Recap / Criminal Case: World Edition - Case 08: Death in the Desert

Bring the sun, spins around and around and around.

The Bureau ventures deep in the Sahara to search for The Sword, the assassin responsible for the murders of Chief Ripley and Adam Hassan. There, Carmen and the player come across Anir Aznag, a travelling tribe leader who informs them about having found the corpse of American oil magnate Donald Barnes, burning in a campfire within his nomadic camp.

Tropes:

• Alliterative Name: Anir Aznag.
• Analogy Backfire: During Mama Yasmine's trials, this happens between her and Judge Adaku.
  Mama Yasmine: In twenty years, I’ll be dead and forgotten, Your Honor. But the stars above the sand dunes, they’ll still be there, unchanged.
  Judge Adaku: That’s not exactly correct. But this is a courtroom, not a planetarium, so… all rise!
• Arab Oil Sheikh: Inverted. The victim was an oil magnate in the Sahara region, but he was of American origin rather than Arab.
• Assassination Attempt: It's discovered that, years ago, Jonah was hired to assassinate Marina after she exposed a multi-billion dollar fraud regarding the Russian President, though he admits he missed on purpose. Still not enough for Marina to trust him.
• Asshole Victim: Downplayed. The victim was an Innocently Insensitive Upper-Class Twit, but he wasn't actively evil or did anything to really deserve to die. Doesn't stop most of your suspects from thinking he did deserved it, though.
  Izzah: I didn’t kill Barnes, if that’s what you mean. But whoever did, helped this country wake up a little. I’m grateful to them!
• Call-Back: Jonah Karam reappears as a suspect.
• Crusading Widow: Izzah Farid, the wife of one of the workers that perished in the SandOil accident, has been helping The Sword by distributing weapons in their name to rebels over the Sahara, intending to start a revolution against foreigners since her husband was killed due to them.
• Damsel in Distress: Subverted. At the start of Chapter 3, Lars informs you that Angela has gone missing in the desert after she went there to take some pictures, but you find her just fine and without any delays after searching the crime scene, showing that Lars was just overreacting.
• Dangerous Workplace: SandOil, the American oil company featured in this case, recently experienced an explosion that killed 17 people (including one of your suspect's husband), which has deeply affected the local's trust in foreigners.
• Ditch the Bodyguards: The victim had hired Jonah to be his bodyguard, but he was such a ditz that he often disregarded Jonah's warnings about venturing into the Sahara without him, which led to his death.
• Evil, Inc.: The locals think of SandOil (and many other foreign companies) as this, since they killed 17 of their people and didn't even issue an apology, instead sending Donald to hire more workers.
  Izzah: SandOil promised us jobs and progress, but it brought only misery. For all I care, the desert can swallow up the refinery tomorrow!
• Feuding Families: One between the Najwa and Quadir tribes. When you assume Mama Yasmine is part of the Najwas, she absolutely loses it and refuses to speak with you until Carmen apologizes to her.
• Fiery Cover-Up: The killer attempted to burn the victim's corpse in a campfire, but failed.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Jonah recalls how he once purposefully missed a target back in Russia moments before Marina reveals she was the objective.
• Grumpy Old Man: Gender-Inverted example with Mama Yasmine, a grumpy nomad who berates you for mistaking what tribe she belongs to and hates foreigners. Unsurprisingly, she turns out to be the killer.
• Gut Feeling: For some reason, Marina cant' shake off the feeling that Jonah means bad news, and you later learn Jonah once attempted to assassinate her back in Russia, but purposefully failed.
  Carmen: Whoa! Marina, you really have it in for Jonah! If I didn’t know you better, I’d think it’s personal!
  Marina: It’s just a feeling, <Player's Name>, but… my intuition’s never wrong! I’m a psychologist, remember!
• Hitman with a Heart: In his entire hitman career, Jonah has missed a target once, and that's because she was an innocent woman who didn't deserve to die for exposing a fraud within the government.
• Innocently Insensitive: Donald Barnes was not well-liked among your suspects for this reason. He offered Anir, a nomadic tribe leader, an electric deep fryer as a gift, jumped the queue in front of Benjamin, and laughed in Mama Yasmine's face after she asked if he knew her son (who was living in the United States), claiming that America was too big for that to be possible. Unfortunately for him, this led to his death at Mama Yasmine's hands.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Practically everyone of your suspects saw the victim as this, since he either offended them by being Innocently Insensitive, an Upper-Class Twit, or disregarding his bodyguard's advice for no reason.
  Carmen: <Player's Name>, I can’t believe how many people Barnes managed to annoy during his short time in the Sahara!
• Mistaken for Foreigner: Played With. Carmen mistakes Mama Yasmine as part of another tribe, which makes her enraged.
  Mama Yasmine: I’m not a Najwa! My family’s feuded with Anir’s family for seven generations! I’m a Quadir, and proud of it!
  To think Anir and I could be from the same tribe… Come back when you’ve learned some manners, ignorant foreigners!
• Old Friend: Jonah and Carmen have been friends for some time, since Jonah helped Carmen when she was still a war reporter before joining the Bureau. Thanks to this, Jonah is far more amicable than he was with you and Jack in the previous case.
• Rebellious Spirit: Benjamin Scott, a 17-year-old student from England who has been travelling over the Sahara against his parent's wishes since he likes the thrill of it.
  Benjamin: My parents think the Sahara’s too dangerous for a teenager. So I told them I was going to Florida. It was the only way they’d let me travel alone!
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: It's revealed that The Sword has been rallying up local inhabitants against foreigners, encouraging them to get violent if that means no external people will come and tell them what to do, showing that in addition of being an assassin, they are also a Rebel Leader.
  Carmen: But what did you mean by locals uniting against foreigners?
  Izzah: Nothing you didn’t fight for in your own countries centuries ago, <Player's Name>! The right to protect our land from those who exploit it.
• Rugged Scar: Marina shows she's got an scar near her neck from Jonah's failed assassination attempt, relieving her of those bad memories.
• Self-Destructing Security: Jonah had a tracking device to follow Donald that deleted its contents when Elliot tried to decipher it. So of course he decided to hack a Russian satellite to look for said info.
• Shout-Out:
  • In the Najwa Tent scene, there is a brown fedora and a whip, as well as a flying carpet.
  • Netfilms is a parody of Netflix.
• Sticky Fingers: Benjamin stole Donald's lighter at the airport in response to Donald jumping the queue.
• Thirsty Desert: Throughout the case, many people remark how dangerous and unforgiving the Sahara is.
  Jonah: Come on, Carmen, you know me! And you know the Sahara! There’s no time for pleasantries where everything that moves wants to kill you! And Barnes had more than enough enemies!
• Toxic Friend Influence: Carmen tries to defy this by refusing to allow Benjamin and Elliot near each other.
  Elliot: Hey, <Player's Name>! I’ve heard this Benjamin guy’s way cool! Ran away from home, and fooled his parents with a selfie! Can I meet him?
  Carmen: Absolutely not! You’d be a terrible influence on each other.
• Upper-Class Twit: Donald tended to act all smug towards the people of the Sahara due to being a rich oil magnate, such as jumping queues or not even issuing an apology after an accident in his refinery that killed 17 people. This, of course, helped him get killed.