Runners:
Nomusa Iblis
Lodestone
Rooster
Thankyou
Zuberi

While everyone else has been busy in Lagos, Nomusa has spent some time in a very secure medical facility outside of Cape Town. Having traded the team’s assistance on a the exec kidnapping for medical access with Ezekiel Grey, Nomusa manages to control his shift into a ghoul in such a way as to ensure that he retained sentience. After a few weeks of rehab, he borrows a little more money from Grey, and flies north to Nyamkopon, Asamando, to rendevouz with the rest of the team. The Butcher apparently has some work lined up for them in the area.

The rest of the team, minus Atlas who will require a lengthy hospital stay after his near death, engage in some shopping and general gear maintenance. Zuberi self-initiates learns a new spell (which he crafted himself), and Rooster initiates with The Order of St George. LS begins preperations to permanently bind a spirit to himself. There is also a joyous reunion with Jason Park and Exocet, who have finally arrived. They hace TY’s grenade launcher, but had to trade his milspec armor to the mercs they were with for the ride up. TY is not thrilled. However, he negotiates with the mercs to also sell them the helmet, and get some free grenades for his launcher.

Nomusa contacts TY, as he trusts him most, and reveals himself as a ghoul. TY is suspicious but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now, as he has also eaten of human flesh. They get the job details from the Butcher. Apparently, a local immigration official has been secretly recorded engaging in live human flesh feasts with some select guests. As glorying in ghoul’s need for flesh is specifically against Queen Thema Laula’s agenda (securing UN recognition, etc.) this needs to be quietly dealt with. There is an investigative reporter who has the story, and needs to be persuaded never to publish in any way the team sees fit. All copies of the story also need to be eliminated or accounted for as well. There is also the politician, who ideally will “commit” a believable “suicide.” An accident that looks sufficiently accidental will also suffice. So long as the local investigators can write it off as being what it appears. The message of the pol’s death will still reach those who need to receive it: this type of behaviour will not be tolerated.

The team tackles the reporter first. They convince him to meet them in a suburban subway hallway that LS determines has no camera coverage, a rarity in the city. Rooster distracts the small subway crowd. LS stuns the reporter, and probes his mind while Zuberi buries him alive in the concrete of the hallway, while Nomusa uses a directional jammer to keep him from sending out distress calls. They bury the jammer with him. LS finds there are 3 copies of the report: 1 on the reporter’s ‘link, 1 on a datastick in a safe in his hotel room, and 1 on a secure non-connected server at his agent/publisher’s office in Nairobi. He also gets the passcodes needed to access all of these. Not seeing anyone else who seems to have followed the reporter in, they leave. LS gets the stick from the hotel, and packs a bag quickly to make it look like the reporter left in a hurry. They hire Exocet to make a databomb to upload to the secure server, using the reporter’s passcode and a forged comm ID. Exocet will also send an ‘all clear’ signal every 48 hours to prevent a time-delayed release of the reporter’s sensitive info.

Next, they gun for the politician, a Chicago area transplant, who seems to have always taken a very pro-ghoul stance. They infiltrate her condo building using subterfuge, but security is too tight. They aren’t used to it being so hard to kill people in the streets- this isn’t the undercity, or Lagos, or even Cape Town. They decide to stage a subway accident, using Zuberi’s new spell to puppetmaster her in front of a train. LS tails her to establish her schedule, and they spring their trap. LS uses a spirit to pull her assistant away from her (he suddenly needs to use the bathroom), and then to convince the train conductor to override the brake timing system as he pulls into the station. TY keeps an eye on the assistant, while Rooster distracts the crowd. Zuberi, gesturing minimally, puppetmasters her into diving in front of the fast-moving train, splattering nearby commuters with gore. LS reads her mind quickly before she jumps, and finds out that she kept records of all her ‘feasts’ and the guests who attended, for blackmail purposes.

They seperately flee the station as the local security tries to corral everyone together for interviews. They report their successes to the Butcher, who pays up. They also pass along the copy of the report on the datastick, and tell the Butcher about the blackmail kept by the politician. They also head back to the subway with TY in tow, who with his incredible signal range is able to access the reporter’s ’link through the jamming and concrete. He erases the ’link, and turns it off, and also turns off the jammer. Potentially, no-one will ever know he has been buried there, a terrifying thought.

Exocet stops sending the ‘all-clears’ once enough time has elapsed for the databomb to have done it’s job. LS spends some time researching TY’s past, given the secret info that he uncovered while scanning TY’s mind. LS and Zuberi also exchange a mindprobe for a body control, and have a real moment. LS also researchers Zuberi, his past, his religion, and his tribe in the hopes of being able to manipulate him as necessary, possibly by summoning spirits of man in the form of Zuberi’s venerated ancestors. TY comes to the team with more work: Journeyman Urb has a job to pass along. Mr. Johnson will fly them to Nairobi, home to the African branch of the Corporate Court, as well as the Kilimanjaro mass driver, and fill them in on the job. If they like it, they’ll stay, if not they are free to get back on the plane and leave. This is all the info Urb has, but it’s a free round trip, and medical’s covered, so the team agrees to check it out.

Next time: Kenya!