"Will do." the sergeant says, gesturing to two men behind him. "Go with Captain Farrell, get whatever he tells you to carry." The sergeant gives the rest of your team a nod and turns to leave. "I'll let you run your show, just contact me if you need me." It doesn't take Jacob and the soldiers long to retrieve your gear, and getting suited up is simple enough that you can do some other investigating if you desire. Other than the two soldiers who went with Jacob, only your team remains at the scene of the incident.
Jackalyn moves forward to the security cams, reviewing the footage with a detached eye.
Having finished examining the bodies, Rosa searches the rest of the room for any other signs of something unusual.
Looking around for anything else out of the ordinary, Rosa doesn't seem to spot anything particularly worth noting. She obviously spies the few bullet holes in the wall one the way in but doesn't notice anything peculiar about them, and the inside of the room doesn't look too strange either. The room is obviously quite bloody but Rosa isn't positive as to if there's nothing to find or if she's simply missed it.
Jackalyn checks the security footage from the observation room, and much like the sergeant suspected most of the security footage from the hall has been wiped or at least a wipe was attempted. The camera does catch the approach of one assailant as she takes down the two guards outside the door, but the video cuts out not long after; from the audio, she can hear the door to the interrogation room being forced open and the sound of a single pistol shot, followed by a few short bursts of automatic fire. That ends abruptly and two more shots are heard in quick succession, and then one more a few seconds after. She starts to hear what sounds like someone talking before the footage cuts off entirely.
Taking a look at the interrogation room footage starts to pick up where the first leaves off, with the woman kicking in the door to the room and taking her first shot at Elias. She ducks into the room as the ring of automatic fire is caught again, shooting both the guards twice in the stomach and kicking their guns away. Elias struggles against his bonds until the woman presses the barrel of the pistol into the back of his head and fires, after which he slumps limply to the ground. The woman moves quickly to take the guard's rifles before heading out into the hallway again. The other room's footage shows a wounded man struggle through the door with a guard engaging him in hand-to-hand combat; the man throws the first guard through the door and dispatches the other two with a bit of trouble before drawing what can only be an arc thrower and firing it into Malik's chest. The terrorist seizes and falls to the ground unconscious, and his captor scoops him up despite his injuries and heads back out into the hall.
Borax looks at the group, "The voices...anyone here know how to run then through a spectrum analyzer and compare them with audio we have of likely suspects? Also, we need to find out who has access to the arc throwers. Finally, why kill Elias if you're going rescue his brother?"
Jackalyn shrugs. "We know that they have a mole in our organization. He talked, so they knew he was an unreliable asset. If he was captured again, he would likely break again, so they killed him both as punishment and as security."
"But that would mean the the traitor had access to the interrogation tapes and had time to watch them."
"Who says that they don't?"
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"Stone cold..." mutters Jacob as his only reaction to the footage "The lass got balls to enter like that, guns blazing... and how she executed the poor mate... She's either a zealot or she's trained beyond simple military." says the irish as he moves inside the interrogation room where Elias was and looks around himself. The irish crouches to have a lower point of view as he inspects the floor and bodies, before moving to the door and examining if the woman did anything before kicking it open.
The demoman then moves to the hallway to look for anything that the others may have missed. His hearing had been better during his youth, but the irish' eyes remained sharp as an eagle.
Jacob takes another look around the outside hallway, and sure enough he finds something. The blood splatter from the two men inside doesn't quite line up as it probably ought to; if they were shot when the woman entered the room, the blood would only be on the wall behind them, but it's clearly also on the floor. This suggests a third assailant that attacked them from the doorway as the woman headed into the room, hitting them from both sides. When he looks outside, his eyes are again immediately drawn to the bullet holes in the wall. Jacob narrows his eyes and examines them further, and he finally realizes what seems off about them. There aren't enough holes--the rifles the soldiers had would have fired in short bursts--and following that train of logic leads Jacob to a small patch of blood on the floor. He soon finds another splotch and yet another still farther down the hall.
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"What in the name of C4 does this me-Gobshite!" the irish train of thought is interrupted by the sudden reqlization as he puts two and two. Speaking through the comm as he checks the mag and safe on his rifle, the irish starts following the trail of blood "Oi! There was another gunner and one o'them sneaky basterds got hit, I'm following the trail down the hall. Ya better leg it here or I will end dead or a hero! I'll go silent, look for the blood trail."
