Chris' Terror & Crime Network \ Modern Wargaming Blog

Crime Network Session 3: Payback Served Lukewarm

2011-03-14T21:52:00.008-05:00

The cell phone rang. Maggie (a PC) stared at it but did not answer. The phone rang again. The name of the caller appeared: Nathan Kerrigan. Maggie handed the phone to Owen (a PC) who hesitated for just a second and then answered.

Kerrigan was puzzled, fuming, and mourning all at the same time. He wanted to know what the hell was going on. He wanted to know where "Mean" Mike was. He wanted to know if the group had found the rat. He wanted to know who the hell had drilled holes into his favorite daughter's hands. He wanted to know a lot of information; Owen gave him very little.

Owen told Kerrigan that the group had eliminated both Darren Lynch and "Mean" Mike as the rats of the organization. Owen told Kerrigan to not ask any further questions over the phone but did mention that another one of the group's contacts had been found dead after being tortured with an electric drill. This information sent Kerrigan into a fit.

Finally Kerrigan told Owen that he had seen on American television that British troops were being redeployed to Belfast to crush their group for causing so much mayhem. He told the group to lay low until he was able to return back from New York where he was with his comatose daughter Fiona (ex-PC). Little did he know...

Hours later that night the group loaded three crates of newly arrived Russian AK-47s into the rear of a non-descript work van that they had recently "borrowed". John (a PC) took the wheel, and the group, with Tony Martino (an NPC) the leased Sicilian hit man, drove off towards the meeting with Erik the Skin that they had set up weeks before.

When the group arrived at the construction site they were greeted by Erik the Skin and two of his men. The sidekicks were both armed with assault weapons and looked considerably more perturbed than when the group had seen them last - it might have been because the last time the group was saved from Welsh Bob by the two armed men and the group drove off without attempting to assist their saviors...

However, Erik seemed unfazed and greeted the group with his traditional hug and kiss to Maggie. He was initially angered when he heard what had happened to Fiona Kerrigan, (the drills through her hands that has left her on death's doorstep) but then realized that his new weapons dealer was certainly attracting a considerable amount of unwanted attention and channeled his anger into skepticism.

While Owen attempted to reassure Erik about the group's intentions and future plans, Maggie's phone vibrated in her pocket. This time she had remembered to turn it off. She ignored its vibrations, and then again when it vibrated again just moments later.

Owen was able to convince Erik that the C.I.R.A. was the supremacists best weapons' option and Erik conditionally agreed to stay exclusive with the group. As the group was readying to depart, the supremacist's enforcer, Larry "The Bullet" waltzed in and was introduced. Larry is an intimidating figure; he stands 6'4 and has the words skin and head tattooed on his eyebrows. He is known in the criminal underworld as being one of the most vile and vicious creates to ever prowl the night. After the uneasy introductions were made, John, feeling the most unsettled, escorted his comrades back to their van and they promptly departed.

While the group was driving away Maggie flipped out her phone and listened to her messages. The first message was from one of her contacts, an old neighborhood lady, Nell, who kept an eye on thing and reported back to her. Nell's message mentioned that she believed that something was going down that night and that Maggie and her friends should keep their heads low. Maggie could hear the concern in Nell's voice and hoped that the old lady was wrong. She wasn't.

Seconds later after Maggie deleted Nell's message, she listened to the second message. The color drained from her face as soon as she heard the voice scrambler. The computerized voice asked Maggie if she had ever heard that you weren't supposed to talk about people behind their backs and that he (the mystery person) was going to punish old Nell for her sins. Maggie then heard the sound of an electric drill whirl to life, Nell's screams and sobs, and then silence.

Maggie immediately blurted out what she had just heard on her phone recordings. As John turned around in the driver's seat he accidentally turned the radio up to full blast. Before Owen could turn it back down the female disc jockey on the radio made mention of a home in the area that had just exploded. "It was the family home of two brothers who were expert bomb makers for the C.I.R.A." she said.

Owen knew the two brothers well and knew that they would not "accidentally" blow up their family home. He knew that something wasn't right. He called some of the group's C.I.R.A. members to see if something was wrong. After numerous no answers or straight to voicemail messages, Owen knew what he wanted to do. He knew that old Nell must have been right and that they should simply keep their heads down. Except, Owen wasn't about to take anything from anybody; the cops. the paramilitaries, and especially not the British. No, Owen thought. It's war.

Owen remembered that Nathan Kerrigan had mentioned that there was a stash of money hidden in the basement of Murphy's Pub. He told John to go retrieve some and that he and Maggie were going to get "the neighborhood" involved.

An hour later, just past 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, John navigated his way through the last hasty British checkpoint and returned back to "the neighborhood." When he arrived, Owen and Maggie were stringing detonation cord in loops through the street while armed "civilians" reinforced windows and doorways. John was stunned. He wanted to know what was going on. Maggie, with excitement in her eyes, shouted "it's gonna be great! We're gonna call in a C.I.R.A. meeting to the police, and when they arrive..." He voice was interrupted by Owen wielding a megaphone and shouting at specific locations where he wanted his new conscripts to be placed when the authorities came. John looked around in disbelief. "What the hell is happening," he wondered silently to himself.

A few hours later, the call was placed. It was from a C.I.R.A. double-agent who the authorities believed was working for them. The double-agent told the dispatcher that there was a meeting of top C.I.R.A. members and that the meeting was about to conclude. Over a police radio that Owen had obtained from a local contact, the group listened to the instructions given to numerous local units to come and arrest all those present at the meeting. Maggie smiled, Owen grinned with pleasure, and John stared deadpan.

Minutes later the first three governmental vehicles arrived. The first was an ordinary police car, followed up by the heavily armored van that Welsh Bob notoriously rode around in, and the last was an undercover detectives unit in an unmarked car. The police car drove all the way down the dead-end street and stopped just inches from where a C.I.R.A. IED was located. The armored van skidded to a halt and the undercover vehicle followed suit.

Behind the governmental procession a large truck pulled up perpendicularly behind them and blocked any escape possibility that they may previously have had. The clutch of the truck was slammed into park, the parking brake was engaged, and Larry "the Bullet" threw the keys down the street as far as he could. He chambered a round into his newly acquired AK-47 and prepared himself the excitement of his life.
The police hopped out of their cruiser and the undercover detectives followed suit. However, the armored car in the center of the queue was still. Without hesitation Maggie depressed the first detonator that she had. The underside of the undercover detectives' car was propelled into the air and three of the four detectives were pulverized instantaneously. The fourth was blown into the side of nearby building and lay still.

The police in the front of the ambush raced out of their car towards the house at the end of the street. The other two ran towards the buildings on either side of the street. Rounds were shot at them and impacted much too closely for their liking. Sirens could be heard in the distance and they all knew that if they could reach safety and hold up that their reinforcement would arrive soon.

The two officers that ran straight into the house at the dead-end burst through the window after finding the door blocked by a large obstacle. As they came through the window Tony Martino shot one in the throat, just above the neck of his body armor. The policeman dropped to the group with a thud and clutched at his wound while his partner turned his attention towards the assassin and fired. The distance was so close that it was almost impossible to miss. Tony Martino was hit in his right thigh and joined the wounded cop on the floor of the old row home.

From the sitting position the Sicilian ignored his burning leg wound and fired off two more shots that hit the standing policeman in his left knee. The man, caught unawares and with a newly shattered knee, face-planted to the ground. Tony Martino, without compulsion or remorse fired two rounds into the man's exposed skull. When he was sure that the man was dead, he pushed himself up with his gun, hovered over the throat-shot policeman, raised his weapon and ended the man's struggle for breath.

Back in the street, the armored van's door swung open and five SO15 members plunged out, geared up and dressed all in black. The first man out of the window was dropped by a almost point blank shotgun blast to his exposed face. The man crumbled to the cobblestone street beneath him while Owen racked another armor-piercing shell into his shotgun.

Welsh Bob, now leading the SO15 assault squad, fired at the unseen assailant and lead his troops towards Owen's position. His black ski-mask clung to his sweat-soaked face as his body was still filled with the adrenaline that cursed through his veins from his earlier torture sessions with the old C.I.R.A. contact. He put these heightened senses to good work in covering his men with his modified Enfield assault rifle.
As furious and as filled with bloodlust as Owen was, he was not suicidal. Before the front door was breached by the anti-terror team Owen was already racing down the back steps towards the waiting getaway car. When he opened the driver's side door he heard the flash-bang go off and he knew that the remaining locals who occupied that home were going to be dead within seconds. He prayed a Hail Mary while he turned the key in the ignition; success! Owen revved the car to life and honked three times to get John's attention. Second later, John ran up to the car and Owen slammed his entire foot onto the accelerator and the car sped off.

Maggie, still perched in her over-watch position, saw that the SO15 squad was out of sight and that more police, Northern Irish paramilitaries and British soldiers were en route towards the battle and that it was fast approaching her time to leave. She set down the rifle that she had been shooting and detonated the second explosive that she had prepared. The now empty police car at the beginning of the queue exploded and its burning hulk rested in the middle of the street; a silent testament to the effectiveness and violence of the C.I.R.A.

Maggie then made her way out of her house and slipped down a small partially-hidden alleyway and began to made her way to the "rally" point.

Minutes later a British anti-riot unit arrived and began to swarm the neighborhood. Hundreds of shots were exchanged and carried on long into the night. The group watched the running street fight on television from the solace of their safe house. What infuriated them the most was the reintroduction of British troops onto Irish soil. Owen had gotten what he wanted, but he still didn't have to like it...

While Owen finished patching up Tony Martino's wound he concluded his phone call to his Mafia bosses back in Sicily. When he finished his conversation that he held entirely in Italian, Tony told the group that they needed to pack their bags as they were heading to Sicily to help his masters with a rat problem of their own. It would also be a great place to lay low while the British swarmed all over Northern Ireland like a bull in a fine china shop.

Crime Network Session 2: The Executioners

2011-02-22T19:06:00.015-06:00

The second session of Crime Network began with the release of Owen (a PC) from anti-terrorist custody on a Thursday afternoon. While he was being processed out of jail a van pulled up with the leader of the C.I.R.A. Nathan Kerrigan in the driver seat, his right hand man "Mean" Mike Connors riding shotgun, Maggie (a PC) and John (a PC) were seated in the center row, and obnoxiously chain-smoking in the rear of the van was the "borrowed" Sicilian assassin Tony Martino. When Owen approached the van "Mean" Mike shouted for him to sit in the middle row with his other two. "cheese-eating whiskered friends..."

Seconds into the ride Tony began to blow all of his smoke on the newly arrived Owen and Mike asked him what Owen hadn't given to the authorities. Sitting silently, Owen started at Mike through the rear-view mirror. Mike made a quick cutting motion across his throat and before Owen had time to move Tony Martino had a gun pressed firmly into the back of his head. Mike spoke loudly and in a clipped tone. He accused Owen of being the rat and of giving sensitive information to his British "buddies". He also told him that one of Owen's contacts, Jimmy "The Butcher" had been found dead recently with drill holes through his hands. Owen declined to respond and Tony reluctantly holstered his weapon and continued chain-smoking for the remainder of the drive home.

When the group arrived back at Murphy's Pub "Mean" Mike stormed into the bar angrily while Kerrigan reiterated his support for the group and for their mission to find the elusive C.I.R.A. rat. As Owen shook Kerrigan's hand Owen asked the older man how his daughter Fiona (an ex-PC) was doing after taking rounds from a Jamaican drive-by before they were all sent away. The older man's eyes immediately moistened as he told Owen about how Fiona was recovering in a New York hospital with his other daughter by her side. Kerrigan, steeling himself, reminded the group that they had an important meeting Saturday night with Eric "The Skin" that was supposed to solidify the two organizations trust in one another; and that Tony Martino would be shadowing them wherever they went. Owen promised that the transaction would be completed as promised.

After Kerrigan left Owen, John, and Maggie walked the neighborhood while they plotted their next move. Over Maggie's strenuous objections, it was decided that the three of them were going to meet up with Dewan Thomas Jr., the leader of the Jamaican Belfast Boyz to try to cut a deal with them so that the group could get the name of, or at least a lead on the rat.

Friday afternoon the three team members strode up to the vacant doors of the Sizzle nightclub. Moments before they got to the entrance, the door swung open and they were greeted by a doped-up Jamaican who ushered them inside with his handgun. The group looked at him with apprehension - Maggie looked on in terror - this was certainly not her idea...

The group was brought inside the Sizzle. Armed thugs were everywhere and the group attempted to act as calmly as possible, however, the massive display of firepower was not only impressive but also terrifying.

On the large dance floor in the center of the club, a 6'5 foot tall Jamaican, decked out in camouflage and carrying an HK G36K, stood next to Dewan Thomas Jr (the leader of the Belfast Boyz) and another gangster, who were dining on a lavish feast on an ad hoc table set up on the dance floor. The group was lead over to Dewan Thomas Jr. and the other seated gangster where they were brought seats. While seated, the group declined any food or drink and Owen immediately attempted to engage Dewan Thomas Jr. so that they could get some type of information about the rat that they were tasked with silencing.

After a long interchange Owen and Dewan had come to an agreement. Owen promised the Jamaican "community leader" three pounds of semtex in the coming weeks (since they didn't actually have any, Owen told them that they needed a week to ship it in) and Dewan gave the group an important clue. He told them that the rat was a rugby coach and player that is a part of the C.I.R.A. organization.

As Owen was racking his brain to figure out who exactly the rat was, the emergency exit door to the Sizzle was pulled off and a group of five Belfast Hell's Angel's burst into club while firing automatic weapons wildly. Bullets flew everywhere as the Angel's poured a deadly amount of fire into the almost vacant club.

Three Jamaicans dropped dead (including the mammoth bodyguard who lay just inches away from Dewan) and two others were wounded within seconds. John flipped the table over to shield the group and he, Maggie, and Owen returned fire with their handguns.
John was able to wound one Angel as they moved towards the DJ station that would offer them a considerable amount of cover.

The Hell's Angels continued to fire and dropped more gangsters while popping up and down behind the DJ's table. However, when one of the bikers' heads popped up Maggie drilled a hole through it. The bikers began to panic and they began to lay down a large volume of fire so that they could attempt to make a break for it.

Owen was reloading his gun while taking cover behind the flipped table with Dewan Thomas, another gangster, John and Maggie when the entire world became muddled. Without warning, and without any hesitation, the gangster next to Owen turned to Dewan Thomas Jr., pointed his gun at his head, muttered the words "f*** you", and squeezed the trigger. The affluent and media-savvy Jamaican leader's head was destroyed and his body collapsed to the floor. Owen, not sure how to react, raised his weapon and killed the gangster.

