Noun
1.
the general method of locating objects by determining the time for an echo to return and the direction from which it returns, as by radar or sonar.
2.
Zoology. the sonarlike system used by dolphins, bats, and other animals to detect and locate objects by emitting usually high-pitched sounds that reflect off the object and return to the animal's ears or other sensory receptors.

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5th July, 2020
0300 Hours

Somewhere outside of Portishead, Bristol, UK

The M5 dragged, the rain pouring on the motorway down to Exeter. Summer rain, Merlin thought to himself. He was alone. Being alone wasn't a usual thing for him. He remembered what had been passed to him hours ago. On the passenger seat of the black BMW 330d that he drove on the cold, wet and empty roads, was a folder of paper that had all he needed to know. He was going to go pick someone up. Kasabian played on the stereo, the midnight radio perhaps not as bad as Merlin remembered it to be. Sometimes, you had the little things, and if Club Foot wasn't enough to echo the rain around, then he didn't know what would.

He knew that he wasn't with the rest of Echo for this reason. That poor Staff Sergeant. Merlin thought to himself, adjusting the beanie covering his mid-length hair, watching the next junction come up. Indicator switch on, like no BMW driver ever did, he pulled off the motorway, his lights dashing across the sign for Portishead. The road was not long, but he could only think to himself. The coming actions. Olivia was someone he'd met before, worked with even briefly. In the circles of operators, it wasn't unknown for that sort of thing to happen. But she didn't need this. The story was not one that he wanted to fully illustrate. But he knew the details. Driving down the road, he thought them through. Olivia Yen was a disgraced SAS operator, caught with her pants down in Columbia. She had been working on purchasing a shipment of Cocaine, almost $5.2 million dollars worth from the FARC, to be delivered to a Triad based out of Guangzhou, China. And it would have been lucrative too, had the Colombians not have caught her and dragged her in front of the British Embassy in Bogota. Oh, and then proceeded to demand that she was taken back to Britain, and made to vanish. MI5 initially did this, the public blastback in both countries could be epic. And so she was, a traitor to the United Kingdom, in a warehouse in Portishead, freshly arrived from Columbia, in total blackout. She had no idea where she would be, what she was doing, how the fuck she was alive. Then, she would be sent to a prison of sorts, or to another Black Site. Like what the CIA did, she would be circulated so much, so confused, that her sense of any living would be broken, bit by bit.

This was not Olivia Yen's story. Merlin knew that much. The whole operation was a sting, and what had simply happened was a big, big mistake. Someone had clearly forgotten to ask someone higher up in the branch about who this woman was. An SAS operator, not disgraced or buying Cocaine for a real drug syndicate. She was there to break it up, as a part of the British contribution to disrupt the trade in Class A drugs that had hit the country hard. It had been an SIS sting operation, and yet amazingly, the channels to get her out hadn't been activated. It was like nobody wanted to know that she could walk free, it seemed too glaringly obvious that Olivia was innocent, Merlin thought to himself. Intelligence was a mess, everyone distrusted everyone. But someone knew that it wasn't the case that she was a traitor, and that was why he was here. He needed a woman like her on his team. Someone he could trust. Maybe she wouldn't trust him. But Merlin knew that there was only one way that would happen.

Pulling in across the street, he took a breath in.
"Go time." Reaching under the passenger seat, he slid the silenced P226 out, inspecting it over, chambering a magazine from the passenger seat. A resounding cock, as he looked back across. He hated wet work. But sometimes, it had to be done. She had maybe an hour or two left at best. They'd be moving her again, and she was fresh in the country, going through an initiation with two new interrogators. Merlin hated the idea of killing these kinds of people, they weren't terrorists, they were people paid to interrogate people, whoever they were. But they would be armed, and Merlin didn't like collateral. Especially given the nature of this. He wore a black T-Shirt and a pair of jeans, as well as a sling pack over his back, no headset, no nothing. He had an operator to collect for his team.

Stepping out into the hard rain, he exhaled, standing tall, as he looked over. "Yellow Storage" was the name of this place, a tiny little warehouse filled with fuck knows what inside. Merlin didn't care. He knew the details. Moving across the street, he moved through, heading to the side of the warehouse, moving slow and steady. He found his way over a fence by the side, moving through past a pair of cargo containers, sneaking around the abandoned, rain-soaked facility. Moving to a window at the back, he could tell. They were sloppy. No blackout windows? What the fuck were they expecting? This was the shittiest operation he had ever seen, they were holding her like this? With so little security. It was so simple, it confirmed the file- this was a temporary hold, a site where they didn't need security because they wouldn't need it. Or so they thought. It begged to be stopped. Taking his rucksack off a little, he took out a strip of Semtex, and fixed it onto the window, placing a strip onto the yellow block, before then peeling it back. The spark caught, as the strip came alight, Merlin getting behind one of the containers close by, watching on. He had time. 5 seconds.

Four. Three. Two. One.

The glass shattered, as the two men inside yelled a distinct "What the fuck!", weapons raised. They moved to the smashed window, one going close to it, as the other swept around, looking at all the others. Merlin was not at the smashed window, nor at the container. He was not there, the men were completely, utterly confused. Merlin was not where he knew they would want him to be. He was behind them. Right where he liked being, and he knew full well that this was not a clean job in the fullest. Did it need to be? Nope.

Merlin placed a single round into the window man's head, the skinny suit wearing man going down fast, as he laid two more rounds into the chest of the other man, close to Olivia. The Glock he held fell and slipped from his hand, sliding across the floor, as Merlin emerged from the shadows, into the singular warehouse light that hung above Olivia and her torturers prior to that. Merlin had done his research. He had entered through another entrance, an emergency fire door that just needed a little pressure to open from the outside, and in the anarchy, he was in before they even knew. It worked wonders.

Dusting his gloves off, he walked over, looking at her in the chair, chuckling. He could see they had hurt her a little, nothing significant, but they had tried to have some fun before they got down to the nitty gritty. She had a sharp look on her face, Merlin thought to himself. Kicking the man's body over, blood pouring on the floor, he walked up to Olivia, leaning in, closer, and closer. He rubbed his face against hers, beard on her chin, his eyes looking straight in. He had no fear in doing this, she could have headbutted him, done anything. But somehow, Merlin knew that wouldn't happen. He had faith, his eyes staring into hers, a deep sort of moment that almost screamed that he didn't fear doing it.
"Guess who."

Merlin smirked, eyeballing her as he leaned out, adjusting his grip on the P226.
"So I guess you're wondering if this is a trick. If it was, I wouldn't have shot two men in cold blood for you. Think that's a trick too? To make you talk? Fuck, let's say it is still." He added with a distinct tone, his cold raspy West Country accent going through as he pulled out his Dive Knife out from his holster on his hip, cutting the cord that was wrapped around her arms that tied her to the chair, before cutting it from her legs. He placed the knife back, and taking his sack to hand, unzipped it. Pulling out a Glock 17, he turned it around, offering it to her.

"It's loaded, so you can pop me right now. I have a feeling you're beginning to connect dots now. I don't know if you know where you are, but it's more depressing than you think, if you can hear that rain. But that is Portishead for you. I give us about fifteen minutes, because they're going to shit themselves when they realize the panic alarm that one of them set off was real. Follow me, and pray you don't use that fucking Glock. We'll talk more when we get out of here...you seem like you can walk." Merlin added, as he looked over at the two, one of them wincing in pain, still alive after the shot, almost screaming as he looked across at Merlin's bearded face. Merlin laid a single shot into the man's temple, before walking towards the front of the warehouse, looking over at the door in the front office, looking back. The tall SBS operator didn't look too concerned with the fact he had done what he had done, he was not someone to be trifled with, after all. He had made his choice, and he knew that right now, they were going to Chievnor, and he would debrief her in what the hell was going on. He had a feeling she almost knew, because it was the reason that Merlin himself was here. The bearded, beanie-wearing, P226 holding and large West Countryman knew that sometimes, while you were playing the game, you had to give it a go if you wanted the people you needed. He didn't want a repeat of this. It would be covered up as something else altogether. Merlin Bastion was never here.
"Well, come on then."

----

Meanwhile...
0600 Hours Local Time

Berbera, Somalia

The ringing echoed through Nikolaj's ears, as he looked out the back door of the Bvs10 "Viking", the Dutch Marine Corps-owned tracked vehicle, covered in it's anti-RPG slatting across it's steel surface, and comandeered by Echo. They had swept the city, and the assault was raging, the sound of explosions, gunfire, everything, everywhere around. The fighting had been going on for a while now, the Dutch raid into the city aiming to look for weapons caches as well as to expel the Al-Shabab presence from the area. The morning sun was still over them, and it felt a little cold at this time of the day, though Nikolaj could tell it would get far hotter very soon, as he pinged the driver on the radio.
"Mikkels, you know the stopping point? This taxi service can't go through buildings, so you know the drill once we arrive!" He yelled, over the noise of the tracks and the diesel engine, something that he could only speak over due to his throat mic.
"Aye aye, Sergeant. We're one mike out!" The Dutch voice replied, Nikolaj chuckling only a little to how deep the accent was. Crazy Dutch bastard...he couldn't say that phrase in his head without thinking of an old film. None the less, they were helping out, almost a company's worth of men depositing themselves in an amphibious raid with British RM helicopters and an assault ship to boot. When it came to getting rid of pirates, this was the way that they rolled. He changed over again, to a different team.
"This is Ørsted, we're thirty secs out, Jansen."
"Copy that, we're in the process moving across to our position. They're mainly running, but they might try and counterattack. Out." The other voice replied, the Dutch machine-gun team moving on the other side of the bloc, on foot, through the blasted ruins that this place was becoming, themselves going to set up a point from which to lay down suppression onto the rear angles of the building that they were assaulting.

Looking across to the contingent in the back of the armored trailer, he took the team in once more, who he had. He had divided the whole unit up, and they sat under his command, provisionally, at least. The First Sergeant knew that Merlin should have really been here, calling the shots, but he had something big on his plate. So in this hell hole of a city, where the fighting had raged on for an hour, they had come to the last place the reconnaissance had placed their target to be. He went through them. MSgt Volkov was his 2IC on this operation in particular, the 2IC to the 2IC, it seemed. Still though, she had Davidsen, Ungern and Johnston under her command, and the Dane was confident she would hold her own. She was a mean woman with that AK of hers, that much he knew. The rest of his team, all of them were just as good with a weapon as he could be, and he didn't want anything less. Merlin would have been harder, but he knew that what he did was a good job.

