The Following takes place between 3 A.M. and 4 A.M. on the day of operation nightfall Events Occur in Real Time
03:00
Johnson strolled into the control room, filled with monitors, showing maps and diagrams relating to Operation Nightfall. He barks out questions and orders.
“Do we have Nightfall’s radio frequencies and encryption codes from JSOC yet?”
“Not Yet Sir” an aide answered back
“As soon as we do, be sure to pass them on to the team straight away”
“I will Sir”
“Good”, Johnson turned to another aide
“What’s Nightfall’s ETA at there jump point?”
“Approximately eighty minutes Sir”
“And where are the team?, are they in position?”
“We are just waiting for them to check in Sir”, the radio crackles
“This is Captain Lewis of Delta Team Falling Hammer checking in….”
“Please confirm your location Captain”
“Were at Nightfall’s extraction point, Sir”
“That’s good to hear, your right on schedule, and what about Roger Voss, has he been dealt with?”
“He has, Sir”, Johnson sensed a nervousness in his voice.
“What’s wrong Captain?”
“He was dead when we found him, Sir”
“What do you mean Captain?”
“I mean, that someone got to Voss before we did. There is someone else out to sabotage Nightfall’s operation”, Johnson thought for second before replying
“Ok, at the moment this isn’t a problem, proceed with your mission, Nightfall will be over there drop point in just over an hour, you’ve got to be there when they land.”
“And what about Drazen?”
“I’ll deal with Drazen”
“You?, What about Lt. Taylor?”
“Taylor has been dropped from the mission. I’ll be taking his place. There will be no delay. I’ll make contact with Drazen on time.”
“Yes Sir, what do you want us to do with Voss’ body?”
“Dump it in the trees, you don’t have time to bury it.”
“Yes, Sir”
03:06 — (17:06 LA Time)
Walsh and Mason are still in Walsh’s car and on there way to the address when Walsh’s phone went. He looked over it’s screen which displayed the caller id “CHAPPELLE” in capitals. Walsh sighed as he pressed a button to pick it up and put Chappelle on speaker.
“Richard, where are you?”
“Hello Ryan, were on our way to the address we suspect is that of the unknown Russian man”
“Our Way?”, was Chappelle’s reply, his obvious frustration growing.
“Mason is with me”
“Great!, so theirs two of you on this wild goose chase of yours, wasting CTU’s time”
“Actually, It’s my day off, so it’s just my time Richards’ wasting”, Richard gave George a harsh look before continuing.
“This is a serious investigation which….”
“which, has absolutely nothing to do with Terrorism, you know the thing were meant to be investigating”, Chappelle butted in the middle of Richards’ defense of his actions.
“Ryan, if this information is sold on, it could well be used in terrorist activities”
“Richard, you have until the end of the working day to get me proof of your theory, and I want all yours’ and Masons’ work load dealt with on time”
“Very Well”, The phone went dead.
“Why did I get the feeling he wasn’t that happy?”
“Because he never is”
03:10
On board the Delta transport, Jack and the rest of the Delta team have just finished playing cards. Jack has a large smile on his face.
“You know, I almost feel sorry” Jack says cheekily, pulling a large pile of notes towards him.
“But you don’t” Dwayne replied
“Well….” Jack paused “…yeah, I’m just too good, how can I be sorry about it!?”
“If your so good, why stop playing?” Brice Gardener asked.
“I think I’ve taken enough of your money for today. Plus I’ve got to start to focus on the mission” Jack said the last part of the sentence with mock authority, the rest of the team laughed out loud at Jack’s cheek.
“Oh, Yes Sir!, of course Sir!” was Dwayne’s mocking reply once the laughing had died down. Jack gave out a little chuckle and got up and walked toward the front of the plane. Saunders was the only one who hadn’t found the teams jokes overly funny. He was sitting next to Dwayne, and while not keen on sharing jokes with fellow members of the team, he was curious about getting to know them better.
