NationStates Jolt Archive

The lights of Platinumberg where world-famous, a painfully bright silver glow visible for miles. It was a sprawling metrapolis, with a maze-like network of aspahlt streets zigzagging in the shadows of the towering skyscrapers that made up the vast majority of the city...

Platinumberg was once a small, humble mining town, where loads of the namesake metal where brought up out of the ground. Such an influx of the precious material made Platinumberg a very wealthy settlement, surpassing even the capitol of Gregsburg, some hundred miles to the north. As with any major city, there where individuals who wished to make a large amount of money without slaving away at a job in one of the city's many posh office buildings... In other words, organized criminals. Gambling, prostitiution, robbery, and murder where everyday reminders of the need for a solution, but the biggest & most profitable venue was an illegal streetfighting circuit operating within Platinumberg's more upscale nightclubs & the basements of privately-owned buildings.

The police force, the 'Pigs of P-Berg', as the gangbangers called them, where a well-funded but somewhat corrupt agency. Military-grade weaponry & the latest in 'Less Than Lethal' firearms filled the armories, and where frequently employed by P-Berg's patrol cops. If nothing was done, Platinumberg would devolve into an urban warzone of shootouts & drive-bys. Something was needed to clean up the streets & restore a higher degree of order. That something was a former Drazden military special operative with a hefty price-tag...

CT Turner...

Drazden's Enforcement branch had sent him down with a fifth freedom & a seven digits in cash to accomplish his mission however he saw fit...

Phase one for Turner was to hire some help... The whole 'man-against-the-world' thing had never worked too well for him, it usually got him hurt... He'd sent out some letters, emails, telegrams, anything he could think of, to some of the better-known gangsters, mercenaries, and all-around badasses in Drazden & beyond...

After renting a small duplex on a rougher end of town, Turner stopped into a local roadhouse bar, seating himself in the back, away from the chaos of drunken bikers & out-of-place gangbanger footsoldiers...

"Scotch... Make it a double..."

CT muttered to the bartender, taking a quick scan of the crowd... This place was rough, no doubt, as a fight broke out on the dance floor. Two rival gangsters where duking it out to some funky hip-hop beat CT'd never heard before...

OOC: Open roleplay for those who've got some skill. Join as anything from one of CT's hired hands to a crime boss to any sort of low-level cop or thug you wish. For purposes of my own sanity & the realisum of the RP, no ninjas, magic, future-tech weaponry, swords, Matrix-esque 'Bullet-Time', etc. Just modern-tech guns & tactics, okay? It's pretty open-ended, so take it where you want. The organized crime is centered more around the modern gangster, with less of the 20's style mafia & more of today's organized gangs.

-Draz

OOC: BUMP for the day-time crowd...

I like to be a crime boss in this rp.

OOC: Fine by me. I'm just happy to get some feedback.

OOC: Looks interesting - may jump in on this later, but right now I'm going to bed.

Are you interested in a character who's a rich kid slumming among the criminals? She thinks it's just so cool to hang out with all these guys who could, like, ice just anybody, anytime. She's also the daughter of an uptight lawyer Senator (potential Prez? Blackmail, anyone?). This brat (I'm thinking a name like Montreal Maddison, Maddison being the name of a hotel chain where I live) is so air-headed she isn't capable of having a relationship with anyone, so she won't be falling in love with your gangbuster guy, but she might let fall snippets of info she picks up around the clubs.

She wouldn't be around all the time (RL and computer availability a problem), but she could fill in gaps in the action.

OOC: I'm not opposed to it. With the lack of intrest this thing has gotten I'm not in much of a position to refuse anyone. I myself have a limited internet access during the week, due to the perils of RL.

OOC: Open roleplay for those who've got some skill. Join as anything from one of CT's hired hands to a crime boss to any sort of low-level cop or thug you wish. For purposes of my own sanity & the realisum of the RP, no ninjas, magic, future-tech weaponry, swords, Matrix-esque 'Bullet-Time', etc. Just modern-tech guns & tactics, okay? It's pretty open-ended, so take it where you want. The organized crime is centered more around the modern gangster, with less of the 20's style mafia & more of today's organized gangs.

-Draz

I'm not looking for a serious rp right now, got a few on and people are gonna wake up and post soon so i'll be busy. However, a random funny would be nice, so i intend to join with a David Lister type character who wakes up in a dumpster with a hangover wondering how the *beep* he got there from Esvanadene city - if that's alright, please supply relevant info eg HOW the hell he did get there - is it physically possible to hitch a ride into Platinum-berg while drunk?

OOC: Imagine a cross between New York & Las Vegas, and you've got Platinumberg. I'd guess it'd be possible, that's up to you. This will be pretty slow-paced anyway, as I'm pretty busy during the week.

Theodore Szokoski entered the bar. As a new arrival from Mikatopia, he was a bit unused to the sights, sounds, and smells of Drazden.

Back in Mikatopia, if one were to search government files for information, one would find that he had grown up in the predominately Polish town of Pferdstein. One would also see that in his youth, Teddy was captain of his high schools wrestling team and starting guard for the football team. Grades were ok, but he excelled in Phsycology and Literature. Accepted to the Mikatopian Royal Guard Academy, the greatest school in the entire country. Passed and began working as an operative for the Royal Guard Urban Protection Force. Unfortunately, this is where the good part of the story ends. Szokoski was expelled from the Royal Guard for refusal to obey orders. When you have something like that on your record, its hard to find a job anywhere, especially when the damn government owns everything. So Ol' Teddy went solo. Set himself up as a private investegator.

Now he was in new territory. He didnt know anyone, couldnt trust anyone, and had no place to stay. Sitting down at the bar, he ordered a drink and did as he usually did: waited for trouble to find him. It always did....

The dancefloor fight took a nasty turn when the loser wound up sprawled across CT's table for one, knocking both of his scotch glasses. The poor bastard was out cold...

"What the hell? Couldn't you have thrown his ass somewhere else?"

CT's mouth often got ahead of him, especially when something had royally pissed him off...

"Yo, money... Ya want some, too? Step muthafucka, I dare ya!"

And 'step' CT did, right out onto the dancefloor...

"What? Didn't your momma teach you to treat people with respect? Huh?"

Turner was right up in the gangster's face, which earned him a headbutt to the nose. CT staggered backwards a few steps...

"Oh hell naw..."

Another brawl started out on the floor, between CT Turner & a hard-hitting thug wearing gang colors. CT blocked the thug's first haymaker with a left knife-hand to the radial nerve, sending a painful sting up the man's arm. With the same hand, Turner grabbed the arm & tugged his assailant towards him, landing a thundering right elbow strike across his victim's temple as he stepped forward. It didn't end there. A right grab to the back of the head brought the guy's head in range of a vicious knee to the nose, which CT executed without remorse, sending the jackass stumbling backwards into the bar.

Staggering, the gangbanger attempted to shake off the aching in his skull. He didn't have much luck. He did, however, have better luck with his next attack. A clumsy roundhouse kick was easily deflected by Turner, but the left cross that followed caught him off guard. CT took the hit across the chin. It was time to end this waste of time & energy.

Turner caught the following right hook headed his way, then applied a swift sweep to the knees. Face down on the hardwood floor, the thug's arm was in perfect position for a shoulder wrench. Straddling the gangster's torso on one knee, CT twisted to the left with his arms, shoulders, back, and hips. The wet pop that followed was a clear indication of a dislocated shoulder...

"In case you didn't notice, I ain't a nice guy... Get the fuck outta here..."

Turner's tone was harsh as he wiped the thin trickle of blood from the left corner of his mouth... He was glad he hadn't hurt the dumbass too badly, a shoulder dislocation usually got his point across, but didn't do permanent damage. CT rubbed a sore jaw. This, he reminded himself, was why he carried a gun, or in his case, two. But as useful as guns where in defusing a situation, they did no good sitting out in the glovebox of his black Chevy Camaro, parked in the parking lot...

Tam Wendelle tried to get up, a feat that proved immensely difficult because of A) the absence of anything solid to stand on and B) the fact that his legs had decided to call in sick today. He lay back in the dumpster and groaned.

He was lying on something squishy in a dumpster, he wasn't sure where this dumpster was located and he had a splitting headache. Not a good way to start the day.

He managed to drag himself out on his third try and collapsed onto the pavement. "Whethelmi? Wsetime?" He mumbled incoherently, shading his eyes against the blinding club lights and staggering out of the alley in a manner decidedly lacking in straight lines.

There he stopped and stared. "What the [beep]?! This isn't Esvanadene city!!"

Indeed, unless the aforementioned capital had been redecorated overnight, Tam had managed to leave the country while blind drunk. He groaned and collapsed again.

"Aww, da pore baby!" cooed a voice. "Diddums hurt his little self, den?"

In the dumpster, a head may have turned towards this unexpected sympathy.

"Diddums squeeze his little paw?" the voice continued, soothing, womanly. Montreal Maddison put her not inconsiderable shoulder muscles to use to haul far too many pounds of reluctant Maine cat out of an interesting garbage can.

A groan cut through the cat's protests at being removed from a perfectly reasonable cat activity. Montreal's beautiful ears heard it; Montreal's soulful eyes sought its cause; Montreal's intellect was brought to bear on the problem.

"Eeeuuuwww!" said the voice that elocution coaches and singing teachers had ruined their careers trying to train. "How disgusting! Fancy sleeping in a dumpster!"

With a characteristic toss of her shampooed, conditioned, coloured, cut, curled, nourished and well-insured locks, Montreal teetered inside to complain to the management.

OOC:
This looks interesting, I think I'll join as one of the guys Turner called up.
My character:
Name: Pavel Korov
Height: 6' 4"
Weight: 205 lbs
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Blue
Bio: An ex-member of the Squornshelan special forces, Korov's reputation is well known in the global underworld as one of the best assassins for hire there is. Recruited into Squornshelous intensive military training programs at the age of 7, he has few skills that are not deadly. He carries two 9mm Norinco NZ-85B hanguns (pic below).

http://www.marstar.ca/Norinco/images/NZ-85-9mm-new.jpg


IC:
Pavel glanced at his watch as he reached the end of the jetway and walked into the terminal. It was only 5:00, still plenty of time left to finish the day's tasks. He went over it in his mind, he had to meet CT Turner at some hotel or other, he had the address on a slip of paper in his pocket. He grinned slightly as he went through customs, checking the "Nothing to Declare" boxes on all of his forms. The officials could search his bags all they wanted, the false bottoms and custom designed metal filaments in the fabric of his luggage ensured that his "tool kit" as he liked to call it, remained a secret. He nodded politely to the uniformed woman as she stamped his passport, fake of course, and waved him through. "Have a pleasant stay in Drazden Mr. Roberts." He smiled and spoke for the first time since leaving Squornshelous, "I plan to."

A screeching voice scraped down Tam's brain and he stood up again, wincing. He was going to have to do *something* if he was planning on getting home in one piece - number one ought to be finding out where the hell he was...

He walked shakily towards the nearest building to ask for directions. Everything after the ceramic bridge building contest was obscured in a drunken haze, and he was almost certain that had occurred inside Resquide.

CT threw back his re-ordered round of scotch, trying to kill the growing pain in his jaw. The bitter alcohol burned as it came in contact with some cut inside his mouth he'd sustained during the fight...

'I've gotta stop doing that... I ain't gonna make it to forty.'

The former soldier made a quick check of his cell phone... No messages, but it was well past the time limit he'd set himself. Thonking down a five to pay for the drinks, CT left the bar & headed for his Chevy. A half-hour later he was back at the duplex, staring into a computer screen. One email response, from some merc. Apparently his shotgun advertising had worked pretty well.

Some guy named Korov... CT'd never heard of him. Then again, CT usually did things himself, working with anyone else was something entirely new for him. Black Ops didn't have much room for teamwork. He'd spent five years in the DMC (Drazden Marine Corps) prior to his induction into the covert world of counter-terrorisum & assassination, under the Intelligence branch of the government...

Before this guy got here, he'd need to his the dojo & get his fighting skills back up to snuff. He'd been trained in a few styles, mostly Jiu-Jitsu & Muay-Thai kickboxing, with some more practical F.I.G.H.T. system elements thrown in for effective disarms & group fighting. The pair of Glock 17's where no longer in his glovebox... They rested on the table to the left of the laptop where he was currently working. If he needed more firepower, he had a few connections & plenty of cash...

I propose a madam and a brothel for your city. A large, well established brothel catering to all levels of society. The girls not only service their clientele, but also dabble in information peddling on a rather large (and lucrative) scale, their being well placed to get said information from their clients.

Would also serve as a nifty little hideout when needed.

Tam suddenly sat down again as he walked into a pole. "How can I tell this is not going to be a good day?" He muttered. He really ought to get out of the habit of waking up with a headache somewhere he didn't recognise - once he'd come to on some rich old guys yacht, he shuddered in memory, but this really was the last straw.


ooc: come on, somebody interact, dammit!

Teddy saw the man run into the pole. As he wasn't really doing anything anyway, he walked over and helped the guy up.

"Hey man, are you alright?"

Teddy saw the man run into the pole. As he wasn't really doing anything anyway, he walked over and helped the guy up.

"Hey man, are you alright?"

"errr.... ask me tomorrow morning," Tam mutterred, "Or better yet, get me a drink." He looked up hopefully. "Is there somewhere around where I can get a drink?"

I propose a madam and a brothel for your city. A large, well established brothel catering to all levels of society. The girls not only service their clientele, but also dabble in information peddling on a rather large (and lucrative) scale, their being well placed to get said information from their clients.

Would also serve as a nifty little hideout when needed.

OOC: It's your time to waste as you please. Go for it.

IC:
CT, rather tired from his escapade in the bar, decided to retire. Sliding onto the couch, he kept one of his Glocks at arm's reach... Slowly, he slipped into a hard, dreamless sleep...

At first, when Monty complained about the awful untidiness of leaving a body in the dumpster, there was a certain amount of interest. Unprofessional, was the consensus. Much better to have parked it somewhere up in the wild bits of Central Park, where the wolves would oblige.

However, when she explained that the body had been alive, if you didn't mind a fairly loose definition of the word, people turned back to more fascinating topics. Monty was shocked to learn that various fights that had broken out in her absence, and not one was over her.

