Chapter Four

The normal banter that Ripcord usually used was discarded in favor of a quick nod to respond to Covergirl's comment. The group finally split its three ways with the two the teams splitting their ways and leaving Covergirl alone among the darkened skyscrapers surrounding McCullen Technologies.


Big Ben and Biggles carefully entered the west door and proceeded slowly down a single flight of stairs. The two paused at the door of the tenth floor and exchanged a quick look. A moment later Biggles swung the door open while Big Ben did a combat roll into the room and began to swing the muzzle of his MP-5 around the room.
"Clear." came the radio message from Big Ben. Biggles then proceeded carefully into the room. The two then walked around a series of workstations before arriving at far wall. Finally they found their target, a 4 foot by 4 foot vent shaft. Biggles proceeded to closely inspect the vent for alarms. After judging that it was safe he carefully removed the grating. "One. Entering." Ben Big spoke into the radio. As soon as the grate came off, Big Ben withdrew two chemical break lights from his ALICE gear and tossed them into the shaft. The two then carefully entered the system and began to crawl through the system. After a few minutes the two finally reached a vent grate from which soft talking was filtering through. Once again Biggles slid past Big Ben to check the grating. After a moment Biggles carefully slid the grating off and the two slid into the large room and carefully used the various computer and communications equipment to hide their movements. Finally the two saw the source of the talking, two men dressed in gray and purple uniforms with goggled helmets, each having a red snake's head crest patched on the shoulders of their uniforms. Big Ben made a call on the radio as he and Biggles lined up the shots. "Contact." A split second later the two enemies went down in a hail of suppressed gunfire. "Zero two hostiles down." Big Ben said into the radio as he began to check the room for other people. At the same time Biggles moved forward towards the main console the two enemies had been standing near. He wiped the blood and gore off of the monitor as if it was a small annoyance while he began to hook up his electronic gear to the system. Within minutes he began to both download the data to his laptop while transmitting the data back to several locations, including MI-5 HQ, CIA HQ, and G.I. Joe HQ.
"Downloading. Transmitting." He said into the radio. Then grinning under his mask he leaned over to Big Ben, "Is this a milk run or what mate?"


Ripcord and Givens carefully entered the east door and proceeded down a single flight of steps towards the tenth floor. The two did a mirror image of Big Ben and Biggles' entrance. However once in the work area Ripcord and Givens had to pause for a moment while trying to remember the location of the elevator. "The Brit would have to only bring one copy of the blue print." Ripcord mumbled under his breath as he finally got his bearing and found the hallway which lead towards the elevator bank. Givens went to a knee against one wall and aimed the MP-5 at the elevator doors as Ripcord slapped the down button. As soon as he hit it Ripcord dropped back against the opposite wall and leveled his M-4 at the elevator. Finally a dull 'ping' sounded as the elevator stopped and its doors slid open. The two stepped carefully inside and Ripcord worked to open up a maintenance hatch as Givens held the elevator doors open. Ripcord opened the hatch and slid into the shaft then motioned for Givens to follow. Givens slipped into the hatch and Ripcord closed the hatch behind them. "Two. Entering." The two began to make their way down the maintenance ladder until at around the seventh floor Givens spoke up.
"Oh, bloody hell." Givens whispered to himself. But the echo of the shaft allowed Ripcord to hear it, and causes him to immediately freeze.
"What's wrong?" Ripcord asked in an urgent voice. "I forgot to block the doors on the way out mate." Givens said with a defeated tone. "No time now, keep climbing down." Ripcord said in a calm voice while in his head he gave the SAS machine gunner the dressing down of his life. The two continued to climb in silence until the sound of heavy machinery is heard and Ripcord saw the counter weight fly up past him. "GO! GO! GO!" Ripcord screamed forgetting that the radios are volume activated. "Get the door open now!" Ripcord yelled as Givens began to work open the door of the third floor. Givens put all of his strength into prying the doors open as the elevator got closer and closer to Ripcord. "Damnit Givens move!" Ripcord looked up, seeing the elevator mere feet away. "Oh God!" Ripcord yelled as he closed his eyes. Then the sound stopped. Ripcord opened his eyes to see the elevator just inches away from his face.
"I got it!" Givens called as he slipped into the opened doors. As Ripcord heard the telltale sign of the machinery start to work he let go of the ladder and narrowly caught the lip of the third floor. As the elevator started to come down he quickly pulled himself onto the third floor and flipped over onto his back as the elevator stopped on the third floor. As the dull ping sounded the doors slid open. They weren't wearing black. Ripcord didn't hesitate. He began to spray the elevator car with M-4 fire as an animal yell erupted from him. Within seconds the clip ran dry and the sound of suppressed fire was replaced by the low click of the bolt dry firing. Ripcord finally stood and let his index finger off of the trigger. He glanced back at Givens who didn't even get a shot off. He slapped a fresh magazine into his M-4 as he surveyed the corpses in the elevator car. The men were carrying bayoneted FN-FAL assault rifles and were in strange, almost formal red uniforms but with a full masked helmet on their head, each also had a silver snake's head crest on the front of their uniforms.
"What idiots wear that into battle?" Ripcord muttered to himself. He turned to stare daggers at Givens as he made his radio report in a calm even voice. "Zero four hostiles down." Taking a deep breath and cooling his anger he looked at Givens, "Okay, well the elevators are out of the question now, so let's take the stairs down to the lobby then cut across the lobby to the basement stairwell."


