For the next scenario, I decided to have one of my friends run Jessica's Bodies, or more accurately, Khawla's Bodies, as they 'ported' it to Iraq, right after the US pulled out.
The group's case officer briefed them on the situation. Two parents refused to accept the bloody corpse they found in their apartment was their daughter, Samira. The Iraqi police tested her DNA and found she was an exact match for a woman who had been killed by her ex-boyfriend a few weeks ago, Khawla Rahim. They chalked this up to shoddy labwork and asked the remaining Americans to double-check their work. They got the same result.
Their case officer was annoyed. He'd asked for a doctor and had been sent a medic instead, 'Doc Taylor.' However, he perked up when Jim pointed out that it looked like the victim suddenly stopped having a few layers of skin and then bled to death. Doc and Jim then headed for Abu Ghraib prison to meet with Khawla's ex, Ali Ahmed. The guards were more than eager to let two obviously CIA goons 'interrogate' the piece of shit. He'd been grabbed in a US raid and was almost certainly part of a 'kidnap for ransom' gang, but was released because he wasn't important enough.
Ali explained that Khawla made him kill her. She was a whore, you see. Jim could tell this wasn't the whole truth. As the Agents pressed Ali for details, the story became more complicated.
"I kept her alive in the capital during the civil war! I protected her from that piece of shit, Kamal. And she helped me too! I was going down a dark path before I met her. If we hadn't met, I would've been killed in a night raid or blown up in some attack. She saved my soul." He explained that Kamal was some creep she knew from school. He got too close to Khawla and so he beat him up. Then she left him. He turned to Taylor, "how do I make this right?"
"Samira Hamza was kidnapped right out of her home. You used to run around in that circuit. Tell us where she is," Taylor responded.
"I don't know where she is! You know who's kidnapping people these days? It's Mossad1, or the Shia. Just take me with you, and I can help." Jim shook his head. "Why not?" Ali pleaded, "you're Americans, you can get me out of here, right?"
They left Ali screaming incoherently after them and the guard gave them a low whistle. He was impressed. The two Agents headed out to the Valley of Peace to check out Khawla's family crypt. The sun beat down on them, but they eventually found it. It looked like someone had pried open the brick wall and then hastily shoved the bricks back into place. Taylor kicked open a hole and stepped in, gun and flashlight drawn. Satisfied no zombies were going to pop out and try to eat his face, he called for Jim. Khawla's burial shroud was completely empty. Just traces of blueish ashes and green salt crystals. Jim's Occult recalled various Roman and German stories of how some alchemists' and demon worshippers' bodies vanished after death, leaving behind foul-smelling dust and ash. Taylor took a sample to analyze later.
Their next stop was Samira's house. Her mother, Sabad Khaled, opened the door. A few feet back, barely visible in the darkness of the apartment, her husband leveled a 1911 pistol at the Agents. Once Taylor persuaded her they just wanted to talk about Samira, Hamza Yusuf awkwardly holstered his gun and turned on the lights. Hamza had turned the dining room into a sort of 'I Love Me Wall.' A plate carrier with a round still embedded in it hung at eye level, spray-painted with a Punisher skull. Next to it was case of challenge coins, photographs of Hamza and American servicemen, and an American flag folded into a triangle behind glass.
"Thank you for your service," Taylor said, taking in everything.
"You're welcome."
"And for not shooting us in the hallway," he said, nodding at the holstered gun.
"You're welcome for that too. Now tell me about my fucking daughter."
Jim spoke for the first time upon entering the apartment, "Did Samira know any boys?"
Hamza's face turned red, like he was about to explode. "Did she know any boys? She knew better than to find a rat on a sinking ship! Why would she look for a boy in Baghdad?"
Sabad clearly looked upset at his condemnation of the Iraqi people, but Hamza continued cursing them in ever more creative ways in as many languages he knew. Eventually he calmed down and asked his wife to show the Americans to his daughter's room. He said it wouldn't be right for him to do it, as a man, but it was obvious he couldn't bear to look at it again. Sabad couldn't either. She led the Agents to the dark stain on the stairs, and then pointed up, "It's the first on the left."
The room was oddly clean. Taylor noted that she couldn't have possibly been skinned here, as there would've been blood all over the walls and ceiling. Jim got to work on Samira's computer while Taylor looked through the photos on her desk. The people weren't labeled, but there was a scrawny young man who appeared in multiple of them. They'd worked together in different robotics tournaments. Jim found that Samira had recently been in contact with a certain 'noob killer,' but told Taylor he couldn't trace any IP addresses from here. He'd need to take it back to one of the American 'cyberlabs.'
Hamza refused. Still in denial over his daughter's death, he said Samira had built the computer herself and that she'd 'freak out' if she came back and it was missing. First, he agreed to let them take it if he could come with them and help. But eventually, after some convincing, a predator handshake, and a promise to tell him the second they knew anything, the Agents left with the computer.
Jim whispered to Sabad, "We've already found a lead and we're going to follow up on it. We just need you to keep him busy. Can you do that?" She nodded.
Then it was back to Abu Ghraib to talk to Ali. He bolted to his feet, forgetting he was still cuffed to the table.
"You came back!"
"Yes. Yes we did," Taylor said, "Now tell us everything you know about Kamal."
It turned out he didn't know much, but he did know his full name, Kamal Ibrahim2. As Taylor calmly opened the door to his cell to leave, Ali grew agitated and confused, "Aren't you taking me with you? We're going to find him and make things right...right?" Taylor had been stringing him along with a soft friendly expression. Now it hardened, revealing the disgust he'd been hiding.
"I hope you see Khawla's face when you close your eyes to go to sleep for the rest of your miserable life." And then he slammed the door shut.
2 Technically that's just his given name and patronymic, but we were using simplified Arabic names for the game. ↩
Just a minor correction. Jim Coake's player here. Not to take away from Doc Taylor's screen time (and he gets plenty in the next episode, do stay tuned for that dear reader!) but as I recall it was Jim with his high Human Intelligence (80%) who noticed that Hamza Yusuf was in the background leveling a firearm at the team and said "Thank you for not shooting us, Sir." :D
ReplyDeleteThat's what I get for putting off writing the play reports for two months.
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