Assuming the justly famous Montreal Madison pout, she summoned her driver, Dwayne, on her fingerphone. (The fingerphone, which worked via wiring in her fake fingernails, was Monty's greatest contribution to the science of style. Her Trends R&D Department had invented it and she had instantly realised how brilliant she was. After all, wasn't she the one who had instructed them to "come up with some good stuff that I could, like, use"? When she was on it she looked so cute, just like a little girl shyly sucking her thumb. That's what Time said, anyway.)

Dwayne thankfully double-parked, glad to end his two-hour stint of driving round the block so he'd be ready whenever Monty called. He swept her off to dinner with Daddy-the-Senator and, just by chance, Uncle-the-Commissioner, whom Monty told all about the untidy body.

Uncle took a note, which was passed on to his deputy and which, some two weeks later, ended up in the Precinct. The Captain immediately arranged a raid on the offending bar. Always co-operative with the Law, the patrons agreed to his proposed date and made a group booking at Madame Gazunda's House of Wonders, Corporate Discounts Available, Coming-of-Age Celebrations a Specialty, Ask About Our Pensioner Thursdays. The bar thus being empty on the day of the raid, and the dumpster being innocent of bodies, the Captain was able to report a 100% success rate in producing favourable crime stats.

It's amazing what a girl can do when she puts her, you'll pardon the term, mind to it.

Korov walked calmly down the street. He'd stopped at a small diner for lunch and a chat with the bartender to get a feel for the town. He looked up at a chain hotel, sure enough, the address, in faded plastic letters, matched the one written on his slip of paper. He walked into the lobby, after first checking to make sure his 9mm's were in place on each hip under his coat. You could never be too sure with this kind of job. He walked into the elevator and waited while the aging machine brought him upwards. He walked down the hall and stopped outside of a door. He double checked the number, and then took a deep breath and knocked, stepping slightly to one side of the door.

OOC: CT's in a duplex, but I get the idea.

IC:

The knock roused Turner from doze... He checked the clock: 11:15 AM... He'd been more tired than he thought. Grabbing one of his handguns & sliding it under the pillow he currently rested on & slip the other into the waistband in the back of his jeans, he rose to open the door.

He took a quick peek through the peep hole, only to find nothing...

'Damn kids...'

Slowly, CT turned the knob & pulled the door inwards. He poked his head out of the doorway, taking a quick glance at the area around him. No bullets screamed at him from a passing car, nor did a shotgun go off in his face...

"I ain't gonna shoot ya... Step out where I can see ya..."

Turner kept a hand near the weapon at the small of his back. Surprises where something you prepared for when you broke someone's ego, as well as their shoulder...

Korov stepped slowly from his position leaning against a coke machine. "Mr. Turner, I believe you were expecting me, although obivously not quite yet. I am Korov." He extended a large hand and looked at Turner. Korov wasn't necessarily surprised by what he saw, CT was, as he'd expected, physically fit and strongly built. He debated smiling slightly for a moment, but decided against it, his was hardly a friendly profession. "I take it you have need of my skills."

"errr.... ask me tomorrow morning," Tam mutterred, "Or better yet, get me a drink." He looked up hopefully. "Is there somewhere around where I can get a drink?"
Mikatopia, you still around or should I just pull a "man-walks-into-bar"?

Korov stepped slowly from his position leaning against a coke machine. "Mr. Turner, I believe you were expecting me, although obivously not quite yet. I am Korov." He extended a large hand and looked at Turner. Korov wasn't necessarily surprised by what he saw, CT was, as he'd expected, physically fit and strongly built. He debated smiling slightly for a moment, but decided against it, his was hardly a friendly profession. "I take it you have need of my skills."

CT shook the man's hand, dropping the opposite from the grip of the 9mm behind his back...

"That's what the ad said. Come on in & I'll explain the rest... By the way, you packin' heat? We're probably gonna need it sooner or later, and my arms dealer is slower than a dead turtle..."

Turner re-entered the dim duplex, seating himself on the sofa that doubled as his bed. Both model 17's returned to their place on the table, yet still within easy reach if needed...

Korov walked in and placed his two Norinco's on the able mirroring Turner's guns. "I won't be needing you're arms dealer's services." He seated himself in a chair facing CT. "Your ad reads like you're having organized crime troubles."

Turner shakes his head...

"I wouldn't call it trouble, more like a numbers issue. There's about twenty of them to every one of me. The people who've paid me to clear out this shit-hole of a town want to see some favorable results, and I'm guessing soon. So far, I've kicked the shit out of one chump downtown..."

CT pauses to let the information sink in...

"My basic plan is to rough a few of these jerk-offs up, let 'em go cryin' back to their overlords, and work our way up the command chain. That'll either be done the old-fashioned way, or by simply bustin' a cap or two in their asses.
Any ideas?"

Tam turned around and hit his head on the pole again. When the fog cleared, the random man was gone. Tam shrugged, and walked over to the nearest building that looked somewhat like a bar. Of course, it would probably have been more intelligent to get to an airport, or an embassy (do we have an embassy in this country?), but he wouldn't be here in the first place if he was that smart, now would he?

The door swung open - Tam looked around the room.


ooc: mikatopia seems to be MIA - you two guys rping now, is there room in your plot for this building he's wandering into to be the same one you're in?

OOC: Right now we're in Turner's duplex room. I guess Tam could be in the lobby, but don't see much point to it, unless he runs into Korov while he's there. I guess it'd be fine.

IC: "I see," Korov took a breath. "So what you want me to do is rough up low level gang members, maybe kill a couple, and see what happens." Turner nodded. "Right now we just want to get their attention."
"Fine, that part of the plan sounds good." Korov paused, thinking of how to phrase his next sentence, and the delicate subject t referred to. "About the issue of payment. . ."

Monty was surprised when she saw the body in the dumpster walk into the boring building. It was definitely the dumpster body; Monty had a good memory for bodies. It was definitely a boring building, too: not a bar, not a club, and probably not even owned by Daddy, since it was not named after her.

On the other hand, if bodies went walking into it, it might become a not-boring building.

"Stop!" she screeched, and tumbled out, leaving Dwayne to solve any problems related to parking, looking after her monstrous cat or keeping Monty safe from harm. Her problem was simply to keep finding interesting things to fill in time, and it was a problem she was solving very well. Particularly lately, since she'd met that nice, nice man who so annoyed Daddy and Uncle, but she was sure he couldn't be a Crime Boss, like they said, he wasn't in the least bit bossy, and she was so old enough to choose her own friends, and ...

Ah, yes, the body. They might call her ditzy, but Monty knew perfectly well how to keep her mind on things, and, besides, she could hear it -- migod, did people really live in places like this, it was so uncool -- unsteadily climbing the stairs ahead of her. Naturally, she followed.

OOC: Right now we're in Turner's duplex room. I guess Tam could be in the lobby, but don't see much point to it, unless he runs into Korov while he's there. I guess it'd be fine.

IC: "I see," Korov took a breath. "So what you want me to do is rough up low level gang members, maybe kill a couple, and see what happens." Turner nodded. "Right now we just want to get their attention."
"Fine, that part of the plan sounds good." Korov paused, thinking of how to phrase his next sentence, and the delicate subject t referred to. "About the issue of payment. . ."

CT nodded... This guy was a buisnessman, Turner respected that...

"Thirty grand to watch my back now, plus another thirty when we've accomplished the mission. I'll also throw in a one grand bonus for every punk-ass you drop. Sound good?"

Back-up was always a good thing, even better when someone else was paying for it...

It wasn't a bar. It was some kind of lobby - a hotel? Hotels had bars, didn't they? Whatever. Tam leaned on a wall, which turned out to be a door, and fell through it onto a staircase. He got up, brushing himself off and missing, and climbed part of the way up the stairs to see where they went.

Suddenly he heard a noise behind him - it was that girl from the alleyway! "The hell?" He mumbled.

"Excellent," Korov extended his hand, "it appears we have a deal Mr. Turner." After wrapping things up, he collected his guns from the table and replaced them on his belt. "I expect we'll be talking again soon." With that, Korov left the room and walked back toward the lobby. As he turned around a corner, a shorter man in a dirty jacket ran into him. "Hey, Watch out," he said in a heavy Squornshelan accent (think Russian/German).

OOC: Hoping to be a merc who works for turner.

My char:

Name: Leo Katoru

Height: 6' 2

Looks: Tall and black haired, wearing a pair of shades and a long black coat and a pair of dark sandles.

Weapons: A katana in a sheath hidden under his coat and a pair of Uzi's in holsters at his side.

Bio: Brought up in china town in Tomatistania, he had always wanted to get further in life than his father (a cloth merchant) and his brother (a police man). His first venture into the martial arts was when he was eight and was 8 years old and joined a karate club. When he was older he tried out of the army but left because of the strictness..and so became a Mercenary who answered Turner's call..

IC:

Leo walked into the Duplex lobby, brushing by a man talking to a smaller man with dirty clothes on in a thick russian accent. He ignored them and went upto the room Turner was meant to be in. He knocked on the door whilst shouting "It' Katoru, I'm here about the ad.."

OOC: Hoping to be a merc who works for turner.

My char:

Name: Leo Katoru

Height: 6' 2

Looks: Tall and black haired, wearing a pair of shades and a long black coat and a pair of dark sandles.

Weapons: A katana in a sheath hidden under his coat and a pair of Uzi's in holsters at his side.

Bio: Brought up in china town in Tomatistania, he had always wanted to get further in life than his father (a cloth merchant) and his brother (a police man). His first venture into the martial arts was when he was eight and joined a karate club. When he was older he enlisted in the army but left because of the strictness... and so became a mercenary who answered Turner's call...

IC:

Leo walked into the Duplex lobby, brushing by a man talking to a smaller man with dirty clothes on in a thick russian accent. He ignored them and went upto the room Turner was meant to be in. He knocked on the door whilst shouting "It' Katoru, I'm here about the ad.."

OOC: One issue....

OOC: Open roleplay for those who've got some skill. Join as anything from one of CT's hired hands to a crime boss to any sort of low-level cop or thug you wish. For purposes of my own sanity & the realisum of the RP, no ninjas, magic, future-tech weaponry, swords, Matrix-esque 'Bullet-Time', etc. Just modern-tech guns & tactics, okay? It's pretty open-ended, so take it where you want. The organized crime is centered more around the modern gangster, with less of the 20's style mafia & more of today's organized gangs.

Fix that issue, then I have no problem with you joining. Swords of any type are hard to conceal & hard to use effectively in crowded nightclubs, where most of the action will take place. I'd suggest a knife of some kind, preferably double-edged & under a total length of six inches.

IC:

CT, having gotten up to snag a beer from the small fridge in the tiny kitchen, groaned as another knock sounded from his door...

'A loud motherfucker, too...'

Sliding a model 17 into the rear waistband of his jeans, Turner again opened the door...

"What?"

CT snapped as he swung open the door... Young kid, pretty green-looking. Ex-military by his stance, karate student of a traditional variety. Pretty standard grunt. His manner lacked Korov's icy edge, but that might also be a good thing...

Tam whirled around as yet another person almost walked into him. Unfortunately all this whirling around had made him somewhat dizzy, and he staggered stepping on the girls foot. Unfortunately since he'd grabbed the other guy's jacket for balance this toppled all three of them over.


ooc: well if YOU guys aren't gonna cause any actiaon... what ahppened to this topic?

OOC: Don't know. Seems to have just died.

ooc: well if YOU guys aren't gonna cause any actiaon... what happened to this topic?

OOC: I was waiting for you to post.

IC:
Korov went from being completely in control of the situation with his hands on the smaller man's shoulders, to sprawling onto their floor when a young woman came running around the same corner and bumped into the two of them. He pulled his jacket out of the other man's hand and stood up, looking down at him and the woman imposingly. "And wher are you going in such a hurry?" He spoke calmly and slowly, not wanting to cause alarm, at least, not yet.

ooc: haha, I was waiting for Ardchoille to post... what's up with him/her/it?

ic: Tam groaned. The horizontal position was starting to look awfully familiar.

Let's see, disaster checklist... one hangover, one unfamiliar location, one possible concussion, one random chick chasing him, and one pissed off guy who's got the advantage and probably doesn't mean well.

Yup, it was going to be an ordinary day. He really needed a drink.

He looked up at the guy, who appeared to be attempting to control his temper, and decided to take a shortcut.

"Please don't kill me."

ooc: haha, I was waiting for Ardchoille to post... what's up with him/her/it?

OOC: Who knows?

Korov blinked in surprise; this guy was more even more pathetic than he looked. "You don't need to worry about that just yet." He reached down and hauled Tam to his feet. "You still haven't answered my question though." Tam took a breath and replied.
"I'm just looking for somewhere to get a drink or somethin to eat. This crazy chick's been followin me."
"Really?" Korov didn't know what to think of that. What possible reason could an obviously upper class young woman have for following some bum around.
"Well young lady," he turned to Monty who was getting to her feet while being as dignified as she possibly could, "what's your story?"

OOC: Sorry, guys. When I last checked, nothing was happening. Now, however ...

"Well young lady ... what's your story?"

"Oooh!" Monty was rather flattered. Nobody had ever asked her for a literary opinion before. "Well, I guess it's Bridget Jones's Diary. Like, it's funny, y'know? What's y ..."

While her mouth had been running on automatic, her brain had been slowly processing events. It finally dawned on her that people rarely held literary discussions on their doorsteps. Particularly when their doorsteps were so crowded with all these strange people. This man was asking why she was here.

Well, it was that body's fault that she'd come here. It was also the body's fault that her foot hurt. Monty's eyes opened wider, her perfect complexion flushed becomingly and her fingers flexed as she moved into Pre-Tantrum Phase I and turned accusingly to the horrid creature responsible for her woes.

"Why do you sleep in dumpsters?" she demanded. "You could have asked this guy to put you up for the night. And you," she continued, turning on Korov, "why didn't you let him crash at your place? It's very unkind to not look after your friends." She pouted.

"And it's very unkind to keep me standing out here, when you can see I'm hurt!" she added, looking up through fluttering eyelashes at what she now realised was a reasonably attractive specimen.

