For residents of stable countries such as Europe, Africa, and Asia, the Middle East will always be associated with chaos, war, refugees or terrorists.
In fact, regardless of the above labels, the environment in the Middle East is absolutely beautiful.
The area along the Mediterranean Sea is comfortable and pleasant. It can be called the real blue sea and blue sky, the turquoise and clear ocean, and the clear sky.
Otherwise, people would not have discovered ancient cities and ruins with a history of five thousand years in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey.
The weather in Beirut today is comfortable and sunny, and the temperature is about 11 or 2 degrees Celsius.
At the northernmost port of Beirut, you can see many cargo ships docked.
Workers at the port are busy driving forklifts and cranes to unload or load goods.
However, cruise ships in civilian ports are very rare.
After all, countries including Lebanon are indeed in chaos. Even if tourists know that the environment here is beautiful, they don’t dare to come there easily.
At this time.
A cruise ship with a route around the Mediterranean coast is slowly sailing into a civilian port.
Put down passenger and freight elevators.
Workers who have been waiting for a long time use the cargo elevator to carry daily necessities to the cruise ship.
People who have been on the ship for a long time disembark through the passenger elevator, visit around the port, rest and dine.
The cruise ship is only docked for half a day, so guests and workers are hurrying up.
However, there are also boat passengers whose destination is Beirut, and they will leave separately after getting off the boat.
This also includes Lyon.
With parted blond hair, she wore a thin black jacket, sand-colored overalls and military boots, and carried a military green backpack on one shoulder.
After leaving the cruise ship and walking out of the port, Lyon looked around and carefully observed this city with a strong Middle Eastern style.
Finally, Lyon focused his attention on a red coupe.
He quickly approached, came to the car and knocked on the passenger window.
After the driver lowered the window, Leon asked in somewhat broken Arabic: "Yada... Khanbu (are you leaving)?"
The middle-aged male driver, wearing a red and white checkered turban and a thick beard, looked at Lyon up and down and replied in very standard English:
"Get in the car."
"Thank you." Seeing that the other party could speak English, Leon opened the door and got in the passenger seat.
"Where are you going?" the driver asked while starting the engine, shifting the gear and releasing the handbrake.
"Go to the US Air Force base outside Beirut." Lyon pointed to the southeast.
After the vehicle started driving into the street, the driver held the steering wheel with his left hand, stretched out his index and middle fingers on his right hand and gestured to Lyon: "A beautiful knife."
"Ha~!" However, Leon showed an expression like "Don't bluff me" and said: "One hundred, otherwise I will get off now, don't think I don't know the market here!"
The driver noticed that Leon seemed a bit difficult to kill, and immediately said angrily: "One hundred and three, otherwise I won't be able to get my money back, and you are still going to the US military base!"
"Deal." Leon agreed readily.
Driver: "..."
The rest of the journey was speechless.
Lyon is a good place to be quiet and enjoy the unique architecture of Beirut.
When the vehicle drives out of the city and into the suburbs, it is greeted by endless desert scenery.
Now Lyon has become a regular employee and is no longer the "internship rookie" he was before.
Moreover, Lyon has unique experience in taking taxis.
Ordinary drivers really can't fool him. He is no longer the same Lyon who spent 77 euros on a taxi from the airport to the Venice police station.
Although the company gave him enough travel subsidies, he could save whatever he could. After all, it was the company's money.
Although he still doesn't know why his superiors never let him touch the company's transportation, he is used to it.
Come to the suburbs.
Crossing the desert.
During the drive, Lyon also saw many times U.S. military convoys that were patrolling or performing other tasks.
After about half an hour, the air force base located on the south side of the road gradually came into view of Lyon.
When they were only about one kilometer away from the base in a straight line, they encountered a checkpoint set up by the US military on the road, forcing Lyon to check out and get off the bus.
The driver turned around and headed back, while Leon walked towards the US military checkpoint.
"Stop! Please keep your current posture and don't move, and accept our inspection!"
Before he even got close, a heavily armed U.S. Marine Corps clenched the gun in his hand and shouted a reminder to Lyon.
Seeing this, Leon also shouted back: "cia!"
Seeing that Lyon took the initiative to reveal his identity, and that there were already several "cias" in the base, the Marine immediately stepped forward:
"Show me your ID."
"Okay." Leon took out the relevant documents from his pocket and handed them to the other party.
After receiving the certificate, the Marine Corps reported Lyon's information to the base, and soon received the order to release him.
The Marine Corps then returned the certificate to Lyon, and asked his comrades to drive a Hummer to take Lyon to a base not far away.
————————
…
13:02.
The border junction between Lebanon and Syria.
Angel Air Force Base, United States.
Base command building, a small combat conference room.
"Gentlemen, there is an emergency situation in a town called Sheheba, 80 kilometers south of Damascus, the capital of Syria."
A U.S. Army lieutenant colonel in his fifties stood at the front of the conference room, speaking to everyone present with a very serious face.
On the soft screen on the left hand side of the lieutenant colonel is a satellite aerial view of each area marked.
Among the more than 20 people sitting here, more than half are Green Beret lieutenants in the U.S. Army, and the other six are "cias" in civilian clothes.
Lyon is also among them.
In fact, the Red Queen immediately detected that the US military here had encountered changes.
So she immediately intercepted the U.S. military's report to her superiors and pretended to be her superiors to communicate with the U.S. military.
As a result of the exchange, CIA investigators disguised as intelligence officers were first dispatched to assist the US military in the investigation.
The identities of Lyon and others are said to be disguises, but in fact they have been entered into the American filing system by the Red Queen.
Before the Red Queen confirmed the details of this anomaly and took the initiative to delete the information of Lyon and others, they were all "genuine" CIA investigators.
The lieutenant colonel paused and continued: "According to the report, Sheheba was shrouded in thick fog last night.
However, early this morning, after two Marine patrol convoys entered Sheheba to perform security maintenance tasks as usual, they lost contact with the base one after another.
Until now, we have not seen any civilians or marines walking out of the thick fog, and no electronic detection equipment can allow us to spy on Sheheba's situation.
Therefore, the main task of the berets is to protect the investigators sent by the CIA into Sheheba to collect intelligence, and the secondary task is to find and rescue the two Marines who have lost contact."