War and Racketeering; An Easy Guide

Spoiler: Music

Your name is Smith. Major Smith, according to the fake birth certificate in the wall locker in the rather nice hotel room you were staying in. More importantly, you were between jobs, so the rather nice three-star hotel room in Manilla would hopefully change soon- you didn't want to become too much of a regular after all. It was bad for the reputation, and in your business reputation was everything.

Your business? According to most of the documents in the wall safe next to your counterfeit Albanian birth certificate, you were a security specialist tasked with high profile jobs. Last month, you'd been overseeing oil rig security in Kuwait, officially, while making sure that the Iraqis across the border didn't want to come in too bad. Mostly this involved a lot of land mines, duplicitous intelligence, blow-up anti-tank missiles, and hiring Somalis as border raiders to start fires in places old man Saddam didn't want there to be fires.

Good times.

Now that the contract had run up, though (and you'd made the other side of the border madder than hell) you were at loose ends. Commercial anti-piracy operations had looked like they were gonna take off any minute now, which is why you'd come to Manilla, but with the Gulf exploding like an oil fire that option was looking fairly shot as every two-bit contractor was getting snapped up by the Turks or Israelis. Considering the fact you'd gotten burned by the Jews back when you'd just started in '68 and you didn't speak Turkish, both those options were pretty much closed.

That's when your work phone rang. Picking it up gingerly, you answered it carefully. "Major Smith speaking."

"Hello, Major Smith." A voice said, smooth as honey. "My name is Thomas Johnson, and I come on the behalf of a consortium of interested parties interested in hiring you for a contract."

"What kind of contract?" you asked, curiosity piqued.

"Long term, for yourself and a company of picked individuals to operate in sub-Saharan Africa. We require a security specialist with expertise in working against government-backed groups, and your resume is very much meeting our requirements."

You smirked as you looked at your rolodex on the coffee table across from the bed. "I can certainly do that. What sort of operating budget do we have here?"

"Your salary is two hundred thousand USD a year, directly deposited into the secured account of your choice on a bi-monthly basis. For operations, we have assembled forty million USD as your operational assembly budget, and will be providing five million a month for the first twelve months, after which we will be looking into renegotiating your operational budget."
You had to resist a wolf-whistle. That was a lot of money. A lot of money. Chuckling, you had to put your hand up to cup the phone carefully.

"I can certainly work with that. Do you have a representative in the Philippines, Mr. Johnson?"

"Of course. Would lunch at two at the Parkland in Manilla be apros?"

"Certainly."

----

Looking over the massive dossier you'd been given, you smirked. Zimbabwe was next to collapsing, with a gigantic inflation problem, decreasing public health, an AIDs epidemic, multiple strikes and revolts… it was a goddamn mess. Plus side, though, you weren't propping up the regime, you were just making sure that there was an area of stability in the country. Whistling a jaunty march, you settled down in an internet cafe, and whipped out the disposable phone and your good headset. Once the door was locked and your pistol was loose in the holster, you started placing calls.

"Billingsley Accounting, how may I direct your call?" A young woman's voice said, bright and perky.

"I need to talk to James. James Billingsley." you said calmly, aware most people wouldn't just call up a major English accounting firm out of the blue.

"And may I tell him who's calling?"

"His friend from the Sinai" you replied, smiling slightly. It was about a minute later you were connected through to the man himself.

"Thomas! How are you doing, old chap!" he called out, and for a second you smirked. You hadn't been Thomas in twenty years, but Billingsley would refuse to call you anything else."

"Ah, just fine." you replied, your accent slipping over to something vaguely West German in a flash, consonants softening and lengthening your vowels carefully. "I just got hired again, you know. Business is booming."

"Good, good! Let me guess- you need a money man?"

"Exactly. Got any young braves feeling like a fun time in Africa?"

Billingsley laughed, and you could hear him joking through the phone. "No Jews, I take it?"

"I can handle a few Jew," You muttered, trying to get over the sting of that old joke. Having been a bit of an anti-Semite back in the day, working on the Jordanian border with them at your back had quickly broken you of that particular belief. The fact Billingsley was half-Akazanshi himself only added to the joke, since you hadn't known that when you'd first met. "Just don't ask me to work with their NEM teams again."

