Tarkov- No Escape

Chapter 16- Corporate Restructuring

The room was cold and dark, illuminated by some dim florescent lights.  Amelia Kahn stood in the middle of the room in front of a formation of shadowy figures.  They all wore black uniforms and tactical gear, masks, and carried automatic weapons, notably western automatic weapons.  The most discernible detail was the black and crimson armbands they wore, which read "BLACK DIVISION" with a scorpion next to the words, their insignia.  "Lieutenant, is the platoon assembled?" she asked.  "Yes Ma'am, all warriors present and accounted for," said the Lieutenant.  "Perfect," she said as she addressed them all.  "As you know, the target we've been tracking is now in the possession of sensitive information, its not clear at this time if he's managed to decode it, but as of right now, this man and his associates are to be considered hostile," she said.  "YES MA'AM!" said the men.  "Now, as you have also been made aware, David Michaels has forbidden all Black Division intervention with Operation Fast Track and it's other side mission, so I have deemed it necessary to undertake some corporate restructuring, be ready in 10 minutes," she said before stepping aside.  "You heard her, have all gear prepped and ready to go in 10, LET'S MOVE!" roared the Lieutenant.  "YES SIR!" echoed the men as they broke formation and ran about prepping their gear.    The Lieutenant then turned around to address Amelia in private.  "Ma'am, if we succeed in this, will we be going to the Norvinsk Region?" he asked.  "Yes Lieutenant, all of you will be going, I want that man's head on my desk, he cannot find out about Project Blackburn," she said. 

Black Divison operators were a common sight at the new Terragroup headquarters.  What caused the panic was when said operators began firing at any and all people they encountered.  They went around the building and positioned themselves at any and all exits, sealing windows and doors, and placing demolition charges at key points all over the base of the skyscraper.  They went into every room, office, closet, and shot any and every moving thing.  The more open areas like the dining area, lobby, and conference rooms were easy mop ups.  Once all the people inside were gunned down, they unholstered their sidearms and walked from body to body, firing a single bullet into the head.   Whenever they came across the server room, the men would simply fire into the server racks until all that was left was a sparking clutter of wires.  Another squad cut the power to the building and people were left running around in pitch black as the windows were covered by steel shutters while men in black with night vision goggles picked them off.  When the men ran out of ammunition for their primary weapons, they switched to their sidearms, and when those ran out, they switched to large combat knives, standard issue for all Black Division operators.   

David locked his office door and drew the shade while 2 USEC guards stood outside.  He then unlocked a hidden compartment on his desk and pulled out a Glock 17 with a flashlight and red dot sight.  He loaded in a magazine and crouched behind his desk.  Suddenly, he heard the hallway door open.  "Halt!" yelled one of the guards.  The response was a hail of gunfire.  David cursed under his breath.  Amelia, it had to be.  She'd finally snapped.  He cursed again at himself for not removing her from the board sooner, or at the very least assigning someone else to command the Black Division.  Suddenly, the door was blown off its hinges and 5 men stormed in, pointing rifles in his direction.  The red laser beams sweeped around.  David jumped up, pistol in hand, but before he could fire, a bullet pierced his stomach.  He cried out and dropped the pistol.  As he lay against the wall of his office, bleeding, he heard the familiar sound of high heels getting louder and louder.  Surely enough, she walked through the doorway with a smirk on her face and a pistol in her hand.  "No witnesses?" she said, turning to one of the large men.  "No witnesses ma'am," he said.  "Good work Lieutenant, tell the ground team to ready the explosives," she said.  David coughed before sitting up straighter.  "What's your big plan Amelia, the company won't survive if you kill them all," he said.  "I am the company now David," she said matter-of-factly.  "What's all this about then, money?" he asked.  "Oh no David, I only want to further the evolution of mankind, Project Blackburn would have made us all the money in the world and gotten our names in the history books, and yet you shut it down because it hurt your ego," she said.  "I wasn't going to stand by while you destroyed those people's lives in that purgatory," said David sternly.  "Well now you don't have to worry about it," she said as she unceremoniously raised the pistol and shot him in the face.  What she wasn't prepared for was the spray of blood and brain matter from his head.  It was sticky and disgusting but also warm and comforting in a way.  Just as she began savoring the moment, the Lieutenant came back into the room.  "Ma'am, exfil is 3 minutes, we have to move," he said.  Amelia Kahn left the building covered in blood with a smile on her face.  

Jason sat at the desk in the hideout, his headache getting worse and worse by the minute.  The files were still not making any sense.  He was about to crumple up a piece of paper in annoyance but stopped.  The page was thicker than the others.  It was also made out of a different material which he didn't notice before.  He felt the piece of paper and stopped when he felt something hard, almost plastic, in the middle.  This wasn't one piece of paper at all, it was 2, glued together.  Fingers shaking, Jason got out a small knife and made small slits on the bottom of the paper.  Then, a card and a small data drive slid out.  Heart racing, Jason took the data stick and inserted it into a laptop that Nikita and Andrei fixed for him.  A display showing the stick's contents came up.  At first, it looked like random numbers but Jason knew it was more than that.  He then got out a piece of paper and formulated an algorithm which in turn created a cipher pattern which he aligned with letters instead of numbers.  Once he descrambled them, a message could be read across the screen, "Begin Project Blackburn".