The Zodiac: LEO Log 2 - Africa

[xp-changeling.livejournal.com]

Kevin and Nina follow the banking trail, making a deal with a panicked mercenary for a meeting in Africa



Kevin looked longingly over his shoulder at the receding skyline of Mombasa. The cosmopolitan city was one of the better places in Africa to do business; plenty of excellent bars, tourists and business people coming and going, and a thriving community of beautiful women. No, instead, he was headed to one of the great garbage piles of the country; Magongo. No stable infrastructure, intermittent power outages, a shanty town for the poor who laboured in the industrial sectors of the city. The only thing that Magongo had beyond grinding poverty was the fact that no one cared in the slightest about the people there. It made it an effective place to hide, even for a white man.

"His instructions were to look for an old Coca-Cola sign on the building." Kevin said into Domino's ear, over the sounds of the slum and the jeep's engine.

"Good old Coke, always there when you need it. Whoever said global monopolies were a bad thing, huh?" Dom reached up to itch behind her ear; she always felt immediately dusty and grimy after five minutes in a Jeep, even with its windows up. And this one's windows weren't up.

"At the Agency, we used to joke that if Coke didn't exist, we'd have to create it. Do you have any idea how much intel we used to move through false bottles and hidden spaces in Coke deliveries?" Kevin shifted in his seat, scanning for the sign. "Wait, I think I see it. Up on the right."

Dom craned her neck to follow his directions; sure enough the familiar symbol hung dustily off the side of a building that seemed to be mostly constructed out of corrugated metal and chain link. "Bingo." With a twist of the wheel she pulled into the nearest alleyway and killed the engine, patting her hands down her sides in an almost subconscious check of her weapons and comms equipment. "Right, let's do this."

"Hang on. I'd like the jeep to still have tires and an engine when we get back." Kevin waved over an older gentleman who was sitting on a cracked old chair at the corner of the building. He didn't speak English, but a combination of French and the bit of Swahili Kevin knew, along with a couple of bills, earned them a temporary security guard for the jeep. He waited for Dom to join him and pushed open the door. The bar was only that by generous terms. A collection of mismatched tables and chairs filled the space beyond a makeshift barrier and a dented old fridge. A collection of bottles was behind the man standing there, and Kevin just pointed at the cheap scotch. They traded bottle and bills, and with a couple of extra glasses, went to join the only other white face in the room.

Even having arranged this meeting ahead of time their contact didn't seem happy to see them; he eyed them suspiciously as they approached and checked the room and the exits with a practised glance. His expression was unfriendly - or maybe that was just the scar.

Dom didn't bother with a smile as she paused by the table, merely waiting until he gave a jerky nod and then sliding into her seat, leaving Sydney to take the outside chair. She didn't like being cut off from her escape route, but she was shorter and slighter than him. If anyone was going to be ducking under tables or twisting around chairs it'd be her.

"You my investors?"

"Could be." Kevin filled up three glasses from the bottle and passed them around. "You got something worth investing in?"

The man downed the drink and scowled. "You already know the answer to that."

"Okay, so the question is are you going to tell us about it?" Dom asked after the wince from the bad scotch had subsided.

The contact - Scarlotti, an apt name if there ever was one - eyed her with a frown, then shrugged. "If you've got the cash. The bastards lost my loyalty when they doublecrossed us on-site and killed my partner."

"Aw, no honour among mercenaries, who'd have thought," Dom quipped, though she was quickly silenced by a look from Kevin.

"We've got ten grand on hand, and we can transfer an additional twenty-five to an account of your choice. If the intel is good."

Scarlotti paused for a moment and nodded. "Deal."

"Good. So start from the beginning. The more details you leave out, the more we deduct from your payday."

