Contractors [PMC|IC]

[Insaeldor]

OOC | Theme

“Alright Anatole Squad, You’ll take a left on Lingala Street. Then it should be a straight shot to the auxiliary facility, over.”

“Copy that Oscar Nicolas, SERCON over.” I put the radio down, my rifle between my legs on the floor. Barrel down and stock folded. My vest loaded up and tucked into a slot between the middle console and the seat. Everyone else was loaded in the back except for Steegmans who rode on the passenger side. The back of this old MB100 had been converted to have inward facing bench seats, like old APCs, we also had a mount in the middle where we had an ANF1 set up facing the back door, incase things got dangerous.

I looked at the people on the sidewalks. Men with AKMs and PKM’s littered the streets interspersed with others going about their average day, trying to go along with their day as they would before shit hit the fan. When you looked close enough you could see some of these guys didn’t even have modern guys, some came from the bush and had janky homemade rifles. It was a real shit show all things considered, but at least not as violent as it could possibly get. Just a bunch of strung out gangsters holding their streets.

We made a quick turn onto Lingala and the streets were dead, the facades of the building bettered by bullets and shrapnel. Down the road was a sandbag structure, It was a checkpoint, men in green Alashos, dressed in old and tattered french lizard Uniforms. They held an assortment of rifle in their hands, one very clearly had an FN FAL while the other two had AKMSs. I slowed the vehicle down to a crawl as we approached. I caught locked in with the jaundiced eyes of the leader. He hailed us and i stopped, he slowly with his gun at his waist walked to our vehicle.

“Français ou Yoruba?” I asked him when I rolled down my papers.

“Tani e? Iwe-aṣẹ, bayi!” He said, fuck.

“Kii ṣe ede ti o dara, Jẹ ki a sọrọ Faranse, Jowo?” I asked him, he eyed me as I reached into the middle console to get our paper work.

“Qui es-tu? J'ai besoin de vos documents.” he said finally in a harshly accented french.

“Bien sûr, te voilà.” I said handing him our paperwork. He examined them, for a little while. He looked back at me finally and handed me back the paperwork and slapped the side of the van.

“Akiyesi, jẹ ki wọn ṣakọ!” He shouted to his men. I started driving again, this time the sight were far different. No one but soldiers were on the streets and the buildings were damaged by combat. These were Coup soldiers, if they weren't then those motherfuckers would have just shot us as we road up. It was another 5 minutes of driving until we reached the auxiliary facility. I made a quick left into the basement parking garage, two guys guarding it. Kristjan Mõlk and Kassab Aoun, never seen them so high strung, you could see it even through the facade a soldier puts up. They waved us it and i parked as close to the stairs as possible.

I got out and signaled for everyone else to follow. I reached in and secured my weapon and chest rig after checking the garage. I slung my vest on quick and slung my rifle across my chest, the drum mag weight the rifle down a great deal, although the whole loading scheme had become a force of habit since I was in Iraq. I closed up the Van and loaded us up through the stairs, I set up a single file line up the steps. It went from silence in the humid garage to a buzz of commotion coming from the first few floors. We made our way to floor 4. Where all the employee manifests, contract reports, financial record, stuff like that. I opened the door and i was immediately caught by the rush of people moving back and forth between offices with boxes, filling them as full as they can. We walked through the first hallway, the smell of paper and floor clearer filled the whole floor. There most of the remaining office team was. Lead Operational Officer Jarva seemed to be leading things along, three large 200 pound capacity carts were set up in a row near the elevator, two effectively full and the last one nearly as full as the others. The men with boxes where pouring what they had into the last cart.

I looked out the windows that linked the office space of the floor. It was covered in a spattering of rain, I looked out a bit farther and saw a current forming in the old flood channel that was behind the building.

“Hurry up, let's get this to the roof.” Markku broke my concentration with his distinct voice, low and dry in it tone.

“Alright, Alright..” I whipped my rifle around my body so that way it was across my back. I looked over at the team.

“Brack, Head up to the roof and cover the southern road.” The sound of the rain hitting the window grew as I spoke. I motioned to the rest of the group to come on over and help bring the carts up the stairs. Luckily we only had two flights of stairs to go up to reach the roof. I grabbed the handles to help lift it up the stairs. Others circled around the carts and we collectively lifted and walked the damned thing up the stairs, Markku followed us with two 20 liter petrol cans, and behind some other office workers carrying a bag of what looked like computer parts and tools. Lifting it up over the rails and maneuvering it through through the contours of the flight. Four people to a whole cart really made it easy to maneuver like this. I got mine up and soon they all got up to the roof, an awning above the doorway kept us out of the rain for a moment. But we had to roll it out into the rain to light it all up, the black soot marks on the ground showed that this wasn't the only batch done, although it probably wasn't raining at the time either. Markku came over and poured his petrol into the carts, the mix of shredded and whole documents getting covered in it. Then Sorensen, the guy under Markku brought out some matches. He lit them under the awning and threw them into the petrol covered tinder. We then pushed the cart out into the open, the light rain sizzling as it impacts the hot, warped metal of the old cart. The guys behind use with the parts threw the bag of them on the ground.

