Abdullah himself was flushed red from drink. He had an arm around each of two young women taken from nearby villages, a bottle of whiskey raised high as he delivered a bombastic victory speech.
"In just a few more hours, those Japanese bastards will obediently transfer one hundred million dollars into our account!"
"When that happens, every one of us will have money we can never spend in a lifetime! The best guns! The best cars! The most beautiful women!"
His arrogant roar was answered by thunderous cheers from the armed men around him.
They fired into the air, gunshots echoing through the silent valley and sending flocks of night birds scattering.
In Abdullah's eyes, the game was already won.
The Japanese government's talk about "not negotiating with terrorists" was nothing more than bluster masking weakness. Under the combined pressure of international opinion and humanitarian concerns, surrender was their only option.
He was already calculating how, once the money arrived, he would betray the other two factions, swallow their shares, and keep the entire one hundred million dollars for himself.
And yet…
A sentry responsible for the outer perimeter stumbled into the camp, panic written across his face.
"Boss! Boss! Something's wrong!"
Abdullah was in the middle of drinking and flew into a rage at the interruption.
He kicked the sentry to the ground.
"What are you panicking for? Is the sky falling?"
"No, Boss…" The sentry scrambled back up, his voice trembling. "The outer… the outer hidden posts—we can't contact them anymore! And… I think I saw movement on the ridgeline!"
"Movement?"
Abdullah snorted. "You've had too much to drink and started seeing ghosts. Just a few scouts, right? Sent by the Japanese government? Let them watch. Let them see our strength! Once the money comes in, we'll cut off their heads and use them as chamber pots!"
Laughter erupted around him.
No one took the anomaly seriously.
Then, suddenly, the high-powered military radio in the command tent crackled with harsh static.
A strange voice—cold enough to chill the spine—rang out over the public channel, echoing across the entire camp.
The voice wasn't speaking the local dialect or English, but perfectly fluent, standard Arabic.
"Muhammad bin Hassan Abdullah."
That was Abdullah's real name—one that hadn't been spoken in years.
The smile on Abdullah's face froze.
Ignoring his shock, the voice continued in a flat, emotionless tone.
"Your wife, Fatima, is currently shopping in the capital of a neighboring country. Your eldest son, Ibrahim, is studying at Istanbul University. He's quite fond of a Turkish girl named Aisha. Your youngest daughter, Sarah, just competed in an equestrian event at her elite school this afternoon and placed third."
A wave of icy terror surged from Abdullah's feet straight to his head.
He shoved the women away, rushed to the radio, and grabbed the handset, shouting hoarsely, "Who are you?!"
The information about his family was terrifyingly precise.
The entire camp fell into dead silence.
The deafening revelry from moments ago vanished instantly. The armed men stared at one another, seeing the same fear reflected in each other's eyes.
"I have no hostile intent," the voice said lightly. "I just want to discuss a business deal with you."
Abdullah took a deep breath and replied grimly, "If you think a few empty threats can scare me, Abdullah, you're dead wrong! I have over three hundred soldiers who aren't afraid to die! We have RPGs! Machine guns! Tanks! If you've got the guts, come in and try!"
The moment his words ended, a piercing roar tore through the air, growing rapidly louder from the dark sky above.
Everyone instinctively looked up.
An F-16 Fighting Falcon—menacing in silhouette—swept low over the camp like a ghost of the night.
The thunderous sonic boom shook the entire valley, sending many militants sprawling to the ground in terror.
A second later, about a kilometer away, a massive fireball erupted atop a nearby hill.
"BOOM—!"
The explosion was deafening, as if it might rip eardrums apart.
The ground trembled violently. The hill, used as a target, was instantly blasted apart under the force of a precision-guided bomb, rocks and debris flying everywhere.
The firelight turned the night sky bright as day—and illuminated Abdullah's face, which had gone deathly pale in an instant.
Air support…
They had air support.
And not just any aircraft—frontline active-duty fighters.
Fear seized every heart like an invisible hand.
Moments ago, the militants shouting about not fearing death were now white-faced and shaking.
Abdullah felt his legs weaken, but he forced himself to stay calm.
Intimidation.
