About two miles outside of the Vegas city limits, 6:37pm PST

During the trip back to town, Stork calls.

"Oh good, someone answered. I had bad feeling I'd never see my truck again. How is it by the way? I trust you're still driving it? No matter. I just wanted to let you know that an Agency helicopter picked up your suspects about 20 minutes ago. I also wanted to tell you that in the back compartment of the Hummer is a small cache of weapons that might come in handy if the situation presented itself. Hey, are you coming back soon? I running low on TP and cigarettes. If you're not pick some up before you come back."

Jess takes the phone.

"Hummingbird here, got you. The hummer is reasonably intact, as far as I can tell. It's still moving under it's own power, for once. But the way I know my boys, you'll have to wait for the shopping tour. I don't dare to stop them when they're finally in their groove for a change. Oh, by the way, Raven took a bullet. I've patched him up for now, but he'll need some attention later on."

She smiles for a second.

"I guess that means we'll add some coffee to the list."

Stork sighs over the phone..

"Dammit. Alright. But I want you to stop by the grocery store before coming back...that's all I ask. And you tell Goose that I'll have his ass if he doesn't bring my truck back in one piece."

*click*

"Okay, guys, I have a plan."

Heron outlines his plan to the team. (See OOC.)

"Of course, we need to know which suite he's in. I'm sure one of our two snoops could find out for us, though."

"Why all the fuss ? I'll just ask one of the clerks. Alternatively, maybe the gunship crew picked up a key from our slavic friends."

"They might'a tipped the clerks so that they'd ring up when someone starts asking questions."

Parking lot of The Stratosphere Hotel/Casino, 7:09 PST

Goose pulls the Hummer into a parking spot as the rest of the team strain their necks looking up at the edifice of American egotism.

I think we're going to need a bigger boat.

"Aw, this ain't nothin'." Harry says as he screws on a silencer and hums "surfin' bird" by the trashmen.

(Edited by Threadbare at 9:36 pm on Feb. 3, 2003)

Brian grins, screwing the silencer to the MP5 before attaching the clip of the laser sight to the top. Producing a roll of medical tape, her carefully straps the red-light flashlight to his helmet, grinning.

"Good to go. Any way to arrainge for a power failure right before we go in?"

Raven chimes in,

"For me to do that, I'd need to have access to their computer's mainframe. That's no small task since most casinos have their systems on premises and usually heavily guarded. It would take some doing, but if I were to gain access...I could probably knock the power out for about 10 seconds before the secondary backups went online."

Jess chimes in.

"The way I see it, that would require one of two things. Either you can rig the mainframe so that it cuts the power when you trigger some sort of remote control, or we need to split up, and have someone cover you at the access point while our strike team does a forced entry. The second might not be a wise thing to do, but the first might be technically impossible. Raven ?"

Raven chuckles slightly,

"With all due professional respect, Agent Hummingbird, you've been watching too many movies. These casinos run a tight ship and have the resources to keep it that way. You want my opinion...plant a remote controlled C-4 charge on their electrical generators. That'll stop 'em for at least 10 minutes while they figure out what the hell happened. Of course, you're talking about a potential loss of life and I am not about to share the blame for that."

Jess glares at Raven, then gives him a light nudge onto the bandaged wound.

"Better not mock the people who see to it that you can enjoy the life of a bullet magnet and walk away from it."

She then returns to a more serious tone.

"I vote against explosives. If we can't switch the power off silently, then we don't. Let's intel the suite, once we know how many we're facing and where they'll probably be, we ought to have enough of an edge in entry."

Brian thinks for a moment, running over a long history of violent entries until he reaches the right one.

"The backup generator...its probably a diesel right? Punch a hole in the fuel block, walk away and cut the power."

"A) We don't know where the backup is. Even if we knew where it is - we don't know how to get to it and get away after disabling it. C) As Raven put it, we need to first figure out a way to disable the primary power. When he says we can't cut it without access to some sort of mainframe, that means we either have to find another way to disable them, or we need access to the mainframe, both of which would have to take place coordinated with the strike team."

Jess looks around.

"Am I getting the whole scope of the problem here, or did I forget some kind of difficulty ?"

They don't have a fusebox for a particular floor or anything convenient like that, do they? Shit, let's just move, before they get into siege mode.

