Grace Yacobs had spent the last two hours frantically searching every piece of the new data, it had arrived out of the blue at around 6am, and they had no idea how long it would be avaliable before the owners pulled it from the public domain, and that would make their life a lot more difficult. Around her teams of analysts rushed between their own cubicles and the more higher up ones offices, calls of who was covering each area went over Grace's head as she sat in the dark of her own office the feint glow of two computer screens illuminating her face as she gazed between the two.
"Grace, you seen the Swanwick area?" a relatively junior member of the team stuck his head around the door.
"Looking now, we could be on to something.....I'll keep looking, you make sure we get double copies of everything." Her phone buzzed next to her and she picked them up and glanced at the screen before casually putting it aside, there was nothing she could do about the message, all of that was too late but what she could get from the screens in front of her would make up for any of the bad news they'd just received. Thirty minutes later the tall blonde intelligence agent stood and leaving her shoes behind under the desk scurried out her office, along the corridor and straight into her commanders office. "Steve, I think I've got it."
Steve Askew, the Deputy Chief of the National Intelligence Agency had several junior agents around him each attaching labels to maps and drawing his attention to various aerial photographs. "Grace, I'm a little busy, the Lakhzovia stuff has just come in." he gestured to the map in front of him.
"Screw that, wait til you see what I've got" she brushed the map casually aside and placed her own document on the table, a colour print of the screens back in her office.
"What the hell is it?" Steve picked the first up and examined it, a series of lines making a kind of star shape from a central point, the red wasn't uniform, and in places appeared to be, the one next to it was an old aerial photo dated to 2012. "Grace you better start filling me in on what has you so excited." he slumped in his chair wheeling himself closer as he motioned for the various juniors to leave, they gathered their maps, labels and coffee cups before heading out.
"You see those fitness tracker companies have released heat maps of the world based on people's movements, we started checking them as we figured they could show military base layout, they did but nothing compromising, it was patrol patterns however in the Alps that became obvious. I've phoned Mum...I mean General Yacobs and their issuing a general order banning fitness trackers, nothing we can do about that now, but we can change the routes and things......but that gave me an idea, if the Borlanders could potentially trace our patrols then we can trace them."
"So that's this map?" he tapped on the black and red map, suddenly it began making sense, at least a little more to him. "What you find?" he inched closer to the table and examined the second image of the Alps taken by one of their regular aerial photography runs of the area.
"Well we began running heavy duty uses in the Alps, at first we got lots of the popular ski and hiking runs, next we got some of the mines and bigger farms, but then we got that. It's the old Chaom Mining Company HQ, it's got similar patterns to the operations bases in the Alps used by our patrols." she waited a moment and the news seemed to please her boss as Steve leaned back in his chair a smile on his face. "Steve....I need a Sentinel and a Red Legion team."
"Oh, you'll get it alright" Steve reached towards the phone on his desk and within an hour a high flying sentinel overflew the site at high altitude its optical systems revealing the old mining operation beneath them. The hills around the place became home to eight Red Legionnaires who, using sophisticated optical equipment where watching people move backwards and forewards between the buildings, each with an assault rifle over their shoulders. Several pick up trucks, their rears containing various pieces of equipment clearly visible came and went from the site. After an hour of observing the sound of gunfire could be heard and the tell tale flash of muzzle fire could be seen in one of the old tunnels, clearly an improvised firing range.
By midday they had all the information they needed and back in Northfort Grace, Steve and Minister of Defence Harry Samuelson sat watching the images on a slideshow, Grace narrating the scene before them. "I know that guy" Harry pointed to the screen, names Giles Heywood, he was a guy we once caught in the Alps trading with the Borlanders, investigations revealed he'd been allowing them to store weapons at his property and he used his position as a farmer to buy them large amounts of fertiliser that was used to make bombs. When they went to arrest him he'd disappeared. A search of his house saw a variety of comms equipment and code books, bastards a Borlander."
"Well that saves me a job" Grace grinned, she had planned to start running the various face through recognition software but this gentleman, who seemed to be constantly surrounded by the others as though dishing out orders was the one she was most interested in. "So, what do we do?" Grace asked.
The reply came at just after 3pm, a single
Jekars Chariot Bomber picked up confirmation of its targets being illuminated by the Red Legionnaires, one by one in quick succession the various bombs were deployed, each riding a different laser beam to their target. The staff back in Grace's office watched as the impacts caused bright flashes on their viewing screen as the images relayed back by a EMAC AutoDragon provided a live feed. Suddenly a massive flash showed where a fuel depot went up, the room cheered, all but Grace who watched the IR Strobes of the Red Legionnaires move in as the last bomb went off. They now had audio as the team began describing what they found, it took them a good hour to recce the sight taking pictures and feeding them back in real time, by then Steve had returned to his office and Grace joined him. "Operation Running Strike was a complete success, we've about fifteen dead Borlanders, another four in custody although not likely to make the transfer to a medical centre, and put around ten vehicles out of service. All in all a good days work."
"Well done Grace, guess we have to take the gifts when they come." The whole fitness tracker data was creating controversy, was it a breach of privacy or did the company own the data, that debate was no concern of Grace's as she'd got everything she needed.
"Well, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, what would you say if I could tell you I've found the routes of four more Borlanders on their run..." before she could continue Steve interupted.
"If we've spotted the data and pulled our patrols, chances are the Borlanders know this can be a problem and they've done likewise." Steve explained.
"Your right, problem is they don't know that we know their Borlanders and I reckon I may even have home addresses." Grace was pretty confident that the new data sifting that was going on would mean they could get these people and if they could, well a real message could be sent.
