"We'll try to buy you some time, I guess," Blake replies before turning to Ops. "But the best way I know to do that is get off this road and cut through bat country, if you know what I mean."
"Will that still get us to Surinameplein?"
"There'll be some sharp turns. Take the next right."
Ops frowns. "I think I've seen this before."
"Probably in the news. Plane crashed into some high-rises in the 90s."
"I hope you're not counting on a repeat."
"No. Sharp turn left, here."
There's a screech as Ops takes the 90-degree turn 15 mph fast. "What are you counting on, then?"
"Our friends not wanting to attract attention from the Hopi Boys. Or the Kloekhorststraat Gang."
"Bat country," Ops mutters. ""Are we cutting through their turf?"
Blake leans forward, watching the surroundings. "Based on the graffiti, I'd say we're skirting around it. This right, here."
"Now we're cutting through."
"No, the cops are more thorough in this section. Football stars live here," Blake replies.
Mason calls back. "We've got someone in the Bollard system, and we're on our way. Where do you want them?"
"Just off of Curacaostraat, please. We'll be there in..." Blake checks his watch. "About a minute. Let you know when."
There's a few more twists and tight turns, but Blake guides the car through the worst of the minefield. The SUV starts to dominate in the rearview as they put the Bijlmermeer behind them, however.
"Take the next left." Blake dials Mason's burner. "Are you in position?"
"Yeah. Ready?"
"Not yet. We need to get clear first." Blake gives Ops a nod.
They pull into the lane, Ops punching the gas as hard as she can. The SUV does the same. They both rocket through the lane, but the SUV has the advantage now, and is gaining. Blake can make out facial features in the windshield-
Which makes the impact with the bollard all the sweeter. Blake hears it go up, sees a bit of it shoot up in front of the SUV's grille. The faces rocking forward into the deploying airbags.
Then Ops takes a hard swerve, and brings the car around. Mason, still on the phone with the other hacker, and Tim are already in flanking position nearby, van between them and the SUV's crew. The SUV is smoking from the block, hood popped out of place. The operatives inside, groaning and grumbling, are slow to respond, or even open the doors - doubtless they all took a tumble when they hit the bollard.
"Go!" Mason shouts - Tim and Mason rush at the driver's side of the SUV, while Blake and Operations, having quickly dismounted and drawn their respective weapons, hit the passenger side.
"GET OUT OF THE CAR!"
"HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!"
"HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!"
"DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!"
Stunned as they are from the accident, it's just a matter of wrenching the doors open (thank you modern safety design) and pulling the disoriented passengers out and shoving them face first to the pavement. Two of them are pretty out of it, one - with a very conspicuous bullet hole in his leg - is unconscious, with the driver being the only one with it enough to really struggle, but a quick bounce of his head off the pavement fixes that.
As the others quickly strip weapons and ziptie the mercs and their driver, Mason catches his breath and breaks out his burner again, dialing the number of the cop he chatted up at the tower crime scene - though he doubts he's the first one to call the cops on this little scene.
The phone rings a few times until she picks up, chatter in the back. "Yeah? Can I call you back?"
"I have them," Mason says. "Corner of Crynssen and Van Rensselaer. They're secured and ready for you."
There's some wind rustle as the cop turns away from the phone and shouts something in Dutch at her colleagues (?). "Say that again, you got them? The bastards who shot up the tower?"
"We do," Mason says.
"Fuck," the cop says. "Okay, stay there! Don't move, don't let them get away. I'm coming to you...me and a couple of friends."
Mason hangs up the phone.
"Cops are on their way - let's search these idiots, get copies of any ID, and then you all get out of sight. I'll wait here."
"Excellent," Operations says, then turns to Blake. "Can you take the wheel again? We need to get gone right now."
"You got the patdown?" Laith says to Tim. "I'll get their biometrics."
Tim nods and rolls the mercs. They don't have any ID - the black ops equivalent of being able to dress yourself - but the driver has a fake license. Tim nabs it, thinking whoever made it for them might be a lead. He notes "blood type" tattoos all in the same style, so... single unit, probably. There's a wolf tattoo covering a FAST-1 scar, makes them US military. Tim confiscates handcuff keys and a boot knife before noting their rifles are fancy-pants HK433 trials weapons. He wordlessly points that out to Mason and Blake.
