Escape from Tarkov: Saving the Mole quest walkthrough

Saving the Mole is one of the toughest introductory quests in Escape from Tarkov, and you'll definitely benefit from following the steps laid out in our walkthrough. From finding the PMC group to securing the hard drive, I've got everything you need here!

How to complete Saving the Mole

Saving the Mole has quite a few steps, but thankfully they're all interlinked and in close proximity to each other, making it an easier quest than it might initially seem.

You need to first locate the USEC PMC group in the TerraGroup parking lot, then locate the lab scientist and obtain the TerraGroup science office key. From there, you'll then need to head up to the scientist's office within the TerraGroup building and pick up the hard drive inside.

Unlike a lot of the introductory Ground Zero quests you will need to safely extract with the hard drive in order to complete the task. Make sure to also hand the hard drive over to Mechanic before heading into your next raid, as dying before handing it in (regardless of whether you extracted with it in the raid you picked it up) will mean starting all over again.

Where to find the USEC PMC group

As the subtask suggests, the USEC PMC group is found within the parking lot of the TerraGroup building on Ground Zero. The TerraGroup building itself is hard to miss, as it's the widest and most visually unique of the main set with numerous TerraGroup logos dotted across its face.

You'll find it near the end of the main road, on the side of the Emercom Checkpoint extract and the Unity Credit Bank building. The parking lot itself is located on the left side of the building and can be accessed through a wide opening.

Heading into the parking lot, you'll want to continue through to the other side by the lifts, and there should be a body by a white van.

Continue past this and into the next room where another couple of bodies are found. The subtask should be completed around this area, and thankfully you don't need to extract for this to count.

Where to find the lab scientist & science office key

From the USEC PMC group continue round into the main section of the TerraGroup building, and you should be able to see a big wooden cat statue against the wall. Head towards that and continue around left, leading you to some collapsed rubble.

Underneath the rubble on the left-hand side should be the body of a scientist. When you loot it there should be the TerraGroup science office key. If it's not there, someone has unfortunately got there before you, as it's an in-raid loot item instead of a client-side key that anyone can access. If that is the case, you'll need to come back again in the next raid.

If the key is there though, make sure to put it in your secure container as if you somehow die between here and the scientist's office you'll be able to skip this step in your next raid.

Where to find the scientist's hard drive

Now that you've got the key you'll want to head back out to where the cat statue was and walk up the stairs to the left. Continuing along this path should lead you into another office-like area, with a receptionist's desk ahead of a door.

Look down the corridor to the right of the receptionist's desk and you'll be able to see a door with the number '3' next to it.

Head down to this door, but you'll want to unlock the door marked '4' instead to the right, which you'll now be able to access with the key from the dead scientist.

Heading inside there are a number of spawns for the hard drive, but I've always found it on the left side of the central computer desk, on top of one of the drawers. This, unlike the key, is a client-side item so will always spawn for you if you have the quest active. Additionally, it acts as a quest item and thus takes up no space in your inventory, instead finding itself in the task menu.

That does mean that you have to extract from the raid safely in order to hand it over to Mechanic and complete the quest though, so do keep that in mind in terms of timings and positionings.

If you've not yet completed Skier's Burning Rubber quest I'd definitely recommend taking 5,000₽ in with you as you'll then be able to take the car extract right outside of TerraGroup, effectively killing two birds with one stone.

Alternatively, your best bet is then just to head to either the Emercom Checkpoint which is at the Unity Credit Back building just across from the TerraGroup parking lot entrance, or head all the way down the road in order to take the Nakatani Basement Stairs extract.

As mentioned, you'll want to make sure that you hand the hard drive over to Mechanic as soon as you safely extract from the raid, as going into another raid and dying will mean that you'll have to go back into Ground Zero and re-obtain the hard drive.