Come to that, so was the dumpster-man, if you didn't mind the smell. He'd probably scrub up very nicely. Monty hauled him over so she could lean on him and emphasise her new limp.

"I don't feel at all well. Do you think I could have a glass of water?" she begged. "I really think I need to sit down ..."

Attagirl! First you slug 'em, then you reel 'em in, said the primal part of her brain. It saw things a lot more clearly than Monty did.

"Why do you sleep in dumpsters? You could have asked this guy to put you up for the night. And you, why didn't you let him crash at your place? It's very unkind to not look after your friends. And it's very unkind to keep me standing out here, when you can see I'm hurt!"

Korov smiled inwardly, while keeping his face completely devoid of emotion, only someone who knew him very well would have been able to discern his mood. He spoke before Tam's brain could even kick into gear, the man obviously had one hell of a hangover. "He probably sleeps in dumpsters because he doesn't have anywhere else to sleep, and I didn't put him up for the night because I met him twenty seconds ago when he bumped into me around this corner, followed by an extremely nosy and presumptuous young lady." Korov's closing remark seemed to sail over her head unnoticed. "In fact, I arrived in this city," he glanced at his watch, "ten hours ago. I'd offer you a chair, or a drink, but I have neither." Korov watched as the two people before him struggled to comprehend him, one from inebreation, the other from sheer airheadedness. "If you'll excuse me, I have places to be." He offered a quick, almost unnoticeable smile and turned to walk down the stairs.

"How rude," said Monty ("rude" being defined as "mean to Monty"). "Well, we'll just have to hope his housekeeper has better manners."

Not wanting to mar her manicure, she picked up Tam's hand before he could resist and pressed his index finger firmly to the bell of the apartment Korov had just left. For good measure, she herself knocked politely on the door.

"Or it might be his butler, or his gentleman's gentleman," she instructed her not particularly responsive companion. "Even in these days, some people don't think it's right for an unmarried man to have a woman housekeeper."

The possibility that anyone might be existing without any of these adjuncts to gracious living didn't seem to cross her mind.

Well, the pissed off guy had succeeded in controlling his temper. Tam realised he'd automatically put him into the "angry drunk" category - well, he so rarely saw other kinds of angry people.

Howeverm he was now being dragged along by some girl who seemed to know him. This was not good. He racked his brains for SOME kind of memory of last night. He was reasonably certain he hadn't slept with her, but apart from that it was pretty hazy.

Yeah... that guy had said something about opportunities and starting afresh... and he'd shelled out some cash and gotten into a car... and then he'd passed out. And he STILL didn't know where he'd ended up.

Fine then, he thought. "Excuse me, miss?" He tried. "Er... who are you? And where am I?"

Monty warmly approved of this man. So far he hadn't said a single thing she couldn't understand. And he'd said it politely.

"I am Miss Montreal Madison, only daughter of upcoming Senator David 'Beau' Madison, widely tipped as destined for more senior positions," she told him. That's what the PR firm said in the handouts, and Monty saw no point in wasting money by not using their output wherever possible.

"You're standing beside me at the top of the stairs of 34a Killchapel Road, Platinumburg, Drazden," she continued kindly. "A nasty man has just hurt my foot. You're helping me ask his housekeeper for a drink of water."

Monty found nothing odd in the dumpster-body-man having forgotten such details. In her experience, if you were thinking hard about one thing, you very often forgot what you had been thinking about something else.

Tam nodded acceptingly. "Right. And I suppose you don't happen to know how I got here?"

It seemed he'd been pressganged into some kind of charity mission. He wondered again if she'd had any part in last nights still-hazy events...

Another thing occurred to him. "Drazden. Where the fuck is Drazden?"

Never one to waste time, Korov got right to work as soon as he left the duplex. He made his way into what seemed to be one of the seedier districts of Platinumburg. Working on instinct, as he often did, he entered a bar with the name "Crash" Sloppily painted on the sign over it's door. The explaination for the name came just inside, as he had to duck to avoid walking into a large piece of what had once been a motorcycle. As he looked around the dimly lit interior, he noticed two dozen or so similar displays. The walls yielded more of the same, all of the decor in the room consisted of wrecked vehicles. He walked up to the bar and ordered a pint of imported beer, from Callisdrun as it happened, and then proceded to a small tabel in a dark corner. He would sit here for a while and observe.

"Drazden is here. It's where we are," Monty exxplained, though possibly not in the geographical detail her hearer sought.

"I don't know how you got here," she continued, conscientiously dealing with his queries. "When I saw you last night, you were in a dumpster at the back of the bar. I was looking for my cat. I thought you were dead. Then I saw you going into this place today and you weren't dead." Monty smiled sunnily, pleased to be able to convey such good news.

"You have to tell me your name now," she added. "I told you mine, so you have to tell me yours." There was a certain order to things, and Monty liked people to stick to it. This man should have already said, "I'm sorry I stepped on your foot," but he hadn't. He was asking questions instead. She hoped he wasn't going to keep on doing that.

Unless it was one of those questions that wasn't really a question, like, "May I buy you a drink?"

"Uh... Tam. Tam Wendelle." He muttered. "That wasn't helpful. Wait... where was this dumpster?"

Ah! Logical reasoning was beginning to creep back into his head. Whoever had dumped (no pun intended) him wouldn't have bothered to drag him through a few alleyways to find a suitable dumpster. So whatever building he was dumped outside... Yeah! He mentally congratulated himself on a reasonably quick recovery from his hangover, and grinned to himself.

"I already told you, it was at the back of the bar," said Monty. And then, as an impatient frown appeared on Tam's brow, enlightenment struck. "Oh, I see! You want to know what bar. All right, I'll tell you. It was Joey's Bar."

Oddly, Tam did not show any sudden signs of gratitude. But Enlightenment was having a field day today. Inspired, Monty continued, "You know. Joey's Bar. On Vandenburg Street. Where the Big Boys go," she added. "It's seriously hard to get into, my friend Cynthia really wants to go there, too, but they won't let her in. And she said if I was really her friend I'd take her there, but I wouldn't, because she wouldn't fit in, you know? But you would, if you got cleaned up, you're just their sort of guy, but not right now, because we're waiting for this door to open, because I need somewhere to sit down, though I guess I could just call my driver, and if you help me down the stairs I could take you home and you could get cleaned up and then we could go to Joey's and ... "

Monty wasn't finished, but she had to draw breath.

"Big Boys? What the fuck?" Tam interjected. "no, look, that sounds like a good idea. Why don't you... uh, show me where the bar is, and then drop me off at a motel or something so i can clean up..." He put his hand in his pocket. "...crap. No money. Oh, this is not my day."

"Don't be silly," Monty urged, overcome by hospitable instincts. "I'm calling now."

She chatted on her fingerphone for a minute, unaware what this activity would look like to an outsider (crazy girl talks to finger). Finally, having arranged matters to her satisfaction, she turned to Tam.

"The car is waiting downstairs," she told him. "There's no use thinking you can get into Joey's without me, because you can't, and I was going to go there tonight anyway, so you may as well come too. I've told them at home we're having a dinner-guest, and my father's so looking forward to meeting you. He's never known anyone who lived in a dumpster before, and he thinks it might make a good opening issue for him to raise product image awareness."

Monty paused in mid-flood, thinking over that last bit. But since she seldom understood what her father said when he talked politics, she dismissed it and turned to more practical matters.

"And we've got showers at home you don't have to pay for -- that's just so silly, fancy anyone paying for a shower! I mean, the water just comes out of the thingy at the top, you don't have to put money in or anything, do they have pay-showers where you come from? Oh, and clothes, well, there's always plenty around home, there's sure to be something, and money doesn't matter, I've got my cards -- I bet you left yours at home, I was always doing that, so I got these cute ones you can wear --" ... she showed him what he'd thought was just a rather eccentric bracelet ... "and they don't come off, even in water!"

All the time she babbled, she was herding him down the stairs, her sore ankle having slipped her mind under the force of newer ideas.

(OOC: Drazden, are you still in your apartment? If you don't pop out soon, you'll miss a chance of getting onside with at least one, and perhaps two, possible sources of gangland info.)

Tam stood there blankly as the random girl talked into her fingernail. In fact, he almost didn't notice when she stopped talking to whoever she was talking to and started talking to him again. He tuned in around "Shower" and felt immensely grateful. He still had no idea why he knew this girl, but she was obviously one of those rare kind souls - or just insane, in which case he was perfectly willing to take advantage of her hospitality, considering how rich she looked.

So he followed her down the stairs...

Springing lithely from the car to hold the door open, Monty's chauffeur accepted Tam with the calm that marked all his dealings with Monty's enthusiasms. Life had been so much easier for Dwayne since he started the medication. Calmly he helped Monty into her seat, calmly he put down a groundsheet before helping Tam into his, calmly he walked around the car, sat in the driver's seat and pulled shut the panel that gave his passengers privacy.

Calmly he screamed at the top of his lungs, just the way he'd learned from the meditation tapes. The soundproofing in these Rolls-Royces really was as good as they claimed.

All the way home Monty kept up a constant flow of chatter that undiscriminating stylists might have termed "stream of consciousness". Dipping into it from time to time, Tam learnt that on the right was Crash, where a really rough crowd hung out; that coming up was the intersection where Monty once saw a camel (a camel?); that her best friend ever, Todd Vermyss-Mercott, owned a stable of racing camels; and that the guys at Joey's Bar really liked racing, too, but not camels, horses, and wasn't it funny that white horses were called "greys", and did he know some people said her father was a Dark Horse, and wasn't it funny that there was a drug called "horse", too, but Mr Velasquez never called it that ...

It was fortunate that Tam was her only audience. Mr Velasquez would not have liked to hear his name used in the same sentence as some of those other words.

Tam nodded vaguely, looking out the window. He wondered what the hell he was doing. He ought to be trying to find a way home, not going back to last nights venue of presumable debauchery via the home of a random hyperactive school girl. On the other hand, she seemed rich and prone to random acts of charity - maybe she'd help him get back to resquide. He certainly had no intention of hitchhiking back - he'd a excuse last night, he was drunk! Maybe if he got drunk again, he'd wake up on a bridge outside Esvanadene city with no pants on... He sighed.

ooc: What words, camel?

Korov sat in his booth and watched a small fight break out when one man bumped into a table from drunkeness, knocking over several drinks there. The three men sitting there disposed of him quickly and dumped him outside. Then paid the bartender for the mess and headed for the door. Being a proffessional himself, Pavel could recognize another by sight. He stood and inconspicuosly, which was easier said than done for a man of his size, followed them out. Once outside, they turned right, walking quickly toward a slightly more upscale district. He followed, moving in and out of shadows and doorways, interested in where they were going.

Turner had dozed off on the couch again, this time he rolled off & upset the coffee table... One of his 17's toppled off, plinking as it hit the floor. CT sprang up, pulling the handgun's twin from the rear of his waistband & hastily scanning for a threat...

There was none, save a half-groggy special agent with a loaded handgun in his hands, but he was little more than a threat to himself...

Korov was gone, but there was a cell number on the fridge. CT keyed it into his own cell phone...

OOC: Damn, this thing took off...

OOC: Humphrey Bogart enters. Turns up coat collar, pulls down hat brim. Stares at camera. Says, "Yeah. Camel. Right." Lights cigarette. Fade to black.

Just for a few seconds, as they were turning into the drive, Monty wished she hadn't mentioned Mr Velasquez at all; she had a fleeting idea he'd said something about that. But, such a nice man, surely he wouldn't mind. Or maybe he was just shy. Anyway, they were home now, and Dwayne was opening the car door, there were more important things to worry about. Such as what she was going to wear to Joey's tonight.

Oh, yes, and what this nice Tam was going to wear, too. She trotted into the house, hauling Tam by the elbow, and turned to the butler.

"Mr Wendelle will be dining with us tonight, Bolton. And later he's coming to Joey's to look at a dumpster. Find him something to wear, would you? Oh, and you'd better explain to him how the shower works."

"This way, sir," was all Bolton said, but his back was eloquent, and the tails of his coat spoke volumes. Tam followed, protesting that he already knew how showers worked, actually.

Tam scratched his head and turned to the butler. "Is she always like this?"

"I'm afraid so, sir. It's best to just run with things until something new catchesher attention."

The butler was giving him a sideways look. "Er, I'm not a pedophile, by the way." Tam ventured uncertainly. "I've no idea what I'm doing here, actually. I'm hoping this Joey's place rings a bell."


ooc: Humphrey Bogart indeed.

CT hung up the phone, disappointed... He had no back-up now, save the 9mm's he carried... Time for a bar-hop, he decided...

'Joey's sounds like the place to go... Either it's a gay bar & I leave faster than I enter, or a bunch of wanna-be gangsters hang there & I get to do what I'm getting paid for...'

Turner retrieved the other model 17 from the floor, shrugged on a tattered black leather jacket, and headed for his ride...

Korov tracked the three men to an alleyway, where they stood and waited near a loading dock. They opened up a door and brought out several crates, setting it on the side of the dock. Within five minutes, a truck pulled up, Korov quietly stepped up behind a dumpster and screwed silencers onto his guns. The driver stepped out and opened one of the crates, looking inside.
"Mr. Velasquez will be most pleased."
The men busied themselves loading the crates onto the truck, and were so absorbed in their task that they didn't notice when Korov walked up behind them until he was already aiming both guns at them. Two of the men froze instantly, knowing there was no way they could reach their own weapons in time. The third was not so smart. He dove and reached for his gun, but was dead before he hit the ground, with two bullet holes behind his left ear. The driver also dove, but he made it under the truck, not before Korov put two slugs in his leg though.
"Turn around."
Korov spoke quietly and clamly, the two men turned and instantly he clubbed them each with a pistol, knocking them sensless. He spotted movement from the corner of his eye and turned, this time putting two more bullets into tthe drivers arm, knocking a .357 from his hand. He walked over and kicked one of the crates, which broke open to reveal neatly sealed plastic bags packed full of pure cocaine.
"Who are the drugs for?"
He turned to the driver.
"Fuck you asshole!"
Korov smiled and walked over, being careful to step on the man's shattered leg. He put on gun away and grabbed the man's arm, twisting it cruelly. The driver cried out in pain and tried to pull his arm away, Korov pistol whipped him and pulled his head up until they were eye to eye.
"Who are they for?"
"I only know the name, a Mr. Velasquez, I am to bring the shipment to this location, he fumbled in a small pocket with his free hand. Korov slapped it away and pulled out a piece of paper.
"Very good. Now let me tell you what you're going to do. You're going to have a little nap here and then you're going to go home and retire, this is a dangerous business my friend. Korov hit him behind the ear and the driver dropped senseless to the ground. After checking the other guys to be sure they were okay, Korov went to a nearby payphone and dialed 911.
"This is 911 what's your emergency?"
Korov hung up and walked away, pulling out his cellphone and turning it on. He'd switched it off to avoid it ringing and giving him away. He looked at the screen, one missed call, he dialed the number and waited.

