HotZone Deux

A companion and concurrent campaign to HotZone.

Characters

Initial GM: John

• Nash Awan, Nigel's native american improviser.
• Leon Finch, Josh's sneaky thief.
• Ransom Dachsjaeger, Rick's paleo-diet luddite.
• Ollie Foster, Mitch's SWAT guy.
• Maggie Leska, Meghan's multilingual pixie.

Background

Global Context

(The following was written in 2007.) It's ten years in the future on Gurth, and the world has changed significantly in the last 20 years. America invaded Iraq in 2003, and tensions began escalating worldwide immediately. In 2008, the sectarian violence in Iraq spread like wildfire, and War in Iraq became the War in the Middle East which became the Central Asian Crisis. Long before pundits stopped changing the label, it was a world class clusterfuck. Had Russia, China, and India not united to quell the violence through diplomatic means in 2011-2012, the crisis was on track to evolve into World War 3.

This gradual unraveling of peaceful cohabitation was apparent to military leaders in numerous countries, and in fact the United States Special Operations Command presciently predicted a change in strategy would be required way back in 2006 when they issued the following public statement:

“Creating conditions where people want to live peacefully is a powerful weapon against terrorism. Direct action will become increasingly restricted as the Global War on Terrorism matures. Indirect actions of Foreign Internal Defense and Civil Affairs programs are the key to winning the war on terror.” 1

Powerful governments with awesome military arsenals became increasingly aware that wielding their power was becoming politically untenable in all but the most extreme situations. United States Special Operations Command, as just one example of a trend worldwide, quadrupled in funding and personnel from 2008-2015, but forced a significant portion of their Direct Action specialists into early retirement, and instead filled their ranks with civil engineers, psy ops specialists, administrators, and diplomats.

However, focused Direct Action operations will always be required when organized groups are willing to commit violence to contravene national interests, and so outside of government military operations, a second and third tier of operatives evolved. The second tier consisted of large private security companies, with tens of thousands of employees, some tiny portion of which could be used for “wet work” of Direct Action operations.

The third tier has evolved over the past 7-8 years. Increasing public scrutiny over and demand for transparency in military expenditures in industrialized nations worldwide has made certain operations difficult to fund through the large and somewhat infamous security corporations. However, worldwide, government agencies always have funds available for classified “black” operations, and it is here that the third tier of operatives has found its niche.

This third tier, or “SubNet” is a loose affiliation of a few thousand specialists and commanders worldwide, mostly ex-military. By adopting terrorist organizations' practice of maintaining “cells” which know little about global operations, the SubNet maintains a thick veil and appears to be nothing more than disconnected gangs of shadowy figures.

Your Team

Your team is one such cell.

Back in 2017, you were recruited by Agent Zero, a senior MI6 operative, to become a part of a standing team of off-the-books assets. Though you've had a lot of leisure time between missions, you've now conducted several successful operations and have established a fortified home base north of Bastia, Corsica.

Your villa on the coast of Corsica

Your high-speed cruising vessel

The adventure that brought you together involved parachuting at night onto the grounds of a terrorist training camp in the hills of Morocco to rescue a British diplomat. Agent Zero paid your team a million euros (all in 20-euro notes) for a perfectly executed mission.

In 2018, Pierre Gaston, the famous French billionaire art collector, gave you the Corsican villa where you now reside and a powerboat capable of 100km/hr after your successful rescue of his son from Algerian kidnappers.

In 2019, Prince Ahlaman of Saudi Arabia gave you one of his personal 12-seat jets (capable of 1300km/hr) after you successfully tracked down and neutralized an African warlord who had failed to deliver a diamond comparable to the famous Centenary Diamond. (You keep the jet at a private airstrip 15km away from the house, and have a German pilot on call with an hour's notice.)

In 2020, an Italian bureaucrat of unknown rank paid you €500k in small bills to disrupt the unknown plans of Divine Disorder relevant to an international banking conference in Rome. Your team discovered that the anarchists planned to shut down the traffic light system to create an impassable Italian snarl, and you detained their engineers until the conference was over.

In 2021, a Tunisian oil executive paid you a small fortune in emeralds to locate and retrieve his 22-year-old daughter who had fallen in with armed fighters in the brewing border conflict between Algeria and Libya. The young woman didn't want to be found, or rescued, and so it turned into a kidnapping mission, difficult but successful.

