xp_logs | Congress of Behram: Flashpoint

X-Force finally gets face to face with SIROCCO, but are they able to keep them from their target?

Bait plans were always the worst. You had two objectives that split your objective. You had to identify and neutralize your opposition, while keeping the bait safe and unharmed. Those things were not always particularly easy, and often you got forced to settle being successful in one or the other. Getting Xavier killed would not particularly go over well with his friends, and from his position on the second floor, watching the crowd on the main conference lobby below, his mind turned over all the ways this was potentially a bad idea.

Unfortunately, it was also the only move they had left.

Remy's cellphone was at his ear, which was a surprisingly good cover since Blackberrys and phones were the default action of the people at the conference. "Jake, you in position on de floor." The shapeshifter was their ace in the hole, there to shadow anyone who picked up in the wake of Charles' progress.

"Set," Jake murmured, flipping idly through a pamphlet he'd picked up from one of the tables as he wandered through the crowd, moving with the flow of traffic. Ahead he could just make out Charles and Kurt moving across the room. "Nothing yet. Anyone else have a traffic update?"

David wafted through the crowd, muttering the occasional polite apology in his native tongue as he casually bumped against the other conference attendees, subtly testing for the trained balance of an operative, or the telltale feel of a nylon holster under a wool-and-linen suit.

"I have nothing on my end. Xavier and Sefton moving past Lee's station and--" At the moment he looked over towards Jubilee, he caught a glimpse of the man he and Remy had been chasing earlier. "Jubilee, target is in a tan blazer, six-four, military short haircut. At your three o'clock... now."

Jubilee held her phone up and took a photo, brushed her hair back with an idle hand, and then placed the phone against her ear. It was the movement of someone who wasn't in any particular hurry, if they'd allowed smoking, she might have completed the look with a quick cigarette while she was waiting. "Got 'im, sending through the image now. Jake, there's a guy coming up from the south, maybe...5 feet behind you now, looks like the guy I cornered in that suite."

She patched in a few numbers to her phone, and then hit send, passing on the photo she'd taken to everyone.

"I've got movement wit' him. David, to you right. Dey starting to form up." Remy saw the ripples in the crowd from his perch. Two with the convention goers, which meant the other two were likely disguised as service people. The small conference room that Xavier's meet was in crossed a service hallway, and then into a more private area of the centre. Anyone with a map and the location would be able to pinpoint the route they had to take.

"Jubilee, Jake, break off and get to de stairwell. David, you're going to slam de trap shut behind dem. Don't tip dem off too early." Remy was already moving, heading for his own position. The best way to stop an ambush is to know where it has been set up, and ambush them before hand.

North kept watch on the assassins through his peripheral vision, feeling the comforting weight of the stolen handgun under his coat. A shootout would mean absolute chaos, but with timing, the worst of it could be averted. He casually walked up a half-set of stairs and past a delegation of French defense contractors, using the temporary altitude to gain a view of the entire room.

To anyone else, it would have been like picking specific fish out of an entire school. But years of fieldcraft had taught Maverick exactly how to pick out even the most trained operatives from a crowd of civilians. Just look for the four of them all heading for the same point...

"They're going to rally once they get into the service hallway," he spoke into the hands-free earpiece. "Xavier and Sefton are at the elevator... now. And our quarry's moving with a purpose."

Jake paused at a table advertising some sort of waste reclamation system designed around a chemical synthesized from some poor bastard's secretions, making eye contact with the girl across the table from him. "May I?" he asked politely, picking up a brochure as the second target passed behind him. "Thanks," he murmured, turning away from the table as he checked his watch, then tucked the pamphlets in a pocket and started to walk, moving perpendicularly from the direction his target had gone. Once he was clear of the tables he aimed for the stairwell, keeping his attention divided between the two targets knifing their way through the crowd and unobtrusively maneuvering through the crush of people. He could just see the top of Jubilee's head disappearing through the doorway ahead as he stepped around a
woman who'd stopped in the middle of the path to talk loudly and excitedly into her cell phone.

"We're in position," he reported as he stepped through the doorway himself.

Jubilee was already moving up the stairs as Jake entered the stairwell behind her. Considering they wanted the quarry to all be there before they made an appearance, she was taking the slower route of actually walking up the stairs, rather then simply jumping for the closest cross point and making her way up that way.

Even so, it didn't take her long to reach the door to the floor that Xavier and Bastion would be meeting on. She paused at the door, waiting for Jake to join her and then pulled her phone out. "We're ready when you are."

"They've entered the elevator." Remy was now moving quickly. He darted down a side corridor. "David, take de next elevator. I'll hit dem as dey come out. Jake, Jubilee, once you hear me attack, I want sound and fury when you hit de hallway. By de time North hits dem from behind, dey have to be looking to break free and rush for Xavier's room for dis to work."

Remy slowed at the corner, and he could see the closed stairwell door that Jake and Jubilee were waiting behind. The elevator pinged, and by using the reflection on the glass of a piece of genaric artwork, he could see the assassins form up at the elevator, and move with purpose down the hallway. Remy calculated quickly, trusting that North would be no more than thirty second from reaching the floor.

With a grim smile, Remy flashed a card, and turned the corner, hitting the man in front with a charged card and knocking him back to the others. They had to be careful about too much evidence of the attack, and Remy's charged cards had the advantage of leaving no traces. There were four men, all fitting the profile they expected, and all moving with carefulness that was associated with enhanced physical traits.

