Dramatis Personae:

• S, playing Padraig - Irish actor, formerly linked to drug running.
• N, playing Yannis - Belgian hacker who got recruited by the ADIV/SGRS a while back.
• An, playing Cooper ‘Coop’ - All-American patriot. (Asset-sitting, player unable to attend.)
• Al, playing Petros - The Dogfather.

Recap

05 May 2011

The agents passed through St Pancras without stopping for long and went straight up to Inverness. They had records from Johnson & Co that a refrigerated cargo was flown from Wick Airport in Scotland to the London Heliport, where it was picked up and delivered to ‘Carfax’, with the address of the Institute. They wanted to do some poking around and figure out what it might have been and where it actually came from.

After spending a night in Inverness, they took a rental car through to Wick proper, posing as a logistics/buying team for a new London restaurant that wanted to make a plan for super fresh, never-frozen fish from Scotland. They first met with Robert Conley, who was the manager at the airport to ask about his recommendations and for a tour of the facilities. This was duly done, with the suggestion that NorthAir would probably be the best choice. They figured that this is probably a ‘mutually beneficial’ arrangement, but rolled with it.

NorthAir had a small warehouse/office in the industrial park just outside the airport, along with a shared hanger. They met with Claire McCarthy, their manager. The company sounded small, but competently handled. They could certainly do a regular London flight, and had some refrigerated storage at the warehouse, assuming that the cargo would not be able to roll straight onto the helicopter. Again, the agents got a tour and saw what was happening.

They had already decided that NorthAir was probably above board, and just got a package without knowing exactly what was in it. They also got a hangar tour with the chief mechanic, Mike, that just reinforced that. Asking around, they did find that there was a Westland Sea King that took off the same morning as the date on the manifest. This stood out a bit, since this normally only happens during search and rescue or similar emergencies. Mike had taken a photo and so the agents got a registration number from that.

Looking up the number, they saw that it was a Fleet Air Arm (the air wing of the Royal Navy) helicopter. Yannis reached out to a contact in the navy to find out about it, if he could. He called back a while later to say that it was currently part of the Commando Helicopter Squadron and was in Afghanistan.

GM Notes and Thoughts

Pretty quiet session, but useful information again. They now know that they need to worry a little about the Navy, or at least that there is something weird about some of their helicopters not being where they are meant to be.

The use of a contact was pretty good, and not something that the PCs have done too much of as yet, preferring to rely on their own abilities and knowledge. They have also concluded that there was not much to be gained from NorthAir, which was pretty much on the level from what they can tell.

This location is a sensible one to have eventually come to, since there was that transport down to London. This could be done via a military helicopter, if the military is involved, but maybe they just want a bit more distance.