Months can pass between operations, so you have a lot of time to pursue other interests. But nothing gets your blood flowing like being on a dangerous covert mission, and so restless and boredom are common. If you're into that sort of thing, you might amuse yourself with frequent trips to Monaco to gamble, the Italian Alps to ski, Barcelona to party. There is also plenty of mountain climbing and scuba diving opportunities in the immediate area of your headquarters.

Character Creation

This TL 8/9; some TL 9 equipment will be approved.

200 points total
max 100 attributes
max 75 disadvantages
max 50 advantages
max 5 quirks

You can be originally from anywhere in the world. You must speak English, and can speak up to 5 other languages if have a few sentences about why you can.

Before becoming a part of this team, what were you up to? Leading guerrilla fighters in Ecuador? Cracking bank security codes in Australia? Running guns from China to the highest bidder in Africa? Chasing drug dealers in the Caribbean? Running security operations for a nonprofit in war-torn South Sudan? Stealing launch codes for missile silos in India? You decide.

You can be a specialist or a generalist, but you should have some skills and talents useful on dangerous missions where techniques such as violence, subterfuge, seduction, surveillance, hacking, breaking and entering, demolition, and stealth are frequently employed. It’s highly likely you received some military training -- describe it. Otherwise, explain why you have those skills. But if you also want to be a great singer, or gardener, or tightrope walker, or anything else, spend the points and add those to your skills list.

Money: You have cash, lots of cash, and more money in your individual Swiss accounts. The exact amount shouldn't become an issue.

Gear: You can have whatever you like that is consistent with a mobile force of operatives, including:

• Earbud communicators
• Handheld/wristwatch computers
• Multiple small arms
• Night vision gear
• Body armor (thin and concealable or thick and impenetrable)
• Surveillance gear
• Electronics/hacking/security gear
• Explosives

If you want any heavy military hardware or other 'questionable' items, ask the GM. No nukes. ;)

What Happened

Just Another Day At The Office

The villa. It's been a mostly relaxing summer.

After a summer of various solo mission and boat restoration projects, the team has gathered once again at the villa in Corsica in anticipation of their next adventure. Ollie gets an authenticated text from Agent Zero, who says that Daniel Yoffee will soon be calling for some help.

Ziva Yoffee

Sure enough, the call comes into one of the thousands of anonymous 32-digit numbers Ollie has associated with his device, and he puts it on speaker for the rest of the group to hear. Turns out Mr. Yoffee's daughter Ziva and her BFF Yaffa, while vacationing at Eagle's Palace Restort in Greece, have run into a spot of trouble. After 24 hours of flirting with an older gentleman named Ivan, Ziva has disappeared - with Ivan and some of his gun-toting bodyguards.

Yaffa Goldthwait

Daniel needs this done without any official law enforcement involvement because of his sensitive position in the government of Israel. He offers €50,000, which Leon Finch pushes up to €60,000.

The team reviews their inventory and notifies Axel to fuel up the jet.

Over Italy, the team discusses options and decides to go to the resort and talk to Yaffa.

Once in Greece at the airport near the resort, they leave Axel to rock out to music and rent a full-sized Range Rover to make the short drive to the coast.

There is some discussion of using a pizza delivery ruse, but in the end the team simply buys and brings a pizza to the resort.

A quick call to Daniel is made to retrieve Yaff's phone number. Maggie makes the call, leaves a message, and when Yaffa calls back, they tell her help is on the way.

After being waved through security, a valet parks the SUV (and nearly all the equipment), and the team finds Yaffa in the bar, flanked by fawning Italian playboys.

Ollie tells them to get lost, resulting in a brief standoff, with Nash stepping forward to beef up the odds, but finally Maggie defuses the situation and promises to bring Yaffa back shortly.

The group repairs to Yaffa's room, whereupon Leon starts trying to hack the hotel network and Maggie and Ollie and Nash get as much information out of Yaffa as possible -- which isn't much. The 'sugar daddy' Ivan traveled with six big guys with concealed weapons, and now he and four of them are gone (with Ziva). Two, however, are at the pool, flirting with Swedish ladies.