"Shield your eyes." Jubilee noted, then closed her phone, pulled a set of shades out of her pocket and stepped out into the hallway. It was only a few seconds later that a brilliant flash lit up the area, followed by the loud sound of fireworks.

It would have blinded and possibly deafened anyone close enough to get a good look at it, and she smiled as she watched the men blinking rapidly in the slowly lessoning light. She had more where that came though, and she let several small sparks shift from her fingers, heading toward the clothing of the men.

The assassins stumbled backwards, hands up protectively to ward off the worst of Jubilee's fireworks. One's coat was engulfed in flames and he lunged for a nearby fire station, only to find the extinguisher lifted out of his reach. Glancing up, he could see Maverick grinning, eyes hidden behind a pair of dark glasses.

"Guten Tag,", the former Stasi operative said before swinging the fire extinguisher like a baseball bat, connecting with the assassin's temple.

This is so going to hurt, Jake thought as Jubilee's pyrotechnics faded and he launched himself towards the assassins, angling to stay out of everyone else's line of fire as he leapt at one of the men. Despite being on the Jubilee Plan, not to mention Moira making him eat a gargantuan steak dinner the moment she'd set eyes on him, Jake still hadn't managed to put back much bulk on his frame, so rather than adding much muscle he'd instead tweaked his reflexes and adrenaline for maximum effect.

The assassin he'd chosen was easily a head taller than Jake, and judging from his reaction to the fireworks, he was the kind of guy who got pissed when things didn't go his way. Jake ducked out of the way of a swinging fist, then dodged the hand that tried to grab him around the throat. He darted forward to land a quick set of blows on his opponent's floating ribs, then stepped back out of reach. He had the guy's full attention now, and he tried to tell himself that this was a good thing as the assassin bore down on him like a freight train.

Fortunately, Remy intercepted the man's rush, a vicious kick to his throat that did not have the effect that was expected. "Armored throat. Thank god de CIA never thought up dat one." The Cajun muttered, avoiding a blow that smashed through the plaster beside his head, and shoved a charged card into his gut pointblank. The impact drove him back, and the melee was quickly moving into a free for all.

Walking almost casually through the melee, North twisted his body out of the way just before a punch would have crippled him. Bringing the fire extinguisher up sharply under the chin of the nearest assassin, he frowned as he felt the metal dent and curve as if he'd tried to use it to smash concrete.

"Huh," he muttered. "Didn't see that coming." He ducked his head to the side to dodge another punch. "Saw that coming, though." In the same motion, he whipped the nozzle of the fire extinguisher around the larger man's neck, leaving him wearing the bulging canister of pressurized gas like an oversized medallion. Using his opponent's momentum to aid him, he placed one hand at the assassin's elbow and spun him around, pushing him forward with a kick. "Jubilation, one coming in on your left."

Jubilee allowed herself to fall backward, and then kicked up using the assassins momentum to send him over her in a short arc before she jumped to her feet again.

"Thanks. Ugly guy comin' in at your six." she said, before turning and letting another blast of pyrotechnics blind the assassin that had recovered and was heading back toward her. "Didn't your mother ever tell you it wasn't nice to hit girls?" she asked, before punching him in the face. It hurt. It really hurt. Iron jaw to go with the enforced neck? She ducked as the assassin punched back, then twisted around the man and punched him in the kidney, somewhere on these guys had to be vulnerable.

Joints were made to bend, Jake figured, planting one foot into the back of the assassin's knee. It was a something of a success--the man's knee buckled, but he was still able to recover more quickly than most. The thug twisted, managing to throw an elbow that clipped Jake across the bridge of the nose before he could duck out of the way.

"Ow!" He winced, clamping down on his pain receptors before he could get distracted and ignoring the blood running from his nose--he could deal with that later. The point wasn't to disable, only distract, he reminded himself. To that end, Jake planted his feet and put his head down, driving his shoulder into the other man's midsection and sending the two of them sprawling away from the fray.

One of the men raised his arm, and Remy hit Jubilee low to knock her out of the way as a spray of tear gas went up in the hallway. It forced North back, and Jake was unceremoniously tossed aside from the man he’d tackled. There was a shout in Arabic, which fortunately Remy spoke, and he heard their order to hit the room that they’d seen the Professor wheeled into. The gas was forming a choking cluster, and anyone trying to fight through it to follow them would be left choking and helpless; an easy target for removal.

Remy could have almost thanked the man, as he waved for everyone to disperse. Like front in spring thaw, the X-Force operatives melted away, disappearing from the hall and leaving no trace of their being present.

As for SIROCCO, they were angry, frustrated, and tired of the counter-operation being run against them. But, their leader reflected, it had failed. The meeting was through a door leading to an interior private conference room. No windows, soundproofed, and no escape possible. He mused for a second whether or not to kill the American professor as well as Bastion, deciding to see what happened as they took him.

They went through the door as a unit, the lead snapping the lock and tossing in the flashbang as they entered. Their eyes were shut, as the last man pushed the door shut behind him. They opened their eyes cautiously, making sure that the flash had died and left their targets helpless.

Daciot stood up from the head of the large table. He seemed totally unaffected by the bomb, and behind them, two Indian men stepped between them and the door. Six of the Imperial Guard now ringed the assassins.

“Ah, the SIROCCO assassination team that our contacts mentioned. Lilandra Neramani, who I and the rest of my Imperial Guard were charged to defend from all threats, launched this conference. You constitute a major threat to her. We’d like to… resolve this situation.” The Imperial Guard closed in, and Daciot smiled. “Permanently.”

The assassins had been right. The room was completely soundproof afterall.