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.

Session 2: Just a Little Prick

You were all called to a TACTICs, Tactical Assessment: Combat Training, Initiative and Coordination, assessment. A-Gent Anvil had done it before on his Advanced Urban Protection Course. On the way in you bumped into Achilles and Athena on their way out. Achilles (a desk jockey) had had a rough time of it, getting hit 18 times, and scoring 82%. Athena had performed much better, scoring 94%.

Steve the technician explained that you had to run the gauntlet of a number of hidden, automated mannequins set up in a mock-up of a Russian village (actually a real English village). They fired tiny darts at you, and if you were hit by a dart, or you shot innocent civilians, then you lost points. He would be watching you through CCTV and controlling the mannequins from his control room.

First up was Aardvark who made his way through the course well enough. He had just a single dart on him as he reached the objective, but missed a sniper on the church roof, and got hit four more times, scoring 95%.

Ajax lost his nerve, when faced with an old lady looking at him through the window, thinking her knitting needle might be a gun, and shot her in the face. Apart from that he did the course perfectly, not getting hit by a single dart, and scored 99%.

Acorn, similarly, shot a civilian, an intimidating-looking little girl playing with a ball. Then he got shot once doing the course, before completely missing the sniper, and scoring 95%.

Anvil also did the course perfectly but missed the sniper at the end (the mannequins were all set up in different positions from his previous course), getting hit twice and scoring 98%.

You all went back to Ajax’s house to chat wittily about you day. You got a call saying that a Major Franks had died suddenly while fishing and also that A-Gent Achilles had been found dead in his car by the side of the road. Anvil knew Franks and so went with Aardvark to investigate him. Acorn and Ajax drove off to check out Achilles.

You could not see anything suspicious in Franks’ death. It looked like he had just had a heart attack while fishing, although the Major has been super-fit. None of the witnesses saw anything suspicious. Anvil went to talk to his wife. He could not sense anything wrong there, but did ask if Franks had done any courses recently. In fact he had done the TACTICs Assessment just three days before (scoring 96%).

After checking out the scene, it looked to you like Achilles had died somehow while driving home from the TACTICs Assessment and his car had rolled off the road.

Back at Ajax’s you also heard about an old colleague of Ajax who had died in his crashed glider. You wondered whether he had done the TACTICs Assessment, and sure enough he had done it two days ago, scoring 94%.

It quickly dawned on you that the TACTICs Assessment might be using some sort of poisoned darts and that the number of times you were hit during the assessment determined your life-expectancy. This worried Acorn and Aardvark a lot more than it worried Ajax.

You decided to head back to the TACTICs range in the dead of night. You knew that Steve lived in the middle of the village, and so you broke into the control room and Anvil did his best to make all the systems safe and stayed in the control room watching on CCTV as you sneaked up quietly on Steve’s house. Aardvark made too much noise and Steve opened fire with a dart gun. Aardvark managed to avoid the darts and with his position given away, Acorn and Ajax did a pincer movement on him, disarming him skilfully.

You questioned Steve in a forceful and frank manner. He went off on a rant criticising all the arrogant, know-it-all agents who strutted around his range like they owned the place, never giving any thought to hard-working technicians. He told you that Professor Stourby, who you had vaguely heard of, had supplied him with a big bottle of a rare, natural venom which he put on the darts. He also said there was no known antidote.

You found out about Stourby at HQ. He had been one of the top minds in British intelligence on poisons and venoms and other nasty bits of chemical warfare. He always used naturally occurring substances. He had been sacked by the government after becoming addicted to some of the poisons he used and going nuts. He lived in a big house in the countryside.

That morning Athena called in sick (And Aardvark and Acorn weren’t feeling great, either). You made sure she got to a hospital and had the best care she could, and then drove off towards Stourby’s house in Anvil’s Dodge.

Stourby lived in a Victorian mansion surrounded by a tall wall. Even from far away you could see that it was wildly overgrown. Getting closer, you noticed that the flora was extremely exotic, maybe Amazonian, and the stranger sounds of exotic fauna could be heard beyond the wall.

You decided not to knock on the narrow door leading into the garden, and Acorn and Ajax climbed up onto the top of the wall. Meanwhile Anvil set a load of explosives around the gateway, hoping to make it large enough to get his car through.

Looking into the garden, you could see it was a veritable impenetrable jungle, and you caught brief glimpses of strange figures moving within. Then Acorn saw a human shape in the forest, and suddenly he was hit by a poisonous dart. Together with the poison he had already received from the TACTICs it made him unconscious. He fell back, off the wall, and was fortunately caught by Anvil.

Ajax made the decision to enter the jungle alone, and jumped down into the undergrowth. Meanwhile you managed to slap Acorn into consciousness, and you all piled into the Dodge as Anvil detonated the explosives.

