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The Company
Time: March 8, 2010 (evening).
Place: Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
Last Event: R&R.
After four months off, the Agents are ready to get back to work. The yacht captured from Grandfather is repaired, repainted, and reregistered in Spain under the name Cephalopod – all the result of significant fixing by Chaturvedi, who seems to have contacts almost everywhere. By the time the vessel is ready, Vinnie has a complete rundown on its vital stats: 50m long, with a 10m beam and three decks, it can comfortably accommodate 12. Its twin screws can make 12 knots cruising and 16 knots top speed. Estimated range is 4,000 nm. Other features include a computerized bridge, a stabilizer, two small boats, and such goodies as a bar, a Jacuzzi, and a small pool.
Chaturvedi shows up on March 8, 2010 to inspect the work, among other things. He says that he has a Swiss buyer for the Company's share of Grandfather's diamonds. While he cannot promise a final price, he seems confident that he can negotiate a decent sum. The plan is to sell the stones in Switzerland, invest the cash in New York, and make the funds accessible via a Singaporean bank. Chaturvedi promises that however it all shakes out, the Agents will have a comfortable operating budget from this point on – a good thing if they plan to use the yacht as a floating base, since that will cost €3-4 million a year to maintain!
The handler also presents the group with new falsified papers. He has all the necessary registration for the yacht (most of it legitimate), along with a fictional itinerary of past ports of call that will check out if not poked too hard. As well, he has bogus identity papers for the Agents – in a couple of names apiece – complete with passports and, where necessary, fake certificates. Vinnie, for instance, is now a licensed ship's master, while Qoqa is a medical doctor.
With those details sorted out, Chaturvedi briefs the team on its next mission. The background is that Palestinian and Islamist dignitaries have planned a meeting in a Beirut business hotel on or around March 19, 2010. Details are sketchy, but scuttlebutt is that the principals chose a busy public meeting place close to a Hezbollah powerbase to make it harder for Mossad assassins to operate. With Mossad a suspect in the car-bombing of senior Hezbollah man Imad Mughnieh in Damascus in February 2008, and in the torture and poisoning of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January 2010, one can't be too careful.
Choosing a high-end hotel is a gambit, though: Sure, it's public, and the details will reach every spook and cop out there, and probably more than a few people in the press. That's how the Company found out, after all. But will it be public enough to discourage assassins? Chaturvedi says that his contacts inside Interpol – the ones who helped with the Greek situation – doubt that this will deter Mossad.
The Company has no desire to take sides here, but after the 2006 war and the 2008 clashes in Beirut, the higher-ups feel that yet another assassination would be terrible for the average citizen, regional stability, and world peace in general, and must be prevented. Since the traditional "global cop" nations with the power to intervene are polarized against Islamist interests in 2010, the Company will take the job. Thus, the Company wants the Agents to babysit the meeting and make sure that it doesn't end in killings.
Chaturvedi explains that if Mossad shows up with assassination on their mind, the odds are excellent that they'll succeed . . . but if they somehow screw up, their targets' bodyguards will be more than happy to hit back. The trouble is, if anybody on either side gets killed, there is a good chance of a new cycle of reprisals. The Agents' job is to go in and keep things peaceful. However, the gloves are on – a killing by the team would cause the very outcome that they're being sent in to prevent! Nonlethal tactics up to and including intimidation and beatings are fine, but not deadly force.
A major complication here is that neither the Israeli spies nor their targets are likely to pull punches. If the Agents are caught, they can be assured that the response will be severe, despite their own instructions not to use lethal force. Another wrinkle is that Mossad operators in particular are many times scarier than the Russian gangsters encountered on the last operation. Thus, this mission calls for a great deal of caution and cunning.
The Agents feel that the best way to get to Beirut is via ship, since they already have one and it would afford a ready-made base of operations on arrival. Chaturvedi agrees, but warns that there's a serious risk of being inspected by the Israelis at sea before pulling into port. After some discussion, consensus is that the group will warehouse its firearms and explosives with Chaturvedi's contact in Palma, and make the trip unarmed, posing as idle rich sailing from party to party – in this case, from Balearic resorts to Beirut nightclubs.
After more brainstorming, the plan is to have Anabel pose as the young widow of a Nigerian oil executive, traveling on her dead husband's yacht. Jili is her (latest) BFF, met in Ibiza. Qoqa is her personal prescription-writer ("doctor"), Wen is her yoga trainer, and Zhang is a young, buff bodyguard who accompanies her everywhere. JB's role is that of the dead husband's scary bodyguard, who came with the yacht. Vinnie, Hamid, and Ben are the vessel's master, mate, and mechanic, respectively, while Lev is a crew hand and gofer. Klas is simply the big, blond himbo who serves drinks and hands out towels.
Chaturvedi takes notes the whole time. Once everything is decided, he tells the Agents that first thing in the morning, he'll set out for Switzerland, where he'll make all the necessary arrangements to have the chosen names and backgrounds check out under casual inspection. He'll also take the diamonds to sell and see to putting the blackmail negatives from Grandfather's safe in a suitably untraceable location. With that, the whole group sits down for a meal aboard the Cephalopod, prepared mainly by Vinnie and Qoqa (who baked a really impressive cake!).
The morning of March 9, Chaturvedi takes his leave while the Agents set course for Lebanon. Vinnie estimates that traveling 24 hours a day at a decent cruising speed, the Cephalopod should arrive on March 14, leaving a few days to prepare. With JB mastering the vessel by day and Vinnie at the helm by night, the trip goes well. On March 11, Chaturvedi calls in to confirm that his preparations went through as planned. Toward evening on March 14, in Lebanese waters, an Israeli gunboat hails the yacht and orders them to heave to for inspection.
Great Scenario idea
I was a bit worried when I first read paragraph 4 that the mission was going to be some sort of retread of recent history, but it sounds like a good twist on real world events!
Sounds like a tough mission to pull off too.
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yeah
It has a subtle 'peacekeeper' metaphor too.