Olivia Liu's financial tracks are, to Felix's disappointment, pretty easy to follow...to a point. Through a series of travel tickets and credit card payments you can follow her trail to Marrakesh but then she withdraws pretty much all her savings (a sum of about two thousand pounds) at a bank in the city as dirhams, the local currency. It is a reasonable assumption that she has entered the walled Medina district, the historical center of town, where cash payments might draw less attention.

OOC: Sidney; a Digital Intrusion roll would be needed for that but once you have access Electronic Surveillance will take it from there. Will be difficulty 3, not so much for the difficulty of accessing the individual systems (which are childplay for Sid's skills) but for the sheer number of cameras and suchlike you'll need to break into.

Sipping her fortified coffee, Sidney started to grin as she closed in on the real work- hacking enough remote camera feeds to give her a wide field of vision over the city of Marrakesh. This was what she was trained for, what she used to live for. Getting disavowed by the agency hadn't changed that.

To avoid distraction, she slipped a pair of earphones into her ears and pressed play on an older model MP3 player she'd fished out of a pocket. Essentially closed off from the world now, she hummed quietly and bobbed her head to the guitars and the throbbing beats of whatever music she was listening to while she typed in, over and over, the old, familiar commands that would give her control over remote systems, preferably without raising suspicions.

OOC: Understood. Here goes nothing...

01:05, Today: Sidney Walsh rolled 4 using 1d6.  DI test to hack the city of Marrakesh.

Sidney easily manages to locate Ms Liu; if easily can be used to cover some two hours of monotonous breaking into a wide variety of security cameras. Hopkins had provided a number of quality photographs at various angles which made identifying your target a breeze.

Olivia Liu is most definitely in the Medina and you track her to an area in the South, as recently as a few hours ago, where she is lost in a rat-run of twisting medieval passageways which have never gone as far as installing CCTV. In that area you can identify six riads (old style grand houses which have been converted into hotels) and it's a pretty safe bet she's holed up in one of those.

Felix hmmphs quietly as he followed the trail of the money.  At least she can think...    He checked his watch quickly to keep track of time before he needed to go meet with the whole team.  Some time yet.  He set to the file again and tried to dig out some background information on Ms. Liu and why she might have chosen Marrakesh... Previous acquaintances...  Contacts...  Sources....  Maybe try to find out something about what and who she was investigating that got so riled...

Switching to Research I think.  Background information gathering on Liu and her new "enemies"

Wayne worked in his own office typing away at his keyboard. While the others were sifting through information and tracking Liu, Wayne looked at the big picture. He pourd over message boards, chat rooms, and YouTube videos looking for patterns that might help them.

With whatever time he had left he worked the phones, calling her professional contacts to get what he could from them. He would flatter them by pretending to befrom a small college looking to give Liu a Journalism award. He tells them he needs background info on her.

Lastly he tries flirting with some of her girlfriends to pump them for information.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:11, Mon 22 June 2020.

Felix's research seems to back up what Hopkins had told you about Olivia Liu. She is a serious journalist, of the old school investigative kind, who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty digging into a story. Traits unusual for a hack of her generation and relative inexperience (she's only in her 20s). She's done previous exposés on a sweat shop and a fairly small scale drug gang, both based in the UK, but nothing which would draw the kind of heat which makes you need to leave the continent. There is no obvious reason why she would go to Marrakesh – on publicly available information she has no connection whatsoever to the city or Morocco in general. There is no information as to who may be after her and Hopkins provided next to nothing by way of details about her pursuers.

Wayne manages to dig up a little more from Olivia's employers. They understand she is currently investigating a story about corruption in the mining industry and believe she is currently meeting a contact abroad for some deep background. They are understandably reluctant to provide more details about an ongoing story but you do get a first name of the contact, Hasan, someone she has previously worked with on other stories. A skim through her back articles leads to no mention of a Hasan, or anything similar, which suggests this is someone who wants to stay out of the limelight.

Olivia's friends provide little further information. They either believe she is out of the country for work or, with some of then, didn't realize she had gone abroad at all with a "I only saw her last week!".

Wayne knocked on Felix’s door. He waited until the other man answered. ”Need any help, Felix? I think I’ve exhausted my know how.”

"Herein."

Felix answered back without looking up from his computer.  He jots a few more notes, before answering, "I have managed to confirm much of what little we were already told.  I believe that she is hiding within the medina.  I am working on travel arrangements and papers now.  Any special requests?"