Stratosphere Tower & Casino, 7:31pm PST

The team splits up (heh heh), going to their predetermined checkpoints.

Gavin grabs his climbing gear.

There's gotta be some quiet way to get up to the top of this monstrosity

Just then, he sees two men with Tower Maintainence written on their coveralls getting out of a van and apparently heading for an auxillary entrance.

Bingo.

Jess and Harry walk up to the concierge desk and ask for the manager. The clerk makes a phone call and about two minutes later a woman in her early 40's approaches them.

"Hello. I'm Stephanie Davidson, the hotel's floor manager, how may I help you?"

Meanwhile

Team Artis head up to the hotel suite to stake out the place. They get in the high-speed elevator and arrive at nearly the top of the tower, minus their stomachs with some added vertigo for flavor.

The door opens to two rather goon-like men waiting around the elevator exit. One talks low into his earpiece with the other approaching Team Artis. He makes no attempt at sincerity or salutation.

"Gentleman, this is a private floor. Please leave or we will have to forcibly remove you."

(Edited by Dieter at 9:15 am on Feb. 7, 2003)

"Terribly sorry, won't happen again," I say, quickly hitting the "down" button. I give the goon a big ol' "fuck you" smile as the doors close.

"OK, let's gather the other two and suit up. Nighthawk, are you in position?"

Tower Lobby

"Excuse me...could we talk somewhere less crowded ? My partner and I need to talk to you as soon as possible."

The manager replies.

"Um..sure.", gesturing Harry and Jess to behind the concierge counter and into a small room.

Outside of auxillary tower entrance B12

Gavin glances about the area to see if there is anyone else about.

The coast is clear, I'm going in...

Getting a running start, Gavin charges at one of the maintenence guys, squashing him in between himself and the tower exterior. The guy drops like a bad habit.

"What the---", the other maintenance says as Gavin spins around and smacks him in the head. Staggered, the guy goes for a wrench from his toolbox, but Gavin finishes himattacks with a flurry of blows to the face and abdomen.

Both maintenance guys are out for the count.

(Edited by Dieter at 11:29 am on Feb. 7, 2003)

Jess closes the door behind her, looking over her shoulder as if searching for someone shadowing her.

"Miss Davidson, you might want to sit down before we go on."

She waits a few seconds, then begins her tirade.

"I am Julia Luther, and this is Daniel Reichmann. My partner and I are undercover operatives for the Eastern Europe section of Interpol. We have tracked a group of slavic terrorists to this hotel, after arresting their leader earlier today. We have reason to believe that they are planning on leaving the country tomorrow, and so, this is our last chance to cash in on two years of investigative work. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our work as deep-cover agents, we do not carry ID, but we will provide you with a method of confirming our identity. Miss Davidson, you have two options now."

Jess pauses for effect, then goes on.

"You can choose to disbelieve us and call the local police. This will warn our targets, and if they feel cornered, they will likely react with extreme violence. Since the cops will probably not be trained as SWAT, the entire action is going to be a bloodbath. Many will die, a lot of property damage will result, and the hotel will go down in history as the site of the biggest firefight in living memory. Or, you can hear us out and choose to believe us for now. We have a strike team ready to go in position, men who are specially trained to deal with terrorists, men who are equipped with silenced weapons, and who have trained in diverse military forces. An entry - prepared with your assistance - will not endanger any of your customers or personnel, reduce property damage to a bare minimum, and be carried out silently and discreetly. If you want to check our ID, call the local police department, demand to speak to Detective Schwartz, and ask him if he knows Kimberly Westlake. He has been instructed by our liason to answer that with a positive, but for his own safety, he knows none of the background behind this."

One more pause for effect, as Jess focusses the woman with an intense look.

"I know we're asking you for a great leap of faith, but please believe me when I say that the situation is dire. These men...are contract killers for the Russian Underground. They have been behind half a dozen political assasinations in Russia, France and Bulgary, all of which officially claimed to be deaths by natural causes due to reasons of the respective national security. Their leader has revealed that they have been hired by a consortium of arms dealers to commit a random act of terrorism tomorrow in the morning, which, in the current terse political climate, would almost invariably set off a war. I'm sure you understand the gravity of the situation, and why we need to deal with them as fast as reasonably possible."