The time has come to once again deass the area with the quickness. After a quick last-minute photo and prints session, the team sans Mason retreats.
Scant minutes later, several cop cars roll up and surround the scene - lights, no sirens. Mason notes Lady Cop and a half dozen of her friends - together with some KMar operators.
"Come with us, it's time you answered some questions, " Lady Cop tells him, while KMar moves to re-secure the mercs.
"Which station are we going to?" Mason asks. "My friends are going to a few different ones, it'd be good to let them know where I'll be."
"Nieuw West Noord," Lady Cop says. "And then you're going to tell us who you are and how you pulled this off."
"You don't mind if I call this in, then?" Mason asks.
Lady Cop shrugs. "Yeah, sure, make your report," she says. "Red tape's the same all over, huh?"
"Indeed it is," Mason replies, pulls out a burner, and dials Operations. "Local police are taking me to Nieuw West Noord for a few questions."
"Figured that would happen when you said you'd stay behind," Operations says. "We're putting together a mask now, give us ten minutes to get it into their systems. Did you think of a name in the meantime?"
"Yeah, tell Stef to file it under Heimans," Mason replies.
"Got it," Operations says. "Oh, and Mason? Don't fuck this up. I hate jailbreaks."
"They just have a few questions for me," Mason replies. "And I have a few for them. Can you make sure whatever you find gets forwarded to the station?"
"Sure thing, Agent Heimans," Operations says.
"Send it care of..." Mason says, giving the lady cop a look.
"Hesselink," Lady Cop says. A glance at her shoulders tells Mason to add a "Senior Constable" to that.
"Senior Constable Hesselink," Mason says, and hangs up.
Mason looks over at Constable Hesselink. "Is this your show, Constable?"
"No, it's obviously yours," she says. "But someone has to play stage manager, and I figured we could leave the brass out of it until we have some basic answers."
"Then whisk me off stage left," Mason says.
"With pleasure."
A short drive later, the small convoy of cop cars ends up at a police station. Quite an impression is left on a pair of frightened tourists as the cops, Mason and KMar march into the place with the cuffed mercenaries; the desk sergeant's pleas fall on deaf ears as interview rooms and holding cells are commandeered and two of the KMar operators take position outside the secure tract. Lady Cop - Senior Constable Hesselink - leads Mason into a different direction, up a flight of stairs, down a hallway and into something between a bullpen and an office, with four desks, one of which seems to be hers to judge from the nameplate on it. She motions for Mason to pull up a chair, then sinks down into her own.
She runs a hand through her ponytailed hair. "Okay," she begins, picking up a notepad and a pen. "From the start, Mr. - Heimans, was it? Who are you, who do you work for, what's your involvement in this case?"
(Hesselink will quickly try to confirm Mason's identity against the police database. Cover ID vs difficulty 3 to convince her you work for the Dutch government in some relevant capacity.)
---
"Alright," Operations says. "That parking garage, over there."
Both the slightly worse for wear rental and the van pull into the structure, and as your cell phone signals (and presumably, the extracted laptop tracker) go dark deep inside the concrete box, everyone exits for a quick team huddle.
"Okay, boys," Operations says. "The laptop's coming with me back to the safehouse. You boys take the car and the tracker, put on a little guided tour around the city, see if anyone else shows up to this party. If they do, take care of them. I'll call you with more instructions when we're safe."
"You're using them as decoys?" Laith comments.
Operations shoots him a frosty look. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing," she says, "and they can handle it. First round will be on me tonight, but first we have to secure the primary objective, Agent."
"Alright, alright," Laith says.
"Any other questions?" Operations asks Blake and Tim.
"My name is Stef Heimans, I work for ABP in the accountancy department, and I was asked to investigate the attack on the apartment to ensure that none of the attackers had committed fraud against the pension system," Mason replies.