Bernie had spent the better part of two days with a phone glued to his ear, following a trail of fixers, smugglers and corrupt bureaucrats (as if there were any other kind) all the way to Marrakesh. Along the way, he gathered as much information as he could on the means and methods of moving about the city without attracting the wrong kind of attention--namely, which palms to grease in order to make their arrival and departure as covert as possible. When he finally had his list of names--and their prices--he emerged from his own office, eyes bloodshot, reeking of cigarette smoke and stale coffee. He raised a hand to Felix and Wayne.

"Guten morgen, Herr Schneider, Herr Breuer. Or is it night already? Ah, no matter. No rest for the wicked, it seems. How goes our preparations for the Marrakesh deal?"



I think Human Terrain or Bureaucracy would be appropriate. Trying to find names of officials or police who take bribes, in order to help us be as discreet as possible in our comings and goings.

Satisfied she'd done all she could from a little German coffee shop, Sidney grinned to herself and set about the process of copying relevant snippets of video for review later and covering her tracks before dashing off a quick text message from her burner phone to Felix, who she kind of thought of as the boss of this whole operation, (Target's location down to six real possibilities. Further precision needs some work on-site. Headed in to the office, eta fifteen minutes.) and started packing up her laptop to return to the office.

Wayne nodded, ”I’ll need to bring my toys.” His “toys” are parts of his weapons collection. ”I’d also like to see First Class you know. I’m the one who always gets stuck in coach.” After a moment he snapped his fingers, ”I talked to Liu’s editors. All the ones I could reach mentioned a Hasan as a contact. I couldn’t find one in her social media Rolodex. Can you get into her financials? Maybe we can figure out who Hasan is by regular payments to someone outside her normal circle?” He turned to Bernie, ”I’m doing good Ber...I mean Mr. Mueller. We’re just getting travel and such finalized...well Felix is doing the work and I’m uhh...supervising. Yea...that’s what I’m doing...supervising.”

Miles pencil tapped away on his desk. His feet were up as he leaned back in his desk chair. His computer was off. This time between missions was always the hardest for him.

Without the background in analysis, and more on the action side of things, office time was hard. But he found it good to be around just in case and it seemed like they would move soon.

“Yo. First class for me too then. Gotta stay limber and flying coach does not help any.”

Without looking Wayne put out his fist for Miles to give him a fist bump. He and Miles were often on the same wavelength. ”Boom-shockalocka”

I realize this is a bit obscure. It is a quote from the movie Stripes, see clip below.
The proper answer would be “Razzledazzle!”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5wZ39aAhokQ

Bernie's research fails to turn up any definitive information about weak links in Moroccan law enforcement. Marrakesh is mostly under the jurisdiction of the 'Tourist Brigade' of the police force who keep an extremely tight hand on crime in Marrakesh to avoid any negative impact on the tourism which is vital to the city's prosperity. As such they number amongst the most upstanding, and least 'friendly', of the country's police. That isn't to say that there aren't some bad apples who may be willing to help you out; just that it's the kind of enquiry which will need to be made in country and directly.

In doing this research it does occur that this tight handle on crime in the city means that whoever is after Ms Liu is unlikely to use local talent to kidnap or eliminate her as the usual suspects will be well known to the authorities. It seems more likely that they will bring in someone from outside, probably disguised as a tourist, who won't be on any local radars.

Miles taps Wayne’s fist and pulls it back. “Razzle Dazzle“. Then blows the fist up.

Felix got distracted by Wayne's mention of "Hasan" and the suggestion to check back through financials...  He did still have them up on his computer and it was only a few minutes to check back through to see if anything jumped out with that connection...

As he did so, he absently responded to Sidney's text with a thumb's up emoji of positive message receipt.  Not looking up from his search, he offered to the room, in a halting not-paying-attention sort of way, "Ms. Walsh will be arriving shortly....  Flights are arranged....  Business class...  Two separate flights...."

Accounting!  Rechecking Ms. Liu's information for any possible links to "Hasan"...

There's no obvious references to Hasan in any of Liu's financial (or any other) documents. There's a greater than average number of large cash withdrawals made but that wouldn't be entirely unusual for a journalist funding sources who didn't want any transactions showing up.

Wayne shrugged, ”Worth a try,” though whether he mean asking for first class or looking up Hasan. ”I think maybe it’s time for Miles to use his superpower.” He grinned at his friend. ”Ten bucks says he’ll find Liu within four hours of landing in Morocco. Takers?”
This message was last edited by the player at 21:04, Thu 25 June 2020.

