Chen Ge didn't quite agree. In his personal view, a Glock 21 wasn't necessarily superior to a 1911 in actual combat.
It was true that the Glock 21 offered high capacity and rugged durability, but its grip was absurdly wide. Anyone with slightly smaller hands couldn't get a solid hold on it, and its trigger pull felt sluggish—hardly as crisp and clean as a 1911, which also had no trouble handling high-pressure reloads.
Still, he didn't argue. To each their own.
"Then we share the same taste. Octopus, leave two men on the third floor to keep watch. The rest of us are heading to the ground floor. Trench has already dispatched a company of K-soldiers to help hold the building."
Hearing that reinforcements were on the way, Octopus and his men breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Even though K-soldiers were bottom-tier cannon fodder, they were still better than nothing.
Octopus pointed at Budanov and said, "Viktor, Sergei, tie him up. You two stay up here on guard."
The mercenary named Sergei pulled out a roll of white waterproof duct tape. Viktor stepped forward, twisting Budanov's arms behind his back, while Sergei expertly wound the tape around his wrists over a dozen times, binding them tight.
They taped his legs together as well, ripped off another strip to seal Budanov's mouth, and hauled him up before tossing him into the corner.
A captain in the army—that was a bounty of four hundred thousand rubles.
***
Ground floor.
As Chen Ge's group came down, Igor, the leader of Detachment 9's Team 1 who was tasked with holding the ground level, rushed over to report.
"Octopus, the Ukrainians in the annex out back look like they're getting ready to launch a counterattack to retake the Laboratory Building."
Octopus pointed at Chen Ge and said solemnly, "Sledgehammer is our temporary overall commander now."
Igor froze, instinctively about to ask what gave him the right. But catching the look Octopus shot him, he swallowed the words before they left his throat.
He knew Octopus's temper. If this Chinese fighter could make Octopus submit, he was definitely not someone to cross.
"Sledgehammer, I suggest sending a team over to blow the tunnel entrance, or at least blockade—"
Chen Ge raised a hand to cut Igor off. "There's at least a company of Ukrainians in that tunnel. Going over there is just making ourselves targets. Split into three-man fireteams, assign one team per room, and fortify the windows. I'm going up to the second floor to bring down ammo."
With orders issued, the twenty-three men broke into self-selected teams and launched into feverish preparations, hauling machinery and equipment over to stack against the windows, leaving firing slits.
Chen Ge set down his machine gun, climbed up to the second floor, and walked to the second room on the right along the south corridor.
The door plaque read Storage Room 3. Inside, it was crammed with weapons and supplies the Ukrainian forces had stockpiled in advance: AK-74 rifles, 5.45×39mm and 7.62×54mmR ammunition, PKM belt boxes, unassembled RGN, RGO, F-1, and RGT-27 hand grenades, RPG-7 and PSRL-1 rocket launchers, along with two PKMs and a DShKM heavy machine gun.
Chen Ge walked over to the Soviet-style wooden ammunition crates stacked chest-high against the wall. Each crate contained two zinc spam cans holding a total of 2,160 rounds, weighing twenty-seven kilograms. Grabbing five crates at a time, he carried them to the top of the stairwell and dumped them down with heavy clatters.
He hurled all the rifles and light machine guns down below. After hauling down twenty-six crates of grenades and ammunition, it was roughly enough. In his left hand, he gripped the bare thirty-four-kilogram body of the DShKM heavy machine gun, while his right hand hauled the forty-five-kilogram Kolesnikov wheeled universal mount. Leaping through the breach, he landed steadily atop a jutting concrete slab, then bounced down right in front of Igor and two mercenaries carrying ammo crates.
The three men stopped breathing, their mouths dropping open in shock. Finally, they understood why Octopus had been so submissive.
A heavy machine gun weighing seventy to eighty kilograms looked like two large sausages in his hands. Just how terrifying was this guy's strength?
Chen Ge shot the three a sidelong glance and snapped irritably, "What are you staring at? Hurry up and move the ammo!"
"Oh... right, on it!"
Snapping back to their senses, the trio pulled themselves together and threw their backs into hauling weapons and ammunition.
Chen Ge carried the machine gun into the second room on the right along the south corridor.
