Grenades were the street sweepers of urban warfare.
The thud of a grenade hitting the ground was shorthand for a meat grinder three seconds later. The enemy could either jump out a window and get shot, charge through the door and get shot, or hunker down, weather the blast, and die.
Whichever they chose, you held the initiative.
The roar and billowing dust could instantly shatter an enemy's hearing and vision. Charging in to finish them off while they were still disoriented was standard assault doctrine.
Leaning against the doorframe, Chen Ge held an M67 in each hand. Hooking his fingers through the pull rings, he yanked the pins free and pitched them into the laboratory.
*Clatter, clatter!*
The harsh clang of metal bouncing across machinery and floor plating rang out with agonizing clarity. Inside the lab, the volunteers' faces drained of color. Spurred by an astonishing surge of adrenaline, they scrambled in every direction to get clear.
*Boom! Boom!*
The M67s, each packed with 180 grams of Composition B, detonated in violent succession. Their smooth outer shells and grooved internal liners disintegrated into thousands of flying fragments, their lethal radius magnified several times over within the enclosed space.
Sparks rained down amid churning gray smoke. Only four volunteers were left moving.
Big Bear, stationed on the opposite side of the doorway, was never one to let a grudge go. He vengefully hurled two RGO grenades into the room.
"Blyat, go to hell!"
Chen Ge opened his mouth to tell him not to waste grenades, but bit back the words. After all, Big Bear had nearly been blown to bits by these very volunteers only moments ago.
*Boom!*
When the explosion subsided, Chen Ge listened closely. Only one ragged breath remained. Raising his machine gun, he stepped inside.
More than a dozen corpses lay strewn across the laboratory. One volunteer, his left leg blown off and a jagged gash carved deep into his upper right arm by shrapnel, propped himself up with his left hand. Struggling backward, he slumped against the wall and pulled off his helmet and balaclava, revealing a chiseled face framed by blond hair and blue eyes.
Staring up at Chen Ge, he bared his teeth in a wry grimace and asked in English, "Hey man, you speak English?"
"I do."
"I'm not going to surrender to you, and I doubt you'd accept the surrender of a dying man anyway. Before you kill me, could you give me a smoke? Thanks."
Chen Ge walked up to him, fished a stainless-steel waterproof cigarette case from his utility pouch, and drew out a smoke. He handed it over along with a windproof lighter.
Then he pulled down his own balaclava and popped a cigarette between his lips.
"I'm Leo. French. You're East Asian?"
Leo lit his cigarette and handed the lighter back to Chen Ge. As he took in Chen Ge's skin and features, his eyes widened in disbelief.
Chen Ge gave a slight nod, flicked the lighter, sparked his cigarette, and took a deep drag.
"Chinese. Call sign Sledgehammer. Wagner."
Leo grew even more astonished. "I've never heard of Chinese mercenaries in Wagner. Why are you helping the Russians invade Ukraine?"
Chen Ge was utterly speechless. He looked at Leo as if staring at a complete idiot.
*What kind of brain-dead nonsense is that? You'd have to suffer from ten years of cerebral thrombosis to spout garbage like that.*
Turning slightly to tap the ISIS Hunters patch on his shoulder, Chen Ge said, "Wagner pays, I fight for them. As for what this conflict is really about, it has nothing to do with me. I'm just here to make money. Understand?"
Leo's brow furrowed tightly as he exhaled a plume of smoke. Even mortally wounded and facing certain death, he still radiated a deep-seated arrogance and righteous indignation.
His tone took on a condescending edge of accusation. "You're wrong. This isn't just fighting for a paycheck!
"Ukraine is a sovereign nation, and Russia is the aggressor. You Wagner scum are accomplices—executioners trampling freedom and the international order underfoot!"
Chen Ge rolled his eyes and shot back, "Aren't you a mercenary too?"
"No, I'm nothing like you! You kill for money, aiding a tyrant, abandoning every shred of basic humanity. We foreign volunteers didn't come here for money. We came for justice, to protect the weak, and to stand against aggression!"
The more he spoke, the more agitated he grew. His chest heaved violently, the ragged wounds tearing at his flesh and making him grimace in agony, yet he still refused to stop lecturing.
"Your people have always held honor and righteousness in high esteem! How could one of you reduce himself to a weapon in the hands of an invader? Doesn't your conscience bother you? What about international justice? Your hands are stained with the blood of innocents! Sooner or later, you'll bear that guilt and be despised by the entire world!"
Leo's words rang out with passionate fervor, steeped in the marrow-deep biases of the Western world. Convinced he held the absolute moral high ground, he glared at Chen Ge in heartbroken fury, treating him like an irredeemable monster.
Chen Ge let out a flat "Oh," sneering in utter disdain. "Look at you, aren't you just overflowing with kindness and righteousness? They ought to take down Our Lady at Notre-Dame and put up a statue of you instead.
"Honor? Justice? Can I eat them for dinner? I'm a mercenary. All I care about is making money. If Ukraine paid me, I'd gladly fight Russia for them."
"..."
Leo stared at Chen Ge in stunned disbelief, his mind grinding to a halt.
His impassioned speech had landed like a punch into a bale of cotton, leaving him choked with frustration.
He had been certain Chen Ge would feel shame, try to justify himself, or at least be shaken by his words. He had never imagined Chen Ge would not only mock him, but possess not a single shred of righteous conviction.
"How can you say something like that? On a battlefield, allegiance is never measured in cash! Freedom, justice, the dignity of one's homeland—those are the things worth dying for! In your eyes, does everything have a price tag?"
Chen Ge flicked his ash. Smoke drifted lazily between them. The slight smirk on his face vanished, replaced by cold contempt.
"Allegiance? I'm not a politician, I'm not an idealist, and I'm sure as hell not some bleeding-heart saint. I'm just an ordinary guy risking my neck for a paycheck."
He glanced sideways at the corpses scattered across the floor, then down at Leo's steadily bleeding wounds.
"You believe in international justice and supreme morality. That's your business. You came to Ukraine clinging to your so-called convictions to defend justice. That was your choice. And my choice is to take the money and do the job."
"Don't you have even a sliver of a moral bottom line?"
Leo gritted his teeth, his voice thick with indignation and incomprehension.
"Switching sides back and forth for cash—how are you any different from an unprincipled beast?"
"A bottom line?"
Chen Ge stood up, took several deep drags from his cigarette, tossed the butt aside, and pulled his balaclava back down over his face.
"My bottom line is simple. The employer pays the bounty, and I put my life on the line for him. As for who's right and who's wrong, who's righteous and who's the invader—what the hell does any of that have to do with me?"
Leo's mental defenses crumbled entirely. The values instilled in him since childhood, the convictions he had carried to this battlefield, clashed violently with Chen Ge's brutally pragmatic, mercenary worldview.
In his mind, a soldier, a warrior, had to fight for a cause. Yet this Chinese fighter treated war as nothing more than a commercial transaction.
Slumped against the wall, waves of dizziness washed over Leo from severe blood loss. Confusion, contempt, and a bewildering sense of lostness surged through him in equal measure.
He genuinely could not fathom how someone could cast aside every moral shackle with such ease, living with such callous, unvarnished honesty.
Chen Ge cast a dismissive glance at the fool. Unwilling to waste another breath on him, he reached down, snatched the action camera mounted on Leo's chest, shoved it into his pocket, and turned to walk out.
Big Bear leveled the muzzle of his PKP at Leo. Under the Frenchman's despairing gaze, he squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 50