(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."