The old Captain moves to the next spot with grace unheard of for a man his age and usual love of loud and flashy explosions. The irish tries his damned best to be quiet and sneaky as he does so.
Borax realizing that there is more going on here than initially anticipated states the obvious, "Everyone should gear up."
"You shouldn't go alone. They're probably going to be ready for someone to come after them." She nods in agreement.. "And we should be ready for a fight. If they've gone this far, they're going to be ready to kill anyone who comes after them too."
As the group gears up and heads out after the blood trail, they track their way down the halls of the base ready for a fight. <<"We've got the base on lockdown, no one's coming in or out.">>" The sergeant's voice comes through the team's radios, startling them for a moment. <<"We've only got one woman with the last name of Edwards who works on-base, but as far as I know she's not trained for combat. She's a military engineer, only would have received basic training, not the kind of experience she'd need to do something like this. Still, I've got people looking for her now.>>" The trail of blood has become a bit easier to follow, with larger splotches and some thicker lines on the walls, before eventually leading to what appears to be a supply closet.
"Thank you sergeant," Rosa says as the soldiers report in. "What's this woman's background? Any chance that she was a plant from the beginning?"
<<"Her background is... well, it's damn boring. She's some girl from Ohio who came in to help with our computer equipment, nothing special about her.">> The sergeant sighs through the radio, and you hear the sound of a manila folder being thrown onto a desk. <<"She could be a plant, yeah. No one is this average. Her college experience, boot camps, annual assessments, all of it's completely average. Almost like it's manufactured.">> Jacob's voice comes through the radio as well as the group comes up behind him, and as he swings the door open he nearly fires off a shot; slumped up against the back wall is a dead man with several bullet wounds to his gut and torso. One hand is pressed against the wound in an obviously futile attempt to staunch the blood flow, while the other sits on the floor. The man doesn't appear to have be dead long, either.
Perhaps the most peculiar thing is the slight buzzing sound Jacob can hear. For a second he thinks it's just the ringing in his ears, but he's definitely hearing something else.
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Inserting a finger into his left ear,
the irish grunts "Wuzzat?" he mutters as he steps forward, but his Demolition Sense goes off and he stops immediately.
"Found a corpse, a helluva blood and an annoying buzzing sound that I can't identify." Jacob radios as he turns around, walks to the opposite wall and in a swift fluid action, draws and stabs his knife into it "I think Missus Edwards may have boobytrapped it, wouldn't be the first corpsebomb I see... as soon as you see my knife in a wall stop and remain at thirty steps just in case until I give you a signal."
Jackalyn follows silently behind Jacob, listening in on the radio. Her Eagle is out, and her knife is within easy reach.
Jacob searches the room over, but doesn't seem to have found the source of the buzzing noise.
Jacob doesn't find any traps in the room; whatever the strange buzzing noise is, it doesn't appear to be anything that's (purposefully) going to hurt them.
Rosa absently checks her sidearm to make sure there's a bullet chambered. She heads down to meet up with Jacob. "Well, let's see what she left here then. If she's a plant, she definitely will be ready to escape if she's found out."
Rosa pokes around as she follows the buzzing noise, finally rolling over the corpse on the ground. Once she does the buzzing becomes louder, and from that it's easier to find the pouch on the man's belt where the sound is coming from. Rosa pries out a small radio, still crackling slightly with static. It seems to still be connected to a frequency, and someone's still broadcasting even if they don't know it. <<"Come on, get moving.>>" The voice comes through the speaker with a whine, and in the background Rosa can hear someone groaning. <<"We're almost out of here; don't think I won't shoot you like I shot your brother. Once you hit the end, just turn around and kick out the grate.">> A few seconds later, she hears the metallic clang of someone striking metal, and a few echoing booms. It's hard to place, but it sounds like someone's crawling through air vents.
"She's in the vents. Lovely." Rosa sighs and holds up the radio. "And I think that she's getting ready to make her exit. Let's go spoil her day."
Gavril had remained mostly quiet since the previous day, due to both the tension in the group from his and Jackalyn's actions, and the trouble that brewed up overnight. He moved with the others during the search, letting some of the more directly investigative members take the lead, and now he nods at Rosa's discovery and thoughts. "Where is the most likely opening from the vents? We can cut them off there."
After grabbing his gear, Borax follows along with the others.