"This is our last spot. Fuckers are posted up, we've got Wildcats on standby with DAGRs and we've got a couple of requests on mortar fire. Johnston, when I give the command, I'll mark up on the TOS where I'd want fire, you can then proceed to send it when it's set so we let our supports do the heavier work. Apart from that, we clear out these buildings, find the stash, then get the fuck out of dodge, let the Dutch clean this up. Everyone understood?" He added, looking out across as he stood up in the back, F2000 pointed downwards, his M32 MGL on his back, wearing his Ops Core FAST helmet and generally in his overall combat attire. From his M/01 fatigues to his Oakleys over his eyes, he looked like an individual on a mission, the netting sprawled over the helmet rather than over his face. But he had a team, and they were going to give it some.
"Volkov, your Fireteam Blue has our flanks when we get out, my Red team will push ahead into this side of the apartment. Get the overheads, any stragglers that decide to try and come close to flanking us out. Then you follow through, you enter the left. TOS will keep a track of you, but remember, you know where you stop and let us meet with you once your sectors are clear. Like we said, we find the PETN, we make an assessment of just how much of the fucking stuff there is, then we deal with it and leave. We've killed at least two dozen skinnies today, so if we face more resistance, expect this to be it." Nikolaj added, looking across the hold.

"Oakley, Svoboda, you'll push out first, get to hard cover across the road. Crowstep and Goldfarb, you'll follow me and we'll set up a base of fire, then we'll follow them up. ROE is shoot anything that moves, we expect no civies. Not here." He added, mentioning it to his own team members, the multi-national operators within Echo people that 1stSgt Ørsted-Holl had commitment towards. Fireteam Red, his fireteam of people that he directly commanded, and Fireteam Blue, the individuals under MSgt Volkov, were here to do damage.

The vehicle began to stop, as the .50 on the front of the BvS opened up on the building's exterior and picked up a couple of runners, taking them down and cutting them apart. Nikolaj opening the rear door with respect to that. His F2000 was without a grenade launcher this time round, a foregrip mounted on the RIS instead of the F2000's regular grip, and the regular RDS/magnifier setup that he ran with on the Belgian-produced bullpup. Peeking out, he heard the distant sound of a rocket fire mission, helicopters buzzing in and out, Royal Navy Wildcats pummeling the shit out of apartment buildings across the other end of town. Each rocket kicked hard, momentarily dictating heartbeats, but was nothing that felt too insane. Not to Nikolaj.

Moving out across the road, he got into cover by a concrete barrier, peeking over and observing the apartment building ahead, the walls half falling off, the bulildings here already fucked, he saw a couple of men run out, in response to the new arrival of soldiers that were coming in to kick their faces in. They were poorly trained, Al-Shabab was not an organization of great trembling power, after all. They were locals, pirates, general doers that were paid a bad wage to shoot Westerners and hijack ships in the Gulf of Aden. Today, they were going to have their asses handed to them, as Nikolaj placed down fire on the men that were moving, taking out one with a clean shot whilst bringing another down with a burst of rounds to the core, flipping the magnifier off to the side as he adjusted his aim down the regular RDS once more, watching and observing any contacts.
"More hostiles, up top!" A couple more moved on the roof, as he put some fire down, joined by the rest of the team, as they clipped the three that moved in, just skinnies with AK derivatives in hand.
"This is Sgt Jansen, we're moving around the rear of the building, we've got any stragglers pinned down with MMGs! Ørsted, what's the situation out front?" The Dutch Marine asked, of another squad that was moving through the buildings block by block, laying down fire with their heavier supplement of MMGs and LMGs that they were carrying with them. Nikolaj had the team armed up heavier, but with breaching equipment as well- they were kicking in doors, and so far, most of those hadn't yielded. He could tell, this one felt like the place to go.
"Understood, Sergeant. We're beginning our breach, we're going to sweep and clear the building. Watch for friendlies, the walls are half falling apart so not everything that moves in there is going to be hostile from here on out."
"Copy, we're fixed." The Dutchman replied, as Nikolaj peeked once, more, looking over down the road as the fire wailed, the whole team now engaging across the dusty courtyard, between the set of half-demolished buildings and the low two-storey apartment block.

"Technical, nine o'clock! Lay it out!" Nikolaj added, putting some fire down on some men that were moving out the side of the building, across the courtyard, as he sprayed a couple of rounds between them, clipping one and putting him into the dirt. Head down again, he flipped a new magazine into the rifle, flicking the old one back out and into his plate carrier, as he moved over the barrier and headed across the road entirely, aware that his team were providing a strong base of fire.
"Red, I'm moving up to your position near the door, keep the fire up!" Nikolaj added, moving across from the concrete barrier, running over as he moved in, right behind one of Blue's members, leaning in on the wall. The sound of a loud bang could be heard, the .50 scoring a victory against the Technical's engine block, and effectively anything inside, as he looked across at the other men that were laying down a base of fire, Nikolaj moving around to get near the blasted door. The apartment block was fairly large, across the courtyard there being another wing that seemed to exist, that Nikolaj wanted Fireteam Blue to deal with, while his Fireteam Red went through this one on their side, though parts of it were coming apart entirely. Most of the rooms were missing walls, with holes, gaps and just parts where the flats didn't really exist anymore. The block was on the coast, and the remains of a few stalls were in the courtyard, poor cover, and something that Nikolaj knew the team wouldn't touch with a 10 foot barge pole, it was too difficult and dangerous to use.

"Okay, Red, form up! We're going to go in, we sweep this place through the sector I noted, ground floor only. Crowstep, you are on point, Svoboda, you follow him up. Oakley, Goldfarb, watch our flanks and six, I'll part off with you once we're inside. Keep it tight." Nikolaj yelled across to his fireteam, poking his rifle round the door and keeping an eye out, teh sound of Arabic ringing out. Placing rounds through the doorway, yelling followed as the man was caught in the F2000's sight, Nikolaj slinking back as he nodded to the Canadian.
"Blue, you're clear to move across to the left side of the apartment, we're moving in! We just threw fire on the hornet's nest, let's burn this fucker alive! Move!"

Of course it could never be easy. He could hear the bullet pinging off the armored sides of their vehicle. With a growl he reached down, popping the magazine out of his AR-10T. He slotted it away and popped the round in the chamber clear. Putting the loose round into a pocket for later to top up the magazine. Reaching into another of the pockets on his rig he brought out a completely different magazine. This one had a Maple Leaf spray-painted on both sides, in the middle of the leaf, a stylised beavers head, with two little paws sticking up flipping the bird at anyone who happened to be looking. Tapping the magazine on the side of the rifle he then slotted it into the rifle, pulling the receiver lever. Locked and loaded. He's explain what those are later. He hadn't had to use any up until now.

He jerked his head up as orders and teams were brought up. He looked over to Goldfarb, giving him a nod, then back to Nikolaj, calling out, "Roger that sir." The ride pulled to a stop. And the growl of the .50 on top of the machine began. The first team moved out. And he fell in to Nikolaj's side. The AR-10T coming up to his shoulder. Without needing to be told he got to watching a side, as they proceeded to cover. Once there he settled in and started to provide a base of fire for the rest of the team. Normally the 7.62 rounds in the AR would be enough. But something about them. They didn't just make holes in cover, they left craters in whatever was on the otherside of it. Powerful rounds in that magazine it seemed. He yelled, "Contact, 010 high!" And fired a second later. The man up there with an AKM took two rounds. Both chest shots. But the rounds left two huge holes in his chest and back. Punching clean through his piece of crap kevlar chest plate, his body and left foot deep craters in the wall behind him. The opening fire fight was a sure sign that these bastards might have something to hide. Atleast to his training and outlook it seemed they were putting up alot more of a fight here compared to a few other places they'd been too. He helped to gun down another of the skinnies. Two of those heavy rounds making an unholy mess of the shooters shoulder before he tried to dart out and got cut down by a member of the other fireteam.

When the technical showed up he added his own fire to taking it out. Those wildcat heavy hitter rounds in his rifle punch holes in the side of the vehicle. Being very careful with the application of those rounds mind. Not firing nearly as much, making very careful use of those twenty high-power rounds. Course good things always come to an end. Chasing a contact out of cover and into the line of fire of another member of the team he dumped the magazine. Slotting it back into the pocket alongside the only other Heavy Hitter magazine he had time to make before they had all left at the beginning of this. Slotting a normal magazine into his rifle he fell in with Nikolaj. Keeping his aim off to one side, scanning and covering his angles as best he can. As they crossed the yard, the ear-bud in his left ear that is connected to his LCD 3.2E Chem detector made a click. Milly was trying to tell him something. When they got into cover he quickly reached back into one of the pockets in his combat pack, bringing Milly out into hand, and bringing it around to check on it. He checked the readings, the readout on the front of the handheld detector showing tracers of an Energetic Plasticizer having passed through the area at some point. He logged it. Then looked up and over to his fellow CBRN expert on the team, Aleksandra Volkov. He keyed into the comms, "Plasticizer, could be a hit or miss reading. Seems pretty stable though." He slotted Milly away into her holder. Then got back into position.

As they got back into position and reached the apartment. He checked his angles. Didn't want something sneaking up on them now. Then one of his favorite orders came in. Sarcasm button off. He grunted, "Yessir." He motioned for Goldfarb to take up his angles. Then swung around. He quickly cinched his rifle up close to his chest, barrel pointed towards his feet, made sure his safety is on, and his rifle butt pushed down so he didn't end up smacking himself in the chin at some point. By then he was just outside the door. Having snuggled in beside it. He drew the MP7A1 off his hip, and waited a second or two. Tyler waited for the nod and the cry of, "Move!" from Nikolaj. He turned into the door. Leading the way with the MP7. One hand under the barrel, folding handle swung down. His index finger on his left hand pressed to the selector button on the RAID weaponlight, ready to blaze with the light and pulling the trigger with his right. He lead the way boldly into the building.

He entered the building. Quickly doing a door count. Leading the way in, bottom floor he had said, that'd be easy enough to do. With Svoboda at his back he stopped just past the first door on their left, "Alright, door left. Check it." He kept his gun trained down the hallway, waiting for Svoboda's call.

