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The Company
Time: May 18, 2009.
Place: Norfolk, VA, USA.
Last Event: Noises and shooting at the warehouse.
The Agents continue to blitz through the warehouse offices. Zhang takes point – although this doesn't mean quite as much as it might if the group were properly armed and equipped! The team splits up only in areas with multiple exits, on the theory that speed outweighs caution at the moment. When they do, they check the exits quickly while making an effort to remain in sight of one another.
The squad encounters nothing of interest, however. The offices aren't just empty but long empty. Anabel dumps desks and filing cabinets, but all she turns up is dust and the occasional rubber band, paperclip, or dried-up pen. This junk still has its uses – it allows Vinnie to pick the locks on a couple of doors. Fortunately, while the doors are solid, the locks aren't anything special.
Eventually, the Agents reach what appears to be an exit from the entire suite, and head out. Zhang goes first, once again, and finds himself in long hallway. To his left, it stretches out of sight under dim fluorescent tubes. To his right, it goes only a short distance to a fire exit. But directly opposite him, he sees blood . . . and lots of it. He examines the scene very professionally and concludes that somebody was shot twice with a .40 S&W weapon against the wall, and then dragged up the long corridor.
Meanwhile, Vinnie checks the fire door. He can't put his finger on it, but it looks as if it has been tampered with. He recommends that the team not use it. The others agree, and set off up the long corridor. Wen – apparently trained at tracking harder-to-find prey in more cluttered settings – has no problem following the intermittent blood trail.
There are many other suites along the corridor, all on the left-hand side, suggesting an exterior wall to the right. Few have signs, but one does: "LaserTech Machine Tools." Wen notices greasy boot prints on the floor outside the entrance. Vinnie wants to unlock the door, but the others indicate that they would rather keep moving and following the blood trail. While JB is still convinced it's an exercise, the blood looks real enough, and somebody may need help.
Much further along, near the far end of the corridor, the Agents spot a second sign. The left-hand side is missing, obscuring the name: "—oke Gym". Wen notices a second, fainter set of bloody footprints on the floor outside the nearby entrance. After a huddle, the group decides that this is worth a quick look. Vinnie picks the lock and the team moves in.
The room just beyond is clearly an office. On the floor is another puddle of blood. The Agents fan out and search the area. JB and Zhang look along the interior wall, and find an entrance to the gym proper, next to a glass window that looks out into the large, dark room beyond; there's a bank of light switches, but they leave these alone for now. Vinnie and Wen check the shorter walls, and find only a short corridor leading to a locker room. Anabel searches the desks and finds an attaché case stashed under one of them.
Anabel examines the case. Inside are Saudi passports, a loaded and rather ancient-looking Browning HP (which Zhang checks and takes), $40,000 in U.S. currency, and a vial of white powder with a biohazard sticker slapped on the outside. JB takes a closer look at the powder and says that while he can't be positive, it looks suspiciously like a weaponized pathogen, best left in its container. Zhang comments that it resembles the white powder he found in the mezzanine above the van-bomb . . . powder that he assumed was drugs.
This provokes a discussion: If the bomb is for real, the exploding van might be intended to do harm not with its blast – which Vinnie and Wen agree would at most wreck one end of the huge warehouse – but by scattering a biological warfare agent. JB notes that the placement of the white powder Zhang found would be consistent with this. Thus, training exercise or not, the team switches its priorities from "follow the blood trail" to "disarm the bomb." Anabel, Vinnie, and Wen head back to LaserTech to look for tools, leaving JB and Zhang to examine the scene in the gym.
JB positions himself at the edge of the window overlooking the darkened gym, while Zhang crouches in the doorway. Then Zhang reaches over and hits the lights. As soon as the gym is lit, both see a shadowy figure with an AK-47 at the far end . . . and only barely have time to duck before it shoots! At least 10 bullets slam into the door, wall, and window. Both Agents dive for cover – but not before JB is struck in his right side. The medic keels over, clutching the wound.
Zhang realizes that he needs to act swiftly. He ducks into the doorway and blazes away with the Browning. Despite the distance, he scores a perfect hit. Strangely, this appears to dislodge the enemy's body armor . . . which, as it turns out, was just a vest hanging loosely off a steel frame. With the vest out of the way, it's clear that the "attacker" is simply a weapon lashed to a pole, which is oscillating back and forth just enough to spray the far wall. Zhang waits for the deadly dummy to empty its weapon.