In an attempt to sober her up, Ollie gives Yaffa some herbal stimulants, but soon she's into the minibar.

At the pool, Maggie wields her feminine charms (and Italian) to great effect, and learns that the two bodyguards stayed behind to receive a shipment of motorcycles that they'll load onto the powerboat docked nearby. She also learns their room number, which Leon hears over the comm channel.

Leon heads there immediately, hacks the hotel door lock, and steals one of their suitcases which contains nice clothes, and a submachine gun.

After hearing how much Maggie just loves boats, bodyguard Alexander offers to show her, and Stanislaw heads back to the room. The new couple strolls down the beach chatting, with Ollie and Nash tailing nonchalantly, and Ransom trailing behind them.

Stanislaw discovers the theft and notifies Alexander, but he seems more concerned with getting Maggie to the boat.

Leon heads out to get the SUV and all the gear while Maggie sips champagne charmingly in the grand living room of the yacht.

Meanwhile, Ollie, Ransom, and Nash approach the boat at dusk and see Maggie chatting away. Ollie steps in and uses his Taser on the hapless Alexander, who crumples.

Leon can't seem to talk (or shoot) his way through pier security, so he leaves and tries the private residence next door. There is a route down to the beach, but it's really just a gully with a little wooden bridge over it, and, lacking expert driving skills, Leon aborts -- especially when the homeowner comes out with a flashlight.

Then Alexander's cell phone rings -- Maggie picks it up and says Alexander's in the bathroom. Stan reports that the delivery is on the way.

From the control room above, Nash spots the captain of the vessel, a grizzled Greek fisherman, and accosts him without incident.

Leon knows he needs to get the gear to his team, and returns to the residence and goes for it. He plows the rented SUV through the underbrush, smashing the footbridge and eventually careening onto the beach, where he loses control and rolls the vehicle onto its side in the sand. The pier is a quarter mile away, and so he uses Ollie's riot shield as a sled, piles everyone's gear atop it, and starts the trek.

The delivery truck arrives and Stan and the driver unload the bikes. The driver leaves with the empty truck, and Ollie Tasers Stan. A few quick uppercuts from Ransom, and both bodyguards are fast asleep, tied up with towels in the bathroom.

The team loads the bikes onto the boat and gathers info from the cooperative captain. "Mr. Ivan" is rich and powerful and has a hilltop villa on Samothrace, a large island with a small city and a few small villages. The approach to the villa, according to the captain, is in a cliff-enclosed horseshoe-shaped harbor. Millennia-old stairs carved into the cliff lead to the compound above.

Head out to sea en route to Samothrace, the more the team hears about the approach, the more it sounds like a death trap. They debate alternatives, and finally use Alexander's phone to send a text to Mr Ivan himself, claiming engine trouble, and a plan to dock at the nearby fishing village.

Later, they send another text claiming to be the captain, and that Alexander and Stanislaw are drunk, fought, and are passed out now. Ivan texts back that he'll send a jeep and four men for the bikes.

Alex and Stan are left beaten up in the bathroom, and Leon gives €900 to the captain to maintain the story that they were drunk and fought. Leon keeps the bodyguards' cellphones.

The team unloads the bikes, chooses the five with the most gas, and rides slowly towards Ivan's compound.

Along the way they debate what to do about the men sent to collect the bikes, who were likely coming down the same road the team was headed up. Options are reviewed roadside, and Ollie gets fed up at the preoccupation with violence, and rides ahead to be away from it.

Maggie sets a charge and blows up the hillside to cover the road with dirt and rocks as an obstacle. The team moves into the shrubs and turns off their headlights....

Showdown in Samothrace

Soon, a contingent of gun-bristling goons comes down the road; not just one jeep, but also an SUV and two dirt bikes. Evidently, Leon's €900 wasn't enough to persuade the old ship captain.

The goons slowly navigate the roadblock (luckily, thinking nothing of it) and proceed down the mountain towards the fishing village miles beyond. After retrieving Ransom from the throes of gastrointestinal distress, the team proceeds up the hill.

A few miles away, near the southeastern tip of the island, a gravel driveway snakes off to the right, towards the coast. Nash identifies fresh tracks belonging to a pair of dirt bikes, and the team discusses how to approach Ivan's compound.