Before the group could attempt to grasp what was happening, the Hell's Angels made their run for the door. With triggers pulled back forcefully the leather clad outlaws ran or were drug out the emergency exit where they had just entered minutes before. Rounds fired from the Jamaicans ushered the group out while Owen, Maggie, and John struggled to comprehend what their next move was to be.

John was about to suggest a way out of the situation when a large trash truck slammed through the front entrance of the Sizzle. Standing with his upper torso exposed through the driver's side window of the truck, Tony Martino, the Sicilian "watchman" fired his Sig Saur at the closest Belfast Boyz and downed two of them. With a simple "get in the truck" Tony continued firing on the remaining Jamaicans while the group hustled towards their newly-arrived escape vehicle.

Maggie was the first to the rear of the truck and realized that the passenger side was unavailable, so she simply pulled herself up and dropped into the trash-filled container. John and Owen followed her lead and jumped into the rear portion of the truck also. Seconds later Tony Martino's Sig locked open, he dropped the gun onto the seat and attempted to throw the truck into gear.

After what seemed to be hours, Tony got the truck to lurch to life and he turned the monstrous truck onto the road and began to accelerate. When Tony looked up from the stick shift he saw that there were dozens of Hell's Angels circling the block and that the only way to escape was going to be thru their diesel-fumed roadblock.

Tony, while an accomplished assassin, was a lousy driver; specifically when it came to driving with a stick-shift. The cumbersome garbage truck stumbled forward at twelve miles per hour which enabled three of the mounted Hell's Angels to close in and open fire.

Bullets and slugs dinged off the sides and rear of the truck. One (un)lucky shell managed to ricochet off the back wall of the trash truck and numerous pellets lodged themselves into Maggie's lower back. She let out a howl of pain and Owen moved to treat her gushing wounds while John covered them by firing his gun at the circling bikers.

While Owen tried to staunch Maggie's wounds, Tony slammed the truck into a parked car. The group was strewn about the rear compartment. In a bit of a daze, with motorcycles surrounding the truck, John jumped out and ran to the driver's door. Yelling "don't shot me" to Tony Martino, John hopped into the driver's seat, dislodged the truck, and slammed it into gear.

John accelerated as quickly as possible while Tony got on the foot rails of the truck and continued firing at their two-wheeled pursuers. When the group was roughly a mile away from the Sizzle John yelled for Tony to get back in the truck and John slammed on the brakes. Owen threw Maggie over his shoulder, and together with Tony, they ran ahead of the truck down and alley. Then, John put the truck into gear and drove into the alley as far as he could before he became wedged. John closed his eyes and he fired an entire magazine into the truck's windshield. When he opened his eyes again the windshield was gone and he crawled through it onto the hood, and then he jumped to the ground and followed the rest of the group. The motorcycles engines could be heard in the distance behind them, but no-one in the group ever paused to look behind them.

Clumped together in the rear office of an abandoned warehouse the group pondered what to do next. Maggie had been stabilized but it hurt her to exert much effort. With the police, "Welsh" Bob and his paramilitaries, the Jamaicans, and the Hell's Angels all looking for them, and with the C.I.R.A. not wanting to assist until they eliminated the rat, the group decided that they had to follow up on the lead that Dewan Thomas Jr. had been murdered in front of them. The only rugby coach/player in the C.I.R.A. was Darren Lynch and the group figured that now was the time to pay him a visit.
Under the lights of the local rugby pitch Darren Lynch was loudly coaching a recreational pick-up game. When the group pulled up in their recently-hotwired car they did not arouse any suspicion.

As the players shook hands and walked towards their vehicles, Owen dialed up Darren while the John looked at him through a pair of stolen binoculars. After a terse conversation it was decided that Darren would meet the group at a house a few miles away. Unbeknownst to him, the owner of the home had done contact work for Owen before, information extraction work...

Within seconds of arriving Tony Martino had put his Sig against the back of Darren's head and led him down a hidden staircase located in the rear part of the contacts garage.

With his hands secured in chains high above his head, Darren screamed out for help. Owen, tired, angry, and un-interested in Darren's pleas for help, started the video camera. What was supposed to be the elimination of a rat was about to turn into a genius play for power.

The group let the contact do his job and "interrogate" Darren Lynch. The group left the man to his devices and smoked in the garage upstairs while listening to the inhuman-sounding screams that came from below them.

Two hours later, the contact came up the steps wiping his bloody hands on a towel. He told them that Darren had confessed and that he wouldn't be alive much longer. Owen patted him on the shoulder and thanked him for his assistance. The contact told him that he was owed, big time.

With that Owen went back downstairs and awoke Darren Lynch. Smacking him awake Owen told him that he was going to kill him but he wanted Darren to confess, on tape, that "Mean" Mike Connors was the puppet master that made him rat to the Jamaicans. Darren, bleeding and bewildered, mumbled but nothing coherent came out. Owen shook him harder and told him to tell the camera that "Mean" Mike was the reason why the C.I.R.A. had been compromised. Darren told the camera what he was instructed to say and for his troubles his life ended quickly.

With Darren dead, there was only one element of the plan remaining. Owen took the tape out of the video camera, meet up with John, Tony and Maggie, and dialed up "Mean" Mike. After being screamed at and verbally insulted, Mike agreed to meet up with the group at a local parking lot to discuss their next moves.

When Mike arrived the group had both cars' lights on. Owen and John were standing outside of the vehicles while Maggie had her gun trained on Tony in the backseat of the late Darren Lynch's car. Tony had promised not to make trouble but he would not be a part of what he knew was to come.

When Mike got out of his car he wanted to know what the hell had happened at the Sizzle earlier that day. Owen and John took the verbal insult in stride and waited until he finally ran out of steam. When neither Owen or John would answer his questions, Mike knew what was happening. He cursed them for cowards. He told them that they were the reason that Ireland would never be unified. He told them that they were scum and that he hoped that their children would be defiled and executed by British troops and left for dead in the streets.

Then "Mean" Mike Connors straightened himself and told them that he would see them in hell. With that, Owen raised his shotgun and "Mean" Mike Connors left this world for good.

The next morning, in middle of two separate streets in downtown Belfast, the bodies of two males were found. They were both naked, they had whiskers drawn on their faces, and had blocks of cheese stuffed into their mouths. Within three hours the two men were identified as Darren Lynch, a local rugby coach and "Mean" Mike Connors, a local thug with a penchant for violence.

More Figures for the Crime Network Game

2011-01-14T15:23:00.006-06:00

I painted these models up a few weeks ago for our Crime Network campaign. The group will be back at it in a few weeks whenever family excitement winds down. Pictured below are the hardcore Yardies (Jamaicans) that the group will be dealing with. It seems that the C.I.R.A. has a rat in the organization and the group has decided that they are going to reach out to their sometime rivals to see if they have any information about the mole.

The flamboyant model in the middle is the eccentric leader of the Belfast Boyz who fancies himself a community leader / drug dealer. He can usually be seen socializing with the elite of Belfast society at fancy meals and fundraisers. For numerous reasons he is rarely mistaken for anyone other than himself...

Lastly, since the actual game is called Crime Network and was written as a Mob role-playing game, I figured that I needed to have some Sicilian Mafia types in our game. Also, this will make integrating The Old Country supplement directly into our campaign much smoother. Devious tricks for devious times!

Crime Network Session 1: There's a Rat in My House

2010-12-05T14:13:00.018-06:00

The fading sun had left only dim moonlight and a thin but steady mist, however, this did not deter the small Fiat car carrying four persons from traveling to an old family farm nestled in the hills and lower peaks of the Sperrin Mountains. After thirty minutes of driving along narrow county roads, the driver, a pretty young blond, turned off onto a gravel drive that would take her and her compatriots to her father's farm house.

Minutes later the four guests were closing their car doors shut and were greeted by a grinning old man and his unsmiling comrade. The smiling old man was Nathan Kerrigan, founder and leader of a rogue element of the C.I.R.A., an organization dedicated to the violent reunification of Ireland. His comrade was "Mean" Mike Connors, an ally and trusted friend of over forty years in "The Struggle" against Great Britain and her villainous clutches.

Kerrigan's daughter, Fiona (a PC), the pretty blond driver, giggled loudly and ran into her father's arms. She held him tight and they exchanged pleasantries while Fiona's three companions began unpacking their belongings from the car. The joyful family reunion was overshadowed by the disapproving stare of "Mean" Mike Connors who hated the intruders presence only slightly less than their reason for arriving that night.

Hours later, after a few glasses of wine and a homemade meal provided by host Nathan Kerrigan, "Mean" Mike Connonrs garnered every one's attention by telling the newly arrived guests their purpose for coming. He told them that both he and Nathan were convinced that there is a rat inside of the organization that has been relying plans, contacts, and safe-houses to the authorities.

Kerrigan then interrupted and mentioned that rat-catching is one of Mike's specialties but he has been unable to catch the rat for over a month and that he didn't know who else to trust with so significant a task. This, he explained, was why he called in his beloved daughter and her associates to take care of this problem.

Kerrigan then went on to tell the group that before they begin looking for the rat that they were to meet up with a representative of a Belfast Skinhead group, Erik "The Skin", to broker a trade for the Skins Semtex in exchange for the C.I.R.A.'s AK-47 assault rifles.

The next night, Fiona (a PC), Owen (a PC), John (a PC) and Maggie (a PC) pulled up to a construction site that was owned by Erik the Skin's uncle to broker their trade. When they arrived, Erik was flanked to two small but muscular supremacists who each had M16s slung over their shoulders. The four got out of their car and Erik greeted the group with firm handshakes for the men and with kisses to the hands for the ladies.

After the exchanged of compliments the two sides got down to business. Erik stated that he wanted 50 AKs every week along with 3,000 rounds of ammunition and that in return he could and would supply five pounds of Semtex to the C.I.R.A. The group was started by the massive quantities of weapons being discussed but Erik said that he had heard that the C.I.R.A. was recently undergoing troubles and may not be around for long, so he wanted to purchase as many weapons as he could in as short a time as possible. Luckily for the group they were able to leave the meeting with a promise to deliver 25 assault rifles the next week and to then contact their supplier so that they could discuss purchasing more weapons from him to sell to the Skins. Both sides were satisfied by this arrangement. The only further hiccup during the negotiations was when Maggie's cell phone went off and Erik became rather agitated.

The group turned and made their way back to their car that was parked at the entrance of the construction site. Maggie and Fiona were closet to the car when a yellow H3 crept towards them slowly. Maggie noticed that the windows were down slightly and as the car approached that she thought that she smelled the fragrance of marijuana. Before the words of warning could escape her lips the windows on the H3 rolled all the way down and Maggie saw the snubs of an Uzi and a Mack 10 peak out and open fire.

Maggie was caught unawares as the 9mm round blasted thru her arm and Fiona took a bullet to both her chest and her side. Both women dropped to the hard pavement with cries of agony and without a chance to return fire. However, both women struggled forward so that they were behind their car in the event of any further shooting.

As Owen and John pulled their weapons out the H3 sped off and a yellow sports car took its place. Two gangsters jumped out with weapons drawn. Owen and John both unloaded their weapons at the gangsta who exited the driver's side door. After taking two 9mm Glock rounds from John the gangster was violently thrown back into side-mirror of the yellow sports car by a blast from Owen's shotgun that struck his chest.

The surviving gangster began to shoot wildly at the group while he cursed at them loudly. Over the sounds of gunshots and with blood gushing out of her side Fiona thought that she could hear the gunman shouting with a thick Jamaican accent.

While John fired off suppression rounds Owen made his way around the rear of the sports car in a long arching run. John was quite surprised however when three of his suppression shots actually struck the gangster and instead of dropping, the gangster simply changed shooting hands and continued firing! John quickly realized that either this was the meanest gangsta ever, or he was as high as a kite!!!

Owen, crouching as low as he could came around the rear of the car with his shotgun at the ready. The Jamaicans entire body was within feet of Owen, and just before he squeezed off another round he heard the loud shrieking of an approaching police vehicle. Realizing that the group had overstayed their welcome, Owen raised himself to his full height and let loose with a 12 gauge shell to the Jamaicans cranium. What was left of the shooter's torso and legs slammed roughly into the pavement as a large police van pulled up and swung itself in a blocking position on the street.

Before the police van skidded to a complete stop, Welsh Bob, the most dedicated and vicious anti-IRA paramilitary in all of Northern Ireland opened the passenger side door and unloaded approximately forty 5.56 rounds from his SAW machine gun. Maggie, Fiona, and John all utilized their car as a shield but the car itself took serious damage to its rear window, rear lights, bumper, and both tires. John raised his Glock over their vehicle and fired off a few rounds to no effect.

It took him roughly three seconds to realize that a) more police were on their way b) there were now two corpses and two wounded people bleeding on the streets c) there was no way that the C.I.R.A members were ever going to be able to beat a Kevlar vest wearing SAW armed policemen and d) it was time to get the hell outta there!

While John was formulating a plan with the girls the cavalry finally arrived. While attempting to staunch her massive blood loss, Fiona saw Erik the Skin's two assistants run towards the chain-link entrance fence. When the two supremacists reached the fence they unslung their M16s and opened up on Welsh Bob and his heavily armored police van.

Rounds tore into the side of the vehicle but there were little visible damage. However, the white supremacists were able to catch Welsh Bob's attention and he quickly through open his van door, dove inside, and slammed the door back shut behind him. John knew that this was the time to leave. He hollered at the women to hop in as he entered the car himself.

John forcefully turned the key in the ignition until he heard it catch. Looking over his left shoulder he saw Owen making a break for them. Throwing the car into drive, John reached back and opened the rear-driver's side door and Owen dove inside.

Before Owen could alert everyone that he was in, the Skins M16s went silent and Welsh Bob once again emerged from his van and unloaded another long burst at the car. More 5.56 bullets punctured the trunk of the Fiat but luckily none of them punctured anyone in the group. John slammed down on the accelerator and the car lurched forwards while the massive firefight continued behind.

Roughly five minutes later John finally removed his entire foot from the accelerator and the group took stock. Owen began to apply first aid to Fiona's side with a used fast-food bag and napkins. While Owen worked on Fiona, the group debated what to do next. While they were discussing their options, Maggie's phone rang again and it was "Mean" Mike telling them that Nathan Kerrigan's house had been raided by the police and that going back to the farmhouse was obviously compromised. "Mean" Mike told them to instead to travel to the group's home away from home: Murphy's Pub.