Lightbulb, Tanker, and Viper were struggling to move a heavy armored, blast-proof reagent storage cabinet. Seeing Chen Ge walk in, the three exchanged glances and dropped the cabinet in unspoken agreement.
"Piss off and move it yourselves!"
Chen Ge tossed the machine gun onto the floor, glanced out the window, shifted a few steps to the right, and made a few gestures with his hands. From this angle, the machine gun's arc of fire would cover the annex area perfectly.
Lightbulb shook his aching wrists and pleaded with a miserable expression, "Hammer Brother, this damn cabinet is way too heavy. Could you help us move it?"
"Have a smoke, Hammer Brother!"
Tanker offered a cigarette, while Viper promptly flicked open a lighter.
Chen Ge took the cigarette between his lips, cupped his hand around Viper's flame to light it, and patted the back of his hand.
*Puff...* Exhaling a cloud of smoke, Chen Ge walked up to the cabinet and pushed the five-hundred-plus jin piece of furniture directly in front of the window with one hand.
Lightbulb and the other two fell utterly silent, a crushing sense of defeat washing over them. They began to wonder if they were completely useless.
How could the gap between human beings be so vast?
It was wider than the gap between a man and a dog!
Chen Ge wiped the rust and dust off his backside onto his trousers, pointed at the heavy machine gun on the floor, and chided with a chuckle, "Stop standing around like stiff corpses. Mount this monster. I only have one requirement: not a single Ukrainian is allowed to poke their head out of that tunnel entrance. Can you handle that?"
Lightbulb nodded vigorously and squatted down gleefully to inspect the gun.
"Not bad at all! Brand new. Must've just been pulled from a warehouse. How much ammo do we have?"
"There are eight fifty-round belt boxes by the stairwell, and another twenty or so in the storage room upstairs. I didn't count closely."
Just as Chen Ge finished speaking, a steady voice came through his earpiece.
"Sledgehammer, this is Archer, leader of Squad 2, Company 3, Medved Detachment, Sector 2. Acknowledge."
*Medved*—also known as MED, Russian for "bear"—was Wagner's barrier detachment, a penal enforcement unit responsible for maintaining control over frontline troops and dealing with deserters, insubordinates, and those attempting to surrender.
A call from the barrier detachment certainly wasn't to look for trouble with him; it meant the K-soldiers had arrived.
Chen Ge replied, "Sledgehammer copies. Archer, are you escorting reinforcements?"
*Escorting?*
Five hundred meters to the northeast of the Laboratory Building, amid the ruins, Archer swept his gaze over eighty-five convict soldiers carrying and lugging ammunition crates. "Uh... yes. We are approaching the Laboratory Building. Please be prepared to receive us."
"All Ukrainians inside the building have been cleared. Approaching from the northwest is safer!"
"Copy that!"
Chen Ge tugged at his tactical vest and took several deep drags of his cigarette.
"Reinforcements are here. We only need to hold this damned building for two hours, and Trench's team will be able to take the mixing plant!"
Lightbulb, who was adjusting the machine gun, glanced up toward the annex and said with concern, "That depends on how many troops the Ukrainians send over. Hopefully not too many, and preferably without heavy weapons."
Chen Ge rolled his eyes and warned, "Stop dreaming and prepare for the worst. The Ukrainian unit sent to reinforce the mixing plant is made up of foreign volunteers. They're tough fighters."
In unison, Lightbulb and the other two glanced toward the two corpses lying sprawled beside the hole in the wall.
Earlier, they had seen the bodies of more than a dozen foreign volunteers that Chen Ge and Big Bear had taken down in the adjacent lab.
Viper walked over to one of the corpses and bent down to pick up a camo-painted SCAR-L rifle whose stock had been blown apart by a grenade.
"These foreign volunteers are pretty well-equipped. Might even be active-duty troops from some NATO country. Hypocritical, cowardly NATO bastards—if they have the guts, why don't they just declare war outright? Sneaking troops in to fight for Ukraine is sickening."
The corner of Chen Ge's mouth twitched slightly. He was sorely tempted to point out that if NATO actually united and deployed a joint coalition force directly into the fray, Viper wouldn't be very happy either.
Chapter 56