"Fine." He said, exasperated. "We got hired by a group to secure an old CIA site about six hundred miles west of it. It was a relic from the Cold War, decommissioned for a couple of decades. The job was easy; secure the location, remove these stored containers from a secure room and head north to deliver them to another contact on the North African coast. A three days job for the six of us, start to finish. Group refuses to give us names, just uses Z. So, we fly in, kit up and reach the site without any trouble. Other than some scavenging in the old public room, place is pretty much untouched and the secure level is still locked up tight. We set the charges and pull the cases that their wanted. Otto pulls around the truck, Gary and I start loading it up while the rest of the guys hold the perimeter. We were joking that they could have sent FedEx instead of mercenaries for the job."

He refilled his glass and took a long drink. "That's when a sniper takes off half of Kaleem's face with one shot. We try to fall back into the building when this bitch is suddenly right on top of us. She hit Louis so hard that his skull fucking crumpled. Like a shattered light bulb. I put at least two separate three round bursts in her torso, right on the x zone. Barely fucking slows her down. In seconds, only Gary and I are left alive and that's because we were on the other side of the building when everything started to go down. We book, me with the truck going one way, him in the jeep going the other. Just as we're moving, I hit the detonator. I figure, fuck 'em. They should have warned us about this kind of opposition. Building goes up and in my rear view, I see that bitch walk out of the fireball."

It might've been weird to hear that a few months ago, but by now it was becoming shockingly commonplace. Walked through an inferno? Probably a mutant, eh, oh well. Must be Thursday.

"So you blew the site and got away with the only remaining cases. And this woman saw you do it," Dom reiterated, much to Scarlotti's annoyance.

"S'what I said, isn't it?" he snapped, scowling at her. "Gary and I booked it to Tripoli, figured we could lie low there for a while until we figured out what the fuck was going on, but we'd only been in town two days before we get jumped - and these aren't just your usual militia thugs you see around the place. I get out but Gary doesn't, and from there I go to ground, hoping that these guys will call off whatever hit they've got on me in exchange for the cases. I haven't heard from 'em yet. So I figure if I can make them someone else's problem, all the better."

"Two people. No one would bother sniping from a distance they could close in a handful of seconds." Kevin said, the incident taking shape in his head. "Where are the cases now?"

"There's an old airfield about a hundred klicks north, north-west by Juli. I stashed them in an old stripped down DC2 that's rotting there.You pay me, you can do whatever you want with them."

Dom exchanged a glance with her partner; he barely had to tip his head for her to get the message. "Alright," she said, turning back to Scarlotti, "you give us the GPS details, we'll give you what we've got. Once we get there and check it out we'll wire you the rest. You can show 'em the receipt if they show up at your house trying to repossess it all, tell them to come talk to us."

It was a pretty sound plan, all told. Too bad their foes had no intention of letting them carry it out. There was a shout across the room, the sound of shattering glass, and then all hell broke loose.

The sudden rush caught Kevin flat footed as a woman came through the partially glass planed window at a run and burst in. She barely paused, shooting the man in front of her down, eyes tracking around for her target. Scarlotti had his gun out immediately and fired twice. She pulled a patron in front of her with obviously inhuman reflexes, letting his body absorb both shots.

"Shit!" The first sign of trouble had Dom ducking beneath the table, but as soon as she was down she was out, pushing herself up off the floor and unholstering her weapon. This was the woman who walked through fire - putting her down wasn't going to be easy. Better would be getting Scarlotti out and away; with that in mind she waved her free hand vaguely towards the only other exit in the place. "Run for it - we'll hold her off s'long as we can!"

"Yeah, fuck this!" Scarlotti said, backing up as he fired. Kevin had joined in, hitting the woman squarely in the shoulder. She barely seemed to register the impact of the 9mm slug, killing another man between them in her deadly closing with them. Scarlotti reached the other exit and pulled the door open, only to snap back at the sound of a rifle crack. He prodded his chest dumbly for a moment as the blood began to pool across his shirt and then fell over. A second shot rang out, this one tearing away part of his head as it smashed into his skull.