<<"The vents go through the whole complex, they're probably heading out past the hangar. I'll meet you there, you ought to get moving.">> The sergeant's audio cuts out, but the slight crackling of the other radio remains. Heading out toward the hangar doesn't take long, but the jog there is tense. Once you arrive, the sergeant is gathered there with several other soldiers. As you get close, the sergeant swears when he spots the broken vent grate on the ground, kicking it away. "God d*mmit!" he yells. "We lost them, they're long gone. Probably stole a Jeep or something before we got here."
"Then let's do an inventory of which jeeps are missing. We can't have that many. Can we get some satellite surveillance or some drones launched?"
"Drones would take too long to get prepped for flight, but satellite surveillance could work if we can get a general location. We'd need some idea of where they're going to be certain we can catch them that way, though; if we try to cast too wide a net, it may be too difficult to spot them, especially if they're in a single vehicle." The sergeant motions for a few of his men to head into the base, looking to contact someone in order to set up some satellite surveillance of the area. "I don't suppose you've got anyway to get a bead on their location, do you?"
"We've got a radio with their frequency. Can we triangulate from that?"
"Yeah, that'll work. We can narrow down the search radius and get a hint of where they are." Taking the radio, the sergeant hands it off to someone else who runs it into the base. "We'll have eyes on them soon, you'll need to be ready to go once we find them. If you need anything before hand, I suggest you get it now."
Jackalyn gets to her bunk in a blink of an eye, and has gear on even faster than that. Once she gets to the deploying area, she asks, "Any secondary objectives and/or essential targets?"
Borax grabs one of the arc-throwers. "Let's see if we can capture the liberators alive."
"You're after Malik and his captor, that's your priority. We know very little about Lena Edwards and it's possible what little we do know is falsified or incorrect. I would imagine she's far more proficient in combat than her scores would indicate." Sergeant Mylls moves toward one of the jeeps and waves another group of men to man it. As they prepare their weapons and ready themselves to fight, Sergeant Mylls takes a step back. "Ideally, capture them both. If not, prioritize Malik; it's likely he's more amenable to giving us information at this point than she'll be. If the American they mentioned is there, attempt to capture him if it doesn't jeopardize your main mission. We've just triangulated their location from the radio, we'll relay their coordinates. You all better get moving. We've got a second Jeep loaded to follow you as backup."
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The ride on the Jeep takes you out into the desert, quite a ways outside the ruins of Basra and up to the north. The sergeant continues to feed you updates on their location, and it seems that slowly but surely you're catching up to them. An hour or two after your departure, the sergeant's voice rattles through your radios. <<"Satellite footage has gone dark, we don't know why. Maybe a remote bug Edwards uploaded before she left. We're working on getting it back, but for now you're on your own. However, you're still headed toward their last known location.">>
<<"Keep your eyes peeled out there, soldiers. I don't like this.">> Heading even farther outside the city, it's not long before you finally seem to be spotting tire tracks. Considering the UN hasn't sent anyone out in this direction and the strength of the wind, it seems likely you've finally gotten close enough to them that they're tracks haven't been blown away. You're not far off now.
Rosa sits in the back of the jeep, absently fiddling with her gun as she watches the scenery. "Understood," she replies through the radio. "We'll be ready." She releases the button and sighs. "They're setting up an ambush. I don't like this. Going in blind against someone who's already two steps ahead is just asking for trouble. Maybe we should slow down and watch our backs. If we're lucky, they'll get satellite up again before we run into our targets."
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Jacob fidgets with the Deagle the team took from one of the brothers, cleaning the dust residue and checking the safe.
The irish raises an eyebrow when Rosa speaks but keeps his sight fixed on the high caliber gun "Well Vasquez, if it were me the one being hounded, you can bet your ass this jeep would have already been flying like a chopper... I mean, no landmines, no RPG around the corner? I'm not so sure if we'll get into an ambush and shite, but if we are I don't expect it to be on the road but wherever they are going, that's when things will get interesting."
Happy with the results, Jacob puts the gun away and shuffles through his pockets looking for a cigarette before dramaticly revealing he brought the Irish whiskey to the ride. With a smile he gives it a long go before passing it around to whoever wants some "You see, they seemed to be in a fukken hurry when they escaped the base, even with help they must been focused on legging it instead of stopping us. Not like they brought an army for that, it was a fukken inside job. In any case, once we find their hole I'll make sure they are as surprised as they should." the demoman says that last part as he gently taps the demolition charges inside his open backpack "They ain't taking no backdoor to evade us, that I can promise Vasquez."