Meanwhile, Ransom slinks into the bushes to relieve himself yet again.

The squad rolls their motorcycles into a nearby thicket, sorts through their inventory eith an eye to mobility and leaves the ailing Ransom to keep watch at the driveway entrance.

The gravel driveway snakes back and forth in switchbacks up the steep hill, but the team avoids it and hikes straight up along its southern perimeter. Leon dons nightvision gear to guide the team through the rocks and gnarled old thorn bushes, and after several exhausting minutes, the team crests the hill and encounters four tremendous hogs in a pen. The beasts wander over and snort loudly.

From here, the team can see Ivan's villa, illuminated by two great forward-facing floodlights mounted to polls at the front of the house. A delivery van and new Mercedes SUV sit in a wide boulder-lined parking lot out front. Light and voices emerge from the house.

The team circles around behind the hog pen and into an ancient cliffside olive grove, and then further into a statuary, which briefly startles Nash.

Soon, the squad is directly behind the house, thirty yards from the wall, and well concealed in high grasses and low shrubs. A sole guard is visible, smoking a cigarette, leaning against the back of the building, and the team wisely waits for him to move along his patrol.

Then the impulsive Leon goes for it. He scurries to the house, tests a window, and then climbs up into the master bedroom upstairs. Meanwhile, Maggie prepares two C4 charges in the dark.

Soon, the entire team has infiltrated the master bedroom, and the charges are placed against the back wall outside. And Leon has pocketed €60,000 and a $5000 Rolex.

Ollie utilizes his snake-cam to peer beneath the door, and a thick necked bodyguard is visible, pouring himself a drink, alone at a bar. The team waits for him to go downstairs, and then enters the upstairs lounge, complete with a dance floor and mini movie theater.

Voices (and more snake-cam work) indicate there are two bodyguards, Ivan, another man, and a blonde woman below.

Maggie remote detonates one of the C4 charges outside, Ollie tosses a flashbang down the stairs, and all hell breaks loose.

Maggie downs the two bodyguards with three bullets each into their bear-like torsos. Nash, after recovering from a stumble upstairs, joins Leon in covering stunned Ivan.

Ivan draws a gun and blindly rakes the ceiling with bullets, leading Nash and Leon to nearly sever his weapon arm with bullets.

Then Leon chases the other man and the blonde outside. A couple well-aimed bullets drop the mystery man and raises the blonde's screams by an octave.

Meanwhile, Ollie is beset by PTSD visions, and recedes into his thoughts while Maggie tries to slap him into conscious awareness.

Leon brusquely advises the girl to calm down, and gives her the keys to the Mercedes and tells her to get lost. She pleads, "please take me with you," and Leon relents, instead giving her directions to meet up with Axel and their plane back on the mainland. She drives off.

Ollie comes to and helps stabilize the injured Ivan, coaxing intel out of him in the process. Ziva, it turns out, is downstairs.

Nash volunteers to go down and collect her. Below, a billiards table dominates the room, beyond which a brown leather couch sits next to the water heater, to which Ziva is handcuffed. And then three shots ring out, and a bullet tears through Nash's cheek, dropping him to the floor, stunned.

Ziva starts shouting urgently that the assailant is behind the couch, and once Nash regains his senses, he empties his clip into the fine Italian leather in a sweeping arc, and the shooter collapses in a pool of blood.

Ollie makes the call to Daniel that his his daughter is safe, and the team packs up and heads home.

Afterword:

As the closing credits roll...

• Leon has Ransom stop the girl at the bottom of the driveway and give her an alternate plan
• Ollie tells Axel to fly to the small regional airstrip on Samothrace to meet them
• Maggie drives the delivery truck (loaded with animatronic sex dolls) down to the airstrip, where Leon and Axel load a dozen of them onto the plane.
• Once aloft, Maggie does some research and learns that their injured captive is Bulgarian Ivan Kostoff, an international criminal wanted for crimes including gun running, money laundering, human trafficking, and murder.
• Axel flies the team to Rome, where they check in Nash for some microsurgery for his injury, and Ivan is quietly turned over to international law enforcement.
• After a few days of seeing the sights, Axel flies the team, the cargo, and Valeria back to the villa in Corsica.
• Everyone now has a five-point Enemy in the Kostoff Family