Berger

A burst of gunfire erupted ahead, and a barrage of bullets shot toward Qin Chuan and the others.

Qin Chuan and Werner immediately dropped to the ground.

Qin Chuan thought to himself that his suspicion had been correct. He had always suspected that the murderer was Berger, and now hearing the sound of an MP40 pretty much confirmed it—Berger was a squad leader and used a submachine gun.

This also showed how cunning Berger was. He could have easily killed his six unarmed soldiers with his submachine gun, but he went to the trouble of grabbing a machine gun and staging the scene to make it look like the soldiers had committed mass suicide. This was all to avoid suspicion falling on him.

Berger's plan was nearly foolproof, especially considering that in the desert, it would be difficult for anyone to find the bodies. Even if someone did find them, they would assume it was a suicide, and wouldn't pay much attention—except for the fact that Qin Chuan and the others happened to be nearby, and the gunshots drew them to the scene.

"Give it up, Berger!" Qin Chuan shouted in the direction of the gunfire. "You can't escape!"

Werner widened his eyes in shock, staring at Qin Chuan. After a moment, he asked, "Is it Berger?"

Qin Chuan didn't answer because there was no need to. Berger's voice came from the other side, saying, "I had no choice. You have to understand!"

"No, you bastard!" Werner cursed. "How could you kill your own men? They trusted you and followed your orders!"

"I had no choice!" Berger replied. "Otherwise, we would all be dead. We only had half a canteen of water left, and that wasn't enough for all of us to make it out! They were going to die anyway, weren't they?"

"Screw you!" Werner shouted angrily, firing a burst of bullets in the direction where Berger was hiding, even though Berger hadn't shown himself and the shots wouldn't hit him.

"Let's just pretend nothing happened," Berger continued after the gunfire stopped. "Then we won't have any conflict, right? We can all make it out alive!"

"You think I'll believe that nonsense?" Qin Chuan sneered. "And then, once we trust you, you'll kill us just like you killed your own men?"

It was clear that once Qin Chuan and the others got out of the desert, they would expose Berger's crimes, so Berger wouldn't let them leave alive.

Qin Chuan kept talking to Berger while signaling to Werner and Keller with his eyes.

Werner and Keller understood, crouching and moving left and right to flank Berger's position.

Berger was about 150 meters away from Qin Chuan. At this distance, it was hard for the MP40 to hit its target (the MP40's effective range was 100 meters), but the K98K could easily inflict damage at a long distance, so Qin Chuan could suppress Berger, who was armed with the MP40, without much difficulty.

However, with Berger hiding behind a sand dune, Qin Chuan couldn't get to him. Qin Chuan couldn't close in on him with the K98K because, in close combat, the K98K wouldn't stand a chance against the fast-firing MP40. So, Qin Chuan decided to keep Berger distracted from the front while the two submachine gunners, Keller and Werner, approached Berger from the side.

But Berger was a seasoned veteran who had been on the battlefield for over two years. He quickly realized what Qin Chuan was up to and immediately used the dunes as cover to escape.

Qin Chuan and the others, of course, didn't let him go, splitting up and chasing him from three directions while firing at him as he ran.

In this kind of pursuit, Berger had a significant advantage. The rolling sand dunes provided him with excellent cover, and the experienced Berger always managed to get behind another dune before Qin Chuan could catch up, rendering Qin Chuan's sniper rifle ineffective.

Keller and Werner didn't dare to chase too fast or too close either, as they couldn't be sure if Berger was waiting behind a dune to ambush them. Dealing with someone as skilled as Berger meant that one careless mistake could leave them dead in the desert.

Just as Qin Chuan and the others were chasing Berger, something new happened—two sidecars came driving toward them from Berger's direction.

"They're our scouts!" Qin Chuan said. "They probably heard the gunshots and came to check it out!"

"Great!" Alfredo said. "We're saved. Berger is finished!"

Qin Chuan shook his head grimly. "I'm afraid not!"

"Aren't we going to sandwich Berger between us?" Alfredo asked, confused by Qin Chuan's words.

"They don't know that Berger is the murderer!" Qin Chuan explained. "They think he's one of us!"

Realizing the situation, Alfredo panicked. "We have to tell them!"

"How?" Qin Chuan asked in frustration. "They're probably already listening to Berger's lies!"

Sure enough, after a short while, the scouts set up their machine gun on the dunes and shouted at Qin Chuan and the others, "Drop your weapons, you bastards, or we won't be so nice!"

Berger was clever. He knew his only chance of survival was to eliminate Qin Chuan and his group, so he played the victim, telling the lead sergeant, "I'm so glad I found you, Sergeant. They were trying to kill me!"

"If they're on our side, why were they chasing you?" the sergeant asked.

"For my water!" Berger patted his canteen and replied pitifully, "God, I can't believe they would do something like this. They already killed six of my men, and I barely escaped…"

"Bastards!" the sergeant cursed, signaling his men to set up their positions on the dunes.

"We're on the same side!" Werner shouted.

"Shut up and drop your weapons!" the sergeant ordered. "Or you're going to regret it!"

"I-I-It's n-not l-like th-that!" Keller tried to explain, but in his nervousness, he couldn't get the words out.

Werner had to finish his sentence for him. "The guy with you is the real murderer. Watch out for him—he killed his own men…"

Before Werner could finish, a burst of machine-gun fire came their way.

The sergeant, growing impatient, said, "Don't try to lie your way out of this. I saw you chasing him! You've got one minute to drop your weapons and surrender!"

Werner was at a loss for words. There was no way to prove their innocence now.

"What do we do, Sergeant?" Werner asked as he crouched down next to Qin Chuan.

"Maybe… we should surrender," Alfredo suggested. "Once we do, we can explain everything!"

"No way!" Qin Chuan and Werner said in unison.

"If we surrender, we'll all end up dead at Berger's hands!" Werner explained. "He'll kill the scouts first, then finish us off… And by then, we'll probably be tied up, unable to do anything but watch it happen!"