afterglow

Chapter 662: Both were attacked; too naive!
"I understand." Gao Huai only replied with two words.

"Make a decision quickly, boss!" someone shouted.

The dazzling white light emitted by the thermite reaction was ten times brighter than the light bulb in the main control room, and the team members' bodies sparkled in the light.

A commando saw the department head's doorplate and decisively kicked the door open and broke in.

He placed a bag of thermite next to the safe in the department head's office, and half of the thick steel plate was melted. He then took out a stack of documents, including a simple floor plan and a complete layout of the Y-12 gaseous diffusion plant.

In the original plan, if the possibility of breaking out is very small, then there would be no need to break out. It would be more courageous to fight a bloody battle with the endless stream of enemies in this factory until the last moment than to be killed while fleeing.

However, Gao Huai was unwilling to give up any hope of survival, and until now he had not completely given up the idea of ​​breaking out.

Because the series of encounters just now made him feel that the military quality of these American soldiers was not high - their marksmanship was extremely poor, and they were slow and clumsy when looking for cover.

It seems that the technical and tactical levels of the military police and engineers cannot compare with those of the infantry units after all.

Gao Huai stretched out his hand and pointed at the diagram, and said in a relaxed tone: "Even if they surround us like this, there will still be air leaks on all sides. Look here, there is a fireproof backup door, let's go through this."

Several commandos immediately went to inform the other two teams, and the rest of the people here left the mess behind and quickly left the unrecognizable main control room.

At this point in the battle, the six or seven commandos who were pinning down the American troops outside the factory had all been killed or wounded. Three people had fallen in the Willys jeep one after another, and the Browning heavy machine gun in the back seat was silent forever.

The gunfire became less frequent, and several hundred American military police and engineers in disorganized formations approached from multiple directions. The pale light from the flares made their shadows very long.

In the darkness of the night, the officers' urgent calls continued to be heard, ordering the soldiers to rush in and eliminate these armed men.

The hastily arriving U.S. troops lacked unified and effective command, with various units mixed together and just firing continuously in general directions.

More than twenty minutes have passed since the battle started, and hundreds of people have still not formed a siege on the factory building, at most they can only half surround it.

At this time, the Ming army commandos filed out from the fire door on the south side of the β workshop of the Y-12 Electromagnetic Separation Plant.

A spot of light was reflected in Gao Huai's eyes, which was a slowly descending flare.

"Get ready...go!"

While one flare was about to go out in the night sky and the next one had not yet taken off, they ran towards the lake in the south as fast as possible.

run! run! run!
If you rush over, you will still have a chance of survival, but if you stay here you will definitely die.

While running towards the steel mesh fence, the surrounding American troops noticed the retreating Ming army commandos.

Suddenly, dense bullets flew like raindrops!
Now there was no need to use pliers to cut it off bit by bit as they did when they infiltrated quietly. A commando threw a bag of explosives with a fuse over. There was a loud bang, and a large section of the tall steel mesh fence was blown open.

Someone was knocked down by a bullet, and his comrades nearby tried to drag him to rescue him, but within a few seconds they were also shot and fell to the ground.

Countless machine gun and pistol bullets whizzed past him, some making sharp, some making dull sounds. The tracer bullets mixed in among them left conspicuous traces of light in the darkness, and after penetrating into the ground they ignited the surrounding grass or bushes.

"Hurry up! If we don't leave now, we will die here! Go!" The wounded commando shouted loudly and waved his hands repeatedly.

But Gao Huai ignored it and instead instructed the other two to go and rescue him.

The commando holding the Winchester automatic rifle stopped firing in short bursts and went straight to full-automatic firing, using up an entire magazine. He then threw a simple smoke bomb with his backhand - actually a glass bottle filled with white phosphorus and kerosene.

He struggled to grab the back of the wounded man's clothes and dragged him away as he backed away.

When they retreated to the shallows by the lake, the commando with blood gushing from his legs shouted to Gao Huai: "Didn't we agree not to save those who were shot?!"

"You have to lend a helping hand when you need to. This is called making decisions on the spot!" the latter laughed disdainfully.

At this moment, an urgent voice came from the walkie-talkie hanging on his chest.

"Captain Gao! We've moved to our positions! Hurry up!"

Just as he finished speaking, sporadic gunshots were heard from the southwest. Several enemies fell to the ground, crying for help miserably.

The support team swam back to the south shore of Lake Melton in advance and now began to shoot at the U.S. troops on the north shore across the narrow lake.

