1035 local (0635 Zulu)

Eating breakfast when your body is expecting dinner is a bit disconcerting, but it's nothing you haven't dealt with before. The food is mediocre, but it does the job. You return to the hanger to find the tent completely setup, and it looks like all of your gear has been moved inside. You step in and see Mike in a tank top and pants checking a flat-panel display at the far end of the tent. You also spot several double-bunks, two portable shower units that look like they connected to the complex's water supply, a fridge, electric stove, briefing table with several displays and keyboards, and what looks like a matrix router with several open ports. You also notice several heating elements placed strategically around the tent, holding the temp at warm 72 degrees. It looks like Mike already unpacked and sorted your gear, placing it near your assigned bunks. You have to admire a leader who takes good care of his troops.

Outside the tent, you spot Nikolai surrounded by drone parts and pieces. You know this routine...every time you guys pull a contract for Ares, Nikolai requests the same drones and spends hours modifying them only to have Ares reissue them out to their Fire Watch teams after your contract is over. As much of a pain it is, it's nice to know that Ares's elites get your hand-me-downs.

Danny walks over to Nikolai and hands him some muffins and sausages, "don't work to hard, eh?"

Danny heads to the tent to check out the gear, he had only given most of it a cursory inspection, his real concern was the MSG-90 and if the barrel was intact. Even a microfracture could alter the trajectory of the bullet enough to cause him to miss. And that would be unacceptable.

Michael turns from the display readout he was going over as everyone comes in. "Everyone breakdown your gear, check, clean, and rebuild. Make sure everything is a-ok."

At that he turns to his own gear and goes to work breaking it all down and going through the rote.

Yoko leaves the vast majority of her requested items unpacked and instead devotes her attentions to the Matrix jack, plugging her deck into one of the ports and running an extension line over to one of the bunks so she can lazily deck from the bunk. A half-eaten sits next to Yoko as she settles into a cross-legged sitting position on the bunk and jacks in.

The message doesn't take long to leave on the 'BBS' she and Livewire use as dead-drop.

'Hey man, I'm on site. Tell me you got good news and found something on what I need to know.'

Message left, Yoko disconnects and sighs. Time to inventory the meat-gear.

While he is going over the weapons rote on his Ares Predator III ERASe sidearm, Micheal speaks up.

"If anyone has contacts they need to touch base with, do it now. I've got my hands on a bit more info, but we'll all give our briefs in two hours time. If you need more time than that, let me know now. One thing though, Nikolai, make sure to touch base with your Russian contacts. I have word that Yazdi (the weapons dealer we need to get intel on) gets most of his supplies from Mother Russia."

"Oh, one more thing," Michael says turning to Yoko, "Get your sweet ass online and find out who is being cared for on the 15th floor of Baku General Hospital. He is likely under an alias, but I have a source telling me it is Etibarr Mammaldi, one of Amadov's lieutenants."

Danny slid the last piece of the MSG90 back together. Extremely satisfied that the weapon was in excellent shape. He broke it back down and placed it in the hard plastic carrying case.

Next he broke down both the USP pistols and inspected them, they as well were good to go. The P-90 was next. You know, I may be a sniper but this weapon just kicks trash. Danny sat there for a moment, just enjoying the feel of the boxy SMG in his hands. Holding the grip, looking down the site and getting the feel for the balance. Every P-90 may have been stamped exactly alike, but Danny was a firm believer that all weapons had there own karma to them. And it took a moment, a serious moment, for any true shooter to learn that karma. Once he did, he would be able to do un imaginable things with a fire arm.

After he was done certifying his weapons he began the tedious process of loading the magazines for them. 36 mags of 9mm and .40 for the pistols. 25 mags at 50 each for the P-90, 30 mags for the G36, and lastly, 60 mags for the MSG. All in all an hour passed by before he was completely done loading and inspecting all his gear.

By the time Danny returned with the breakfast foods, Nikolai had changed from the sophisticated business attire he had worn for the flight into a pair of grease-stained jeans and an old t-shirt that's seen better days. He had just stuffed one of the muffins in his mouth when Michael reminded him about Ras Al-Hashmir.

"You got it, boss."

