2010-02-06: FB: Weapons Trade

Starring:

Cody_V4Ricon.gif

Date Set: August 6, 2009

Summary:

A mysterious package arrives at a hut in a Turkish mountain….


Six Months Ago…

"Weapons Trade"

Somewhere near Üzümlü, Turkey

Early morning, not a very good time for anyone to be awake, especially not after a wild night of… goat herding or whatever it is she was expected to do up in these God forsaken mountains. The wind howled outside the hut, blowing dust against the clapping shutter. It would be another day without rain, but still cold.

Bundling up in a dark green sweater that had taken more than seven months to arrive from her father, Cody took a few minutes to stretch the arms out to a length that was comfortable enough to tuck her hands into and fold under. Just to keep them warm. She'd been up here for a couple of weeks now, waiting and listening to everything over every wire she could pick up. Only Pyle knew where she was, Pyle and the Sherpa that delivered a regular stock of supplies. The mug of cold coffee by her monitor is picked up and brought to the hotplate occupying a small space next to the only outlet in the house. It's a wonder that she didn't overload the fuses, but that had all been taken care of before she got there. The generator had ample fuel to run and it only needed filling once a day if she was conservative with the electricity.

The monitor in front of Cody has shown little activity. It's a pre-recorded camera feed of a dusty, empty, dingy alley — somewhere in Turkey, presumably. A small insignia is painted above a narrow door, recognizable — to know in the know — as a symbol of terrorist cell Azhar-Qahaar, featuring a shining light. Sent to her by her cell leader, the tapes she's meant to analyze have been, to put it mildly, boring— but there must be something on there, something important, or else what's the point?

Every now and then a figure passes by on the screen. Sometimes it's a kid kicking a ball; sometimes it's a grown man. Some might even be recognizable from a watch list. Rarely do they stop.

Until now. Timestamp 05:58:31 AM, July 25th, 2009.

A man comes to a halt, dressed like any other native of the country, but his bald head is recognizable, and his strong features for the brief second they flash in the hidden surveillance. Another man emerges from the doorway, smaller, darker. They exchange folders. There's a logo on one of them…

Reaching for her well worn notebook, Cody flips it to a new page and begins scribbling down the time and date of her entry, then the time and date of the exchange. It's times like these that the woman wishes that digital zooming had the same enhancements as those in the movies or science fiction shows. Tabbing at a few keys, she leans in close to the monitor, as though her proximity to the screen would actually make a difference in what she's trying to see. That logo on the folder…

Her blue eyes narrow and with her left hand she begins to draw exactly what she sees on the screen, filling in the shadows where applicable. In a close zoom the image degrades to nearly indistinguishable, but in a clear setting the little logo is too far away to see clearly. Unless…

She begins to print out the image in the large pixelated setting. The copy uses at least nine sheets of paper and as each one finishes, she takes it to one of the blank walls of the hut and sticks it there with a tack.

When all of the pages have finished printing out, she steps back from the wall to grab a magic marker and begins to outline the darker areas of the picture. Perhaps in a bigger setting, just maybe if she can look at it objectively…

L

The logo is a simple one, once it's pieced together. Its main feature is the one, single letter:

L

It's stamped on the folder being exchanged from Adham Sayf Udeen — AKA "Leader" — to the other man.

L … for Lane Industries.

"Dammit all to hell…" Cody curses as she finally recognizes the little symbol. It's the same one as those on the crates that she and Mark destroyed when they had escaped. Returning to her chair, she picks up her mug and sips at the lukewarm sludge inside of it. Staring at the wall for a few minutes, she twists and focuses her attention on the monitor again, this time with her book open and writing every detail about the exchange. What the pair were wearing, bearded, clean shaven, hairy or bald, right down to whether they had a hole in an elbow. 'Now what the hell are they doing with Lane Industry files… and what is in that other one…' Those are big questions running through the woman's head. With a small grating sound, she straightens the small wooden chair she's sitting on and begins to type an encrypted message into an email window.

Saw the exchange, I need everything you have.

It's a basic encryption and undoubtedly it will be deciphered quickly if anyone was hacking the system, but not faster than its intended recipient. Once the message is sent, she sits back and waits, replaying that moment a few more times before she watches further and further ahead.

The e-mailed reply is takes a few minutes to appear. Timely, but the message itself is … unusual.

Clarify. What exchange?

Cody frowns a little and purses her lips. She's always been more for verbal exchange rather than computers, possibly because she just doesn't trust being hacked. Scrambled satelite phones are so much better for this type of exchange, but this is the method that her contact wanted to use and so the blonde closes her eyes and begins to type as she would write the message down in her notebook, encrypted and in a different language. Her contact knows her well enough to be able to decipher the message quickly.

Timestamp 05:58:31 AM, July 25th, 2009. There is a folder exchange, the file passed from Sayf Udeen as a Lane Industry logo on it. Why is he carrying around company files and what did he get in exchange?

Baker's contact takes even longer to respond. When he does, the message is as uncharacteristically confused as the last.

Did not send a package dated Jul 25. Severing contact for security unless you prove your ID in 5.

Cody's heart almost stops as her eyes flit over the encrypted words on the screen. She's so used to the language that she doesn't need to write it down to decipher it but if he didn't send the package… Who else could have found her here? Quickly tapping in her ID sequence in another encryption, she hits the send button and then begins rifling through the package and its contents. As she waits for confirmation from her contact, she runs her hands through her hair only to come up with two fists full of blonde locks. Her identity and location has been compromised, the logical step would be to move on. But first, one more message is sent to her contact.

My security has been compromised. Will send you package A.S.A.P. Need new orders, relocation preferred.

More information crops up on the video beyond the exchange of folders. The alley feed has audio, but it's mostly garbage; lots of background noise and rare sound bytes that are usually irrelevant. As the two men on the monitor speak and shake hands, Leader can be heard dully, his voice cutting in and out.

« — in America»
«from their government»
«Human weapons»
«calling it their (???) Protocol»
« — cooperation — »

Cody's contact comes through with another message, sending back his own confirmation of identity. Confirmed, Baker — don't know what's going on here. Pull out

Cody leans forward and rewinds the byte and then replays it a few times, just to make certain what she thought she heard was correct. Then she begins to type very carefully, for once, she has orders to give.

Pulling out of the area entirely. Need to investigate this further. Check out Lancaster Industries and the government. Get me into something called Protocol. Will be back at base in three days. Waiting confirmation, then silence.

Then she sits back. More human weapons… Thoughts begin to whirl through her mind at a furious pace. Either the government is dealing in human weapons or they were building a force of them. Either way her job in Delta Force would be affected.

Confirmed.

With that one word, Cody is up like a shot and racing around the small hut packing only the essential things. The package and its contents are carefully placed into a backpack along with a few changes of underwear and socks, her notebook and pen, and of course… the slim computer. The only other clothing she takes is what can be layered onto her body. The rest of the room in the pack is reserved for a can on instant coffee, power bars, and a few maps. Aside from the combat boots on her feet, Cody ties a pair of running shoes to the arm strap of the knapsack. The side pockets are stuffed with full magazines of bullets, five or six passports all with a different name, and some bundles of currency from a few different countries.

It takes about an hour before the woman is finished, already a new growth of dark brown hair is growing out of her head, but that is wrapped up in a scarf to fit in with the locals. Then she is out the door, her glock is tucked into a holster at the small of her back and a cellphone is dropped into her pocket. With a small smile on her face, she walks maybe twenty five yards from the front of the hut and then drops out of sight when the explosion demolishes the entire place, leaving no indication that she was ever there.

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