I got the armor, but not the helmet. It turned out that there was a hole in that helmet, and it made quite a sharp edge that made it unwearable. For a game, that was quite realistic. So, I only got the FLAK jacket alongside an increase of payment to 35,000 credits with one condition. I had to arrive at the outpost B-13 in under an hour. Not too bad for a compromise, to be honest.
Still, as another compromise, they told me to drive. I just gave them the drive of their life in their car. In a concrete road with only two lanes bordered with grasslands, I kept the car's speed above 80 mph. It should give them quite something.
"Man, where the hell did you learn to drive, Grand Theft Auto?" Lobaev gripped the handle of the car door tightly. Millie was practically fearing for her life in the backseat as her sweat was really dripping.
"Good lord, are you sure we aren't going to crash into any truck?" Millie commented.
Military transport trucks were quite a common sight on that road, and it was practically moving like a turtle in comparison to the car that moved as fast as 80 mph. I overtook one of the trucks while the car almost shook violently.
"You know, Beuer, you don't have to drive this fast," Millie muttered.
"Nonsense."
To be honest, one thing that I learned from a covert operation in an urban territory was that you had to learn how to drive fast, like crazy fast. Have you ever seen those crazy drivers on Youtube? It was more or less like that.
After all, you would be running away from the police, who was more or less trained as hard as you did. Oh yeah, the angry militia from the foreign nation would also be chasing you, so, more or less, it came pretty naturally. Baltic was still baltic, and with how the Russians showed their teeth, it didn't end too well.
After all, it was all their fault. No way I'd be able to arrive at that outpost in under thirty minutes under normal driving speed. The only way was to use the special driving method that I learned over time and over many usages.
The GPS map on the dashboard of the car guided me towards the destination. It seemed that outpost C-1 was the main C outpost of all C outposts. Considering that this VIP was dangerous, I should keep my eyes open.
Still, I feared one thing. It was not the ambush. It was not the plan for acting if I did something to the decoy. I was more worried about what would happen if I died here. I was in a game world. Theoretically, I should be able to respawn.
Then again, I became a permanent resident of this world, which only meant that I stayed here. Then again, these people called me "contractors" or "newbies" or "players." I was more inclined to believe that I'd respawn. Still, my gear might be all gone.
"Man, if we all die, you must replace all of our gears, understand?" Lobaev commented as he held the door handle even tighter.
Correction, my gear would be gone if I die. Well, that was quite a consequence. For me, my gear was cheap. I might have to break my bones for them to get their gear replaced. Well, it was not like I'd crash their car in any way possible.
"Take a left here," Lobaev said.
Quite a sharp turn, it was a four-way junction, and the road was as level as the grassland surrounding it. The junction was also empty, so I did what I would do. I hit the brake very hard and rotated the steering wheel to the left as fast as possible before hitting the gas again. The tire screeched as loud as it could and left quite a thick white cloud of smoke.
"Dude, did you just drift a two tons SUV?" Lobaev asked.
I just nodded. More or less, yeah, I just drifted a two tons SUV like it was a sports car. Still, it saved a little bit of time for the entire journey. The outpost was up ahead, and to call that place an outpost was an understatement. It was a small military base complete with a runway and jets.
And different from the previous outpost, this outpost was connected by much bigger road systems. It seemed to be connecting to a highway.
"Woah," I slowed the vehicle down a bit to look at the jets taking off.
A B-1 bomber was taking off from the runway, accompanied by an escort consisting of mixed aircraft. Su-37 was guarding its back while two F-14Gs were guarding its sides.
"Impressive, eh? Those people are really head and shoulders above us. They're the Avangard Corps. Entrance to the group is only limited to officers only. They're rich as hell and have a lot of firepowers. Never mess with them unless you want something to happen to you," Lobaev said.
"I see what you mean."
I managed to cut down the one-hour ride to only a twenty minutes ride due to how my driving took us fast enough. However, I had to say that my back passenger wouldn't appreciate it too much.
