| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: YES! |
| Date: | Sat, 8 Nov 1997 11:27:47 +0000 |
>>>>>[Excellent work. Back in the bad old days, Bartlett used to think
these splatterjobs were untraceable. It almost makes me wish he was
still alive, just so I can show him somewhere else he was wrong.
I guess you may or may not have heard the bad news. Our ringer was at
Hawker to keep them from reinforcing three niobium mines in the Yemen,
despite a major military force (old gear, but lots of it) operating in
the area. All three mines are under attack or will be soon: one's
captured, another's out of contact and the third is standing by to get
hit hard any minute.
Someone wants to support a looney-tunes zealot in the Middle East, to
the tune of helping him seize mines that earn Hawker fifty to a hundred
million a year raw profit (depends on the price of niobium ore). Someone
was willing to spend about thirty million yen on weapons for these
fanatics, hacked the National Reconnaisance Office matrix to hide the
signs of their work (and that is _very_ secret), and to kill over thirty
people in Seattle to make sure that they got what they wanted.
What I don't get is how the bad guys - I think I can guess who, this has
the Doctor and the Farmer written all over it - think Akbar's going to
hold and work those mines. Hawker's already appealing to Z-O for help,
buzz is that their CEO is going up the well to beg in person. If they
wade in, they can hire enough muscle to splatter Akbar's army, and I
just don't see them letting this pass. Otherwise, any petty warlord with
a few tanks and mortars will be helping himself to corporate assets
whenever the coffers are low...
Anyway, Sasha's short on options. He's got one company on long-term
assignment in Walvis Bay, but the rest is mostly here: rainy season in
SE Asia, Africa's quiet, so this time is used for training and
maintenance. How do you get two hundred vehicles, eight hundred men, and
three thousand tons of supplies from here to there fast enough to do any
good? Throw in too little and it'll get chewed up piecemeal. Looks like
he may lose the whole company.
And Jason's out there.
Shit.
He'll be okay, unless he gets too heroic trying to salvage the
situation. It's his favourite terrain for fighting, he knows what he's
doing. But I haven't been able to raise him, the uplinks at One must be
down and his headware won't reach Two or Three for a relay via Aden-42,
and I worry.
Which is neither here nor there. I'll take you to the apartment: you're
forensics experts, I'm official, and I've even got a warrant to make it
all legal. I doubt we'll find much, though.
As for where we go from here... I need to think about that.
+++++include credit transfer: >>agreed sum plus ten per cent bonus<<
I'll pick you up from the safehouse in about thirty minutes.]<<<<<
-- Lilith <11:27:42/11-08-58>
