Chapter 1923 - 1417: Walker Rampages

80 kilometers south of Baghdad, US Military Base, Command Center.

03:20 AM.

Three rows of arc-shaped control consoles stretched out under the dim blue light, with more than twenty operators wearing headphones, fingers moving swiftly on touch screens and keyboards.

The central large screen was divided into twelve images—satellite cloud maps, real-time drone footage, various troop location tracking, encrypted communication channel status.

The air was filled with a faint ozone smell emitted by electronic devices, mixed with the metallic scent of excessive air conditioning.

Major Walker stood in front of the main console, the back of his OCP camouflage combat uniform already stained darkly with sweat.

All were cold sweat.

He had his hands on the edge of the console, knuckles whitened from the pressure.

On the screen, infrared imagery transmitted by an MQ-9 "Grim Reaper" drone was being updated in real-time.

From several kilometers high, Amadiye Canyon resembled a hellish crack split open by a giant axe.

"Switch to thermal imaging enhancement mode."

Walker's voice was slightly hoarse as he spoke, uneasily stroking his large nose.

"Switched, Sir."

The drone operator was a twenty-four-year-old Private First Class, his fingers sliding across the control panel.

"'Grim Reaper' is performing a second low-altitude scan, descending to 3,000 meters, optical zoom to maximum."

The image shook violently for a few seconds before stabilizing.

The details now visible were suffocating.

The canyon road resembled a gray-white ribbon winding through the pitch-black mountains.

And on that ribbon, at least twelve glaring white heat sources were visible, those being the smoldering wreckage of vehicles, flames and extreme heat appearing almost transparent on the thermal imager.

"Mark areas A1 to A6," Walker ordered, "zoom in individually."

Area A1: A light armored vehicle overturned by the roadside, its body burned down to just the frame.

Thermal imaging showed two deep-blue humanoid outlines in the driver's seat, obviously cooled corpses with temperatures nearly matching the environment.

But the fuel tank area was still slowly burning, showing orange-yellow residual heat points.

Area A2: Two armed pickup trucks collided, one with a cabin filled with bright white heat sources.

The operator adjusted the spectral analysis.

"It's unexploded rocket ordnance, Sir. Temperature shows internal charge is slowly undergoing thermal decomposition."

Area A3: The center of the image featured a distinctly identifiable corpse.

Walker held his breath for a second.

The corpse lay beside a detonated armored vehicle, its torso intact, but only an irregular deep-blue outline was left where the head should have been.

This meant the head was already gone, and the wound temperature matched the environment.

The corpse was wearing a modular tactical vest, with a conspicuous bright white heat source on the vest.

"Zoom in on the vest area," Walker said.

The image focused.

It was a still-warm satellite phone, with a temperature showing 42 degrees, meaning it had recently been held in someone's hand.

Next to the phone was a piece of equipment difficult to identify through thermal imaging, yet its outline was familiar.

"That's Carlson's tactical pack."

Walker wiped his eyes, his voice starting to tremble, as if speaking to himself.

"I recognize the arrangement of that radio interface. Only someone from the Seals would organize gear like that."

Former Navy Special Warfare Development Group retired officer Carlson.

Walker personally selected him to oversee this convoy operation because Carlson's defense company had an impeccable reputation in the realm of black ops.

Now, Carlson had become a headless corpse lying in the desolate canyon of northern Illiguo.

"Continue," Walker took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and issued the order.

Areas A4 to A6 displayed similar scenes.

Burning armored vehicles, scattered weapons, corpses lying in various positions.

Thermal imaging faithfully presented the last temperature differences of life, with the core areas of corpses that had recently died still retaining about 30 degrees of residual heat, showing dark red; whereas those dead for some time turned completely deep blue, matching the environment.

But some things were noticeably missing.

"Where are the transport trucks?" Walker suddenly asked, "50 heavy equipment transport trucks, each 15 meters long, 4 meters high, their infrared signatures should look like moving houses. Where are they? Why isn't a single one seen?!"

The intelligence officer quickly retrieved the drone's synthetic aperture radar (SAR) scan data.

SAR can penetrate smoke and certain obstacles, detecting the outlines of metal objects.

The screen switched to radar images.

Metal signals on the road were dense, but were all small wreckages.

The intelligence officer circled several areas with the cursor: "Here, here, and here, there are traces of large vehicles having stopped, ground compactness is different, oil traces remain. But the vehicles themselves... are gone."

"50 heavy trucks can't vanish into thin air," Walker turned around, his gaze sweeping across the command room, "Check the satellite overhead records! Any convoys leaving the area in the past two hours!"

"Already checked, Sir." Another intelligence officer raised his head, his face grim, "The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)'s KH-13 satellite had an overhead pass at 01:30, at that time the Amadiye Canyon area was covered in thick fog, optical imaging was ineffective. Radar scans showed... showed signs of large-scale vehicle movement in the area, but unable to determine exact numbers and destinations."

"Thick fog?" Walker sneered, "Such a coincidence?"

"Meteorological data confirmed that the area did have abnormal fog formation last night, visibility once dropped below 50 meters. But..."

The intelligence officer paused, "But the fog suddenly began to dissipate around 02:15, and visibility has now returned to normal levels."