Did some rejiggering for the planned story arc and these are the major bullet points that will come into play:
To Israel
- These events are mostly covered elsewhere and revolve around the PCs chasing after HEIMDALL. Chases and potential firefights abound here.
- Mackenzie Reilly, Navy SEAL who is member of DEVGRU, joins the team temporarily to replace the critically injured Hurt (who could, according to RAW, be back in about 38 days!)
To Cairo, Egypt
- PCs must insert into Cairo to retrieve information from HEIMDALL’s safety deposit box that they’ve identified.
- Reilly will betray the team here, which will likely lead to at least one PC being incarcerated by Egyptian authorities. I’m shooting for Baum as he’s a POI for the death of an Egyptian NSA operative (who Baum did kill).
- A new PC – Cameron Lynch, likely an Investigator – will be joining the team here.
- This could theoretically include a time skip … depending on what they do, especially if a PC has been arrested…
- While in Egypt, PCs learn that they’ve been burned and their organization – ConsOps – has suspended operations due to the potential regional conflict between Egypt and Sudan accidentally precipitated by the PCs. Their boss issues a ‘shadow directive’ that tells them to go off the grid and finish the mission anyway.
To Bosaso, Somalia
- Intel obtained from CS: HEIMDALL reveals he has actively hired Somali pirates to seize the M/V Pegasi & then turn over the CARGO to other parties.
- PCs have to board ship, learn that CARGO is long gone, destination: Yemen. Further, learn that the CARGO is actually a person, specifically a man named Mikhail Andrusha Breznikov and he’s an insane bio-weapon expert being hunted by the Russians…
- If PCs are really dragging their feet, I could theoretically skip Somalia entirely and proceed directly to Yemen below.
To Yemen
- Following intel takes PCs to out of the way place inside Yemen where they discover a lab site.
- Ambushed by HOSTILES
- Following ambush, intel points them to the (quarantined) city of Sana’a, Yemen which they must enter. Discover the extent of the threat of the bio-weapon – “insane zombie city!”
- Obtain additional intel that identifies the next destination of Breznikov…
To Kuwait City
- Redo of the Top Secret NWO adventure, The White Queen, but set in Kuwait instead of Riga, Latvia. Includes a meeting with a “facilitator,” a street ambush and then another boarding of a ship, though this one is going to be at sea and mobile
- Learn that Breznikov has disappeared again, but gain intel that identifies some cargo that he’s sent…
To Berlin
- It’s the location where this year’s G7 summit is being held … which is going to become the G8 again since Russia is being reintegrated into the gathering.
- The city is crawling with protective measures and PCs need to be reminded that they are POIs in multiple recent “events.” Plus, they’re burned. Will need to find a way to convince players to not just report this up the various chains and let everyone else deal with it…
- Race against time to stop Breznikov from unleashing his bio-weapon (which is now known as weaponized encephalitis – it is less lethal but now turns the infected into lunatic & murderous nutjobs.)
- Breznikov’s plan: infect not the city of Berlin but rather the G8 leaders (and their associate people) instead. They then go publicly insane and murderous, which has seriously hampers the faith in their respective governments.
- Depending on how well the PCs have done to this point, they may or may not actually succeed. I’m trying not to predetermine success or fail but am really tempted to pull a Watchmen on them: “I’m not a Bond villain. Do you seriously think I’d explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it two days ago.” The reason I’m so tempted to go there is because it’d be an awesome hard end to my run, complete with the PCs having actually failed … but at the same time, that’d be kind of a dick move to the primary GM as he’d be left with the aftermath…
- Regardless, PCs have to deal with Breznikov and, if they failed, having them learn that the G8 leadership are all dead … that’s pretty brutal…
- And then, the PCs will be aware that Breznikov was working for someone else…