Hesselink raises an eyebrow at that, but gamely taps that into the system. "...Stef Heimans," she reads off the screen. "You have an up-to-date IFAC certification...but never graduated high school." More taps. "Your ID number doesn't exist." More taps. "Also, you're clearly over 40 but there's no record of you being registered for the draft - not even rejected." She looks at Mason. "What the hell is this?"
"A written reprimand for someone in the very near future," Mason replies.
"Okay, let's just cut the crap, please," Hesselink says. "You're not Stef Heimans. Fine, Mr. X will do. You work for...someone important, and I guess I won't get anything else out of you on that. But can you at least tell me why you're really here?"
"There are reliable reports of multiple paramilitary multinational organizations operating in Amsterdam this week," Mason replies. "One of them obtained a Russian remote tank drone and intended to use it to attack the Rememberance Day ceremonies."
The color drains from Hesselink's face. "...and then..."
"There was also a laptop that was tracked from New Delhi to Amsterdam that was in possession of that group that a second group attempted to steal earlier today," Mason continues.
Hesselink says nothing, and writes nothing down, either. She just nods slowly.
"Investigations are ongoing as to the identity of these groups and any further intentions in the Netherlands," Mason concludes. "Any further questions?"
"No...no, I...I think that's...all I need to hear," Hesselink says. "Look, uh, I didn't...didn't see you. None of us did." She hands over her notepad - not just the page she scribbled on, the whole thing. "I'll just delete the browser history on this, too. You just go out, down the stairs, take a right and walk out the back, and it'll be like...like we never met." She looks pleadingly at Mason. "That's...that's okay, right?"
"If you could forward anything you find out about our friends in holding to my ABP email address, that would be greatly appreciated," Mason says.
"...o...okay," Hesselink says. "Sure. You just...this is not gonna come back to bite me, right? I mean...Sir...I'm just doing my job."
"On the contrary," Mason says. "You've done an exemplary job, Senior Constable." He takes a look down at the page of the notepad she was using for the interview to see what was on it. The notepad reads, in total: "Heimans", "ABP?????" and a few dots where Hesselink obviously nervously tapped the tip of the pen against the pad.
Mason stands up. "I will share any relevant information about the men in your custody when it becomes available. Relax, Constable. You're about to have a career-making day."
"If it's all the same to you, I'll settle for a day without any more gunfights," Hesselink says.
"I make no promises," Mason says, flipping her notebook shut and giving her a nod. "Constable."
"Sir," Hesselink says, returning the nod, then turns to the computer to start cleaning up her search history.
On his way out, Mason checks his phone and looks over the images Tim sent him from the men now in Amsterdam police custody. Gear can be bought and sold, but Mason's seen more than enough military tattoos, and the brief glance he got doesn't let of him until he finally makes the connection - they're the work of "Jorge", a broer-than-bro Puerto Rican artist who used to ply his trade in Columbus, Georgia for two glorious years before he went into the clink for possession with intent to sell. So unless he's done those guys up while they were all serving time, they were stationed at Fort Benning around 2006 to 2008-ish, probably before they deployed. Harder to tell whether they're no-shit Regiment, washouts or mere mortals, but the first would explain some of their skills and also seriously narrow the search parameters. Mason sends a text in reply: "recognize the ink, check Benning around the surge".
Dare we say it: your career as decoys is...uneventful.
Well, except for that moment on the highway when you hear the drone of a motorcycle engine behind you, and look to your left to see Valentina de Silva(?) on her bike in her getup; she turns her head towards your car to give Tim a glance, quickly mimes tapping a watch on her wrist, then speeds off again. Oh, and Mason absolutely positively has to take an iPhone picture of three young Dutch girls sticking out their tongues to their parents(?) while standing in front of a coffeeshop. Really. They would not budge on Mason doing the honors.
But other than that, uneventful. And when the all-clear comes about twenty minutes later, it includes an address: the vaunted CIA safehouse.
---
Or should we say, safe-barge?
The route to Nieuwendammerham takes you over the IJ, Amsterdam's waterfront, and into an industrial area. Next to a 70s-chic company HQ plattenbau with its attendant parking lot, a large "office" barge with an aquamarine-colored deck is anchored at the nearest canal. You pull the car into a nearby factory building to park, where the van is already hidden, then make your way onto the barge.
