187: Argentine bullets

"Damn it! We were so close!"

Wang Dalong scratched his messy, bird's-nest hair in frustration and kicked a nearby iron shelf. A loud "clang" echoed throughout the vast, empty hangar.

"Are these Germans part rabbit? They ran from Europe to Africa, and now they've scurried off to some unknown corner of the world! The Earth is so big, where are we supposed to look?"

He paced in circles, fuming, feeling like he had been played for a fool.

Shitou's brow was also knitted into a tight knot. He looked around the massive, empty room, feeling a sense of stifling frustration in his chest, like a heavy punch landing on cotton—all that power with nowhere to apply it.

They had exhausted every effort and lost so many people to finally find the connection between the Cavendish Family and the "eye of odin," and what was the result?

The trail had gone cold again!

Where to next? No one knew.

That immense sense of loss and helplessness almost crushed the entire team.

"Conventional thinking won't work anymore."

In the dead silence, Lin Feng's voice suddenly rang out.

Breaking the silence, he walked slowly to the center of the room and looked down at the large, deep circular depression on the floor—the mark where the core device had once stood.

"Any relocation plan must consider two basic questions: how to transport it, and where to transport it."

He looked up and scanned the group.

"All the equipment here, including the dismantled planes in the hangar outside, has staggering volume and weight. Relying solely on planes for transport would be too inefficient, and it would be impossible to transport those oversized core components."

Lin Feng's toe lightly traced a circle on the hard concrete floor, simulating a maritime route.

"Therefore, the only possibility is land transport. Back then, they must have organized a massive convoy to transport everything and everyone from this base to some unknown, extremely hidden port. Then they loaded it onto ships and moved it via sea to their next secret base."

This deduction was logical, and everyone understood it.

But understanding was one thing; a new, even larger problem had arisen.

"My Great God Lin, look at the map!" Wang Dalong spread his hands, looking utterly hopeless. "The entire coastline of Africa is long enough to wrap around the Earth several times! Who knows where their secret port is? Besides, even if we find the port, where did they go? America? The Soviet Union? Or did they run off to Antarctica to keep the penguins company?"

Indeed, where did they go?

This question weighed heavily on everyone's heart like a mountain once again.

The entire world could be their destination.

How was this any different from looking for a needle in a haystack?

The small spark of hope that had just been lit was instantly extinguished by a bucket of cold water.

Everyone was at a loss, and the atmosphere plummeted back to a freezing point.

Just then...

"Ah—! Ghost! There's a ghost!"

A blood-curdling scream, like a pig being slaughtered, came from the darkness at the other end of the hangar!

It was Wang Dalong's voice!

The voice was filled with extreme terror, heart-wrenching and completely distorted!

"What happened?!"

Shitou's expression changed. Almost by instinct, he raised his rifle and charged toward the source of the sound with two team members!

"Alert!"

Lin Feng followed closely behind, his heart sinking.

The group rushed like lightning into a room that looked like an office. As soon as they entered, they saw Wang Dalong collapsed on the floor, his face as white as paper, shaking like a leaf. He pointed toward a corner of the room, unable to utter a complete sentence.

"G-ghost... ghost..."

Everyone immediately looked in the direction he was pointing, aiming their weapons at the same time.

Behind the desk in the corner of the room, sitting on an old wooden chair, was a long-dried-out corpse!

A mummified corpse!

He was still wearing a crisp Nazi Schutzstaffel officer's uniform, though it was long since covered in dust and faded. His head was tilted back weakly, and half his skull was missing, revealing a gruesome black hole—evidently the result of a large-caliber weapon fired through the jaw.

In his right hand, now just withered bone, he still tightly gripped a pistol, its dark muzzle pointing directly at his own chin.

It wasn't hard to imagine that in the final moments before the base was abandoned, this officer had chosen the most extreme way to end his life.

"Hey, it's just a corpse. Is it really worth screaming like that?"

After confirming there was no danger, Shitou lowered his gun and glared at Wang Dalong, somewhat speechless.

This kid really didn't have much courage.

"N-no! Brother Shitou!" Wang Dalong was on the verge of tears, pointing tremulously at the gun in the corpse's hand, his voice shaking. "It's... it's that gun! That gun isn't right! It's really not right!"

The gun?

Lin Feng and Shitou exchanged a glance, both seeing a hint of confusion in the other's reaction.

What could be wrong with a suicide weapon?

The two of them walked over quickly.

Shitou put on tactical gloves, carefully leaned down, and gently pried the pistol from the corpse's stiff finger bones.

He took one look at it in his hand and his entire body froze.

His relaxed expression instantly became incredibly solemn!

He flipped the pistol over, carefully examining the inscriptions and serial numbers on the body of the gun, and muttered its model name.

"Ballester-Molina 1938..."

Shitou's tone was filled with irrepressible shock.

"It's Argentinian."

Argentina?

As soon as those words were spoken, while Wang Dalong was still shivering on the ground, Lin Feng's mind went "buzz"!

Shitou looked up at Lin Feng and explained rapidly: "This is a very low-production pistol, an Argentinian copy of the Colt M1911! Aside from a batch sold to Britain during World War II due to weapon shortages, the vast majority were issued to Argentina's own military!"

His words were like a heavy bomb exploding in the small office!

"A German Schutzstaffel officer, dead in a secret base in the heart of Africa, holding a pistol manufactured in Buenos Aires..."

Though he didn't finish the sentence, the staggering implications were self-evident!

The entire room instantly fell into a deathly silence!

Everyone's eyes widened, and their breathing stopped!

All the previous confusion, bewilderment, and helplessness were instantly split open by a blinding bolt of lightning!

In Lin Feng's mind, that massive world map instantly appeared!

Land transport!

Secret port!

Ocean-going freighter!

A route across the Atlantic Ocean clearly connected the African continent to another place!

A brand new, and currently the only, destination struck everyone's mind like a thunderclap piercing through the mental fog!

Argentina!

"Whoa..." Wang Dalong also realized it and jumped up from the floor, his eyes wide as saucers. "Argentina?! They ran to Argentina?!"

Exactly!

South America, Argentina!

The "safe haven" that took in countless Nazi war criminals and high-ranking officials after World War II!