The butler raised an eyebrow and said: "I'm sure it will. Don't worry, she's brought home strays before. we've developed a knack for spotting the dangerous ones, and you just look confused, no offense."

Tam debated taking offense but decided it was pretty accurate, so he let it slide. After his shower he wandered out to the dining room, having a vague memory of being told to go there...

There was a long table, set nicely - he ithered at the doorway for a while, wondering what to say. When he cleared his throat, Monty looked up and grinned.

"Daddy! This is the strange man I told you about!"


ooc: assuming Ardchoille is having computer-troubles - s/he told me to do her characters if this extends past friday, which it appears to have done.

bump

"Daddy" turned out to be the original Senator from Central Casting. From the tip of his carefully-careless hair (with grey streaks for maturity and wisdom, but an errant lock for boyishness and lovable impulsiveness) to the unsullied soles of his designer shoes, he was Image, Image, Image.

But a shrewd enough political brain lurked in there; shrewd enough to have had "Tam Wendelle" checked out by every agency he could reach. Tam might not remember much of his past, but Daddy was determined to be able to recite it chapter and verse. Unfortunately, Tam didn't come up clean; he came up non-existent.

The Senator put that down to lack of time and told his people to keep looking. In the meantime it made for some prickly conversation, what with the Senator's frustrated probing, Tam's blank responses and Monty's utterly, totally, completely gormless social twittering. It was a relief when the meal staggered to an end -- the Senator didn't invite Tam to the usual man-to-man wine and cigars -- and Monty was able to herd him from the table, into the car and off to Joey's.

Obviously, the yellow police tape and the swirling lights in the alley meant nothing to Monty. She bounced merrily into the bar, air-kissing any number of human gorillas, arm still threaded through Tam's elbow. They came to rest in front of a small, grandfatherly figure seated almost invisibly at the best (and most defensible) table in the place.

"Ooh, Mr Velasquez, look what I found in a dumpster last night! Isn't he cute? No, well, actually I found him at the top of some stairs today, or maybe he found me, whatever. But the dumpster was where he was before.
And I took him home, and would you believe, Daddy asked him all these questions and he didn't know anything, not even capital cities! And his name is Tam."

Lizard eyes assessed Tam while a cold brain decoded the messages that the Senator's idiot daughter didn't even know she was sending. For seconds it seemed likely that her new toy would end up back in the dumpster, in even worse condition than before. Things had gone wrong and Velasquez would have welcomed a little light relief. But no; wait and see if this would give him even more leverage on the Senator, when he finally decided to apply it.

Tam gulped noisily and loosened his collar. The interrogation over dinner had been quite unpleasant, especially since he kept getting asked things he couldn't possibly know - well, what did the old guy expect? He'd practically lived in a bottle for the past five years! No, wait, was that three? Agh, whatever. So what if he didn't know who Resquides allies, or indeed neighboring countries, were?

And now they were in this place, which looked to have been the scene of some kind of crime quite recently, and Tam had the horrible, horrible feeling that he'd been somehow involved. It was just his luck, wasn't it?

He was also getting extremely bad vibes from this Vasquelaz person. It was probably the way he was sitting, or the way he was smiling, or the bodyguards. Yes, the bodyguards were definitely an issue. Aside from that, he'd just gotten used to judging men in bars, and this wasn't a nice one. He'd better say something inoffensive, quick!

"Um... hi."

Korov roamed the streets restlessly, he'd been unable to reach Turner on his cell, and wasn't sure what to do next. He gone to the location the truck driver had given him, but no one had showed, obviously this drug ring had ears everywhere, something to keep in mind. he had to be careful who he trusted, or he might end up face down in the gutter one of these nights. As he walked through the metropolitan district near where he'd intercepted the drugs, "I guess it's true," he thought, "a criminal always does return to the scene of the crime," he stole a glance down the alley at flashing lights and yellow tape, a sign he'd done his job well. Suddenly, somehting caught his eye. The woman he'd been run into by at Turner's duplex was leading a man into a bar. He wan't sure from the quick look he'd gotten but it seemed like she'd picked up the bum who'd been there too. "This one might be worth following," he murmered, standing in a shadowy corner, "if she's the type to take home a stray like that, she's the type who can't keep a secret even if she's trying." He walked over into the bar, and discretely, which wasn't easy for a man his size, sat down in a booth where he was hiddenfrom sight, but could overhear most of the conversation at their table. He'd gotten a look at the other man there and everything about him screamed druglord. The oily smile, the eyes that sent one message: I am in control here and most of all, the pair of bodyguards flanking him, eyes hidden behind dark shades. Even before the blond adressed him, Korov knew, this was Mr. Velasquez.

"Always a pleasure to meet little Monty's newest pet," Velasquez said affably. "So often nice little pets grow too big for the city life, though. They have to be sent to the farm for a nice ... long ... holiday."

"Oh, you must be thinking of Tiddles," Monty said, evidently not picking up the slightest vibe from Velasquez's heavy-handed menace. "He's meant to be big, Mr Velasquez; he's a Maine Coon Cat. But he hasn't gone to any farm, I just left him at home tonight so I could show Tam where I found him. Found Tam, I mean, not Tiddles. Tiddles isn't silly enough to hide in a dumpster. But he didn't like it out there in the alley."

Her audience winced collectively at the thought of Monty hauling Tam out the back, where she'd no doubt start an innocent chat with the nice Scene-Of-Crime team.

"I am afraid the alley is closed for cleaning tonight, little one," Velasquez said. "Didn't you see the flashing lights on the city's big sweeper truck when you came in? But do sit down; I'm sure you and ... Tam? ... have been having lots of fun today. One of my friends here will get you both drinks and you can tell me what you've been up to. You've no idea how it cheers up an old man to hear about your doings. So, young Tam, how do you like our fine city?"

Tam cleared his throat, sitting down when Monty did, "Er, I... haven't seen much of it yet. Um, not that I remember, anyway. Actually..." He squinted. "Well, this place looks familiar, at least. I was definitely here at some point. You come here often? Maybe you know what happened last night?" He asked nervously, ready to run away at full speed if this enraged the man - but he didn't seem the immediate action type, anyway. Homesickness suddenly kicked in. Not for Resquide, bloody disorganised Resquide where he could slip through the cracks but never really bothered with anyw=thing else, but Australia. He wondered, not for the first time, what his mam had been thinking, sending him to some obscure European country - and whether she had known he would end up somewhere like this. To be fair, he hadn't exactly told her about his drinking problem...

"Er, drinks would be good, thanks."

As soon as he heard one of the bodyguards leave, Korov stood up and quietly followed him. The man walked in the general direction of the bar. But then stopped and ducked into a corner. As he brought a small 2-way radio to his lips to speak, Korov's arm encircled his neck, choking the man into unconciousness. Having thus evened the odds, he strolled leisurely back to his table.

The drinks were taking a very, very long time. Monty was disappointed, because the drinks at Joey's were excellent. They had things stuck in them, like orange plastic monkeys with long tails and blue plastic elephants with long trunks and green plastic mermaids who leaned on the edge of your glass. Monty really wanted a mermaid and she'd hoped that she'd get one tonight. Instead she was sitting here waiting for a drink and Mr Velasquez was in a pet about something. People said she wasn't a very noticing girl, but she was, and she could tell things like that about people.

Also, her nice friend Tam was looking very sad. Trying to think of something to cheer him up, she began looking around the room so she could tell him the minute the drinks showed up. She couldn't see the guy who'd gone to get them, but a figure strolling back to an obscure booth caught her eye. She stood up for a better look, and suddenly squealed.

"Look, Tam!" she said indignantly. "That silly man who hurt my foot is here! You remember, the one who went away? Well," said Monty the Militant, "I'm going to have a word with him! And it won't be a nice word, either!"

She bounced to her feet -- the sore one had healed completely -- and marched toward the booth.

"Oh, crap." Tam muttered. Now he was alone with the creepy thug, and ... what the hell wa she doing anyway? "Uh... so..." he said, cautiously, "Um...you come here often?" He managed a weak grin at Vasquelaz.

"So there you are! And what have you got to say for yourself?" stormed Monty at top volume. Several people with guilty consciences reflexively downed their drinks and left before realising that this wasn't their Significant Other upbraiding them.

Mr Velasquez observed the scene lazily. "Indeed, I do come here often," he told Tam. "I come here to ... collect the rent, you could say. Yes, you could say that." He smiled. It was the first time he'd really smiled all day.

The remaining bodyguards seemed to come alive. They moved in closer.

Korov, surprisingly, did not instantly jump up or respond. He thought of a drill instructor he'd had in the Squornshelan Marines. "If anything can go wrong, it will," had been his motto.
"Somewhere," thought Korov, "he's laughing at me."
"If you remember, ma'am, it was you who ran into me, so if anyone should have something to explain it would be you, but please, not so loud, you'll disturb the other guests."
He looked at the bodyguards out of the corner of his eye. They had positioned themselves so that there was no possible way he could take them all out before one got him. Best to play it safe, Korov sipped his vodka and turned his attention to Monty again. "However, I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you."

OOC:
Sorry about slow response, I've been having network issues.

Tam looked around at the bodyguards and gulped noisily. He had met enough armed men to recognise when a guy was casually making sure his weapons were within reach. "Ah... right then. You're a... landlord?" He squeaked.


ooc: I originally wrote "making sure his weapon was within reach" but then i looked at it again and I thought.... um. :P

"Oh, well, if you apologise, then, I guess that's all right," said Monty, who had been taught that ladies accepted apologies gracefully but had never quite mastered the art. She slid into a chair at Korov's table, and was plainly about to confide some other deathless piece of Monty-think when her glance was caught by an inconvenient foot.

"Ooooh, look!" she squealed, leaping up. The chair tumbled, but Monty was used to minor disasters in her wake. She ignored it and explored further. "There's a man here! Lying down!" she wailed.

The other denizens of the bar apparently found nothing surprising in the idea of a man lying down on the bar-room floor; not one budged. Monty, undaunted, summoned a helper on whom she could rely.

"Tam! Over here!" she called, waving.

OOC: This should open things up a bit. I would guess Monty is already, or will soon be, in the way of the bodyguards. Who's going to trip over the chair? What spilt drinks will who slip in? Will the guilty flee where none pursueth? Tune in again, same time, same station ...

Korov worked harder than ever to keep his face blank. He galnced casually over at where Monty was crouched by the KO'd bodyguard. The other ones would have to go over to look at the body and then he'd make his move. seconds seemed to stretch into eternity as he watched the others out of the corner of his eye.

The bodyguards were well-trained, but not well enough to account for innocent lunatics, which is how they viewed Monty. When Tam didn't react quickly enough to her cries for help, she simply ran over and seized his hand, pulling him back with her to show him her find.

The inept rescuers bumped one guard out of the way; a second, forgetting his primary duty, followed the pair -- possibly to see if this was his missing partner, possibly to keep an eye on the two madmen. The remaining guard must have been trying for an FBI-like "outta-here!" routine. Seizing the sputtering Mr Velsaquez by his right arm, he half-carried, half-pushed him towards the only safe place he could see: behind the bar.

But before they reached it, a shot rang out.

(OOC: Always wanted to write something as cheesy as that! Hope one of you will decide that the result is a corpse, and that it's Mr V; I'm sick of trying to write menacing dialogue. With the cops outside at the crime scene, and with -- please? -- the chance of a nice turf war on the death of a drug lord, things should hot up a bit. Or the shot can go wide, or hit anyone else a glancing blow ...)

Every head in the bar turned as the first shot rang out, but it was quickly followed by more. As Korov dove beneath his table. He caught himself on his elbows. This was necessary because his hands were filled by a pair of handguns. Both were smoking slightly. Across the room, the guard who had been attempting to regain his balance lost it permanantly, along with his life. The guard who had followed Tam and Monty Also went down hard, with a bullet in his right shoulder. Korov peeked out from behind his booth and put another through the man's forehead.
By this time screaming people filled the bar, the ones between Korov and the front exit were running and the rest were hiding under their tables, with the exception of Monty, who was just beginning to be distracted from the sleeping man on the floor. As Korov stood and took a bead on the back of Velasquez's head, a shape leapt up in his path, a small, and incredibly loud shape.
"Just what do you think you're doing?!!!!" Korov didn't look around to check, but Monty's voice had probably shattered every bit of glass around. "You've shot Mr. Velasquez's friends! Do you realize what you've done?!!! Now they won't be able to get me my drink!!!!!"
The sheer volume of her voice saved Monty's life; just as Korov was squeezing the trigger, her first words hit his ears. He flinched and the bullets sailed over her head, pulverizing a pair of very expensive liquor bottles behind the bar. With Velasquez escaping out a side door and the alley outside crawling with cops, Korov didn't have much choice. He stepped forward and smoothly slipped one of his guns back into its holster. He grabbed Monty's arm and ushered her out the back door before she realized what was going on. The police just outside looked at him with a mixture of shock and suspicion.
"I am Miss Maddison's bodyguard and I am escorting her to her father's estate." Not wanting to interfere with the daughter of one of Platinumburg's richest citizens, the cops pratically tripped over themselves trying to get out of his way. He bustled Monty down the alleyway and released her once he reached a quieter area, bracing himself for the verbal attack he knew was coming.

When the shooting started, Tam dived behind a convenient tree and put his hands over his head. However, he soon came to the horrifying realisation that bullets do this thing called ricochet, which was unfriendly to the general state of not bleeding.

