The Agents have a mobile office trailer in the section of the airport assigned to USAF logistical personnel. It has desks, cheap office chairs, a conference table, a sand table, a file cabinet, four encrypted satellite phones, two whiteboards, two corkboards, a printer, and a heavy case of paper and office supplies. A door leads to the back half of the trailer, a sleeping area with cots and a tiny bathroom. The trailer’s windows have blinds. An air conditioner is mounted on the roof. The office trailer has thin walls and the air conditioning runs unevenly. Thick power and communications cables run to hubs outside.

It is from these humble quarters that the Agents begin to get a picture of the situation behind enemy lines in Mosul.

Gwin already supplied the Agents with $112,000 cash, enough for three Extreme expenses. At the command post, they find he also obtained initial equipment to suit the Agents’ skills. The Agents can obtain whatever else they need through the usual requisition rules.

Col. Gwin and his contacts in the Program have worked with the CIA and the Pentagon’s Operational Planning and Travel Intelligence Center, which provides “signature reduction” services for the Defense Intelligence Agency, to generate cover identities for the Agents. The Handler and players should invent the names and backgrounds of two alter egos for each Agent:

» A low-level foreign service officer from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, focusing on some particular field of interest to the United States: immigration, infrastructure, the energy industry, and so on. Most people they work with will assume that means they work for the CIA but will know better than to say so.
» A civilian consultant working under contract with the Department of State or the Department of Defense, either an academic or a scientist. A civilian cover need not match the Agent’s actual background or skills.

The false names have Social Security Numbers, appear on Department of State or Department of Defense rosters as employees or contractors, have cursory presences on social media, and even have tax filings with the IRS. They have been flagged in Department of Homeland Security databases to prevent interference at the U.S. border. They have no families at their home addresses, of course, so the false IDs can only go so far.