The sound of rounds bouncing off of the APC’s armor was nothing new to the Specialist. She had been on at least three tours of Afghanistan before she was brought into the Pararescue group and had witnessed more ambushes, road-side bombs and RPG attacks than most individuals should have to. After listening to her squad leader’s orders, she nodded to him silently before lifting up the jet black FN Scar-L that had rested on her lap up until this point, slamming in a fresh mag and hitting the slide-release to chamber a round. Oakley flicked the button to power on the EOTech on the rifle and rolled the rifle on it’s side to double check that the safety was on before feeling the vehicle come to a stop. Time to give em hell.

Empty cartridges from the .50cal rained down as Oakley hit the ground running, her combat boots slamming down on the cracked and worn out asphalt as she moved towards a small chest high wall for cover. She slid to a halt behind it, flicking the fire-selector on her rifle to semi before popping up and nailing a few tangos in the courtyard, the crackle of the Scar resonating throughout the area. While she never fired more than three shots at a target, her training as her squad’s designated marksman years before had taught her how to take down a target very quickly. The brass cartridges bounced off of the ground as she engaged target after target, partially to provide cover fire for the rest of her squad, partially because she couldn’t help it. There was something about shooting the people that had once tortured her and held her for ransom that was oddly satisfying.

"Three at my one o'clock, engaging!" she called out, before turning towards them and unleashing a burst of 5.56 hollowpoint rounds to deal maximum internal damage. Oakley may have seemed level-headed on the outside, but inside she resented these people and what they had done to her and was willing to torture them as much as possible before they died.

"Technical, nine o'clock! Lay it out!"

If she’d had a dollar for every time she’d heard someone say that, she could’ve retired three years ago. Oakley shot her eyes to her left to see the .50 gun light up the truck, a few squad members following suit shortly after. She decided that they had a good handle on it and turned to re-engage the targets to her front, only pausing to quickly flick out an empty magazine and slam in a new one with the click of the bolt being released as her queue to resume combat. She then began firing mainly as cover so that the rest of the team had a chance to move up without being gunned down. The recoil jarred her shoulder after every shot, but it was almost nothing to her preferred rifle which wasn't practical for the current circumstances. After noticing that the rest of her squad was beginning to moved up, she took one last look around her before hopping the barrier and rushing the building, pressing herself against the wall on the opposite side of the door as Niko, looking to him for orders.

"Ten four." was all that she said, confirming the order to defend their six as they moved into the building. She kept her off hand hovering over the pressure switch wired to her flashlight, ready for anything that jumped out. She peered through the small crevasses in the wall, spotting a few members from blue outside before she turned to look back at the door they had come from. She held position as the Canadian came to a halt, her dimmed helmet light illuminating the hallway behind them.

The cacophonous thunder of gunfire sounded overhead as the APC raced through the sand and rocks of the desert. They were hitting the final point of suspected explosives storage, and while Aleksandra couldn’t speak for the other men and women in the vehicle, she was on edge. Bullets ricocheted off the vehicle’s armor as she blocked the outside world out for the moment, clutching the small silver cross she usually kept tucked away under her uniforms. Softly, in Russian, she spoke to nobody in the compartment, aware of what was being said to her, and acknowledging, even as she deadened her mind to the noise of war.
“O angel of God, my holy guardian, given to me from heaven, enlighten me this day, and save me from all evil.” She began another prayer, hunched over as she held her rifle in one hand. “Instruct me in doing good deeds, and set me on the path of salvation. Amen.” Bullets continued to ricochet off the hull, and she looked up momentarily to give more visible confirmation to Nikolaj before she finished the prayer to the guardian angel as the boom of helicopter cannons sounded across the desert.

“O angel of Christ, holy guardian and protector of my soul and body, forgive me everything wherein I have offended you every day of my life, and protect me from all influence and temptation of the Evil One.” They were close, she wouldn’t have time for anything else after this. Soon she would once again sin in the name of stopping an even greater sin. She closed her eyes for a few precious seconds, finishing the prayer. “May I never again anger God by my sins. Pray for me to the Lord, that He may make me worthy of the grace of the All-Holy Trinity, and of the blessed Mother of God, and of all the saints. Amen.” She looked up, surveying the interior for a split second before she grabbed her rifle, flicking off the safety as her previously calm and collected visage morphed to one of cold iron. She scowled as they neared the target, and braced for what would come any second now.

All the while she had been keeping up to date on the situation, and she nodded, grunting an, “Affirmative.” before the .50 opened up on the enemy and Nikolaj went through the back doors of the APC. She was the second one out after him, already barking instructions in thickly accented English. “Davidsen, Dima, Johnston! On me! You heard viking, keep Red’s flank secure and then we hit the left!”

She sprinted for cover, firing a quick burst that sent a skinny diving for cover of his own as she sheltered behind a piece of concrete. The roar of battle had been deafening - over a decade ago, today she scanned the area and glimpsed a technical, about to shout before Nikolaj beat her to it, and then the she got a nice little view of the .50 laying waste to the truck before a screaming AK wielding man popped up from above, toppling over moments later as she delivered two precise bullets to his chest.

A voice crackled over her comms, Blacktail relaying information about traces of plasticisers in the area. She nodded an affirmative, barking the same word over the headset before looking back to Dima. “When Red goes in, we going in opposite side, you take point and do what you do best, I’ll be following.” She turned around again, yelling over the din of combat, “Johnston, need you keeping an eye out while we go and then we need you following up, put the support where we need it and help clear the area! Davidsen, bring up rear and go with Dima. Johnston! You with me when we inside!”

She looked over, Red was going in and she signaled to the rest of Blue to do the same, hoarsely yelling, “Go go go!” as she rushed the building, taking potshots at several skinnies who popped up, all of them crumpling as Blue filled them with hot lead.

She let Dima make the initial entry, breaking off to secure the next room, before waiting for Johnston to back her up. As she rushed through the door the room appeared empty, before suddenly a scream from behind her snared her attention and she whirled around to find a man in filthy rags leveling an AK at her as he screamed, “Allahu Ak-”

He was cut off as she kicked him savagely in the groin, pulling her knife out as she smashed him savagely against the wall and plunged the knife into his throat before smashing his now limp body to the ground. “Нет.” She muttered, returning the knife to its sheathe as she waited for Johnston to back her up. “Dima, engage, Johnston, I am waiting.”

Richard bounced and jostled with the movement of the tracked vehicle across the uneven terrain. He listened and nodded back to Tyler with a brief grim, thin smile and followed his affirmation with a 'sir' of his own. Like the rest of the team around him, he loaded his weapon - a TAR-21C Tavor, in his case - and readied himself for action.
He wasn't disappointed or left waiting for long, as all too soon the hammering of the .50 Browning on the roof of the vehicle was accompanied by shouts and explosions of movement as the team disembarked with haste from the vehicle. Around them, the air was heavy and thick. The distant thump of helicopter blades drifted from the far end of town, the hammer of rocket explosions inconsistent and sudden enough still that they broke the silence with alarm each time. But it didn't stay that way for long; the arrival of the soldiers was enough to stir the hornet's nest, and armed, angry men spilled out into the streets around the dilapidated building, yelling and jabbering before sending a tumultuous storm of firepower their way.
Fear at facing professionals and anger at being discovered and challenged drove the actions of the men against them. Their shots were not precise, their movement not remotely military; they were people who'd been bullied, threatened, bribed and coerced into fighting. Or, simply people with nothing else left to do except pass on their discontent to others at the end of a gun. He had some sympathy for their situation, but not for the individuals themselves. He moved along in sharp formation with the rest of Red team, the angular bullpup glued in tight to his shoulder and snapping off short double-taps into centre mass or at the heads of the hostiles as they moved. The stink of combat built up quickly, along with the crackling din of rifle and machine-gun fire. Swirling dust and grit caught in his teeth and stung his eyes as he moved swiftly.
When the technical reared its' head, he too added fire, going down on one knee and aiming for the gunner and those in the bed at the rear with short bursts. Under fire from so many of the team and from the .50 on the vehicle, the pickup truck withered into scrap. He ejected the dead mag and swapped in a new one as he ran, leapfrogging along with the rest, their disciplined, interlocking firepower forcing the hostiles back even as their numbers thinned out. He lobbed a single frag grenade to clear out a position behind a ramshackle outbuilding, giving the cry of 'frag out!' as a warning as he over-arm tossed the grenade. The corrugated metal-and-wood building blew apart in a shower of smoke and clods of dirt as he moved on, putting down another gunman with a decisive burst of 5.56 into the chest.

They swept across the courtyard, and Richard heard Nikolaj's order over his headset to form up. He thumped his back against the wall as he joined him in cover, stacking up to breach the shoddy-looking building. He took a brief sip of water from his camelbak to wash out the taste of cordite and dust, spitting it into the dirt, before he slung his Tavor and drew his Jericho, the handgun offering more versatility in the room entry. Waiting for the word to move, his expression remained firm, if wild-eyed with the adrenaline of the last minutes-worth of activity.
As they were given the order, he followed close behind Tyler and Oakley, pistol tight in both hands, eyes and ears sharp as they moved down the buildings' hallway. A brief shout in arabic was silenced by a shot from the boss's F2000, and as they were directed to check the door on the left, he nodded, stacking up on the opposite side. He reached for the doorknob and nodded to the other two, preparing to slip open the door and to storm in and check the room, or lob in a grenade as appropriate. Meeting their eyes, he twisted the handle.

An orchestra. A work of art, an Opera sung to the tune of war. That's what battle had become for the Soldier. Wildcats and their rockets acting as his powerful Percussion, the buzzing rotors and humming engines his Strings. Exploding RPGs, grenades, and the chest thumping booms of the heavy machine guns his Brass. Small arms fire, the snaps and cracks of rounds faster then the speed of sound, these were his woodwinds. The men shouting orders, the boots crunching the ground underfoot, the rattles and clanks of their gear. All these came together as the choir of his symphony. A wild and untamed performance that had no conductor. That was Echo's job. They shaped the field of battle and controlled the chaotic noise, transforming it from an disorganized cacophony into an expertly executed piece.

