I'm not going to list specific stats on NPCs for two reasons. One, I still play by (highly modified) 2nd Edition rules. Two, what one group considers to be a reasonable challange will be too easy for another, and a suicide mission for yet another. Take the story, add your own NPC stats and your own touches and just run with it.
The Job
The team is hired to do an escort mission, right fraggin' now. The employer offers a relatively modest payment to escort someone from Sea-Tac airport to his secure location, with a substantial bonus if any combat "happens" to occur.
"I know this guy. If he says the package is nova-hot, then it's a good score. I'm going to pay him on delivery, in person. He also says that he's been dodging a tail for the last two days, and I trust him on that too. He's headed to the airport in NYC as we speak. His tail has probably been waiting until they could be certain to nab both him and the package at the same time. If they're following him, it would be best to assume they know he's coming to Seattle. He has friends and contacts in NYC, plus he knows that city better than you know the grip of your favorite gun; so he'll get to his plane just fine. When he gets here is when I'm going to start worrying."
The employer gets a call. "Yeah. You are physically getting on board now? Ok, I'm going to have some people meet you at the airport in Seattle. No, I don't want to say how many over the phone, I don't want to risk the loss of surprise if this call is being monitored. I'll give them some lapel pins to wear. You know me, you'll recognize it. Give me a picture of yourself over the video, since your tail obviously already knows what *you* look like." Hangs up.
"Ok, here's a print of his picture. He's going by the alias of 'Rascal' lately. Wear this so he'll know you're with me." He hands everyone a lapel pin. Exactly what you choose to use is up to you. I used the old USA flag pin, as it ties in with a larger story line involving these NPCs. "He's getting off at gate B2, so you should be able to see the gate without getting behind the security check-point at the airport. Now, you can take some discrete weapons with you, if you want to risk it, since you won't necessarily be going through security. But if you want to call the wrath of GOD down on yourself, just draw a gun inside the airport. He's on flight 1199, and it will arrive in about an hour. You should have enough time to get there early, if you leave now."
The Turn
I'm sure the team will have some fast plans on what to do, what gear to bring and where they will park the escort vehicle. Go through this as usual, but it probably won't matter... At the airport, in addition to the current restrictions on weapons, firearms, liquids/gels etc, the use of magic inside the airport is severely restricted. There is no spellcasting, no spirits or active foci allowed, and no astral projection; although astral perception is allowed. This is enforced by security mages and spirits, of course. Inside the airport, they can see through a glass (probably bullet-proof) wall to the arrival gate. If anyone wants to get closer, they'll have to buy a ticket (the cheapest flight they can find since they won't actually be using it) and go through security (without any weapons, of course). The flight arrives on time. The passengers disembark; it's the usual mix of humans and metahumans with varying degrees of cyberware. But... Rascal does not exit the plane. After a time, the flight crew leaves and goes through security, each going their own way.
Behind the Scenes
Rascal does board the plan, just as he said over the phone. During the flight, he gets his drink from the flight attendant, and it's laced with a drug that will cause him to first become uncontrollably nauseated, then go catatonic. When he first starts to vomit, the attendant will escort him back to the rear bathrooms, make sure he leaves the bathroom door unlocked, then draw a curtain. She will wait in front of the curtain and stop anyone else from going back with the gentle reassurance that the passenger is fine, just airsick, and needs to be left alone. In short, she laced the drink, and now will control the crowd--something for which she is well trained and practiced. She does let a particular dwarf back behind the curtain.
Rascal will pass out shortly after the dwarf gets behind the curtain. The Dwarf (I called him Hammer), uses a carbon fiber allen wrench to open the service hatch on the floor between the two bathroom stalls in the rear of the plane. Hammer then moves a body (just a John Doe from NYC) from a coffin being shipped from NYC to Seattle (by his team, of course) into an empty steamer trunk that he checked through luggage when he boarded under a fake identity. He then puts Rascal into the coffin, then closes and locks the steamer trunk. Hammer, will go up top again, close the service hatch, and go back through the curtain. He will tell the attendant "He's fine, just really airsick and wants to be left alone." The attendant will keep the curtain closed and other passengers out even after the plane lands.
On the ground, Hammer leaves with the rest of the passengers. He doesn't pick up his steam trunk. After all, it's got a body in it, and he was careful to make sure there were no leads to his real identity with this flight. He did swipe Rascal's claim tickets, which are only numerical identifiers, and he gets Rascal's items. The coffin gets picked up by a hearse with more members of Hammer's team. They arrive and leave by service roads to the tarmac, roads for which they have temporary passes, but not the PCs. Rascal will be taken to a hide-away. After searching his luggage and finding nothing, Rascal will be tortured. He will eventually admit that the payload is an optical chip that he put into a chipjack in his headware. Knowing that he's dead as soon as his captors have the datachip, Rascal refuses to eject it. Rather than risk damaging the chip with unskilled extraction, the opposing team will look for a shady street doc to safely remove it... then geek Rascal. The PCs have to figure it all out and track him down before that happens.