So he decided upon a more sensible course of running away screaming. It had always got him out of trouble before - he'd even perfected the Strategic Withdrawal while Plastered. Speaking of which, he'd never even gotten his drink. Man he could use a drink.

By the time this train of thought was exhausted, he frealised he was actually quite some way from the pub - and right around the corner he could hear the voice of...


ooc: Ardchoille - I'm not sure of your character plans, so pick either Monty or Mr V for the person tam's gettiung himself re-attached to.

... Monty, who was looking after herself. Somebody had once trained her for this, when Daddy had realised that even the daughter of a powerful and photogenic Senator could be kidnapped. At the end of a very, very long day, a wearied security advisor had succeeded in hammering four points into her head: Scream. Struggle. Bite. Kick.

She did all four. There was a second when she suspended all action -- long enough to be surprised that it was possible to scream and bite at the same time -- but she then took it up with renewed vigour. To her surprise, the scream resolved itself into words: "Tam! Tam! He's got me!"

By the time the words were out, however, she'd been released. Not that it did her captor much good, since she kept up her excessive activity and continued to scream.

"No he hasn't!" she broadcast at top volume. "He's let me go now! Should I stop kicking him?"

No-one seemed to want to play Miss Manners, so Monty solved the social dilemma in her own way, grabbing up the only weapon she could see: a narrow cardboard box, which she upended over her assailant's head and hauled down over his shoulders.


OOC: Serves you right, Squornshelous. I hope there was a bag of prawn-shells in it. I'm still stuck with RPing Velasquez and Monty misses out on her plastic mermaid ... yes, I think there must have been potato-peelings in there, too. Tea-leaves. Eggshells. Mouldy boiled rice ...

"Uh..." said Tam, falling over a garbage bin, "What?! Who?"

The strange man was now making muffled noises of surprise, outrage, relief (Monty had stopped screaming) and horror (the box said "Cthulu Assosciates" on the side).

Tam considered the situation and decided he should probably stick with Monty -after all, her father just might see this as a rescue, and getting out of the country tends to require money, for which purpose a reward might come in handy...

"Right," he said, picking himself up, along with a handy piece of rope which had fallen out of the bin. "I'll tie him up, you call someone."

While he'd been ready for the little screams and kicks and punches, Korov had never expected Monty to be so resourcefull. An interesting assortment of explicatives came from under the box, or at least they would have been interesting if Tam had been able to understand them. After a split second of confusion, Korov quickly reached up and threw the box aside. Coming face to face with Tam. He quickly surveyed the situation and grinned at Tam. It was not a particularly friendly grin. "Going to tie me up?" Korov reached out with his palm up. "I think you wanted to give me that rope."

Tam's eyebrow twitched. "Wait a second... you" He pointed to the random guy, "Want me - to give you this rope?"

The guy seemed to be nodding assent. Tam looked down at the rope in his hands, and then back at the guy. "Uh... why? What are you going to do, garrotte her? Tell you what, I won't tie you up, but I keep the rope, how about that?"

"Whatever works," Korov replied, "as long as you keep your mouth shut." He put a finger over his lips. This gesture would have been a lot less menacing and a lot more silly if the finger hadn't been attatched to the hand it happened to be attatched to. It wasn't the hand that was particularly menacing, but the 9mm handgun in the hand, which semed to have appeared from nowhere as Korov brouhgt his hand up to his lips. With this parting gesture, Korov stepped back into the shadows, and, checking to make sure he wasnt followed, disappeared through a maze of alleys. He finally emerged about a block from his hotel, and strolled casually down the street to the door. He would spend the night here and try to find Turner in the morning.

OOC: Cthulu Associates, is it? Beware the Elder Gods!

IC: "Awwww!" Monty complained. "I was just about to hit him with this!' She waved a bit of wood about. It gave every appearance of having been plucked from the struts of a balsa-wood model. Used as a weapon, it would probably have had a devastating effect on an unmoussed hairdo. However, Monty had been proud of herself for thinking of it, and for at least 30 seconds felt sadly cheated.

But at least Tam's performance had been all a girl reared on Saturday morning cartoons could have wished. Hadn't he rushed to her side and defied a gun-wielding ruffian? Well, no, not really; but he'd certainly confused a gun-wielding ruffian. That is, if the man whose foot she'd stood on really was a ruffian. He'd told the police he was taking her home. Maybe he'd put her down in the alley because she was too much trouble to carry. Maybe she shouldn't have put him in a box. Maybe ... oh, it was all so difficult. And it was getting late. Monty's brain consigned the whole scene to the cutting-room floor.

Anyway, the next step was obvious. They should return home to plan their response. Exactly what they were responding to was something they'd have to sort out. Monty had an uneasy feeling Daddy wouldn't like it. The words "guns" and "night-club" started floating into her mind, all set out in type just the way they'd appear in headlines, alongside that picture of her that Daddy'd been so mad about, the one in the fountain on New Year's Eve.

"Do you think I should let them get a better photograph before we go home?" she asked Tam. Not having been privy to Monty's internal monologue, Tam just stared at her.

Monty, deciding that the present state of her make-up wouldn't stand a photograph, clicked her finger-phone and summoned the car.

Tam scratched his head in bemusement and started to follow Monty, still holding the rope as though it was any kind of use. Unfortunately, just at that moment there was a flash - lightning?

No! Worse! It was... paparazzi! Within minutes the pair were surrounded by reporters, photographers and general members of the public who'd been swept along in the rush. Tam instinctively stepped closer to Monty for protection - affording one purple-haired journalist an excellent picture of the somewhat ruffled Monty apparantly in the process of being tied up by a scruffy-looking man...

OOC: Any more tricks like that and you meet the dread Bel-Garoth face to snout! Possibly accompanied by eldritch chanting.

IC: "Ooh-ooh, Pansy!" trilled Monty, hauling on the rope, to which Tam was still attached. "I want you to meet Tam Wendelle. Pansy and I were in KinderGym together," she explained to Tam. "And KinderSing, and KinderArt, and ..."

"We've known each other a loo-oo-ong time," summarised the purple-haired journalist. "He looks like an artist to me, petal," she told Monty. "No, make that performance artist -- that'd explain the rope. So, where'd you get him, dahling?"

"I found him here," Monty supplied, quite truthfully. "We were going to have a quiet drink together."

There were times Monty's gormlessness plumbed such depths it went right through and came out the other side, sounding intelligent. People who didn't know her well wondered if she was just putting on an act.

But Pansy did know her well,and quickly focussed on Monty's current obsession.

"Then if you want a quiet drink, let's go get one," she soothed. "Still got that lovely limo, sweetie? We'll be able to soldier on till all hours at the Journos' Club."

******

Made-up or not, Monty (with electronically-enhanced neckline, and just a suggestion of rope for the bondage crowd) made the sort of Page One pic that editors dream of. Tam's trapped-in-the-headlights visage was easily cropped out; Pansy figured she'd get much more mileage from the story if, for a while, he appeared in silhouette as "publicity-shy artiste Thyme Wyndale". In a sensitive Page Three interview, with "before" pics of Monty in school uniform, at the beach and totally out of it at her 18th birthday party, the "Senator's ditzy daughter" apparently confided that Thyme had helped her understand her deepest self.

"Man hurt in bar brawl" rated a couple of paragraphs buried at the bottom of Page Six, and dropped in later editions.

OOC: I'm gonna be alitle presumptuous and skip to the next morning, If you wanted to do something later on the same night, just backdate it in your post I guess.

IC:
The next morning, Korov snorted as he read the paper. "Man hurt in bar brawl? I love journalists, there's no one you can trust better to completely bury a story about three stiffs in a bar." He skimmed over the article on Monty and Tam and laughed again. It was such obvious bullshit, and that made it funny. He scanned all of the pictures that appeared carefully to make sure he did not appear, and was pleased. He had been well out of the way when the reporters arrived. He got dressed, ate breakfast and walked out of the hotel lobby just as the sun was rising. He looked around and then dialed CT's number on his cell.

OOC: I'm gonna TG Drazden and see what's going on.

OOC: Mwahaha. Yeah, what WAS this thread, originally? I mean, I think i've completely forgotten... oh and Ardchoille, can you think of any way to make this an international incident? I want Tam to come to the attention of a certain someone whose identity I haven't quite decided yet, but this would be an excellent opportunity to do so.

IC: Tam stared at the papers and groaned. All he'd wanted was to work out what he was doing here and go HOME. Or back to Resquide, at least. And now he was staying in a sleazy hotel room courtesy of Monty's father, who by the way was expecting him over for some major explanation work any time now. He contemplated just going back to bed, or slinking out of here, holding up a petrol station and buying an airline ticket, or at least some alcohol, but at this point the phone rang...

"Daddy says three men got killed last night!" Monty sniffled, without any of the usual telephone preliminaries. "Y'know that man with the gun? He might have done it! He could even have shot us!"

Tam didn't answer, possibly because he was struggling to stop himself delivering any one of several thousand scathing replies. However, his lack of response didn't discourage Monty.

"I think it's all just awful, and I've asked Daddy to find out who they were, so we can see if their kids need college scholarships or anything, because it's only polite, isn't it, when somebody gets killed in a bar where you were. And I'm going to ask Mr Velasquez, too, because he's really nice like that. He told me once he had ways of looking after little girls like me, not that I'm a little girl, but you see what I mean, and if he'd look after me then surely ..."

Sucked under by Month's tidal wave of illogic, not to mention horrified speculation about Mr Velasquez's ways of "looking after" people, Tam resurfaced just in time to hear, "... so I've told Dwayne to pick you up at 11am. I don't know why Daddy made you go to that awful place, we could easily have let you sleep here, but anyway, he wants to talk to you, and so does Mr Smith, so I thought we might as well have brunch before they do, because Mr Smith gives me the creeps, and I think it's easier to deal with things like that on a full stomach ..."

Things like that? Tam put the phone down very, very carefully.

By the time the car arrived, Tam had already had time to imagine all of the horrible things possibly inhabiting his future. He'd also discovered that the hotel had a bar.

Three Midori's, a bottle of whiskey and some random cocktails later he practically fell into the car, prompting a look of disgust from the driver, who immediately screeched off to monty's house. After vomiting out the window Tam managed to stay upright while being led (firmly) through to the back, where Monty's father sat at a desk with a dark clad stranger. Monty herself was reclining on a couch further back. Tam was motioned to sit down - he helped himself to an extremely uncomfortable chair and fidgeted.

The Senator was pouring something from a cut-glass decanter; he gestured hospitably at Tam and apparently took his guest's edgy wriggling for consent. Monty, evidently feeling the need for reinforcements, held out her glass to be filled too and, handing his drink to Tam, perched on the corner of the desk.

"So, I see from this morning's news that you're a 'performance artist'." said the Senator, laughing indulgently. "That Pansy! She always had a wonderful imagination!" Evidently judging that he had lightened the atmosphere sufficiently, he turned on the sincerity switch.

"But, seriously, my boy, I do have to ask you to give an account of yourself," he continued. "I occupy a not inconsiderable position in the national affairs of my country, and I have a responsibility to ensure that Monty does not become entangled with any ... ah ... "

"Entanglements!" supplied Monty, brightly.

"Thank you. Yes," said the Senator. "So, ah, Mr Wendelle ..."

"Enough with the Mr Wendelle" growled the man in the dark suit. He came forward and, putting his hands on both arms of Tam's chair, leaned forward, effectively trapping him in place. "Maybe it should be 'Mr Wyndale'?" he spat. "Or 'Mr Windell'? Or maybe we should try ... Mr Spy! Mr Agent! Mr Conspirator!"

"Oh, Daddy, make him stop shouting!" whined Monty. "My head hurts, and I'm sure poor Tam's does, too!"

*********

It was a widespread malady in the city that day. Pansy's felt as if it were regularly leaving her shoulders and returning with a faint, painful bounce. She must be getting too old for ... no, it was something in the water at the Journos' Club.

But here she was and, whether she liked it or not, there was a whole column to be filled with Pansy's People for tomorrow's edition. Utterly uninspired, she stared at this morning's triumph, her aching eyes automatically seeking the restful shadows at the rear of Monty's picture, where she'd had the computer guys erase the unlovely figure of Tam. Hmmm ...

Speculation surrounds the yummy Thyme Wyndale, latest toy-boy of our own Merry Monty, whose naughty escapades continue to put stumbling-blocks the size of Madison Mansions in the political career of her doting Daddy. The word is she picked playThyme up in the very same little bar where three men died last night in what police are speculating was a gangland shooting. Surprisingly quick work, young Thyme, given that Monty's been spending a lot of time lately listening to the man she calls 'Pops' -- notorious crime-figure Lucien Velasquez -- reading her bed-time stories ...

"And that should make old Velasquez back off. He hates publicity," thought Pansy, filled with the warm feeling of doing a friend a good turn. Now to find one shot from last night where Monty looked half-way sane and Tam looked half-way sober; surely there was one ...

Tam leaned backwards in an attempt to stay clear of the flying spit. "Uh... my name is Tam Wendelle. I don't know what makes you think otherwise. And, really, there's no entanglements here. I just don't know how I got here, and I'd like to find out and then go back to Resquide."

Smith walked around the table and shoved his finger in Tam's face. "Oh yes? Anything ELSE you'd like to find out?! Like maybe the military capacity of this country?! Or some dirty little political secrets? Huh?"

Tam, in his still somewhat tipsy state, found this amusing. "Heh - how many have you got? Cos I know Resquide's bloody full of them. My mum kept hinting about it, no idea what she was actually talking about, but hey - that's what I was doing in Resquide originally. 'cept I got a bit sidetracked. You know how it goes..."

***

Back in Resquide, Anne McMillan sighed as she sat over the pathetic pile of paper that was her magazine. The country seemed a bit low on scandal at the moment - all the politicians were quietly doing their jobs (or at least being very very quiet about their scams), the sportspeople hadn't discovered a new drug yet and even the movie stars were behaving for once. Which left her with pretty much no job. She groaned and leaned back in her chair, missing the old days when she'd dress up as a maid and proposition well-known married members of society whose houses she'd infiltrated. Ah, good times, good stories.