Thirty minutes later the group pulled up to Murphy's Pub in a newly stolen non-descript van. The only visible movement in and outside of the bar was the usual fixture; old Nevin sitting at the bar polishing off another pint. Before entering the group discussed the chances that they were being set-up, but before they could finish their conversation there was a loud bang on the drivers-side window next to John's head. Standing outside the van was "Mean" Mike who was scowling when he growled, "Leave your weapons and come inside, the authorities are after us...Nathan wants to speak with ya...now".

The group followed "Mean" Mike inside the pub and as soon as he realized their presence, old Nevin downed the remainder of his pint, pushed his bar stool back and promptly left the pub. Nathan Kerrigan was standing in the back corner of the pub watching the news on an old television. As the group cautiously approached they could see that the anchorwoman was standing in the middle of the street where the earlier shootout had taken place and was enlightening the rest of Ireland about the most "recent flare-up of gang violence in downtown Belfast." Locals then told the cameras how scared and angry they were at the shooting and even a local "community leader" named Dewan Thomas Jr. accused the police of not caring about the victims because of their race and socioeconomic status.

Just as Fiona was going to take a seat to rest her beaten body "Mean" Mike put a hand on her shoulder and nodded for her to follow him. When the two were out of ear-shot of the group "Mean" Mike quickly told her that under no uncertain terms did he trust her or any of her friends. He also told her that he believed that she or one of her friends was the actual rat. Lastly, Mike told Fiona that he had a Sicilian contact that he was bringing in to personally rid the C.I.R.A. once and for all of their rat problem. "Mean" Mike then stormed out of the pub and Fiona was left wondering about what the hell she had gotten into.

As she struggled to comprehend everything that had happened to her and her friend's that night the pub's doors were thrown open. Fiona's ears were assaulted by the loudest noise she had ever heard and she, her father, and her friends were immediately restrained by members of Britain's SO13 anti-terrorist squad. Within minutes they were all frisked and then marched into the rear of a waiting police transportation van.

The next thirty days were a blur of interrogations, cold temperatures, sleepless nights, and further interrogations. Fiona, Owen, Maggie, and John were all subjected to numerous unpleasant coercive tactics, however nothing that was considered tortuous to the British government.

At the end of thirty days Fiona was given her cloths and possessions back. She was told that someone was waiting for her and that if she continued "down her chosen path that she would most likely end up back in jail." Bewildered after a month of captivity she said nothing and made her way outside.

Waiting at the facilities entrance for her was "Mean" Mike and her father. She ran and hugged her father tightly and out of the corner of her eye she then saw John and Maggie. As the tears ran down her cheeks in a moment of extreme emotion she asked where Owen was. Her father said that he hadn't been released yet and that he was
being held on terrorism charges. Before Fiona could respond "Mean" Mike interjected, "Or maybe he's talking to them about us right now..."

More Paintjobs for Crime Network Game

2010-12-04T13:53:00.005-06:00

Here are some of the final paint jobs for my group's upcoming Crime Network campaign. Pictured below are a "sample" of the Belfast Chapter of the Hell's Angels. They will be playing an integral role in the gun-running distribution operation of the PCs.

Also, I have a box-set of 10 "mounted" bikers en route that I hope to have painted up over Christmas Break. There's no reason to have an outlaw biker gang involved in a game if they aren't riding their iron horses...

Lastly, here are two more gang-bangers that will undoubtably butt heads with our heroes in the near future.

Paint Job from Alex aka Yorikasudon pt. 2

2010-11-24T21:37:00.015-06:00

Here is the 2nd batch of paint jobs from Alex.
These pictures are of the 16 SWAT members that will be going after our "heroes". Yes, I know that Britain doesn't have a SWAT team per se, however, I feel that they can be used in lieu of actually having SO13 Anti-terrorist Branch troopers.

Next up are some Cops to go after the "good guys". And again, yes I do know that constables do not look like this nor does the average constable carry a firearm, but in a crime game, the good guys need to have a chance to win...Don't they?

Here are the player's themselves; all dressed up with no-where to go...We'll see how dangerous they are in just a couple of weeks...

Lastly here are some prone British troops who may get called in if the PC's actions get out of hand and draw the attention of Downing Street...They had better watch out if that happens as the snipers don't look like they are going to miss a shot.

Crime Network Painting Part 3

2010-11-13T11:31:00.006-06:00

Here is my newest addition to my group's Crime Network 'family'. This is a group of undercover police / detectives with weapons drawn. These are going to represent the heavily armed constables who will be continuously trying to thwart the players attempts to sow terror and to make gobs of cash.

And then, I needed to paint up a big nasty leader of the Loyalist forces who will be a danger to the group; out came "Welsh" Bob - an ex-SAS member who now leads the local Loyalist forces. He is renown for his military tactics and his violent efficiency.

2nd Set of Crime Network Paintjobs

2010-11-11T22:56:00.005-06:00

Here are some pictures of the second batch of troopers that I have painted up. While I understand that these figures are better suited to Terror Network, they have been laying around, are AMAZING models from Empress, and I simply wanted to paint them!

And with their beards, ballcaps, and M4s, I'm sure that I can come up with some clever reasons for introducing these models to our game. Hopefully these guys are not the death of my players; I suppose only time will tell.

And here is the side view of the Special Forces troops. Notice that the sniper's spotter is wearing a STL Cardinals hat for my hometown and another one of the operators is wearing a KC Royals hat for half of my players...It's the little things that keeps a group playing happily together...

Crime Network's 1st Paintjobs

2010-11-01T10:13:00.002-05:00

My gaming group and I have decided to take a small break from Terror Network's world of CIA agents, special forces operators, and undercover operations, and have decided to delve into Bedrock Games: Crime Network. However, since most of my players are Irish, and I am the lone Italian, the setting of our game will be downtown Belfast as opposed to the traditional New York, New Jersey, or Rome...

In our seedy Belfast underworld there will be nationalists, Loyalists, Republicans (Catholic Irishmen not the American political party) skinheads, and Jamaican gangsters. I have named and labeled the major players in all of the different factions and am currently painting up corresponding models for everyone. So far, I have completed 4 Jamaican gangsters which are pictured below.

Hopefully I will be able to complete all of the 'rosters' and paint up enough models before we begin playing in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Paint Job from Alex aka Yorikasudon

2010-10-24T09:52:00.007-05:00

Here are some pictures of the miniatures that Alex painted up for me -
I feel like he did a hell of a job. I can't wait to get them on the table and mow them down :)

And here are some captives that he painted for me. When playing with Islamic radicals, one must always have numerous hostages on hand...

Terror Network Episode 8

2010-09-22T21:45:00.026-05:00

Episode 8: Operation Hydra Den

September 15th 2010

After the successful attack on the Dallas Federal Reserve Building, the United States military began formulating plans for an immediate strike against the terrorist most responsible for the carnage, Muhammed Abaza. However, it was quickly learned that Abaza was extremely smart and that he would difficult to track down.

Around this same time, information was being processed by the C.I.A. that explicitly stated that a secret mine was being utilized by one of Abaza's companies in the mountains of Saudi Arabia. The reports chronicled how uranium was being extracted from this secret mine and that Abaza would obviously use this against the U.S. if ever given the possibility.

So, instead of the assassination mission that everyone hoped to receive, the Delta team, lead by Lee, was called in and told to stop the uranium extraction and to retrieve three laptops that contained information about the mine, Abaza's networks, and most likely Abaza's current whereabouts. With a curt salute, Lee gathered his team together and they headed to Saudi Arabia to meet with one of their contacts.

Once in country, the group met up with their contact who informed them of the local climate for Islamists, the uranium mine, and the Cobra terror cell located within the city. After spending a brief period at the contacts safe-house the group went to the local marketplace in an attempt to gather some knowledge.
While in the market-place Lee (a PC) and Jim Kardson (a PC) attempted to convince an older arms dealer to give up some information about the local Cobra terror cell. The man grew suspicious and told them to go away. After a few ours of wandering the marketplace the group went back to the safe house where they began calling in favors from past contacts. It took a number of calls but finally a corrupt Syrian businessman that Jim had once run a sting operation against was able to give the group some good intel on the Cobra cell's location. The Syrian told the group that there was a warehouse near the edge of town that was used by the cell and that more info could probably be gleaned from there.

Later that night, the group drove up to the warehouse and noticed that it was surrounded by a 10 foot chain link fence and had an armed guard at the main entrance. After some tactical conversation the group was soon on a hill overlooking the rear of the mammoth structure and was searching for any signs of movement. Not seeing much, at around 2:00 a.m. the group cautiously repelled down the face of the hill and silently made their way towards four vehicles that were parked in the rear part of the building. As they advanced Lee (who was on point) noticed that one of the docking bay doors was opening. Raising his silenced Beretta he fired a round through the head of a teenage guard that unluckily strolled out the door and he dropped to the ground. Not knowing who or what might be inside, Lee lead the group through the open loading bay door.

Inside the group took cover behind one of the many stacks of crates and boxes. The only movement that the group saw came from the a forklift that was being operated by what appeared to be a fifty-year old man. The group spread out and began searching for any sings of terrorist activity.
Moments later Sarah Walker (a PC) radioed to the rest of the group that she was viewing three armed men guarding the manager's office at the far side of the warehouse. When the rest of the group arrived seconds later they witnessed a man walk out of the office, talk with the three guards for a few minutes, and then return back into the room. Trey Nation (a PC) was unsure if the man in the office was Nusair Hadad, the leader of the Cobra cell.

Using only hand signals, the group prepared their ambush. Seconds later, two of the three guards lay on the ground, alive but neutralized, while the third guard lay dead; a silenced pistol round to the head ending his life. While the dead guard lay twitching Lee and Jim stormed the office door. Lee kicked the door open while Jim tossed a flash-bang inside.

When the two men re-emerged from the office, Lee had one of the three assigned laptops tucked under his armpit and Jim had the prone body of Nusair Hadad over his shoulder. The group couldn't believe their fortune and quickly made their way back to the loading bay. Before loading their new cargo into one of the parked vehicles, the driver of the forklift was also hit with a high-powered tranquiler dart and left on the warehouse floor.

An hour outside of town the group began to interrogate their high-priority suspect. Although initially uncooperative, Nusair gave up the location the GPS coordinates of the uranium mine after being promised his safe release and a ride back to town. Unfortunately for him, by the time the sun came up that morning his corpse was already being dismembered by the local animals and incests...

After using Lee's satphone to update HQ, Trey drove the group towards the secret uranium mine in their newly-stolen truck. While the truck was nearing the mine it was forced to inch along as it traveled up a narrow rocky incline. While the rest of the group was sleeping Trey tried his best to drive cautiously, however, he ran over a spike-belt and the vehicle skidded towards the cliff's edge. Trey was able to keep the truck from crashing down the side of the mountain only by slamming on the brakes and spinning the wheel recklessly.

Now alert, Lee ordered everyone out and to keep their eyes peeled for the enemy. After searching for a few minutes, Trey and Sarah decided to climb the cliff face a bit to see if they could get a better vantage point while Lee and Jim advanced down 'the road'.

Sarah was the first to reach level ground and she paused to catch her breath. As she raised her canteen to take a swig she was struck in the thigh by a 7.62 x 54mm round that severed her femoral artery. Clutching at her spurting injury, Sarah used her belt as a tourniquet while crying out for assistance. Trey ignored her pleas and pulled her behind a small rock formation by her assault harness.

While Trey was tending to Sarah, Lee and Jim were advancing and looking for the sniper. Lee peered through his scope and detected the sniper in a small structure that was created and painted to look like a large rock among hundreds of others. Lee began to fire off three round bursts at the sniper while Jim moved forward into a defilade and began to climb upwards towards the killers perch.

Lee kept up continuous suppressive fire while Jim continued to climb towards the sniper. When he finally pulled himself up onto flat ground, Jim lay behind a large rock, pulled the pins off of a fragmentation grenade, and tossed it where he believed the sniper was hiding. Seconds later a loud explosion went off and when the smoke cleared Jim could see a large pool of blood on the ground and on the rock behind where he believed the shooter to be. Not taking any chances, Jim threw a second grenade, watched it explode, and cautiously moved forward.

As Jim peeked his head around the corner he spotted two different sets of body parts with and a single AK-74 and Dragunov sniper rifle; both of which were obviously inoperable. "Sniper neutralized," he said over the head-set. For the first time in minutes, Sarah Walker let out a sigh of relief and grunted in pain as she continued to help Trey attempt to staunch her bleeding.

After patching up Sarah Walker the group made its way up the remainder of the mountain "road" without any more fanfare. The trucks deflated tires made the trip noisy and slow-going but Lee thought it better than humping it over the mountains in unfamiliar terrain.

When the party was within eye-sight of the cave entrance they hide and turned-off their stolen truck. Their was only one guard who was smoking and staring aimlessly into the distance. It wasn't long before the guard was on the ground and was being drug behind a rock outcropping so that his corpse was out of sight. The group took a collective breath and they entered the mouth of the cave. Trey took point as he was the only one in the group who had night-vision. What he saw was nothing but a large opening that seemed to continue downwards for miles.

After walking for a few minutes Trey spotted a dead end with an elevator leading down. With no other options, the group piled into the old mechanical ladder, and waited with bated breath as it slowly ground its way down into the subterrainian chamber.

When Sarah opened the doors of the elevator the group moved forward with purpose. They moved down the long hallway with weapons sighted and with fingers on triggers.
Eventually the hallway lead to a room with a closed metal door. The group stacked themselves, and on the count of three, entered the room. Inside were two men wearing military uniforms and a third man wearing a lab coat over his uniform. Two of the men were obviously armed guards and the third was a scientist of some type. Without thinking the group fired on the two guards killing them, but the scientist was able to retrieve his sidearm and fire a round into Jim's chest before he was cut down by a burst of fire. Lee bandaged Jim as best as he could and the group pressed on.

They came across other rooms but they were all vacant. As the party moved deeper into the cave they could hear a mechanical whirling noise.

The group continued down hallways and went through numerous rooms, all of which appeared to have been used recently, but did not find anyone. This even included a long rectangular room that was filled with empty bunks. However, the deeper inside of the structure that they went,the loud whirring noise that they heard earlier continued to grow louder. Sarah Walker checked her radiation scanner and it was reporting that the radiation levels were increasing with every step into the mine.

The group came to another large metal door. It seemed as though the loud noises were coming from the room ahead. The group readied their weapons and prepared themselves for whatever lay ahead.

Trey opened the heavy door and the rest of the group poured in the room. There were scientists wearing lab coats, men dressed in camouflage fatigues with weapons, and one man dressed in Middle Eastern garb near the fall wall. The room itself was filled with computers, and chart boards, and large machines that were so loud they were almost deafening.
Without hesitation the group opened fire and tore into the bodies scattered throughout the room. Scores dropped before they even knew what was happening. However, while stitching a three round burst into a guard, Jim caught a glimpse of a man running towards a room on the far side of the room was sure that he was sure was the second terror leader, Asad. Jim fired and hit around the man but did not hit him as he dove for safety into an attached room.

