Francine looked up at Oni's words. "Who you callin' a bimbo? Fuckin geek!"<br/><br/>"ALL RIGHT!" Anne's parade ground voice was very effective at quelling idle chatter. If enough of the team had been military, she would have yelled<em>SHUN</em>, but they weren't. "Settle down, and let's get the fuck on with it. First, I would like all of you to think about what happened to the guy Mr Oni is replacing. He wasn't working as part of the team. He got others killed, and then, unsurprisingly, he got himself killed.<br/><br/>"You are all individuals and you are used to working alone. On this job, you must work as a team, or you will get killed. If you fuck up, the best thing you can hope for is that the enemy kills you. If you fuck up and survive, I will shoot you myself. If you fuck up badly enough that you're the only survivor, believe me, Francine here will hunt you down.<br/><br/>"Francine is the only member of the team who doesn't go feet-wet. She is my secretary, not a field operative, however, she has all the resources of Iffie at her disposal. It's actually her job to apologise to the client and refund their deposit if none of us make it back!<br/><br/>"Bear that in mind, please."<br/><br/>She reached under the table and produced a security-locked case, which buzzed threateningly until she tapped in the key-code. She produced a number of old fashioned manilla folders from it and flipped one to each of the team, keeping one herself, before realocking the case and setting it back on the floor. "Memorise the contents, especially the floor plans. Do not transmit them anywhere. Oni, that includes you. I'm sure you know your pet AI is totally secure and one hundred percent loyal to you, but I don't. The folders will be returned to me for desctruction after the briefing.<br/><br/>"Make notes of any questions you have, and save them until the end. Also make notes of any special equipment you think you might need."<br/><br/>She opened her folder. The first sheet was a copy of an e-mail.<br/><br/><em>To: info@ironfist.org.ng<br/><br/>From: epsilon@msn.com<br/><br/>Re: Enquiry<br/><br/>May have a job for you.<br/><br/>Reply if interested.<br/><br/>ε</em><br/><br/>"Our client is known only as Epsilon. Oni, your first task is to find out as much as you can about the client. Use that email addressas your starting point, or whatever. I want to know who he is, where he is, what he does for a living, why he does it, where he does it, how he does it. I want to know his bank account number and bank balance. I want to know what he has for breakfast and what colour his underpants are! And he must not know that I know! If you can listen and work, then get to it. Otherwise, just listen.<br/><br/>"Epsilon has paid eight million US dollars in advance with twelve million to pay on successful completion, plus expenses. You will each find an expenses claim form there. Copy it, scan it, whatever, and fill it in, then submit it to me with a full inventory of all expenses you incur on the mission, complete with receipts. Twenty mill is a bit low for a job like this, but given that this is a new team and after IF's last disaster, it's actually quite generous. If we make this one good, we should be able to demand market rate next time.<br/><br/>"The target is a security bunker that is under construction on the island of Trinidad and Tobago." She turned to the satellite photo of the compound.<br/>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/6/6c/Veritas_Compound.jpg)<br/><br/>"That image was taken a few weeks ago. The red roofed building is the entrance to the bunker. The grey one is stores and barracks.  The third building has already been demolished. The compound is not yet complete which gives us the advantage.  However it is guarded by a company of Trinidadian marines. We really do not want to go up against them in a straight fight!<br/><br/>"Other defences are layered. The compound periphery is a normal electric fence with built in alarm. There are two entrances. The first leads to the warehouse and barracks building, the second directly to the main complex. Both gates have armed guards and double security gates. Inside the compound, there is a minefield, the mines are buried randomly so be careful where you tread. However, if we stick to the plan, there should be no problems." She flipped to the rough diagram of the compound:<br/><br/>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/4/49/Veritas_Compound_Plan.jpg)<br/><br/>"On each corner of the compound there is an automated machine gun tower that will shoot anything larger than a cat or a seagull that enters the compound by crossing the fence. The main building has a security coded door. Enter the wrong code, you trigger an alarm, which brings the marines running. Inside the door is a security desk with a human guard, and video surveillance linked to the barracks and the guard room inside. A security door inside can only be opened from behind the desk."