She was just about to give up and dig out some old stories to do Where Are They Now articles on, when Terry Freselle, a pimply college student who'd signed on because no other magazine would take him, rushed in with a crappy looking newspaper and a huge grin on his face.

"OH MY GOD ANNE YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS LOOK OHMYGOD BOY DO WE HAVE A STORY LOOK LOOK LOOK!!!!!1"

Anne stood up and took the paper from him. "What's this? The Platinumberg Palindrome? What kind of name is that for a newspaper? And why do i need to know about Drasden's oil prices?"

"No, no, look!!" Terry squealed excitedly, turning some pages and pointing at a column pretentiously purported Pansy's People (damn these people like their P words :P). Anne took a look and a double take.

"Holy... he's the spitting image of- Terry, you're a genius!" She grabbed him by his indecently long hair and planted a kiss on each cheek, before grabbing the paper and rushing out of the room to find photos of MP Barry Brecille, who just happened to have a distinctive jawline and eyes the exact same colour as a certain inebriated young man in a gossip column picture...

Just as the man in the dark suit was about to scream more accusatiobns at Tam, a quiet voice spoke fromt he back of the room. "I think you'll find that he's telling you the truth. Both the Senator and the nameless man-in-the-dark-suit juerked their heads up to look. Tam, with his alchohol slowed reflexes folowed suit a few moments later. The sight in the back of the room caused a fair amount of shock to all three of them. Pavel Korov was leaning causualy against the doorframe twirling a key around his finger. "Don't bother pushing the alarm button because I've already cut the wires." The senator slowly brought his hand back above the desk.
Korov stepped forward slowly, "I guess I owe you a bit of an explanation, I won't tell you my name, but I will tell you that I'm here working for your government. I have papers, if you need to see them, that give me the authority to do anything I feel will help 'alleviate the orgranized crime in Platinumburg'." He stopped about 6 feet behind Tam's chair. "I've been working here for a few days, and you've doubtless read about some of my work, but I've had a problem. I can't get in touch with my supervisor, so I need someone to base my operation around; that's why I'm here."

All the men were totally ignoring her, Monty saw. Men were like that when there were guns around. Looking vaguely about for something to do, she was attracted by a thump from the dumb-waiter. It was the afternoon edition of the paper being delivered-- boring, but she could read the comics -- oh, Pansy!

Monty re-read Pansy's second column about her and Tam, seething silently. That bit about Mr Velasquez was just plain mean. She wouldn't dream of calling him Pops, and he'd never read a word to her. Monty was perfectly well able to read for herself, thank you very much. She knew some people said she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but she wasn't -- what's that word that means you can't read? oh yeah, illiterate. Just wait till next time she saw Pansy!

And another thing, this meant she'd have to find somewhere else to go. She couldn't possibly go back to Joey's Bar for a while, it'd be so embarrassing ... unless she could walk in carrying some really thick book? Or maybe she should wear glasses to make her look smarter? Or dress badly? Let's see, she had a pink angora twinset ...

Indifferent now to the dramas around her, Monty soothingly reviewed her wardrobe.

OOC: Hey LOOK I didn't say I'd take over daddy and smith ENTIRELY! Just for their interactions with Tam. DO something, ardchoille!

IC: Tam slumped a bit more in his seat and sighed. This did not sound good. Someone had broken past all the security he'd seen through the alcoholic haze on his way in, and there seemed to be a political issue... ah crap.

He was vaguely aware of Monty's father yelling and Mr Smith taking out... was it a phone or a gun? Tam decided taking a backseat in this conversation was a good idea. While the three men were busy arguing he sidled over to Monty. "Hey. What the hell is going on?"

OOC: That's all I meant -- just for their interactions with Tam. As to "do something!", I think Monty and Tam are pretty much superfluous to the action. Daddy Dearest and the obnoxious Smith are waiting for the revelation from Korov. Sooooo ...

IC: "Ooh, I'm so mad with that Pansy!" whispered Monty, keeping a wary eye on her father. "Look what she's written about me this time! She's sort of said I'm so dumb Mr Velasquez has to read to me! I mean, she hasn't actually said that, but that's what she wants you to think. And I'm not dumb, Tam! I read an awful lot! Even when I don't have to!"

"Er ... ah ..." Tam, like many before him, apparently found it difficult to discuss Monty's intellectual attainments.

"Oh, don't worry about them!" Monty said scornfully, misreading his hesitation. "They'll go on talking forever. Especially now that nasty Smith is showing them the pictures in his wallet, or his driver's licence, or whatever it is. If we sneak out that other door over there we can get straight to the pool and get someone to bring us something to drink."

She grabbed Tam's hand and began edging out of the room.

"Look," Korov was starting to get annoyed, "I'm not asking you to give me anything, I just need you to pass along this letter to the Director of Intelligence in Drazden." The Senator, however, was too hysterical about how Korov had gotten through his security and he was going to have him arrested. With a perturbed sigh, Korov pulled out his federal papers, "I didn't wnt to do this, but you'll either pass along thisa letter, or I'll have you arrested for obstructing a law enforcement officer." Faced with even more juicy scandal material, the Senator folded and accepted Korov's letter, which detailed his progress in the mission. "With any luck at all," he said, "I will never see you again."

Korov walked out into the hallway and quickly disappeared into the air duct he'd arrived through, crawling outside and emerging from an access hatch next to a large air conditioning unit. He quickly made his way off the grounds of the mansion and walked leisurely in the direction of downtown Platinumburg.

They were at the pool. Drinks had been obtained, and Tam was busy topping up his blood alcohol count, while Monty did her nails. Again.

He decided, drunkenly, that there was probably still hope for information and/or a lift home from Monty's father - whenever he came out of the study he and Mr Smith were closeted in. Meanwhile...

***

Meanwhile (or rather, several hours later, but it was still meanwhile because the situation hadn't changed), MP Aide Mel Sahashe was getting worried. His partner Joel Ravel had just rushed into their boss's office with a newspaper - and that NEVER boded well...

Two minutes later, there was a yell and Mr Brecille opened the door and yelled for Mel to get in there. He grabbed his clipboard and hurried through the door with trepidation, and immediately had the front page of a certain dodgy publication shoved in front of his nose.

Two pictures slowly swam into focus - one of Barry, taken two years ago after the last election, and apparantly a photo of his... teenage self? What?

"What is this?"

Joel sighed grimly. "It appears our esteemed MP has a little... illegitimate... overseas problem..."

"Ah, crap. Now what?"

Huffily, the Senator straightened his tie, ran his fingers through his hair and adjusted the silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his latest Italian-tailored suit. He needed to reassure himself that his image was unblemished. He hadn't enjoyed being faced down by that damn secret agent; he hadn't appreciated having his expensive security system breached; and he hadn't expected that Smith would prove to be such a weak reed.

"No, I'm not going to call the cops," he said now. "I don't know what you're thinking of, Smith! The National Convention's just a week away, and I want that nomination! And I'm going to get it, too," he added, looming over the spluttering spook, "without any cloak-and-dagger stuff from your boys! Oh, I'll deliver that bastard's letter, all right. In person. And while I'm at it I'll deliver a little warning to your boss: keep the Agency out of this! God, don't you guys ever learn?"

Lifting up the telephone, he made a shooing motion with his hand. The last thing Smith heard as he slunk resentfully from the room was the Senator enquiring in carefully reasonable tones, "Guards-R-Us? I'd like to speak to your Operations Manager. It's about that Intruder Alert system you installed ..."

Monty, meanwhile, chewed thoughtfully on a just-repaired nail and worried about Mr Velasquez. He was going to be just so mad about Pansy's article! "Notorious crime figure", indeed! He wouldn't hurt a fly, and he took things so much to heart, he'd hate to think people were saying things like that about him. Monty hoped he didn't think she believed it. Well, when they dropped in at Joey's tonight, she'd buy him a lovely Brandy Alexander, she resolved. Those milky things were really good for old people ...

Spiralling off into a benevolent dream where she was installing a grateful Mr Velasquez in a rocking chair at the Mrs Margaret Madison Memorial Aged Care Hostel, Monty didn't realise that she'd completely reversed her decision not to go to Joey's ever again.

However, she did feel that perhaps she should see if Tam, who was now innocently venturing on something that tasted so odd it was surely medicinal, had other plans for the evening.

A frown crossed Lucien Velasquez's face as he read over the stroy on the front page of the newspaper for the nth time that day. "This is unacceptable," he muttered to himself. Earlier, he had sent out two assassins to make sure this nosy reporter didn't make any more references to the "Notorious crime figure" but he hadn't heard any good news yet. He was beginning to get a little annoyed with his men. They were usually done with their work within 24 hours, and that deadline was fast approaching. "No matter," he said quietly, "they will get the job done." He pressed a button under his desk and a smartly dressed butler entered the room immediately.
"Bring me a drink."
"At once sir."
The poor butler left the room wondering despereately what sort of drink Mr. Velasquez was in the mood for today.

In a narrow alley behind the newspaper offices, Korov was kneeling on top of a man. He'd caught him snooping around the back door and peering in windows, and jumped him frm behind. Now after removing the considerable amount of weapons the man carried, he began asking questions.
"All you need to do is nod yes or no. Velasquez sent you."
It was more of a statement than a question.
The man on the ground hesitated, then began to shake his head no.
Korov punched him in the back of the head, driving his nose into the concrete. "Bullshit. You're here to kill that reporter, do a little damage control for Lucien's image?"
This time the man nodded.
"Right."
Korov pulled the assassin upright, and hauled him by the rope binding his hands behind his back. He dragged the man over to a dumpster and tossed him on the ground while he unlocked it. He pulled the lid up to reveal a second man lying inside. As this man blinked in the sunlight and kicked, Korov tossed the second guy on top of him and slammed the lid down, locking it. It was poorly fitting enough that they'd probably survive until someone found them. He wrote up a brief report of what he'd found them doing, leaving it anonymous of course, and slipped into the office, leaving it an an editor's desk.

OOC: By coincidence, it was Pansy's desk Korov left the report on.

IC: "What, precious, somebody wants to kill my social reporter?" cooed the editor. "You must've said something awful about somebody's hat."

"Read that!" said Pansy, slamming the report on the desk.

Several minutes' silence was followed by an explosion. "Photography?" the editor roared into the intercom. "Get one of your guys to go photograph whatever's in the dumpster. Yes, the one outside! Yes, I do mean now!"

He glanced confidingly at Pansy. "Bloody photographers. Always the same. Now, if there is someone there we get an interview with him -- I'll get young Jory onto it, he's good with crims -- and ..."

"I'm good with crims!" interrupted Pansy. "No, I don't mean that, but I should be the one to interview him! It was me he wanted to kill, after all! And then we should run that, and this report -- with the names taken out to avoid libel suits -- and when we've got the edition on the streets we should hand him and the originals over to the cops, and then we've got a running story for the day after when they tell us what they've got from the DNA tests and whether the crim's singing, and then ..."

"Good God! Do you mean all this time I've had a real reporter doing social?" said the editor, shocked.

Pansy snorted the snort of every social journalist down the centuries.

Two nameless men removed the smashed bookcase from Mr. Velasquez's office. It was definitely a bookcase that had seen happier times. All of the glass was smashed out of the doors and one of them had been ripped off completely. It also looked as if someone had emptied a clip from a .22 into it, which was exactly what had happened. To put it mildly, Lucien had been most displeased about his assassins' failure. He had put out a standing order that the were to be shot the moment they got out of prison. He sat down behind his desk again, placing the freshly reloaded gun on his desk. "The next person to bring me bad news," he said calmly, "will die."
When the government agent walked into the room. He calmly palmed the gun, ready to extinguish his life in a moment.
"I have some news that may interest you Lucien."
"I hope you do," Velasquez relaxed his trigger finger a little bit.
"I know who killed your assassins." Lucien was stunned into momentary silence. "He's also the one who attacked you at Joey's and spoiled the drug shipment last week."
"You seem to know quite a bit about my organizations activities."
"It's my business to know things, now would you like to hear more about this?"
"Yes, this is a welcome change of fortune."
"I met with him this morning, he's a foreign agent brought in by the (FBI) to take down your organization."
"We can't allow that can we." Lucien permitted himself a small smile as the agent spilled out everything he knew about Korov.

bump

OOC: Orright, orright ... sorry, SQ.

IC: All he knew about Korov ... it was little enough, but it was just sufficient to keep his hide unpunctured. Emerging from the crime lord's study, Smith took time to run a finger round his collar and dab a tissue to his forehead. Velasquez had pressed him hard, asking question after question. He might be an old man, but it was clear the cool intelligence and cold determination that had driven his career were still unabated.

Smith felt resentful, just the way he had with the Senator, just the way he did with his agency superiors. They kept on asking him things as though he was supposed to know everything. They should realise how to treat a man like him. Slow and steady wins the race, that was him. If they'd just left him alone at the Bureau to get on with the job, he wouldn't be in this sort of mess now.

Actually, it was just plain bad management that had driven him to the point of desperation where he'd had to take that offer from Velasquez. They kept on promoting those show ponies over his head. If they'd only given him the recognition his good solid track record deserved, he'd have been earning enough to pay for ...

Smith clamped down on the thought. That was part of the flashy side of his life. All these bigshots treating him like he was just background scenery in their wonderful lives; if only they knew, eh! If only they knew!

Feeling a little better -- Smith's conscience was accommodating, but it needed these little sessions of self-justification to keep it quiet -- he returned to the problem in hand. Which wasn't exactly in hand, but soon would be. If you want a thing done properly, do it yourself, Smith thought with his usual self-approval.

Right, first he'd take out that fluffy girl journalist, then he'd ... well, no, he wouldn't take out Korov just yet. He needed more information, yeah, had to get to know his MO, that's right, can't rush into these things ... maybe he should see if he could find some real experts, not those fumblers who'd failed Velasquez ... after all, you don't put your generals in the front line, so maybe he shouldn't risk himself against a simple-minded thug like Korov ...

His world now firmly back on its foundations, Smith turned into a nearby bar: All work and no play makes Smith a dull boy, he laughed to himself.

