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The Company
Time: Wednesday, March 7, 2012 (late afternoon).
Place: Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
Last Event: Meeting the client, code name "Bruce."
After spotting and making contact with the client and his two bodyguards, Hamid and Paul handle the bags while Vinnie fetches the car. "Bruce" is outwardly an affluent Middle Eastern man in his 50s, well-dressed and rather haughty. He prefers Arabic, but he also speaks flawless English with a definite Oxbridge accent. Hamid tries to localize the client's Arabic accent, but he doesn't have an ear for such things – doubtless Anabel will be able to deduce it.
While Hamid and Paul wait for the car with "Bruce" and party, two clean-cut men in suits show up. They flash RCMP badges and inform the client that the Canadian authorities have reason to believe that, given his position, his life might be in danger. They ask him to accompany them into the city for his own safety. Paul manages to get a look at the newcomers' ID. It seems legitimate . . . but, Paul's police instincts, honed during his time in the PSNI, tell him that something isn't quite right about the scenario.
When Paul voices his concern, the supposed police officers pointedly ignore him and press their case with the client. They tell "Bruce" that he would be safest in protective custody, and that if the other people present are his associates, the local RCMP detachment would be willing to send a car for them. Paul, now certain that this is a setup, informs the client that he's under no obligation to go anywhere. "Bruce" looks from the two men to Paul and back again, and then icily declares that he has no interest in being protected. When the badge-toting men ask "Bruce" to sign a waiver to this effect, Paul objects to this as well. Eventually, the men leave.
Shortly thereafter, Vinnie texts that he's outside with the limo. Hamid and Paul escort the client and his two bodyguards to the vehicle. As they duck into the car, Paul can't help but see a man stroll past and exchange bags with one of the guards. The minder notices Paul noticing this, and just smiles knowingly. Paul shrugs, gets in front with Vinnie, and shuts the door. Hamid sits in the back with "Bruce" and his goons.
Once everyone is aboard, Vinnie pulls out. In the passenger-side mirror, Paul sees a dark sedan following. Mere seconds after that, he notices a second, identical vehicle stop briefly to collect the two "RCMP officers" and then join the procession. Paul warns Vinnie that there are two cars in pursuit, and Vinnie catches sight of them in his own mirror. Vinnie decides to drive west off the island – in the direction opposite the Montréal/Saint-Hubert Airport – in order to lose the tail.
In the back of the limo, meanwhile, Hamid watches as Adnan, the less-beefy of the client's bodyguards, opens the bag he was handed moments ago. He removes a gaudy, gold-plated Desert Eagle pistol for "Bruce"; hands the larger bodyguard, Zulfiqar, a machine pistol that Hamid cannot identify; and takes some sort of nondescript tactical handgun with a matte finish for himself. As "Bruce" and friends load and stash their illicit firearms, they grill Hamid on the group's own armament. It soon becomes clear that the Company led these men to believe that the team would be bristling with weapons.
Vinnie drives deceptively, attempting to lose the two cars shadowing him, but finds that rush-hour traffic doesn't work to one's advantage when driving a limo. He perseveres until he reaches a turnoff where he can escape the end-of-day flight for the suburbs and get on a relatively open highway. This lets him use his skills to full effect. In a matter of minutes, he manages to swerve his way through the light traffic, disappear around a bend, and lose his pursuers at a turn. Then he gets onto local streets and carefully navigates his way back toward the Saint-Hubert Airport.
The Agents and their guests reach the airport quite a bit later than planned. Everybody heads inside but Paul, who gets the job of returning the limo to the rental agency, his plan being to catch a cab back to the airport afterward. Then Vinnie begins the tedious process of signing in, filing a plan to fly to B.C., and running through his preflight check. This leaves Hamid to keep "Bruce," Adnan, and Zulfiqar entertained. Fortunately, Hamid is up to the challenge.
Paul's task is essentially tying off a loose end. Nobody much cares about a rental car – but then, it's an expensive limo rented from a specialized business, and it would attract the wrong kind of attention if it went missing. Thus, he takes the job seriously, choosing a circuitous route back into town and staying within the speed limit, and then dutifully filling out all the paperwork upon dropping off the vehicle. After that, he strolls out to the street and hails a cab back to the Saint-Hubert Airport.
It's only in the taxi that Paul recalls that the limo bore the rental company's logo, meaning that if the pursuers back at Trudeau had binoculars or just good eyes, they knew where it came from. Realizing that the cab showed up a little too fast, he fears that it might have been planted there as a backstop against Vinnie losing his pursuers. A glance out the window sets him even more on edge: he's nowhere near his destination. He asks the driver to pull over, and the man complies – and then turns and sticks a small pistol in Paul's face. The gun is suppressed and the area is the kind of commercial district that's practically abandoned at night. As Paul weighs the implications, he glimpses two shadowy figures creeping through a nearby parking lot, firearms held low.
Knowing that he has mere moments to seize control of the situation, Paul springs into action, ducking the driver's line of fire and pushing the pistol to one side. Bullets crack the rear window and tear up the back seat, but Paul isn't hit. After a brief struggle, Paul manages to land a straight right to the face that temporarily stuns his foe, giving him an opening to dive over the front seat behind a second punch, this one cracking ribs. As he and his opponent resume wrestling, the two gunmen outside approach the vehicle, find the doors locked, and realize that if they shoot, they would be as likely to hit their associate as Paul. Thus, they hold their fire, one fishing out keys while the other holds a machine pistol at the ready, waiting for a clear shot.