“Last of the hard drives. Just gotta dust em’ up. I can go get the last of the muriatic acid.” The office monkey walked back down stairs, the other guy put down a box full of tools. Hammers, wrenches, screw drivers, anything that could be used to break these things apart.

“Get to crackin’ lads.” His sharp yet generic British accent rang out. I rummaged around the tool box and picked up a rip hammer, I also grabbed one of the 10 or so hard drives on the floor of the roof and tossed it over to Turan.

“Ya’ heard him, let's get started guys.” The sounds of distant gunfire broke out. Sounded like it was coming from the east. Couldn’t tell the distance but it was an echoing pop so outside the initial jump i wasn’t that worried about it.

Hopefully we could get this done as fast as possible and get down to what they really want us to do. But they figured it be easier to deny involvement if there was no digital or paper trail if we didn’t get the actual mission finished.

[Reverend Norv]

The air smelled like rain and smoke. Acrid smoke: dark and greasy. Burning tires. It reminded Nadav Behar of Jenin. He felt the steaming concrete of the roof under his feet, the dry heat of burning papers on the back of his neck. He breathed deep, and let the air sigh out.

Destroying evidence. It wasn't Nadav's first time doing that. Duvdevan reported to the Defense Minister and the PM. It was authorized to conceal its operations from everybody else. So: burn the papers, smash the hard drives. Like the Americans said - same shit, different day.

Nadav told himself that it didn't matter. Replacing one tinpot dictator with another: the world was no better or worse for that, right? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. He might not be helping anyone, but he wasn't truly hurting anyone either.

So what was the point?

That was the real problem. Not guilt: vertigo. When he had destroyed evidence for Duvdevan, he had told himself that it was to protect Israel. Now it was to protect some French company. What did Nadav owe the French?

And yet he did it anyway: watched himself do it, for no reason he could fathom, as if in a waking dream. Thus the vertigo.

What was the point?

Gunfire: Nadav's head swiveled, looked away to the east for a long moment. Matteo had put Robert Brackert on overwatch. Nadav considered asking Brack what he saw, then decided against it. The gunfire was still a long way away. The risk didn't justify the unpleasantness of having to interact with a man who reflected, as through a glass darkly, everything that had driven Nadav from his own home.

Instead, the Israeli took a knee beside the pile of hard drives. He picked up a club hammer, placed a boxy electronic part on the concrete in front of him, and smashed it: a single smooth up-down motion of the hammer, lean muscle working in his forearms where he had rolled up the sleeves of his linen shirt. He tossed the shards of silicon into the steel cart of burning papers, and then watched himself grab the next hard drive, and set it beneath the hammer.

Up, down. And into the flames.

Across the city, at Ile Ofeefee, some men were being held prisoner. Probably they were being tortured. Probably Nadav should regard them as his friends. Perhaps some of them even regarded him that way.

Up, down. And into the flames.

Nadav had been tortured. He supposed that saving other men from that pain was as good a reason to fight as any. And destroying these hard drives? Maybe that was just another way of protecting them, too: these maybe-friends of his.

Up, down. And into the flames.

So let that be the point, then. Was it enough?

Deliberately, Nadav turned his thoughts away from the question. The smoke of burning papers mingled with the smoke of burning tires, and coiled around his lungs. He watched himself: smooth, mechanical, tireless motions.

The hammer went up. The hammer came down.

Up, down.

And into the fire.

[Dayganistan]

For Serhat, this contract had taken an ironic twist. Not even a full three years ago he was actively trying to prevent a coup in his home country. Now he's taking part in another. Was this one any more violent than the one in Turkey? Hard to say. Still, it made him feel like an absolute scumbag to be on the other side of a coup even though it was a country he had no attachment to.

On the roof, he could hear gunfire echoing through the city. Mostly distant, but still close enough to make him uneasy. Another squad of contractors got themselves captured out in that mess, and Serhat was about to follow his squad into the same mess after they finished up with the document destruction. This was supposed to be an easy job, not like the Syrian incursions with the Turkish military. And this was just as morally grey as that. In Syria they helped bad guys fight other bad guys, here he's not sure which side is the good side, if there is one. This time he was risking his life for money rather than the grandiose delusions of an Islamist dictator, but is that any better? The job description made this out to be that he'd have to look intimidating to gangsters, nothing about having to fight his way through a war zone to rescue hostages. That was the story he gave his wife when he came here, that it wouldn't be dangerous. Now it was a very real possibility that he wouldn't come back to her. She probably heard about the coup on the news and was worried sick. Serhat had no time to call her and tell her that he was fine, that would have to wait until the mission was over.