Ajax could make out two figures inside the garden. They seemed to be Amazonian tribesmen armed with blowpipes. He fired at them, but they blowpiped back and Ajax too was hit by a dart and fell to the ground. At that moment the garden wall blew and the dodge came roaring to the rescue. Acorn managed to drag Ajax into the car, and then Anvil drove it through the French doors into Stourby’s drawing room.

As you piled into the drawing room Aardvark got him by a blowpipe and fell unconscious. Acorn and Ajax went through the house looking for Stourby, while Anvil reversed out again and began hunting the tribesmen  through the jungle, activating the flamethrowers and scythes which he had had especially fitted to his car.

As Ajax and Acorn searched the house Ajax felt a heavy weight drape itself about his shoulders and heard a hissing in his ear. He quick smashed the snake against the wall, and continued with his search.

You managed to find Stourby’s lab, and the man was sat in it, waiting for you. He made a brief speech about being sacked just because he was nuts, and then threw a box of frogs over you. Acorn only just managed to avoid getting hit by the flying, highly poisonous frogs. Ajax charged Stourby, but Stourby bit him back, and the venom that he was so addicted to seeped into Ajax’s bloodstream and knocked him unconscious once more.

Acorn used his martial arts prowess to smack the professor in the face, and take him down for good. He also found a big bottle of red liquid in the lab marked ‘antidote.’

Meanwhile Anvil was still driving round the garden, scythes whirling, flamethrowers blazing in pursuit of the extremely elusive tribesmen.

Another successful mission. By getting the antidote you saved the lives of all the military and intelligence personnel who had gone through TACTICs Assessment over the past few days.

Session 1:The Vinyl Solution

Max Little, AKA Agent Acorn was relaxing at home in his up-market, desirable, luxury caravan somewhere near London when the phone rang. It was Agent Arthur. He hurriedly explained that he was on to something big and needed to meet Acorn on the corner of Oxford Street and Carnaby Street where he would explain in more detail.

Acorn quickly got into his Bond Bug Micro (black with flame motif down the side) and sped off towards Oxford Street.

Jeff Baron, AKA Agent Aardvark was relaxing at home in his up-market, desirable, luxury penthouse flat somewhere in London when the phone rang. It was ALPHA. ALPHA ordered Aardvark to go to Lord Cuthbert’s (the PPS to the Home Secretary) mansion, to search for clues, as he had gone missing. He would meet up with Agent Athena there.

Aardvark quickly got into his Aston Martin DB5 (silver) and sped off towards the countryside.

Major Peter Churchill (Royal Marines 45 Commando), AKA Agent Ajax was relaxing at home in his up-market, desirable, luxury townhouse somewhere in London when the phone rang. It was ALPHA. ALPHA ordered Ajax to guard Godfrey Sedge (the undersecretary to the MOD) at his country home for the weekend as he was dealing with extremely sensitive MOD documents. He would meet up with Agent Anvil there.

Ajax quickly got into his Triumph TR4A roadster (red) and sped off towards the countryside.

Rob Edwards (Royal Green Jackets), AKA Agent Anvil was relaxing at home in his up-market, desirable, luxury cottage somewhere in the countryside when the phone rang. It was ALPHA. ALPHA ordered Anvil to guard Godfrey Sedge (the undersecretary to the MOD) at his country home for the weekend as he was dealing with extremely sensitive MOD documents. He would meet up with Agent Ajax there.

Anvil quickly got into his 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T (modified) (black) and sped off towards another bit of the countryside.

Acorn got to swinging Carnaby Street and stood outside Groovy Records waiting for Arthur. He heard a shout, and looked up to see Arthur standing on the roof. He said a few words to an unseen foe, and then shot through the heart by a silenced pistol, he plummeted to the pavement, dead before he hit the ground. Acorn ran down a side street and managed to find a fire escape. He used his acrobatic skills to climb quickly to the roof, and saw a figure fleeing across the rooftops. He followed, but by the time he got to the other side of the buildings, all he could see was a Mercedes Benz 220SE (black) in the street below, speeding into the distance.

Ajax and Anvil were guarding Godfrey Sedge. They had secured the perimeter, vetted the staff, and searched the grounds a number of times and the job was starting to get boring when Sedge emerged from his office and ordered the two A-Gents to leave. He explained their job was done and they wouldn’t be required any more. Anvil immediately sloped off, but Ajax was more reluctant to leave. In the end, he decided to obey and drove home.

Meanwhile, Anvil was watching Sedge’s office from outside the window. He saw Sedge enter the office once more, go to the record player, take a 45 off the turntable and then go to the fire. He then went back to his desk, packed all his top secret files into a briefcase and then left. Anvil then heard Sedge’s Bentley S2 Continental (black and silver) speeding off down his immaculate gravel drive. He then broke into Sedge’s office and retrieved the melted record from the fire.