While the group expertly eliminated most targets almost immediately; a few were able to return fire. One especially large guard took three rounds to his chest but did not drop. Instead, while bleeding profusely from his chest, he trained his AK-74 assault rifle and fired. Trey Nation had just entered the room and was scanning for targets whenever the guards AK rounds tore into his chest and stomach. Trey was pushed off of his feet and clasped his hands over this wounds. Seconds later he was unconscious and Sarah Walker stopped firing to attempt to save his life.
The large guard who had just shot Trey was finished off by a blast from Jim, who along with Lee, had grabbed Kalashnikovs off of the ground and were moving for cover.

The noise from the machines was still mind-numbing and the sounds of the high-velocity weapons could barely be heard over their mechanical whirring. However, Lee did not need his sense of hearing to become insanely afraid as Asad walked out of the small attached room with a RPG launcher over his right shoulder.

As Asad methodically marched out of the room he began to lower his weapon in the direction of Lee and Jim who were using a bank of computers to block his view. As Asad pointed his RPG in their direction the two men popped up over the computer desk and fired. The heavy rounds burst through his chest, throat and head. As his lifeless body dropped to the cement floor, he pulled the trigger to his RPG and the rocket shot out of the launcher.

Luckily for the group, the rocket-propelled grenade slammed into a the wall of the room but did not explode because it did not have enough time to properly arm itself.

After breathing a huge sigh of relief, Jim went over to where Sarah was working on bandaging Trey's wounds. Jim assisted the medical process while Lee walked cautiously towards the room where Asad had just emerged from. Inside the small room Lee found the two remaining laptops - the mission was now complete.

With Trey's unconscious body slung over Jim's shoulder, and with the two newly acquired laptops in Lee's combat pack, the group began to make their way out of the cave complex. They moved much slower than on their way in, but now they knew that the mission was almost over, the excitement level was almost palatable.

Sarah pulled down the level on the elevator and slowly it began to raise upwards. Seconds later, the elevator came to a stop and the group disembarked. As they walked out of the cave complex for the last time Lee, the man on point, had to do a double-take to make sure that his eyes were not playing tricks on him. Up ahead, in the passenger seat of an over-sized white cargo van was Muhammad Abaza himself. He was getting back into the middle section of the van while a man in the passenger seat noticed Lee at about the same time that Lee noticed him. The man in the passenger seat had his M11/9 submachine gun hanging out of the window and was able to draw first and fire a long burst in the area of the group.

Jim, with Trey over his shoulder, dove for cover while Sarah and Lee fired back at the gunmen. Simultaneously, Muhammad Abaza slammed the middle cargo door shut and the van's tires began to spin as the driver gunned the engine. Rocks, sand, and other debris was flung everywhere. Ignoring everything else, Lee lined up the van's right rear tire in his sights and squeezed the trigger. The round hit its intended target and a loud bang rang out. Although the tire immediately deflated the van continued to pick up traction and sped down the mountain.

Lee yelled for the rest of the group to stay put while he ran to get the group's hidden vehicle. Almost five minutes later he pulled up and the group either jumped in or was laid down in the rear of the team's 'borrowed' van. Lee floored the accelerator and took the group down the mountain road. As Lee drove the van with its flat tires around a windy turn he saw a large set of headlights coming up the mountain road towards them. Lee, a military brat and soldier all his life, knew that the headlights that were coming towards them were not from Abaza's cargo van but were instead from some type of military truck.

Lee slammed down on the brakes as there was no way around them on the narrow mountain road/path. Slowly he began to back up their van but the headlights of the oncoming vehicle continued getting closer much faster than they were moving in reverse. As Lee turned the van around the corner at the crest of the mountain the speeding military truck crashed into them and flipped the group's van over on its side.

Jim was the first one to come to. Shaking his head he checked for Lee's vital signs and he was knocked out completely.

Jim pecked out over the top of the driver's side door and could see that there was a driver and five soldiers in the back of the military truck.
"What the f#@% was a Saudi National Guard military truck doing up here in a secret terrorist mining facility?" he wondered to himself. However, there was no time to waste. The five soldiers in the rear of the truck were disembarking and were obviously coming for them. Jim, remembering that the group was specifically warned not to come into contact with any official Saudis, and seeing no other way out with the rest of his comrades unconscious from severe wounds, pulled the pin of his last fragmentation grenade and lobbed it into the center of the mass of Saudi soldiers.

The National Guardsmen never even saw it. The grenade went off and killed all five of the men outside of the truck instantly. The truck's engine caught fire and quickly consumed the rest of the truck. A box of RPG rounds in the rear of the military truck went off and the vehicle was lifted off the ground. The driver never made it out of the door.

Jim breathed a sigh of relief. He inhaled deeply and began to shake Lee awake.
Ten minutes later the group, with Trey over Jim's shoulder, called command and called for an immediate extraction. While headquarters was happy with the complete success of the mission they were pissed about the Saudi National Guard presence. Lee didn't care, he just wanted to get home. The mission was over, but the hunt for Abaza most certainly was not...

Operation Hydra Den Module

2010-09-16T20:07:00.003-05:00

This module tells/chronicles the follow-up to the attack on Dallas that was described in the prequel module Operation Hydra. In Bedrock Games' Operation Hydra Den (from now on referred to as OHD) the heroes are tasked with tracking down two Muhammad Abaza cells that are mining uranium in the mountains of Saudi Arabia in the hopes to attack the U.S. or her interests a second time in a more lethal fashion.

In their effort to track down the two cell commanders and three encrypted laptops full of intelligence on Abaza the players investigate leads in two very different Saudi Arabian cities and the uranium mine itself.

OHD gives an extensive and wonderfully accurate glimpse into Saudi Arabian culture and society as well as artfully describing different locations, persons, and events that the heroes may or may not contact during their mission. I found the NPCs to be lifelike enough and the events that the heroes could trigger were extremely interesting and unique. (So much so that the ones that my players didn't contact will certainly be used in future missions/adventures.)

The only negative critique that I feel comfortable airing is similar to the complaint that I had with Operation Hydra. I must be a visual person (which is paradoxical I know since I'm describing a role-playing game module) but I feel that it would be extremely beneficial if the module included a (or a couple of possible) timeline(s) of events that the players may follow. I again solved this problem by simply re-reading the text a few times and then manually drawing out possible scenarios that the players might follow, but again, it seems to me that this would be advantageous to others as well.

Just like with Operation Hydra, I believe that Bedrock Games hit the ball out of the park with OHD. OHD is a well researched, well articulated, and complete adventure that would fit nicely into any contemporary gaming system and would unquestionably be a great addition to any modern campaign. (Especially if you are are playing Terror Network!)

I highly recommend this product, and again, the price of this module cannot be beat. So what are you waiting for? Are you really going to let terrorists hostile to the United States of America mine illicit uranium and attack us on our soil? I didn't think so.

Operation Hydra Module for Terror Network

2010-08-10T12:51:00.005-05:00

Review of Bedrock Game's Operation Hydra module.

When the module Operation Hydra (from here on referenced as OH)first came out I immediately purchased it, read it, and promptly laid it down for future use. My group has been playing Terror Network since this past January (2010) and have been having a blast! Until this last session I had created all of the scenarios, NPCs, villains, locations, etc. However, I felt that we had reached a good point in our ongoing campaign to begin another investigation and one where the stakes of success and failure ran rather high.

I was at a bit of a loss of where to go when I pulled out my copy of OH and re-read it. I realized that this would be a perfect scenario to challenge my players and for them to utilize their skills that they had learned/honed/perfected since we started playing Terror Network (note: two of my three players had never role-played before this campaign.)

The product itself is laid out in four distinct sections: 1. Being the background and history of the story about to unfold 2. Was a list and description of all of the locations as well as all of the NPCs and valuable bits of information that could be found there and 3. In depth descriptions of the NPCs; their motivations, beliefs, information possessed, and when and if they would share it with my players. 4. the module concludes with (not too surprising) how the story could end. I was thrilled by the fact that there could be varying degrees of success and failures.

One of the pages that I found most helpful was page 38 where there is a chart of the terrorists and their position within their cell and their specialities. This helped me to understand the inner workings of the story and when and where the terrorists would play a part in our adventure.

However, this brings me to my only complaint about OH: the lack of a chart for the locations. Understandably there is a certain element of a sandbox nature that I appreciate and really enjoyed, however, being able to actually see a possible flow chart of the story from one location to another would have been extremely helpful in putting all of the places in order and connectedness, and by extension, the NPCs as well.

So, how did OH fare? Well, it produced a rather unusual result with a great journey getting there. My group, ended up the module by stopping 70% of the terrorists' plots, which will do wonders next time we meet to play the follow up module Operation Hydra Den. Pictured below is all of the locations and NPCs for OH that I put onto index cards and handed out to my players. If you look closely on the right side you may be able to determine what happened to my players at the end of the module.

I don't want to give anything away about the story in the hope that you will find this review both inspiring and useful. I would highly recommend the module Operation Hydra for anyone who plays Terror Network, Crime Network (think how awesome this module would be if the F.B.I. came to your Mafia family asking for help in stopping a terrorist attack!) or any other role-playing game in a contemporary setting. And for only a few bucks on rpg.drivethrustuff.com or at the company's website, you should be more than pleased.

Terror Network Episode 7

2010-08-05T22:04:00.027-05:00

Episode 7: Operation Hydra

August 5th, 2010

The seventh episode in our series "Foreign and Domestic" began with the information that directly followed the conclusion of our last episode: the timer for the launching of a second anti-ship missile had expired as the Joint Taskforce was heading out of the basement of the Venezuelan F.A.R.C. compound. Jack Cooper (a PC and leader of the Taskforce) attempted to contact higher command but the dense vegetation made it impossible for him to find a signal. So, with the rest of the group in tow, Jack gave the command and the company headed out.

A few minutes into their trek back to the Colombian border Jack gave the command for Yasabi (a PC Mossad agent on loan to the Taskforce) to blow up the remaining missiles that he had wired with a redundant amount of semtex. The explosion shook the ground beneath the groups feet and Yasabi smiled a twisted grin of satisfaction.
The Taskforce then made its way into the jungles, arrived at the designated landing zone six torturous hours later, and were taken by Colombian military helicopters back to the capital Bogota.

Once in Bogota, the group was transported to the carrier group floating off the coast. While aboard the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush the captain told the group what has transpired earlier that morning.

A small ship, which was concealed to look like a fishing vessel, began to approach the carrier group. After being struck with one anti-ship missile recently, the closest destroyer fired a warning shot. When the captain aboard the destroyer noted that the small vessel was continuing its course towards the carrier group, he ordered his ship to fire. Within seconds the “fishing” vessel was sunk. Jack was relieved that the rogue anti-ship missiles were now all accounted for.

Less than two weeks later Jack Cooper received a phone-call from the Deputy Director of the F.B.I., Pistole. The Deputy Director informed Jack that a laptop was recently confiscated by the Israeli’s from an ancient Mosque in Gaza. (This was not true. Yasabi had found this laptop behind some crates on the Venezuelan mission, stole it, and gave it to his Mossad superiors without telling anyone on the taskforce.) On this laptop was a deluge of important information: financial records that show a link between the Lopez Cartel and Venezuela, emails that prove a link between the highest levels of the Venezuelan government and the terrorist group F.A.R.C., information relating to an upcoming terrorist attack in Dallas, Texas, and a voice recording of the terrorist mastermind Muhammad Abaza instructing his faithful to kidnap a software engineer from the Dallas Federal Reserve by the name of James Bertrand. Pistole told Jack to gather his group and to head to Dallas to see what was going on.

Six hours later the private jet landed on the runway of the Dallas Love Airport and the three agents (Agent Sarah Walker had been sent back to Columbia / Venezuela to follow-up on the Lopez Cartel leads) walked towards the black Suburban that was waiting for them. There they were met by Agent Troy Conway, head of the Dallas Branch of the F.B.I.
After initial introductions were awkwardly made Troy received two shocking phone calls within minutes. The first call alerted Troy to the fact that James Bertrand had been reported missing and that the Dallas Federal Reserve had been the victim of a cyber attack where over two-billion dollars had been stolen. Troy hustled the agents into his black suburban, turned on the rear window lights, and sped back to the Federal Reserve Bank.

When the black SUV screeched to a halt in front of the Federal Reserve Bank, Troy lead the group in. However, Jack Cooper noticed a younger dark-skinned man leaning up against a delivery van six car lengths down from the building’s entrance. Grabbing Lucy Castillo,(a PC) Jack reached into his holster, readied his weapon, and shouted for the man to lay down on the ground with his hands in the air.

At this point, the dark-skinned man looked up and saw the approaching agents. In a quick series of events, the man opened the side door to the van, tossed something electronic lying at his feet inside the van, slammed the door shut, and began to run around the rear of the vehicle to get to the driver’s seat. But, before the man made it around the corner of the van Jack dropped him with a round through his femoral artery. Fareed al Zeburia cried out in pain as Lucy attempted to staunch the blood squirting out of his leg. However, Fareed did not want any assistance and managed to raise himself up to his feet and attempt to hobble away while leaving a large blood trail in his wake.

Jack concerned that the van was wired with explosives and that Fareed might have the trigger to the bomb aimed his weapon and put a .40 round through his neck. Fareed slumped face first into the concrete sidewalk and was still. Lucy was speechless and Jack Cooper sprung into action yelling at her to go inside the building because he was going to check the van. Lucy regained her senses and ran inside of the Reserve Bank to tell Troy Conway what was going on while Jack yelled for everyone within shouting distance to run away because there was a bomb in the van.

Over the screams of bystanders Jack opened the van’s sliding door with his left hand and pointed his Glock G23 inside. What he saw broke his heart. A police scanner was lying on the floor of the van; there was evidence of any type of bomb of explosive materials visible. Yasabi, the resident bomb expert had come out of the Federal Reserve Bank by now and inspected the van to ensure that there were no explosives or explosive materials inside of or around the van. There were none.

Crestfallen after accidentally killing again, Jack Cooper led his other operatives back inside the building and tried to get a handle on the situation. In the main lobby, Julia Yates (the girlfriend of the kidnapped James Bertrand) was being consoled by Willie Pummer (the best friend of James Bertrand). Agents were huddles around them and were attempting to politely question the two.The two had no real knowledge of what had happened to their friend but Lucy felt that something was not quite right with Willie. The group asked if Willie wouldn’t mind showing them his office. Willie reluctantly agreed.

