Session 3: Heart of Durness

A-Gents Ajax, Acorn and Aardvark were having a sophisticated soiree at Ajax’s well-appointed townhouse. Ajax was drinking a slightly obscure, but fine, single malt whisky, Acorn was drinking a hard-to-find Russian vodka, and Aardvark just invented the vodka Lambrini cocktail, shaken not stirred.

When suddenly a helicopter landed on the roof of the building. Ajax went to investigate, suspicious that someone should drop in like that but it turned out to be sent by ALPHA. You all piled in for an emergency trip.

Through the radio ALPHA explained that A-Gent Abacus had been on a mission to the army base of Durness in the far north of Scotland. He had been on a routine recce because the PM and the POTUS were due to meet there tomorrow. However, they had heard nothing from Abacus and so the three of you needed to investigate. You would be flying right into the heart of Durness!

You needed to make sure the place was safe for the meeting and send the code word Green Apples is it was. If it wasn’t and you couldn’t rectify the situation you were to send the codeword Red Apples. But it was important that the meeting went ahead. The president was flying to emergency talks in Moscow and the PM had arranged to travel to Durness by nuclear submarine to meet with him while Airforce One refuelled. And the last priority of the mission was to find Abacus.

Durness base was home to the little-known SSS, Special Special Service, an elite regiment of the British Army, headed by Colonel Short. Even within the army the SSS was barely a rumour, but Ajax managed to get hold of an old army colleague on the helicopter’s radio who spilt the beans on Short. He had been captured early in the cold war somewhere behind the iron curtain, probably in Bulgaria, had lost an eye, and had been a prisoner for 5 years. Then he managed to escape and was rewarded with the command of the SSS. He was known for his fanaticism and iron discipline. You speculated that he might have been turned by the Soviets or by TWITCH.

You arrived at Durness at 2:00, just 4 hours before Airforce One was due to land. The helicopter dropped Ajax and Acorn outside the base, hopefully undetected and then took Aardvark in to meet Colonel Short. When Aardvark landed a Captain Stephens showed him to the command block (a Napoleonic naval fort) and asked him to wait.

Ajax and Acorn could see that the base was on red alert with many troops manning the perimeter. They decided to make their way unseen around the entire perimeter to check for security breaches.

Aardvark waited for Short for a good half hour before giving up and went to wander round the base on his own. Stephens intercepted him and he finally got to see Short. Short said that Abacus had been here and said he had been going to visit the village (an abandoned village used for wargames on the base), the jetty (where the PM was to arrive) and the airstrip, but had not been seen since. Then Short told Aardvark that under no circumstances should he visit ammo dump 13.

So Aardvark went off to ammo dump 13. It seemed to be an old, abandoned bunker with a thick steel door. He went in, and got halfway down the dark sloping corridor, when he heard the door shut behind him. He was trapped.

Ajax and Acorn had watched Aardvark approaching ammo dump 13 and witnessed four SSS hiding from him, and then shutting the blast door on him. They breached the perimeter defences and sneaked up on the soldiers. Taking them out rather well, considering they were supposed to be the finest the British army had. The A-Gents were careful to merely knock them unconscious, aware that they might be loyal soldiers only obeying bad orders. They released Aardvark from the dump, and Ajax put on one of the SSS uniforms. By now it was about 4:00 and you only had 2 hours before Airforce One arrived.

Acorn decided to scout the command block, and Ajax the village, while Aardvark decided to walk back into the command block to provoke a reaction from Short. Acorn crept to the building, and peered through a window, to see Colonel Short giving a last minute briefing to a number of his soldiers. They seemed to be planning an ambush of Airforce One and the soldiers were all kitted out in their black-balaclava-ed coolest counter-insurgency gear. Aardvark walked in and apologised for disturbing the meeting.

Short had had enough of Aardvark and ordered him captured. A number of the soldiers hand-cuffed and marched him off towards the village. Meanwhile Acorn crept around the command block looking for the radio room.

Ajax watched as Acorn was led to the village, and put in one of the buildings. You noticed the village was just about the most heavily guarded place in the whole base. He sneaked up to get a look in the house but disturbed a guard, which he quickly knocked unconscious. Ajax saw Abacus being held prisoner, watched by a couple of guards, and soon Aardvark joined him. By this time Aardvark, unknown to the guards, had already released himself from the handcuffs.

Meanwhile, Acorn sneaked into the radio room, knocked the radio operator unconscious and broadcast the code on your secret A-Gent frequency for the mission to be aborted, Red Apples. Then he went to the village and met up with Ajax.

The pair of you sneaked into the house, and as Aardvark caused a distraction, by revealing he was no longer handcuffed, you dispatched the two guards.