Dima broke from his momentary trance as Nikolaj began to issue the plan of attack. Nodding, the Russian retrieved his VANT-VM ballistic assault shield from the space between himself and the furthest interior wall. Strapping the appropriate support lines onto the shield, he loosened the right side in order to allow the use of his rifle upon dismount. Pulling the action back on his AK-105, the charging handle met the safety lever, a unique feature of AK pattern weapons, allowing him to confirm he was chambered and ready to go. Resting the rifle against his side on a single point sling, Dima pulled the PP-2000 from it's specialized holster and slid a magazine home before chambering a round. Saying he was sufficiently prepared would be an understatement. Not long after the rest of them had finished their own preparations, the APC's M2 rumbled to life. Echo, taking the opportunity presented to them, disembarked under the cover of it's suppressive fire.

The fighting began immediately as the poorly equip adversary attempted to organize in the face of their lightning assault. AKMs barked with their distinct chatter while rounds could be seen striking the concrete surfaces of the building in retaliation. Enemy rounds kicked up dust around the team before their Dutch supporting machine-gun elements tore the pirates exposing themselves a new asshole, effectively stopping fire from the roof. Hearing Starshiná Volkov's orders though his headset, the Operator fell in line behind his team leader. "Roger, covering!" He returned, putting two rapidly fired rounds into a man exiting the building ahead. The skinnies were coming out in droves now, ripe for the picking. The sergeant knew their modus operandi and showed little mercy, plugging holes into targets as they appeared with his high velocity 7N10 ammunition. Seeing the technical roll up the street like a bat out of hell, Dima like others in the squad, began laying fire into the vehicle's crew compartment. Luckily, the 5.45x39 variant he was using had increased performance when used on hard targets compared to older iterations of the round. Once the APC began ripping into the vehicle, he disengaged and returned his attention to their objective.

Watching as team Red began bounding toward their entry point, he took the chance to rock a fresh magazine into his weapon. Tucking the half full mag into his plate carrier, Dima once again received new orders from Volkov. Nodding his understanding, the Russian collapsed the stock on his rifle and let it drop. Satisfied with the weapons position, he finished pulling tight the loose straps on his shield's suspension system. "Roger, moving!" He shouted, drawing his PP-2000 submachine-gun.

Moving just ahead of his team, Dima acted as a sort of mobile cover while they maneuvered into position. The move was a risky one, but it was a method the Russian was well versed in. The shock and awe factor of his team advancing with the cover of his shield was having the desired effect. As the weaker willed individuals broke from cover, they were quickly gunned down by his colleagues, clearing the way for Blue team. Positioning himself in front of the door, Dima removed one of the liquid shaped charges from his gear and planted it on the center of the door.

"Get behind me!" He yelled, before hearing a man scream in Arabic only to be cut off mid cry. Looking over his shoulder proved to be almost comical. Not only had the man failed, he had also been stuck like a pig. Extremists deserved what they got; most of them were animals in his opinion. Once his fellow Russian was stacked up and in place, Dima once again nodded his understanding.

"Gladly," he said, before raising his shield to absorb the incoming blast.

"Three. Two. One. BREACHING!"

Mashing the clacker connected to the charge, Dima dropped the device which was attached to a bungie and pushed into the breach while drawing his weapon. Immediately upon entry the Operator came into contact with two disoriented fighters. Both were clearly struggling to stand after the explosion but this didn't stop Dima from putting them both down with a short burst of 9x19 death. The men dropped, their old Kevlar vests unable to withstand his specialized 7N31 "Armor Piercing" ammunition.

"I'm clear in the hall! Moving to clear right!" he screamed, flicking on the integrated high illumination system on his shield. Stepping over the bodies, Dima came face to face with the barrel of an AKM. The weapon had been swung around the doorway of an adjacent room, giving him little to engage. So, if the bastard wouldn't play fair, neither would he. Barreling forward, the Russian caught the muzzle of the weapon with his shield just as it went off causing the rounds that hit to splash back at the shooters hand.

"Ready to breach?" he asked, waiting for his support to confirm.

Jarek was thankful for the armored hull of the grotesque vehicle that protected them as they moved through the sorry ruin that was once a city. The woefully worn out road reminded him of Czech Republic and his mind drifted back into the days of AČR when he was hunched up inside the Pandur II, knowing full well what a barely amphibious abomination it was, emphasis on the MRAP that amplified the force of the blast. He slid a fresh magazine into his rifle and pressed the thumb release. The rifle produced a reassuring click. Jarek flipped the magnifier off and checked his sight. The 416 was also an improvement over the 601st usual M4A1 or, god forbid, the CZ 805. All in all, their current situation was a lot better. His name being said out loud interrupted his train of thoughts. Out and across the road, simple enough. Get to hard cover. He did not need to be told that. The .50 started its monotone chant of pain and anguish, muffled by the vehicle until Nikolaj opened the door.

Jarek followed Oakley out of the vehicle, briefly looked around himself and dashed across the street, straight for the nearest piece of valid cover. He ducked beside a piece of low wall, switched his rifle to semi and took a more thorough look at their surroundings. A dark figure wearing a light shirt and shorts, the unmistakable shape of a rifle in his hands, moved in the corner of his view. He squeezed the trigger twice, one in the chest, one in the shoulder. “I’m off.” he thought and shifted his grip on the weapon. Another one poke out of his hole. Two more rounds, and another skinny bit the bullet. “Better” He took no pleasure in killing, but didn’t shed any tears about the Somalis either.

"Technical, nine o'clock! Lay it out!"

Jarek looked over his shoulder to see where the thing actually was and moved to his left to maximize cover between him and the vehicle. Someone else would have to deal with it, this was out of his league. He turned back to the surrounding area, his attention now divided between the technical and the regular skinnies. A black head popped up over something that used to be a wall. Jarek quickly aimed, but the target hid again before either of them could fire. His 416 spat out two rounds just for good measure and then moved to other targets.

A bang indicated the technical’s demise. Jarek looked over his shoulder one more time to confirm it and was greeted with the sight of a bullet-filled, now abandoned vehicle. With this issue dealt with, Jarek formed up for entry and followed the team. Crowstep stopped just behind the first door. “Alright, door left. Check it.” Jarek tilted the weapon to the right and checked his ammo through the window on the side of the PMAG and drew a breath. “Ready.”

Rainer Johnston sat loosely against the wall of the Viking, letting the vehicle's rocking motions pass into him without complaint or resistance. Unlike the others, he felt nothing, at the moment. One of them prayed; a few more get angry, others just get really grumpy. Rainer had an objective, and there were going to be a great many obstacles out there, most of which would be taken care of by the rest of his team. Such is the nature of his role, and everyone else's role.

He didn't do much more than placidly listen to everything, apathetic and impassive.

His face hardened somewhat, however, whenever his boots met the dusty asphalt. His HK416 was up and at the ready, but unlike the others, he didn't fire. He followed his makeshift fireteam leader, covering Volkov as they made their way to their chosen roost.

He didn't need to fire; every skinny that poked their head out was shot within three seconds, without having enough time to aim. Only once did he feel the need to fire, and that's when an AK poked around a corner, about to blindfire. Unfortunately for him, the didn't realize that the walls were made of, essentially, dirt. Two rounds dropped the AK's owner, in a building on the opposite street. Maybe not as 'useful' as shooting someone in the building they were running to, but he had their backs and not all of them were so observant.

He didn't bat an eye at the technical- he didn't need to see it, there was no reason for him to distract himself with it, and the majority of his team wasted too much time as it was staring at it. In the single moment that the Russian operative, Volkov, turned to look at the technical, was the same moment he fired his third round, taking out another insurgent hoping for a shot at the female soldier.

A half-dozen and more operatives working together on an operation against a major insurgent group, all of them wearing something that proclaims the nation they came from- a terrifying sight for a rebel, to see the world working as one against them.

He covered Volkov's back all the way to his designated strike point, kneeling down near the window. Setting his HK416 on the ground, he reached up and curled his fingers against the windowsill, carefully peeking over with his helmet's cam. Nothing was aimed his way; he scanned the area, activating Ficklehelm and highlighting the skinnies over the TOS. Some were running towards them, and being cut down by soldiers elsewhere; others were running away. More still hunkered down behind cover.

Ducking back out of sight, he spun on his shoes to stare at Volkov through his four-eyed advanced logistical helmet. He glanced at the man, still gurgling slightly, lying on the floor, before slowly picking up his HK416 again.

After a moment, he radioed in- "Johnston in position, ready to bring in the rain on command and coordinates. Received?"

Davidsen jostled around with the rocking of the APC as it traversed the uneven terrain. A cacophony of gunfire, explosions, muffled screaming, and the occasional pinging of bullets bouncing off the APC's armor were filling his ears. A new mission. . . more lives at risk, he thought to himself. He carried the same weight on his shoulders like all medics world-wide did; that of losing a soldier you're trying to save. Just before each mission, Davidsen would recite the names of those lost under his care in his head and tell himself; No More. This time was no different. He hunched over and rested his elbows on his knees in a praying manner and began his mantra.

Jomar Hansen, 20, Oslo. Olev Aamland, 22, Bergen. Osmund Winjum, 19, Stavanger. Anne Hovland, 24, Drammen. Eidolf Allum, 31, Arendal.

Many people believed a medic could save a lot of lives. The tragic fact though is most battlefield deaths were unpreventable. 90% of deaths could not be saved. The dark joke that medics would only make you feel better while you died was ironically true. Davidsen has a hard time accepting this, but he manages.

Davidsen finished his pre-mission ritual just in time for Nikolaj's brief. Find the last of the explosives cache, and let the Dutch mop up. It sounded simple enough; and with an ROE of Weapon's Free, it should be a straigh-forward mission. But then, aren't most? Davidsen fell under Volkov this time around, and he gave an assuring nod towards his team leader. Soon after the briefing was finished, the APC came to a halt and began suppresive fire with its mounted .50 HMG. Nikolaj opened the rear hatch, giving the silent order to move out and get to cover. Davidsen followed Volkov's suit and posted up on a building's corner a few feet away from Volkov. He took a knee, and peeked out of cover with his 416C at the ready. Explosions, tracer rounds, and flying dust and debris filled his view. A scene straight out of Hollywood, but this was real not some fake crap that glorified it. Skinnies were dropping like flies as quick, precise gunfire quickly overwhelmed their own untrained potshots.