"Boys," Operations greets you inside one of the "offices" in the bowels of the barge, one of those places that kills your cellphone signal - intentionally, this time. Collection of electronics is taken one more time before she nods to Laith, who does the tappy-tappy computer magic thing and brings up a quartet of pictures and service records. They bear an uncanny similarity to the mercs and their driver.
"Hoi Yan, would you do the honors," Operations says.
"Uh, okay," Hoi Yan's voice comes over the speaker of the conference system. "Connor James Clayton, Dravin Walker, Elroy Macdonald, and their driver, Dana Lamb."
"Clayton sounds familiar," Operations says.
"There was a pretty high-profile court martial," Hoi Yan says. "2011, he was accused of having murdered an Iraqi civilian he claimed was a functionary in the Ba'ath party. There were rumors that some enterprising Army officers were running 'kill-teams' off the books to handle Iraqis with certain...affiliations. Clayton was one of the alleged trigger-pullers then; Walker and Macdonald probably knew about it but didn't say a peep, either. 75th Regiment, lived and breathed Airborne, all 'good soldiers' with a twisted understanding of loyalty. The prosecution couldn't flip any of them, the evidence was thin, so the Army settled for manslaughter for Clayton, dishonorable and five years in Leavenworth - and he managed to get even that tossed out on appeal because the original evidence had gone walkabout since."
"Brilliant," Operations says. "Walker and Macdonald?"
"Didn't reup," Hoi Yan says. "We picked up some chatter that all three of them had left the States together sometime in 2013 for a contracting gig in Mali. We're trying to confirm that. Anyway, Lamb is ex-DEA, fired for cause over embezzlement charges. We have a more extensive profile on him, apparently he's a...wow. Was ordered into therapy for compulsive gambling, which he ended up not completing. Ongoing general therapy for unspecified reasons. And a course in anger management - he completed that. Wife filed for divorce in 2015. Ah, get this, Lamb was also in the Regiment - but got medboarded out of the Army in 2008 over psychological issues that developed after he was in a vehicle accident."
"Might be TBI," Operations says. "Okay, put them on our diplo shortlist. Not worth extracting, but if there's any chance we might convince the Dutch to let them serve their sentences on US soil - you know, compassionate extradition."
"We'll forward it to State," Hoi Yan says.
Just then, the door to the SCIF opens, and Agent Abbing enters.
"Please excuse the interruption," Abbing says, "but I received a call to our local emergency number, coming from a hospital." She looks directly at Operations. "The call was placed by your agent, Luc."
"Son of a -" Operations says. "Okay, boys, gear up. Which hospital?"
"There is the problem," Abbing says.
"Of course," Operations mutters.
"He is at the OLVG as 'John Doe', under police watch," Abbing says. "Apparently, he was found unconscious - next to the dead body of Agent Coemans."
"Okay," Operations says.
"Okay?" Abbing asks. "What do you mean, okay?"
"Okay as in 'well, that's too bad'," Operations says. "Whatever happened, Agent Coemans isn't getting any deader and Luc knows better than to give the cops anything useful. He'll be fine in the hospital for a night. That'll give us time to lick our own wounds and come up with a plan, rather than rush into more problems."
"But we're losing time!" Abbing says.
"No, we're prioritizing," Operations says. "This is a Wildcard op, Agent Abbing. Do I need to spell it out for you? Agent Coemans's death is not our business. Retrieving our agent is, but that happens at our tempo - we're having to do enough rushing as is." She turns to Laith. "Where are we on cloning the harddrive?"
"Done," Laith says. "Pulling secondary copies now. We can proceed with the laptop."
"Good to see something's working out for us," Operations says. "Agent Abbing, why don't you check in with our guest, Mr. Singh?"
Abbing says nothing more, just turns and leaves the SCIF in a huff. As she slams the door behind her, Laith whistles.
"We're not coming back here, are we?" he asks.
"No, we're not," Operations says, then hands over the USB drive to Laith. "Let's take a peek."
Laith plugs the USB drive into the laptop and boots it up. The screen is a fast-moving jumble of text, but it pauses long enough on a "Decrypting..." prompt to see that the drive was indeed the key - or rather, a checksum across all the "decoy" data on it is.