“So how many missions have you and Jack been together on?”
“Including this one, four” was Dwayne’s reply.
“You two must be good friends”
“Yeah I suppose we are, why?”
“You ever worry that you’ll go on a mission with him, and only one of you will comeback?”
“There’s always that risk”
“So why make friends?”
“What do you mean, why not make friends?”
“Well, if there is always that risk, surely it’s easier if they are just colleagues, not friends”
“If your going to go into these sort of situations, you need people you can trust around you, looking out for you and if you trust someone, well that’s hard to do if your not friends.”
Saunders looked in deep consideration has he thought over Dwayne’s answer. Jack was talking to the pilot.
“How far off the drop point are we?” Jack asked, having put the jokes from just a minute before aside.
“About 70 minutes Sir”, the pilots reply came, just as professionally.
03:17 — (17:17)
At a old and unkept apartment Mason and Walsh pulled up. There were only a few dozen cars around in the car park, mostly burnt out and falling apart. Walsh and Mason got out of the car and looked wildly out of place and they got a few odd looks, while Mason looked around.
“Well this is glamorous”, was Mason’s analysis of the situation.
“Indeed”
“Can we get this over with, this place smells like my toilet bowl.”
“We want the third floor….”, Walsh said, ignoring Mason’s comment, which he thought was rather cruel on Mason’s toilet bowl. Almost straight away Mason started to make his way towards the stairwell, clearly not enjoying the experience. “….but we should probably have a look around first”. Walsh continued, much to Mason’s disgust at the thought of extending there stay.
“Great, Why am I doing this on my day off?”
“Because George, under that mask of cynicism, there is an actual human.”
“Wow, you do have a sense of humour”
03:20
Yelena, SG Agent is making ground through the forest, she stops momentarily to look at a map, tracing her route with her finger and pinpointing key locations, tapping Drazen’s compound a couple of times before taking out a radio and scanning through frequencies, listening carefully to what the untrained ear would probably sound like gibberish but Yelena understood it, stopping at the sound of two serbian man discussing security details, “….no, no, we will be there soon, but keep look outs along the perimeter…..how far away are you?…..where about 40 miles north of the compound….” A large crackle resounded from the radio as she turned the radio off and again turned her attention to the map she was still holding. Like before she pinpointed Drazen’s compound and slowly moved her finger north, stopping over a clearing in the forest. Carefully she folded up the map, and begin walking through the forest again.
03:23:21…..03:23:22…..03:23:23
Victor Drazen, a serbian terrorist, one of Slobodan Milosovic’s trusted Generals and the so-called Butcher of Belgrade, is screaming and venting his anger at a local police officer who has let him down.
“Please Mr. Drazen, it wouldn’t happen again” the police officer begged for forgiveness but from the expression on Drazen’s face it is clear that he was indignant to these pleas, having more pressing matters on his mind, he didn’t have time for those who didn’t serve him well, he turned away from the officer and nodded to a near by bodyguard, who swiftly took out a silenced gun and shot the officer. Very calmly the bodyguard returned his gun to his holster and quicken his pace to catch up with his Boss who was walking to a nearby Humvee. The guard arrived at the car in time to open the door for Drazen, who without any acknowledgement of his guard, climbed in, after which the guard closed the door and the vehicle took off onto the main road towards Drazen’s compound.
03:27 —- (17:27)
At the apartment block, Walsh is still looking around, he was quickly building up an idea in his mind of the apartments residents. For the most part it was a slum, cheap accommodation, he had no doubt that some of it’s occupants where squatting. These observations lead Richard to a few assumptions about the Russian an who an hour and a half ago had committed suicide. It was clear to Richard that the man wasn’t relatively high in the pecking order, and was probably unaware of just what was on the CD that had started it all. “….well, he ain’t the only one….” Thought Richard as he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. With what Richard had learned since he arrived occupants of the apartment block were able to almost soundlessly move along it’s dark and dinghy corridors, and so he quickly came to the conclusion that it was Mason approaching. An assumption which was quickly confirmed by one of George’s trademark comments.
