Dramatis Personæ

Road Rage

The team flees the warehouse in a random pair of small SUVs, just as another random pair of small SUVs, bearing what appears to be “mercs,” arrives to give chase. The team splits: Baum (driving) and Brooks, with Dr. Woodcomb and the grievously-injured Reilly (CS:Njord), in one; Lynch (driving) and Mahoney, with the body of CIA Officer Walker, in the other. The mercs split as well. Baum uses local traffic to good effect, and their pursuer crashes; Baum doubles back to catch up to Lynch’s pursuer, whom he has not been able to shake. Baum repeatedly attempts to force the SUV off the road, and the passengers exchange fire, resulting in three mercs down in one vehicle, and Baum injured in the other, along with a blown tire. Having gotten well clear during the exchange of fire, and pulled out of sight under an overpass, Lynch charges out of the shadows and T-bones the mercs’ SUV, though they manage to continue to flee. Baum then stops his vehicle, carefully lines up the fleeing driver in his sights, and puts an end to it. Dr. Woodcomb bandages Baum’s arm while the others quickly strip the mercs’ vehicle of loose intel, and they squeeze into the more-functional of the two SUVs and speed away.

At a safe(r) distance, the team decides to let Dr. Woodcomb out at Abu-Dhabi where he can arrange to be picked up by his CIA handlers, along with Reilly and Walker, while the team contracts a local pilot for discreet passage to Yemen.

The team arrives at Ta’izz to find it cordoned off, under quarantine, as expected. They approach a border checkpoint, and among the WHO aid workers there, spot a familiar face: Chana Baum, undercover. They make discreet contact, and arrange to meet at a WHO mess tent, where they exchange intel; she agrees to help the team get inside the quarantine zone if they can get her a direct sample of whatever is causing the outbreak.