"Tangos, 2'o Clock," Davidsen shouted in a thick Norwegian accent. He was referring to a pair of foes posted up in the third story of a bombed out building. He trained his weapon on them and with two quick bursts, they fell backwards dead. A technical soon came into view followed by Nikolaj's order to Lay it out! Davidsen's carbine wouldn't do enough damage to the vehicle, not to mention the overwhelming firepower that was already being poured onto the vehicle. He, instead, focused his attention on the enemies rushing to the vehicle for cover. One man was high stepping it, toward the rear of the vehicle, and with a burst from Davidsen's rifle, fell short of his destination. Thanks to the power of the supporting .50 from the APC, the technical was quickly turned into Swiss cheese, along with the occupants.

Volkov had given the order to stack up on the side of the building suspected to house their objective. As he traversed the scarred earth, his attention was focused on the roofs and outcroppings of the nearby buildings. Urban environments were a hotbed of sneak attacks and ambushes from above. He and the rest of the team safely made it to the door. Volkov told him to go in behind Dima. The shield carrying man would provide excellent cover from any skinnies waiting inside. Davidsen provided security while Dima set up a breaching charge. Dima screamed, "Breaching," and Davdisen followed quickly behind into the hole. Dima had quickly dispatched the adversaries in the hallway, along with a foe wheeling around a nearby doorway. Dima was already all set up to breach the next room. Davidsen stacked up behind him and after priming a flashbang, he replied, "Ready."

"Look what we've got here... bloody traitor."

Olivia glared into the masked British men's eyes as they interrogated her with questionable methods. Nothing seemed to work on the former SAS operator, and it was rightfully so given the intense training she had suffered through in order to get where she was today. She knew every move they were going to make and made the proper adjustments in order to cope with it. She was no stranger to pain, pain was something an operator of her caliber had to deal with. They had tried pretty much everything Olivia had expected, which was what she was expecting the whole time. Electrocution? Physical abuse? Waterboarding? She knew how to deal with it. They weren't supposed to kill her anyway. And quite frankly, if they had even the slightest bit of brains in them they would know that nothing they were doing was of any actual effect. She was bulletproof to these people, she wasn't even sure if they knew what they were doing. By the way they were stumbling on their words, feet, they were most likely amateurs. It was very funny. They even pistol whipped her for crying out loud, but Olivia just kept her composure. She knew the situation she was going to turn heavily against her favor. In a few hours or so she would be moved even further into England. The closer she was the less of a chance she had to escape. Nobody knew her true story. A former SAS operator gone undercover. It sounded like it was straight out of a movie but that was really the story. The whole plan had gone to shit and here she was. A shithole in the middle of nowhere getting beaten and interrogated rather ineffectively.

She only looked blankly ahead now, having a feeling in her gut that something was going to happen. She wasn't sure if it was good or bad but something was going to go down regardless. Anxiety loomed in her mind, she was trying to read what exactly her gut was trying to tell her. Was she gonna brace for something? Was this the last she would see of the outside world? She didn't know. And quite frankly, she was just about accept her fate. The bureaucrats upstairs didn't want any bad shit with Colombia, so it was best that they cut their ties with Olivia and her operation and treat her as if she was a piece of trash. She was going to end up in the British equivalent of Gitmo. It was going to be hard, and definitely undeserved, but what could she do? It was her against the world. That is, until she heard a huge explosion. Gunshots were fired and bodies dropped, but Olivia only opened her eyes to see a certain figure in the shadows. Everyone around her was dead. The shadow came closer and closer to her, before his face was dimly lit up by the lightbulb. She swore to god that she had seen him before. Sometime during something like a SBS-SAS joint operation. She couldn't remember his name for the life of her though.

Whatever it was, regardless, either she was going to be executed death row style, or she was going to be rescued. Olivia hoped to god it was the latter. All this effort just for one person. Soon he was face to face with her, beard on her chin as she stared into his cold eyes. As he finally spoke, her mind made the connections almost immediately. It was the one and only. She stayed silent as she listened to him talk, some of it being slightly muffled due to the distance and the shock from the explosion wearing off. Before she knew it she found herself released from the chair. It was about time. She stood up, feeling a slight pain as she put weight on her left leg. It was probably just from sitting for too long. She rolled her wrist around, before seeing the Glock being handed to her. The weight of the gun indicated it was loaded. She had the chance to just shoot him right there, but why? Why bite the hand that feeds you? Olivia sighed and lowered her gun, indicating that she wanted to follow Merlin. Hopefully what he had in store for her was good. This was going to be a lot of trouble if this was all for nothing.

(Long, long post. This is simply to accommodate for the mass of what people are posting too- it gives a depth to lots of different people, so keep an eye out for orders to your character or whatever.)
(One or two bits may be unfinished.)

Merlin watched onwards, watching her follow suit, heading through to the door. She was moving with a limp, he could tell that, and she looked like hell, now she had come into the light better. The Captain knew she'd make it. He had faith, faith was the one thing that he could sometimes have as a fallback. That something could happen. She was silent for now, probably traumatized. Merlin knew that it wasn't going to be something she would easily trust in him, start pouring details. He didn't care for them, as he pushed the emergency door open, the rain pouring outside, as he looked back to her, close by his side.
"On my lead." He added, moving out, through the courtyard and past the gate, moving across the road to the BMW. Unlocking the vehicle, he looked across, looking over as he could tell she was in pain. Moving back, he helped her up a little, wrapping his left arm around her right shoulder in support, aware that she couldn't place too much pressure on that leg. He cursed himself for not noticing it earlier, but she was putting trust into him. Good. Otherwise, Merlin knew she wouldn't last long, not unless she knew where Merlin had in mind. Though perhaps escape and evasion these days was good, for operators like her. The SAS taught it just as well as his unit did, the Devonian thought to himself.
"World's a different place to what you remember, Olivia. I'm not going to lie, what I did there was the cleanest way to get you out of all of this." Merlin simply said, as he moved to the back, opening the rear right door and letting her slink in onto the back seat, before moving back around to the front.

Getting in, he started the engine on the car and was fast to swing it into first, pulling off the tarmac and off that road, not going back to the M5. He was going down country roads from here on out, and he knew that he had to be as far from here as possible. He knew that a police response team would be quick, but by the time that Merlin had gotten the BMW to the drop point and changed vehicles, little to nothing could be done. It was smoke and mirrors, it was the fact that Merlin had not done this with some overt logistical expertise. It was that he was poking at the holes in the organization's armor, and when it failed, it was his chance to wreck havoc and let slip the dogs of war. Such an exercise in getting Olivia was the way that it worked out today, it seemed.

Looking back, he looked over Olivia's general state, just observing her as he left the town, pulling out from it's industrial estates and bypasses, towards Somerset.
"Okay. So, you know who I am. I can tell it in your eyes. Beardy man, P226, and what about you? Olivia Yen, SAS operator come turncoat. It's a good lie that they tried to pull." He said, quick but understandable, knowing he had to get his point across.

"Current sit rep is, you're in the middle of the most epic clusterfuck in British intelligence right now. I'm about to pull you out of it, because it's a mess that neither of us wants to hear about again. I need an operator like you, and before you go to waste, I'm going to let you come with. We're going to Chievnor, Olivia. There's a Task Force. Echo. Multinational operators, headed up by me. People who enjoy fucking terrorists over, and I think you'd like to be involved. That's at Chievnor." Merlin simply said to her, taking the beanie off his head, revealing his well kept hair, as he looked ahead on the twisty road, heading down to Taunton, the A38 soon picking up as Merlin adjusted his position in the seat. It was put quite far back, his large frame at ease with the BMW that he had been given to use for this little piece of wetwork. Merlin's way of doing things it just seemed weren't to be questioned, they had a certain confidence in them that suggested that it didn't have any other justification than the fact that Merlin knew what the fuck he was doing, as he spoke once more, still with eyes on the road but a tone that seemed to reflect off the windscreen to the back.

"Make your decision there, whatever it is. If you want, you can go with a cleared name back into the civvy world, and you won't serve in the Service again. You'll have a different identity, and be expected to stay as far from anything in our circles as possible. A comfortable life, one that I think fuck, even I wouldn't mind if I were a decade older. Let me guess though, that's not you. You can come with us, and operate again. That's your choice." Merlin simply added, sliding the P226 across the passenger seat, as he looked at the road ahead, making another remark.
"Whatever happened in Columbia isn't a record I need to know, I know your story already and how it ends. It ends right there with two dead men in a warehouse in Portishead. So, I guess that's where we stand right now." Shifting gear, he brought the diesel BMW up to 60 on the country roads, the rain subsiding a little, as he looked over.
"Anyway, feel free to ask whatever questions you have. You have many, I bet. Before you ask, I made sure they put aside an ACR for you. It was difficult to find, but we got that, plus a whole range of goodies for you."

-----------------

Nikolaj pushed through, keeping pace with the other members of his five-man strong fireteam, sweeping rooms and corridors, letting the others handle their corners. Moving forward through the halls, he saw a couple more men move down right at the end, the Dane laying down a quick burst of automatic fire and dropping them both, letting Oakley cover him as he slid a new magazine into his bullpup. Chambering a new round, he got back into form with the team, as they went through the rooms, Nikolaj moving slow but sure, sweeping corners as he knew that Crowstep and Svoboda were keeping up the point, allowing them to maintain the view on the front.
"Clear. Okay, Oakley, Svoboda, sweep through to the left, rest of Red, on my lead. Blue, continue to clear that area, find a way up onto the second floor and continue to clear it. We are Oscar Mike over here." The Dane added, confident as he moved through, keeping an eye out as gunfire rang through the other parts of the building, his TOS picking up that Blue were breaching through, and clearing their part of the building. This place was getting swept through quickly, it was getting hit hard as hell.

Pushing through the hallway, he headed into a lobby of sorts, a number of individuals moving out as Nikolaj took one of the men out with a clean shot to the head, letting the other two in his sub-fireteam take the other ones, before moving up the stairs, the wall completely demolished and with a view down the road. He took cover for a moment, letting Oakley and Svoboda continue clearing the rest of the ground level, as he heard his radio give static, followed by a transmission, loud and distinctively that of a helicopter pilot's.
"Echo Actual, this is Yankee-One-One, message, over?"
"Send traffic, Yankee-One One."
"We are headed to your location, two mikes to your AO, DAGRs armed for strikes. Send for fire mission when required."
"Understood Yankee, TACP will relay co-ordinates when required. Standby, Yankee." Nikolaj simply responded, as he adjusted his position on the ramshackle stairs, watching the room above and the general area. It still felt exposed like hell, and he had been reminded quickly by the fact that there were people around.