With that, he plopped down on what was left of one of the crates to wait for the ruthenium to bond with the Cloudship. Figuring he could kill two birds with one stone, the aging ork set up a secure channel to a communications satellite and gave one of Hashmir's go-to men a call to see about setting up a meet with him and Michael.

Max unpacks all his equipment and the new stuff from Ares. He starts to go over all of it and make sure it's all in perfect functionning condition. He has to adjust all the firearms again for best aiming especially at longer ranges. This is a long process and he will need to go outside for testing too. Max also sorts all the ammo and explosives into their different categories; he also packs them safely for in case it gets close to a heat source or even fire. Once all his stuff is unpacked, Max takes a quick shower and changes clothes to regular desert camouflage pants and a kaki t-shirt.

Max feels ready for anything the team might need him for, he has all the equipment he might need and his mind is focused right now.

"I'm in great shape for this mission even with the jetlag and the weather. I feel ready to get down to business. How's everyone doing? Anybody need an extra hand with anything?"

"Hospital database, boss? Null sweat."

Yoko turns on Deep Forest and jacks into the Matrix. Moving through snowy forest terrain, as her deck interpreted the European RTG, the Flatline ninja avatar spied the village, the electronic representation of the Baku LTG. Infiltrating into the quaint European village was easy enough; everyone was off doing one thing or another and althought she stuck out like a sore thumb in her current avatar, Flatline did her best to avoid attention.

Moving to the manor home that represented the hospital, for what else was spacious and 'advanced' by medieval settings, she got ready to poke around for information as opposed to just asking at the front.

Michael adds as Yoko sets up her system, "And grab any info on their security system that you can. We may be doing a shadow-like snatch and grab."

Kenjiro was dissapointed that the magical supplies he requested had not arrived. That left him with only three elementals on call, which was quite a bit less than he would have liked. He would just have to look for conjuring materials on his own. But first, he needed to check his gear. Field-stripping and cleaning the alpha and the predator, Kenjiro was able to assure himself that all was well. Not that it as that important. Firearms were always secondary to his magic. He briefly wished that he had thought to order a non-Ares gun. It would have been funny to see their employer's reaction to that.

Kenjiro didn't know anyone in Russia, but he did know a couple of smugglers who operated out of Ukraine and Georgia, which meant that they would makes runs into both Russia and Azerbijan with some regularity. "Michael-san," he addressed his team leader, "I know a couple of smugglers in Ukraine and Georgia. They may know something of Yazdi. You desire that I should contact them?"

Without pausing his cleaning he nods and says, "Get on it."

Danny turned to Nikolai as he slapped the box magazine into the top of his P-90.

"Hot damn I love this job. Hey Nikolai, you want me to spec out your weapons?"

Wiping his grease-stained hands on his jeans, the heavy-set ork looked up from his drone. "Yeah, that'd be great. I've already checked out the Five-seveN, but didn't get to the P90 before I got sidetracked again."

"Aight, I'm on it," Danny says as he carefully lays the P-90 down on his bunk and walks over to Nikolais. He repeats the steps for the riggers weapons that he did for his own, including loading the rounds.

Another hour slipped by as Danny went over the checklist on Nikolai's weapon, as well as loading out the magazines. He went over the Five-seveN as well, he figured Nikolai was to busy thinking about his drones to give the weapon a proper inspection. Disappointingly though he found nothing wrong with it.

"All done Nikolai, you need a hand with the beasts?"

"Everyone ready for another debreif? Or do any of you need more time?

Danny slams a magazine into his USP and looks over at Michael as he slides the weapon into his hop holster, "Born ready boss."

"I have one more contact I need to call," Kenjiro replies. He proceeds to dial up Josef, his Ukranian smuggler buddy.

"Nah, I'm just about done. Only need to let these fuel cells charge up and they're good to go," Nikolai replies to Danny just before Michael pipes up.

"I haven't been able to get in touch with Al-Hashmir yet, but I'm still trying. Otherwise," the old ork pauses to wipe his greasy hands off on his jeans, "I s'pose I'm ready, too, bossman."

"Hold," he says within a breath of his last comment. He lowers his head a bit and stares idly at a tent pole for a few moments.