He caught the hard drive that was tossed to him and inspected it. Samsung, 2 terabytes, a bunch of other computer nonsense on the label that he didn't understand. No matter, it had sensitive information on it and needed to be destroyed so that information couldn't fall into the wrong hands. He dropped the hard drive to the ground and grabbed a hammer from the nearby tool box and started to smash the small metal box. It probably would have been faster to shoot the hard drives, but the higher ups probably wanted to be extra thorough. And shooting them would have wasted valuable ammunition anyway.

With the hard drive smashed, he tossed the bits into the fire, grabbed another, and repeated the process. The gunfire continued to echo through the streets and mixed with the sounds of metal being smashed on the roof as the contractors went as fast as they could so they could get this over with.

[Ubaria]

Africa. Unfettered corruption. Offensive inequality. Social and ethnic segregation. Economic adversities. Home.

Sal found an uncanny solace in the fact that Ayania was like most other African nations he had spent his time working in, including his homeland of Cameroon, though perhaps the situation there wasn't as dire as this, the ingredients were still there. Did it bother him that he could be inadvertently contributing to some of the core issues that the continent faced? Perhaps a little. However his want, or firmly put, need, for quick and substantial amounts of liquid funds outweighed his undisclosed sense of treachery and self-loathing, the job had been practically served to him on a silver platter and in his position it would have been foolish to decline such an offer. Besides, it kept him busy and doing what he enjoyed, despite the circumstances and situation.

However recent events had thrown a great big spanner into the plan. Some of the other boys had got themselves neck deep in shit and had got themselves captured by elements of Gbadamosi's forces, Government troops, which had left Alexon in a rather sticky situation to put it plainly. Evidence of their involvement would mean all of them would be held liable for the events that had transpired and now they were off on their way to cleanup their paper trail, both physically and metaphorically.

The back of the old Mercedes minibus shifted around as the vehicle bounced down the dusty, pothole ridden streets. It was a locally sourced vehicle that was battered enough not to draw too many unwanted eyes, but if they were to look through the rear doors it was quite a different story. Several battle clad mercenaries sat flanking a GPMG, silent and contemplative, luckily nobody was too bothered with their presence. Except for the checkpoint guard up ahead. Matteo exchanged words with the guard at first in Yoruba and then in French. Sal understood a few words in Yoruba but otherwise it was a language that he hadn't spent much time speaking, there were vague similarities but otherwise it was something he hadn't heard spoken much during his time.

The fact that the van hadn't been riddled with rounds meant that the checkpoint guards were satisfied with the documents Matteo had presented and they were ushered through and onward towards the building.

Inside the facility, the torch and burn op was well underway. Workers were flitting about like a hive of busy worker bees, loading up carts full of folders, papers and information to be destroyed. Sal assisted in lifting the heavy carts up towards the roof where the remainder of the destruction process was to be undertaken.

One worker had bought up a sack full of hard-drives, the other, a bag full of tools which appeared to have probably been looted from a local garage.

"There has to be a quicker way than this." Sal scoffed, dragging a weighty claw hammer from one bag and the silver rectangular form of a hard drive case from the other.

The sound of weapon discharge in the distance drifted in through the sound of rain off the aggregate roofing and clattering metal, not that it particularly mattered, gunfire was as common here as birdsong.

Spinning the hammer around in his hand, Sal used the claw end first to inflict several heavy blows to the metal outer plating in an attempt to separate it from the plastic casing, it wasn't the whole hard drive they needed but the small hard disk inside, once in they would smash the small disk to pieces and dissolve the rest in acid just to be sure, they couldn't afford to leave one shred of information behind.

[Barboneia]

“What? You don’t like smashing things with hammers?”

Heimo couldn’t help but laugh a little to himself as he heard the disdain in Sal’s voice in regards to the hard drives. Until this point, he had been completely silent on the ride to the facility, staring out the window, his eyes scanning rooftops and alleyways for any one who could, potentionally, end his life quite quickly. He was always impressed with how people were able to hold themselves up in a war zone; despite the chaos going on, they could remain in their own little world, going about their business as if people weren’t dying or being brutalized all around them. These people, and all of the people in conflict areas, were very brave.

Or perhaps they had reached the point where they no longer cared.

In any case, the Finn had gone to work cracking open one of the hard drives, a cheerful expression on his face. It beat staring at a wall for hours on end, waiting for combat, and though it didn’t compare to shooting “the bad guys”, it was still somewhat fun. However, the distant gunfire only helped to to make Heimo more excited, as he knew they would probably be involved in the middle of it soon. He would relish that.

“You know, I once worked with a man who cracked an enemy’s head in with a claw hammer,” he said to no one in particular. “Or so he said. I never saw it for myself. How desperate would one’s situation need to be for them to do that, I wonder?”