"I feel my life has been cut in half," Millie said.
"We arrived, didn't we?" I drove a little bit slower towards the outpost.
I entered the gate of the outpost, and one of the guards of the outpost halted the vehicle. I opened the window. The window was quite thick. It was armored. Now it was safe to assume that the vehicle had some degree of bullet resistance. The soldier greeted Lobaev.
"Corporal Lobaev. I'm here under the order to escort a VIP."
"Go to the A-1 Hangar."
"Much appreciated."
The GPS coordinate on the map changed to a location in the middle of the outpost. Why would a very dangerous person like that be transported using a car in the first place if a helicopter would be sufficient enough? Well, only one way to find out from here, and that was to go forward.
"Millie, can I ask something?"
"About what?" Millie asked me back.
"Why would contractors be rented while soldiers can pretty much do the same exact same job for a fraction of the price?"
"Simple. If NPC passed away, they would pass away, and the military would have to pass a huge amount of funds to their family. Contractor, on the other hand, doesn't die, and they could be used over and over again."
"That sounds sensible."
"It does."
I drove towards the hangar. It was located on the west side of the outpost, next to the runway. It was a regular hangar by any means and further enforced by the appearance of a C-17 "Globemaster" cargo plane in there.
Beside that plane were two heavily-tinted Humvees, all were armored with add-on armor for extra protection. Based on what I was seeing right now, at least the add-on armor on the door would protect from 12.7 mm ammunition, but the window would be a much different story. It might only protect from a large sniper round, but not an anti-material round.
Beside it was five people. Two of them were wearing the same orange prisoner jumpsuits. One was the decoy, while the other was the real one. Interesting, to be honest. Even though the plan's effectiveness was doubtable, it looked solid now.
"Corporal Lobaev, Corporal Millie, nice to meet you," a man shook their hands.
"We have another one. This is Private Beuer," Millie introduced me to that person.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Sergeant Brewster," Brewster said.
"Nice to meet you, sergeant," I replied.
"He will be the decoy for today, Sergeant Brewster," Millie said.
"A private? Are you sure?" He asked.
"Yup, this is the plus one in our team, sergeant," Millie said
"As skeptical as I am right now, another hand is still another hand. So, Private Beuer, I hope we can work side by side. You'll be driving the car for today, and one of my soldiers will be a decoy. Is that clear enough?" Brewster asked.
"Crystal clear, sir."
"Great, now, this is Corporal Mcgee," Brewster introduced one of the people that wore the prisoner jumpsuit. "He would be our main decoy for today. Corporal Mcgee, this is Private Beuer."
"Nice to meet you, Beuer."
"The pleasure is mine, sir."
Mcgee was wearing this orange jumpsuit, albeit his cuff was actually fake. He could take it on and off by himself, talking about the art of deception. There might be an automatic pistol hidden behind his jumpsuit, but well, I'd never know.
"Alright, here's the route. We'll use a separate route," A holographic image appeared right on top of Brewster analog watch. It showed me a map of the entire region which name I hadn't known yet.
Each squad would consist of four soldiers. Brewster and I would take the south route, through the forest and the smaller route, the most dangerous one. I didn't exactly know what I would be facing, but if I were them, I would ambush the south route over the north route.
In short, I was the perfect decoy. On the other hand, the other car would take the north route, through the motorway. With the thick traffic in a regular motorway, an ambush would only involve one method, and it would be too obvious unless the defender was too oblivious to know what was going on.
"So, Brewster and I are going to our death, eh?" I commented.
"You're pretty bad at making jokes," Brewster commented at my joke.
"Never was good at it."
Millie coughed, "Anyway, sergeant, we will leave first."
"Yeah, yeah, take care," Brewster waved his hand as one of the soldiers forced the captured POW into the car, and they entered one of the Humvees. Lobaev drove the car out of the hangar.