The central computers of Joe H.Q. were suddenly flooded with information as various blue prints and manifests on various Cobra vehicles, weapons, and equipment began to scroll across the screen. Additional several codenames and locations for Cobra bases and operatives were added to the database as Biggles downloaded the data from McCullen Technologies to the Joe database.


Save a civilian vehicle off in the distance, everything was quiet on the roof, except for the occasional radio traffic.
"Clear."
"One. Entering."
"Two. Entering."
"Contact."
"Zero two hostiles down."
"Downloading. Transmitting." Everything seemed to be going fine inside until frantic radio traffic from Ripcord started to filter in.
"GO! GO! GO!"
"Get the door open now!"
"Damnit Givens move!"
"Oh God!"
"Holy Shit. " Cover Girl cursed, fearing the worst for Ripcord and the others. She grabbed the radio to buzz him back for a status report, when several men in bulky black and green uniforms with night vision goggles burst through the east door. "Holy Shit," she repeated, taking one out with her M-4 before ducking behind a vent. Her radio went sliding down the sloped portion of the roof, just out of reach. "Two.... three... great... Just great." She said counting the number of assailants still left alive. Taking turns spraying bullets with the M-4, and ducking back down, she saw some sort of armored vehicles pulling towards the west end of the building. "What the.... who are these guys?" Reaching for another clip while firing, her hand rested on what she hoped would be her ticket out. She gave a second to let the troopers take a step up on her, quickly kissed the cylindrical object through the thin fabric of her mask for luck, and stood up, lighting the flare. Still wearing the night vision goggles, she knew the light would be blinding to them. As they screamed and tried to rip the objects off to shield their burned retinas, the bullets from her M-4 tore into them. Adrenaline charged, she fired an extra round into the head of each trooper, more as a confirmation to herself that each was dead. She bent down by one of the corpses and ripped an emblem off his uniform, one that looked like a red, hooded cobra about to strike. Checking frantically between both entrances, she slid back towards her radio and grabbed it. The strange looking vehicles inched closer. "Contact, Contact. Zero four hostiles down," she called into the radio, grabbing the M-72. "Three hostile approach..." She stopped short as one of the vehicles raised its missile platform. "Holy Shit," she still repeated, falling to her stomach, knowing it was about to fire on its own building. Quickly she grabbed and raised the Law rocket launcher, closing her eyes a brief second to steady her nerves. "One shot, one shot, one shot...," she said as her mantra, launching the missile. Right on target, but two bogies left. "Contact, We got.... jeeps, something, never seen...Out is good!" She shouted into the radio, shrugging another LAW tube off of her back. The second vehicle turned in a radius she had never seen. Luckily it was disabled, yet not destroyed by her second rocket, but not before the third launching a rocket of its own. "Incoming!" She said into the receiver, taking cover from the impact. The missile pierced low, seeming to rip through around the tenth floor. Grabbing her radio again, she called to both teams. "Damage report!" She asks. "Looks like they're trying to take out the computers! Team One, Team One, Out is good!" Nothing back. "Holy Shit!" Shrugging off the final LAW, she fell again to her stomach, watching the strange vehicle in the distance raise to fire again. "One shot, one shot, one shot..." She chanted again, holding her breath and taking aim. She felt the building shake again beneath her, almost as if another explosion had gone off, and tried to hold steady. "One shot, one shot one shot..." She heard, saw and felt nothing as the last rocket was launched, landing dead center. Once again, something in the building shook. "Team one, team two..." she called into the radio, dropping the now useless launcher, and heading for the north exit. "Team one, team two, again?"

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