"You don't like driving pigs over landmines?"

"It's been years since I joked we should serve bacon with a side of explosive, James. After getting left out to dry, though, I can safely say my dislike is purely professional now."

"It was only two million dollars in equipment, you panzie."

"I had to default on that loan and work in Macedonia after that as a gun runner to make it up to the Russians! I think I can hold a little bit of a grudge!"

"Ha!" your friend said, laughing. "Anyway, I have a fellow on tap for you. David Long, finished up in the bottom fifth of his class at Cambridge. Speaks English, French, and a little Arabic, and wants an exotic woman or two. Even has a passport. Seems up to your speed?"

"Where we're going? He'll do fine, if he doesn't get AIDs."

"Thomas, everyone I send down to you I expect to get AIDs. He's a bit of a cunt, but honestly he'll get the job done."

"Great." you said, and started getting the next name ready. "Send him to Manilla on the next plane you can, please."

"Anything else?"

"No, we should be good. Tschus!"

"Tschus!"

With that done, you sighed and got to work calling up your security assets. Normally, you preferred to train units on the ground on location for the job, but according to your brief your Center of Operations was a couple of Quonset huts and a radio tower. You'd have to buy and build a facility if you wanted local fighters, plus recruit trainers. Getting trainers was a headache, since your two options in that regard were either expensive as hell, or North Koreans. On the plus side, most of your contacts bore out fairly well- a few of the Somalia groups you'd set up in the last job were functional, el Salvadore still had guns for hire, Paraguay was still selling rangers, and the assorted Slav groups up in the Balkans still had the wind in their sails. You could buy force, still. That was a relief.

---

It was almost a month later you'd assembled your headquarters team and shipped out to the home base, buried deep in the Matesi Safari Area. Logistically you'd be getting most of your cargo in from across the border in Botswana, who had proved surprisingly helpful to your cause- namely, money. Money never hurt. Just like it said on the tin, there were Quonset huts, a radio tower, and a bulldozer over in the corner. Your old logistics company had followed you out here, at least, so that was something good. The rest, though? You were building it up from scratch. First things first, though- you needed a game plan. Time to get to it.

---

Votes

Mission Planning (CHOOSE ONE, affects FY1)
[] Develop your HQ
-Honestly, your staff agree with you- you don't have enough direct and actionable resources to do much more than scratch your balls and drink coffee. You're gonna need to dump some serious cash into upgrading this joint before you can credibly project force.
-Unlocks Base Development
[] Develop an Intelligence Branch
-After working for nearly thirty years in the Gulf and Balkans, the first thing you learned was that more intelligence was the best gift anyone could get you. While a topical dossier reading told you most of the country had a severe law and order problem, you'd probably want to put names to faces and figure out how to best maximize your impact.
-Unlocks Intelligence Dossiers and Intelligence Division
[] Develop a Training Cadre
-The best way to keep costs down, as you figured out a long time ago, is to train and arm the locals. They don't need guides, they need less support staff, and they normally tend to be a lot more willing to put their bodies where the bullets are than the professionals.
-Unlocks Local Unit Training.
[] Develop Local Infasturcture
-You are, quite literally, out in the bush. It sucks out here, and the reality is it's going to continue to suck out here for quite a while. However, if you can get material out here reliably, you can make things suck less, and more importantly make things cost less too.
-Unlocks Local Construction

Tactics Planning (CHOOSE ONE, Affects Q1)
[] Hire Mercenaries
-[] War Pigs (1,000,000 USD/month, 2 companies, standard weapon: AK-74, Soviet surplus)
-[] Pascal Group (5,000 USD/month, 3 companies, standard weapon: none)
-[] Los Abrejos (20,000 USD/month, 1 company, standard weapon: M-16)
-[] Tasver Group (100,000 USD/month, 1 flight, standard equipment: Hind-B)
-[] Gemeni Group (80,000 USD/month, 2 flights, standard equipment: Bell 205)
-You need manpower, and you need it now. This is a shortlist of groups you trust to stay bought, and more importantly groups you trust to get the job done before they dissolve.