Miles chuckles a little and says “I don’t know about that... While I can do anything I put my mind to, a tourist running around Marrakesh without a real pointer of who to look at seems like a bad idea. “

He flicks his pencil against the table one more time. Then sits up and boots up his computer.  “I do know someone over there. A bit shady maybe but they owe me some favors. Since we didn’t come up with anything here, I’ll reach out. She’s a pretty well connected merc who used to run around North Africa. Oddly enough, we met in Casablanca. While I’m reaching out, I’d suggest we get over there ASAP. We’re running out of time now if we can’t chase leads from here. And either way, it’s easier to knock on doors when you’re in front of them.“ He starts typing away, sending a secure email to his old pal, Anis.

---

I’ll go ahead and spend  4 points of Network to make this lady. I’d like to see if she knows of any people who would do this sort of work or reports of shady out of towners to follow up on once Miles gets to Marrakesh.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:59, Thu 25 June 2020.

OOC: Network contact sounds good. It's going to be a difficulty 3 roll for her to know anything of relevance so up to you how many points you want to spend on the roll.

Other than that is there anything else anyone wants to do or look into before you head out? The other consideration is what you're taking to Morocco. It's not going to be a problem to get pretty much any normal equipment over there but gun ownership is restricted to those licensed and so taking firearms will be trickier. You could either try your luck at concealing them and smuggling them across or you can try and lay your hands on some in Marrakesh (assuming you want guns). Law enforcement is not what it might be, especially out of the tourist areas, so getting hold of some weapons won't be prove overly difficult.

Miles finishes typing and looks around the room. “Alright. Message away. We’ll see what she comes back with. I’ll pack up my gear and get ready. “

He goes to the locker/storage room of the office where the team stores stuff and opens his locker. There’s already a day bag with a week and some change worth of clothes, a few dollars of various currencies for different countries, etc.  He goes into another locker and starts getting his night bag together, some light armor, goggles, a knife that he likes, stuff like that.

He’s ready to go in 3 minutes.

I’ll spend 1 point of network on this. Do I roll or you?

I don’t want to do anything else in particular. Unless someone else wants to smuggle firearms over, I’ll take the chance and try to get some in Marrakesh. And he’ll pack up some standard equipment for fighters; knife, night vision, maybe a Kevlar vest, etc...

Anis comes back promptly with a response. As it turned out she was entirely the right choice and provides a solid lead. From what little information you have Hasan is most likely to be Hasan Safat, a Turkish fixer who operates in the shadier corners of the Mediterranean. He's relatively small time but has a proven track record of being able to get what you need, no questions asked. It doesn't surprise her at all that Hasan may be involved with a journalist - he trades information as readily as equipment. Anis provides the details of a mosque he is known to frequent when in town.

As far as suspicious foreigners in town she draws a blank. The city attracts millions of tourists a year and so it's easy for newcomers to blend in. Certainly to her knowledge there's nobody who has been making waves of late so whoever it is must be keeping a pretty low profile.

OOC: Normally feel free to go ahead and roll any necessary dice yourself but I've rolled, a success, for this one for expediency's sake.

Wayne went to his very large locker, which really looked more like a walk in closet, with every kind and sort of martial weapon. He started with two of the most reliable weapons in his arsenal, a compound recurved bow and two dozen arrows, six of which were blunt tipped and the rest were tipped with bore hunting heads. Next he took his bore spear, which came disassembled. The main difference between a bore spear and a standard spear was a serrated three bladed head and a very wide crossbar, eighteen inches on either side, which kept bore or pesky people from "climbing the pole." After that he took a cavalryman's saber, the same kind the Marines wore on their dress uniforms, and a main gauche a defensive dagger with a very large basket hilt. Because he always loved using them he took a Meteor Hammer, which was a twenty foot chain that had a solid mace head like hammer on each end and a pair of tonfa. Because it was easy to pack and conceal he also brought along a rope dart. He also packed a pair of K-Bar daggers and a half dozen small throwing knives. With the larger weapons disassembled it would be easy to pack the whole kit in two large duffel bags, along with some change of clothes, night vision goggles, and body armor.

Bags packed, Miles checked his computer and relayed the info to the team.

Felix finished up all the travel arrangements and paperwork.   Not to mention the coordinating of the usual gear and supplies that would likely be necessary on such a mission.  Sadly, the short notice and current delays in shipping in Morocco meant it would not be waiting for them when they got there.  Logisitics was never easy and often downright frustrating....

That would be a nope.

02:11, Today: Felix Schneider rolled 2 using 1d6+1.  Preparedness - Spend 1.