Mercenary’s War

Hearing what Said said, Gao Yang was quietly pleased; he knew Grand Ivan’s deal was basically in the bag.

He was happy, but he couldn’t show it on his face. Gao Yang pondered for a moment, then put on a very troubled look and said, "If we can get Russian self-propelled artillery, that would certainly be much better. But how long would it take to ship a batch of self-propelled guns from Iran? And the matching shells, support vehicles, ammo carriers... Let’s go by the configuration for six self-propelled guns. How long will it take to get that whole package from Iran?"

Said thought for a moment, then immediately put on a look of steeling himself for a big decision and said, "It won’t take too long. The guns don’t need to sail from Iran; we have special channels that can get them here quickly. Fastest, within a week; at the latest, just ten days. I guarantee I can get you the guns!"

Now that sounded reliable.

Looked like Said, or the Iranian intelligence service behind him, really did have cooperation with Grand Ivan; otherwise he wouldn’t dare talk like that.

Loading an artillery company’s worth of self-propelled guns in Iran and putting them to sea wouldn’t take too long. The key is the layers of approval, then pulling the guns out of an army depot—that’s the headache. A month might still not be enough, and Iran’s notoriously sluggish bureaucracy doesn’t exactly help.

For Said to promise the guns within ten days, he had to be getting them from arms dealers. Arms dealers are much more efficient: as long as the money’s right, they can be as fast as you want. After all, arms dealers ignore all the rules.

Getting the big guns so easily meant Gao Yang’s initial objective was done. But he couldn’t just take the artillery and call it a day; he’d brought missile troopers along, and Grand Ivan had only given him six missiles. What the hell was he supposed to do with that?

Gao Yang said weakly, "Just the artillery still isn’t quite enough. After all, Aden has already been completely occupied by the Gulf Cooperation Council Allied Forces. We can’t possibly storm into Aden City to hit their command posts, can we? And the guns’ range is still too short. Using ballistic missiles would be much better. We brought six missiles; even if all of them launch properly, the tactical effect is limited. We can go to Aden, but once the missiles are spent, we’ll have to see how things stand then."

Abdullah smiled and said, "We did capture some ballistic missiles, more than thirty in total. You can use all of them."

Gao Yang gave a wry smile. "It’s not that I’m being picky, but what’s the maintenance status of those missiles? Can they even be used? And even if they can, can they achieve the expected effect?"

After he finished, Gao Yang looked at Said, then, with a clear "I’m dragging you into this with me" attitude, said, "How about we conduct a joint operation? Your country can completely afford to provide some surface-to-surface missiles. Your surface-to-surface missile tech is pretty good, and it’s been tested in combat. If your side could provide a missile unit..."

Said didn’t even let Gao Yang finish before saying, very firmly, "I’m afraid that’s not really possible."

Iran did have plenty of ballistic missiles, but whether they were willing to provide Iranian-made missiles to the Houthis Armed Forces was another question entirely, because the political impact was too big.

The Houthis Armed Forces could fire Frog missiles, Scud Missiles, or Tochka missiles, that was all fine, because those had already proliferated widely. Even if the Houthis Armed Forces used them, you couldn’t definitively point to which country supplied them. And even if the whole world knew Iran was supporting the Houthis Armed Forces, that was one thing; but the Houthis Armed Forces couldn’t be using Iranian missiles to fight.

Iran and Saudi Arabia were mortal enemies, but it still wasn’t time to rip off the mask and pull the dagger. Proxy wars were fine; direct involvement by both sides was not. So Iran could not roll out its own missiles; that would be tantamount to providing evidence to the world that they were personally in the war. At least for now, that was out of the question.

Once Said said it was impossible, Gao Yang immediately pulled a very regretful face and said, "Then that’s really a pity. We won’t be able to go to Aden, because there really isn’t much point."

Abdullah let out a faint sigh, while Said said with great confidence, "Mr. Petram, please don’t rush. We can’t dispatch a missile unit to take part in the fighting, but that doesn’t mean we can’t provide missiles. You want Russian guns; I imagine you also need Russian missiles. We can provide ballistic missiles to you. We can’t confirm the model yet, but rest assured, it will be more than enough for your use."

Looked like he couldn’t dodge this anymore. Gao Yang glanced at Salim, hesitated for a moment, then finally waved his hand and said, "All right then, I can go to Aden. We’ll go once everything’s ready."

Since there was nothing left to haggle over, he might as well be straightforward. Gao Yang showed a very strong soldierly style, even though he still looked a bit reluctant.

Abdullah said with genuine emotion, "Thank you so much, Mr. Petram. Your help is extremely valuable to us."

Said also said in a low voice, "Thank you."

Salim said nothing.

Gao Yang exhaled and waved his hand, then turned to Said and said, "Mr. Sanjani, although Lavagani and I did have a minor unpleasantness, as you know, we got along quite well afterwards. Maybe that’s just the way friendship works between men. I’d like to ask, do you know how Lavagani’s recovery is going now?"

Said inclined his head slightly and said, "On behalf of Lavagani, thank you for asking. He’s recovering very well. After returning home he received the treatment he deserved. His unyielding conduct has earned him great respect; he even got promoted because of it. In a way, this is all thanks to you. More than once, he’s asked me to convey his greetings and thanks to you."

Gao Yang nodded repeatedly. "That’s good, that’s good. Now I can stop worrying. Do you know if Lavagani can move around normally now? I’m really looking forward to seeing him again."

Said smiled and said, "He went through tremendous suffering and has had many skin-graft surgeries. Just last week, all his operations were finally completed, and his ordeal is basically over. But the chance of Lavagani ever coming back to Yemen is gone, since he’s exposed now. However, Mr. Petram, both he and I sincerely invite you to visit Iran in a private capacity. Believe me, you will definitely receive a warm welcome and hospitality from him and all of our colleagues."

Gao Yang let out a hearty laugh, then said, "If I have the time I’ll definitely go. But before that, please pass along my greetings and best wishes to Lavagani—wish him a speedy recovery, and that he can return to work as soon as possible."

While he was cozying up to Said by talking about Lavagani, Gao Yang was secretly sighing to himself. He hadn’t expected that Lavagani would actually come out ahead from a disaster. Not being disgraced was a given—he really had become a byword for "unyielding." But not only had he not been punished, he’d even been promoted because of it. Who knew what position he held now; maybe in the future this bit of goodwill could still bring some benefits.

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