Amber Zone - School Terrorism

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1999 #526

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 19:04:47 +1200
From: "Frank G. Pitt"
Subject: "Modern" espionage scenario (was Re: Heavy sigh)

>Setting off a pair of bombs attached to such tanks would have done a
>damn good job of leveling the school. Why they didn't go off, I don't
>know. But the bomb count in the school keeps going up.

This brings up a scenario hook I came up with for the Littleton situation, which AFAIK fits all the released facts.

Firstly I apologize if this is considered insensitive, if you don't like game discussion of recent news events that resulted in deaths please don't read any more.

The set-up

1. The bomb disposal squad was amazed at the number and sophistication of the bombs. Speculation was that they had help,, because of the number and positions of the bombs, and the fact that some of the designs had not been seen before by the bomb squad members
2. Everyone is surprised the bombs didn't go off
3. Everyone is surprised that so few people got killed given the amount of weaponry the pair were supposedly carrying.
4. There were large numbers of weapons and shells lying around, and some of those were "sophisticated" military weapons.

Now, here's what really happened at Lyttleton:

The pair were encouraged to carry out the killings by an as yet undiscovered colleague or colleagues (And ones who never will be discovered now). These colleagues were in fact agents in the employ of an enemy of the American state (take your pick, Slobodan Milosovich, Saddam Hussein, Louis Farrakhan, Patricia Pulling... ), It was these people that set the sophisticated bombs, sneaking in the back while the pair of dupes made all the noise out front.

However, a black-ops counter-intelligence unit ("Yellow Rain" perhaps?), were aware of the plot. Unfortunately, they didn't get the go-ahead for an internal wet operation until the attack had started (in fact you can hear the comms chatter now: "Damn it, Control, the hostile operation is go now ! We need that clearance immediately, before more people get killed!")

So, after the terrorists were in the building, the unit gets the go ahead, but are told the whole operation must be completely deniable and covert (it's too late for good press coverage, and Control doesn't want it known it was their slow decision making that caused the deaths).

The terrorists are all killed quickly, the two kids are executed in the library before they are able to detonate any bombs or get all their targets, any timers are professionally disarmed, and the agent(s) are taken for interrogation. The wet squad slips out of the area before the first SWAT or police unit arrives, leaving any weapons they had actually fired, so that the shell casings will match.

The characters get to investigate the incident because of "anomalies" in the official reports. Blood stains in places where bodies weren't, several unexplained reports from students seeing "SWAT" officers in the building before they actually arrived, and the stuff mentioned above, along with anything else the wet squad couldn't cover up in the couple of minutes they had between completing the operation and having to get out.

If you want to make it really obvious, make one of the SWAT team members shown on TV unidentifiable by local officials... a team member who stayed behind because he was seen by students, and felt his best bet was to act as if he was supposed to be there...

Frankie