Bakker awoke in his apartment, looking over to see if somebody else was in the bed. It was a faulty effort, because he was on the floor with a bottle of jack beside him to obscure most of his vision. Groaning he got up and thanked whoever might be listening that at least he didn’t have a harsh hangover. 

A strong coffee and a shower soon had him right though, and sitting down on his bed the mercenary turned on the television. Of course, it was all in French and German, and he was feeling too lazy to flip on to the English channels. Well there was nothing to do now save for getting dressed and hitting the nearest drive-thru for a pathetic breakfast before getting to the Ares building. 

Walking in he greeted the receptionist with a half-hearted salute, and took the appropriate files from her before telling the woman to direct the coming mercenaries to the meeting room. Pouring himself the third coffee of the day as he entered the briefing room, he nodded to the woman already there. Kathleen Smith, two-hundred centimetre bitch. She was his first field manager, and he didn’t know any of his former comrades that didn’t share this opinion. Furthermore, it wasn’t as if the opinion came from strict but useful discipline, it was plain old nastiness. But, she did the job and came up the ranks and now she was sitting comfortably high up in Ares with her only relic of shooting people being a revolver in an armpit holster. Neither spoke, both only sticking to reviewing the documents before them in anticipation of the arriving mercenaries. Comparing and contrasting them Bakker sighed, rubbing his eyes. “What a motley crew you’ve given me.” 

The manager before him didn’t even bother looking up. “Yes.” and that was that. Well then, nobody would mind if he put on some sunglasses for a few extra moments of shuteye. If he was going to have to keep together a narc, a nazi, an IRA bitch, two Russians, and a rather normal doctor caught between them then even a few extra minutes of rest would do him just fine. Gill would come in next, followed by one operator, and another, and yet another and so on and so forth until the whole squad was assembled. There were prepared stacks of paper for each operator, largely a dossier on their team, a form to sign and the intelligence for the coming operation. There was also tea, coffee, and other refreshments with snacks for those that didn’t yet eat. When finally all had come, Kathleen looked between the two Field Managers and before standing up. 

“Welcome Operators! You have all been selected to be part of squad Ajax, and I must congratulate you on meeting the high standards for its membership. Before you are papers with which I suggest you get acquainted with. Your fellow squad members are listed upon it by callsign and photograph along with their specializations. You’ll get a chance to get properly introduced to one another on the plane to your destination, for now I would like to begin briefing you on the operation you will be tasked with.” On cue Bakker stood up and unrolled a projector screen, before sitting back down restfully. 

A projector turned on, the lights off, and an image was displayed. It contained several pictures of a young man somewhere post teens. He had short black hair and green eyes with fairly dark skin, though it may have been sprayed on. “This individual has been kidnapped, and rather influential people are upset with that. His name is Max, and it is your job to recover him from his captors.”

[i]click[/i]

A map of North Africa was before everyone, with Morocco and Algeria highlighted in green while the Sahara had a thin black grid across it. There were also several pictures of men with firearms, and an emblem of a scimitar crossed with a rifle. “The kid was travelling, doing usual young rich person things. Some time during their stay in Algeria he got snatched by this new gang calling themselves ‘The New Bedouins.’ While not affiliated with the drug trade or Jihadists, they’re still powerful enough to make sure corruption keeps them safe from government investigation and retaliation. You come in here. His family found that hiring us is marginally less expensive and far more reliable than paying the ransom money."

[i]click[/i] 

Now Bakker stood up, pointing to a more localized map of Algeria. "Tomorrow at five in the afternoon you must be in the Geneva airport. From there we fly to Algiers, and then straight to Tamanrasset. There we'll have waiting for us two Nimr vehicles. For the first and largest portion of the operation we will be impersonating Algerian armed forces." At this point Bakker turned and picked up a box from which he removed several packages which he threw to each individual employee save for Gill who was close enough to just have it handed to him. 

