"Mr. Kane, General, we've arrived!" Early in the morning, the troops marched in grand formation and slowly came to a stop in front of a mountain valley checkpoint. Soon, an officer came over to report.
General Fletcher, who was standing nearby, looked toward Josh.
"We've arrived?" Josh, who was sitting in the back seat of a jeep, stood up and looked ahead. It was a very deep canyon, clearly with a vast interior.
"Yes, the valley is very large, with only one passable valley road and a river channel. If you follow this road for another two kilometers, you'll reach Winsberg Town. The previous soldiers and Mr. Hugh Jones went missing in this valley, so to prevent further incidents, Colonel Ward had already sealed off both exits of the valley as well as the river outlet," the officer reported.
At this moment, the sound of another jeep approached—it was Colonel Ward, who had led the forces sealing off the valley. Upon hearing that Josh and General Fletcher had arrived, he hurried over.
But Josh didn't have time to pay him any attention and turned to General Fletcher.
"Have your men continue to guard the exits. Just let my men go in!" Josh instructed General Fletcher.
General Fletcher nodded at his words and immediately began to organize the defensive line. As for Colonel Ward, Fletcher directly ordered him to return to watch over the POW camp.
Compared to the number of prisoners in the camp, Ward's forces were already relatively small, and now that part of them had been pulled out to blockade the roads, it was manageable short-term but unwise for the long haul.
Now that the situation was serious enough, if anything were to happen at the POW camp, that would be a real disaster.
"Vito, I'll leave the rest to you. Be careful. Twelve hours. No matter what you find, return afterward," Josh said to Vito as General Fletcher went off to set up defenses.
Josh had to rescue Hugh Jones, but that didn't mean he was going to risk himself, so he wasn't going into the valley personally.
Only Vito and a special operations team—formed jointly by Brooke and Ophelia during Josh's absence in Europe—would enter the valley.
This team was essentially the equivalent of the S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team led by Crossbones from the Avengers movies.
It was composed of elite members selected from former Wehrmacht troops and Hydra agents.
Along with the specialized equipment, medication, and preparations Josh provided them with, if they still couldn't find Hugh Jones, then things were going to get really tricky.
"Don't worry, boss. Even if there really is a vampire, I'll tear it to pieces and drag it back for you!" Vito chuckled confidently. With the beast transformation drug he'd used and that unheard-of equipment, his confidence was sky-high.
From a young age, Vito had a deep sense of adventure in his bones. As a teenager, he longed for the thrilling life of the mafia.
But after following Josh and seeing the bigger picture, he had completely lost interest in the low-level world of organized crime.
Hydra? That was far more exciting than any mafia!
Now, the idea that he might encounter a legendary creature like a vampire only made him even more exhilarated.
"Go!" Josh looked at him and nodded.
Then Vito, driving a jeep and leading ten heavily covered trucks, drove straight into the valley.
"Frank, what are you looking at? Those things are so tightly covered—think you'll see anything?" one of two nearby sentry soldiers joked, patting his partner.
"Uh, I don't know… but whatever's inside gives me a really uncomfortable feeling," replied the soldier named Frank, shaking his head.
"Hahaha! Makes you uncomfortable? I bet it's cilantro in there—only that stuff would make our cold-blooded Frank feel uneasy!" his buddy whistled and teased.
"Screw cilantro! Don't even mention it—I feel sick just thinking about it!" Frank rolled his eyes at the joke.
Meanwhile, Vito and the strike team had already gone deep into the valley, out of sight of the outer perimeter forces, and came to a slow halt.
Under Vito's command, the fully-armed soldiers jumped down from the trucks and quickly formed ranks.
The team was small—only about fifty people in total.
"This is our first mission. I don't want it messed up. Even if the boss forgives you, I won't! Hail Hydra!" Vito barked.
"Hail Hydra! Hail Hydra!" the team shouted back in unison.
"Very good. Begin unloading! Change gear!" Vito was filled with satisfaction as he looked at the disciplined soldiers. Now this was power!
But despite his sense of command, he had no treasonous thoughts—he had been with Josh long enough to know how extraordinary his boss truly was.
Without Josh, he'd be nothing.
Still, his loyalty to Josh didn't stop him from aiming to become Josh's top lieutenant.
At Vito's command, one after another, large and tightly sealed equipment crates were carried off the trucks by the soldiers.
Inside each crate was a strange-looking combat suit—half-metal, half-leather, with some bizarre devices attached.
These suits were none other than the electromagnetic infantry armor Josh had purchased from Yuri but had yet to use.
Soon, all of the soldiers in the strike team had stripped off their old gear and changed into the electromagnetic suits.
But that wasn't all—ten large cages, sealed tightly with only small ventilation grates, were also unloaded from the trucks.
Because it was winter, streams of warm air visibly escaped from the grates.
Clearly, these cages held some sort of animal.
"Open the cages!" Vito ordered.
One by one, the cages opened, and out stepped bizarre creatures—each over one meter tall, more than two meters long, with wing-like sharp forelimbs, walking on two hind legs, and covered in birdlike feathers.
With serpent-like vertical pupils, the creatures quietly observed the surrounding soldiers.
Despite their seemingly slim builds, many of the soldiers instinctively stepped back upon seeing them.
They knew full well that these lean-looking creatures were actually extremely savage predators.
They had seen, with their own eyes, a lion torn to shreds by these ten beasts.
In fact, these were powerful predatory creatures that didn't even belong in this era.
They were dinosaurs—specifically the smartest kind: Deinonychus, a type of dromaeosaurid that lived during the Late Cretaceous period.
The very inspiration for the velociraptors seen in various movies but the hairless velociraptors depicted in film didn't exist in the real-world, Red Alert-inspired Cretaceous period.
What existed were these strange, feathered Deinonychus and other dromaeosaurs but in terms of capability, they were every bit as dangerous as their cinematic counterparts.
In the midst of this tense atmosphere, a strange chittering noise sounded from up ahead.
Vito was holding a bizarre device that emitted the sound.
Upon hearing it, the ten Deinonychus simultaneously lifted their heads and ran toward him, forming a neat row in front of him.
"Good babies, come smell this!" Vito, still slightly nervous, tried to control his anxiety and pulled out a piece of clothing from the vehicle.
It was an unwashed garment taken from Hugh Jones's room.
"Go! Find him!" After each of the Deinonychus took a sniff of the clothing, Vito activated the device again with a strange sound, issuing a command.
The ten Deinonychus immediately scattered in different directions without looking back.
Clearly, these raptors had been specially trained—by none other than Yuri himself.
The decision to use them came after Yuri had already tested that, in terms of smell, hearing, and intelligence, Deinonychus surpassed all dogs and any future mammals.
The only downside was that, just like in the movies, they were too aggressive—and had huge appetites.
But for people like Yuri and Josh, as long as they could be controlled, those weren't real drawbacks.
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