Die by the Sword

Die by the Sword is a case featured in Criminal Case as the one-hundred twenty-seventh case of the game. It is the twelfth case of the game's World Edition (Season 3) and also the final case to take place in the Sahara Region.

Plot
The Bureau had just landed in Iraq when Ingrid Bjorn told the player that they must find U.S. Ambassador Jessica Stern’s son, Andrew before it was too late. Carmen Martinez suggested that they make plan to rescue Andrew from The Sword. She recalled from Dubai that The Sword was planning a trap, but they did not know what it was exactly. The trap had started ever since Chief Ripley had been murdered, and they had known that the player would follow them no matter how dangerous it was. Carmen also recalled that The Sword was affiliated with SOMBRA, a global criminal organization. Elliot Clayton then entered headquarters to announce that he had captured the tracking signal from Andrew’s bear in an abandoned museum. Carmen and the player were right away prompted to search the museum.

The team was unable to find Andrew; however, they had found nomadic tribesman Anir Aznag’s body instead. With the assumption that The Sword killed Anir, the team got to work. During the investigation, Elliot had found a hidden underground, The Sword’s lair, underneath the destroyed town Asal Hawaa had investigated prior to this case. Carmen and the player searched there for more evidence, and they found Andrew alive. Seeing as he needed psychological attention, Carmen did not hesitate to send him over to Marina Romanova to help him.

Meanwhile, Carmen and Elliot found out what had happened to Jack Archer since he had never reported for duty. Asal had kissed Jack, as he had requested her to do so, but at the same time, she slipped a tranquilizer pill in his mouth, poisoning him. Also, Armand Dupont had been poisoned just from touching The Sword’s blade to analyze a message. Dupont had mentioned Omar Bahir during his analysis, so the team did not hesitate to place him in custody for attempted murder. Later, Marina called Carmen to tell her that she was locked inside the bunker and that Jonah Karam was outside with a gun; however, Jonah claimed to have locked her in to protect her. With the final hours focusing on Anir’s case, Carmen and the player unearthed The Sword to be, indeed, Omar Bahir.

Carmen lambasted Omar by providing the evidence the player had collected throughout the investigation. In the end, Omar admitted himself to being The Sword. He had a mission in the Sahara to sow the seeds of conflict and extremism everywhere. He had known that The Bureau would go onto him, so he decided to kill Chief Ripley and abduct Andrew so that the player would walk into his trap. Omar then prepared himself to kill Carmen and the player with a poison grenade. Carmen told him to put it down, but Omar refused, saying that SOMBRA needed him and he had the antidote with him. Before he could pull the pin, he was shot to death by Jonah, who thought the team could use a little firework, something Carmen agreed with.

After the chaos, Carmen and the player went to the hospital to check in on Jack and Dupont. Fortunately, the two agents were doing very well. Once they had this news, Ingrid told the team to go back to headquarters. The player was tasked with two things: find out what SOMBRA was and help Angela Douglas find her photos she took of Andrew and her husband Lars.

Carmen went with the player to the abandoned museum to find Angela’s photos, and they took them back to their owner. Among the photos, the player found one of a suspicious woman, prompting them to search the database. Shockingly, the player found out that the woman’s identity was none other than Chief Ripley. Carmen did not believe it, remembering what had happened to the chief back in Spain, until Chief Ripley showed up in the flesh. She explained that The Bureau had believed she was dead because she had ordered the doctors to say it.

Chief Ripley explained that telling the player that she was dead was a hard decision; she had gotten a tip that SOMBRA had plotted an attempt on her life, and she did not have a lot of time to come up with the plan. Ripley had decided to convince The Sword that they did kill her to buy The Bureau more time. When asked how she had survived the poison in the dart, Ripley answered that she had taken the antidote with the champagne when the team was celebrating their victory over the Promethian Cult. She had known that the player would not give in to the danger and would come through alive, and she rewarded the player with a badge as a reward for their bravery.

Meanwhile, Chief Ripley wanted to talk to the player about hiring Jonah as a field expert. She told the player, rather than Marina, to talk to Jonah, and then get back for the chief to make the final decision. Jonah was tempted to take the position, but Carmen reminded him that certain team members still had their doubts about him. To prove his worth, Jonah asked the player and Carmen to go with him to the destroyed town. When the player found a tiny parachute with a tiny USB stick on it, Jonah doubted his abilities, admitting he was better at shooting people than examining a piece of evidence for clues. When he saw the USB, Jonah claimed that he learned everything about parachutes in the army; he explained that this type of parachute was dropped by a drone, and he asked the player to reveal the message: a logo of COSMORUS, a space agency in Russia. However, Jonah had no idea why COSMORUS would drop a parachute with a USB key on it into Iraq, so the player decided to give it to Elliot.

The USB key revealed a video message for the player from Natasha Romanova, Marina’s mother and the head of COSMORUS. She had reasons to believe that the space agency had been infiltrated by foreign spies and was formally asking The Bureau for help.

When the player spoke to Marina about the message, she immediately told them that her mother could not be trusted. However, Carmen agreed with the player in that Natasha was right to call The Bureau for help in that situation. Marina told the player to be on guard while making the right decision.

Afterwards, Chief Ripley had made the decision to hire Jonah, and Jonah accepted the offer, revealing his excitement of working with the player. She also made the decision to investigate the security breach in Russia; if the spies were to hijack the satellite systems, then world would be sent back to the dark ages at the push of a button. Chief Ripley immediately told the player to report to Russia to start investigating and find out if SOMBRA was responsible.

Victim

 * Anir Aznag (found beheaded in the bombed museum)

Murder Weapon

 * Sword

Killer

 * Omar Bahir

Killer's Profile

 * The killer knows chemistry.
 * The killer weighs at least 140 lbs.
 * The killer speaks Arabic.
 * The killer has a scar.
 * The killer wears red.

Trivia

 * While two tasks in Crossing the Desert required one star to talk to Chief Ripley and Marina Romanova respectively, they were not accused of any wrongdoing during the murder investigation, and them showing up on the suspect list during Crossing the Desert should be considered incidental.