[Vrijstaat Limburg]

Robert tilted his head up. He looked at the men sitting opposite of him, who all seemed to be lost in their own thoughts. Brackert wasn't used to covert warfare. He'd never driven in a modified Mercedes-Benz, in a city plagiarized by war and corruption. He turned his head towards one of the windows, and tried to peek out, to see what was going on in the streets, but the windows had been darkened with something, which would explain why it was so dark in the back. The bumpy city roads caused Robert to bump his head into the window about two times. It seemed that whatever he came up with couldn't quell his boredom. He tried to sit comfortably and lay back into the bench a bit.

He felt that the automobile had come to a halt, and he was curious to see why. He looked around in the van, and saw that the others weren't so interested. In response, he tried to look through the window once more, but he wasn't able to make out anything. After trying to peek through and see what was going on, Robert was forced back into his seat, as the van started driving again. He nearly fell to the floor, but managed to recover and sat down.

After waiting a short while, he felt that the van had stopped once again. He could see his section commander Matteo Marazonu order them out of the vehicle, so he hopped out at once. Brackert took a hold of his chest rig and threw it over his head. He tightened the strips and took out his trusty FN MAG, he then proceeded to throw the thick black sling over his left shoulder, so that the FN MAG was now bungling off his shoulder, hanging before his stomach horizontally. Brackert took the 7.62mm ammunition belt and carefully placed it around his shoulder and neck, forming an "ammunition necklace". He quickly grabbed his two ammunition boxes, grunted, and hurried behind his group.

Once the squad had managed to climb up the stairs, Robert was distracted by the ticking sound of rain splashing against the thin windows, and didn't pay attention to the people in the other room. His moment of thought was interrupted by his squad leader, saying:

"Brack, Head up to the roof and cover the southern road."

Robert quickly nodded his head and clenched his fists around the ammunition boxes, that were starting to become very heavy for him. He climbed up to the roof, and the rain irritated Robert. He carefully placed the closed ammunition boxes on the ground, and removed the ammunition belt from his shoulders. After stowing away his firearm's ammunition, he threw the sling off of his shoulders and crouched down on the ground to avoid being spotted from further away. Robert shoved his bipod forward, and placed his GPMG on the ground, so that he had a nice overwatch on the southern entrance. He could hear people moving up the stairs, and carefully waited for them to give him the order to help them destroy the data.

This order didn't come, though, and he could hear the squad leader giving the other men an order when sudden fire broke out. The isolated noise didn't scare Brackert anymore, but he wasn't expecting it, so he peeked his head to his left, trying to see what was going on. The cloudy and dark weather stopped him from seeing anything further than a hundred yards, and Robert just got on with checking on any movement in the southern exit. He felt the drops of rain falling down on his shirt, and he noticed that his shirt was getting drenched in water. He didn't want to be seen as the squad's bitch, so he didn't complain and just lied there on the hard concrete roof.

[Kentucky Fried Land]

His hand fidgeted at his sides.

Clifford watched the others head about the rooftop, eyes firmly planted on their weapons. Safe. Safety. Keep it that way. He was one of the ones on the cart, shoving upwards as the gaggle of privateers exhausted themselves towards the roof. Now, they were all standing before a bonfire of documents, dates and information fluttering into the sky before crumbling to ash. Nothing left, nothing more; that was the way things were to be. He understood it completely but he didn’t appreciate it.

Before coming in he had been handed a pair of neoprene gloves; he assumed as to not leave fingerprints all over the place and as to not get any acid on himself. A fair enough assumption, as he had been confronted by office workers carrying metal pails filled with the liquid just for him and his compatriots. He put his glasses on, the tint softening the flashing fluorescence of the stagnant inferno. Thick bundles of documents and shiny metal bits found their way into the fire, all distant memories but wrenching clogs amongst the burning. Not to mention the rain, but considering the size of the fire now, it would take a downpour to put a dent into it.

Heat brushed Andy, beads of sweat fogging his glasses and sticking his shirt to his chest. Despite the environment he was in, at least only one of his teammates had their gun out. He watched them fiercely, grimacing as he took out a screwdriver and opened up one of the hard drives. Something gnawed at him, thoughts running wild in the monotony of the disassembly line. He popped one of his gloves off and placed it underarm, reaching into his pocket to unsheath a pack of gum. He popped a stick in his mouth and chewed until his ears popped then put the glove back on and returned to work.

Gunfire was still rampant outside, neck muscles tensing up with shoulders. His veins pumped and ran amok, Clifford forcing hot spit down his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and was still; then it slowed down, falling to its original position before almost disappearing. The heat he could take; he had plenty of heat down in Argentina and out in Iraq. But heat mixed with gunfire, swirled amongst panicked and angered yells, copulating into the midst of Clifford’s nerve wracked brain.

He sighed as the others talked behind him; he didn’t know them very well. Sure, he had been introduced to all of them, met them a couple of times before maybe, seen them around every once in a while. How well did he know any of them, though? Maybe some families, maybe… but past that, it was a blur.