Borax dismisses Rosa's, concern "We can handle anything they can throw at us. Besides, given how easily they seemed to have stolen Malik, they may be overconfident"
The irony of Borax's statement seems lost on him.
Responding Jacob, "If they planted a mine on the road, then they'd have to drive over it. So let's keep an eye out for the tracks and make sure if the tracks go off road, we follow them. Most likely they would have planted some sort of marker so they'll know to avoid it while driving out here. Otherwise we stay in the vehicle. If they've blacked out satellite, then there's got to be a rendezvous point up ahead with another vehicle. We see anything coming through the air, we disable it."
Borax gets on the radio,
"You don't have a real time feed, but what structures or geographic features are up ahead from old images? I won't to know if someone's built something out here recently, or if are headed for a an ambush spot."
Gavril simply checks that his gear is in order while riding along in the Jeep. Talk is all well and good, but it's speculation at this point--the team can only keep eyes and ears open and stay wary for potential trouble.
<<"There's what looks like a camp about half a click from your position, same direction you were heading. They were headed straight for it before our signal went out. I imagine that's probably why they cut the signal when they did, to lure you into an ambush at the camp. If you move around the left flank you'll be behind a high ridge, they won't see you coming until you're on top of them.">> During the pause of the transmission, the men from the other jeep get out and move toward you on foot. <<"I don't see any means of escape there, however. They might've planned for it to show up after the ambush. Keep your eyes open.">>
Gavril suddenly lunges forward and says, "Hold on." He points up ahead and nods. "Hear that? A helicopter, up ahead. I'd guess it belongs to them."
He turns to Jacob. "You have anything that can bring that down? A machine gun will do some damage to it, but maybe not fast enough."
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Huge wouldn't be enough to describe the size of Jacob's grin when Gavril asks him. Humongous would be far more apropiate.
The irish lets his rifle hang from his back, clinking as it stops against the shotgun place there as well. With practiced movemebts he takes the grenade launcher, opens it, counts the shells to check it's fully loaded and readies it.
"I'm glad you ask, got the toy for that. If we find the landing zone I could rig some C4 if y'all prefer to wait until it's on the ground. In any case, I can make it go boom."
<<"A helicopter? It must be in-bound on their position. You find that chopper, you find our kidnapper. Satellite's still out so we can't help you from here, but you need to stop them from taking Malik. Once they've got him aboard they'll be gone. If you don't stop them now, we lose any chance we have of figuring out who they are. Understood?">> The soldiers in the second Jeep, now ready to head out in the cars or on foot, approach the squad and speak up.
"How are we approaching? We're ready when you are."
Borax calls out a plan, "Chase and the soldiers in the jeep, head for the ridge, and wait for our signal. Then you start shooting. Try not to hit Malik and us. The rest of us will use the distraction to sneak in and take Malik and that chopper. I want a soldier to remain in each one of the those jeeps in case we need a quick extraction. Any objections?"
"Not really, and hopefully we can circumvent any nasty little surprises they might have waiting up ahead. Otherwise this is going to be a really short mission. We're on a time limit now though, so we better get this done quick, otherwise they're going to get away."
"Yes, sir!" As the group gets out of the jeep and the other soldiers climb in, Jackalyn gives Borax as nod. "I'll have them shoot on your signal. If you have a high-value target once you're in there, let me know and I'll take care of it." Jackalyn and the soldiers head up toward the ridge of the dune as the rest of the squad heads around, hoping to take them by surprise. Once you get into position a few minutes later, you can see a loose camp set up not too far away. Men and women in combat gear--however, they notable aren't wearing fatigues, just black--move around a few vehicles and crates. To the south you see something the satellites missed, with about a dozen or two bodies lying out in the sand. The helicopter has now landed and is positioned next to the camp, with those in the camp piling gear into it in a quick and orderly fashion. Nearby is Malik and who you can only assume is Lena Edwards, who has a submachine gun pointed at his head. Next to her is an impressively tall man in body armor and a hat holding a machine gun while wearing sunglasses. The two appear to be talking, but whatever they're talking about is unclear.
<<"I've got eyes on the target, Bohan. Let me know.">>
Borax speaks into the radio. "Hit the fuel tank on the chopper."