By now, the others have heard the noise. Wen tells Anabel and Vinnie to continue their search for tools – a bio-warfare device is a higher priority than a gunfight – while she goes back to lend a hand. Anabel and Vinnie pick up the pace and dash down to LaserTech, while Wen runs back to the gym.
When Wen arrives, she sees JB laying on the office floor, bleeding, and Zhang stealing down the right-hand wall of the gym toward some contraption with an old rifle hanging off it. One look at JB and she knows that she needs a clean dressing and other emergency gear; the medic's wound demands a lot more than a torn strip of shirt. She heads into the gym, hoping that like most exercise facilities, this one has a first-aid cabinet somewhere nearby. Fortunately, Wen is in luck, and finds exactly what she's looking for. She begins to treat JB.
Zhang shows up a few moments later with an AK-47 that has had its trigger replaced with a solenoid switch, as well as a small electronics box with a photocell on it – parts of an over-intricate trap of sorts. As Wen works, Zhang explains that the rifle was duct-taped to a weight bar, the bar was jury-rigged to a treadmill motor, and everything was activated by the photocell switch. Zhang also takes a moment to taste JB's blood and the blood on the floor; he immediately realizes that the blood on the floor is pig's blood!
Meanwhile, down at LaserTech, Vinnie gets the door open and heads inside with Anabel. They soon locate a narrow interior corridor which signs suggest leads to a machine shop at the rear of the place. Suddenly, Vinnie halts and holds up a hand. He points ahead at a pair of directional antipersonnel mines, wired to the wall and connected to a needlessly complex "laser grid": a small transmitter-receiver pair, the beam bounced off a bunch of mirrors stuck to the walls.
Vinnie is fairly certain that nothing like this would be used by anybody who knew what they were doing, and that it's part of the exercise JB was talking about. He waves Anabel back to a safe distance – just in case – explaining that if the mines go off, they'll fire steel balls all over the place, which will ricochet off the concrete walls and shred anybody in the area. Then he moves up to the trap. He attempts to safety the mines with makeshift pins fashioned from stray bits of stationery . . .
. . . and fails. Twin explosions throw Vinnie to the ground and deafen Anabel. Anabel comes running to Vinnie's aid and finds him face-down on the floor, twitching, his clothes burning and blood flowing from his ears. Strangely, he doesn't seem to be shredded. After rolling Vinnie on the floor to put the fire out, Anabel notices that he's alive and not badly injured, just stunned, so she slaps his face to get him to focus.
At this point, Wen has treated JB's wounds and JB has recovered enough to move. JB, Wen, and Zhang are moving toward LaserTech when they hear the blasts. Wen immediately recognizes them: "Flash-bangs. British type." Given that flash-bangs were among the sounds heard earlier, this is worrying. The three hasten toward LaserTech, where they find Anabel saying something about Vinnie blowing himself up.
JB grabs the first-aid gear from Wen and runs on wobbly legs toward Vinnie. After a quick examination, he confirms that Vinnie has had a very close encounter with a stun grenade. He explains that Vinnie is lucky to have his hands, that his body hair (not to mention clothing and dignity) has been singed, and that he'll be hearing ringing in his ears for quite a while to come. Soon, Vinnie is standing, more or less.
While JB treats Vinnie, Wen looks at the remains of the trap, and Zhang stands guard, Anabel heads into the machine shop. Here she finds more blood – all over some of the larger and more dangerous-looking machines – suggesting signs of some sort of horrible torture. Shaking off her disgust, she searches for tools. She soon turns up a good-sized toolbox that Wen says "will do" for disarming a bomb. Anabel stays with JB and Vinnie as one wounded man finishes bandaging up the other. Meanwhile, Wen takes the tools and Zhang takes the pistol, and they head down to the van.
After a cursory examination of the van for triggers, Wen concludes that the windshield hasn't been rigged. Zhang uses a hammer to tap around the edges of the safety-glass pane, and then pulls it out in one piece. Wen tells him that she's going to squeeze inside and deal with the bomb. Zhang decides to head upstairs to see what he can do about removing the suspicious white powder.