"Right, that was one of Al-Hashmir's men. He's going to be in Tabriz in two days and is free to see us anytime after noon. Tabriz is in Iran, but it's not that far from the Azerbaijan/Armenian border."

"Good. Cause we're gunna be busy for the next few days anyhow. Yoko, how is that intel on the hospitol coming?"

Kenjiro interjects. "If we want to assasinate a guy in a hospital bed, we had better do it quietly, without being seen. My reccomendation would be that we simply send in a single person. I can cloak him with an invisibility spell, and then follow him on the astral plane, calling up an elemental to back him up if he gets found out. But ideally, that one invisible person goes in, kills the guy, and gets out before anyone realizes he's been murdered. I think the best weapon to use would be a syringe full of poison; that way, the cause of death won't be readily apparent."

Michael frowns, Kenjiro should know better... "Assassinate? No. We're going for the capture on this one. I want him questioned."

"In that case, I reccomend a two-person team again. Two people dress as nurses, go in there, sedate him, put him on a wheeled stretcher, and just roll him on out of there like we have every right to be doing so."

"Except he is the only one on the floor and there are armed guards all over the place. We may have to go in as a team with Gel rounds to deal with the cops. How about we hold off on any ideas until we have a report for Yoko."

With the receeding, quiet whirr of the deck's small fan as it powers down, the first words out of Yoko's mouth are incredulous as she lets go of the induction readers on the deck.

"Sweet, merciful Buddha." Sitting back on her bunk and letting her deck go into standby mode, Yoko looks at the ceiling for a moment before turning to the group.

"I have never, ever, in my entire career seen an intrusion countermeasure program crash the host it was on. Until now, anyway." Yoko blinks and sits back up. "Not that I was sloppy or anything, so don't look at me like that. That system was slower than molasses in winter, or so the expression goes. Man oh man, I haven't seen UMD Iconography since...well...since the history chips they showed back in training. Wow. I never thought I'd run into one of them."

"Oh, I should probably get to the meat of it for you guys. Anyway, I got a building layout for us to use. It's the 'official' layout that I yanked from the Emergency Exit Routes files so I'm thinking it should be fairly accurate. Also, I got a sounding on Rabitte Idlammam. It seems he was checked into their trauma ward on the same day they closed their top floor, apprantly for repairs. Someone must think he's really funny but they were probably counting on people getting so fed up with the drekkyness of their system that they'd just give up."

"And what a drekkyy system it was. I swear, they were running that thing off a pocket secretary the way it was. Do you know how horrible it is to have to spend entire clock cycles just so my icon could BLINK? The scenery wasn't just low-res, it was dragging me down along with it the way it was going and their file storage was so messy and horrible and, oh, right...But anyway...Their building security wasn't hooked up to their host, not that I'd want to hook up anything to that drekky piece of drek, so no joy there. I couldn't get layouts on cameras or anything but I am willing to bet that Idlammam has some of his own personal security on the top floor."

"That should be everything..." She ponders a moment, then turns to Michael. "Please don't send me back in there. It was horrible! Not in the 'it'll burn my brains out' sort of way, cause I could totally accept that, but in a 'this thing is so painfully old' way. It was like using an old two gig set-up nowadays...So horrible."

"Whats the landscape like? Can we do a rooftop insertion fron another building?"

"Nikoli, can you get a recon drone over there to look at it and give us some images of the area?"

"Of course, though I would either need you to see if you can sweet talk Deke into letting me get access to their transmission arrays, or I could just send Petunia here," he pauses for a moment to pat the mini-blimp he just finished working on, "on a recon mission."

"Nikolai, we could load up an SUV and head over there. I could get my mark ones on the place, and you could pop your drone. We could continue the meeting over the radio."

"That works for me, too."

"Get going. I'll talk to Deke anyways and see if we can get access to the arrays in case we need them in the future and I'll also see what we have access to as far as vehicles go. I'd like to get us a chopper to use for our trip to Iran."

"What about me, boss? Got anything you need me to be doing?"

Danny grins at Nikolai, "Saddle up."

