RAGNAROK. | simon riley/ghost

006: OSPREY, part one

          TWO DAYS after the eventful night at the bar, Laswell contacted Price to reveal the fruits of her team's success in cracking into Hassan's phone. The process was grueling, as any high-risk terrorist such as Hassan would naturally adopt stringent security measures to safeguard any devices he used for communications. As difficult as it was, however, they eventually managed to unearth some intelligence; while they couldn't find anything on code names 'Jackal' or 'Station', they did find out more information on 'Osprey'.

      Associated with that code name was a date, a location, and two names. June 14th. St. Petersburg, Russia. Anton Petrovich and Isaak Vlasov.

      Deciphering the significance of the date and location required extensive analysis, but finding background on both names was simple– they were prominent figures in the Russian mafia. Anton was a fairly successful hitman who worked under the direct orders of Samuil Sokolo, the mafia king's right-hand. Isaak was the head supplier, overseeing virtually every shipment that was either delivered to or from the mafia. Further investigation revealed that both Anton and Isaak were long-time, close associates of Alexei, which strongly implied that they were either complicit in the impending attack or the very individuals responsible for doing the dirty work.

      Later they cracked the code surrounding the date and location. June 14th was exactly three months and two days from the present day. According to Zero, the date itself held no importance to Alexei. However, upon delving deeper, they later found out that the Prime Minister of Russia, Rolan Pushkin, and the Governor of St. Petersburg, Akim Egorov, were set to meet Japan's Prime Minister Morikawa Keiichi. According to the schedule, the trio planned to attend a performance at the Mariinsky Theatre to view the Bolshoi ballet's rendition of the classic 'Black Swan' play. The specifics of the meeting were unknown, but ultimately meaningless. They assumed the specifics would be meaningless to Alexei as well. But the Prime Minister of Japan being assassinated on Russian soil? It would undoubtedly trigger widespread chaos.

      That was merely an assumption, however. TF-141 still had insufficient information to confidently determine what exactly Volkov had in mind. The very night Laswell had delivered the news, the team had gathered at a round table within the hour, with the CIA agent and Shepherd on the laptop to aid the discussion. They all pondered the obvious questions: what could happen, why would Alexei target them, what was he planning to do– if killing them was his intention, how would he do it?

      Laswell presented information on Alexei's past missions, revealing that he always carried out the killings himself, often going undercover unnoticed as a bodyguard, a driver, or waitstaff. He was meticulous in his planning, always having a backup plan, as evidenced by one of his failed assassination attempts; after failing to get close to his target, bombs planted in the basement of a museum detonated, killing the individual and many more. At this they noted that the Mariinsky had an underground tunnel system, which the Russian could potentially use to his advantage.

      "Okay, so he goes undercover, gets close, kills one of them, maybe all," Price paced back and forth. "But how? There's going to be at least ten bodyguards in attendance. He won't even be able to raise his weapon."

      "Who's to say he'll stick to his usual pattern?" Soap added. "We have Hassan's phone. We found out the details. He may not proceed with what's planned, or may do so at a different date."

      "No," Zero disagreed, "he'll go on with it. He's psychotic enough to do so, and arrogant enough to think he'll get away with it."

      "But get away with what, exactly? There's no clear motive, how are we sure he plans to kill them?" said Gaz.

      She shook her head. "Don't overthink it. Alexei doesn't care for motives. He never has them. For as long as I've known him, he has always been impatient, impulsive, kill hungry. He likes power, and he likes money, of course. But above all he adores chaos. He just wants to watch the world burn."