Wen works quickly. Despite the improvised equipment – and the fact that, by her own admission, she's usually the one setting charges, not defusing them – she manages to disarm the thing. Anabel, JB, and Vinnie show up just in time to see Wen crawl out of the van holding a complicated-looking detonator in one hand and its batteries in the other. Zhang soon joins them, and mentions that the powder upstairs is indeed identical to that in the vial from the briefcase.
With the immediate "threat" removed, the Agents decide to get out of this place. A systematic check of the exterior doors reveals that they've all been locked, chained, and/or welded shut from the outside. Zhang speculates that there might be a roof exit, although he saw nothing from the mezzanine overlooking the van. Anabel mentions that there was a similar storage area back at LaserTech, and the group heads there.
Sure enough, there's a small roof hatch high over the floor there. Zhang amazes everybody by crouching, eyeballing the hatch, and then leaping up and getting a grip on the frame. Monkey-like, he soon has all four limbs braced in the opening. Freeing his hands, he punches open the hatch and crawls out onto the roof . . .
. . . where he sees Chaturvedi and a bunch of technicians set up with monitoring gear, linked by cables to dozens of holes bored down through the roof. Chaturvedi congratulates Zhang, confirms that it was all a test, and orders his men to unlock the building exits. Anabel, JB, and Vinnie head out the doors, while Wen crawls up after Zhang. Shortly, the squad is assembled before their handler in the lonely parking lot behind the warehouse.
Chaturvedi tells the group that they will get a week or two off, in their choice of cities, to get their jazz band cover story together. He also hands them the keys to a mid-sized truck parked in the lot and tells them that it contains their initial loadout – everything they'll need for their first few jobs. After some discussion with the others, Vinnie tells Chaturvedi that they'll be heading up to New York City (a seven-hour drive), and the handler goes off to make the necessary arrangements. While he's on the phone, the team members examine the contents of the truck.
It appears that the Company believes in preparedness. There's over $100,000 of gear in the back – everything from clothing to electronics to medical equipment to weapons. Perhaps most important are encrypted smart phones for staying in touch with the Company. More sensitive items include a selection of barely legal and outright illegal surveillance and entry tools, along with a generous helping of demolitions kit (plastique, cord, caps, timers etc.). Firearms consist of five Glock 22 pistols, three Glock 27 pistols, an AI AWM-F sniper rifle in .300 Win Mag, a pair of Benelli M3T Super 90 shotguns, and two H&K UMP40 submachine guns . . . all with accessories, ammunition, and suitable luggage.
Vinnie shakes his head. Driving cross-country with all this stuff is a bad idea. One stop-search is all it will take to land the squad in a world of trouble . . . especially if driving into New York. He insists on taking the keys and doing the driving. He has some experience with this, and knows the right and wrong way to get to the Big Apple with a truckload of what he describes as "terrorist gear."
With that, the Agents say goodbye to Chaturvedi – who says he'll call them on the road with the location of their safe house – and head out. On their way out of town, they stop by a Walmart to pick up cheap, clean clothes, food for the trip, and, at Wen's insistence, a 41-ounce bag of Skittles.
no subject
Both. I had a map marked with everything down to the which way the doors swung and where the light switches were. No, I didn't create it . . . I Googled "warehouse blueprint" and printed the one I liked best. On that, I simply penciled in important bits where they were. When the PCs moved through the area, I glossed over things until:
1. They hit an important bit. "You pass three doors." <Rolls Observation.> "The fourth, unlike those, has a sign next to it."
2. They stopped to check out what was in an area. "Wait, you said there were offices. What's in here?" <Rolls Scrounging.> "Just some paperclips and a rusty old steel desk from the 1960s."
Was using the defused van to break out discussed at all?
Yes, and ruled out. Nobody was sure there weren't booby traps on the exits, and Wen couldn't guarantee that the shock wouldn't trigger the explosives (all it would take is one dodgy, slightly corroded blasting cap). Also, Vinnie knew that there wasn't enough distance for the van to accelerate in; the loading area was only about twice the length of the van, and there was a second van parked in the way (facing the wrong way to accelerate much at all). Wrecking a van or two against a steel door didn't seem worthwhile.