It was better that way.

The complaints about work and the brief offer of a man who killed others with a hammer were commonplace. Maybe not something he enjoyed talking about, but commonplace. Clifford opened his minted mouth for the first time. His head turned to the Finn, his eyes glaring and mouth upturned into confusion. “I don’t know man. Something.” And that was that; he returned to the job at hand, holding up the pieces of tech in one hands, before letting them drift away into the encrusting acid.

[The Armed Republic of Dutch Coolness]

Ayania was every part the disastrous shithole that one could expect an African country and former French colony to be, rich with oil and fresh into a coup as it was.

Lennert looked down at the MP5 hidden on the vehicle's floor in front of him by the passenger seat, out of sight. The streets were littered with armed men - one could barely call them soldiers, if one were to ask him - until the streets started quieting down as they entered the part of town where conflict had obviously been raging, the car eventually approaching a checkpoint. He sighed, running a hand through his hair as the car came to a halt. He gave a light nod as a man in an old French uniform approached the van and hailed them. This wasn't the first time he'd found himself in a vehicle held up at a checkpoint in the middle of a conflict-ridden region, but nevertheless he tensed up ever so slightly, ready to reach out for his weapon at a moment's notice should things go sour. He made sure not to show it, though, instead listening to Matteo Marazonu, the Italian and the squad's leader as he conversed with the man. The Dutchman was unable to follow the Yoruba, but the French he did understand, and only a few moments had to pass before the minibus could drive on.

The streets here had seen more than a fair share of conflict, and nobody other than coup soldiers walked them. Had the checkpoint not let them pass, they'd be fucked, and then some. No more than five minutes passed before they arrived at their destination, at least for the time being, Matteo driving the group inside and parking near the stairs. Stepping out of the vehicle, Lennert put on his vest and rolled up his sleeves, strapping his MP5 to his vest, HK416 strapped to his back. The stuff was expensive and, while heavy, he'd rather be doing some hauling around than just abandon the stuff in a parking garage: better safe than sorry. Their job here was simple enough, at least: destroy evidence. Remove documents and hard drives, make sure nobody gets to read whatever juicy, sensitive information was in them, and that'd be that. The hard part would come later. Their people had been captured by the general Mpomassie's, and who knew what they were suffering through now.

The offices were rife with action, office workers out and about, keeping themselves busy with clearing up the place. That was good: it'd save them, the Axalon lot, from having to spend a very, very long day or two of getting rid of all the documentation found in here. Rain battered the windows as they made their way through the hallway. Home sweet home. Lennert allowed himself a faint smile before pushing any thoughts of home and, perhaps more importantly, family out of his mind. They had a mission, and it'd be no good to get distracted from it - certainly not in the situation they were in in this country.

They made their way up to the rooftop, where evidently, a lot of paperwork had been burned already - although likely before it had started raining as it did, now. At least fuel was still plentiful enough for the job at hand, evidenced by the two filled jerry cans of the stuff. Fire started taking care of the paper remnants soon enough, which left them with the hard drives until the acid would arrive. Grabbing himself some of them, together with a solid metal wrench, Lennert started doing his part as in the east, gunfire started breaking out. Far away enough, though. At least for now. Repeatedly, he drove the metal wrench into the solid disks, preening the actual important bits from it as he roughly bashed his way inside of the casing. "Undoubtedly, but unless you've any alternatives to suggest..." He responded to Sal with a shrug, a Dutch accent vaguely present as he spoke, despite all of his years abroad.

He continued his work for a while, smashing several hard disks, before gathering up the pieces, carefully dropping them into the acid brought forth by the office workers. With that done, he turned his eyes towards the city for a moment, taking it all in, watching as a current started to form in an old, undoubtedly poorly maintained, flood channel behind the building. He wondered for how long it'd last if this rain would keep up, and if they'd be done here by the time it'd give in. His eyes moved back towards the flames, acid, and the busywork of the others. Long enough, he hoped.

[Rohst]

Henry sat by one of the doors, bouncing up and down as the Mercedes van bumbled along the muddy road. This wasn't the first time he found himself in a vehicle like this, in some godforsaken war zone, surrounded by armed men he barely knew. This certainly wouldn't be the last time either. The automobile eased to a stop, he rested his left hand on the door release handle, his other around the folded weapon between his legs. Just in case.

After a brief exchange of words and papers, the checkpoint guards let them through. The machine under him pulled forward until another eventual stop, this time in the facility's parking garage. Henry opened the door, and a wave of mercenaries poured out after him.

---

With his gear on, weapons holstered or slung, he and the others made their way up into the office building. Busy workers rushing to shred papers or destroy incriminating company evidence. Too much was here though; the squad leader began tasking them with doing the same. A tool box was left out, along with a box of computer hard drives. Hands going after wrenches and hammers to destroy little blocky pieces of technology. These parts had to be worth a hell of a lot to the right people, Henry thought, as he brought a claw hammer down into the one in front of him.