Footwork
There are multiple clues that the PCs can latch onto, and several different ways to track down Rascal.
The steam trunk: Because Hammer covered his tracks well when booking his flight, this is really a dead end. However, it should get the runners' spidey sense tingling. It's a metal trunk that no one claims from the baggage carousel for flight 1199. It just keeps going around and around. Furthermore, it has a lock, which shouldn't be there since Travel Security would have cut it off during inspection. The players cannot normally inspect the trunk close up since they'd need the claim slip to get the trunk off the carousel. Astral perception will not give the runners a look inside per the normal rules for astral space. If the runners somehow manage to use astral projection, the inside is very dark in astral space (it is, afterall, closed away from the astral glow of living/magical beings) and they can at best tell that it is filled with non-living organic matter. After about 12 hours have passed, the trunk will make the local news as "Unidentified body found in steel steamer trunk at airport."
The hearse: If any team members go past security and can look out the window at the plane itself, they will see the coffin being moved from the plane to the hearse with an ebony-skinned female elf dressed in black and watching on. They could also see this from an outside vantage point with binoculars or similar gear. I hope they get the plate number. This prop was rented with a fake ID, and there aren't too many places you can rent a hearse. The hearse was returned, and the exotic car rental desk clerk will be very helpful for a modest bribe (or threat). The ID may have been fake, but the picture of the dark-skinned beauty is accurate. Some leg work and more bribes/threats will reveal that she's a local Shadowrunner of whatever reputation suits the GM. At GM discretion, the runners will learn either where she's been seen hanging out lately, or that she's looking for a shady Street Doc. The PCs can track her down through either of these leads.
The other passengers: Most of the passengers will remember the flight attendant leading a sick man to the rear bathrooms and drawing the curtains. Only about 25% will recognize him from the photo. One passenger will stop the attendant and ask her about the sick man. If the PCs are within ear-shot, they might hear part of this conversation. Passenger: "Oh, miss! How is that man doing?" Attendant: "He's fine. He was the last passenger to leave. The flight crew had to escort him off the plane, but it was just airsickness." Of course, the flight crew *did not* have any passenger with them when they disembarked. If the runners show this passenger the photo, she will definitely remember him. "He was seated next to me. When we reached the top of the sub-orbital's arc, he got pale as a ghost and ran for the bathroom. He never came back to his seat, so I was worried about him. He was so friendly."
The attendant: Very simply, she (Misty) was bribed to drug Rascal's drink, keep the other passengers away and draw the curtains, give the dwarf free reign, and keep her mouth shut. She's as shocked as you that Rascal never exited the plane. Her best guess is that the dwarf chopped him up and flushed him away in pieces. She was contacted by cell phone with the arrangements, and the drug was sent by mail. If the PCs check her cell phone (from her purse), they will find a recorded conversation. Female voice: "Did you get the powder?" Misty: "Yes." Voice: "Good. Just put it in his drink, get him to the rear bathroom, draw the curtain, let the dwarf go by, but keep everyone else away." Misty: "Ok" Voice: "The money is already credited to you account. You can't back out now. We'll get to you if you do." .... Voice:"What was that? You're not recording this are you? Misty: "Of course not." Voice: "Just be sure to erase your phone's memory after this call." Misty: "Of course." There is a phone number associated with this recording in the phone's memory. Any decent hacker can find the physical location where the call was made from, thereby locating the opposing team and Rascal.
It's very important that the PCs either see the hearse or question the flight attendant (Misty). The easiest fail-safe is to have them overhear the conversation between the passenger and Misty. They can corner the attendant in the employee parking garage, but that will give them very limited time until security arrives. If they wait, they can hack the flight records and airline employee database and catch her at her apartment.
Shoot 'em up
The PC team can now get the drop on the opposing team and rescue Rascal and the package. The details I leave up to you, but there should be at least 3 members of the opposing team (the female elf, the dwarf, and the "driver" of the hearse).
Picking up the pieces
If any of the opposing team are left alive to question, the runners find that 1/2 are from NYC and 1/2 are from Seattle. They joined together for this mission. They aren't actually aware of what the datachip holds. They only got wind that it was from Megacorp <fillinblank> and corporate agents were going nuts trying to locate Rascal. Since they had easy access to the same circle of contacts as Rascal, they tried to capitalize on his big score. Rascal is closed-mouthed on the subject, but he knew things would be hot for him. The datafile can be anything the GM wants, and it's a nice set-up for another adventure later on. You don't even have to decide what it is right now