"Wonderful." Kevin muttered, lining up a head shot. The woman scooped up a chair and flung it as if it was weightless, crashing into Kevin and driving him into the wall. Her attention suddenly divided, Dom didn't pause for thought but instead threw herself into action, snapping off a few hasty shots that nonetheless at least slowed the woman's progress towards Kevin. Dom's target wasn't her partner, however, but Scarlotti's battered remains slumped halfway out the door. Her knees protested as she dropped down by his side, searching frantically through his bloodied jacket for a wallet, cell phone, anything that might give them the location they needed.

Kevin shook off the cobwebs just as he was picked up by the short front by the woman.

"Where is it?" She said in barely intelligible English. In response, he shot her three times in the stomach at short range. With a snarl of pain, she flung him away. While he landed hard, Kevin quickly scrambled to his hands and knees.

"Dom, time to go!"

She was already way ahead of him there - it wasn't just luck that had put her right by the door. With a garbled shout of acknowledgement she legged it, one hand clasping the blood-slick phone she had fished from his pocket not moments before. Let's hope it's got what we need on it. Otherwise we're screwed.

Fortunately, the bartender had emerged from behind the bar with an AK-47 and was firing bursts at the woman. Taking advantage of the distraction, they burst out on to the street. A sniper round smacked into the ground in front of them, forcing Kevin to nearly topple on their way to the car. A second round hit him in the shoulder and he crashed heavily into the side of the jeep.

"I just can't take you anywhere," Dom quipped breathlessly as she tried to find the keys without dropping the phone. Their 'guard' was nowhere to be seen, she noticed. She couldn't really blame him. "We're never getting our deposit back if you bleed all over the upholstery."

"Yeah, I hate what its going to do to my credit." Kevin gasped, leaving a smear of dark blood along the side as he hauled himself into the passenger's side. The building was shielding them from fire for the moment, but he had no doubt that their sniper friend was moving into a new position.

Dom turned the key in the ignition and heard the all-too-welcome sound of the engine sputtering to life. Just then a shot rang out and the rear window shattered, throwing her concentration to hel. "Goddamnit!" she shouted, slamming her hands on the steering wheel and then fumbling for the gearstick. "We're never going to be able to use this rental company again!"

Kevin hung on to the support bar with his arm wrapped around it. He grimaced as he shifted and plunged his fingers into the bullet wound. Blood flowed freely as he shifted around, hissing in pain before finally retrieving the slug and tossing it out the side.

"That's gross, you know. Really, really gross," Dom babbled as she threw the Jeep in reverse and backed down the alley. Between her reflexes and her powers she managed not to back them into any piles of garbage or protruding pipes, and they saw daylight a moment later as they emerged into the next street over, much to the indignation of the other drivers who leaned heavily on their horns in protest. "Oh shut up, do you see the bullet hole?"

"Yeah, imagine how I feel." Kevin flicked the excess blood off his hand, reconfiguring his body close the hole. He couldn't simply make the damage disappear without completely shifting form, but he was able to stop the bleeding and any further damage. It would fatigue him for a few hours as the rest of the damage healed.

"I know the area Scarlotti is talking about, but if we need to search for the specific field it's going to take time. You get anything off his body?"

"A phone, but you're gonna have to wait 'til I'm not doing my best Mission: Impossible car chase scene before I can crack it." In truth there seemed to be nobody chasing them that Dom could notice, but she wasn't going to take any chances. She weaved in and out of traffic, earning more than a few blaring horns and shouts from the drivers around them. "Assholes."

"This is West Africa. Everyone drives like an asshole." Kevin pointed towards the left. "See if you can get over there. We can link up to the north highway going towards Juli."

"On it." With skill earned through the defensive driving course the agency had put her through and not a little luck Dom managed to cut through the queue of cars and get onto the sliproad leading to the highway. They were able to pick up speed as the traffic thinned out and she let out a sigh, slumping back in her seat, though her hands still gripped the wheel tightly. "Okay. I think we're good. You okay?"