"Looks like a hardened custom Linux distro," Laith opines, and as the laptop finishes booting, it dumps straight into a video - black background, a white silhouette logo of crossed scimitars with "Brothers In Faith - Struggle To Renew Islam" in Arabic written underneath. An obviously synthetic male voice begins talking in Urdu over the static image.
"Peace be with you, Your Excellency Commander Singh. Be assured that we have come to you in friendship to further a common cause, the cause of all righteous Muslims. The defense and renewal of Islam must not rest with a handful of children masking their lust for power with posturing about their descent. We believe as you do, that there can be no caliphate among capitalist nations, no battle of yesteryear against the forces of today. To assist you in fighting the struggle of today, we have provided you this toybox of weapons we acquired from the unbelievers, so that you can beat them at their own game and use their strength against them. We pray for your victory. God is great."
"...the fuck was that?" Laith mumbles as the video stops and makes way to the UI proper, which has clearly been locked down and simplified to the point that it's not much fancier than a fullscreen browser window. In there, aside from the RoI logo as shown in the video, it lists several categories: funds, contacts, weapons, information.
Laith clicks into each category in turn; funds contains hundreds of gift card codes (probably for use as untraceable bribes), stolen credit cards en masse as well as bank account and hedge fund passwords for serious cash injections. Contacts leads to an instant messenger client with a preloaded list of several dozen Darknet addresses. Weapons contains - Laith can't help but gasp - a program to create various types of military grade malware, as well as something that purports to interface with a radio transmitter to disrupt and even control UAVs with direct line of sight. And finally, Information contains a shitton of documents apparently stolen from the Pakistani military - including what it claims are security protocols and PAL codes for their nuclear weapons. It's not exactly armageddon in a box, but it's a damn sight closer than anything else you've seen out in the wild.
"We give them printouts of the manifests, scrub the accounts off the funds, redact the sensitive information," Mason says. "It's enough that they know what's in it - if they want more, they have to come and play in our sandbox." Mason pauses. "And by that I mean a SCIF and a strip search. If Tim's not comfortable meeting his friend-with-benefits, I have a contact I can leverage. He's in town."
Blake tries to write something down in his little notebook, then scratches it out angrily. Staring at the screen for a beat, he narrows his eyes and scribbles:
Drama queen
pontificates in dyed bedsheets
a Halloween costume
But the Sword in hand
alights with a single word
Fire
"It's a good plan," Blake muses as he shuts the book with one hand and slips it back in his pocket. "And while we get that prepared, we can also interview the guy we took from Varayev's apartment. If he is the burned asset, we might be able to learn more about our new frenemy."
Only after he's left the room, later, does he add:
(Blake spends a point of Interrogate to squeeze the henchman for intel)
So, here's what a friendly chat with a nervous Chechen will get you:
Not actually Chechen, but Armenian! His name is Vartan Manoukian, he's from Alaverdi, and his parents swear that the shock of Armenian independence in September 1991 caused his mother to go into labor right on the spot. Ever since, Vartan's been a traveler; he's been all over Europe doing odd jobs as "security" and general hired muscle. He speaks decent English, Greek and Spanish on top of his native Armenian and some scraps of Russian (which he hates, because fuck Russians), enough Chechen to get by in Varajev's outfit and he can order drinks in Dutch. He's actually proud of the Chechen - apparently Varajev has some Kist heritage and speaks a particularly obtuse dialect of Chechen, which Vartan believes is one reason why Varajev prefers to staff his escorts with other Chechens - it makes it incredibly difficult for casual eavesdroppers to understand what they're saying.