This increases the pressure on Paul. He knows that once the door is open, his odds of winning against three men – even in a knock-down, drag-out brawl – are close to nil. Yet if he stops wrestling with the driver, he's sure to get shot. Thus, he tries a desperation move: He sprawls over the driver and reaches for the accelerator with one hand while fending off the gun with the other. As the car's engine is still idling, this causes the vehicle to lurch down the street, leaving the gunmen outside running to catch up.
The driver responds to Paul's stunt by attempting to knee him in the head. However, Paul checks this with his shoulder and avoids injury. With one hand committed to pressing the accelerator while the other wards off the pistol, Paul discovers that his awkward posture leaves him with few options but head-butting or biting. Being a dirty fighter even as dirty fighters go, he opts to use his teeth. He half-turns in his opponent's lap and snaps at whatever target presents itself – in this case, his rival's crotch. The ensuing crushed testicle ends the fracas as abruptly as it began.
Now in control of the rolling vehicle, more or less, Paul shoulders the unconscious driver aside and grabs the wheel, flooring the gas the whole time. As the car speeds off down the street, the men outside give up on chasing it and open fire with their machine pistols. Mostly, they just ventilate the vehicle. A few bullets pierce the hull and the seat, but Paul's body armor stops them cold. His only actual injury is a slight graze to the left arm. He soon leaves his attackers in the dust.
Paul wastes no time making good his escape. Once the gunmen are out of sight, he takes a few turns, assiduously avoiding bystanders and keeping an eye out for police as he looks for a place to ditch the car. When he spots a suitable alleyway, he pulls in behind a large Dumpster and kills the engine. His next order of business is to grab the driver's jacket and put it on, covering his wounded arm, ripped shirt, and exposed body armor. Then he finds the driver's spare ammo, reloads the suppressed pistol, and executes the man with a single shot from his own gun. With that done, he leaves on foot.
As he makes his way to a métro station, Paul texts Vinnie: "Had some trouble, but I'm on my way." Then he eludes some policemen who clearly don't like the look of him, loses himself in the crowd, and rides the Yellow Line to Longueuil. He eventually catches a cab back to the Saint-Hubert Airport. He pauses to wipe down his borrowed pistol and stow it in the ceiling of a lavatory, and then joins the others aboard the jet.
Ultimately, the Agents get airborne, albeit far later than they had planned. No authorities (or people posing as such) interfere with the departure, and soon Vinnie is flying everyone back to B.C. Paul takes advantage of the trip to clean and bind his injured arm, and then get some rest. Hamid continues to act as the group's liaison with the client and his minders. His general impression is that Adnan is the smarter and better-trained of the bodyguards. Zulfiqar is more menacing but less disciplined, at one point pestering Hamid to have Paul relate how he just beat and shot a would-be assassin, and then guffawing at the gory parts.
A little before dawn on Thursday, Vinnie calls in from the air and tells the rest of the crew to send a welcoming committee to the airport. When he sets the jet down at the Vancouver International, Klas, Lev, and Zhang are waiting with three cars. Vinnie skillfully handles administrative matters at the airport, and then it's time to drive to the chalet. "Bruce" insists that he and his men get one of the vehicles to themselves, which is fine with the Agents. Vinnie takes the lead car, with Klas and Zhang as passengers, while Paul brings up the rear, accompanied by Hamid and Lev.
The convoy reaches the chalet at sunrise, which all told looks quite wonderful. There, Anabel has Jili, Qoqa, and Wen dressed appropriately and lined up as though they were servants. "Bruce" seems impressed with this, for whatever reason – but he's particularly taken with Anabel, who gives her name as Aisha. After that, it's settling-in time, with Anabel escorting the client to his room, Qoqa showing the bodyguards their rooms, and almost everybody else crashing to get some much-needed rest. Aside from the client's endless fussing over Anabel's beauty, grace, poise, etc., the only significant communication involving the new arrivals is between Adnan, who asks, "Can I assume that everybody here is a trained operator, even the lady servants?", and Qoqa, who replies, "Yes."
For the next little while, the group decides to maintain a strict security rotation: three eight-hour shifts, each with two Agents on patrol, one watching the security cameras, three more on standby, and three resting. Anabel is excluded on the grounds that she ought to keep the client's schedule, effectively acting as his handler. Thus:
10:00-18:00: Paul & Qoqa on patrol; Jili on cameras; Vinnie cooking (and on standby); Hamid & Lev on standby; and Klas, Wen, & Zhang resting.
18:00-02:00: Wen & Zhang on patrol; Vinnie on cameras; Qoqa cleaning (and on standby); Klas & Paul on standby; and Hamid, Jili, & Lev resting.
02:00-10:00: Lev & Klas on patrol; Hamid on cameras; Jili, Wen, & Zhang on standby; and Paul, Qoqa, & Vinnie resting.
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I freely admit that the "arms hand-off" scene was included mostly to establish the wealth, tackiness, and need for handling of "Bruce." Gold-plated Desert Eagle? Come on!
Then again, the PCs are walking around with chromed eight-shot hand cannon . . .