team will leave traces when they move forward, but under the rush of the rapidly flowing water, all traces will disappear.That's why they have to search from four different directions. I quickly put myself in the shoes of the expedition and imagined what the expedition would do after it happened. Of course, they would be extremely surprised by the behavior of the gangsters, and their first action would of course be to report to the headquarters. Their report to headquarters was that "a shootout has occurred".In fact, however, the bandits did not shoot at the expedition, but shot at each other themselves.So there should be no "shootout" between the expedition and the bandits. I guess the reason why the expedition team said this was because the situation at that time was so chaotic that the expedition team could not correctly judge what happened. Just imagine that when the expedition team came to this piece of water, they were in a happy atmosphere, and suddenly gunshots rang out. They intuitively felt that they were being attacked, and in a panic, they took up weapons to fight back. shootout. And the "gun battle" would not last long, and they immediately found that the bandits who attacked first had already fallen on the platform. Since they didn't know that the gangsters on the platform were shooting each other to death themselves, they must have thought it was the result of their counterattack at first. After they thought they had won a big victory, they should have gone to see the dead bandits. Here is a question: Did the expedition team find that the bandits shot each other and died by themselves? When I was imagining, I thought and said what I thought, Zhang Taifeng and the four people listened. When I asked this question, Zhang Taifeng had no special reaction, but the four people immediately answered, "The expedition team probably didn't find the real reason for the death of the gangsters, but believed that the gangsters died in a gun battle. " I asked again: "Why?" They further replied: "The firearms used by the bandits are the same as those of the expedition team. Without ballistic research, it is difficult to judge which side of the gun the bullets that killed the bandits came from, so they are at most suspicious of things, and they don't know who the bandits are. shoot each other to death themselves." The answers of the four people are very organized, and they are roughly the same as my assumption. But I still have doubts: "When the incident happened, the distance between the expedition members and the bandits should not be too far. Although it was a panic at the time, some expedition members should have seen the bandits shooting each other on the platform." The four said: "It should be so, but according to the report of the expedition team, there was a heavy thunderstorm here at that time. Thunderstorms are easy to occur in this area. The rain is heavy and the vision is weak. Even at the shortest distance, it is difficult to see clearly." When I heard what they said, I naturally raised my head and looked up to the sky, only to see dark clouds spreading rapidly all around, within the dark clouds, lightning flickered faintly, rumbling thunder began to come, just now it was still blue sky and white clouds , The scenery was beautiful, and the situation changed in an instant, and the whole sky became dark. Standing on that large piece of water, people suddenly felt helpless to the extreme. Then suddenly a series of deafening thunderbolts, coupled with extremely strong lightning.