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The Company
Time: Friday, February 22, 2013 (mid afternoon).
Place: Monrovia, Liberia.
Last Event: Anabel's social-engineering expedition to Roberts International Airport.
Anabel thanks Robert and his boss, and then makes her way out of the airport, pausing only to buy a prepaid phone. Paul rejoins her at the exit, where Vinnie picks them up and drives back to the group's scrubby hiding place. The whole team gathers to look over the passport photos that Anabel procured. The Agents memorize the assassins' faces and (doubtless false) names, and discuss how to track them. The eventual decision is to visit bars where foreign nationals do shady business – every city has them, and Anabel is confident that she can find such establishments in Monrovia.
The Agents keep a low profile for the remainder of the afternoon. The plan is for Anabel to venture into the city with Jili, Paul, and Vinnie, posing as two tourist couples; thus, Anabel does what she can to clean up the four of them. The group is short on spare clothing and cosmetics, but Anabel is a personal grooming wizard and does a great job with the available tools. The others stand watch, just in case some locals happen by and wonder why people with guns are freshening up in the bushes. Fortunately, it's a slow day for gawkers.
Toward evening, Vinnie drives into Liberia proper with Anabel, Jili, and Paul. Anabel and Vinnie pack steel, just in case. Their agreed-upon cover story is that they're two foreign couples (Anabel with Vinnie, Jili with Paul) out to have the sort of good time that involves illegal drugs. On reaching the city, Vinnie parks the truck, and then the four Agents walk a few blocks and catch a cab. Anabel convinces the driver to take the group to a place where they can socialize with other tourists and score some weed. After a short drive, the cabbie drops them off in front of a noisy bar.
From the outside, the place looks more than a little sleazy. Between the curb and the entrance, the Agents run a gantlet of hookers plying their trade under the watchful eye of tough guys carrying barely concealed weapons. The dim interior features more of the same under a thick haze of ganja smoke. It takes Anabel just a few seconds to ascertain that many of the other patrons are sailors. She certainly managed to get her point across to the cab driver!
The Agents pick a spot where they can see most of the floor (if barely, thanks to the smoke) and order beers. Nobody sees any of the goons from the passport photos hanging around. As Anabel pays for the first round, she uses the transaction as an excuse to chat with the waitress and describe some of the men, but the woman knows nothing about them. A sufficiently large tip does encourage the barmaid to point out someone who might have information: an eye-patch-wearing white man sitting at a table – a carbine in plain sight – drinking whisky as several menacing bodyguards keep anybody from getting too close.
Anabel feels that a guy like that may well know about the people the team seeks, but she'll need an angle to encourage him to talk. It doesn't take her long to cook up a story: She is the ex-wife of a fantastically wealthy Iraqi crime lord who still has their son, and is seeking mercenaries who are willing to enter Iraq, fetch the boy, and murder her ex. One of her lovers – an SAS officer stationed in Iraq – recommended a promising crew in Rwanda (the Agents!), but those people were driven off by some other contractors (the assassins who attacked the group) just after she arrived in Kigali. On discovering this, she decided to hire the second bunch, only to learn they had left town. Bribes at Kigali International Airport revealed that the men had come to Monrovia, and more bribes at Roberts led her to this bar. She's vengeful and understands the risks, and money is no object.
With that in mind, Anabel is ready to make her move. Before doing so, though, she has Paul identify the one-eyed man's brand of whiskey. Then she struts over to the bar, orders the best bottle of that brand, and glides toward her target with the booze and two clean glasses in hand. The bodyguards are sharp – seeing trouble coming, they cut off Anabel before she can get close. However, Anabel's looks aren't lost on the thugs' boss, who shouts for them to let her past.
As soon as she's seated, Anabel goes to work. She delivers her story with conviction. In the process, she learns that her mark is a "Southern gentleman" from the U.S.A. (to be precise, from what he claims should rightfully be the C.S.A.) – complete with a lot of old-fashioned and downright racist views. Adjusting her charm to suit the target, she manages to get him interested enough to look over the photos she has, which she claims (not untruthfully) were part of what her bribe money in Kigali bought.
After examining the pictures, the one-eyed man explains that he's familiar with the mercenaries in question but that Anabel is out of luck, because the entire team boarded a ship for the U.S.A. on Monday. He claims that he could introduce her to other men capable of doing the job, but Anabel pouts and insists that she wants this group. The Southerner responds by saying that he could ferret out the name of the ship and its destination . . . for a price. Anabel agrees, pays half up front, and to her surprise gets the man's chunky gold ring as collateral: "I'm a man of my word, ma'am, but a token seems appropriate under the circumstances." He practically chokes when Anabel slips the ring onto her finger and bats her eyelashes at him.
