Armed with an M10 submachine gun in each hand, Harry charged headfirst into the hail of bullets, demonstrating to Jack the true meaning of the protagonist's aura.
Even as dust kicked up underfoot and the metal plates around him clanked and gleamed with sparks, the bullets seemed to bypass him, and stray bullets seemed nonexistent.
Of course, besides luck, this might also have something to do with the incompetence of Aziz's men.
Jack wondered where he had gathered such a ragtag group of men. From the black Kohler-Koch P9S, which hadn't even received basic maintenance, he'd sensed that the Dark Jihad members he faced this time didn't possess much military proficiency.
Could it be that after the two previous operations, the country's elite personnel had suffered heavy losses from repeated sweeps by the FBI and DHS, resulting in not only the need for Aziz, the leader, to personally plan and participate in the operation, but also the need for most of the personnel to be newly recruited?
Jack, strolling leisurely behind Harry, clutched the PKM light machine gun he'd just been given, occasionally firing short bursts, seemingly relegated to a supporting role.
This struck him as somewhat ironic. There were at least twenty or thirty terrorists armed with automatic fire, but most of them remained hunkered down behind cover, their AKs and other weapons held high, firing relentlessly at them.
His PKM, however, only had a single, fully automatic mode. With a Lao Gan Ma, he might even have dared to find a high vantage point and use it as a sniper.
Unfortunately, their goal of encircling a group of people was ultimately unsuccessful. As they approached the docks, the engagement distances shortened, and the enemy finally mounted a decent counterattack. The two men
were forced to defend themselves, using the wreckage of a long-abandoned bulldozer as cover, and watched helplessly as Aziz directed several of his men to load the final nuclear warhead onto a helicopter.
The cargo ship, previously anchored at the dock, rolled up its hatch, cut its cables, and slowly set sail. Just as the two men hesitated over whether to continue their charge, a sudden cry rang out from the sea: "Harry! Jack!"
A speedboat sped along the coastline toward the dock, and someone on board called out their names.
Jack quickly turned his gun, but didn't pull the trigger. On board were Helen and Jessie, held at gunpoint by two of Juno's men.
Ten minutes earlier, while Harry was slaughtering people in the warehouse, the two women, sheltering behind the rocks, encountered an unforeseen threat: a rising tide.
The rising water quickly reached their calves, and Jessie was forced to drag Helen back to find another hiding place.
Just then, Juno and two of his men returned to the cabin to investigate. They found bodies strewn across the floor. Then, an explosion was heard from the warehouse, followed by a chorus of gunfire.
Sensing trouble, Juno, now protected by only two of her men, feared a direct return. Suddenly, she decided to take a speedboat from the dock on the other side of the island, where she stumbled upon the two women.
Just as Jack had given up on searching for Juno, who might have a satellite phone, and turned to help Harry, he was surprised to see the woman boarding a speedboat on the other side of the island with the two women.
Seeing his wife and daughter held hostage again, Harry, enraged, emptied his magazine and, wielding his AKM, prepared to charge in with a T-800.
Caught off guard, Jack quickly folded up his PKM's bipod and followed.
By now, the terrorists on the dock had lost their will to fight. Most had boarded the cargo ship. The dozen or so remaining to provide cover frequently glanced behind them, urging their companions, who were launching several speedboats, to hurry.
Two helicopters had already taken off from the dock. The one armed with a nuclear warhead flew north, close to the sea surface, while the remaining one circled repeatedly above the dock.
Jack fired several long bursts at the helicopter, the tracer bullets caught in its ammunition belts tracing clear paths through the air, forcing the helicopter to retreat.
Near the dock was a tanker truck, likely carrying a lighter-than-average marine diesel fuel. Harry rushed to the truck, removed the fuel hose with the nozzle, and turned on the pump.
The pale yellow, flammable liquid sprayed onto the dock like a stream of water from a fire truck, sending the remaining terrorists scurrying for cover.
In an open, outdoor environment, even highly volatile gasoline typically struggles to reach its flash point and be detonated by bullets. Therefore, scenes of explosions caused by direct fire at car fuel tanks are typically seen only in Hollywood films.
However, Jack's light machine gun's ammunition belt contained a tracer bullet every few rounds, marking the trajectory. As he adjusted the muzzle, the light diesel fuel sprayed toward the dock ignited easily, transforming into a long, volcanic dragon.
In a flash, the island's simple dock was reduced to a fiery inferno. Thick smoke billowed into the sky. The gunfire abruptly ceased, replaced by piercing screams.
Several of the ignited terrorists rolled on the ground, but to no avail. Some fell silent after a few seconds, while others simply leaped from the dock into the sea.
The speedboat that had abducted Helen and Jessie had been not far from the dock, but as if startled by the scene, it zigzagged away from the dock, heading in the direction of the cargo ship.
Jack dropped his emptied light machine gun and looked up at the helicopter still circling overhead, a sense of foreboding welling up in his chest.
Just as he unhooked his AKM, attempting to ward off the enemy, he saw a flash of fire from the helicopter's cabin and a plume of white smoke billowing straight toward them.
"Harry!" Jack shouted almost instantly as a 66mm rocket-propelled grenade landed near the tanker.
The explosion drowned out Jack's shout, but fortunately, it missed the target. Harry, startled, flinched, dropped his makeshift flamethrower, and ran.
Another flash of fire lit up from the helicopter, and almost as Jack and Harry leaped, a second round from an M72A2 anti-tank rocket pierced the tanker with precision.
Fragments and a blast of scorching air brushed their backs as they plummeted into the sea. The diesel fuel flung from the blast drifted on the surface, continuing to burn, nearly igniting the entire water around the dock.
Helen, who was being forced to climb the cargo ship's rope ladder by Juno's men with a gun to her head, heard the explosion and looked back at the dock. Seeing this scene, she screamed and tears instantly welled up in her eyes.
(End of this chapter)