"These packages contain your documents for our flight there, but they also contain rather important fragments of our 'disguises' for those that need them. Brown contacts lenses, makeup to darken the skin, black hair dye, and cotton rolls to stick in your mouth. As Algerian soldiers we will freely travel across the Sahara after first picking up some supplies in Tamanrasset, looking for these 'New Bedouins.' Apparently they travel in these sort of caravans with cars, motorcycles, trucks, some RVs, and even horses or camels. They'll mostly be par for the course of gangs around the world. AKs, hunting rifles, some pistols, shitty personal defence weapons and sub-machine guns. They won't aim very well of course, but the desert is their turf and they can come in number from anywhere if we let them get off a flare or firework to alert buddies. Probably some molotovs lying about but they haven't been around on the block long enough to make them right so the flames won't stick; roll once in the sand and you're fine. More worrisome will be the pipe bombs and other IEDs they bring, maybe some dynamite and such stolen from a miner dad. While they seem to be wise enough to think of decoy 'caravans' they're still unprofessional in a way that is very dangerous to the boy they're holding and thus our paycheck."

[i]click[/i]

"What we will be carrying is detailed in your documents but it is largely old, post second world war Soviet equipment to properly look like Algerian army. Callsign Hades will be a VIP secondary to Max as the only speaker of Arabic among us and he will sit in the passenger front seat of the front vehicle masquerading as our commanding officer. Hypnos as a speaker of French will be a tertiary VIP to protect, while as a speaker of Spanish Zeus will be a tertiary VIP given the nature of the second part of the operation. Once we find Max we will need to make an escape with Hypnos taking care of the lad. We will make our way to the Moroccan border where we smash through. Depending on the strength of the barrier where we come we may need Cronus to promptly blow a hole there first, though if we have enough fuel and water we can try cross here through the Sahara rather than risk bad luck with a border patrol."

[hider=Equipment]
Brick: loaded SKS, 8x stripper clip.
Gorgon: loaded AKM, 2x 30rd magazine.
Hades: loaded RPK, 2x 40rd magazine.
Zeus: loaded PKM, 1x 100rd belt box. 
Hypnos: loaded RPD, 1x 100rd belt, medical kit.
Cronus: loaded AKM, 2x 30rd magazine, GP25, 4x 40mm grenade, 2x 40mm smoke grenade.
Hypatia: loaded SVD, 3x 10rd magazine.
Hector: loaded AKM, 2x 30rd magazine.
Squad Equipment: 7x helmet & uniform, 7x loaded 9x19mm Caracal in hip holster with spare 18rd magazine and bayonet for sidearms. 14x RGD grenade, 4x loaded Beretta M12 with spare 32rd magazine.
Car Equipment: 100rd 9x19mm box, 100rd 7,62x39mm box, 100rd 7,62x54mmR box, 4x diesel canister, 200L barrel of water, 75x MRE, Medical Kit.
[/hider]

[i]click[/i] 

"Having crossed into Morocco we will need to get to the nearest town's outskirts and then disembark from the Nimrs. Inside their seats will be sewn new clothes, documents, phones, pistols, and money. All our old things we will place into the cars and then scuttle them with whatever flammables and explosives we have left."

[i]click[/i] 

Now Kathleen spoke: "From there you will extract, with your exact actions depending on how the previous part of the operation went. The main variables are if the Moroccan branch of the New Bedouins have had time to be alerted, and if border guards have time to catch the funny business. Ideally you will simply head North and boat right across to Spain, but you may in a press for safety be forced to head for the Canary or Madeira Isles. When in any of these relatively safe spots, find a place to stay and call the main office of the company through a local phone and within a day someone will come to extract Max. Within another day you will get your extraction back to Switzerland with a paycheck in your hands; your first operation will be complete." the manager looked momentarily at the Royal Marine to see if he had anything to add who in turn made a little gesture to say he'd bring it up after.

"Any questions?"