Tam looked up at Monty from his comfy position in a haze of alcohol behind a potplant. 'Wha? Plans f'the evening? Psssht!" He exclaimed. When his spit landed on a leaf, it wilted from alcohol poisoning. "Never have plans fer the evening. This beer has plans fer the evening, I'm jes goin along fer the ride. Tell ya what though, it's not proper beer they got ere, not like back home. Hell, even that bloody shithole Resquide has better beer than this place."

He then started on a lengthy rant about how bloody good Australian beer was, as the potplant began swaying.

Korov was furious, he had expected someone to be sent to Platinumburg who knew and cared about their job. Instead, the government had assigned that idiot Smith as his superior. He sat in his hotel room watching the news. The newscaster spoke with great authority that the Platinumburg police department was following leads about the string of murders that had occured over the last few weeks, and was anticipating an arrest soon. "Idiot," muttered Korov and switched it off. He'd been told by Smith to lay low for a while to let the buzz from his murders blow off. To Korov, that sounded like a great way to let Velasquez's organization recover.
Unsure of what to do, Korov returned to the Crash bar he'd visited a week or so earlier and ordered a beer. "What the hell do I do now."

Smith halted. Korov! What was he doing here? It couldn't be a coincidence -- with all the bars there were in Platinumberg, he wouldn't have randomly picked this one. Was he following Smith? Were the big boys checking him out? Was somebody onto him? A thousand questions whirled in his panicked brain. His instinct was to run; but what if Korov had seen him?

He could try the "I thought I told you to lay low!" line. But, from the way he'd acted at the Senator's, Korov wasn't the kind to take that from anybody. Besides, Smith always quailed at the thought of trying to assert his "authority". That's probably why they sent him here, to humiliate me, he decided.

No, the thing to do was string him along. Make sure he didn't go squealing back to Head Office. He'd said something about wanting more manpower. Maybe now was the time to give him what he wanted. But play it clever. Smith would send the request, and Smith would specify whom they should send. This might be a good chance to take a nice blameless revenge on a few of the people who'd got in his way. Ask them down here "for their expertise", then set them up for Velasquez to deal with. Yeah ...

A nasty smile tried his mouth for size, thought better of it and stopped slumming. But not before Korov's peripheral vision had caught sight of his "boss", grinning like a rat with colic.

"I've been thinking about that request of yours," Smith began. "Perhaps I was a bit unreasonable ... "

"Perhaps?" Korov tore into his new "boss". "Of course you were being unreasonable! I've been working here for two weeks and you just waltz in here and tell me to lie low?!"
"Well I thought it was best if. . ." began Smith.
"I don't need you to think for me, I just need you to communicate with the Agency. I'm not some brainless street thug with a gun you know, I've been through years of special forces training under the toughest instructors in the world."
"Look," Smith was sweating slightly but was determined not to lose control of the argument, "I understand that you have quite a bit of expertise and that you're used to working alone, but you're under my direction. I know this city and it people better than you do and like it or not, you'll have to respect my judgement here."
Korov frowned, but Smith's reasoning was good and he was talking sense now. "Alright, I'll tone it down a bit, but I'm not going to hide in my hotel room and wait for the bad guys to go away."
Pavel tossed back his drink and walked out.

OOC:Sorry about the delay, I've been a bit distracted with other things.

Smith found he was quite enjoying himself, drawing up a list of operatives to request from Head Office. Let's see ... Aviemore, who'd unaccountably won all that praise on the big drug bust last year, when surely it had been Smith's groundwork that had made the whole thing possible; Burton, always going on about keeping in training and trying to persuade Smith to join him at the gym; Carlyle, such a Big Man since he'd taken a bullet in the shoulder to save the Mayor -- why would anyone want to save that idiot, he was practically a Communist? Oh, yes, and Dvorak, who'd been given what should have been Smith's promotion just because she was a woman, no matter what they said about her abilities, she was probably a Lez; and Escalvez, likewise talentless, but smart enough to push the 'minorities' thing ...

"Remarkable!" said the Chief. "Smith's sent in this requisition for assistance, and he's picked some really top people! I thought he was going to drag his feet and try to slow Korov down, but looks like he's as keen to get this thing cleared up as we are. Let him have the lot."

Korov could have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder when he met the team. He had arived at the outdoor food court feeling morose and resentful, expecting to meet a bunch of puffed up idiots, no doubt Smith would have called down all of his personal friends.
When the five people sat down at his table, he was already pleasantly surprised. He'd watched them approach and, while he was able to recognize them as agents, they were good at what they did. He waited for a moment before speaking. "You all know why you're here and what the situation is. You've also probably read over my personal file a dozen or so times so you know who I am and how I work." Nods accompanied his words around the table. "There's one thing that I want to make perfectly clear though, I am in charge, I don't mean to step on anyone's toes, I know it's your country, but I have the final say on what goes on."
Aviemore raised a finger and Korov gestured toward him. "What about Smith? Technically he has jurisdiction here."
Korov frowned, "You're his co-workers and I guess you know him best, but I for one am not going to take orders from him. He has no practical talent and there's something about him that I don't like. It's not that I don't trust him, but I just don't trust him, you know?" From the looks around the table, Korov could see he had everyone's agreement.
"Good, now that we've got that out of the way, on to business. We're going to disrupt everything that Velasquez tries to do, whether it's extortion, drug runs, whatever. If he's running it, I want it stopped. Use your own judgement and only consult me if something really big goes down."
The six operatives got up and left in ones and twos, gradually splitting off to pursue the Velasquez organization in three pairs, with Aviemore working with Carlyle, Esclavez with Dvorak and Burton teaming up with Korov.

Monty had seen a documentary about Australians just a few weeks ago. True, Tam was apparently a Resquidean, but from what she'd seen they were approximately the same. Sort of like New Zealanders. Or was it Canadians? Anyway, she remembered a bit of dialogue from a scene shot live.

"Quit comin' the ... raw ... prawn?" she said tentatively; and then, adding, "Mate!" for good measure, popped the top on a particularly cold tinny and poured it over him, drenching him from head to foot.

"Skoll! Skoll! Skoll!" she shouted. She wasn't sure what it meant, but the documentary had shown some kind of birthday party, and everybody had been yelling the same thing, so it was obviously what you did when you were enjoying yourself.

"There, I'll bet you feel better now," she told her unresisting guest. "I guess you were a bit home-sick, Tam. But don't worry, Daddy'll get everything sorted out."

The thought made her a little sad -- she quite liked having Tam around -- but a bright idea cheered her up almost instantly. "Hey," she said, "why don't we go somewhere Resquidean? They say you can eat anywhere in the world without leaving Platinumburg, you know!"

Tam blinked. Why was he drenched in beer? Events had been getting steadily more and more inexplicable, and with Monty's random addition he decided that he was obviously hallucinating. "Yeah!" He slurred drunkenly. "In a dream you can do whatever you want!" He tried to pinch himself and missed. "See! I couldn't feel that! Means I'm not awake! Let's go to China! Wheee!"

With that he stood up (or at least in a generally upwards direction) and walked into the wall. "Hey! Ya bloody galah, watch where ya'r goin!" He tunred to Monty unsteadily. "Whassay we hit the... thingy. You know. Bottle. No. I mean. Like, wassname, with all the... like, beach! They gotta have beaches here in Plannum... er, Plymouth... plinth... penultimate... Wossname! Never mind, I'm dreaming anyway! I say there's beaches here! Less go get wasted and chuck s**t at the bloomin gulls!"

Tam was such fun, Monty thought, as she helped decant him from the limo when they arrived at the world-famous Platinumberg beach. So impulsive!

She could hardly wait to introduce him to the pleasures of the seaside. Should it be a ride on the psychotic donkeys with whom she had enjoyed her first experiences of irrational hatred amounting to persecution as they tried to puncture her baby legs with their long, yellow teeth? Or perhaps he would enjoy an invigorating stroll on the shingle, with the wind doing its best to whip the bored sea into at least the faint semblance of waves?

"Piss-weak!" he commented, obviously awed. Monty grinned, mentally filing away this colourful Resquidean slang to replace the worn-out "Filthy!" and "Ba-a-ad!" that everyone was using.

Encouraged, she urged Tam to pick his way through knee-high piles of seaweed and bladder-wrack as she steered him towards the historic bathing-machines which decorated the narrow expanse of greyish sand near the water. Reluctant at first, he suddenly surged unevenly ahead, shouting, "Smith! Over here, mate!"

Monty couldn't see the distant figure clearly enough to see if it really was Smith. But Tam insisted that it was, indeed, the agent, having what he called, with extremely careful pronunciation, "a clan-des-tine ren-dez-vous".

"If he's having a secret meeting, who's it with?" Monty complained. "I can only see one person." She was having trouble keeping up with Tam's erratic wanderings. "And you can't be secret on the beach. You can't hide in the old machines. They're kept locked."

She was sure of this one. Pansy had told her about it a couple of weeks ago, after spending ages at a boring beach wedding looking for a bit of privacy to share with a new-found friend.

"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?" yowled Tam, apparently addressing the invitation on (what might or might not be) Smith's behalf to his (possibly female) companion, if there was one. He jumped on top of a slippery rock to do a bit of air-guitar.

OOC: Whether it is Smith, whether he has a companion and what they're up to, I dunno. Feel free to expand.

"What the hell?" Smith turned and gaped at the man staggering drunkenly down the beach toward him. Through the mind numbing shock he felt, he dimly recognized the drunk that the senator's brat had pulled off the street. With horror, he realized that two people walking down the beach in three-piece suits was just a bit conspicuous. A third terrible realization came as he remembered who his companion was. By the time he turned to say something, Lucien Velasquez was already hurrying away, accompanied by a trio of bodyguards. He turned helplessly to Tam, who had almost reached him by now, and smiled weakly. "Er, hello. Nice night for a walk?"

((argh, ArdchoIIIILLE!! Damn, I guess it's my fault for yelling POST POST PSOT at you... and he's just comic relief so I don't really mind you commandeering him as long as it's funny... but... rar. Unexpected. Also, he doesn't speak french. And he isn't a call-girl :P but that's not relevant.))

Tam grinned. "Shore is, mate! Feel up for a bitta surf?" He elbowed Smith hard in the ribs. "Yeah! Gnarly, dude, as m'bro used ta say! Damn bleach'eads. No waves here anyway." Tam suddenly became melancholy and plonked down in the sand. "That's depressing... tellya what, mate, you lot make wunnerful alcohol. Beer sucks though."

"Umm," Smith couldn't really decifer any of the jumble of words that had just spilled out of Tam's mouth. "I'm sorry, I don't think I know what you're talking about."
In a nearby parking lot, a large, black and very expensive looking limozine started up, along with two black Chevy Suburbans. The three vehicles pulled quickly out of the lot and sped off down the street.

Tam grinned, burped and leaned on Smith. "Ya know, buddy - this place is a real hole, ya know that? I mean, man, I've been to Punchbowl after midnight, and this place sucks more than that. I mean... I mean seriously man, how do you live here?"

Smith nodded vaguely as he tried to think of a way to escape this drunken idiot. He jabbered quickly about a meeting he had to attend, "You know how it is. You've just got meetings you've got to go to. Wish I could stay, bye." With Tam still digesting the information Smith had given him, the agent turned up the beach and quickly walked to his car, pulled out of the lot in a squeal of tires.
Once he was home, his phone rang, the voice on the other end was cold and very, very upset. "Do you realize what just happened," asked Lucein Velasquez quietly, "I could have been seen! You could have compromised my whole organization."
"I'm sorry, there was nothing to be done sir and. . ."
"Don't give me that," Velasquez snapped, "We must act quickly now. The girl and the bum must not be permitted to tell anyone anything. Word could get to this Korov and the reinforcements you called in for him far too easily."
"What will I do sir?"
"Abduct them both, drug them somehow and bring them to my building. We'll take care of them there, and we might just take out your little friends from the justice department with them."

Monty was seriously considering a sulk. There were no nice shells on the beach, or starfish, or cheeky seagulls like in the cartoons, not that she really expected cartoon seagulls, but still, it just showed you ...

A gritty blast of wind made her lose the thread of her musings, which had been unravelling, anyway.

"Let's go home!" she pleaded. Then, remembering that, as far as she knew, Tam's home was a dumpster, "Or anywhere else, Tam, let's just go, I'm getting cold, it's boring here ..."

Whining, pleading, extravagant promises of better beer and a fair amount of pushing and shoving eventually got them back to the car. Pleased just to be out of the wind, Monty didn't realise that they seemed to be going through some entirely unfamiliar streets.

When Dwayne plunged them into one of the cross-city tunnels, though, she did take notice.

"This isn't the way home, Dwayne. You should have turned off at ... oh, is this some sort of surprise?" This was better, Monty thought. Dwayne had been a much, much nicer chauffeur since he started taking those calm-you-down things.

"It's all right, Milady, I'm just avoiding the paparazzi."

Monty checked, but there were no photographers anywhere near. She was also a bit thrown by that "milady"; surely if Daddy had got a knighthood he'd have mentioned it to her? The only thing she could see anywhere close was a large, shiny black car with tinted windows. Very close, actually.

"Don't worry, Princess, I won't let them catch us," Dwayne assured her. "Oh, sorry, I forgot, it's not 'Princess' now, is it? Not since you ditched Big-Ears." He giggled shrilly. "And it wouldn't be proper for me to call you 'Diana', would it? I mean, I'm just a commoner. Not like Mr Dodi back there ..." He gave Tam a mean-eyed glare in the rear-vision mirror.

"Oh, look, here comes the pillar!" Dwayne announced suddenly, with tour-guide cheerfulness. "Don't worry, your ladyship, I'll get it right this time, you won't get hurt at all!"

The car hurled itself towards the concrete support.

Tam was somewhat confused. They had been having such fun on the beach... and they seemed to be taking the long way around... and.... he wasn't feeling too good...

Tam leaned out the window. *hurk* ...and then he saw a pillar coming at them full speed. His alcohol-muddled brain tried to order several things at once - grab Monty, open door, get inside, run away screaming, throw up some more - and he realised too late that he'd leaned a *little* too far out the window...

When he woke up he was in some sort of office. The man leaning over him looked vaguely familiar...