When the group reached Willie’s office he was sweating and acting strangely. Jack Cooper sent him out of the room and the group came across a CD in his computer that was labeled “B B Dog Sec”, as well as $200,000 in traveler’s checks. After an intense interrogation Willie confessed to setting his friend up to be captured so that he could get the money to pay off his massive gambling debts and Julia. With the information flowing, the taskforce decided to then drive over to James Bertrand’s house to see what they could find.

While at James’ home, the story about Willie breaking into the home to steal the Blue Bulldog Security information checked out as the group found no evidence of forced entry and the Bertrand pit bull named Sandy cheerily munching on a steak. When some of Troy Conway’s men came and began to cordon off the building the group made their way to the S&G Convenience Store where James Bertrand disappeared.

When the taskforce pulled up to the station they noticed that James Bertrand’s red 2010 Mustang was still linked to the pump by a gas hose. When the group entered the station they were greeted by a sassy teenager by the name of Saddie Gibbons. She explained to the group that she had seen four suspicious “dark-skinned men” earlier in her store and that it was around that time that she had seen James Bertrand. She told the investigators that he had needed to use the restroom which was around back. After roughly thirty minutes she went to see what was wrong and that she had seen a blood trail. She said that she then high-tailed it back inside the store and immediately phone the Dallas PD.

When the group searched around back they found five sets of footprints, some blood and strewn debris. After an initial overview Lucy checked inside of a nearby dumpster to find a ripped and bloody shirt inside of a small cardboard box. After calling in for forensics Jack recklessly searched through the breast pockets of the bloody shirt. Out dropped a business card for the Cotton Gin apartments; the group now had a new lead.

Jack Cooper slammed hard on the brakes of the black suburban in front of the dilapidated and decrepit Cotton Gin Apartments approximately twenty-five minutes later. The entire city block seemed to be deserted; the only living bits of humanity that anyone could see were recent take-out bags blowing in the winds and catching on the rusted and hepatitis permeated fence.

Yasabi lead the way into the seemingly abandoned apartment complex. As they entered Jack reminded his Mossad friend that they were searching for room 419. Three flights of stairs later the group came to the antique-looking door with the numbers 419 stenciled on its outside. The door was cracked open and the sounds of a television could be heard in the hallway. The group stacked up behind Yasabi as he charged in.

The room was clean; almost sterile. Yasabi couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There was nothing out of place or order. The apartment was a bit Spartan, but, he fathoming that this clean of a space was located in the center of a section 8 ramshackle abode. For about two seconds of stunned disbelief Yasabi felt bad about tearing the room apart.

It was Lucy who found the note, the instructions to capture a certain David Ornoff. She found it being used as a bookmark to a violent passage within a golden embossed Koran. It had the apparent home address of a David Ornoff – Jack sniffed that something big was going on – and he didn’t like it. The group – and he felt that he personally – was one step behind whomever they were chasing. It was not a pleasant feeling.

Jack was behind the wheel of the black SUV again. When the party was a few block away from Ornoff’s suburban home they were passed by a large red dually truck speeding past them going in the opposite direction. Jack continued until he hit a stop sign. Something didn’t seem right. Shooting a U-turn on two wheels Jack searched for the huge truck – but to no avail.

A few minutes later the group pulled into the driveway of Ornoff’s home to see a woman clutching her young son on the family’s driveway. She was sobbing hysterically and her neighbors were leaving their home to approach her with concern and trepidation. The team flew out of their vehicle and asked what had happened to the woman. Through her uproarious crying Lucy was able to ascertain that “a black-skinned, an actual African man, had come into the family’s home during its dinner prayer and had taken her husband at gunpoint. Lucy asked the woman where the man had taken David and she tells them that he is taking her husband to a local construction site that David has been working at for the last month or so.

The sun was beginning to set and Jack had to use the strong headlights of the suburban as they approached the construction site. Parked in the driveway of one of the un-built homes was the missing red dually truck. Jack killed the engine and the group cautiously approached the truck. Jack opened the driver’s side door to reveal that the key was still in the ignition and that it was attached to a large key ring with dozens of keys. Jack tossed the key ring into Suburban and made sure that he didn’t lock the doors so that his SUV wouldn’t make its loud beeping noise.

Yasabi went by himself around the west side of the house while Jack and Lucy went around the east. Peeking his head around the corner of the home he saw the Somali Mourid Barakat talking on his cell phone while holding a gun towards the kneeling body of a praying David Ornoff.

From across the partially constructed home, Jack, using hand signals, instructed Yasabi to assault the terrorist and to capture him. Being as stealthy as he possibly could, Yasabi advanced over the newly churned dirt at the construction site and made his way towards Mourid who was now screaming into his cell phone. Unfortunately, when Yasabi leapt towards Mourid his right foot had sunk into the mud without his knowledge, and he came up about three feet short. While Yasabi struggled to his knees Mourid turned in shock and put two rounds from his 9mm into his chest. Yasabi was propelled backwards into the mud; his chest sucking in air with his blood exiting his body by the apparent gallon.

Looking upon this abhorrent spectacle with disgust, Jack began to run forward while he raised his weapon and fired, hitting Mourid in the back. Lucy followed Jack’s lead and pulled off three rounds, but her specialty was long barreled weapons, and she missed all three times.

Mourid, knowing that his part in the master plan was over pointed his 9mm at the kneeling David Ornoff and put two rounds into his chest. Then, with the cry of “Allah akbar,” Mourid placed the gun against the side of his head and pulled the trigger.

Jack rushed to his friend’s bloody side and Lucy checked on Ornoff. Jack could tell that Yasabi was in trouble but he would make it with quick medical attention. Lucy on the other hand, knew that David Ornoff should be dead, and that he would be in a few seconds. Lucy asked David why he was taken, all that David could utter in reply was “…truck…floorboards…three different buildings. Don’t let it happen…”

Jack told Lucy to call in for help while he assisted Yasabi. After she had made the call to Troy Conway she went to their SUV and took the key ring that they had found over to the red truck. Underneath the passenger’s seat was a long rectangular box. Lucy took it out, set it on the seat, and began trying all of the different keys on the ring. Moments later she had opened the box and removed three different sets of commercial schematics. They were listed as being the blueprints for Museum Tower, Patriot Tower, and the Dallas Federal Reserve. A few minutes later, dozens of F.B.I. agents. Dallas police and E.M.T. personnel were swarming over the partially built construction site. Yasabi was informed that he needed immediate medical attention but he fought off the started EMT and told Jack that he was going to finish what they had started. Jack smiled, and told Troy Conway that they were headed to David Ornoff’s work to see if they could get some answers.

The party arrived right at closing time at The Fred Masterson Construction Company. The group was met at the door by none other than the owner/operator Fred Masterson. He informed the group that David Ornoff was under investigation about trying to purchase 25lbs of explosives using the company credit card. He also informed the taskforce that recently 20lbs of explosives had gone missing from the warehouse. Fred was polite but seemingly naïve and Jack asked if he could speak to the warehouse workers. As he did that Fred pointed out that one of the warehouse workers was outside and apparently running for his truck.

Yasabi stood back out of the way as Jack and Lucy left the building in a footrace with FMCC employee Travis Mims. Jack sprinted as fast as he could but Travis not only reached his truck first but he also turned it on, threw it in drive, and floored the pedal. Jack was tired, upset, and a bit shaken from Yasabi’s earlier wound – he was in no mood for this. Jack Cooper pulled his Glock from its holster and fired a round through the rear window of the truck. Travis immediately hit the brakes when he heard the explosion of glass behind him. Jack was thrown violently into the rear part of the cab of the truck, but he kept his weapon trained on Mims and told him to exit the truck and then lie down on the payment with his hands laced behind his head.

Over the course of a rather “rough” interrogation Travis Mims told the group that he had stolen the explosives and dropped them off at the rear entrance of the Palm Tree Apartment Complex. He had been paid handsomely but had done nothing else wrong. He pleaded with the group not to turn him in but Fred Masterson made it known that he wanted no part in having a felon who had stolen explosives and given them to terrorists to not only work for him, but that he would personally bring charges against Mims.

The moon was out as the clock struck 9:30. The group informed Conway that they were going to follow up another lead as they turned off the black Suburban in front of the Palm Tree Apartment Complex. The taskforce was met by the owner of the complex (Albert Handley) and they demanded that he take them up to the room that was occupied by the men that Travis Mims had told them about. He complied immediately and led the group up the stairs.
There was a faint light flickering underneath the door as the group walked up the stairs. Yasabi told Jack that he would cover them from the stairs as he didn’t feel that he had enough energy to be first in. Jack simply nodded and told the complex owner Hadley to bang on the door and tell the men to come out so he could talk to them. Albert complied and banged on the door. There was no response. He banged harder this time and yelled that there was a noise complaint about them and that he needed to speak with them. There was no reply.

Albert hollered that he was coming in and opened the door. Before the door was fully open Albert was struck with a ten round burst of AK fire to his chest and face. He was thrown back against the wall and streaked blood down the wall as he slumped to the floor. Jack immediately stuck his head and gun around the door and fired. He briefly saw movement and shoot. A man yelled and went down. As fast as he had turned around the doorway Jack jerked himself back as more AK rounds blasted through the wall opposite him.

As bullets snapped past him, Lucy leaned around the corner, found a target, and plugged a double tap into his head. The man, who was dead on his feet, was flung backwards thru the large rectangular window and tripped back onto the fire escape. Lucy Castillo was scanning for another target when she took a barrage of AK rounds to the side of her skull. Her gun clattered on the ground and she collapsed to the floor, dead.

Jack Cooper looked in terror at the corpse of Lucy – but he had no time to mourn. He backed up to the stairwell where Yasabi had his weapon out and asked him if he if they call and wait for backup. Even though he had been shot twice before, just hours ago, seeing the body of a dear friend lying, bleeding in the doorway of a flea infested apartment had brought his hatred of Islamist terrorists to a boil. Yasabi simply said that he was going in and he was off.

Yasabi Bad Haiven, a Jewish Yemeni refugee and high level operative in the Israeli Mossad, brought his Sig Sauer in front of him and strode towards the doorway of room 308 of the Palm Beach Apartment Complex. As he was just a few steps from the doorway one of the terrorists came out of the door wielding his AK with its collapsible stock. Yasabi fired and the man danced as though controlled by a puppeteer. However, the Islamist turned towards Yasabi and fired. The first rounds simply blew holes in the cheap carpet covering the cheap floor. But, as the terrorist continued to hold in his trigger the guns natural tendency to climb did just that and rounds stitched Yasabi’s chest and he dropped to the ground. Jack Cooper raised his gun and fired. The terrorist and his AK both lay still on the cheap carpet.

Jack Cooper was overcome with rage and anger. He ran up the remaining stairs and burst into the apartment room. In front of him was a small circular table with a stack of automatic weapons and ammunition. Standing at the table attempting to insert a magazine into an Uzi (their hypocrisy knew no bounds) was another terrorist. Without a seconds hesitation the Jihadist had two rounds enter his brain and one entered his chest.

There was no time to wait however as Jack saw a flash of metal coming up towards him from his right. Ulam Olaman, the ringleader of the Dallas terror attacks, had hid in the bathroom until now. At this moment he was raising his over and under shotgun and fired the top barrel. The slug bore into Jack’s shoulder – but he was not out of the fight. He raised his weapon and fired. Olaman was hit in the shoulder. However, his Jihadist zeal was on coursing through his vein and he pulled back hard on the second trigger. When the smoke cleared, Jack Cooper, former F.B.I. special agent, CIA operative, and now freelance taskforce leader, was dead. Terror leader Ulam Olaman dropped the shotgun onto the ground and fled out of the fire escape.

Two hours later, Ulam Olaman had strapped himself into a cargo van filled with 25lbs of commercial grade explosives, and rammed it into the Dallas Federal Reserve. It would take three full weeks to clear the wreckage. Americans were stunned as they watched in horror as another one of their financial buildings was destroyed by Islamist militants. But, unknown to the American populace, deep in the recess of the Pentagon, a plan was already being put into action to avenge Americas' loss. And the hope was that it would be bloody retribution.

Terror Network Episode 6

2010-07-20T15:44:00.012-05:00

Episode 6: On Target

July 15th, 2010

The sixth episode began with a recap/reminder from the local FOX NEWS affiliate about the current state of the search for the missing anti-ship missiles and for the 15 American citizens and one Marine who are being held captive in Venezuela. Also mentioned in the update was information about a Colombian national who was arrested in California with over forty-five million dollars in illicit drugs stashed in the back of an eighteen wheeler.

The taskforce, led by Jack Cooper, (a PC) called the deputy director of the F.B.I. and asked if they could have access to the Colombian in custody. The answer was a resounding no but the group was able to “patch-in” and watch the man’s interrogation. It was through the Colombian’s interrogation that the group learned about a possible storage site for the Lopez Cartel that may contain the sought after missiles. The most interesting piece of information that the interrogated Colombian gave up was that the Lopez Cartel has been using FARC mercenaries/bodyguards to protect their “investments”.

While the taskforce was making preparations aboard the carrier group stationed outside of Venezuela, Jack Cooper received a frantic call from Deputy Director Pistole. It was during this conversation that the taskforce was informed about the attack on the U.S.S. Mackenzie.

The U.S.S. Mackenzie was on its way to join the carrier group when it was approached by a fast-moving speedboat. When the Mackenzie’s captain finally gave the order to fire upon the small approaching vessel it was struck by an Exocet anti-ship missile. Nine American naval personal were killed and over a dozen were wounded.

Deputy Director Pistole informed Jack Cooper that the United States had been warned that there would be a second attack the following day around noon. Pistole told Jack and his taskforce to gear up and to find the possible Lopez Cartel storehouse and try to capture the remainder of the anti-ship missiles as the president was unwilling to use any military forces against Venezuela in a good faith gesture as to not appear belligerent.

With the clock now ticking, Jack Cooper phoned a contact of his in the Colombian military and asked if the general could arrange transport for the group to the Colombian/Venezuelan border where they would disembark and continue on foot to the possible site of the anti-ship missiles. After initial reluctance, the general acquiesced after being promised $200,000 in American currency.

Five hours later, the four members of the taskforce disembarked out of American-made Blackhawk helicopters manned by Colombian Special Forces pilots. After waiting for the loud helicopters to leave, the group began to make its way on foot towards the target building using Lucy’s (a PC) and Yasabi’s (a PC) military tracking abilities.

At around 4:00 a.m. the taskforce found itself fifty yards away from a one story structure deep in the triple canopy jungle of southwest Venezuela. Outside of the structure were three armed F.A.R.C. guards who were totally uninterested in their shift of guard duty that night. A quick burst of silenced weapons dropped all three paramilitaries. Jack Cooper motioned for the other three to move inside the building while he checked out the garage.

