Re: [IC] Chapter One
Incirlik Air Base, Turkey
10 March 2015
0831 hrs local (0631 hrs Zulu)
Conference Room B in Incirlik's SCIF smells of dust and weapons-grade coffee. The arrhythmic rattle in the air handling equipment almost certainly isn't part of the design specs for blocking listening devices, but it's probably as effective as the officially-sanctioned countermeasures.
Chief Bannon detaches his spillproof mug from his fist and starts flipping a stack of file folders onto the scarred conference table. Each one bears the usual alphabet soup of classified material with the codeword VEHEMENT HARPIST - a designation no one on the team has encountered before.
The door opens to admin Group Captain Mewes. He closes it behind him and flips the switch which illuminates the red bulb in the hallway, then takes a seat at the head of the table. Bannon silently slides another coffee mug onto the table at the RAF officer's elbow, then folds into his own seat at Mewes' right hand.
"Kapitan Kowalska, Miss Omdahl, gentlemen," Mewes begins, "congratulations on a successful final integration exercise last week. I've been in Brussels over the weekend on consultation with our chain of command and the council is pleased with your workup. As of zero-eight-hundred today, your team is authorized for operations under the designation Grey Cell. Well done. And not a moment too soon, because we have an urgent tasking."
Mewes gestures for the team to break the tape seals on their briefing packets. The faces staring up from the photograph within are a South Asian man and woman, fiftyish, bespectacled, captured in a laboratory setting and scowling at the interruption of their work.
"Meet Doctors Satish and Jayashri Tamboli. They're Pakistani nationals with a taste for oil money. The late Colonel Gaddafi recruited them in '99 for his nuclear weapons program. After A.Q Khan and Friedrich Tinner were taken out of the picture, they officially moved into teaching positions at the University of Tripoli. However, no students or other instructors who were then in the Department of Nuclear Engineering seem to remember them, and they've not published since - which is like unto death for academics. Our sources suggest their employment there was a cover for ongoing participation in fusion research. Tab Delta, please."
He waits for you to turn to Tab D, then continues. "The Tambolis dropped off our radar during the Libyan Civil War. About two months ago, rumors began to place them back in Tripoli, helping get the local oil industry on its feet again. That's when they came to the attention of the unpleasant gentleman you see there--" weathered, Middle Eastern, late thirties, sneering at something out of frame, nasty web of burn scar across his right cheek and temple "-- who goes by the nom de guerre of Mas'ud Attar. Our lad Mas'ud is the prime hatchetman of Abu al Afari al Turkmani, who's the Islamic State's current director of provincial governance."
"This op is a covert extraction. You will insert into Tripoli, locate the Doctors Tamboli, and bring them out along with any records of their fusion work. If necessary, destroy the records rather than allowing them to remain in play." He pauses for a sip. "Intercepts indicate Attar has an advance team on the ground in Tripoli and is en route to join them now, so we're on an undetermined but definitely tight schedule. Fortunately, someone tipped off the Tambolis, so they've gone to ground. Unfortunately, we don't know where. Fortunately again, we have better analysts than Attar, starting with you."
Bannon shifts in his chair and takes up the briefing. "Tripoli is still infested with Islamist militias - I ain't gonna say 'under control of.' So we have no cooperative local authorities to draw on. We have two ways to insert you. First option is covert - fly into Tunisia and drive across the Libyan border when the militias aren't looking. Second choice is to draw on DGSE --" he nods to Durand "-- to build a cover as French-backed petrochem consultants, then fly in commercial from Alexandria. Westerners are still pretty safe in Tripoli if they're there to help keep the petroducats flowing. That'll be faster but you'll be limited in the gear you can get in-country until Amber Cell arrives to provide ops and logistics support. Either way, Amber will be at least two days behind you."