Olympus RPG Blog

Too Late

The team follows Andris Milic, Brooks’ contact in Medvedev’s organization, to a place where they can discuss the situation in private. They tell him they are looking for Breznikov (C/S Loki), whom he admits he helped smuggle into the country, and that he knows his current whereabouts. He says he will give up the location for $1M euros. The team dips into the funds seized from C/S Heimdall’s accounts, probably for the last time, and pays the requested amount. Milic then reveals, as promised, that Breznikov is in the custody of a large, probably-Russian team, on a research vessel, the Azov, just offshore at an anchorage in the Gulf of Riga. It is expected to depart around 07:00 tomorrow for parts unknown.

With Milic’s aid, the team kits up for a fight. They include night-vision, plus an inflatable electric motorboat and cold-weather swim gear for their insertion onto the boat. Brooks researches deck plans and specs for the boat, and Mahoney looks them over for the most-likely placement of explosives to sink the ship, while Lynch and Baum brave the winter weather to get eyes-on the objective. They wait until around 02:00 the next morning to make their approach.

Despite (or because of) the rough weather, the team’s motorboat slips up alongside the ship, unseen and unheard. They climb aboard quietly, and split up. Baum garrotes the officer on the bridge, and gets set to cut the power. Brooks and Lynch take down the two roving sentries at opposite ends of the ship. Mahoney immediately heads for the ship’s hold, avoiding being seen by the late-shift, and finds charges set at the location he had previously identified; he immediately starts working to defuse the bomb. Lynch, Baum and Brooks regroup on the main deck and start toward the cabins on the next deck up when they surprise Delacroix (C/S Bragi). He bolts back into the research lab he had emerged from, and triggers an alarm. The ship erupts with activity, and the team fights off several Russian operators, while giving chase. They find Breznikov in the lab, shot in the stomach by Dealcroix and left to die. Baum and Brooks run down and corner Delacroix, who was clearly looking for an escape. They gun him down, about the same time Mahoney successfully disarms the bomb below. None of the team aboard see the incoming anti-ship missile until it’s too late…

European Theatre

The team observes, to their shock and confusion, that the fallen enemy at the warehouse objective were wearing masks of the ConsOps team members’ faces. Mahoney defuses a misfired Russian explosive, and Brooks starts clearing rubble from a basement entrance. Meanwhile, Lynch communicates with Chana, who warns of an incoming probably-American drone strike. As the team scrambles for cover, Mahoney saves the briefcase containing the contagion samples by hurriedly cutting off a dead enemy’s hand to which it was handcuffed. Some members are lightly injured in the explosion, and the team elects to hide and wait out the drones. Once they leave, the team quickly leaves the city and regroups with Chana, giving her the samples, as promised.

The team leaves amongst the WHO medical personnel who are vacating the camps, and catches the next flight back to Israel, where they can take a few days to recuperate, and sift through the intel they’ve gathered. They choose to go to Riga next; Medvedev (C/S) had arranged to smuggle some people there for Delacroix (C/S Bragi), which might include Breznikov (C/S Loki), and Brooks “knows a guy” there through his undercover work in Medvedev’s organization.

Brooks arranges to meet his contact, Andris Milic, Medvedev’s lieutenant, at a café often used for such meetings. The rest of the team blends in with the café patrons and keeps an eye out during the meeting. The contact reveals that Medvedev has been picked up by British Intelligence, and Milic is seeing an opportunity to take over the business; Brooks indicates he might be interested in helping. But the meeting is cut short when an unidentified “lookout” is spotted, kicking off a very-brief firefight with other assassins in the area, some arriving on motorcycles and some hiding amongst the café patrons as well. Brooks reveals he’s brought help, as police sirens close in the distance.

Counter Strike

The team’s suspicion, that their struggle with the infected local woman might alert the nearby, unknown operators guarding the objective warehouse, is confirmed when one of them steps out of a ruined building to their flank, looking for the source of the commotion.

• Baum retreats to some nearby high ground, but is harried along the way by more infected locals.
• Brooks opens fire on the flanking element. Lynch throws a smoke grenade screen, and the two advance into the ruined building and take the guards down, rushing in to avoid a frag grenade thrown out past them.
• Mahoney has taken up the opposite corner of the shack previously providing their cover, and in a hail of automatic fire from both directions, takes out several of the guards as they appear in windows and holes-in-the-wall. One of the guards levels the shack with an RPG, causing Mahoney to fling himself to the ground to avoid flying debris. A second RPG round hang-fires just before the firer is tackled from behind by an infected local, causing the round to strike the ground and explode.
• Having finally reached his perch, Baum takes out the last guard as he steps out from cover to attack Mahoney.

With the guards neutralized, the team quickly moves into the warehouse to search it for samples of the infection’s source, as the firefight will undoubtedly have attracted the attention of a horde of locals. Searching the guards’ bodies for identification, however, it is discovered that they each have the face of the ConsOps team members!…

Quarantine Zone

After having agreed to Chana’s favor, to enter the quarantine zone for a sample of the infection, the team decides to wait until dark to go in. In the meantime:

• Brooks spots a cut-out, who gives him a message from his SIS handler, informing him that they are dropping the Medvedev mission, and he is being assigned to aid the ConsOps mission he has found himself attached to.
• Baum spots El-Sisi, the Egyptian federal agent the team encountered back in Cairo, and tails him to a meeting with some “mercenaries,” who appear to be gearing up for an operation in town.
• Back at the WHO mess tent, Lynch encounters his FSB counterpart, Col. Sudokov, and in an initially-tense exchange, convinces him that his mission is only to stop Breznikov, not to question him, and they agree to not interfere should an opportunity come to take him out.

As evening approaches, the team regroups and prepares to go into town. Chana volunteers to take up overwatch from nearby high-ground.

The team creeps into town, carefully navigating through the ruined buildings toward the objective, a shipping company office where Medvedev was supposed to have delivered “materiel.” Along the way, they observe other “teams” in the area being assaulted and brutalized by hordes of berserking, infected locals. Cautiously, the team skirts wide around the trouble spots, and avoids traps left behind by the others. As they approach the objective, they observe that it is being guarded by another team, of unknown allegiance, faces covered in shemaghs. As the team creeps around to the guards’ flank, Baum decides to extract a sample from a nearby pile of locals’ corpses. He is shocked to find that one of them isn’t actually dead, when it attacks him. Concerned about the noise alerting the warehouse guards, the team keeps watch, as Brooks rushes over to help Baum subdue the woman. She is excessively strong and resilient, and highly aggressive, and they put her down with some difficulty. As Baum finally gets his sample, a voice from the warehouse is heard, exclaiming in Arabic that he “found it”…