Seconds later Jack swung his silenced Beretta around the corner of the garage and saw that it was filled with an old Blue Range Rover; and to his surprise he noticed that the vehicle was rocking, slowly. After ensuring that the garage was otherwise vacant Jack approached the moving Range Rover and stuck the long snout of his silencer in the rear window. He saw the face of a young woman in the throes of ecstasy; and then her eyes opened and saw the strange silhouette pointing a silenced gun at her face. As her mouth opened to scream Jack reacted and instantly regretted his decision. The man on top of her was hit with bits of blood and brain matter and thrashed at both himself and at Jack. Dodging a wild punch Jack finished the man with the camouflage pants around his ankles off with a single round to the temple. Breathing heavily, Jack fished around the corpses until he found the keys to the Range Rover. Disgusted, he made his way back into the house.

Meanwhile, inside of the building itself, Lucy and Sarah Walker (a PC) were searching the few small rooms in the house and were coming up empty. Yasabi stood guard on the porch and continually told the women to hurry up. Finally in a fit of anger and desperation Sarah kicked over an old and abused billiards table and discovered a stash of AK-47s.

She quickly updated the group to her find and methodically began stripping the weapons and keeping their firing pins.
It was at about this same time that Lucy noticed an odd line that ran the length of one of the wall closets. Upon further inspection Lucy realized that she had stumbled upon a false wall. Using her ear microphone she informed the group about the false wall and Jack told her to wait for him.

Moments later a hidden door had been opened and Jack was leading the group down a winding-wooden staircase with his retractable baton and silenced Beretta in hand. The stairs lead to a small room that was furnished with a filthy overstuffed chair and housed a teenaged F.A.R.C. member sleeping on a dirty-yellow colored couch. Jack motioned to the group that he would take care of the prostate boy and he began to sneak up on him. While Jack was just feet away from the teenager he crunched on an empty beer can that awoke the boy from his inebriated slumber. Jack brought down his baton to silence the boy; but when the baton connected with the boys’ throat, Jack knew that he had made another terrible mistake. The teen’s eyes rolled back into his skull as he dropped to the floor. The other members of the squad looked in terror at Jack who was trying to understand what he had just done.

Jack Cooper was jolted from his internal scoldings by the sound of women’s voices coming from the next room. Instinctively the group stacked up against the door and Sarah readied a flash bang. After receiving the go-ahead nod from Jack, Sarah fluidly opened the door, tossed the flash bang inside and immediately closed the door again. Seconds later the group heard the reverberation of the loud “bang” from the next room and they were on its heels through the door.

The group had entered a large rectangular room that was lined with long tables that were overflowing with cocaine and other drug paraphernalia.

Female workers were running and screaming everywhere but Sarah noticed that there were three hostile terrorists in the room. Alerting the group to the danger Sarah raised her H&K and dropped a paramilitary by the other door at the end of the room while Yasabi walked up to a disoriented F.A.R.C. member writhing on the floor and ended his life with his MP-5.

After the initial burst of gunfire from the group the third terrorist was periodically popping up from behind a table full of coke and letting bullets fly in all directions from his AK. With frightened workers running in all directions and while bullets thudded into walls and cracked all around her, Lucy Castillo took aim with her sniper rifle, and sent a single 7.62 round into the crazed revolutionary’s eye socket.

Jack Cooper yelled out in Spanish for the scared women to be calm and the group was able to flex-cuff three of them before they all ran out of the room. As Yasabi was securing his drug cutter a bearded Marxist burst into the room firing a rusty old revolver. Yasabi was knocked to the floor as the newly-secured Venezuelan hostages began to scream again. Lucy reacted first and plugged a round into the terrorists’ chest before the rest of the group was able to bring their weapons to bear.

Sarah ran over to Yasabi to give him medical assistance. Yasabi moaned in pain but reassured Sarah that neither of the bullets had penetrated his body armor.

Jack told everyone to calm down and to secure their hostages so that they could retrieve them on their way out. The group attempted to grasp their collective breaths while Jack tried to calm his furiously beating heart that was sending what seemed like gallons of adrenaline cursing through his veins. He walked over to the doorway where the revolver-wielding terrorist lay dead on the floor and Jack stared down the hallway where he came from.

Crack! A bullet snapped past Jack through where he had previously been standing. He rolled next to the wall as the group rushed up to the door where Jack was now laying prone. Sarah cautiously peered down the hallway and another bullet whizzed past – this one only millimeters from her skull. She lay back against the wall and told Lucy that she had some competition down the hallway. As Lucy stepped forward she told Jack that she would need a distraction for a few seconds while she lined up her shot. After his early transgressions Jack almost leapt at the opportunity. On the hand count of three Jack stood up in front of the doorway while Lucy took a knee and swung her rifle barrel around the corner. Jack fired his silenced Beretta down the hallway and after what seemed like an eternity he heard a rifle report. When he opened his eyes he turned and saw Lucy aiming down her scope with a focused look on her face. “All clear,” she said.

Jack Cooper led the group down a decrepit and poorly lit hallway. On the floor was strewn debris from decades of misuse and the walls looked as though they might collapse in at any moment. Jack kept his eyes focused forward and wiped the perspiration from his eyes with his right arm. He kept his Beretta pointed forward but he noticed that it was shaking.

When he reached the end of the hallway Jack noticed that his hand was shaking uncontrollably. He turned his arm to look at his watch. The watch relayed the fact that the group had less than ten minutes before the next attack would take place.

Yasabi, noticing the issue that he was having, placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder and slowly moved him out of the way. The Mossad agent prepped a flash bang, mustered his strength, and kicked in the rickety door.

Before he could hurl the grenade into the room Yasabi was stitched by a burst of AK fire. Another two rounds punched into his body armor and one round penetrated his shoulder.

Through no effort of his own the flash bang was propelled forwards and landed inside of the room. The bang of the explosion drowned out by the firing of high caliber weapons in the confined space. Yasabi emptied his entire magazine into the area where he thought he had been shot from while Jack, Lucy, and Sarah fired into the room.

Seconds later the group’s weapons were all clicking as they held in or pulled back their triggers. There were no sounds and an eerie silence lingered within the room. Sarah Walker inserted a fresh magazine and moved forward. As she entered she noticed that the room was filled with large crates from the floor to the ceiling; splattered against one of the crates was blood and jumbled body parts from the three corpses lying below it.

While Jack attended to Yasabi’s wound, Sarah began to carefully pry open some of the crates. Lucy crouched quietly in the doorway to ensure that there were no more surprises.

As Jack applied a pressure bandage to Yasabi’s shoulder Sarah exclaimed that they had finally found the Exocet anti-ship missiles that they had been searching for. Jack looked at his watch and noticed that there were only six minutes before the second strike was supposed to occur. Something was wrong. If the missiles (or a single missile) were to be launched in just six minutes, what were they doing laying in a damp subterranean basement in the middle of the jungle?

Yasabi slowly stood up and began to unroll his detonation cord and semtex explosives out of his explosives bag that was slung over his back. While Yasabi ran triple the amount of semtex needed to destroy the anti-ship missiles, Sarah Walker heard footsteps above them. She told the group, and Yasabi told them to all go ahead and make sure that they were not going to be trapped in the basement – he would be right behind them.

Jack, Lucy, and Sarah all readied their weapons and took off down the ‘sniper’ hallway they had just previously traveled. When the taskforce members entered into the drug cutting room Yasabi stopped setting up his explosives and removed a laptop computer that was wedged in between two massive crates and slipped it into his explosives bag.

Meanwhile the remainder of the taskforce had arrived back to the ratty couch with the F.A.R.C. terrorist lying dead on it. When Jack Cooper peaked around the corner he saw three well dressed South Americans carrying Uzis walking cautiously down the corridor. Without a second thought, Jack put his silenced Beretta under his left armpit, removed a fragmentation grenade off of his combat vest, pulled the pin, released the spoon, and tossed it around the corner.

Boom! Dust, wooden shards, and pieces of corpses were blown down the hallway. Without waiting for the dust to clear, Jack raced down the dark hallway (the two small lightbulbs had been destroyed by the grenade) and took the stairs two at a time. As he reached the entrance to the tunnel he looked down and saw that they were out of time…

Thoughts on Terror Network

2010-06-15T21:49:00.003-05:00

I have wanted to write some personal musings about Terror Network since I started playing the game about six months back.

A while back I was looking for a role-playing game for my wife and brother-in-law whom have never role-played before AND for a good friend of mine who would be playing with us who has been gaming for almost a decade. Likewise, since I have never game mastered before I wanted a game that I could utilize (what I feel is) my broad knowledge about contemporary events. Lastly, and probably most importantly for the new gamers, I was looking for a game that we would all be able to pick up and understand without having to play three sessions to learn.

I went through drivethrurpg.net and rpg.net and looked for a game that had an interesting topic and streamlined gameplay. I am personally interested in hyper-realistic games that I can intertwine with real-world events. It is this guy's opinions that the today's/tomorrows headlines, the world of spies, double-agents, special forces and presidential cabinets is the way to create a compelling story / campaign / scenario. To be quite honest, the aforementioned topics can all be found in the fantasy world of Westeros of Geroge R.R. Martin and would probably make from some wonderful gaming - but I digress.

I looked for quite some time for the perfect game until I stumbled across Bedrock Games' Terror Network. The game was perfect for our group. It has a realistic setting with stories that can all too easily be taken from the headlines, it has a LETHAL combat system (or you can use their Hollywood version that is also included), the rulebook really only has about forty pages of easily understandable (and most importantly REALISTIC) rules, and lastly the game plays QUICKLY because of the rules.

The remainder of the pages in the rulebook help explain the groups and the different types of people that inhabit, well, our current world. There are suggestions and information that cover both foreign and homegrown terrorists as well as many of the different American governmental agencies. Terror Network uses the D10 as its main tool and the personalized character creation is what really sets this game apart.

My gaming group has now played six missions - three of which were tabletop battles using miniatures and three of them were pen and paper investigations in an attempt to track down a Somali terrorist cell in Minneapolis and searching for anti-ship missiles in Venezuela. In all cases the game (read the rules) held up well and at no point was there any finger pointing saying that "the rules don't say that!" Weather it was the lead investigator needing to use an unauthorized wiretap or if it was the blast radius of a fragmentation grenade the rules were there in an easy to read and comprehend manner.

I would highly recommend this game to anyone who wants to try something new or who wants to play in "a world" where essentially every possible scenario, location, and weapon can be found in the click of a finger on the internet. Hopefully this review was helpful and I hope that you give Terror Network a try. For the price, it cannot be rivaled or beat.

Terror Network Episode 5

2010-06-13T17:14:00.006-05:00

The Hunt Begins Again

June 10th, 2010

The fifth episode in the series began with the news that Jack Cooper (a PC), the leader of the Minneapolis branch of the F.B.I. who foiled the attack by radical Somalis earlier in the year, was asked to head a taskforce that is to focus on tracking down some illicit missiles. Cooper was initially slated for a high ranking position in Washington D.C. but because of an event that occurred during the takedown of the Minneapolis cell (a reticent mother’s arm was grabbed and her baby fell to the floor and received serious damage) he was unable to be promoted inside of the bureaucratic agency. However, Jack Cooper, being a patriot, was entirely unconcerned with the “demotion” and immediately put together a hard charging team that was bent of confiscating the “missing” weapons.

The first member that Jack got to assist him was a D.E.A. agent by the name of Sarah Walker. (a new PC) She was sent by her superiors to help in the investigation of the missiles because one of her contacts in Colombia claims to have knowledge of the supposed transaction of the missiles to an up and coming Colombian Cartel run by the Lopez family. Jack hoped that Sarah’s D.E.A. contacts would be an invaluable source of information about South America and their drug-dealing epidemic; he would not be disappointed.

The next addition to the team was the indefatigable and recently promoted Lucy Castillo. (a PC) Lucy is now an assistant in the Counter-Intelligence Branch of the F.B.I. but is always happy to help a friend; especially if that friend is her former mentor. Her contacts and keen intellect would greatly benefit the taskforce.

With his small team in place Jack Cooper arrived early to work on his second day of work as team leader. Already laying on his desk was an unmarked manila envelope. Jack dumped the contents of the envelope onto his desktop. The first scrap of paper that Jack found was a hand-written note that stated “Sorry about your transfer. If you need any help, you know how to contact me. A friend.” Jack assumed that this note was from the Yemeni Mossad agent Yasbi Bin Haiven (a PC) who was instrumental in taking down the Somali terror cell in Minneapolis. (episodes 2 and 3)

Continuing through the envelope Jack found a transcript of a high level Israeli discussion that proved that Israel was behind the recent assassination of the AQAP contact in Somalia, Mogadishu (episode 4) that resulted in the death of Delta Force operator Lawrence McHenry and with the loss of the missing missiles. Lastly in the envelope there was photographic evidence that the AQAP contact that had been shot was in fact deceased.

Jack immediately called his superiors and told them that he would need the assistance of Yasabi and told them to get the Israeli’s to loan him to Jack for the duration of their search. Jack told his bosses that if the Israeli’s hesitated that they should remind them that there were responsible for the death of an American Delta operator.

Simultaneously, Sarah Walker contacted her ex-boyfriend Bryce Lakin who works for the D.I.A. Bryce told Sarah that the leader of the Lopez Cartel goes by the name Juan; however, it is believed that it is an alias. The man known as Juan Lopez is essentially an unknown with no record in any of the fourteen American intelligence agencies. Bryce also told Sarah that the Lopez Cartel is violent when provoked, but is much more intelligent and practical than the typical drug cartels.

With too few pieces of the puzzle to follow Lucy Castillo then contacted a criminal informant of hers. Her contact, Dawson Fargo, was a small time drug dealer that Lucy had flipped a few years back during an anti-drug interdiction operation.

Dawson informed Lucy that the word on the street was that the Lopez Cartel was getting ready to make a run to become the top drug-selling Colombian Cartel. Dawson also stated that he had heard rumors that the Lopez Cartel had the unofficial backing and financial support of high-ranking Venezuelan politicians; specifically the Interior Minister, and that the Venezuelans were going to try to use the Lopez Cartel to help destabilize its rival Colombia. Lastly, Dawson mentioned that there are rumors that the Deputy Interior Minister of Venezuela, Jorge Martinez, has knowledge of the whereabouts of the missing missiles and that he may want to defect.