"I'm unlikely to die in the next few hours. That's not the same as okay." Kevin pulled out his phone and punched in some terms. He hadn't gotten a chance to get a picture of their attackers, but he'd recognize her if he saw her. His satellite phone started to forward known African operatives and assassins to his screen. "We need to narrow down the area Scarlotti's airfield is in. Ideas?"

"If I can just get a look at his phone I can probably get at the GPS data and backtrack it from there. I could talk you through it..." She trailed off and then made a face, realising what a bad idea that was. "Or I could get us somewhere safe, let you rest and then do it myself. That's a much better idea. Let's do that."

"Just pull over and I'll drive, smart-ass." He was not technologically illiterate. He couldn't afford to be in his job, but the technical side of the job was never going to be forte, and it wasn't worth arguing with her about that. She was annoyingly close to a genius with the stuff.

"Yeah, that's a good idea, let the guy who can't keep all his own blood in his body drive the car. We'd be in a ditch faster than you could say Mogadishu."

"I'll drink some orange juice. Besides, I've been driving jeeps since there were, well, jeeps in the first place."

"Okay, fine. But you start feeling light-headed and you tell me, okay?" Dom said, steering the car over towards the side of the road. Her concern wasn't borne just out of self-preservation; she actually did care about what happened to the big lug. Even if she wouldn't tell him so in as many words. "I am not interested in finding out if they still 'make 'em like they used to'."

"You're just so goddamn funny, I don't know how I can stand it." Kevin said sourly, shifting over into the driver's seat. As she sat down, he checked his phone and turned it towards her. "Looks like we've got some names. Meseret Gobena. Connected to some fringe OLF faction. Looks like she's been working as a gun for hire. No mention of any powers."

"Maybe they never tried setting her on fire before. Rookie mistake."

"You know, not everyone jumps to setting things on fire as their first solution. According to this, her partner is the brains of the group. Elani Debar. MLLT parents, university trained. Suspected of inciting violent activism, now a die hard supporter of Pan-Africa isolationism. Oh, and she's a trained sniper." Kevin gunned the engine, flipping his phone on to the dash where she could reach it. "The question is are they hired help themselves or in charge of this op?"

"Guess we'll have to trace things back and see how far they go." Dom wedged herself in the passenger seat and then pulled out Scarlotti's phone, along with several different USB cables and a small black box that she situated on the dash. "Wanna place bets? I'm going with goons - they wouldn't come and get their hands dirty kicking us around if they were in charge."

"Debar doesn't necessarily fit that profile. She feels like more of an... entrepreneur?" Kevin said, moving easily through the traffic. They didn't have any orange juice but he did grab a bottle of lukewarm water from beneath the seat. "I almost want to call them 'new hirees'? There to do the low level work. Fits the ambush, really. Only reason for that is if you want to impress the boss by providing the materials for them at no cost, as well as eliminating any trail back to them."

"Mm..." The noise Dom made was distinctly non-committal as she set the phone running and then scooped up Kevin's and scrolled through the information on the screen. From there she tabbed back and pulled up several more references, some of which she cross-referenced on good old Google just for kicks. Eventually she started speaking again as if there hadn't been an extremely long pause in the conversation - luckily by now Kevin was used to it. "Actually, looks like this might not be her first time riling people up for fun and profit - there are a couple incidents back at her alma mater that look distinctly orchestrated by someone with too much time on their hands."

"So, more sociopath?" Kevin said, swerving as a military truck went past way too fast and close. "I'd buy it. What about Scarlotti's phone?"

"Hold your horses, I'm working on i-- oh. It's done. Y'know, people really need to take better precautions with their electronics. Anybody could just pick this up and crack it." Dom's fingers flew over the screen as she looked through the GPS recordings. "Yeah, I've got some coordinates, looks like he spent some time there a couple days ago before hitting the road and keeping on the move. My bet's either the airfield, or a brothel. Either way it's a fun time, right?"

"Your idea of fun is really starting to worry me, Dom." Kevin said, taking a look at the map and pulling off to his left to follow the highway north, towards their goal.