Meanwhile, Aardvark had met up with Athena and they were preparing to search Lord Cuthbert’s pile for clues. You could barely cut the sexual tension with a damp spoon as the pair traded innuendo. Aardvark chose to ransack Cuthbert’s bedroom, while Athena searched downstairs. Aardvark vaguely heard the phone ringing downstairs as he discovered a strange speaker behind Cuthbert’s bed with wires leading out the window and down into the grounds.

Athena emerged and beckoned Aardvark towards her, and then kicked him in the head. Aardvark fought back skilfully. The room was already ransacked but they made even more of a mess as the two highly trained athletes matched each other blow for blow. Eventually Aardvark had the better of it and managed to subdue Athena and tie her up, and bung her in the boot of his car.

Aardvark then followed the wires from the speaker and found a portable record player secreted in the neatly manicured herbaceous border. There was no record with it, however. He then dropped Athena off at HQ.

Later that evening the four A-Gents all met up for a sophisticated soiree round Ajax’s up-market, desirable, luxury townhouse somewhere in London. They discussed the events of the day, and word came through that the black Mercedes that Acorn had spotted was licensed to the Bulgarian embassy (a well-known hotbed of TWITCH activity). You were also informed that they had found a shattered record on Arthur’s body. It had a blue label, similar to the one Anvil had found.

There was no sign anywhere of Lord Cuthbert, but then word came from ALPHA that Godfrey Sedge’s body had been found, in his car just off the A3 somewhere in the countryside, but all his top secret files were missing. Despite ALPHA saying you weren’t required, you all decided to drive up and check the crime scene.

When you got there, it had been cordoned off by the police. On searching around Ajax discovered a discarded cigarette end which had unmistakable aroma of Bulgarian tobacco (which he recognised from that time he did that thing in Bulgaria).

Then you went to see how Athena was getting on at HQ, where they had locked her up. She was ranting about wanting to kill Aardvark. Anvil tried to get her to calm down a bit, and she spoke unintelligibly about doves and waves and stuff and began humming a strange tune.

You went to search Athena’s house. She had an up-market, desirable, luxury garden flat somewhere in London There was a poster of a band called The Sound Wave on the wall, and in her record collection you found all their records. They all had the distinctive blue label that was on the record Anvil had retrieved from Sedge’s fireplace. The label was from Groovy Records and they had all been produced by the famous record producer and pop impresario Dick Dove.

So you decided to break into Groovy Records. Anvil set some explosives on the other side of the building to act as a distraction if required, and you broke into the offices. You went through the place but couldn’t find anything too suspicious, but eventually discovered a secret door that led down to the cellar, and a strange soundproofed room with a weird speaker and flashing lights contraption in it. Overlooking this there was a control room where you found a file with the names of about 100 brainwashed agents and references to particular records, which were stored nearby. You found records for Athena, Cuthbert, Sedge, and also A-Gent Archimedes.

So, you went back to HQ and played Athena’s record to her (without hearing it yourself) and you found her extremely suggestible. Anvil told her to forget about wanting to kill Aardvark and other stuff that had happened to her, and managed to get the full story from her about how she had been brainwashed by Dick Dove as an aspiring singer a few years ago.

You decided to confront Dove. He was having one of his famous parties that very night in his mansion somewhere in the countryside and you acquired invitations from the Agency. You dropped Anvil off so he could sneak in and booby-trap Dove’s Rolls Royce. Meanwhile Ajax and Acorn snuck out of the party into Dove’s private office.

Aardvark and Anvil snuck up to the roof of the mansion to booby-trap Dove’s helicopter. Aardvark distracted the pilot, but something went wrong with the bomb, and Anvil realised it would blow as soon as someone turned the thing on, which wasn’t the plan.

With Ajax and Acorn in the middle of discovering a file with a list of his TWIST contacts (mostly Bulgarian) Dick Dove walked into the office, flanked by his two huge body guards. He made a brief speech about his plans and then legged it, while you were occupied with the bodyguards. Ajax took one bodyguard out quickly enough but the other got the better of Acorn, and hung him from the ceiling fan. And then he managed to defeat Ajax too, then went to join Dove.

Dove was running up to escape by helicopter just as Anvil and Aardvark were coming down. So, using all his championship boxing training from his days in the army, Anvil punched Dove out with a single blow. The pop impresario fell down the flight of stairs and landed in a heap at the bottom. Then Aardvark punched the bodyguard out, and he too fell down the stairs, landing on top of Dove.

The mission seemed to be a success. Athena was fully recovered, you had a list of all the brainwashed sleepers who could be unbrainwashed using the records from Groovy, and you had acquired a list of Dove’s TWITCH contacts.