Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape.

My friends Dave and Gregory making the escape from Parliament Hill in Ottawa. You can read the entire story here. Well worth it!

Dave and Gregory making the getaway!

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Journey to Ottawa and Montreal 2003

A bunch of friends of mine and I took a trip in 2003, back when publishing web pages was more or less just plain HTML and you had free pages such as Geocities. Well I found a page that I produced which was one of my favourites and was hiding in some archive folder that I hadn’t seen in ages. Was telling a few friends about it just last month. It all started with Gregory’s email before we left. He’s a bit of a military fan, so he wrote the email as if we were running a mission. I laughed when he wrote it (and yes, I understood it!). When I brought the pictures home, it was funny how they fell into what could be seen as a mission. It was total jokes and one of the best times of my life. Enjoy. Here it is:

The final destination of Alpha and Bravo teams was Montréal. The following is an excerpt from the teams’ mission briefs and was recovered just days ago:

Alpha team will take off from the auxiliary staging area at 1200 hours and proceed to site Orion 4 under cover of Cobra gunships and supported by F-16s flying combat air patrol in the sector. At Orion 4, Alpha team will insert and conduct a recce to zero in on target Concorde. Once Concorde has been located and identified, Alpha team will snatch the contents before laser designating the target, giving go-code “Scimitar” and holding for the Strike Eagles to destroy Concorde. Alpha team will then exfiltrate, with the package, to rendezvous with Bravo team at objective Mace.

Bravo team takes off at 1700 hours and will proceed directly to objective Mace. The route has been secured by an armoured battalion. At Mace, Bravo team will conduct a patrol, secure an LZ and await the arrival of Alpha team. After consolidating forces, the combined group will then enlarge the patrol area and conduct raids on enemy flanks.

This led us to believe that there was foul play afoot, and we then sent out our covert team to track their movements. Firstly, we tracked team Alpha as they proceeded to the nation’s capital, Ottawa. They tried to loose us by taking the long route via Algonquin Park, we assume, thinking the trees would make it hard for us to give aerial pursuit. The following is a sample of their journey.

Gregory with his plane in Lindsay

As you can see, they had their own support team, so our aerial pursuit attempts were thwarted. This photo was taken just outside of Lindsay.

They arrived at their Ottawa destination hours later, no photos were available during that time because they were able to ditch our team. Alpha team was reacquired the following morning at their camp where they met with one of their fellow team members. We also suspect that there was some kind of testing of chemical warfare going on for our water supply…

A member of the team, sleeping on the floor in Ottawa

The flame outside the Houses of Parliament

After ensuring that their allies were prepared,…

Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran

…they checked on their naval support at the Ottawa River.

View of the Ottawa River

Once they knew that they had back up, they scoped out the House of the Prime Minster…

The Prime Minister's Home

…they then surprised us by putting in a full-out assault on the Parliament Buildings!

Gregory poses out front of the Parliament Buildings

Gregory, Dave and Jamie

Gregory and I

Then, just as quickly as they had arrived, they made their escape…

Dave and Gregory making the getaway!

Pretending to get into the RCMP car

Before we had the opportunity to sweep down, the team split up! In their original meeting, they spoke of a “package”. They acquired no package and they had left a team member behind! The other three proceeded to Montréal where they met with team Bravo as well as other members towards their takeover…

Andrew showing Neel something on his cell phone

Apparently, the two other members were trainees, as their head communications officer, aka. Minister of Gaming (Electronics Division) has to instruct the first on how to use a cell phone. Or maybe it wasn’t a cell phone…hmm. The second, his accomplice (they were posing as a couple…what a cover!) came in from the U.S. probably giving the team the support from the West Coast, namely, San Francisco. Here we find one of Alpha team’s members attempting to infiltrate a different target! But luckily we had people on the inside of the meeting place, Stogie’s, so that these photos could be taken.

Here are some team photos with their names after our operative was able to trick them into taking these poses:

Back Row: Andrew.
Front Row: Greg, Ky, Neel, Shalyla, Jamie, Snowflake...Huh?

Back Row: Andrew.
Front Row: Ky, Greg, me and Jamie

But the fun didn’t last too long the next day as they mounted their steeds…I mean…Lions?

Shanta on one of the Lions at the base of Mont Royal

I did this same pose while visiting London's Trafalgar Square a few months later.

They then proceeded up Mont Royal and found their steeds…

Upon arriving at the top, they called on their trusty “Scarouche Mokush” or Hungarian battle squirrels outfitted for war in huge numbers aligned in the rafters in the lookout at the top of the mount.

This was an inside joke for us. Scarouche Mokush = Hungarian battle squirrels outfitted for war. Don't ask.

Inside the place at the top of Mont Royal. All along the rafters are squirrels

They surveyed the city that they were attempting to invade:

View of Montreal at night

When one of the team disagreed with the others, they tried to throw him over the side!

Two of the gang trying to throw Andrew over the side

Then we believe that they let loose some chemical warfare exposing even themselves! We did a soil test and found that there was nothing to fear.

Flash didn't work but it looked cool

They of course needed money to finance such an operation. And since the chemical was harmless, they needed to get some money fast. What better place than the Casino?

Montreal Casino

Their head of transportation we think got a little carried away with the getaway car.

Gregory getting ready to run the Formula 1 track

Whoops!

Whatever their goal, they must have achieved it when their member from Ottawa surprisingly appeared to joined them to celebrate something. Even one of the staff at the bar accompanied them and by the end of the night became a team member herself!

Our server joined in the fun!

The crew on New Years at Stogies.

I must say, this has to be one of the the best teams I’ve ever seen in my years with CSIS. I don’t know how or what they did, but damn they made it look easy and a lot of fun…

The crew packed up and ready to head home.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Launch

Weekly Photo Challenge: Launch.

This was taken on a road trip towards Ottawa and my friend wanted to see this plane in Lindsay, Ontario. I actually turned this whole trip into a story based on the photos I took. I may have to revisit that story… But in the meantime, Launch! taken in 2002.

A fighter jet outside Lindsay, Ontario