Using the leads gleaned from their contacts, the group set off for Venezuela in an attempt to stop the possible sale of the missiles in question. The first stop was at the American embassy where the taskforce met with the C.I.A. station chief who cautioned the group about the American ambassadors disdain for non-diplomatic actions. Jack Cooper assured the station chief that the taskforce would only be in country a few days and just needed to borrow some equipment; the MP5s, Mossberg shotgun, and silenced Beretta’s they requested were purely defensive in nature.

Yasabi made contact with Deputy Interior Minister Martinez and setup a meeting with him under the guise of discussing possible off-shore oil drilling. The two arranged a lunch meeting for the next day and the group began making preparations for the operation ahead.

The next day Yasabi, posing as a North African representative of the French oil giant Total, took his “secretary” Sarah Walker to a steakhouse where they met with Deputy Interior Minister Martinez. The two exchanged pleasantries and as the interaction continued Yasabi hinted to Martinez that he was not exactly who he claimed to be. When Martinez finally began to understand that he was being solicited he quickly told Yasabi and Sarah that he felt ill and that they should meet again. Before Martinez showed them to the door he also mentioned that he loved to take walks after eating lunch at the park next to the Interior Ministries office building.

The next day Yasabi waited for Jorge Martinez in the park. When the two made eye contact Martinez made gestures that he was being followed. In response Yasabi simply entered a large bathroom in the park and waited for Martinez to enter. When Jorge entered the bathroom Yasabi closed and locked the door and propositioned Jorge. Yasabi told him that he was willing to offer Jorge two million dollars and citizenship to any Western nation that he wanted in exchange for the location of the missiles. (This offer was made without any authorization or approval) After Jorge overcame his suspicions he agreed to provide the information that Yasabi was seeking when his wife and two sons were out of Venezuela.

When Yasabi met back up with the rest of the taskforce he told them all that Jorge had said. It was there that the taskforce’s leader Jack Cooper came up with a plan: “capture” the family as if they were kidnappers / angry cartel members and whisk the entire family to the American embassy where they would hold them until Jorge Martinez told them everything that they wanted to know.

The team got a hold of Mrs. Martinez via a local payphone and instructed her to keep the family estates’ alarm system deactivated after 10:00 p.m. that night and to be ready to leave the country without alerting the government bodyguard that they were forced to live with.

The team drove around the Martinez family estate for hours awaiting the arrival of Jorge from work but he never came home. Numerous attempts to contact him via his work phone went unanswered. At 3:00 a.m. local time Jack Cooper made the decision to take the three other Martinez’s out of the home and they would worry about finding Jorge later.

Yasabi drove the stolen plumbing van up to the entrance of the guard shack while Jack Cooper hopped out of the passenger side with his Mossberg tactical shotgun at the ready. The elderly rent-a-cop in the ramshackle guardhouse immediately threw his hands in the air. The old man unlocked the door and received a shotgun-butt to his face for his trouble. The old man dropped to the ground with a severe concussion.

Jack quickly opened the wrought-iron gate to the mansion and Yasabi drove the van with the two female taskforce members to the backdoor of the house. Jack met up with the two women and they quickly went into the back of the house. They were greeted with the sleeping body of the government issued bodyguard fast asleep in a lounge chair. Without hesitation Jack fired three silenced rounds into the back of the guard’s head and the now corpse slumped even further down into the chair.

Moments later Mrs. Martinez came down the mansion’s stairs with his young sons in hand. Lucy ushered the three frightened Venezuelans into the back of the awaiting van and the team sped away back towards the American Embassy.

When the group was getting close to the embassy Jack called the C.I.A. station chief and told him that he was coming in and that he had brought “guests”. When they arrived the station chief threw a fit over what Jack and his crew had just done. Jack calmed the man down and told him that he was going to keep the Martinez’s around for less than a day and that they would be out of his hair soon. Perturbed but helpful, the station chief found a inconspicuous room for the scared Martinez’s to stay for the night and then retired back to bed.

The team was awakened at exactly 6:07 a.m. from small arms fire hitting the red granite exterior of the embassy. When the taskforce finally found the station chief he told them that there were thousands of angry locals outside the embassy gates and random members of the crowd were taking potshots at the building. The station chief’s phone call was interrupted by an incoherent and screaming ambassador who came into the room waving a (presumably loaded) handgun.

Jack cooper acted quickly and called his boss to secure transportation out of the country immediately. After bluffing that they were in possession of a contact who knew the location of the missiles the bureaucrat acquiesced and was able to divert a local C.I.A. operated helicopter to come to the embassy and extract both the team and the three Martinez family members. Unfortunately, the team’s troubles were only beginning…

Terror Network Episode 4

2010-06-04T23:32:00.009-05:00

Episode 4: To Hell (aka Somalia) and Back

May 5th, 2010

Episode 4 began with a briefing and update from Delta Force’s Colonel Thomas J Masters. He instructed his Delta team that they would be traveling to Mogadishu to run surveillance and possibly disrupt an anti-ship missile sale between members of Al-Shabbab, their local Somali pirate contacts, and members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Masters also passed around copies of the recently discovered AQ torture manual as a reminder about the consequences of allowing a teammate to fall into the hands of terrorists…

Eighteen hours later both teams loaded into the bed of their local contacts rusty-1980s Toyota truck and attempted to stifle their urge to vomit as they jostled towards the small trash-strewn hill near the target house.

At the hill the team was instructed by their “other agency” contacts that the team would simply need to use their two-way walkie-talkie to call for extraction after completion of their mission, however, the team was alarmed when they were informed that their extraction had to happen before nightfall; otherwise they were “On their own.” As the truck sped away Lee checked his watch and it displayed that the time was 3:26 p.m.

The Delta operators then split into two groups with the first group comprising of Lawrence McHenry (a PC) dressed as a woman wearing a body-covering burqua, and Master Sergeant Jerry, an African-American (NPC) dressed in local garb. The second group was made up of Lieutenant Lee (a PC) who was posing as a photojournalist and Trey Nation, (a PC) who was acting as Lee’s cameraman who carried a leather satchel that contained an H&K G36C and grenades, should the group need them.

After the rusty truck drove-off, McHenry and Jerry set-off to the building across the street from the target house and Nation and Lee went towards a decrepit shanty also across the street from the target. McHenry and Jerry found their ex-hardware store unoccupied and broke out their supplies: Jerry took out his rangefinder, handgun, and communications equipment while McHenry disrobed out of the burqua to reveal his SAW heavy machine-gun.

Lee and Nation came up behind their house and found that the entrance would make them visible to the RPG wielding gunner perched on top of the target building, so they took a shortcut and kicked in the rear of the structure. As Lee’s skinny frame went through the rear of the shack four children ran out the front door and screamed all the way down the street. While Lee was sure that all of the guards at the target house would investigate why the children left the shack screaming, luckily, they did not. After listening to their hearts thud in their chests for a couple of minutes, Nation and Lee also took out their supplies; Lee his silenced Beretta and Nation his H&K G36C.

Lawrence McHenry was the first to notice that there was a small ‘technical’ parked outside of the target building with a mounted 12.7mm DShK machine gun. However, the gunner, the driver, and the "hangers-on" were busy smoking qaat and were not paying too much attention to their surroundings.

After a quick comms-check, both groups readied themselves for their target.

Nearly thirty minutes later, a turbaned man came out of the target building and began to berate all of the doped-up guards. Men unslung their weapons and a few even spit out the qaat that they had been chewing. The teams assumed that this man and the guards were pirates as Al-Shabbab did not tolerate drug use. This theory was reinforced as six large men with Ak-74s wearing green uniforms came out of the target house and formed a third-world honor guard with their weapons at attention. “This must be the Al-Shabbab welcoming committee,” Lee informed his men over their headsets.

Moments later, a large truck drove down the street to the roadblock. Within seconds it was waved through and drove up to the target house. Lee thought to himself that their intelligence was on the money so far; for once…

An Arab man with a long scraggily brown beard exited the passenger side of the truck and two other Arab men hopped out of the bed of the truck. They were all carrying AKs and the lead Arab motioned for the truck to park behind the target building. The Arabs were greeted by the Al-Shabbab members in all black and the customary cheek touching ensued.

Lee radioed back to head quarters that they were viewing the introduction of what appeared to be AQAP personal with Al-Shabbab members. Lee asked for further instructions and was told to wait one. As the turck’s engine turned off there was a loud crack and the lead Arab collapsed on to the dusty street dead. Milliseconds later a second crack sounded and the RPG gunner on top of the target building dropped lifelessly to the roof.

All hell broke loose as pirates, Al-Shabbab troopers, and the remaining AQAP members fired randomly in all directions.

Bullets flew through the shack where Lee and Nation were and they prudently hit the ground. McHenry noticed the DShK gunner rack a round into his large weapon as the pirate swung its long barrel towards him. Without thinking, McHenry placed his SAW’s bipod onto a debris-ridden table and opened fire. The gunner never knew what blew him off the back of the truck and the driver cranked his technical into gear and drove down the street attempting to avoid incoming rounds. However, this was not to be, and as another crack rang out, the driver’s brains and skull were splattered onto the dash board and his crumpled body drove the technical straight into the roadblock.

At this time a large number of people began swarming into the streets from all directions wielding weapons and firing indiscriminately into buildings.

As Lawrence McHenry lay back against the table he was using for cover he noticed that a group of three men ran into a market building on the western side of the street and that as soon as they entered he heard a quick staccato of firing. Seconds later only one of the three men who entered stumbled out of the building bloody for bullet wounds and was struck twice more in the chest and face-planted onto the street.

A group of guards who were stationed at the roadblock by the now sedentary technical rushed up to the same building and stormed in. Again McHenry heard a large exchange of gunfire but this time he saw a someone leap out of a third story window onto the roof of the building behind it. As McHenry tried to understand what he was seeing, the group of Somali men who had just stormed in the building came out with a bloodied and beaten dark-skinned (but not black) man between them. The Somali’s drug the captured man to the house behind McHenry and Jerry; Jerry followed the men with his gun and asked McHenry what to do. Lawrence didn’t answer because he had no idea what to say.

Lee and Nation could not see the action with the snipers but were uninterested since they had problems of their own. After the initial shots had been exchanged and the lead Arab lay dead, the Al-Shabbab members began to run towards the house where Lee and Nation were holed up.

Nation handed Lee his G36 and tossed a fragmentation grenade into the mass of black-robed Al-Shabbab members. The grenade went off with a loud bang and when Lee peered out of the makeshift window with the G36 ready to fire he saw the damage that the grenade had caused. All six of the Al-Shabbab members were down and Lee did not see any movement from them.

He instead engaged one of the Arab men who was taking cover behind some sandbags near the entrance to the target house. The two men exchanged fire as Trey Nation took the silenced pistol and went out of the back of the shack to make sure that they were not being flanked. Nation leaned against a disgusting smelling dumpster and awaited targets of opportunity with his new silenced handgun.

Finally, Lee dropped the Arab attacker with a 5.56 round to his skull and called on his walkie-talkie for their contact to come and extract them. They were told in no uncertain terms that they were on their own from now on as apparently the entire city of Mogadishu was now a war-zone. Their “other agency” contacts even informed them that they had seen African Union tanks and other heavy armor engaging targets and moving in their direction. Then, there was no response from the contacts via the walkie-talkie…

Lee then used his head-set and in between firing at Somali targets told McHenry to raise headquarters and to get them a secondary extraction plan as soon as possible. McHenry radioed in to their superiors and were told that AF-Command could scramble some Black Hawks but that they would be at least twenty to thirty minutes out. McHenry was also informed that the group would somehow have to find an extraction point that wasn’t full of angry hostiles.

While McHenry was informing Lee of what headquarters had told him, Jerry informed him that there was a Caucasian across the street and was motioning that he was going to come to them. Lawrence McHenry couldn’t believe his ears but as he looked out his window a white man with an unshaved face, a Dragunov sniper rifle slung over his shoulder and a .45 Barak pistol in his hands, ran through the streets full of angry and armed Somalis towards them. The man was almost shot by a Somali who was running by but Jerry dropped the hostile with a shot to the man’s throat. The unknown runner burst through the door just as AK rounds sprayed against the outside of the hardware store and McHenry raised his weapon up and dropped three more hostiles who were firing in their direction. Jerry slammed the door on its broken hinges closed and Lawrence pointed his SAW at the mystery man and asked him who the hell he was. The man said that his name was Yasabi (a PC from the first three missions who is now an NPC); he works for Mossad, and had been attached to an F.B.I. team who had recently taken down a Somali terror cell in Minneapolis. (He is referencing the first three missions in the campaign) Yasabi told the men that he and his partner were tasked with ensuring that there was not an exchange with AQAP today and that his spotter had been captured. He asked if the two American Delta Force operators would help him get his man back in exchange for a ride out of town courtesy of some African Union tanks.

McHenry and Jerry were incredulous but the story was so insane that they felt that it had to be true. Also, they needed that ride out of Dodge. McHenry radioed Lee who was still dropping Somalis at the target house and told them of their new plan. Lee grunted his approval and continued firing. Trey Nation, who was crouched next to the dumpster behind Lee, saw a group of Somalis approaching the group from their rear near the trash hill. He controlled his breathing and shot the first target square in the chest. As the man fell from sight Trey began to worry for the first time that day that they may not make it out alive.

In the ex-hardware store, Jerry had decided that he and Yasabi would go and try to rescue the spotter while McHenry provided covering fire with his SAW. The two men exited the building though a broken window on the northern side of the house, crawled underneath a trash truck that probably had not been used in over a decade, and stood outside of the opening of the house that contained the captured Israeli. Jerry could see that there were three men in the room with the captured spotter and that one man was wearing a black armband. Jerry assumed that this meant that the man was a member of Al-Shabbab. The Al-Shabbab man forcing a metal prod into the shoulder wound of the Israeli captive; that is when Jerry struck.

Jerry went into the aging structure and put a bullet into the head of the sadist Al-Shabbab member while Yasabi put two rounds into the chest of the nearest man. As Jerry advanced on the remaining Somali the man grabbed a bloody piece of metal that had been used on the spotter. Jerry quickly reached the Somali and struggled with the would-be assailant until the Somali managed to stick the rusty metal into Jerry’s right arm. As Jerry stumbled back from the penetrating blow, Yasabi put three shots into the Somali’s torso and chest.

Back in the ex-hardware store, Lawrence McHenry was also beginning to worry. He had shot a half-dozen armed Somalis who had gotten too close, but as he reloaded the SAW with his last box magazine, he too began to wonder if they would make it out alive. He chambered a round, popped up, and plugged a Somali who was literally inches away from him in the southern window.