[] Investigate Local Terrain
-You need to know where you're fighting, what you're fighting in, and if there are any third parties that may need to be bought, bribed, or broken. Considering the sparse population, though, if there's anything here it's gonna be fairly easy to roll up once you have the resources.

---

Resources

Cash On Hand: 38,000,000 USD

Equipment Stocks
-NATO: Nonexistant
-Soviet: Nonexistant
-Historical: Nonexistant
-Air: Nonexistant

Personel
-Logistics Unit (Company)
-Headquarters Unit (Platoon)

Zimbabwe Informational Dossier, 1992



Political Map

XO Comments: We're in Matabeland North, by the boarder. Ain't many people here, so we can stay under the radar easier. Not much money here either.



Climate Map

XO Remarks: It's hot as balls, and it's like that for most of the country. Some areas are hot as balls and humid too. Joy. Not much jungle in the traditional sense of the word, though, which certainly helps.



Food Map

XO Remarks: We could build a lot of goodwill if we could get food production up in this region, and getting the locals to fight for their bellies is easy.



Disease Map

XO Remarks: Odds are we're gonna atrition units to disease, and badly. We've got good staff here, so the base officers aught to be fine. Better warn the mercs, though.

War Pigs

Commanded by Major Aucion Lebre, the War Pigs are a two-company formation with their own support assets, heavy weapons, and vehicles. Capable of being rolled off a plane and into a combat or peacekeeping operation, these soldiers of fortune are smart, brave, and well trained in fieldcraft. Their main lacking, if any can be found, is the exorbitant cost for their relatively large support structure, which is sometimes refereed to as a silent company in the organization.

Personal Note: Lebre owes me three hundred dollars in poker money, but his boys are good as gold. Trick is making sure they earn their fee- anything short of Barbarossa is their idea of fun.

Pascal Group

Commanded by Marquis Duval Savoriste, the Pascal Group is an amorphous group of salvaged soldiers and vagabonds from Tunis and Algeria, who are frequently used in more manpower-dense and subtlty-light situations. Without standard equipment, vehicles, or training, this group may contain as many child soldiers and prostitutes as it does able-bodied fighters. Their only saving grace is the fact they will fight at literally a dollar a man a day, and most of them consider that good pay.

Personal Note: Don't trust them as far as you can throw them- maybe Duval will finally catch a bullet, or I might need to put one there myself. They'll fight like lions, though, as long as they can't run home.

Los Abrejos

Commanded by Tomas San Angles, Los Abrejos is a group of ex-Contra soldiers from Guatamala and El Salvador who went into violence as a career when the war went up. Poorly armed, these units have little supply and little issue with that. Well trained, experianced, and with camaraderie to spare, the only issues with this unit are a total language barrier and a need to provide most of the equipment that isn't boots and guns.

Personal Note: Don't ask these guys to do any shady shit, but they'll die before they run. San Angles is damn good, even if he is a kid, and they'd make decent trainers in a pinch. Paying for their gear will be a pain in the ass though.

Tasver Group

Ex-Yugoslavs, the Tasver Group is technically a telecomunications company that owns and operates six Hind-B helicopters. This is bullshit. They're mostly what's left of Arkan's Tigers, rebranded and herded out of the country so they don't make too much noise where the boss can see. All six of their birds are equiped with mounts to turn them into gunships, and the ground crews are armed to the teeth in case the airstrip gets assaulted.

Personal Note: They can work off a grass strip, but sorte effiency will be garbage. The fact they can haul a fast response force is good though.

Gemini Group

Commanded by Colonel Vercio Luives, the Gemini Group is composed of several dozen Poles and other Eastern Bloc pilots and soldiers put out of work through the collapse of the Soviet Union. While they can't fly combat missions, of their 14 Bell 205's, there's two heli-ambulance platforms, two cargo movers, and the rest are set for regular troop deployment. They claim to be good, but their track record is short.

Personal Note: Big Boss recommends them, and he's got good taste.