The afternoon sun shone obliquely on the empty airport runway.

As the roar from the sky gradually rose, a huge and smooth heavy fighter plane emerged from the southern sky, and as it approached the runway with a light landing action, the wheels "whooped" on the rough ground and wiped out two white smokes.

The landed fighter slowly taxied to the tarmac on the side of the runway, and the young man opened the cockpit canopy, jumped from the cockpit to the ground, and walked around the parked Su-27SKM with a helmet in his hand, and then nodded with satisfaction to the ground crew and the officer on duty; Taking the dark green military kettle, he took a few sips, raised his hand and wiped his mouth:

"There was no harvest today, just a Mirage 2000. - Oh, I'll leave it to you. ”

"Ah, yes, yes!"

The officer, who was in charge of liaising with the hired pilots or volunteers, took the kettle from the young man and chatted with him enthusiastically as he went.

This kind of very attentive expression is not surprising at all: since this young man from afar joined the NATA Independent Fighter Group, he has reported at least one result in almost every sortie. At first, everyone was a little unconvinced of this newcomer, but after being questioned and verified by radar stations, ground observation posts, and civilians, the NATA commanders were somewhat surprised to find that he was indeed an expert in air combat; For him to fly one of the few Su-27SKMs in the group, it is definitely a very sensible arrangement in terms of war cost.

Until today. If you count this "Mirage" 2000, which has yet to be verified. Less than two weeks after his arrival in northern Iraq, the volunteer pilot had already shot down six enemy planes. Becoming a true ace pilot so quickly, in addition to the luck of often encountering the enemy, my skills are obviously absolutely first-class.

In the face of such a powerful mercenary pilot, the military from NATA to the Iraqi New Party is extremely dependent and valued, because they are now in great need of a reliable air force.

More than half a year ago, when the new party occupying northern Iraq formed a political power and began to confront the Liberal government in Baghdad. For a small country like Iraq, the relatively humid mountainous areas of the north cannot be compared with the south in terms of population and resources. The new regime, which was struggling to maintain its power, had been torn between the offensive of the Liberal Party in the South and the infiltration of Turkey in the North, and the battlefield situation was understandably difficult. In particular, the civil war broke out in Syria, which was originally stable, and the territory occupied by the Syrian Liberal Party almost completely cut off the connection between the new party-controlled districts and the Syrian government. If it weren't for the assistance provided by Iran, a major power, to the weak New Party, the Liberal Party's tanks would have entered Mosul and the civil war would have ended with the defeat of the New Party.

In this extremely difficult situation, the new administration has been able to raise as much as possible all available funds, import weapons and equipment through secretive arms brokers, and on the one hand recruit experienced pilots from all over the world to augment its air power in terms of both fighters and personnel. Iraqis, who have experienced the Gulf War and the Iraq War and have been ravaged by war for many years, can be said to know better than anyone the decisive role of the air force in modern warfare. The sky of Babylon was also filled with fire and smoke.

The arrival of volunteer pilots is a kind of hope for the Iraqi New Party; But for pilots who traveled thousands of miles to take part in the battle. The motives are not necessarily as simple as Iraqis think.

After "creaking" all the way through the rugged dirt road of the airport to the door of the two-story building that was used as a barracks, the young man said goodbye to the officer, returned to his dormitory, and habitually turned on the computer to surf the Internet. Today, when the information network covers the whole world, even a simple air base in the heart of the desert can be connected to the Internet through a wireless station, of course, it needs to go through the necessary information filtering, which is still necessary for him to maintain contact with the outside world.

Logging on to a mediocre information relay website, entering the key to receive the latest message message, the young man browsed casually for a moment, and then stood up and walked around the house for a while.

On the screen, a recent message was sent to him that the follow-up personnel arranged by the organization had been prepared and were about to arrive in the Middle East, so that he could send back the situation report and confirm the operation of the Sharqat Fort base, so as to provide a reference for the organization's next action plan.

Seeing the wording of "fighter maintenance supplier", the young man's bright eyes blinked and blinked, and a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

Alas, this mysterious domestic organization, which first sent itself to the Middle East to fight in such a dangerous place as Iraq under the banner of "volunteers", and now wants to send follow-up personnel in the name of "suppliers", does it really mean that the above really intends to intensify its involvement in the Iraqi civil war and to unify the entire territory of Iraq with the strength of the New Party?