Vartan is the Fractal plant! He almost breaks down crying at hearing Blake just mention the name. Vartan's recruitment into Fractal was...distressing, to say the least. As in, snatched by a grab team two months ago when he was on a late-night kebab run on his day off. Vartan likes to think he's a pretty tough guy and can handle himself, but those dudes kicked his ass and bagged him in seconds, then injected him with...something that knocked him out. When he came to, he was back in his apartment with a half-eaten kebab and missing about two hours of memories. Over those next two months, Vartan would have infrequent blackouts, only later finding out from his phone's Google Maps location history that he would go halfway across the city during those times, never the same place - and worse, sometimes those blackouts would be times he was on duty. He couldn't very well ask the other guards if he'd been acting weirdly, but certainly nobody said anything. One time, Vartan got up the courage to go to one of those spots and see if he could figure out what happened and found himself staring at a small statue in a little park, at which point he got a call on his phone - the only time he can clearly remember being spoken to by someone higher up the Fractal food chain. A male voice, with a not-Spanish-but-close accent - Vartan's pretty good at picking out accents - told him that this was strike one, and there would not be a strike two. Since that day, Vartan's tried very hard not to think about the whole thing. Blake decides not to tell him quite yet that Fractal has casually declared Vartan surplus to requirements.
Due to his language skills, Vartan frequently took point on translating for Varajev in business deals. As it turns out, the Crips were hardly Varajev's first choice in partners here in the Netherlands - he would have preferred a fellow actually-from-the-Caucasus Caucasian outfit, but the Crips had such a stranglehold on the military hardware supply lines through the Netherlands that it was easier to work with them than around them - keep your friends close and your enemies closer, something like that. That said, Varajev made quite a point out of maintaining a professional relationship with the Crips - sure, he talked shit about them in private, but never outside the apartment. And it's not just the Crips who are thusly in Varajev's bad graces; his connections to the Bandidos motorcycle club, the Bratva and people Vartan only knew as "the Turks" were similarly cordial in meetings, bitchy in the safety of Varajev's apartments. Notably, Vartan does not mention a Chinese connection - either it doesn't actually exist, or Vartan wasn't invited along to those talks. The only incident Vartan can recall where Varajev got angry was when a Bandidos member made an ill-advised joke about using some explosives Varajev had sold them to "make sure the skyline doesn't grow minarets" - reportedly Varajev lunged at the dude with zero warning and knocked out three of his teeth before Vartan and his colleagues could yank their boss off the stupid asshole biker and shut down the confrontation. Also, Varajev reportedly once got denied a visa to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca) and lit up various phones for days until someone arranged the visa personally. Dude does not fuck around when it comes to matters of faith.
Also, Vartan would like to know if he can get asylum and witness protection in the US. He can pay his own way, he's got money saved for the flight and such. He thinks he'd make a pretty good construction worker for anyone who'd take him. Maybe Texas? Vartan thinks living in Texas would be great. Hey, can you choose your own fake name for witness protection? Vartan wants to be Maximilian Lubov. He thinks that sounds like the name a smart guy has.
"Well, do you want to be the one that partially reneges on our deal with a shadowy paramilitary group, or do you want me to do it?" Mason asks Tim with a smirk.
Just then, a wall-mounted phone in the SCIF rings. Operations raises an eyebrow and moves to take the call. Her expression darkens after a few seconds of listening to the auth code.
"“Luc?” she asks. “You’re supposed to be in the secure ward of a hospital downtown right now. Do you mind filling me in on what’s really going on?”
She nods to Laith, who starts his whole trace-the-call thing.
“Agent Abbing got a call,” Operations says. “Said she got a call. Well, that’s just grand. I’ll send one of the boys to pick you up - and one of the boys to fetch Agent Abbing for me. I think it’s time we all sat down and had a little discussion.”
The call trace completes, showing Luc calling from - the outskirts of Haarlem? What the hell?
“Fine by me,” Operations says. “Stay safe.”
As she hangs up, she turns to the assembled crew.
"Alright, boys, change of plans," she says. "Barstow or Mason tackle the Fractal handoff. Then one of you back to the houseboat to wait on Luc. He might be coming in hot, so take the necessary precautions. And the last one - go find Agent Abbing and keep her busy." She sighs. "It seems like this boat might be crewed entirely by rats."
"I'll level with you," Laith says, "did not expect this many bad vibes from Amsterdam."
"Welcome back to Wildcard," Operations says. "Let's get to it, boys."
"Your guess is as good as mine," Operations says. "But right now, I only trust people in this room. One way or another, we have to take care of this ourselves."
skullandscythe