((feel free to have that be Korov, Smith, Velasquez, or somebody new entirely))

"I think he's coming around," said the man standing over Tam, who turned out to be someone whom he had never seen before. Not only that, but this man certainly would have made an impression Tam would have remembered, no matter how inebriated he'd been at the time. The man was built in the same way one builds a bulldozer. He had a long scar running down his left cheek and he looked positively delighted that Tam was awake.
"Very good, said another voice." Again, there was something oddly familiar to it. Tam painfully turned his head and looked past an unconsious Monty to see something that almost caused him to pass out again.

It was Lucien Velasquez.

"How nice of you and Miss Madison to join the three of us Mr. Wendelle," he said. Tam again lolled his head around until he found another familiar face. Smith was sitting in a ridiculously large leather chair grinning a very unpleasant grin. "You've caused me no end of trouble you know," Velasquez continued, "but I think that we can probably come to some sort of an agreement." The way he said agreement suggested that Tam and Monty would come off rather poorly as a result of it.
"But first," said Velasquez, "we must see to your comfort, Giovanni, bring us something to drink, and be quick about it." Scarface left the room, returning later with a tray of drinks and two more men escorting a certain reporter who'd also been causing Lucien some amount of trouble. As they entered the room, Monty abruptly sat up and said, in her typical way, "Ooh! Are we having a party?! Everyone's come here, is it your birthday Mr. Velasquez."
"No, my dear, but we will be having quite a party tonight."

Tam groaned and flopped back onto the ground. It must be my lucky day, he thought. Sadly the alcohol was beginning to wear off, and he figured the odds of getting a drink in this place were... very small. Unless thta drink was given in front of a brick wall.

"Did you rescue us, then?" queried Monty, leaping from unconscious to conscious in just seconds -- but then, it wasn't much of a leap for Monty.

"It was just awful, Mr Velasquez!" she continued. "My poor chauffeur, I don't know what was the matter with him, but he thought I was Lady Diana -- you know, the Royal? From Britain? Which is so silly, because she was quite old -- I mean, she'd had two kids! Do I look like I've had two kids? I mean, like, do I?"

Somewhat distressed, she turned for reassurance to Pansy -- and shrieked! "Ooh, Pansy, you look awful! What happened? I mean, we were in a car crash, and even I don't look as bad as that! You're all bruised! Move over, you silly man, and let me see what's the matter!"

Still babbling, Monty politely removed one henchman's grip from Pansy's arm and wriggled between her and the other one with a muttered, "Excuse me." It was all done so innocently -- indeed, it was innocent; nobody had ever accused Monty of forethought -- that neither of the astonished goons realised what was happening.

But Pansy did. The minute she was free she threw herself at the drinks tray, snatched up the cut-glass decanter and leapt behind Lucien Valasquez. One arm wrapped itself tightly around the old man's neck, pressing him back against the chair; the other held the decanter at the ready above his head.

"One move and he gets it!" she snarled.

"Ooh Mr Velasquez, you really better had sit still!" wittered Monty. "I don't know what's got Pansy all upset like this, but she really is quite strong, you should see her at Gymboree, every day, she goes ..."

"Get over here, quick, Monty!" Pansy ordered. "And you too, Tim ... Tom ... oh, what the hell, you! The drunk guy!"

"A very clever move Miss," Velasquez's voice was surprisingly in control for someone being threatened with his own brandy decanter, "but it won't do you much good."
"We'll see about that." Pansy spoke with the confidence that only someone who hasn't thought through their plan at all can wield.
"Consider this, you're on the 23rd floor of a building full of armed guards all of whom work for me, while you have a piece of glassware to hit me with. Calculate your odds of getting out alive."
"Whatever they are, they're better than yours."
"On the contrary, my odds of living thorugh the next few minutes are very good. Giovanni, on the count of three, you will shoot Mr. Wendelle in the knee, unless Miss Pansy here releases me."
Scarface's weapon quickly moved from ponting at Pansy's head to Tam's knee, and another guard quickly grabbed him from behind.
"One,"
"Drop the guns or Lucien gets it."
"Two. . . . ."

"I objash- ...ject to that!" Tam mumbled. "Not bloody drunk any more, am I? Less you got something on you?" However, he complied with her instructions and wandered over to Velasquez, but casual-like, making certain everyone knew he was damn well walking over there because he felt like it, and not for any other reason!

Well before the count of three, Pansy moved. The decanter shattered, not on the aged head in front of her, but on the hand of the thug who was about to kneecap Tam. "I knew those netball games would come in handy," Pansy enthused. "A beautiful throw, if I say so myself. Hand-eye co-ordination, that's all it took." Tam tottered nearer; swiftly she snatched the sozzled slob to safety. Then, keeping an eye on the malefactors, removed something from her bra and held it aloft like a torch.

"Sam, can you hear me?" she shouted. "Get a feed on this, will you? I'm being held captive by Lucien Velasquez on the 23rd floor of a building he apparently owns. The daughter of Senator Maddison is with me. They're also holding a well-known Resquidean celebrity."

Her editor peeked from the screen of her mobile phone as she panned it around the room, giving him a good look at the major players.

"Record as well as broadcast!" she urged him. "And send in the cavalry, pronto!"

In bars, lunchrooms, cafes, schools, shops and offices, the scene appeared on screens all round the city.

Tam blinked at the mobile. "Is that a camera? Oh, bloody great. I'm on television! Hi mu-wait. Damn. Why couldn't I be on TV BEFORE my mum died. Noiw I got nobody to say hi to." He mumbled. This struck him as being depressing, and he slumped to the floor and put his head in his hands - which was fortunate as it meant the thug who had been swinging a punch at him missed, lost his balance, tripped over him and fell down in front of Pansy.

Tam started to bawl.

In the brief moments before Velasquez's guards regained control of the situation (OOC: very clever and all but eventually Pansy's got to run out of tricks) the footage from inside the Velasquez building stunned the populace of Platinumburg. Many thought it was a trailer for a new action movie, and some even applauded after it cut off. A few dismissed it as another false story from Newsweek, and protesters in the Middle East took notice and began to print up signs with slogans like, "Lucien is a Jerk!" and "Death to Drazden!"
A few people understood the actual meaning of the video clip, and Korov and his tema were among them. Roughly ten minutes later, while upstairs, three people whose names you can probably guess were tied to chairs in Lucien's office, ("How uncomfortable and rude," said Monty) they arrived outside the building, which was, of course, locked up and being patrolled by a few armed men, where a few refers to very large numbers. Watching from across the street, Korov and the others planned their assault, and split into the same pairs they'd been working in before, moving stealthily across the street with weapons silenced, and more importantly out and ready to be used.

OOC: A little help RPing the other people here? I can do it, but I can't promise it'll be creative. ie:
Man shoots guard 1.
Man shoots guard 2.
Man shoots guard 3.
. . . .
Man shoots guard 486.

(OOC: Sorry, somehow missed seeing this post till now. Pansy's trick did what it was intended to do: alerted Korov and co. Loved your reactions to the broadcast, Squornshelous -- poor Newsweek.)

IC: "Ve-ry clever," Velasquez said appreciatively. "However, that's enough diversion. Miss Madison, I trust we'll have no similar trouble from your, ah, finger-phone?"

"Oh, no, you'll have a lot of trouble from it," Monty assured him. "The reception here is just terrible, I couldn't get a peep out of it. And I'm sorry, Mr Velasquez, but you couldn't use it anyway, it's keyed to my voice only."

Velasquez listened, his eyes hooded; then decided, as many recipients of Monty's peculiar brand of logic had decided, to ignore it. "Just don't touch it," he told her. "Morris, if she tries to use it, cut her finger off."

The room was silent while he considered the situation. "We have to assume some of those idiots will be coming here," he said, finally. "It is time to leave; I have arrangements in place to flee the country at any time. These three are terribly inconvenient, though ... "

Ears pricked; muscles bunched. "Me, boss, me!" begged one guard. "I got some real intrestin' ways to get rid of 'em!"

But Velasquez vetoed that. "No, we'll have to keep them for a while," he said. "We'll use them as leverage."

That, unfortunately, meant that they had to stay conscious, so they could make impassioned pleas if necessary. Ah, well; like Napoleon, he would tie a knot and move on. Having sent a message to his helicopter pilot, Velasquez signalled his team to move out, escorting him and his prisoners to the building's roof-top helipad.

-----------------*****************************----------------

"Spiderman stuff!" Escalvez joked as he and Dvorak abseiled onto the roof down the side of the building next door. "Helmet hair!" mourned his elegant partner, efficiently gathering in her line.

"Lord of the Rings, eh?" commented Aviemore to Carlyle, as they wormed their way through dark and cobwebby maintenance tunnels.

Velasquez had done an excellent job of protecting his base from direct attack. But it was part of a complex of buildings in the old part of town, a complex erected in the building boom of last century. Unhindered in that era by city regulations, the get-rich-quick contractors had saved money with party walls, interconnecting sewers, open attics, joined cellars and access crawlspace throughout the whole block.

At the main doors, Korov and Burton geared up for a frontal attack: smoke bomb? Tear-gas canister? Flares? Go in shooting or try to parley first? There were hostages, and these weren't nice people ...

"Go for broke!" advised Burton, at the same time as Korov announced, "Let's go for broke!"

A grin, a thumbs-up and they moved forward.

"Ow!" Tam muttered, stumbling as a burly guard gave him a cuff to the head. "Dammit, aren't you even going to read me my rights? Foreign bitches."

***

Meanwhile, back in Resquide, things were getting organised. A copy of Pansy's video had been quickly circulated on the internet by a geek who found it amusing, and MP Brecille's aides had got hold of it. Unfortunately, so had the gossip columnists.

Barry sat at his desk with his head in his hands. "I'm screwed. I'm utterly, utterly toast. Screwed toast. Ew."

Joel sighed. This was not being a good week. Drawing lots for spokesman sounded like a good idea, until YOU were chosen, when it turned out that it was an utterly stupid method of leaving things to chance. "Sir, we're all in agreement, uh, that... well, pretty much the only way you can save your ass right, uh, no sir, is uh, well, to claim this kid as your long lost son and rescue him, basically. Sir."

Barry looked up. "Are you CRAZY? The newspapers will have a field day!"

"Sir, they're ALREADY having one. With all due respect sir, they're having a full-blown whole school camp at this point. You can't make the situation worse, but you can make it legit."

Barry sighed. "Fine. Get someone on the line to the Defense department, I'll call in a few favours."

As Tam was grumbling to the guard and the man reched back to hit him again, there was a tremendous boom from below them and the whole building seemed to shake.
Several floors down, as Korov and Burton ran in through the gaping hole that had beent he front doors, there were almost no guards to be seen. Living guards at least. "That was an interesting idea," said Burton, "to use satchel charges as grenades." He paused to peek around a corner towards the elevators. "Different, but very effective."
The party moved more quickly after the explosion, and the guards herded their three prisoners into a large elevator, which began to ascend. The door opened and they stepped out onto the helipad. None of them noticed the numbers above the other elevator door climbing rapidly. They also didn't notice that the pilots' uniforms were a little different. Not until two air ducts lifted up on either side of them, and the door of the chopper slid open to reveal four armed figures.
The guards went down quickly, and Pansy had the prescence of mind to jump away from the group, but Smith and Velasquez grabbed Tam and Monty as human shields, and began to back toward the elevators. The thought they had won too, until the elevator door slid open, showing Korov and Burton with guns leveled.
The group entered the helicopter a few moments later, with Smith and Velasquez disarmed and in handcuffs. The destination, instead of Velasquez's private airport, was the the the Drazden Federal Police Headquarters.

Pansy's career was heading for hyperspace. She'd grabbed a photo-phone the minute she got her hands free, and the whole city had enjoyed the firefight, the helicopter ride and as much of the legal stuff as Pansy could manage before an official hand blocked the lens and an official voice boomed, "Privacy laws." As they exited the police station she was met by a cheering, applauding crowd of office-workers, tourists and the homeless people whom the Government regularly insisted didn't exist.

Monty and Tam were met by a great deal of blah-blah-blah, from which the occasional word or phrase would emerge -- "my credibility with the public" and "my standing in the community" were particularly popular. Daddy's car was waiting and Daddy was sweeping them towards it, totally disregarding any ideas either of them had of thinking or acting for themselves.

Smith, meanwhile, crept out the back door. They'd agreed to bail for him, since he'd made much of his Agency status and little of his crime connections. "I am determined to fight this and clear my name!" he had insisted -- and thankfully made his escape before any of the top dogs from HQ could get in touch to support Korov's insistence that Smith wasn't a good guy, wasn't a covert agent and wasn't, fercrissakes, wasn't his boss!

Happily he withdrew his special card. It looked innocent, but it was the key to the Zurich account and the little establishment in the Caymans; "Smithy's", he thought he'd call it, and wouldn't he have fun with his discreet advertising among those who enjoyed no-holds-barred gambling ... with a gallant flourish he fed it into the autoteller.

Which ate it. "Card witheld. Contact major credit provider," it advised.

"Did you really think we'd let you get away with it?" a voice asked behind him; the last words he'd hear as a free man for a very, very long time.

Given that there were two permanent ways to deal with a perp -- death or taxes -- the Agency liked to bet on the sure thing.

Monty's father had no idea what to do with Tam, so he was extremely relieved, if not grateful, when a clerk arrived from Resquide with an official summons for Mr Wentworth, alias Wendelle.

Tam was somewhat sober when he arrived in Resquide and was ushered into the office of a large, brown-haired man whose face looked strangely familiar. Then Tam happened to catch sight of a mirror, and he gaped like a fish. "What the..."

Barry Brecille sighed. "Yes, that's what I said. Young man, what is your mother's name?"

Tam hesitated. "Um... Marylyn Wentworth. Why?"

Barry nodded. "Well, she may not have told you this but, we had a bit of a... fling you might call it... a couple of decades ago..."

Tam's jaw dropped.

Barry shrugged. "She never told me she was pregnant, ands I had a job to go back to. I'm intending to run for Prime Minister next election. I don't need scandal right now. The newspapers are full of you, though, so it might be best if I just publicly embrace you as my long-lost son. Have a seat."

Tam numbly complied. He could really do with a drink...