Moving up a little, rounds filled the air as Nikolaj slung back into cover on the stairs, peeking over the concrete slab, that seemed to only run about halfway up the stairwell as a piece of hard cover.
"Okay...there's a lot of them. Crowstep, pop a smoke out there onto the road! Let's clear out that road with suppression fire and DAGRs before we move up to the second floor. Oakley, Svoboda, continue sweeping the ground floor, don't expose yourself to the eastern flank or you'll get cut apart. There's at least two dozen hostiles on that road at varying lengths, it doesn't look fun!" Nikolaj added, as he looked back across to the Canadian and the Israeli, adjusting his headset under his helmet a little as rounds could be heard, intermittent AK fire spluttering as the Danish First Sergeant got Johnston up on his TOS and communication frequency.

"Johnston, we've got a Royal Navy Wildcat inbound, I'm going to send you co-ordinates on your TACP interface, get an eyeball on it and co-ordinate their fire! The DAGRs are guided, so you need to ping up any vehicles with it, or you can adjust fire target once they've got weapons in flight. Jansen, you read? I've marked up contacts, you able to set suppression?" The First Sergeant added, as he switched to his M32, slinging it off his back.
"Copy, we have an eye on you, we're setting up a base of fire on that road, but we could use some more as we can't see down that street, not all the way."
"Copy that, Sergeant. Okay, Red, let's get some fire down range, suppressive rather than accurate!" He yelled to Crowstep and Goldarb, Nikolaj knowing that the MMGs opening up were a good sign to start raining hell down, before they continued moving through the building. The Viking was on the other side, so right here, was up to them to lay down some heavier fire.

Aiming down, he took a couple of pot shots with the MGL, M249 and M240 fire from the Dutch MMG team also being able to tear apart anything that moved, as they set rounds down range, Nikolaj hearing bullets flying into the concrete and around back at them, as he took a few more aimed shots with the M32, targeting a building across the road that he saw had a couple of contacts within. Picking his shot, he sent a 40mm round straight into the structure, taking them out as well as the building, before waiting for the fire mission. It didn't need to be said what hell had been wrought on the area, as Nikolaj could only guess the TACP had done his job correctly to get the guided ordinance where it needed to go.
"Cease fire, cease up!" Nikolaj simply added, as he slunk back into cover, looking over at what had happened.

The scene down the street looked like it had been torn to shreds, as Nikolaj put his M32 back onto his side after loading another six 40mm rounds into the South-African made multiple grenade launcher, slinging his F2000 back into his hands as he nodded to the rest of his fireteam, in visual range from his position in cover on the stairs, behind the concrete slab. It wasn't the easiest way of doing things, but the contacts were eliminated, and for the moment being, Fireteam Red could push further into the building, Nikolaj aware that Blue had continued to make a move on their end of things.
"Okay, let's continue moving. Blue's probably cleared most of the building, but we've got our side to finish up."
Moving up, Nikolaj swept the angles on the room, before point across to the door on the far side, at the end of a mostly trashed corridor, paint peeling off the walls and the sight and smell of cordite in the air as they pushed through.
"With me. We're going to knock politely."

Moving up on the door, Nikolaj pulled out a small tab from off his back, mounted on his tactical pack, and placed it square onto the hinge of the door.
"Okay...Golfarb, on the other side. Point up. I'll bang them." He simply gave his command as he pushed onto the wall by the door, F2000 poised against his shoulder as he pulled a cord on the tab. It was a funny coincidence, that it was just like the tab of Semtex that Merlin had used. The two liked this exact size of explosive, because it didn't blow shit sky high, but it could blow doors open and small structures apart, with a five second delay. That, and the fact that he couldn't help but make a Flashbang pun even now said an awful lot about Nikolaj, that whilst he was wired, he was still able to make a terrible remark even in this situation, sometimes, it was how you got through the job of throwing a device that blinded and stunned people very, very badly. Backing off, the Dane had his F2000 prepared, as the charge gave a slight fizz, the chemical detonator inside then burning bright as it then caught, and Nikolaj's heart gave one hard beat as it went off.

The door blew inwards, as Nikolaj took the pin and pulled it out completely, lobbing the steel tube inside through the demolished ruins of the doorway, before looking back. The Nine-Bang was a device that did exactly what it said on the tin. It was a Flashbang that went off, guess what, nine times. That was what precisely happened as it entered the room, the sound like thunder hitting repeatedly, echoing like hell as Nikolaj waited for the last and final one to go off, the resounding bang and what sounded like someone running into a a metal pipe almost being a comic relief to the whole experience. Pushing through after the Israeli, he moved through the collapsed plywood, his heart thundering, blood charging around his brain, as he moved in, time feeling like it was halved, with so much adrenaline going through. It was a moment he knew that operators like him had when things like this occurred, this sort of instantaneous fix that came with training and a knowledge that you had to act very, very quickly. Five men were inside the room, as Nikolaj shot one in the far end of the room, with a clean shot to the chest that went through the man's internal organs like butter, before fixing his attention to a man almost right on the door, with Kalashnikov in hand, lowered as he shielded his eyes, crying out in agony. Knowing that Goldfarb was on his right, continuing the breach into the room, the rest now filing in and spreading the sides of this large room, Nikolaj moved forwards, his head still shuddering, shaking internally, the noise and dust kicked up from the Nine Bang still feeling like it filled the room. Kicking the man over, he laid a shot into his head as he took out one more across the room, by a window, laying a clear burst into the man's chest, aiming for the skinny's torso. Sweeping round, he kept an eye out, looking through the room.
"This is the place...and that's the stuff." Nikolaj yelled over the comms, as he swept through the large room, looking around. A large cache could be seen on the far side, of what appeared to be white blocks of some sort. This was their goldmine that they were looking for, alongside a small cache of small arms and various other devices. Suicide belts, it seemed like a serious store of explosives.

"That, right there, is PETN that has been stored in the worst fucking fashion I have seen in a while. Holy shit." Nikolaj added, chuckling a little as he coughed, the dusty room irritating his lungs a little as he looked back to his fireteam. The PETN wasn't even covered, it was exposed to the sun and it did not look like it had been kept in a stable state at all. Plastic Explosives may have been tough as hell, but degraded storage could mess around with it's composition in unhealthy ways, that he knew. It was on a set of pallets, and it seemed there was almost a quarter of a ton of the stuff, from what he could tell. If this went up, it was going to make a massive boom, there would be no other way of putting that. PETN wasn't Composition 4, it was plastic but it was far more unstable- if it went off, then half this building would vanish.
"Okay...this isn't a production site, it's a cache. But a significant one. Crowstep, give it a look over this, let's sweep this place for any other surprises." Nikolaj added, flinging a new magazine into his weapon as a force of habit, as he sent a communication through his radio again.
"Blue, we've found our stash, looks like around 250kg of PETN, Al-Qaeda flavor. Ungern, we're going to need you to get over here, you're detatched from Volkov. I need you to give me an assessment of what we're doing with it. My best assessment is that this building is unstable enough as it is, so we don't want to dawdle any longer than needs be. We can blow it the fuck up, thermite it, or we can deal with it in some other way that you explosives people know better with. Either way, we render it unusable in whatever dramatic fashion we want to." He added, as he heard his radio buzz once again, the sound of the helicopter element coming through.

"Echo Actual, this is Yankee One-One, we're returning back on station, all rounds expended, we can provide your extraction when required.
"Affirmative, Yankee. TOS should mark an LZ, we're going to secure it and radio in for extraction. We've got nine individuals, so you're going to have a full aircraft. Jansen, you read?"
"Affirmative, Echo Actual. We're relocating, we'll get back to the Viking."
"Copy. Cheers for the assist." Nikolaj simply added, as he looked back across at his team, brushing the dust off his plate carrier and fatigues as he took another good look at the PETN.
"Well...I guess if we blow this up, we're all going to need spare underwear. That is going to make a bang."

Room by room on the first floor. He was last into the room, but first out, taking them from room to room. A few contacts here and there. Dropped as they entered rooms, or when they were moving down the halls. It was all precise. They all knew what they were there to do. Everyone of them a professional. You don't always need to tell a pro what to do. Just coax them along, give them guidance, they've been doing it long enough that alot of the motions, alot of the procedures have become instinct. You don't just sweep around a corner. You take it slow. Slide around that corner, pre-aimed and watching. The times he's seen regular army, just bust around a corner then complain about how they hadn't seen those hostiles, well he would have alot of money if he had been betting at it.

He was first into the lobby, and quickly darted into cover. Popping back up and laying down fire from his MP7A1. Suppression fire for the rest of the team to join him. As the rest of the sub team joined him he ducked down again and dropped the spent magazine out of the PDW, and slid a new one home, pocketing the empty magazine. He gunned down another of the remaining contacts. Force driving the man in the chest with seven well placed rounds. Moving on he peaked out and alot like Nikolaj got shot at by people outside. He ducked back down and grumbled, "Something tells me someone out there doesn't like us."

He drew a pair of smoke grenades after the order. And waited abit. Pulling the rings on the grenades at the same time, and hucking them out, getting a good split between the two, allowing them a decent coverage of smoke to move under. He switched weapons, putting the MP7 on safety, then holstering it, and uncinching his AR-10T again. Checking he had a full load, he opened fire with the team. The 7.62 rounds skittered down punching holes into walls, sending contacts running. He put down atleast one. He wasn't really intending too it just felt right. The first round took him in the knee, sending him into a falling sprawl. The second round caught him in the side. The last one punched through his shoulder. If he wasn't dead, he'd be paralyzed and bleed out where he lay. Tyler really didn't care at this point. "Cease fire! Cease up!" He relaxed his finger, resting it up on the trigger gaurd. The dust and smoke cleared. He had to smile. Pock marks and craters. Bullet holes and crevasses of devastation. What a sight. He quickly saved and cinched up his big rifle and redrew the MP7 as he fell in with Nikolaj and Goldfarb. He took the third position at the door. Ready to head in.

Click...boom, the door blasted inwards. Then nine crackling snaps as the Nine-bang went off. And he was hard on the Lead's heels.

