Everyone saw Sonny, who weighed over 170 pounds, shoot up into the air like a flying man, only to be suddenly hung upside down in mid-air.
"SHIT!" Colonel James bellowed, "It's a trap!!"
Crack crack crack—
Crack crack crack—
Crack crack crack crack crack crack—
The sound of gunfire erupted.
In the darkness, bursts of muzzle flashes spewed out like venomous snakes hissing.
In the jungle ahead, several small bushes were snapped under the hail of bullets.
The 120-degree fan-shaped area directly in front of the small squad was plowed by bullets.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!"
The shooting, which lasted for over twenty seconds, finally stopped after James's command.
Steam rose from the gun barrels of several Green Berets.
The jungle fell silent once more.
A deathly silence...
Almost simultaneously, Sonny, hanging in mid-air, screamed again.
In the light drizzle, James and his companions heard a rustling sound of something moving through the leaves.
Sonny yelled even more miserably...
"Ah—HO! FUCK! FUCK! I've been shot! I've been shot!"
He struggled, writhing in the air like a snake.
"Keep an eye on the surroundings, Weber, you take Sonny's place, Lucas, continue the search, see where he's hiding!"
While issuing orders, James once again took out the small reconnaissance device from the pocket of his tactical vest and scanned the surrounding woods.
Unfortunately.
He still couldn't see anything.
This immediately fueled his anger.
If he could see the enemy, he would definitely be able to kill them.
But now, one of his men had already suffered, and he hadn't even seen a hair of the enemy.
This made James, an experienced colonel, feel extremely frustrated, like throwing punches in all directions without knowing where to hit.
In the view of the infrared thermal imager, everything around turned into chunks of orange-red and black.
If there were enemies nearby, the infrared night vision device would show the orange-red spots, emanating from the thermal radiation of body heat.
In jungle warfare, the light intensification night vision device was not as useful as the passive infrared thermal imager.
If faced with a highly camouflaged enemy, the light intensification device was not as quick to identify targets as the thermal imager, and it was also greatly limited on pitch-black nights with no starlight.
"Be careful, two o'clock to your right side!"
James finally made a discovery.
He saw a faint orange-red spot forty meters away, seemingly hidden behind some bushes, moving slowly...
But he hesitated.
Because he couldn't be certain that the heat source was a person.
A normal human's thermal radiation would definitely not be that low.
An animal?
If it was an animal, firing first would alarm the enemy and reveal their position.
In less than a second of hesitation, another incident occurred.
Two sparks appeared near the wriggling object.
Crack crack—
It was a two-shot burst.
Poor Sonny started howling again like a slaughtered pig.
"I've been shot! I've been shot!"
"FUCK! It's a person!"
As the thought flashed through James's mind, he squeezed the trigger of his MK18 assault rifle.
After the burst, the heat source vanished.
"Lucas, Weber, go check it out!"
Hearing the colonel's instructions, Lucas and Weber quickly spread out, flanking the two o'clock direction on either side, ducked behind two large trees about ten meters from the target, and readied their guns.
The place where James had just shot showed no movement.
The surroundings were as if nothing had happened.
The brief exchange of fire seemed as if it had never occurred.
Lucas said to Weber on the channel, "Cover me, I'll go take a look."
He held his assault rifle and started to move slowly towards the cluster of bushes that was the suspected target.
Lucas's heart was beating very fast.
As a jungle warfare expert, this was the first time he encountered such a ghostly opponent, and it made him feel a bit nervous.
Suddenly, he realized.
Their squad had underestimated their opponent.
The opponent was capable of killing a team of AGLAN Special Soldiers, not because the Colombians were inept, but because Morins and his partner were truly skillful.
But...
He had never heard of any armed group within the borders possessing such fierce combat capabilities...
As he moved, Lucas was very careful.
Sonny's lesson was right before him; his opponent was clearly a master of traps.
Their squad hadn't managed to ambush the enemy; instead, the audacious enemy had ambushed this team of Green Berets with just two men!
There were no tripwires on the ground, no snares...
No...
No...
Despite the noise-canceling headphones, Sonny's screams could still be heard.
Poor guy, without confirming the surroundings were safe, no one dared to take him down; otherwise, they might become the target of an attack.
Colonel James, behind a nearby tree, kept moving his gun muzzle around Lucas.
He told himself that this time, as soon as he saw even the slightest heat source, he would fire immediately, regardless of exposure.