Some of his squad mates were making idle conversation, yet funnily enough, no one seemed to be talking to anyone in particular. That kind of thing seems to happen a lot in this field of work, even during "down time" like this. It wasn't like the Army where he knew his squadmates just as well as he knew himself. No one here really knew each other, and it was better that way. Chatter, distant gunshots, metal tools breaking hard drives and papers being ripped and shredded, it all blended together into a cacophony of sounds familiar to the Dutchman. He began bringing the hammer down in an almost rhythmic beat to it.

After all, breaking shit and killing people what was Henry was paid to do, and he's a professional.

[Insaeldor]

“Can't say.” I told Jarvie. Little shocked, Back in Iraq I had a Norwegian guy tell me Finns always needed 5 meters of personal space or they’d get pissy. Guess that wasn’t the case with Jarvie. The most talkative of the group by far. I took my hammer and struck my hard drive a few times before throwing it all into the bucket of acid we had brought up.

“Last one.” Markku said as he threw the bits of a disk into the pale. We looked out into the cityscape now that the good portion of the work had been done. The popping of rifle fire had increase in intensity. It was still pretty far. You could see plums of smoking coming from the east. The largest structure on the horizon was the Iwasoke Broadcast Tower, It clung to the side of Iwasoke, the largest Mountain in the city district. It tower far above the bright old Franco-African architecture of the city. As we looked out the shock of several blasts overtook us. The sounds came behind us, it shook the building and kicked us the thin layer of dust on the roof. Me and Markku ducked into a crouch, a normal reaction. Moments later a slightly duller blast shook the trees on the slopes of Iwasoke as a fireball on then a cloud of dust and smoke surrounded the base of the tower.

“Holy fuck.” One of the office workers yelled. It was immediately followed by a second equally as loud and thunderous. Another blast, this time the blast was noticeably larger and the sound of the explosion a most brassy blast. Through the smoke we could see the crumpling of red and white steel, the sounds echoed through the city streets and the air above the building as it fell to the ground. The tower folded in and upon itself as its fell. Another could of dust rose up from the site. We all looked on with amazement for a moment. Markku Grabbed me by the shoulder.

“What the fuck was that.” His face white like a pearl

“Not sure.” My voice was a little shaken, this seemed like an escalation of of the conflict, gun fire and all that seemed natural for something like this, but now we have someone shelling civilian infrastructure, big ass shells too.

“Well let's finish this up and get the fuck out of here.” Markku’s face regained a bit of color as he talked. It was then that more explosions rippled through the city, though not as close as the others. A few moments later a low hum echoed around the city. To the south was a small grey blip in the sky, descending from the hills that flanked the capital from the south. It grew in size and the hum grew louder. I got down onto my knee, hopefully keeping myself a bit more concealed. It was obviously a plane, but I could not really tell what kind it was. But as it approached a single object fell from it, It was maybe a couple seconds before a loud explosion and fireball rose from the cityscape. The plane kept going until it turned, from the profile I could tell it was a Super Tucano.

“Fuck, let's get the fuck off of here!” My bodies first reaction was to flip up the stock and shoulder my rifle. It was time to get the fuck out of here and head out. It was getting heavy out there and we only had a limited amount of time before things could get worse.

“Steegmans, lead the team back down. Brack you’re gonna stay with me.” My voice was heavy but I felt clear. We were only a few kilometers from Ile Ofeefee and that needed to be our primary concern going forward now that our job here was finished.

[The Armed Republic of Dutch Coolness]

The building shook as from behind, several loud blasts rang, the shock sending dust kicking up despite the ever-present rain. Instinctively, Lennert immediately crouched down, covering his face with an arm as an initial response to the blast, before quickly rising to investigate the situation - to the east, more and more clouds of smoke began rising from the city as the firefights there seemed to become increasingly prevalent, even if it remained at a distance.Then, another blast was heard, a fireball followed by a cloud of dust and smoke surrounding the base of the Iwasoke Broadcast Tower up above, which was immediately followed up by another blast, and the tower began crumbling, falling down onto the ground as a dust cloud washed over the nearby area. "Fuck." Was the only comment he gave, watching the situation unfold.Things were getting worse, and Lennert was ready to get a move on, but he waited for the order to be given.

More explosions rippled through the city, in the distance, and humming noise kept ever closer - as Matteo knelt down to try and stay out of sight, so did Lennert, and for good reason - the source was an airplane, and most definitely not a civilian one. It dropped something, and a mere moment later, fire rose up in the sky as yet another explosion rocked the cityscape. "Fuck, let's get the fuck off of here! Steegmans, lead the team back down."Heart pumping, Lennert rose again. "You heard the man, let's get a move on!" With his left hand, the Dutchman motioned for the group to follow him, their work up on the roof done anyways, as he rapidly paced for the staircase.