He didn't fire a shot. Nikolaj and Goldfarb handled it fine. He helped clear the room then narrowed his eyes and for safeties sake pulled his mask up off his kit and slid it on. Sealing it around his head. he brought out Milly, his chemical detector then began to give the cache a careful look over. His weapon holstered he shook his head, "This is downright disgusting." He ran his detector over the entire room, making sure to get a good reading. Tyler nodded then pulled his mask off, attaching it to his kit again, "Well good news is. With the ventilation of the room, and the situation we have, we have no worries of an inhalation problem. Water run off isn't going to be a problem, to damned dry here for that. So ingestion won't be a problem either. When we get back to base, those of us who have been in here are going to have to do a full wash-down of our kit though. Residue will remain." He started checking the blocks, "We can't burn it. There's too much here. We'd never be sure if it all burned." He hrmed looking around the room, spotting some windows then grinning, and keyed into the group comms, "Ungern, Crowstep, message follows. How much det-cord and how many blasting caps do you have?" He smiled brightly, waiting for their EOD expert to reach the room with the information and the equipment they will need.

Richard followed the battle through the corridors of the dilapidated building, moving swiftly along with the other members of his team. As the call for suppressive fire came up, he switched back to his rifle, throwing suppressive fire onto the position with short, sharp bursts from the bullpup rifle through the windows of the buildings opposite, before Nikolaj's launcher turned the structure into more of a mess than it had been and the fire dropped off.

He moved on, a slight, dark smile on his face at the effective destruction they'd wrought. As the door came up, he chuckled at Nikolaj's suggestion of a polite knock. I like his sense of humour, the israeli thought with a grin, and nodded as he took his position on the opposite side of the door, again switching out for his handgun.
The door blew inward, and the nine-bang rumbled its' thunder, and then he peeled around the door frame, pistol high in both hands. There were five hostiles, and he sectioned the room automatically as he'd been trained and drilled; one of the opposition was in Nikolaj's section, he left him in in capable hands, while his body worked on autopilot. The jericho kicked in his hands, twice for each target; one in the chest, one in the head. Reeling from the crashing concussions of nine flashbang explosions in a row, the hostiles barely stood a chance. Hands fumbled awkwardly on weapons, struggling to get protesting, battered and disoriented senses to align to fire at the uniformed invaders, but it was all too slow. The dark-haired IDF operator put his shots home with mechanical precision, grimacing as the hostiles went down one after the other.
He kept the weapon tight in both hands, muzzle down as the rest of the team swept into the room. A few more shots, more movement as they spread out. His eyes fell on the cache a heartbeat after Nikolaj's and he nodded as the shout went out.
He stepped back as Crowstep moved in, and performed his magic. As he waved the detector around, he felt a slight twinge of amusement; the action reminded him of the tricorder on the old star trek TV show.
"Reading, Mister Spock?" he said with a hint of amusement, before the Canadian made his report. He listened in, though still alert to the situation as the CRBN expert mused over how to deal with it, before he saw a smile creep over his colleagues' face. He winced. Whatever was coming next, it was bound to be... 'exciting'.

Dima nudged Davidsen, signalling he was ready, and Davidsen leaned around his shield brother and tossed the flashbang into the room. A loud BANG! along with a blinding flash of light could be seen coming from the room. As quickly as the grenade went off, the duo were on the move to breach the room.

Dust and smoke gave the dim room an eerie atmosphere, godrays speckled with the floating debris. These factors combine made picking out targets a less than routine task as both men stormed the breach. "Movement, to the right, I keep to the left." Said the Russian in an even tone, knowing anyone in the room would be utterly incapacitated. Shield front, weapon resting against it's edge, Dima moved on the first man to appear out of the haze. Tapping a burst from his weapon, the malnurished fighter went down in a heap. "Clear left!" He shouted, orienting his shield to the rest of the room, intending to absorb any rounds after announcing his presence.

Davidsen had his left hand resting on Dima's shoulder as they entered the room, but as soon as they crossed the threshold, he detached and hugged the right wall, clearing the corner to his immediate front. With no enemies in a possible flanking position, he hit the corner and moved his attention to the adjacent corner. A tango was on one knee rubbing his eyes. Davidsen put a short burst into the center of his chest. The tango quickly dropped dead, and Davidsen spun to to look at the center of the room, finally getting a good view of it. A beat-up, up-turned red cloth couch and dirty long wooden coffee table dominated the middle of the room. A hooka lamp sat on the table. A torn, brightly-coloured rug, covered a good portion of the floor. There was an older television sitting upon a simple stand was on the wall opposite the door, just in front a dirty window. No other tangoes were in Davidsen's sight. As such, he echoed Dima's words, "Clear right!"

Hearing the clear from his partner, Dima nodded "Room is clear! Two men coming out!" He screamed, more for the sake of letting anyone from Echo holding the hall know. Unfortunatly for the Russian however, that was far from the truth of it. As he bought his weapon in to pop in a fresh mag, a trap door cut out in the large rug burst open, three pirates emerging. Before Dima could respond or investigate the noise from behind the couch, it exploded as they began to fire wildly through it. "Der'mo!" was all the man grunted as the uncoordinated barrage pelted his shield and around the wall behind him. Taking a knee, he could feel the rounds pounding his cover. "Shoot them!", he screamed. "Shoot, I have cover!"

"Dritt!" Davidsen shouted. He brought his weapon to bear on the trio of new contacts. He pulled the trigger and let loose his own barrage of fire. The rounds tore into the pirates and they soon collapsed into a bloody mess back into the hole. "Dima, you alright?" Davidsen asked. Davidsen made his way over to Dima to check for any wounds.

"Da, I am fine. Going to bruise up, but fine. Let us blow that hole, yes?" Responded the Russian, a slight smile on his face.

"Right. I guess It would take more than a few bullets to kill a Russian Bear like yourself," Davidsen said as the dynamic duo moved to the trap door. With Dima covering him, Davidsen primed a frag grenade, slightly lifted the trap door, and tossed it inside. The pair quickly moved away from the danger zone. A loud explosion soon followed, and the trap door bounced in the air before again resting on the floor. Grey smoke rose from the hole as Dima and Davidsen prepare to exit the room. "Two men, coming out!" Davidsen echoed Dima's ealier words.

Once he was done absorbing yet more shrapnel, he frowned a bit at the state of his shield. Looking down at the interior it became clear he had to ditch it. The thing was begining to bulge after taking so many 7.62x39 rounds at such a close range. Unstrapping the device, Dima let it fall to the floor, holstered his Sub-gun and clicked his rifle to auto. "Ready, moving." Was all he said before exiting the room, Davidsen at his back.

End of Collaboration between @Grim327 & @Rain

---

Exiting back into the hallway, Dima and his Norwegian battle buddy quickly blazed through the first floor once the Dutch had begun to start holding the ground Echo took. Grabbing a passing Marine Lieutenant, the Russian tugs the man to get his attention.
"Sir, if you could respectfully tell your boys to hold the bottom floor for us, it would be much appreciated." He almost ordered more than asked. The Marine nodded his understanding, obviously having stumbled into Echo's objective. "We'll more then likely need you all to pull out fast on the chance it needs to be blown." The young Lieutenant blinked a moment but then nodded the affirmative again. As the Operators moved away, the man behind them could be heard barking orders through his radio, effectively halting Dutch activity in the building.

Making their way to the stairs, Dima posted up on the corner as the first one there, kneeling while Davidsen stayed standing behind him. Feeling the tap of a hand on his shoulder, the Russian slid his leg out and leaned around the corner, his partner doing the same over his head. Bingo, they had caught four pirates fleeing from the sudden explosion that had just happened on the other side of the building. Without mercy the soldiers cut their targets down, moving as the bodies tumbled to their feet at the base of the stairs. Half way up, the crackling of Crypto as someone keyed the radio got Dima's attention. It was confirmation from Nikolaj, they had found the PETN and lots of it.

Encountering no more resistance, the pair reached the second floor and what Dima saw before him could only be described as a military grade clusterfuck.
"No, no, no, this is no good at all." He confirmed, moving to Nikolaj's side. "We don't have the time, environment, or security to properly assess this mess." He informed the Team Leader. "I say we just blow it and move on. There are Marines in the lower levels but they should be on standby to get the fuck out." Looking back at the explosives Cache, the man shook his head. "This is just about as bad as storing Napalm next to a wood stove!" He muttered, not sure what to think of it all. "My suggestion is this. The EOD techs can help me rig this with blasting caps and we toss a reel out the window. Once we know the building is clear of friendlies, we blow it from a building or two back. A third opinion would not hurt though." Dima finished, looking over to Nikolaj the Russian smiles, "but, I'm an impatient man at times. This is one of those times." He finished, eyes twinkling with excitement.

Without another word, Dima releases the straps on one side of his pack before setting it on the floor. Digging out his stash of blasting caps used for breaching charges, the Explosives expert looks at the massive pile of poorly stored PETN with a hint of disgust. Carefully moving on it, he looks the pallets over then decides on his course of action. Pushing the first two into the exposed blocks on the first pallet, he looks back to Davidsen while pointing to the window.
"Cut a notch into the windowsill" He instructed, going to work on the next pallet. "When he run the line it'll be put in that notch so as to avoid pulling the caps out." He added, before turning around. "I need someone to get the spool of firing wire so I can get everything rigged up right." He called, still busy with the cache.

Oakley raised her rifle as her and Svoboda went to clear the left side of the building's ground floor. It was surprisingly quiet in the room after the rest of the squad had moved on and she moved with careful steps, her heart pounding in her ears. The air tasted like dust, even with the shemagh pulled over her nose and mouth. Truly the desert of the world, and while she had never hoped to come back here, she had nowhere to go otherwise.

She looked back to her partner, motioning for him to continue on while she cleared the door that now stood in front of her. Oakley lowered her rifle, letting it hang from the sling while she grabbed a flashbang from her belt. She slowly twisted the handle and tossed the grenade in the door, letting it detonate before kicking the door open and raising her rifle, taking out two tangos on opposite sides of the room in rapid succession. After doing a once over from the room, she raised her hand to the PTT on her vest and began comms "Room clear, Oakley moving to--"

A shot rang out and Oakley spun around. A boy, no older than twelve stood in the once empty room with an AK held in his arms it's barrel smoking. Instinct took over and she raised her rifle, placing two shots on the third assailant that had seemingly appeared from nowhere. She lowered her gun, closing her eyes for a moment as she took account for any damage. "...Fuck..just a boy.." she muttered to herself. A slight pain, throbbing in her left leg. Grazing wound, nothing more. She stumbled back against the wall, taking a breath. Too close, way too close. "This is Oakley.....room is clear. Out."