One after another, everyone rushed into the lake with floating objects. Except for two wounded people who quickly died of their injuries, the other two were dragged into the water by their comrades.

Melton Lake is winding and narrow like a snake, with an average width of only over 100 meters. This would be no problem at all under normal circumstances, but it is a piece of cake with the help of floating objects.

But now the enemies were swarming in, and countless bullets made ripples on the lake surface, as if it was raining heavily. The distance of more than 100 meters seemed as long as more than 1,000 meters.

Someone was shot while swimming and drifted away helplessly.

More and more American troops gathered at the north shore of the lake. Looking around, there were dark figures everywhere, like a light strip made up of many small bulbs flashing continuously in the dark night.

After three minutes of life and death, the sixteen survivors finally swam to the south bank one after another.

The strong commandos simply carried the wounded on their shoulders, and the rest of them covered them while fighting and retreating, and thus escaped into the forest.

The group trudged in the dark in the complex and dense forest for nearly half an hour and successfully arrived at the fork in the road.

The few people who stayed behind in the convoy hurriedly greeted them and drove six trucks out of the woods.

"You came early?!" Luo Jiecheng said in surprise, "Hurry up and get in the car."

Gao Huai waved his hand and said, "We don't need so many. Three will be enough. Hurry!"

"Did it work?"

"There were too many machines, so only a few dozen were blown up, but all the equipment in the control room was destroyed."

The commandos drove off the highway and sped along a country dirt road heading southeast.

It is now shortly after midnight, and we must reach the Appalachian Mountains before daybreak.

This famous mountain range in North America is more than 3,000 kilometers long and hundreds of kilometers wide, spanning almost half of the United States from north to south. The entire mountain range is covered by broad-leaved forests, deciduous forests, and coniferous forests. Such mountains are natural hiding places. Intelligence agents firmly believe that the secret base of the nuclear program is under isolated military management. After being attacked, they cannot directly notify the nearby state and county police stations to participate in the pursuit. They probably have to report first and then issue instructions step by step, which will buy more time for themselves.

After abandoning the vehicle, the commandos crossed two rivers in succession and walked towards the foot of the mountain carrying carefully selected important supplies. Although everyone was extremely tired at this time, everyone tried their best to persevere.

There is no shortage of prey in the mountains, including grouse, coyotes, wild boars, trout, crucian carp, etc., so the important supplies are mostly various medicines and batteries that will be difficult to replenish in the future.

The sky in the east was turning pale and it was daybreak.

The Y-12 Electromagnetic Separation Plant was still emitting a faint smoke of gunpowder, and the Willys GP jeep at the west gate of the plant was riddled with bullet holes and covered in blood.

The places where fierce fighting took place at night were blocked and controlled by armed American military police. They took photos of every body of the warring parties and attached detailed descriptions.

Lieutenant Colonel Clifford, commander of the 107th Military Police Regiment, rushed over from the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant in the west and scolded several officers as soon as they met.

"Come on, show me what kind of attacker made you look as funny as Boy Scout camp."

"Lieutenant Colonel... We can confirm that they are commandos sent by the Chinese, not ordinary agents."

Lieutenant Colonel Clifford discovered that the camouflage uniforms worn by the Ming army commandos were very crude, and their shape and pattern were different from the Ming army's standard uniforms. They looked homemade.

As for weapons, they are all genuine American-made guns, including the fifty-round drum version of the Thompson submachine gun favored by gangsters, the acclaimed Remington shotgun, the inexpensive Winchester automatic rifle, and the ubiquitous Smith & Wesson revolver.

The military police major at the side said solemnly: "They must have infiltrated the country in a dispersed manner and then purchased weapons through various channels."

"They used bombs to destroy the equipment, Lieutenant Colonel, these are some explosives we found." The bespectacled engineer lieutenant saluted, holding a bag of explosives in each hand, both in a half-disassembled state.

"Off-white powder, I think this is mineral explosives, which are often used in mines." The lieutenant colonel looked at the explosives in his right hand and said uncertainly: "This red one may be thermite?"

"That's right, sir."

In fact, what amazed everyone even more was the two infrared night vision goggles abandoned by the commando support team.

News about night vision goggles often circulates in the military. The US military has developed several types of night vision goggles, for carbines, anti-tank guns, and tanks. Although they all have certain practical value, no large orders have ever been placed to this day.