Now, we were left only with the Humvee and the rest of the crew from the C-17 "Globemaster" cargo airplane. The decoy was something, and I was the main decoy. Two soldiers, Brewster included, were armed with M4 carbine, to be precise, that M4 SOPMOD II. Yes, that special force weapon was in their hands.
"You're special force?" I asked him.
Brewster just shook his head. He denied it, that was for sure.
"I entered the driver seat of the Humvee and started driving out of the hangar."
I followed the road where we came out and drove while maintaining my vision at the surrounding area while following the direction that Brewster gave to me since he was the only one that had the map. There was no quest marker.
"Go straight here."
I went straight from the four-way junction where I previously drifted. The tire marks from the Tahoe were still there. Weirdly enough, why would those two leave the Tahoe on the hangar? Confusing.
It didn't look like the trip would end soon. It might be a good idea to initiate the small talk with the sergeant and the others.
"Sergeant, how long have you been serving Carmine Federation?"
"Eight years, more or less."
"That's quite a long time, to be honest."
"Hahaha, compared to you, you do look pretty green. Corporal Mcgee has served for more than five years. So yeah, you're pretty much a newbie here," Brewster commented.
"Very funny." I just smiled.
I kept an eye on the road. So far, it had not been that different from the previous road, except for the absence of forest and the appearance of several rivers. So yeah, there were also several bridges.
It became apparent that one of the bridges might be an ambush point. Blow up the bridge, and the Humvee would stop. After that, it just involved a lot of explosives if they wanted to kill us, and they would involve a lot of high-caliber rounds if they wanted to extract the hostage.
"Sergeant, what if we got ambushed?" I became more and more worried.
"Then the GPS coordinate would be transmitted to the HQ, and a backup would arrive," Brewster answered. "Still, about the response time, I am not too confident about that. It might take five minutes or so before the nearest outpost sent backup."
"Thanks." You were not really sparking too much confidence.
However, the area around the road was really easy to spot. Nobody could hide there, even with a ghillie suit. The grass was somewhat low. It wouldn't even cover a person hiding on it. Yeah, bridges would be the perfect ambush point.
I should keep an eye on the bridges. But how? People will place a block of C4 right on the bottom of the bridge. Why do I know about that? I'd do the same as that, to be entirely honest. Hmm, how would I prevent it from happening?
"Sergeant, I feel that an ambush point should be in the bridge," I commented.
"I agree with you. However, we're on a quite tight schedule here, and avoiding bridges wouldn't be wise at this point. We only have one hour, after all," Brewster answered.
One hour? For transporting a prisoner to a location that I didn't even know. What a pain. I doubted Brewster would appreciate a reckless driving session from me to make it worse. I'd probably got reprimanded by another NCO.
I continued observing the grassland, making sure nothing escaped my glance. Not even a single slime escaped my glance. The concrete road didn't look out of the ordinary either. It was just that, a standard concrete road. There shouldn't be any buried Improved Explosive Device in that road.
Suddenly, right in front of a bridge, I noticed something out of the ordinary. I noticed a piece of trash bag right in the middle of the bridge. Odd, I thought. One of the deceptions, if I had to guess. At worst, it could be an explosive device planted in the middle of the road for ambushing them.
I stopped the car and parked it in the middle of the road. I opened the car door and grabbed the AR-15 from the bottom of my seat. I aimed my rifle at the plastic bag and pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
The bag exploded, almost collapsing the bridge. The bridge was still in one piece, but most of its railings were broken. Immediately, gunshots started filling the air. Bullets flew from left and right, mostly from the direction of the bridge.
"Shit, get us out of here, Beuer!" Brewster shouted.
I reversed the car to get out of the area while the soldier sitting on the backseat radioed for reinforcement.
"This is Tango 2-2. We are under heavy fire, requesting attack helicopter."
Attack helicopter? Now we're talking. No way I could go through that bridge. It might be rig to be blown. Weirdly enough, nobody had fired an anti-tank missile at us. They might want the prisoner to be alive or they wanted to take us hostage.