She moved out of the room back to Svoboda after yelling out "Oakley exiting!" to notify her partner of her presence. She moved back to his side and proceeded upstairs, curious as to what was holding up the rest of the squad. Her thigh stung like all hell, but it was nothing compared to what she had experienced in Afghanistan three years prior. She entered the room to see the squad prepping detcord and things of the like and looked to Dima, opting to remain silent as she was fairly sure that the objective was quite obvious. Blow this place sky high.

"No civies eh Niko?" the anger in Oakley's voice was evident.

They moved through the desolate structure, occasional muffled gunshots and other sounds of battle penetrating his consciousness. Even the air seemed hostile, as if trying to suffocate them. Certainly not a nice place to live. In a way, he felt sorry for the Somalis. He pitied them for the malnourished, aggressive caricatures of men they were, with every little spark of hope for progress immediately doused by their religion, even dumber than the other ones. It was a tool for controlling masses that had no place in modern society. That was religion in his eyes. A cancerous tumor that was supposed to be cut out a long ago. Oakley moved to clear one of the rooms and he slowly continued down the hallway, his eyes scanning every inch and every door.

"Oakley, Svoboda, continue sweeping the ground floor, don't expose yourself to the eastern flank or you'll get cut apart. There's at least two dozen hostiles on that road at varying lengths, it doesn't look fun!", the Dane’s voice crackled through the radio, combined with multiple shots behind him, startling him and Jarek automatically checked the compass on his watch. Then, his curiosity overpowered his self-preservation instinct and he poke out a window facing east. What he saw made him jump away from the window as he uttered several curses of various origin and caliber. Pity aside, that couldn’t be tolerated.

Oakley got out of the room and he fell behind her, looking over his shoulder every now and then. Rear guard was far away from his favorite role. They moved up to the first floor and were greeted by a pile of explosives. Destroying that should present the Somalis with some problems for a month or two, before they get their filthy hands on more. He couldn’t help but wonder where did they get so much and what kind of mess would it create if things went wrong in the worst way imaginable? Would it erase a block, two, or four? Explosives weren’t anywhere close to his field. Than he realized the team’s two EODs were Russian, thought about the Aral Sea, K-141 and the CNPP and hoped these two were not that kind of Russians.

Nikolaj looked over to the rest of the team, nodding to Dima's request, as he looked over.
"We blow it up. Splendid, I suggest we all get fucking moving, nobody who isn't qualified to handle copious amounts of explosives is to get the fuck out of the building. Blue, Red, rally up on me, unless you happen to be Ungern or Crowstep, we are leaving this shithole, this is exactly what we came for." The First Sergeant added, as he gave the order, waiting for Volkov to muster her men, before going thorugh the door. Rifle raised, they moved slowly, Nikolaj keepng the point as they headed back out of the building through the same route that they entered.

Moving out of the building, Nikolaj knew the other team was following out, as he set up a position, taking a knee as he let MSgt Volkov take her fireteam through, letting his fireteam cover as they kept an eye on the end of the road, as Nikolaj stood up, looking around to his team, before then continuing on, bounding and moving up the road, in Volkov's stead. He kept his F2000 raised high, scanning the area as he pushed forward, aware that there was still a lot of tension to be had. For now, they hadn't run into any enemy forces, and rather, they had withdrawn as quickly as they had entered, this time without guns blazing and all hell raining down around them.

Finding a semi-sheltered position down the road, a number of Dutch forces were also rallying around at this point, Sgt Jansen's team included. Nikolaj looked over, the Viking parked up, alongside some of Jansen's men, who were covering the area down the rad.
"Okay, let's keep a perimeter, be ready for any surprises. We'll call this our trigger point, nicely found, Sergeant." Nikolaj ordered over the radio, as he looked across the team, looking for a particular Explosives Specialist for what would happen next. He made the remark to the Dutch figure in particular, who was holding by the trailer of the Viking, a M249 mounted up and able to cover down the road for any more forces that might have been in the area. Since they had entered, the noise of conflict had died down- it felt like this town had been swept out hard, and that the forces occupying it had chosen to run rather than fight back, something that hardly surprised Nikolaj.
"Dima, if you see no problems, you're clear to detonate, get rid of our PETN." The Dane said, looking across to the Russian soldier, moving up towards a doorway by another damaged building, looking out on the half-destroyed apartment block.
"Everyone, I would find a piece of hard cover, we might be outside that blast radius but when it goes off, it's going to kick up some serious dust!" Nikolaj added, over the comms, as he watched Dima get to work on setting the blasting cap. The Techs had run the wire out to here, and now, they had the capability to do some serious boom, from afar. With most of the enemy forces running, it would be a foolhardy and stupid idea to go back in, as Nikolaj provided security from his position, F2000 lowered but up against his shoulder, ready to be raised at the single hint of trouble. Adjsting his Ops Core on his head, he nodded, watching on as he prepared his ears. It was going to be loud, and he put his shemagh up to his nose, knowing that the area would be filled with dust too.

(It's short, but effectively, it gives us an opportunity to revive this RP a little...with a bang. Anyone is free to post, in whatever order, taking in the events of the previous post too if you still haven't posted. If this does not happen by the time I next post, this being roughly a week and a half to two weeks from now, I will assume that you can't keep up- if you have written to me or I know of a reason why you aren't posting, whatever it is then fine, but if not, then I am going to assume the worst.)

Olivia limped over to Merlin as fast as she could. The more time she spent on that bad leg of hers, the slower she would get and the more she would hold up Merlin. She just slumped over on the wall, its weight holding her up as her right arm dangled with the Glock. As much as she wanted to keep up she couldn't. Not with the bum leg of hers. As she emerged from the building, she limped as fast as she could towards the BMW he darted to. She felt so embarrassed with her slowness. Merlin quickly recognized her struggle and came over to her assistance. Her arm was wrapped around his back as they went to his BMW. As the rear right door was opened, she dove inside and lied on the backseat, sighing that weight was no longero on her bum leg. Those fucking assholes who interrogated her did a very sloppy job. It was supposed to be simple, no bodily injuries. She took deep breaths as the BMW lurched forward.

She lied on the backseat, knowing that the compound was far behind them. Knowing the type of background Merlin had, there would be no way for the average police department in England to track them down, especially with the common background Olivia and Merlin shared. However, knowing the background the both of them had, Merlin wanted something. Otherwise she wouldn't have been bailed out in that sort of fashion. And right on cue, Merlin opened his mouth. Something about a task force, which was definitely something that was up Olivia's alley. She had talents that would come useful in an environment like that. But at the same time, she was now in debt to Merlin. It was only fair that she accepted whatever he had in mind for her. She didn't know why she was picked out specifically, but there was a reason why and she was going to prove why that reason was in good taste.

Olivia sat up and leaned up to the seat Merlin was sitting in, "I'm in." She said, right before Merlin mentioned there were some of her favorite toys waiting for her at their destination. She didn't know where exactly they would be headed after the base, but wherever it was, she was willing to go for the sake of Merlin.

Aleksandra pulled the pin on a grenade, tossing it into an adjacent room and whipping back behind the wall as the blast shook the ground. She burst in, finishing one mortally wounded hostile with the rest of the contents of the magazine - three shots to the chest before he could get off a shot with the rusty AK in his hands. The poor bastard was covered in dirt and looked like he hadn’t eaten properly in… he didn’t look like he’d had a proper meal at any point in his life at all actually. Still, he would’ve shot her all the same - so she didn’t feel too sorry for him.

She wasn’t too sure just how much opposition Dima and Nikolaj were facing, but resistance in the rooms she was going through was relatively minimal - a handful hostiles and nothing more. She spoke into the headset, checking that Johnston was covering her as she moved through the rest of the building, “This is Volkov. Hostiles neutralized.

The radio crackled in, and she paused for a moment to listen and reload her weapon, moving back to a previously cleared room for safety and to find wherever Johnston was. She was quickly given reason to doubt her urban warfare skills as another assailant burst through the flimsy door in front of her from the room she thought had been cleared. As it was, she was in the middle of moving to drop the magazine from her rifle, and his own weapon was levelled in her direction as he shouted at her in the local language. Reflexively, she let go of the empty rifle and whipped her revolver from its chest holster, sinking four rounds into his chest and leaping to the side - where the hell was Johnson?! “Говно!” She hissed as she grabbed the rifle again, quickly inserting a fresh magazine and charging the weapon. Priming a flashbang, she lobbed it into the room he had charged from and swept in after, finding no other hostiles. Maybe it was just a fluke…? That, or a very patient and stealthy man.

The static of the radio burst in again and she paused. 250 kilos of PETN? Just… sitting there? That was… she wondered for a moment if some of the brilliant minds in the Arbat military district or American Pentagon were secretly working with these people. That was a plausible explanation for this level of incompetency. “Affirmative.” She turned from the room, moving to the entrance and now exit as she barked into the radio, “Johnson, wherever you are, we are pulling out of the building, Davidsen, obviously the same goes. Meet up with us and prepare to watch fireworks. Sans colors.” Wherever the TACP man was, there would be words later.

As she reached the secured point with the Dutch forces, she approached Dima, looking over at the building for a moment before remarking, “This will be fun.” Hunkering down behind a wall, she looked around for the other members of Blue team to make sure they were all present and accounted for. Dima was right next to her, Davidsen was here, and Johnson too.

She motioned to Nikolaj, “Blue is all present and accounted for.”

Oakley moved out the door as if exiting some high stakes board meeting. She raised her rifle and moved down the stairs, holding position at the bottom to cover the group’s exit. Her leg felt as if someone was holding a red hot piece of iron to it, and although she had definitely felt worse pains in the past, or didn't make this any easier at all. After everyone present upstairs had moved by, she took the rear guard position and raised her rifle once again.

Moving out into the street, Oakley felt safer, and yet felt so exposed at the same time. The desert air was stagnant and warm and it clung to everything like a disease, Oakley was thankful she'd picked a weapon with few moving external parts so that she wouldn't have to deal with any jams. She took cover behind a brick wall across the street, sitting semi-prone behind. She clutched her wounded leg, blood having stained her pants and dried at this point. Realizing that the blast would be taking place any moment now, she made sure to tighten her shemagh around her face, and switched out her sunglasses for full seal goggles. “In position…over.” her breathing was evidently heavy over the radio, hinting at her slightly weakened state.