Danny slips on his FFBA, and the black cam armored fatigues. He loaded his USP with match ammo and slung it on his shoulder rig under his left arm along with two spare clips under his right, and two more in his right thigh cargo pocket. He slipped on his amored black jacket over that, and then stood and looked at his weapon laden bunk. He held his hand out for a moment.. his eyes closed and his mind slipped into a quick trance. When his eyes opened, his hand was above the P-90.

"Ok, looks like your going on a trip."

He loaded the deadly SMG with High explosive rounds, and then placed it, and 4 box magazines with it, under the passenger seat of the chosen SUV. He grabbed his binocs and tossed them on the dash, "anything else?"

Still dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, Nikolai grabs his leather bomber jacket and slides it on. He then walks over to grab the drone and loads it into the back of the SUV, followed soon thereafter by a clapping of his thigh to signal Pavlov into the back as well.

When he finishes and turns around to see Danny dressed in full gear, the ork just lifts a brow. "Subtle."

As he heads towards the driver's side, he looks over his shoulder to Michael. "If you need us, I'll be monitoring the usual channels. Shouldn't take more than an hour or two if traffic isn't too bad."

He slides in and looks over at Danny again, still not believing his pal's love of action. "I think that's about it." With that, he heads out of the facility. Using the mapsoft he downloaded into his system, he accesses the local region and tries to find a good spot to park while the duo works their mojo.

As they drive out Danny hands Nikolai his Five-SeveN, and two spare clips. "No one ever died from being to prepared."

"But they did die because they attracted a lot of attention by walking down the street with enough guns to satisfy a small squad of regular soldiers. But...well...what do I know?"

"It's not like anyone can see the P-90," he points under the seat. "And I also don't plan on exiting the vehicle," he says gesturing to the tinted windows of the armored SUV.

Michael picks up the base comm unit and puts a call through to Deke. "Two things. If we need it, can we make use of the buildings transmission arrays? And can we get a chopper to use? We'll likely need to take a few trips out of town and could use something to get around in that isn't limited to roads."

"Good point. Alright then, take care of yourselves."

Deke's voice creaks over the comm system. "Hmmmm....I MIGHT be able to get you guys some trans time on our comm arrays, but we'll have to keep it on the DL. It will be an UNOFFICIAL operation.

And as for the bird, I've got a Sikorski Hercules (like a Blackhawk) on the pad, along with two pilots, but I'll need 24 hours advance notice plus a flightplan."

"Excelent. Thanks Deke."

Hanging up the line, Michael turns back to the group and opens a comm line so Nikoli and Danny can listen in.

"Ok, we can get comm time, but it'll be limited. Also, I've got us access to a Herc with two pilots, but we'll need 24 hours notice and a flight plan. Nik, I'll need you to put that together for me. Ok guys, here is where we have to deside how we progress...

We've got our man in the hospitol that we want to talk to and I got a meeting in Iran in two days time. If we can't hit the hospitol soon, Nik and I are going to have to skip out on the extraction and proceed to the meet. I'm sure you guys can handle things without us, though I don't really like the idea of splitting up much either. This ain't exactly friendly territory and I'm not too hip on us getting jumped and not being together.

Any thoughts?"

"If we can't do it safely in the timeframe, we might as well do it split. That's my opinion."

"I'm not groovin on the idea of splitting up the team either, or of you and Nikolai going to Iran by yourselves. I don't foresee this hospital being a big deal. We could hit it tonight if we wanted, and be in and out easy peasy. Especially, if we had a helicopter in our hands," Danny says the last with a grin at Nikolai.

"I'm good with whatever you guys come up with. You know that." Switch over from his commlink, he turns to look at Danny. "You still hungry? I was thinking about hitting a KahunaBurger or whatever the frag they have around here and picking something up before hitting the site. Those muffins didn't quite hit the spot."

"Am I still hungry? Do you even have to ask?"

Danny looks around carefully for a minute, "I don't see anything, punch it up on the... wait. There's a Taco Del Mar, I could do with that."

"Taco Del Mar it is." Nikolai proceeds to fight his way through traffic and makes the turn into the drive-thru and waits their turn.

Ten minutes later the pair is back on the crowded, snow covered streets of downtown Baku. Hot, half pound soy tortias in their hands as Nikolai maneuvers the large SUV toward the hospital.

"Man this traffic sucks, they need a better grid guide here."