Seconds later, hearing onrushing sounds, Lawrence McHenry turned towards the broken door just as it was kicked in. A toothless Somali wearing only cut-off shorts, sandals, a doped-up frown, and wielding an AK-47 came in the room. McHenry held in the trigger of his weapon while aiming at the man but nothing happened. As the Somali’s face turned from a sinister frown to a sinister smirk, the man raised his weapon to fire. Instinctively, McHenry threw the SAW directly into the man’s face and pounced on top of the man. McHenry thumbed in the man’s right eye as he pummeled him with blows to his face and throat. As Lawrence McHenry began to feel the Somali’s life drain away from him another Somali stuck his weapon in the southern window of the hardware store and let loose an entire magazine from his AK. Lawrence McHenry collapsed on top of the Somali with six wounds to his chest and with two to his cranium. Lawrence McHenry never even saw the man who killed him.

As Lawrence McHenry lay lifeless on a Somali hardware store floor, the rumble of approaching African Union tanks could be felt by Trey Nation. Even though he was engaging targets with his handgun, he felt that something was wrong and asked Lawrence to check in. After asking several times, Lee interrupted by ordering Lawrence to give a sit-rep. None was forthcoming and Lee told Trey that he was coming out the back of the house to assess the situation.

As Lee came out the back of the shanty, Jerry, Yasabi and his battered but breathing spotter found the corpse of Lawrence McHenry with a Somali looting his effects. Jerry closed the distance between them, emptied his handgun into the man’s back, and immediately checked for any signs of life from his beloved comrade. There were none.

Jerry informed Trey and Lee about McHenry’s demise. Lee ordered Jerry to gather together McHenry’s corpse, weapon, and personal effects and to meet up with him.

While Jerry followed his unwelcome orders, Trey and Lee began concentrating fire on the Somali’s near the trash hill where Lee believed they should meet up with the African Union troops. Using the cover that was available and using their new-found sense of anger, the two Delta operators pushed back any signs of resistance and made their way methodically towards the hill. Bodies dotted the area all around the trash-strewn area; most of them with a single hole in their heads.

When the two operators reached the trash hill Lee radioed Jerry that he and his Israeli friends should carefully relocate back to trash hill where the mission essentially began. All of the operators were running low on ammunition and were now all carrying discarded Somali AKs. Moments later, Jerry and his Israelis met up with Lee and Trey. Jerry’s anguish was plastered on his face and Lee had no words to console him with.

The five of them were perched in a tight circle with AK barrels pointed in all directions like a hedgehog. Yasabi thanked them all for assisting him and his partner and asked if he could borrow their communications to try to get a hold of the African Union troops. Lee simply handed the man his headset and Yasabi chatted with his contacts to let them know where they were and that they should expect to make space for two more bodies.

With trash circling around them and with small-arms fire dying down around them, Trey spotted the snouts of the African Union tanks and APCs coming down the road towards them. Yasabi cautiously got on his knees and waved his arms frantically to get their attention while the rest of the group scanned for any signs of trouble. There was no trouble to be had and ten minutes later the three living Delta operators, the one Delta corpse, and two Israelis were tucked safely away inside of an aging M113 armored personal vehicle heading for the African Union’s base. Lee informed his superiors that he was en route to base with three Delta operators and one corpse. The voice on the other end of the line simply said, “Affirmative. One KIA. We’ll see you back at base. Over and out.”

That was the last time that Lawrence McHenry was ever mentioned over a communications net ever again. And for what?

Terror Network Episode 3

2010-06-04T23:30:00.004-05:00

Episode 3: The Conclusion

March 31, 2010 20:52

Episode 3 again began with an introduction from our local FOX NEWS affiliate that gave information about the shootout at the Hardware Store that “rocked the nation”.

At the beginning of the episode Lev "The Bear" was taken by police and he called Jack for assistance as a reimbursement for his earlier lead about Habib the Chechen drug dealer. Jack simply ignored his pleas and was then reamed out by his boss Deputy Director Pistole for not utilizing local law enforcement in his investigation.

Deputy Director Pistole of the F.B.I.

The group then found out information that led them to believe that their undercover Nadif was to be the second driver in the terror attack; which lead them to begin searching for the other driver. The group quickly find out from differing sources that one driver, Yousef, is going to be a decoy, and that the driver of the real attack is nowhere to be found.

Following this was the investigation of Nadiyah Rahman, the bank teller who was the only contact between Imam Mahammad Kahalil and the local bank. After her door was kicked in she claimed that she was forced to assist the Imam and his cronies and that on three separate occasions her baby had been kidnapped and was not returned back to her until she had agreed to continue helping the Islamists. After being threatened with jail time and with the possibility of being separated again from her baby because of Jack’s threats, Nadiyah became hysterical and fought against Jack when he attempted to take the baby out of her hands. After a brief scuffle the baby was dropped to the ground and Nadiyah was taken out of the house in handcuffs screaming at her neighbors that armed men are trying to kill her and that the police had murdered her baby.

On their way back to the station a large plume of smoke was seen in the distance and the group was informed from their dispatcher that when a team was about to enter the Mosque, on their orders, that Imam Mahammad Kahalil detonated an explosive that destroyed almost an entire city block, including the Mosque and all of the evidence that the team had hoped to recover from there.

When the group got back to the station, Deputy Director Pistole relieved Jack of command and instructed him to take no further part of the case. Lucy was promoted to command the group and grudgingly told Assistant Police Chief Al-Malik about the upcoming Mall of America attack. Al-Malik flipped out and threatened to ignore Lucy and her crew until the operation is over.

After being verbally assaulted by Al-Malik, Lucy set up a meet with the undercover operator Nadif. The group (with Jack incognito) went to meet with Nadif’s while he was driving his 18-wheeler truck in a crappy part of town. However, whenever the team arrived at the meeting place the truck appeared to be abandoned.

Yasabi decided to investigate the truck and when he got up the truck he saw what looked like Nadif’s body laying dead on the seat of the truck with the glass of the window shattered.

Instead of entering the vehicle, Yasabi turned around to call Jack up for assistance with the truck, when he was shot in the upper shoulder from afar. Yasabi rolled under the truck as Lucy exited the car, grabbed her sniper rifle out of the truck, and sought cover in a concrete restroom in the park. As Lucy scanned for the hidden sniper Jack drove the car up to the 18-wheeler and Yasabi jumped in.

Using her sniper training from the military, Lucy took aim at a reflection on a rooftop roughly 500 yards away and squeezed her trigger. After exchanging three rounds with the sniper, the reflection did not reappear and the team cautiously drove up to the building and entered carefully.

Lucy went up the stairs first to inspect her kill and on the roof of the building she found an off-duty S.W.A.T. officer with a sniper rifle lying next to his corpse. The group begins to feel even stronger that someone high-up in the law enforcement food chain is assisting the terrorists and was actively working against them.

When the police arrive at the 18-wheeler they disarm three bobby traps and proclaim that Nadif was indeed the dead man laid out in the truck.

With few leads remaining, the team went to the Crescent Moon Bakery, which was only a few block from the recently destroyed Mosque. The Crescent Moon Bakery was the former employer of Jalal Turk, the man who was first captured and it was also supposed to be where Nadif was to receive his final instructions. With nothing to lose and with time running out, Lucy entered the bakery from a rear entrance and Yasabi entered the store from the front.

In a back storage room, Lucy rummaged around, found some incriminating evidence, but unfortunately she found nothing solid. Nothing that is, until a cell-phone vibrated in a desk drawer. Unable to muster enough courage to answer the phone, Lucy waited until the phone stopped ringing, she waited for the vibration alert that a message had been left and then she flipped-open the phone. Lucy was shocked when she heard the enraged voice of Assistant Police Chief Al-Malik chastising whom he thought was the second truck driver wondering where he was and stating that he had altered his troops’ locations so that the attack could proceed as planned.

With the incriminating evidence in hand, Lucy snuck back to her car only to find that Yasabi had a handcuffed Somali in the backseat of their car whom he explained was their mysterious second driver: Ishan Yousef.

Lucy called Deputy Director Pistole of their find and he shocked them by telling them that he was not surprised. Pistole told the team that the F.B.I. had been watching Al-Malik for the last four years in regards to terrorism but never had enough evidence to prosecute. Pistole then told the team that they had done a great job and that the F.B.I. already had Al-Malik in custody and that the threat from him was over.

Pistole then informed the team that Lucy would keep her promotion as head of the Minnesota F.B.I., Yasabi would be returned back to the Mossad with a huge monetary thank you to the Israeli government, and that Jack was going to be sued by Nadiyah Rahman for the wrongful death of her son and would be placed on indefinite leave . Pistole reassured Jack that he would do everything in his power to help him but noted that there was a chance that Jack could spend some time in jail.

However, there was no word about the missiles that our Delta Force team heard about just a few weeks ago. Perhaps the higher-up will allow Delta Force to intercept them before they can be put into use against America, her allies, or her interests…

Terror Network Episode 2

2010-06-04T23:28:00.002-05:00

Episode 2: Disassembling the Networks

March 02, 2010 14:39

Episode 2 began with an introduction from our local FOX affiliate that gave a brief overview of the present state of the War on Terror at both home and abroad.

At the beginning of the episode he Minneapolis branch of the F.B.I. was contacted by a young Somali-American (Nadif) who says he had an interest in joining the Bureau. The taskforce put him forth as a "willing" recruit to the Imam Mahammad Kahalil who is believed to have knowledge of the missing Somali boys and possible links to homegrown terrorists. After the initial introductions were made the Imam asked Yasabi (a PC who is on loan to the F.B.I. from the Mossad) to "procure" a large truck for an upcoming operation.

Imam Mahammad Kahalil of the Crescent Moon Mosque of Minneapolis

Later that day Jack Cooper (a PC) received a message that he had a visitor at the F.B.I. headquarters and that the contact had information regarding the ongoing case against the Somali cell. When Jack went back to headquarters he found Lev "The Bear" waiting for him – a Russian mobster whom Jack has worked with in the past.

Lev "the Bear" Russian Mafya Member

Lev told Jack that there was/is a Chechen drug dealer (Habib) on the streets whom Lev believes is involved with the cell that Jack is chasing. In return for this information Lev asked Jack for a "future favor". Jack agreed.

Habib the Chechen Drug Dealer

The team (Yasabi, Jack, and Lucy) then tracked down Habib, both threatening him to turn over information about the Somali cell and to go to work for the taskforce. This was done by Jack holding an unloaded weapon into the mouth of Habib in an abandoned warehouse. After Habib conceded to these "requests" the local police arrived (Lt. Kowalski) was first on the scene.

Lt. Kowalski

After stonewalling Kowalski, his superior, Deputy Police Chief Ali arrived on the scene and had a heated exchange with Jack about "future cooperation". Ali was insulted by both Jack and Lucy. Ali insisted that he would help if he knew what was going on but no-one in the group gave him any relevant information about the case.

Deputy Police Chief Ali

The group then sent Habib undercover in the Mosque to meet with the Imam. Habib found out information that led to the group’s realization that the Imam was/is being contacted by someone above him (via beeper) and that they communicate by writing draft emails but never sending them. Also, the group found out that the target of the attack is going to be on the next Saturday afternoon at 12:00 in the Mall of America. There is going to be a huge interfaith ceremony between a bishop in the Greek Orthodox Church and an Orthodox Rabbi from Israel and that somehow the Imam and his group is going to attack it.

The group then found out that the Imam only has transactions with one specific teller who also happens to be Somali. The group bugged her home and found out that she was going to have a late-night meeting with a local hardware store owner, who was also under suspicion of being a terrorist, about facilitating the purchase of explosives for a terror attack. The group tapped her phones but did not intercept her during their meeting.

The next morning the group found out that just a few minutes ago Lt. Kowalski had been driving by the hardware store on a "routine inspection" and was shot at by armed persons inside of the store. He was not injured, called for backup, and a stand-off ensued. S.W.A.T. was sent to the scene of the crime and when they stormed the building, the owner and his two sons (who were armed and actively fighting the police) were killed and the owner’s daughter (who was being used as a human shield) was also killed.

Moments after the standoff was ended by the S.W.A.T. team Jack received a message that Habib, their Chechen contact had been found murdered in an alleyway that morning in an "apparent Mafya-style execution".

Terror Network Episode 1

2010-06-04T18:22:00.007-05:00

Episode 1: The Terror Begins

February 16, 2010 22:55

Episode 1 began with an introduction from our local FOX NEWS affiliate that gave a brief overview of the present state of the War on Terror.

Then from there the action went to the briefing room where Col. Thomas J Masters informed the team of their first mission: Swoop down out of the sky in a Little Bird helicopter, disembark, find Wali-ur-Rehman Meshud, eliminate or capture him, eliminate or capture any other High Value Targets, (HVTs) eliminate any hostile presences in the area, and recover any valuable intelligence about local / international terror networks.

When the Little Bird landed the 5 man group split into 2 separate two-man assault teams with Lawrence McHenry (a PC) providing cover with his SAW.

One guard was visible immediately in front of one of the two target buildings and was dropped before he had a chance to react by the SAW of Lawrence McHenry. As Trey Nation (a PC) and Lee (a PC) ran towards one of the target buildings a wild-eyed man exited the target building and fired in the general direction of the assault team. Fortunately no-one was hit by his imprecise aim and Trey and Lee were on him within a matter of seconds and Trey silenced him with a three-round burst to his cranium.

While this assault was taking place Sgts. Thomas (an NPC) and Jerry (an NPC) were exchanging fire with two other men who had exited the second target building. The two men were spraying their AKs wildly at the intermittent muzzle flashes but with no success. Within minutes, both of the fanatical suspects had been dropped from shots to their heads.

Back at the first target building, Lee threw a flash bang into the building and immediately rushed in. Inside the room was a dazed and immobile hostile that Lee instantly subdued and restrained. A further search of the room would lead to the capture of a laptop that would later turn up some interesting information.

Silence filled the area, and Lawrence began working his way over to where Sgts. Thomas and Jerry were securing the second target building. As Lawrence approached the building he began to hear someone crying out for assistance in a heavily accented voice. After a thorough search of the area, a trapdoor was found under a Persian rug and revealed a small chamber in the basement that held rusty farming tools and a captive French journalist.

After questioning the French journalist it was established that he was one of two journalists who were recently captured by Taliban and that in the last safe house that he was at he saw a meeting between African Islamists and the Taliban. He also mentioned that the he kept hearing the word "missile" in the conversation.

While the journalist was being questioned Lee was interrogating his restrained suspect and found out that the man was a local claimed that he grabbed his weapon only because he heard shooting outside of his compound. He claimed innocence about not being a member of the Taliban and says that he has never even seen Wali-ur Meshud. Nonetheless, the man was put aboard the exfilltration chopper and was taken back to the base with the rest of the team as a large formation of Taliban troops were beginning to ascend the hilltop from the town below.