With that contract made, the one-eyed man turns to his goons to make the necessary arrangements. Anabel strains to hear what they're talking about, and makes out a snippet: "She looks like a paycheck, so too bad for Johnny. Find out where he went, and on what ship." Then the man turns back to Anabel and promises to have the information the following afternoon. Anabel agrees to meet him at a restaurant for lunch, and after another drink and some light conversation, says she has to go.
Anabel rejoins her associates and the four of them leave the bar. Paul spots one of the Southerner's bodyguards shadowing them, but when the Agents hop in a cab, the man simply photographs the plates and walks away. Vinnie has the cabbie stop a block from the truck and pays him well not to remember anything. After a short walk, the group is back on the road to rejoin the others. Everyone keeps an eye out for further tails, but no one spots anything suspicious – although this doesn't prevent Vinnie from driving the last couple of kilometres with the headlights out.
It's late by the time the whole team is reunited in the scrubby field, and the group decides to "rough it" for the night. Klas supervises camp setup, using the camouflaged truck as shelter. After that, the Agents post watches and get what sleep they can. The situation isn't comfortable, but there's no trouble.
Come Saturday morning, Anabel freshens up (with some difficulty, as she's neither a camper nor a morning person), and then gets Paul and Vinnie looking presentable. With that done, Vinnie drives back into the city. This time he drops off Anabel and Paul, who catch a cab, while he circles the area in the truck. Anabel and Paul ride to the restaurant where Anabel has her engagement; thankfully, the place looks quite respectable. Anabel goes in and Paul takes up position outside.
Anabel finds the Southerner already seated, reading a newspaper. He notices her at once and stands to pull out her chair. Anabel subtly pays the other half of the promised fee and receives her information in a white envelope. Looking it over, she learns that the assassins left Monrovia on the Liberian-registered ship Chloë Luudens, which typically sails out of Antwerp; they're due in Miami, Florida on February 28. Noticing that the one-eyed man is quite taken with her, Anabel decides to stay for a polite lunch and see what else she can learn.
Using a mixture of leading questions and long, sexy stares, Anabel finds out that the mercenaries she seeks are ex-U.S. military personnel who were dishonorably discharged due to "unauthorized entrepreneurial activities" in the Middle East. The Southerner explains that, like him, these men aren't fond of the United States' current administration and foreign policy. In his words, "These good ol' boys are instruments of Bush-era national policy gone wild." His guess is that they're in business for themselves, and more likely serve private interests – the wealthy, white, Western kind – than CIA or any other government bureau.
Once lunch is over, Anabel thanks the one-eyed man, then makes a show of standing up, remembering his ring, and returning it to him. She also picks up the tab, explaining that business is business, and the lunch was for her benefit. The Southerner scrambles to his feet to bid her farewell, concluding with, "If you ever need my help, ma'am, I'm easy to find. Just ask for Montgomery Swift Jr." Anabel gives her name as "Abigail O'Hara" and takes her leave.
Paul meets Anabel outside. This time he spots no tail. They take a cab to where Vinnie dropped them off, and Vinnie picks them up on his next swing past. The drive back is uneventful; as far as the Agents can tell, nobody is following the truck. They reach "camp" by mid afternoon.
Anabel fills in everyone on what she learned about the assassins. Swift's theories about them being private operators without government backing rings true with the Agents. Zhang notes that a shoestring budget and the need to show a profit would explain why these guys recovered their fancy gear and shipped out with it, instead of ditching it, catching a plane, and reequipping for the next job. Klas, Lev, and Wen all agree, and add that if the Kigali attack had been a black op backed by CIA or a similar group, it would have involved more decisive means.
The revelation that the assassins are former U.S. military also clarifies a few things, at least to Qoqa. In her opinion, that explains why they tried to capture the group using (mostly) nonlethal means – American black-ops types have an institutional propensity for taking captives for interrogation, when possible. This leads Zhang to suggest that this may mean the men work for someone who suspects or knows that the Company exists, and who wants to learn more. Qoqa isn't keen on the idea of tracking down those people in the U.S.A., but comments that another tendency of American spooks is to centralize, so if the group wants to hunt them down, she would be surprised if they didn't have an actual base somewhere . . .