“so are we gonna check out this apartment, or do we have to waste another twenty minutes first?”. Whatever Richard thought about George’s unenthusiastic attitude, he shared the sentiment that it was time to check out the apartment.
“Number 5”, was Richard’s reply to show this agreement. They both walked as quietly as down the hall, to the apartment marked Number 5, as possible as not to alert anyone. As they arrived outside the appropriate door George asked a question, that Richard had, despite his best attempts, had been unable to find an answer too.
“So, we expecting anyone to be home?”, Richard’s silence conveyed his thoughts and the fact that was uneasy about not being able to answer the question. He tried to garner some more information before going any further. Slowly he peered through the crack between the door and it’s frame.
“Lights on.”, was the quiet announcement Richard made after seeing a feint source of light.
“Lights on, nobodies home?” was George’s reply. Richard knew there was no way to answer the question and so decided to simply get it over with.
“Here we go” he said as he dangled the key from one finger. As Richard continued to put the key in the lock, George got out his sidearm and was positioned ready, in case the apartment was occupied.
Inside, the apartment was indeed occupied, many including the man was had delivered the Delta Disc, scuttled around performing unseen tasks. The silence of the apartment meant that the sound of a key entering the look rang out loud and clear, an instant warning. The apartments occupants quickly ran for the apartments balcony and the fire escape. Out in the hall. Walsh finished turning the key and opened the door. But his progress was suddenly halted. Leaving the door open just enough to see the reason for this.
“Damn it, Chains on”
“You think someone is home then?”. Walsh gave Mason a rather dirty look, showing his quickly diminishing patience for Mason’s wit.
“Get Back”, Richard shouted just seconds before he took the door of it’s hinges with a sharp kick. Without another word Richard took off though the darken room and on to the apartment’s badly lit balcony. George was not as quick to react, who after a second or two of him weighing up his options, and much to his disgust he decided he didn’t have much choice. Making his way on to the balcony, a little slower than Richard, George’s dismay at the situation when he saw the rusting fifty year old fire escape he would have to climb down to continue the chase. After a pause for a second thought, he braved the awful conditions and climbed down the fire escape to reach a dirty infested floor of a courtyard which had similar apartment blocks on all four sides, with the only way out being at small gaps between the blocks at the corners of the courtyard. Before having a look round to analysis the situation and the progression of the chase, he took a second he probably didn’t have to brush himself down and readjust his tie. Once he finished he looked around, seeing Richard chasing the biggest group of people, there were a few others running in different directions, but safety in numbers he thought was probably his best bet, so he started off in Walsh’s direction.
Frantically running away from the two old men in suits who Davidoff turned down yet another back street, and dialled a number on his cell. “….there on to us!” he shouted down the phone, “….who?, does it matter?….you’d just better warn the others….”
03:42:03….03:42:04….03:42:05
Johnson is tracking through the forest, he stops in the middle of an small clearing so that he can check his map and his direction. After doing so, he takes out his radio from a small compartment in his large rucksack and is about to start flicking though frequencies when he looks down and notices a disturbance in the forest floor. He kneels down and takes a closer look and what turn out to be footprints. It was fresh, a military boot, but oddly it was smaller then he would expect, but definitely a military boot, it was a woman’s footprint. The trail of footprints lead off in the direction he was meant to be going, so he started following them.
03:44
After an exhaustive chase, Walsh and Mason where unable to catch any of the those who had quickly fled from the apartment, so there only hope of gaining any significant information was from the apartment itself.
“Well, I did need some exercise”, Mason commented
“Yeah, I’m not in the best shape either”, Walsh agreed.
“So where are we?”, oddly Mason wanted to get down to the serious matter in hand, wanting to know if all his efforts had been in vain.