That heat blotch, merely the size of a badger, was a person?!
How did he manage to conceal most of the heat radiation from his body at such close range?
Colonel James suddenly felt he had been overconfident.
The fact that the enemy dared to set traps for a counterattack meant they weren't afraid of his small squad.
Yet, he was like an old bull with an invisible rope through its nose, led around by the opponent.
"Ah! SHIT!"
Just as Colonel James was fully focused on searching for the enemy, Lucas, who was walking nearby, suddenly staggered and crouched down a bit.
Then, just like Sonny, he let out a scream like that of a pig being slaughtered.
"Lucas! What's wrong with you?!"
Lucas's scream made the already on-edge teammates tense their nerves to the extreme once again.
"Damn! Damn!"
Lucas quickly sat down on the ground.
"I stepped on a trap! Damn it, my leg!"
They had been fooled twice now.
This time, the Green Berets behaved.
It was very quiet around them; the enemy seemed to have disappeared.
Under the command of Colonel James, the remaining four Green Berets proceeded cautiously, not daring to let their guard down at all. It took them a full half hour to finally confirm the surroundings were safe.
"Colonel, the area is secure."
"Colonel, no one in sight, it's safe."
Only when reports from all sides were brought back to him did Colonel James and Franklin, who doubled as the medic, carefully approach the tree where Sonny had been hung.
"Be careful, don't be careless!"
As Colonel James approached Sonny, he reached out and grabbed Franklin.
"Watch your feet! This guy is a master at setting traps!"
He slowly squatted down and carefully inspected the base of the tree.
Finally, he seemed to find something and drew his dagger, gently scraping it along a vine stretched between two bushes.
This vine was very elastic, unlike the naturally sagging ones on the ground.
This indicated that it had been deliberately stretched tight by someone.
Fortunately, the camouflage wasn't too careful, and some clues could be seen.
Apparently, the enemy had set it up in a hurry.
"Back off!"
Colonel James stood up, gestured in the opposite direction, and said to Franklin, "Move aside!"
The two retreated behind a tree, and Colonel James crouched on the ground looking for rocks.
Poor Sonny was still hanging from the tree, his cries grating and disturbing.
Colonel James had intended to find a rock to trigger the trap, but instead, he found a piece of wood.
The wood would work; soaked with water, it would have some weight.
He swung his arm and hurled the log towards the vine's location.
Hiss hiss hiss hiss—
As the vine was hit, five or six wooden spikes shot out from the surrounding bushes, embedding directly into the nearby tree trunks.
"FUCK! Who the hell is this guy! Colonel, I think it's all about that arms dealer! The Colombian anti-government armed forces can't possibly have someone this skilled! We've fought them before!"
Franklin said this while cold sweat streamed down his forehead.
If Colonel James hadn't reminded him just now, he probably wouldn't be much better off than poor Sonny.
Colonel James walked over to the tree and pulled out one of the wooden spikes.
Each spike was about half a meter long with a diameter of only half a centimeter.
One end was sharpened, crafted on-site with a knife; the cut was very fresh.
He ran his hand over it.
It was sticky with tree resin.
"This trap is freshly made! We've been targeted!"
"A leader of an armed organization and an arms dealer, how could they possibly have such skills..."
Franklin suddenly had a bizarre thought.
"Colonel, could it be that they've come specifically for us?!"
Green Berets are not only good at jungle warfare, but they are also guerrilla warfare experts and some are even psychological warfare experts, very proficient in infiltration and subversion.
In recent years, they had done plenty of dirty work in various countries.
Of course, there were many people who wanted them dead.
Colonel James, looking at the wooden spike, murmured, "Only two kinds of people can make such traps: either a hunter who has spent years in the jungle, or a member of the Special Forces who has undergone extremely rigorous jungle warfare training."
He paused and then added, "But I'm sure our opponent isn't a hunter."
"So it's a Special Forces member?" Franklin's expression turned grim. "Are you saying one of those two is a Special Forces member?!"
Colonel James's eyes gleamed dangerously, "It doesn't matter who he is; since we've encountered him today, we will settle the score..."
"Franklin, hurry up and get me down... It hurts like hell..."
Sonny's pleas finally brought Franklin back to his senses.
He looked up at Sonny hanging in mid-air and apologized, "SORRY, Sonny, I almost forgot about you..."