Operation Inferred Part 6, Phantoms in the Mist

Location: Hanoi
North Vietnam
19th of December, 1967

Written By You "Rock" Thought

Briefing

Welcome to the outskirts of Hanoi gentlemen, down there are thousands of NVA who would like nothing more than to hang you by your entrails from the train station. Having tracked the helicopter from your last patrol to the Gia Lam Airbase on the outskirts of Hanoi, the CIA believe that the ashes have been stored somewhere in the city. Narrows the search area I know, but given the cultural significance of these items its likely they're been place in some kind of "cultural warehouse" for safe keeping. Making an educated guess would put them on the outskirts of Hanoi as opposed to the city center given the US bombing raids that happen every second day.

My fellow operatives and I are only going to be onsite for an hour after Armiger sets off into the city, once that hour passes we'll be pulling out to a local safe house. You'll be on your own once that happens and will have to improvise a plan for extraction. You won't have access to LRs for this, so we'll be communicating on SRs for this mission. Given the volume of NVA signet in Hanoi the radio frequency will be changing every ten minutes to predetermined channels, which are;

Your primary objective is the recovery of those ashes before the NVA decide to move them out of the city, not to wage an eight man war on the local garrison. The CIA have provided me with a list of targets of opportunity during you time in Hanoi, provided below;

• Marking any radar or major strategic targets, such as Oil tanks and rail bridges. USAF will love us for that
  

• Locating any POW camps or installations in the city and, if the opportunity presents itself, covertly extracting them from the city. Try to find schedules or observe movements for the best time to strike,
  
  
• Marking out all the checkpoints in the area, this will go a long way in assisting in extraction from the city, especially if you have POWs in tow as I can move agents in to hijack the checkpoint to allow passage.
  

• Look for any FPG that might be either held or assisting the NVA with the ashes, any insight they could provide into the current situation will be invaluable 

• Get eyes on the local dockyards, see if anything unusual is present, such as Chinese or Russian equipment not already in use by the VC/NVA

Otherwise you'll be playing on your own intuition on the ground. Lets not fight the entire city yeah?

Post Operation Notes

• No FPG personnel were saved, resulting in the loss of considerable intel
  
  
• The lack of checkpoint marking and the loss of most of the CIA team assigned to Armiger will severely hamper any future operations in North Vietnam
  
  
• The successful marking of strategic objectives has allowed the USAF to perform precision strikes against missile and radar sites, resulting in the NVA being more cautious with the placement of their missile systems in the future
  
  
• New soviet equipment was spotted in the Hanoi docks, consisting of MI-24As and T-55s. One of the MI-24As was destroyed during Oddball's escape.
  
  
• The ashes were recovered, after considerable confusion as to what happen to them.