Stepping back inside, he descended down the staircase and into the hallway on the fourth floor, running a hand through his hair, wet from the rain. Before, the office workers had been all abuzz because of all the paperwork that had been destroyed. Now, they were more concerned about the building potentially getting destroyed, with them in it. If some of Axelon's people here with him had shown shock at the situation growing worse, the office workers did so and then some. "Out of the way!" He shouted as he marched through the hallway, moving for the staircase. "Écartez vous!" Pushing past several people that still stood in the hallway, likely flabbergasted by the explosions from mere moments ago and, perhaps, the sudden arrival of a group of armed men marching through the office, he pressed on.

Making the way further down the staircase, he eventually reached the basement level, where the parking garage was, as humid as when they left it, earlier.Steadily moving onward, Lennert approached the minibus, turning around to address the group. "Get in!" He gave a nod towards the converted MB100's doors. "It's sounding to me like someone 'round these parts doesn't want people to keep on communicating, way they handled that tower. We've finished our job here but we've still got work to do down in Ile Oeefee, and if that wasn't urgent enough before earlier, it certainly is now. I'm not expecting those men up at the checkpoint to be as nice to us as they were earlier, nor any of their likes at other checkpoints throughout the city. Be ready for anything, and let's get going!"

[Barboneia]

"Well, this other time, back in Iraq, we were- What the fuck?!" Heimo gasped as he heard the explosion far to the east, at the Iwasoke Broadcast Tower, and he immediately threw himself against the ground, bracing himself for the shock-waves that followed. He shook in disgust as he was coated with dust; rain he was fine with, but dust AND rain was terrible to him. He watched, blinking rapidly to clear the filth from his eyes, as the tower collapsed, and an expression of awe overcame his face. "Shit, that's not good."

Heimo slowly got back up to his feet, but almost immediately regretted doing this as he watched the plane approach and bomb whatever it had been aiming at. His eyes were wide. He hadn't expected the military action to escalate this quickly, and he felt that remaining in the capital wound be a death sentence at this rate. Despite this, he knew that they had a job to do, and best of all, he was being paid for it. That was all the motivation he needed, and it was the same motivation that had led him to accept this line of work in the first place for the past decade. Although, he preferred doing it without getting sent home in pieces. Dying to bullets is one thing, but dying in an explosion by an enemy who doesn't even directly see you is a bit embarrassing.

At the suggestion of Steegmans, Heimo followed the squad down as they went back through the offices, which were even more hectic than before, back to the van that they had originally arrived in down in the basement. Heimo felt his stomach drop as they entered the subterranean parking garage, however. If the building was hit by artillery, or a bomb, or whatever, then they'd survive it down here, but... The building could come down on top of them! They'd be trapped for god knows how long. And with basically the entire city at war, there wouldn't be much of an emergency response to rescue them, either. He was thankful that they would be leaving soon, at least.

Before getting into the MB100, Heimo turned to Steegmans, a concerned expression on his face. "Hey, uh... Speaking of communicating, are we in... communications with the government forces? Or, uh, you know, the ones that we're on the side of? Like, do they know not to shoot us or our van? Or bomb us? Because that would... Be unfortunate." He gulped, trying not to think to hard on his own suggestion that they might end up either shot or blown up by their supposed "allies".

[Reverend Norv]

Heimo, the Finn, talked about what it would take to kill a man with a hammer. Andy Clifford, the black American, said: "I don't know, man. Something." Nadav curled his fingers, touched their tips to the circular scars upon his palms, breathed the smoky wet air and let it take him far from that cellar in Jenin.

With the whole team working, soon all the remaining hard drives had been reduced to smouldering heaps of ash or acid. Nadav turned away, and wiped his palms on his trousers, as if trying to clean his hands. There was more gunfire now; his X95 hung on a tactical sling under one arm, and Nadav tapped its barrel absentmindedly as he processed the implications of what he was hearing. This much shooting doesn't sound like scattered gang firefights. It feels like a bigger engagement.

Something moved in the air. Nadav felt the dust at his feet suddenly rise from the roof and hit his calves, and so he knew that the blast wave was coming, and he flung himself flat. A plume of fire soared skyward behind him, and he felt the heat on the back of his neck; another bloomed in front of him, maybe two klicks away, on the slopes of Iwasoke where the city's radio tower stood. Nadav got back up onto one knee, and listened to steel scream and shear as the tower collapsed in an expanding cloud of dust.

He thought of an airstrike he'd seen in Gaza once. That had been an apartment building. This was better.: less screaming He cocked his head, and listened more closely, and heard what he expected to hear: the throbbing hum of engines. A grey dot on the southern horizon expanded into a warplane, and Nadav, for just a moment, could actually see the bomb that dropped toward the earth. Then another vast yellow-orange flower bloomed in the grey city streets.

