Chapter 316: The Assault
The base's passageways had already been cleared during the earlier shelling, leaving only shredded limbs and gore—a gruesome sight, but no one cared about that now.
Following Ron's orders, Torretto drifted the pickup truck to one of the passageway entrances. With a press of a button, the 107mm rocket launcher in the truck's cargo bay fired, each rocket emitting orange flashes. The terrorists in the narrow passageway had barely peeked out, not even having time to see the pickup truck's license plate, when they were horrified to see the rockets getting closer and closer, and then...
BOOM!
The explosion instantly filled the cramped space of the passageway. The terrorists who had just turned the corner were engulfed by the raging flames before they could even fire a single shot.
Meanwhile, similar scenes were playing out in several other passageways. Eggsy watched in disbelief: "That's too violent! Wait! Aren't you afraid of hurting the hostages?
Many prominent politicians and scientists have recently gone missing in Europe. What if that explosion had injured them...?"
"That's a problem," Ron mused for a moment, then jumped out of the car, grabbed a can of spray paint from under his seat, and, to Eggsy's bewildered gaze, began spraying paint on the passageway walls.
After he finished, Eggsy read the words Ron had written, nearly having a stroke in the car.
The words Ron had sprayed on the wall, when put together, spelled out: "The Kingsman did this!"
The handwriting was bold, with a touch of Old West wanted poster style. If Ron had added some tumbleweeds and a cowboy silhouette, it might have even resembled something out of a spaghetti western.
Of course, in the eyes of Eggsy and his fellow Brits, there was only one word to describe it: "Outrageous!"
But Eggsy had another feeling: a headache. He finally understood what the "difficult American" Mycroft had described was all about: "Hey! These were clearly done by your men, why are you blaming us, the Kingsman?!"
Ron turned and took a few steps closer to Eggsy, scaring the greenhorn into retreating until poor Eggsy was backed up against the car door.
"These are all armed hostiles. What if I'm killed as a terrorist too?" Eggsy thought fearfully.
Fortunately, after cornering him at the car door, Ron didn't take any further action. Instead, he raised a finger:
"First, I'm not called 'Hey,' I'm Ron Lee Cooper; second, this is your Kingsman business. If I didn't owe someone a favor, I wouldn't have gotten involved in this mess. Anyway, none of my family members received their free chips, so get it, kid?"
Ron held a revolver in his hand, spinning the cylinder as he looked at Eggsy, the threat in his eyes unmistakable: "Now it's time to see how you perform. Good luck, rookie."
Ron slapped the revolver into Eggsy's hand, then strolled down a passageway like a cowboy walking into a saloon, while Eggsy remained rooted to the spot, still shaken. If it weren't for the blood-soaked corpses scattered throughout the passageway, Eggsy would have thought he was just taking a Sunday stroll.
Hank kindly grumbled at him: "Kid, aren't you going to follow?"
Eggsy nodded, grabbed his large backpack from the car, and quickly followed.
After the round of artillery bombardment, the others, following Ron's orders, paired up to guard each entrance, each with a machine gun, blocking the way and preventing anyone from passing.
"Mr. Ron, here, your gun back." Eggsy caught up with Ron.
"No, you can keep that, this is fine." Ron then pulled out his usual Smith & Wesson M500 revolver from another holster.
Having suffered from insufficient firepower in previous encounters, Ron had brought out a large-caliber hand cannon from the start; surely it wouldn't fail to penetrate body armor this time?
"Based on the map of this military outpost, Valentine is likely located in one of these two places," Ron circled locations on the map. "Now we split into two groups. If anyone encounters that bastard Valentine, shoot him dead."
But Eggsy, having taken the map from Ron, didn't move an inch: "What if we run into his men before we encounter Valentine?"
"Do I need to teach you this? Of course, we take them down one by one."
"Just the two of us?"
"No, to be precise, it's one person against a whole squad, let's see who gets there first."
With that, Ron kicked Eggsy in the butt, sending him into another passageway, while he continued walking along the current route until he had walked quite a distance and heard footsteps coming from the passageway. Then he took out his phone: "Paige, are you ready with the system?"
Of course, Ron wasn't going to just blindly rush in. Before setting off, he had already arranged for Paige to hack into Valentine's system.
As long as Valentine wanted to drive everyone using free SIM cards crazy through cell phone signals, he had to connect to the network, and in the online world, Paige was the undisputed queen.
"Call me sweetheart."
Ron paused, then said, "Paige, have you prepared the sweetheart system?"
Paige roared, "Do you believe I'll blow your head up along with those soldiers?"
"I didn't have a chip implanted that would make my head explode," Ron muttered under his breath, deciding to stop teasing Paige. "Alright, dear Ms. Paige, can you get that damn system sorted out now?"
"Of course, but don't forget the compensation you promised me. I'll be waiting for you in Texas."
Paige, hiding in her pink bedroom, gently pressed the Enter key. On Valentine's computer, the previously stalled system suddenly started loading rapidly.
Outpost Command Room.
"What's going on? I haven't even touched it, and it's already running on its own," Valentine frantically pressed buttons on the screen, but to no avail. "Wait! Wait! It's not going to blow up the heads of the lowly masses using free cards, it's targeting the elite! No, this can't happen! Find a way to stop it!"
Valentine yelled at his secretary, who kicked the computer screen, the steel blade on her prosthetic foot piercing through the monitor.
Valentine exclaimed in shock, "What are you doing?"
"Didn't you tell me to stop it?"
"10, 9, 8..." Outside the command room, the various celebrities and VIPs invited to the safe zone by Valentine had begun their excited countdown, following the announcement: "3, 2, 1... 0!"
"Pop!"
The countdown ended, and everyone's joyful expressions suddenly froze. Then, their heads uncontrollably swelled violently until they exploded, bursting into a gruesome display of fireworks from their necks upward.
(End of Chapter)