Dramatis Personæ

Presidential Suite

An evening arms deal between Vladimir Medvedev and Rene Delacroix (CS:Bragi) in the Presidential Suite on the 24th floor of the Burj Al-Arab is interrupted by a sudden loss of power in the hotel, followed by the exterior window exploding in, which knocks many bodyguards to the floor. The team rappels into the open window in full tactical gear and night vision, and a firefight erupts. Turncoat former member of the team, Reilly (CS:Njord), here as Delacroix’s bodyguard, immediately rakes Vladimir with submachine gun fire, who slumps, unconscious, over his desk. Delacroix, the team’s objective, bails over the railing to the suite’s foyer below; Mahoney follows, getting shot numerous times in the process, and engages several bodyguards below by himself as Delacroix flees the suite. Meanwhile, Ilan and Lynch gun down Reilly, and several others, before the remainder surrender.

Ilan recognizes a surrendered bodyguard as British SIS agent and former ConsOps member, Grayson Brooks, in deep cover in Vladimir’s organization. Grayson maintains his cover, and pleads to keep Vladimir alive. Meanwhile, Mahoney follows Delacroix out of the suite, and finds only a discarded mask-disguise resembling the face of Delacroix, though the man who wore it was nowhere to be found. With hotel alarms sounding, the team puts grievously-wounded Vladimir and Reilly in harnesses, and along with Grayson, they all rappel out of the window to the ground, and flee the scene in a waiting escape boat. Once out of immediate danger, Grayson swaps intel with the team as they look for a safe place to recover and get their prisoners in a condition to be interrogated. As the team reaches out to their parent organizations for help, they begin to realize something is wrong when they are ordered to come in immediately…