As a result, these attackers actually used the limited conditions to make their own usable night vision goggles?
The soldiers found that the two were not damaged, their batteries were just exhausted, and they could still work normally if replaced with batteries of the same voltage.

"At least 100 separators were damaged, and 70% of the control boxes in the central control room were destroyed. This is a carefully planned smell. The Chinese must have known clear intelligence to send out such an elite team." Lieutenant Colonel Clifford asked the adjutant again: "Has the warning message to other bases been sent out?"

Just then, an intelligence officer hurried over by car.

As soon as he got out of the car, he rushed to Lieutenant Colonel Clifford and whispered, "Bad news, Lieutenant Colonel, Los Alamos has also been attacked."

Compared to this commando team's cautious infiltration raid, another commando team at the Umbrella Materials Company in New Mexico was much more rough.

They modified five trucks with steel plates for enhanced protection. Two of them were loaded with gasoline barrels and ammonium nitrate explosives for mining, and the other three were equipped with machine gun mounts in the carriages and loaded with a Mexican-made Hotchkiss heavy machine gun.

This was also a last resort, because there was really no way to get the standard heavy machine guns of the US military, so they managed to get a few Hotchkiss heavy machine guns and Mendoza light machine guns from their southern neighbor.

In the dark night, under the cover of intensive fire from three machine gun trucks, two explosives trucks rushed straight towards the town.

The American military police, who had the advantage in numbers, were suppressed by the torrential hail of bullets and could not even raise their heads. Moreover, the light weapons they were equipped with were unable to intercept the trucks that were equipped with steel plates and were forcibly impacting them.

At the critical moment, two half-track vehicles accelerated and rushed forward to stop one of the trucks, and injured the other one with heavy machine guns.

After the violent explosion, the burst gasoline barrels splashed gasoline all around, causing a fire. Many wooden houses were ablaze, and flares and billowing flames illuminated the town as if it were daytime.

This commando team of more than 30 people insisted on engaging in a firefight with the garrison in Los Alamos and fought to the death.

The fierce shooting lasted from midnight to the early morning of the next day. Except for a few who broke through and retreated, most of the people were killed.

In the raid that night, two scientists involved in the Manhattan Project were killed and one was seriously injured.

Chemist Harold Urey died from inhaling toxic gases in the fire; physicist Ernest Lawrence was hit by a jeep driven by US military police while trying to escape, suffering multiple fractures and contusions all over his body.

After the operation was completed, an agent lurking in the dark activated the silent backup communication channel and reported the general situation.

【Picture】

The principle of electromagnetic separation of uranium raw materials is to use the different deflections of charged particles of different masses in the magnetic field to separate uranium isotopes.

This method was inefficient, but the Americans, with the idea that every possible solution would work, still started to build an electromagnetic separation plant. More than a thousand separators made from more than 10,000 tons of silver could only concentrate a few grams a day, while the total amount required was 50 to 60 kilograms.

Therefore, when the gaseous diffusion method was determined to be used for enrichment, the Americans went on to build gaseous diffusion plants.

After a brief assessment, the action report was submitted to the cabinet and the emperor, and the Intelligence Department of the Grand Governor-General's Office made a more conservative inference - depending on the situation, the US nuclear program would be delayed by one to four months.

The cabinet and several court officials held a short meeting in Wenhua Hall.

"The specific results will depend on how they deal with it. Using a small number to defeat a large number, the results of the attack will not be great, but it will inevitably arouse internal suspicion, and such investigation work will waste time." Minister of War Li Gangqiao stated.

"Of course, the United States cannot escape this vicious circle. Many of their scientific masters are still left-wing empaths, so they are inevitably guarded against." Liao Zihe held a cigarette and took out a lighter to light it.

Yu Shenhua flipped through the files, glanced at everyone and said, "If there is no special need to respond to the foreign affairs inquiry, then just evade it as usual."

"No need to explain too much, let them guess."

"Okay, as your Excellency says."

"Jinrong, has the bottom line proposed by the US changed recently?" Liao Zihe looked at Yu Shenhua and asked.

The latter shook his head slightly and replied, "It's still the same, but there are senators who advocate peace and advocate that both sides make concessions. They are now arguing fiercely."

"What do you mean by each side taking a step back? Don't want Hawaii anymore?" Hearing this, Lin Xi was surprised at first, then he laughed and complained: "Which naive senator proposed this? If I agree to this, I'm afraid I'll lose my life in a few days."

(End of this chapter)