Chapter 9

Area Map.

Objective 1--Locate the crash site and secure it
Now that you’ve managed to track down the location of the downed plane, your teams have to cross through urban territory and secure the site. As per usual, this isn’t as easy as it may seem; you’ll want to be especially cautious of snipers in the buildings around you as you move.

In point of fact, there are two snipers waiting to open up on your teams as they move to the west, along with a regular AK-47 militiaman around the corner to the north. Actually taking these enemies out will require you to move one of your teams behind the blue car in the intersection; from there, you can use two of your M203 shells to destroy the snipers, then suppress the tango behind the sandbags until you can get close enough to frag him. This is the method you’ll probably have to pursue if you’re playing on the harder difficulty level. However, if you’re on the normal difficulty, you can take advantage of the snipers’ relative inaccuracy to bust through the intersection without engaging any of the enemies. Since you’ve just come from a save point, there’s little risk involved; at worst, you might lose 10 seconds worth of movement.

To start with, move up to the red station wagon at the northeastern corner of the intersection and get on its northern side. You should be able to spot one of the snipers at this point, so use suppressing fire to keep him ducking while your other team moves up to the nearby building’s corner and scouts north. The tango here, as mentioned, is hiding behind sandbags, so you won’t be able to pop him. Instead, bust out two smoke grenades and try to land them immediately in front of his position. One should land to his left, and the other should land to his right. If the smoke dissipates well, you should be able to completely obscure his vision.

Give the smoke a couple of seconds to start coming out, then move both of your teams to the northern side of the overturned trailer, then rush them over to the building that the marker is pointing you towards. There’s a grenade that’ll go off near the crack in the wall in here, so wait for it to explode before moving your teams into the SITREP point.

After moving through the building, you’ll come out into a parking lot that’s overlooked by a trio of snipers in a parking garage to the east. Your objective isn’t to eliminate them, but simply to make it across the parking lot and to safety beneath the garage, where the snipers can’t get a firing angle on you.

The safest way to proceed is with a classic bunnyhopping procedure, whereby one team moves to cover and suppresses the snipers while the other team proceeds up to a forward position, and vice versa. If you’re on the normal difficulty setting, you probably don’t even have to worry about suppression fire; these guys are piss-poor shots.

When you reach the wall beneath the snipers, hit the objective marker to call in a Hummer full of Rangers, who’ll take out the snipers GTA-style. Afterwards, you’ll get both a CASEVAC and a SITREP, so restock your ammo, then save before heading back to the north.

You’ll need to move your teams between two of the piles of rubble near the building to the north; get one team behind the southernmost pile first, then have them aim point fire at the entrance to the building before moving the other team up. If you set your point fire vectors well, you should be able to tag two tangos as they exit the building, which simplifies the process of eliminating the third Zeke immensely. If you do manage to get the two tangos (and it’s not all that difficult), you can smoke the third one, who’ll be hiding behind a bunker, and move one of your teams around to the west to get his attention by firing from behind one of the trees. Your other team can then move directly up to the tango and blast him from point-blank range.

As you head through this building, another Zeke will appear and take cover behind some rubble; if you smoke him, then advance close enough to his position, he’ll retreat. Proceed across the street into another bombed-out building, but watch out for the Zeke hiding behind the burning rubble. He’ll have cover, but will be an easy target for a frag grenade.

One more Zeke will cover the exit from this building, but he’s easily taken out with conventional tactics. Another Zeke will move into position behind a car outside the exit; destroy him with an M203 round to end the mission.