Name: Werner Blythe
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Appearance:
He stands at an even six foot, muscled well-enough, who always moves deliberately until it's time for action. Two bullet wounds can be seen, paler than the rest of his skin, just under his ribs on his left side. He walks with the slightest limp and grimace whenever signs of rain start to show. When he doesn't have to put on the standard "Americana" accent found on news programs the States over, a trace of the South can still be heard. His face remains a picture of coolness whether in or out of danger, even if his mind might be racing or screaming. Rarely does he ever don a particularly hard face, lest the situation call for him to be a hard man, or something or someone has dug beneath his otherwise thick skin.
Agency/Organization: Paramilitary Operations Officer, CIA SAD/SOG
Education: A sum of 19 years in the US Army Rangers and Green Berets. 7 years in the CIA.
Background: Werner Blythe joined the Army when he was eighteen, a young whippersnapper and son of a motorcycle mechanic, out of Texas with a need to prove to himself that he could be more than what he was. His initial four-year contract was up, in which he attended the US Army Airborne School. He returned to his small Texas town to become a Sheriff's deputy and met a girl named Holly French. His reputation as a risk-taking, motivated individual was obviously not what a small town Sheriff's department needed, and so after only two years as a Deputy he re-enlisted at the behest of Sheriff Gracy and a couple of his friends, promising to Holly that he would stay safe.
This time around, Werner had an easier go of things, but Werner had a reputation for proving to himself that he could be more than he was. He attended RIP, the Ranger Indoctrination Program, and passed with colors. He spent these four years as a US Army Ranger and was deployed to Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks, in which he knew that the promise made to Holly was now out of his hands right into God's own. He took part in five raids over the course of two combat rotations, assisting Green Beret ODAs, SEAL teams and Delta Force. He reenlisted directly after his four years were up and requested a slot in SFAS, in which he again struggled through the grueling two-year selection process and spend the following 4 years in Washington, his new home, with the 1st Special Forces Group deployed to Afghanistan.
In March 5th, 2005, CIA spook William Long would arrive at his isolated FOB nestled in the Afghan mountains. The briefing told him that his ODA and the indigenous fighters they'd gathered around themselves would be helping William carry out his mission of making contact with one Bazir al-Khalwadi, a tribal leader among the reclusive Wadi clan. Of course, as soon as that name came up, the tribal fighters wanted nothing to do with the op. The specifics of this mission were not told to Special Forces Intelligence Sergeant Werner Blythe, but like any good soldier, he did what needed doing. The section of Werner Blythe's dossier dealing with this operation is highly classified, but Blythe knew they had illegally crossed the Pakistani border by the time they had found their target. Nestled in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan, they found the village and the asset. From his binoculars, he saw them dancing around him, heard the faint sounds of their singing and chanting and screaming, the cacophony somehow making his head hurt even from such a distance.
He saw the Pakistani man tied down to a block of stone so black almost as to be made of void itself. He saw them put the knife to Bazir's throat and saw the man's neck open. He saw them butcher his corpse and paint with his blood. Long let go a string of whispered curses before tapping on Werner's shoulder and pointing to the sky. A glint in the sky showed the speck high above them, a predator drone, "Win stupid prizes, eh?" Long said.
Two missiles leveled that tiny village and made a crater of the mountainside it was on. They trekked back to the FOB, not speaking of what they saw. The debriefing back at the FOB was basically telling them that they were never in Pakistan, Long was never there and the whole thing never happened. He couldn't sleep that night, he could've swore he saw that block of stone start to change shape, bending and warping just enough to be noticed before dust and rocks and carnage flew up from the initial impact of that first JDAM. Ask Werner about his time in Afghanistan and he will harden up, wishing they didn't stop at just two of the big bombs. “If it were up to me, those mountains would be bombed to sand.”
He came back to Washington a changed man. The Army may have made him more serious, more “mature”, but that operation in the Pakistani mountains made him distant and cold. At least, that's the way Holly put it to him. He began to grow increasingly violent with each night where sleep was somewhere far off and away. Holly put it in no uncertain terms that she was leaving after an incident at their daughters' school led to him having to be escorted off the premises by school security. He came under fire from his NCOIC and told that if he didn't shape up, he would no longer find any place among the ODAs. He said the promise, the words left his mouth, but they were hollow. With Holly gone, he turned to the bottle some nights.
In 2010, his enlistment would be up. He wasn't as bothered now by what he saw in the Pakistani mountains those years ago, chocking it up to the stresses of the long march and witnessing the brutal display before him. Even so, he still has to take his medication some nights, and he still might drink and think and fool himself one more time. Those gibbering chants and screams would haunt his dreams some nights, and on those, he refused to sleep. Dreams brought him back there, and back there was a place he never wanted to go. Even so, a quiet and peaceful life was not what he was searching for. He was approached by CIA recruiters and has been involved with clandestine operations in Eastern Europe, North Africa and Central Asia- with a very specific request that he stay away from operations that would take him to Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2017, his home a dingy apartment in Turkey, he was called back stateside for the first time in seven years, where he was told he would once again be working with Agent Steve Foster for the first time since Somalia. The prospect does not delight him.