This is just intimidation.
They wouldn't dare actually strike the camp.
He repeated it to himself desperately.
There were over three hundred lives here. If they really wiped the place out, it would be an international incident.
Private military companies avoided direct involvement in regional politics at all costs. They wouldn't dare.
They absolutely wouldn't dare.
That sliver of hope was his last lifeline.
Then the voice came over the radio again.
"It seems you still don't understand the situation, Mr. Abdullah."
The words had barely finished when another shrill howl split the air.
This time, the target wasn't the distant hill.
A missile, trailing a long plume of fire, struck the camp's edge at a razor-sharp angle—hitting the warehouse that stored all their ammunition and explosives.
"BOOM—!!!!"
The explosion was even more violent and terrifying than before.
The entire ammo depot detonated instantly. Countless bullets and shells cooked off in the inferno, exploding in rapid-fire bursts like popping beans.
A massive mushroom cloud rose into the sky. The shockwave flung nearby tents and vehicles high into the air.
The camp plunged instantly into fire and chaos.
Militants screamed and wailed as they scattered in all directions, their will to fight completely shattered.
Abdullah realized in horror that, despite the sheer destruction, the strike was terrifyingly precise.
Only the ammo depot had been destroyed. The blast radius was tightly controlled. Aside from a few unlucky guards, the core of the camp remained intact, with no large-scale casualties.
The voice delivered its final ultimatum over the radio.
"The coordinates for the next missile have already been set. North latitude XX degrees XX minutes XX seconds, east longitude XX degrees XX minutes XX seconds."
The coordinates were read out clearly.
Abdullah's lieutenant glanced at the GPS device in his hands, then looked up at him with a broken, despairing expression.
Those coordinates… were exactly where they were standing—the command tent.
"You have five minutes to decide, Mr. Abdullah," the voice said calmly. "Let us take what we came for… or let us erase you from this planet."
"Tick. Tock…"
The voice even began mimicking the sound of a ticking clock, almost playfully.
Abdullah finally broke.
He didn't dare gamble.
He didn't dare bet his life on whether they would press that launch button.
"I surrender! I surrender!!"
Abdullah let out a shrill scream.
He lunged at the radio like it was a lifeline, shouting through tears, "Don't fire! Please! Don't fire! Whatever you want—I'll give it to you! Everything!"
His surrender triggered a chain reaction.
The leaders of the other two armed factions had already been terrified out of their wits by the godlike military strike they'd just witnessed.
Afraid of being dragged down with him, they rushed through their own channels to declare their separation from Abdullah and proactively offered up the aircraft wreckage within their controlled territories.
Abdullah's men threw down their weapons, fell to their knees, and sobbed as they begged him to surrender.
Before absolute force, any resistance was nothing but foolish and laughable.
Abdullah—the once-arrogant mountain king—now looked like a stray dog with a shattered spine, utterly broken.
He not only agreed to hand over all the aircraft wreckage and victims' remains unconditionally, but even dispatched his own guards to "escort" XE Company's recovery teams as they worked in his territory, terrified that the slightest displeasure might invite even harsher retaliation.
The subsequent operation went astonishingly smoothly.
The professional recovery teams sent by XE Company surveyed the crash site.
Using specialized equipment, they carefully collected every piece of wreckage and solemnly placed each fragmented body into body bags.
A few hours later, once everything had been properly packed, several large CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters descended into the valley under armed escort.
The cargo was loaded swiftly, and under the complex gazes of the militants below, the helicopters lifted off and flew toward the civilized world.
Tokyo. Seiji Fujiwara's top-floor apartment.
Morning.
Megumi woke to find Seiji Fujiwara sitting beside her bed, holding a black, oddly shaped phone.
A satellite phone.
"Did you sleep well?" Seiji Fujiwara asked calmly.
"Mm…"
Megumi was still groggy as she sat up and rubbed her eyes.
Seiji said nothing more and simply pressed the speaker button.
From the phone came Jason's steady voice, mixed with wind noise and the roar of helicopter rotors.
"'Messenger' calling 'Boss.' Mission complete. The Flight NH915 black box and the remains of all one hundred twenty-seven victims have been fully recovered. We are en route back to base. Over."
