At last, the air of paranoia and distrust was dispersed. Now they were in business. Even the impossible could be a mere inconvenience with a good enough plan of action, equipment and some luck. Luck they seemed to be having so far and equipment was beyond their control for now, but now that they were all on the same page about what they were here to do, they could figure out at least a rough outline of how to go about it. Bringing her bag over from her previous table, Yekaterina sat down, shaking her head slightly at the waiter’s explanation of Matanbai’s economical situation. “Gemstones for pocket change. ‘Abundant’ he calls them. With what those must be worth back in the civilized world, we get our hands on a few of those, we could disappear in Argentina and forget this whole clusterfuck.” the Russian chuckled when the waiter left.

Accepting the free drink, she raised the glass before taking a careful sip.“[i]Za zdorov'ye[/i], Damn, this actually has some taste. And you’ll excuse me if I don’t put too much trust in local infrastructure. I’ve seen the roads here. Much like blacktop, I’d be surprised if cell coverage extended too far beyond the biggest cities. A lot of the comm towers around the country could be private networks owned by the mining corporations. Not great if you want to sneak information by them.”

Sean’s story sparked some interest. “Honestly, it seems it isn’t much of a problem to throw intel off for someone this big. ‘Tis a sad state of things, but scumbags aren’t strangers to political connections, and knowing the right people can get you places no amount of firepower ever could. Doubt he would’ve gotten this big without some envelopes delivered to the right people in the first place.” She spoke confidently, perhaps with some experience given her home country, “And if he keeps a small team and keeps on the move? Wouldn’t surprise me if this guy - if it is indeed one guy and not a group of people under one pseudonym - was once in our line of work.” Facing a group of salty Gulf War veterans or an ex Soviet officer who cut his teeth selling Red Army equipment after ‘91 wasn’t a cheerful prospect.

“And as to what they’ll have us do? Probably the same things as the people who almost took your heads off were doing for COGS. Asset protection, maybe messing with the competition.” the Russian finished her whisky, turning to face a light to read the engraving on the bottom of the glass. “I’ll hazard a guess and say we’re a grade above the usual merc. Probably our biggest asset, we’d do well to capitalize upon that. Like you said, we’ll likely need to get to higher echelons if we want a realistic chance of learning what we want to know. With a bit of luck, which seems to be on our side thus far, there’ll be an opportunity to shine. Get us noticed. Hopefully without too much recognition from anyone but our current bosses. Don’t think most of these mercs would think twice about putting us in the dirt if they felt like we were a threat to their paycheck.” She set the glass back down, “And speaking of assets: Any of you bring something special to the table? Knowledge, skills, anything helpful the others should know about? Certainly easier convincing them we’re more useful kept together when we know what and who the others are, not to mention actually working together.”