<br/><br/>Anne turned to the next page, an equally rough diagram of the main building:<br/><br/>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/5/53/Veritas_Main_Building.jpg)<br/><br/>"There is an emergency access ladder, but opening the door either above ground or below ground triggers an alarm. Access to the main elevators is via the kitchen area. Both elevators have security code access."<br/><br/>The final diagram was of the bunker itself.<br/><br/>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/9/99/Veritas_Bunker.jpg)<br/><br/>"The actual bunker itself is about 60 metres underground. It's pretty well bomb proof. As you can see a large portion of it is given over to a computer room. This leads me to suspect that the target is an AI, although Epsilon has neither confirmed nor denied this." She smiled at Oni. "Perhaps this gives you some idea as to why I don't trust<em>your</em>AI. Our mission is to blow this fucker up. It might just as easily have been to steal one or more of the memory cores or drives!"<br/><br/>She shrugged and returned to the briefing. "Facing the lifts is another security desk. It is manned, but it's probably a safe bet that the guard there isn't as vigilant as at the other locations. Beyond the guard station are changing rooms for the computer staff, male and female, a rec room and then around the corner to the last security check point.<br/><br/>This one is automated, and requires a hand print and retinal scan to get past. Now, up to this point, there has always been the option of extreme violence to get past the security. Unfortunately doing so and triggering an alarm will abort the mission, because beyond this security door is a fucking big blast door that closes automatically. There is, quite frankly, no way through it short of a 50 megaton nuke!"<br/><br/>She flipped to the final document, a photograph:<br/><br/>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/d/d2/Mona_Del_Matise.jpg)<br/><br/>"This is Mona Del Matise. She is head of security for the Veritas Project. We need to know as much about her as possible. We need to get the security access codes for the building, the access codes for the internal security network, and schedule for finishing the project. Oni, Sorry, but we're pretty sure she's as paranoid as me. So, Niki, that is your job. I understand she has a weakness for young oriental women. I'm sure you can pull that off!<br/><br/>"Our objective is to get inside without tripping the alarms and bringing the marines down on us or closing the blast door, plant charges in the main computer room, and get the fuck out of there before anyone knows we’ve been. Then we blow the whole place to hell.<br/><br/>"Now, I’ve studied the location and the compound has one serious weakness: It’s on a main road and right on a dangerous bend. There have been a number of fatal accidents on that corner in the past few years. So as a distraction, we’re going to cause another one. There’s a tanker depot just up the road, and we are going to sabotage one of the tankers that comes down past the compound.  We plant a device on its brake lines, just before the corner we set it off. Tanker’s brakes fail, tanker jack-knifes and goes kablooom!<br/><br/>"Oh and we plant another little charge on it to make sure it goes Kabloom! Sophia, that's your first task.<br/><br/>"Mean while, we have taken out a maintenance crew that is scheduled to arrive a few moments before our tanker. Kirra, that's you and me. We pick up the rest of the team, and arrive in their place at the main gate, in their van and wearing their uniforms. We get in using the access codes obtained from Mam’selle Del Matise. The distraction of the crash should mean we get waved through without too much scrutiny. Which maintenance crew largely depends on timing. Oni, you need to find out the schedules of the tankers, the schedules of the maintenance or construction teams, and tweak them to match up.<br/><br/>"Once inside, we set up a hack into the internal security system so it thinks we are where the maintenance crew are supposed to be. We make our way to the main computer centre one floor down, plant our charges and get the hell out of dodge. The retinal and palm scan, we will use those we obtain from Del Matise, also.<br/><br/>"There is a plan B, of course, and that is we blow a hole through this wall here", she indicated the wall between the lift exit and the area behind the security doors, "And hope we can all get through before the damn thing closes. Also, we hope we can get out again!<br/><br/>"If All goes according to plan, we leave as the maintenance team and no-one any the wiser. Once we’re clear, we trigger the explosives, ditch the maintenance van and vanish. We each make our own way home.<br/><br/>"If things go wrong, there will be a drone chopper waiting nearby to airlift us off the roof. But chances are that if we need it, we won’t need it..."<br/><br/>Anne closed the briefing folder. "Any questions?"