The young man shook his head slightly, feeling that relying on the dozens of Wanguo fighters in the hands of the new party and the overstretched ground forces, it seemed completely unrealistic to try to bulldoze the Iraqi Liberal Party, which is still the dominant party in the Middle East, and to plant the banner of revolution in the city of Baghdad.

Yes, even if he fights with all his strength and carries out the tasks assigned by his superiors......

The Liberal government forces entrenched in Baghdad, they obviously have covert support from many quarters, and the Iraqi Liberal Party fighters in the sky have an absolute numerical superiority, how can one or two ace pilots change this shape?

Oh, in this case, I guess the above also took this situation into account, so they will send follow-up personnel to support him.

Picking up his mobile phone and walking out the door, on the way to the base restaurant, the young man shook his head because he remembered the strange food; He casually glanced at the earthy yellow parking shed next to the runway of the airport, and saw that the rags on the masking net were fluttering in the wind, and a "Tunguska" anti-aircraft vehicle with the radar constantly rotating next to it was dyed with an orange sheen by the evening sun.

Stopping in the sunlight and looking at it for a moment, the young man knew that the ground crew pilots were busy in the parking garage at this time, and before the new party armed forces could get more advanced fighters, these Su-27SKMs parked at the Scharqat Fort base were all the air elites that the nascent regime could count on; As for the old "Flying Leopards" and Su-27SKs that have been flying for more than twenty years in the vicinity of several bases......

Hmm, the new guy won't come and grab a new plane with himself, will he?

Think about the pilots of the Iraqi New Party who I have dealt with, these old birds who have survived the war, their skills may be okay, but they cannot effectively coordinate because of language barriers and different combat styles; The young man, who has been a loner these days, now purses his lips and thinks about it, so it seems that it would be a good idea to send a few more "volunteers" over.

After all, he had just been informed that a batch of fighter jets "smuggled" from Africa was about to arrive, and unlike the old MiG-21PF and "Mirage" F1s at the New Party airfield that could only be made into aluminum cans, this time they were all high-end goods -- at least that's what the bearded liaison officer said, and as for what the situation was, he didn't care much about the fact that there was already a Su-27SKM available.

After calculating the things explained in the online information, the young man carefully looked at his watch, and now the European Community's radio detection satellite should have flown out of the sky over Iraq, so he continued to walk without stopping, while laboriously taking out the mobile phone in his backpack, opening the mesh Cassegrain antenna and dialing a number.

"Hello? - It's me, I'm Qi Hui. ”

……

As time passed, in Syria in the western Middle East, a villa estate on the outskirts of Deir ez-Zor was lit up.

The dim white light flickered and then went out again; The soldiers standing guard outside the gate looked at the passengers' documents, put away the LED flashlights and waved them away. The engine of the jeep sounded again "suddenly", breaking the silence of the night, and drove until the main entrance of the villa before stopping the car, and jumping out of several figures in light-colored robes.

Tonight, as has been the case for many other nights, leaders and minds from all walks of life in the Syrian Liberal Party have come here for their weekly meetings. Located on the outskirts of Deir ez-Zor, the villa estate looks not much different from the residence of the average wealthy manhouse, but the several mobile surface-to-air missile launchers deployed near the manor and the large number of garrisons hidden in the fields and wilderness can prove that this is indeed an unusual place.

Abdul Rahman, the founder and spiritual leader of the Syrian Freedom Party, sat in a spacious room on the first floor of the villa, dressed in a fat white robe and a hoop on his head, nodding to the people who walked in from the soft seats that were as wide as a couch. Since leaving the troubled Israeli coastal city more than half a month ago and coming to Syria, where he has not set foot in many years, he has almost always lived in this heavily guarded suburban villa, which has become the nerve center of "free Syria" and is even more important than Aleppo, the self-appointed capital of the separatist group.

"Good evening, gentlemen."

With a somewhat hoarse voice, probably from smoking too many cigarettes before, and Rahman's eyes were faintly bloodshot, he beckoned the visitors to sit cross-legged in the room without restraint, and then began to preside over this routine meeting. (To be continued......)