Rescue Attempt

"Rescue Attempt" is the ninth mission in Monolith's The Operative: No One Lives Forever. The missions follows Archer infiltrating a secret H.A.R.M. facility in North America in an attempt to rescue Dr. Schenker from H.A.R.M., who had captured him earlier in the game. This is the only mission to feature a motorcycle and one of only two missions that Archer has to fight off enemy helicopters.

Briefing
If Doctor Schenker is indeed being held in the secret underground research facility in North America, it's a safe bet he won't be there for long once H.A.R.M. figures out what you're up to.

''The first step is to identify and detain the American Railways conspirator so that we an interrogate him. You will then need to locate the hidden entrance to the facility, find Doctor Schenker, and get him out alive. Without him, we're doomed.''

Scene 1
Archer is smuggled aboard a train in Washington State to locate the engineer working with H.A.R.M. While staying clear of the conductor, Archer retrieves the passenger roster from his office and meets with another UNITY agent on the train, who tells her that the engineer is in the crew compartments. Not long after, she picks up a ticket and goes to the cabin he is in, quickly subduing him. She then fights her way back through H.A.R.M agents towards the caboose, eventually detaching it.

Scene 2
The caboose rolls down a hill, stopping at a poorly maintained railway complex which is patrolled by H.A.R.M. guards. Archer moves through the compound in search of another UNITY contact, whom she overhears being killed by an enemy agent. She later finds a motorcycle and drives down a dirt road into woodlands. On her way she encounters heavy resistance, including a staffed security checkpoint and Helicopter. After some time she gains entry to the secret facility.

Scene 3
Now in the secret facility, Archer finds Dr. Schenker locked in a dormitory on the bottom level. As the exit is blocked, Schenker shows her another way out. They move through a chamber crackling with electricity and go up several more levels before finally leaving the facility.

Memorable quotes
H.A.R.M. Thug: "Hey, Delaney, you got a phone call." Delaney: "Who is it?" H.A.R.M. Thug: "Sounds like your girlfriend" Delaney: "Ah, tell her I'm out on patrol." H.A.R.M. Thug: "You sure?" Delaney: "Yeah, I'm sure. I got better things to do than talk to her." H.A.R.M. Thug: "Like what?" Delaney: "Like stand here looking at my shoes. I'll see her this weekend and there won't be any need for talking." H.A.R.M. Thug: "What a romantic." Delaney: "Ain't I sweet?"

"So didn't you used to work for Evil Alliance?" "Yeah, for about a week." "That bad, eh?" "You ever hear that saying about the banality of evil?" "About the Holocaust, yeah." "Well, that definitely applies to Evil Alliance. Those guys are a bunch of idiots with huge entitlement issues. They really think the world owes them something." "That's pretty common in this line of work." "No kidding. I mean, I totally understand not wanting to have a legitimate job, but at least be honest about it. Some guys get so self-righteous, like it's ok to be evil because life is hard. Hell with that. Deal with it. Be a man." "I always heard good things about Evil Alliance. I know a lot of guys that think they're this great little organization." "Yeah, they have this weird credibility in the criminal industry for some reason, but you notice the media doesn't take them seriously at all." "I never really thought about it, but you're right." "The guy that runs it is a total moron. He's the most conniving, ambivalent little bastard I ever met. One day, he's anti-American. The next, he loves America and he hates the Germans." "Sounds like a real jerk." "The sad thing is those idiots will never realize how insignificant they are. It's kind of ironic. They're irritating because they're stupid, but they're too stupid to realize it, which makes them even more irritating." "I don't mind them being stupid. I can tolerate stupid people. I just can't stand smug stupid people." "Oh, well, whatcha gonna do?" "Ah, you just gotta vent every once in a while, you know?" "I guess so. Well, I'd better get back. See ya."
 * H.A.R.M. Thugs

"It is not." "It is too." "It is not." "It is too." "It is not." "It is too." "It is not." "It is too." "It is not." "It is.. ah, hell, I can't even remember what we were talking about." "Me neither. Truce?" "Truce."
 * H.A.R.M. Scientists

Trivia

 * If the conductor on the train is stunned too much, he will die of a heart attack and the mission will fail. He also appears to suffer from short-term memory loss as he walks back and forth on the train constantly asking the exact same people for their tickets.
 * One of the passengers on the train mentions that she is visiting her mother in Portland. This most likely places the railway route (and the secret facility) somewhere between Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Apart from these vague hints, we are never told where exactly this mission takes place.
 * Although the enemy agent on the train is normally subdued by Archer in a cutscene, the player can kill him themselves if they shoot him fast enough.
 * There is an intelligence item on the train entitled "Train Riding Hussies on the Orient Express". This could be a reference both to the Agatha Christie novel (and film): "Murder on the Orient Express" and the James Bond film "From Russia with Love", part of which takes place on the Orient Express.
 * If the player falls off the train shortly after decoupling the caboose, they will still continue to Scene 2.
 * The use of silenced weapons on the train is only useful if enemies are killed quickly, for they all use non-silenced 9mm Parabellums.
 * For some reason, one of the models used for the H.A.R.M. guards (between the lumber mill and the secret underground base) is those of the East German STASI.
 * Whenever needed, a Code Breaker is always lying around somewhere in the level so it is not necessary to equip it while commencing the mission.
 * There are signs in the underground base that are written in English and German, similar to that of which is at the construction site of Dumas Towers.
 * Although they count as "Civilian Casualties" in their statistics, shooting a scientist will not cause the player to fail their mission. This is also the case in other missions featuring scientists, such as Low Earth Orbit and Berlin by Night.
 * One of the conversations in the H.A.R.M base, if not interrupted, ends with a chemical experiment exploding, killing the scientists involved and causing the alarm to sound, despite the fact that Archer is never involved in the incident. This happened because the explosion destroyed a nearby Security Camera, and the game treats it as a trigger to sound the alarm even if the camera was already switched off.