“With what?”
“I mean, we lost the lot of them”
“Well lets have a look around here”, Richard had a look around the kitchen while George spotted the computer in the corner. Sitting down he moves the mouse and the computer comes to life. After a second of random clicking he was able to bring up the contents of the delta disc which in all the hurry was left behind.
“Richard, I think I got something”
“Got what?”
“A computer, and your missing disc”, Mason mentioned the latter almost as a side note.
“Really?”
“Yeah, have a look for yourself if you don’t believe me”, Mason said, a bit put out that Walsh didn’t at first seem to believe him. Richard came out of the kitchen and stood over George, looking at the computer.
“Check the name of the operations”
“hmm, let me see, Nightfall and Falling Hammer”
“Falling Hammer?, what are the mission objectives?”
“There aren’t any”
“That’s odd”
“Yeah”, Mason agreed
“Any other details?”
“No, most of it’s too heavily corrupted”
“Okay, what else is on the computer?”
“Looking for anything special?”, Mason inquired, to help narrow down his search.
“Any recent e-mails?”
With one click Mason was able to answer the question, “yeah, about an hour and a half a go, no message, just and attachment,…..the delta files”
“Really?, what’s the email address?”
“[email protected]”
“I’ll pass that on, are there any other contacts?”
“lets see, yeah a couple more e-mail addresses, and four regular, all in la”
“call my assistant, she can work up the e-mail addresses, we’ll check out the addresses ourselves.”
03:51
Victor Drazen is still travelling back to his compound in his humvee, when his driver suddenly stops. Something Drazen isn’t very happy with.
“What are you doing?”
“There’s, hmm, something in the middle of the road, sir”, was the drivers nervous response, well aware of what happened to the last person to displease Victor Drazen.
“Then go around it!”
“I can’t, sir”
“Then move it out the way!”
“Er, Yes, sir”. Drazen’s driver got out of the Car, to close inspect whatever it was in the middle of the road. Slowly realization set in, it was a body, a slim slender woman in military gear. Quickly, the body, which he had assumed was dead, got up and pointed a gun he hadn’t spotted at him, which nearly gave him a heart attach.
“Victor”, the dark haired woman shouted, at first Victor didn’t respond, “Victor”, she repeated. With a bad temper, Drazen got out of the Car and walked to the front of it. “Victor, finally”
“Who are you?”, Drazen said, impatience setting in.
“I’m Yelena”
“Who?”, Drazen asked again.
“Dimitri sent me”
“Pardon?”, Drazen asked another question, not quite understanding the situation.
“Dimitri Goetz, we got some information that your life was under threat, so I was sent to arrange your extraction”
“How can I be sure your telling the truth?, that you are who you say you are?”
“Goetz agreed to arrange to have you assets moved to an account in the Caymans, account 887-75-7502-13082”, Drazen was stunned, he knew nobody outside of Goetz’s organization would know that.
“So what’s the plan?”, Drazen said, quickly putting aside his shock, to be purely professional.
“Well, Goetz wants you to use a double, it would be very useful for future operations if the wider world thought you were dead”
“When is the attempt set for?”
“When you go back to your compound”
“Good, that should give us enough time to sort out the double.”
03:57
While this conversation continued, Johnson approached, having followed Yelena’s trail. Slowly, he continued to approach, stopping just far enough away as not to alarm either Yelena or Drazen, but this meant that he couldn’t hear them either. Crouching down, he took off his backpack and opened it up, pulling out an odd looking gadget which emitted a red laser which he aimed at Yelena and Drazen, while placing a small ear piece into his ear. Suddenly he was able to hear their conversation.
“….have you got another residence in the local area?….yes, it’s about four miles north of here….good, we should head there and co-ordinate the double and your extraction from there…”
Johnson gave out a little chuckle, and thought to himself, “whoever she is, she’s doing all our work for us.”
03:59:58….03:59:59….04:00:00