Artillery and warplanes. We've lost control of the Ayanian military. Or at least some part of it. Mpomassie is getting his orders out. Nadav looked around the roof. Several of the mercs were noticeably ashen. They should be.

Marazonu told Steegmans to get the team back to the vehicle. The Dutchman rose and gestured urgently. Nadav, with the casual informality that typified the IDF, simply followed Steegmans back into the building as if he were walking out to get coffee. He watched as the Dutchman shouted and shoved his way through the office, down toward the garage. Once, Nadav reached out to steady an older man whom Steegmans had bounced off the wall. "Pardon," he offered in quiet, faintly accented French.

Death would come when it came, Nadav Behar had long ago realized. The brevity of life was no excuse for rudeness.

The team arrived at the van in good time. There, Steegmans spun on his heel and addressed the other mercs. "It's sounding to me like someone 'round these parts doesn't want people to keep on communicating, way they handled that tower. We've finished our job here but we've still got work to do down in Ile Oeefee, and if that wasn't urgent enough before earlier, it certainly is now. I'm not expecting those men up at the checkpoint to be as nice to us as they were earlier, nor any of their likes at other checkpoints throughout the city. Be ready for anything, and let's get going!"

Nadav almost snorted. Yes: let's assume that every faction in the city, including the one that we just helped to stage a coup, is now hostile. That makes much more sense than trying to understand what's actually going on here. After all, the latter might present us with a problem that we couldn't shoot our way out of. He shook his head ruefully. Can't have that.

Heimo seemed, at least instinctively, to have drawn the same conclusion: he asked Steegmans whether they were still in communication with pro-coup forces. Nadav nodded. "Our first priority," he said in his calm, Hebrew-accented French, "should be to get in contact with Kelanitunde or his staff, and find out what's going on. Walking into a red zone without adequate intelligence or support is a good way to get killed - by friendly fire if not by hostiles. And we are no good to the guys at Ile Ofeefee if we're dead." The Israeli shrugged. "There are necessary risks, and then there is stupidity. Let's stay on the right side of that line, n'est-ce pas?"

[Ubaria]

“What? You don’t like smashing things with hammers?”

Sal looked up and over to the Finn and shrugged one of his shoulders to the side. " It just seems a bit ... archaic ... That's all " He continued beating the second hard-disk with the claw end of the hammer, perforating the outer shell with several well place blows, before prying the plastic casing away using the pronged ends as leverage to reveal the electronic innards beneath. Sal continued the rhythmic destructive dismantling of the hard disks for a short while, the melancholic feeling of measured destruction began to numb the sensation of warm rain rolling off his back and the oppressive intensity of the burning documents just a few meters away on his exposed skin. He was just about done tossing the last of his allotted workload into the pale of hydrochloric acid when a series of blasts rocked the nearby area, thumping the air with such tenacity that could be felt at the pit of Sal's stomach. Loose concrete and gravel scattered around the roof jumped in time with the blasts, the pale of acid rattled agitatedly.

Sal spun around to face where the blasts had originated from, every set of eyes had turned to observe the rising plumage of dull brown dust laced smoke only perhaps a couple of kilometers away. Sal parted his lips to speak but another blast, fiercer than the preceding ones, erupted from the ground at the base of the Telecom tower, through the haze of the debris the tip of the steel structure slowly listed to the side and plummeted in on itself, steel beams folding away like a cascade of matchsticks to the ground, the cacophony of creasing steel and metallic clanging overpowered the area.

“What the fuck was that.”

“Not sure.”

"Whatever it was, i don't plan to be up here if they hit any closer."

Sal's ears rung with tinnitus induced from the blasts, and through that ringing a faint droning could be heard. He could have been forgiven for thinking it was another parasitic insect, though the others had heard it too, and it was growing louder. Everybody cranked their heads to the south where from the sky, a grey-ish blot stood out against the skies, a plane. It didn't take long for the others to come to the same conclusion and by that time it had already loosened it's payload. A single bomb careened from the undercarriage and slammed into the heart of the city, another explosion followed which was more violent than the others, an outward billowing dome of rippling fire crested the rooftops and then some.

"Merde"

Sal swallowed. His throat parched from the humid African heat had cracked his voice, but he remained ready to act.

The team didn't remain on the roof for much longer. Steegman led most of the team back down through the offices that they had passed through on their way up here, now with a distinct lack of paperwork. Several of the office workers were huddled around the windows, peering out to see what all the commotion was about. A bad idea.

"Away from the windows! Éloigne-toi des fenêtres! " He yelled, ushering away the dozen or so workers who were pressed to the glass like curious dogs. A blast any closer would easily shatter the windows or throw stray debris through them leading to some nasty injuries. Sal kept moving, following Steegmans down to the parking garage where they all loaded back up into the Mercedes van, this time with guns clutched in hand. Nadav and Heimo discussed a plan of action with Steegmans whilst Sal hydrated his dried throat with a lukewarm plastic bottle of water that had been left in the van.