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Afghanistan's only advantage is that there's no need to follow traffic rules; there are no asphalt roads, just rolling yellow sand and swirling dust. Occasionally, you can see piles of livestock dung on the roadside, and the foul smell drifts through the air, making it unbearable even for men, let alone women.
Daisy closed the car window early, coordinating the operation through the radio.
Jimmy, who speaks Pashto, was in the first car, handling any negotiations along the way.
Daisy sat in the second car, directing and coordinating the operation.
Colonel Rhodes rode in the third car and was responsible for the formation.
The Global Hawk was also arranged to conduct advanced reconnaissance.
Mockingbird Bobbi was driving the vehicle, and Daisy sat in the passenger seat, lost in thought. The first two times she found Gulmira, she confidently believed that success was in sight, but now she couldn't guarantee it.
"Daisy, are you going back home for Christmas, or are you staying here?" Bobbi asked casually while driving.
In her opinion, Christmas was the most important holiday of the year. Daisy, being such a rich and famous figure, surely had many commitments during Christmas and wouldn't spend it in Afghanistan, a place where birds don't shit.
They had been searching for more than a month, and Bobbi didn't believe that someone like Tony Stark, a playboy, could survive in such a hostile environment.
"Christmas?" Bobbi's words made Daisy feel a bit nostalgic. She didn't have any Christmas traditions. She just thought of how much fun she had spending last Christmas with Hill. Now the relationship between the two of them is overshadowed by competition.
Hill had been avoiding her and hadn't returned to headquarters and hadn't returned to the headquarters for half a year.
Daisy's self-regulation ability is pretty strong and she quickly pushed aside her concerns. She thought for a moment and realized that leading the team back for Christmas might not be a bad idea.
Most likely, everyone on the team, except herself and Rhodey, believed that Tony Stark was dead. Delaying Christmas for the sake of a dead person and dragging the team to fight tribal militias in the middle of nowhere would be seen as a great sin in the eyes of the U.S. military.
Daisy estimated that if she forcefully gave the order, half of the people might run away. The other half would probably file complaints with the Pentagon about human rights violations, lack of democracy, dictatorship, etc.….
Why make herself the villain?
She took out the radio to discuss this with Colonel Rhodes. If there were no leads in the small town of Gulmira up ahead, then they should return to the base for Christmas and resume the search after the holiday.
Rhodey, being an active-duty military man, could see the dissatisfaction among his men. His pressure was even greater than Daisy's, so he agreed without much hesitation.
Upon hearing this news, the soldiers erupted into cheers; they had had enough of this broken place.
Daisy nodded with a smile, accepting a barrage of compliments.
Her eyes turned to the window, she was also thinking about what to do for Christmas.
Hmm? Just as she was lost in thought, she suddenly noticed that the area where they were located was unusually deserted.
Not to mention there were no signs of human or animal activity around, there was not even a single bird in sight.
The air carried a frightening atmosphere that made her uneasy. The beasts' instincts blessed by the Panther Goddess warned her to stay away from this place, the farther, the better.
"Everyone shut up! Stop the cars! Stop them quickly!" she urgently ordered the convoy.
The soldiers, who were just cheering, didn't know what happened, but seeing her serious expression, they all hit the brakes.
Daisy climbed to the top of the armored vehicle and looked into the distance, but it was a pity she saw nothing.
However, fear was like a dark cloud pressing on her heart, leaving her somewhat speechless.
"What's wrong, Daisy?" Rhodey, familiar with her, directly addressed her by name.
Ignoring the colonel, Daisy looked around. The desolate and silent surroundings, with jagged rocks, seemed devoid of any signs of life.
Summoning Jimmy, the young man preparing to go back to Tennessee to get married, Daisy asked, "Is this the road the old man from the tribal pointed you to?"
Jimmy confirmed it twice and replied very positively, "Yes, it's this road."
"Something's off, it's too wrong..." she muttered to herself. Then she turned to her agents and asked, "Anything from the Global Hawk in the front?"
"Commander, there's a lot of interference here, and the signal transmission is extremely slow," the agent pulled up the reconnaissance images from the Global Hawk. Daisy quickly looked at the distorted images; they were practically unreadable.
"Check the magnetic field here; there might be some minerals nearby..." Daisy's words were cut short as the image reception interface suddenly went black.
"Commander, the Global Hawk's positioning signal is also lost!" The agent's words made her heart sink. Someone shot down the Global Hawk, or did it collide with some mountain?
Upon hearing the news of the drone's suspected crash, Colonel Rhodes felt a pang of pain in his heart. If they could save Stark, that would be fine, but if they couldn't, or if he was already dead... who would pay the bill for this?
Daisy didn't have time to care about the colonel's concerns. She ordered the convoy to retreat from this place.
Previously, within her vibration sense range, the tribal elders, shepherds, and people, both young and old, all harbored hostility towards them. It had become a habit, and she didn't notice anything unusual at the time. Now, she guessed that the tribal elder might have deceived them and set a super terrifying trap for them here.
"Do we not go and search for the Global Hawk? Even if it crashed, we should retrieve the fragments!" Colonel Rhodes hastily grabbed her.
Daisy hesitated a bit; the cost of the Global Hawk was not small...
But she gritted her teeth and said, "I'll compensate. Leave this place now! Something is wrong here!"
Colonel Fury saw her speaking so seriously and felt some ominous premonitions in his heart. Still, he insisted on being righteous, "How can I let you personally compensate? Consider it my responsibility..."
Daisy couldn't be bothered to figure out whose responsibility it was. Her vibration sense penetrated deep into the underground, revealing a terrifying energy akin to a nuclear reactor on the brink of exploding. Investigation told her it wasn't a reactor but something much smaller, somewhat resembling a person.
She urgently cut off the vibration sense, pulled Rhodey into her car, and made a U-turn to run.
Whoever this "person" was, she absolutely couldn't defeat them.
No Stark was more important than her own life.
The numerous U.S. soldiers didn't know what happened, but they still have the spirit of obedience. The vehicles turned around, accelerated, and raced back the way they came.
The soldiers didn't need an explanation, but Colonel Rhodey had to hear a detailed one.
Daisy carefully chose her words. She was speculating about the identity of the "person" in the mountains. Considering Kamar-Taj was on the highest mountain in the world, ruled out the Ancient One.
Odin, as the king of Asgard, would stick to Nordic territories even if he came for vacations and wouldn't come to Afghanistan. It was impossible for the remaining Heavenly Gods to be practicing deep underground in these desolate wilderness.
Of course, it couldn't be mutants like Jean and Apocalypse either.
Connecting the keywords Afghanistan, Ten Rings, Stark, Daisy could only think of one powerful person - not an imposter, but the Mandarin, the one with the ten rings!
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