Megumi Kato went completely wide awake.
Mission complete?
Fully recovered?
So fast?
From the time he told her the plan last night to now—it hadn't even been twenty-four hours.
She stared at Seiji in disbelief, her eyes filled with shock and questions.
Seiji simply smiled faintly at her and replied into the phone, "Understood. Proceed as planned. Bring everything back."
He ended the call, then turned to the still-stunned Megumi Kato and said gently, "You heard it, Megumi. Your parents' remains have been found. They're on their way back to Japan now."
Megumi Kato's lips trembled, but no words came out.
The overwhelming joy and relief turned once more into surging tears.
Unable to hold back, she threw herself into Seiji's arms, burying her face in his chest and sobbing openly.
After the C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft carrying the wreckage and remains took off, the pmc contacted the Japanese government.
A secure phone on the desk of the Chief Cabinet Secretary rang suddenly.
On the other end was a digitally altered voice.
"This is XE Company. Acting on behalf of a private client, we have completed the recovery of the remains and aircraft wreckage from Flight NH915. The aircraft is expected to arrive at Yokota Air Base in eight hours. Please make the necessary reception arrangements."
"What?!"
The Chief Cabinet Secretary jumped to his feet. "Who… who commissioned you?!"
"No comment."
The line went dead.
The Chief Cabinet Secretary stood frozen, gripping the phone as confusion overwhelmed his mind.
He immediately initiated emergency procedures, frantically contacting the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the embassy in the United States to confirm the situation.
Minutes later, unofficial channels from the U.S. side confirmed the information.
At that moment, the Japanese government's top leadership plunged into unprecedented shock and passivity.
The news swept through high society like a violent typhoon.
In the Toyokawa Family study, Toyokawa Sadaharu's secretary was urgently reporting with an expression as if he'd seen a ghost.
"President! We just received confirmation… the remains and wreckage from NH915 have already been brought back! It was done by someone who hired XE Company!"
"What?!"
Toyokawa Sadaharu knocked over his teacup. Boiling tea spilled across the floor, but he didn't notice.
"Someone hired them?"
Seiji Fujiwara's name surfaced uncontrollably in his mind.
"Seiji Fujiwara… could it really be him?"
He paced back and forth in the study, unsettled. "An operation on that scale… all for one woman? It doesn't make sense! But if not him, then who?"
In the Wakaba household, the television cut to breaking news of the aircraft's arrival at Yokota Air Base.
Reporters excitedly described the massive transport plane and the vaguely defined "mysterious private force."
Wakaba Takafumi frowned deeply.
"This… privately hiring a pmc for a recovery operation…"
Mina Mori looked grave as she tested the thought aloud.
"Dear… do you think it could have been Fujiwara-san?"
The couple exchanged a look, seeing the same shock and doubt in each other's eyes.
Mina Mori murmured, "If it really was him… then everything we thought before was completely wrong."
Inside the Cabinet's emergency conference room, the atmosphere was suffocating.
The heads of all relevant departments had gathered, their faces filled with confusion and unease.
"The pmc is keeping its mouth shut," the Chief Cabinet Secretary said tiredly. "They only admit to acting on behalf of a private client and refuse to disclose the client's identity."
"And last night's intelligence confirms that this private force used F-16 fighters for precision strikes," the Minister of Defense said grimly. "That's almost unheard of internationally! Even if Air Force personnel were making side money, there still had to be a buyer!"
"And the starting price alone was one million dollars."
"Who would spend that kind of money?"
"Could it be… Seiji Fujiwara?"
Someone finally voiced the name everyone had thought of—but no one dared to say.
The room fell into absolute silence.
After all, who else had the motive?
But… just for a female secretary?
All the self-proclaimed "elite" officials felt their worldview take a violent hit.
Meanwhile, the media and public were swept into a nationwide guessing frenzy.
Online, discussions about the identity of the "mysterious benefactor" exploded.
Seiji Fujiwara's name came up again and again—but without concrete evidence, it remained nothing more than speculation.
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You can read up to chapter 190 on patreon.com/NiaXD.