Personality: Werner grew up rough, with an alcoholic father and a mother too scared of him to leave. This environment can either harden a child and develop a thick shell of spite and anger, or it can break them down into a mushy mess of trauma and low self-esteem. Werner vowed that he would make something of himself and not end up like his Vietnam-vet father. That thick shell of spite and anger propelled him like a bullet through a life of high-risk careers.
Now though, at the graying age of 43, he's starting to feel the age in his joints. The mind is still there, albeit tempered by years of experience in the Rangers and the Green Beretes, but the mind wanders to old places at times. He's still ready and able to kick doors or interrogate targets, and has never had qualms with bending the rules to get the right guy or achieve the objective. The way he sees it, you have to be a little bit bad to be able to do the things that he does, and the world needs bad men. The law smiles on means, he smiles on results. With his time in the CIA to foster an even darker and unfettered side of this rule-bending he so loved to justify. With the things he's seen, he knows there is only one right thing and one wrong thing in this world-
it is good to succeed and it is wrong to fail. He is not above beating people senseless, threatening loved ones or blackmail if it means that his mission is a step closer to success and the nation he serves is safe.
When nervous situations arise, he may respond by trying at bits of odd humor. It was always a good practice to try to laugh before an operation and he keeps that as a tradition to this day. After a very long time both in the service and the agency, the man behind the shell of spite and anger has been starting to peek through the cracks and gouges. He shakes hands with rebel leaders and crooked generals, he wears smiles in the boardrooms as easily as frowns in the interrogation rooms. The world may need bad men, but the side of him that isn't devoted to the agency wished he made friends more and yearns for the old days of the ODAs and the Ranger Battalions. Wished he was a better father, wished he was a better husband. Wished he would've punched his father and hugged his mother more. Anyhow, he's here now, nothing to do but the mission.
Skills:
Gifted(+5): Interrogation | Awareness
Adept(+3): Marksmanship, long guns | Marksmanship, handguns | Hand-to-Hand
Average(+2): Tactical Driving | Persuade | SERE
Novice(+1): Psychology | Anthropology | Criminology | Stealth
Languages: Pashto, Turkish, Farsi, Somali, Russian. All very base level, besides Turkish.
Connections: Frank Piddle, old ODA buddy and intelligence analyst for the CIA.
Grant Bothers, an arms dealer and agency asset based in Bosnia with small vendors in New York, Florida and Mexico.
Weaknesses: Unscrupulous – Once on the job, his personality makes him almost single-minded in getting his man and putting him in custody, no matter the lengths to which he must go. This has put him at ends with foreign agencies multiple times.
Insomnia – He has night terrors some nights if he goes to bed without taking his medication.
Slight depression/alcoholism - His experiences in the Pakistani mountains have left something of an impression upon him. Because of this, some nights he drinks and thinks until he sleeps.
Aches & Pains – He lost a small bit of flexibility in his left ankle, as well as right shoulder from breakage. He won't be running six minute miles anytime or lifting logs over his head, but he can still pull a trigger and push a sewing needle under someone's fingernails when kind gestures don't work.
Off-Duty Clothing/Equipment:
Clothing: A black t-shirt. Jeans and leather oxfords or hiking shoes. A baseball cap to go with the sunglasses if the latter. Fleece hoodie if it's a little chilly. A gray suit, white collared shirt and a blue tie for when he has to look presentable.
Weapons: He carries a folding knife and a Sig Sauer P238 .380 semiautomatic handgun. Mossberg 500 Serbu Super-Shorty kept in the trunk of whatever vehicle he's in, along with his tactical gear.
Tools/Equipment: A wallet with fabricated ID as well as 200 dollars in the local currency. A leatherman multi-tool. Pen light. Notepad and pen.
Misc.: His medication, a pack of cigarettes, a flask always full of bourbon.
Operational Clothing/Equipment:
Clothing: Take the off-duty clothing and slap on a plate carrier with molle pouches, a tan baseball cap with a comm headset, a fleece hoodie if things get chilly
Weapons: An AAC Honey Badger PDW with a foregrip, Aimpoint optic and a PEQ infrared laser sight. An FN FNP45. vz83 machine pistol for when maximum concealability is a must, laser sight. Combat knife. 2 flashbang grenades. 2 fragmentation grenades.
Tools/Equipment: NVGs, flashlight, pen flares, and glowsticks, suppressors for when night time is the right time.
Misc.: An English-to-Spanish dictionary, maps of the area, a compass, markers, pens, first aid equipment, a pack of cigarettes.
