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The Company
Time: May 29, 2010.
Place: Belfast, Northern Ireland, U.K.
Last Event: Paul Mullen surveillance, Week 4.
Pre-recruitment surveillance of Paul Mullen continues, with Anabel as "Vicky," frazzled academic and widowed single mom; Wen as "Dot," Vicky's troubled adopted daughter; Jili as "Sunita," hipster and love interest for Paul; and Vinnie as "Vinnie" (which isn't his real name anyway!), loud American cabbie.
Week 5: Sunday, May 30 to Saturday, June 5
The Agents' plans for the week are simply to watch Paul and work on their cover identities. They decide to interact with each other a little more so as to have a believable reason to be seen together should that prove useful later on. To this end, Vicky intends to call up Sunita – with whom she became acquainted on last week's paintball expedition – under the pretext of needing somebody to keep an eye on Dot.
Vinnie hangs out with Paul, mostly at the pub. While chatting about ale, carburetors, and football, Vinnie sneaks in a few questions aimed at establishing what Paul does for money. It seems that Paul takes whatever one-off jobs he can find that pay in cash and take advantage of his detective skills: guarding a shop that had its door kicked in, finding a runaway who has gone missing so often that the police won't take the case, trailing an unfaithful husband and getting a few snaps for the wife, etc. It's clear that Paul has some sort of code about accepting jobs only from underdogs who need his help, and doesn't charge very much.
Wen keeps an eye on the neighborhood. Her main goal is to make sure that nobody is watching Paul – and as far as she can tell, nobody is. Her subsidiary goal is to learn the area well enough that Dot can "run away" effectively at some future date, so that Vicky can send Paul looking for her, should the Agents decide that would be a useful test of Paul's skills. In support of that last goal, she makes friends with some of the local kids, and hints that she's annoyed with her mother and might consider taking off.
Anabel "goes to work" and otherwise does her best to strengthen the Vicky identity. In support of Wen's plan, she plays up the tension between Vicky and Dot. To establish their general lack of trust, she calls Sunita to come over and "babysit" Dot one night. This is, of course, much to Dot's dismay . . . "Mother! I am 15 years old!"
Jili continues to see Paul, keeping things at the new-and-therefore-exciting-girlfriend level for the time being. Her goal is to stay close to him and establish enough familiarity that over the remaining months of surveillance, Sunita can ask prying questions without drawing suspicion. When not seeing Paul, she takes time out to sweep her flat thoroughly for bugs – just in case – and does the same for Dot and Vicky's place while supposedly "babysitting" Dot. She finds nothing at either location.
Week 6: Sunday, June 6 to Saturday, June 12
Coordinating by text message, the Agents agree to play this week much like the last one. The goal is to watch Paul, after all – not to complicate his life! This goes well until Friday, June 11 . . .
Late on Friday afternoon, Wen notes a car parked in front of Dot and Vicky's flat as she conducts neighborhood surveillance by skateboard. There's a man inside, smoking a lot of cigarettes and not-so-subtly watching Paul's house. While Paul is at home, he isn't staring out his front windows, so he probably doesn't know about this. Wen texts a brief warning to Anabel, Jili, and Vinnie, and continues to "hang out" nearby to keep an eye on things.
Toward dusk – about two hours after Wen noticed the car out front – the stranger is still parked there watching Paul's place. At home and watching from a darkened window at this point, Wen lets the others know the situation. They agree that it would be best to get Paul out of the house, in case someone is planning an assassination. The plan is for Jili and Vinnie to get Paul down to the pub and stay with him, while Anabel and Wen keep an eye on Paul's house.
Jili simply leaves her flat and walks to the pub, as she lives just a few doors away from it. She finds the place relatively quiet; most of those present are locals getting a bite to eat. Some of them now know Sunita well enough to bid her a good evening. However, there's also a stranger in the place, a man Jili has never seen before and who definitely doesn't look like a tourist. He's sitting alone, nursing a pint and staring intently at the door. Jili greets Julia, places an order, and sits where she can watch this chap.
Vinnie, meanwhile, knocks on Paul's door and suggests that they head to the pub, hinting that Sunita will probably be there – as she always is on Friday nights. Paul smirks and notes that Vinnie's real interest seems to be in Julia, but agrees that a pint would be welcome. With that, Paul and Vinnie head for the pub. As soon as they set out, the smoking man starts his engine and drives off.
Moments later, Paul suddenly looks over his shoulder and warns Vinnie that trouble is coming – specifically, a van with its lights out, moving down the street at a suspiciously high speed. Vinnie asks, "Wait, what kind of trouble? Are we bringing fists to a gunfight here?" Paul responds, "Yes! Run for the pub!" An instant later, Paul is on the move hurdling garden walls and ducking between parked cars. Vinnie struggles to keep up. Wen sees all this from her window and texts Jili a warning.
The van pulls up next to Vinnie, the side door rolling open as the vehicle slows down. Inside, Vinnie sees several men clad in balaclavas, green military jumpers, and assault boots, two of them brandishing AKs of some variety. Pointing their weapons at Vinnie, they order him to get in. He tries to run, but one of the men leans out and grabs him! An instant later, the driver hits the accelerator and steers the vehicle toward Paul, who's still fleeing toward the pub at a breakneck pace.
The next few seconds go by as if in slow motion. Inside the van, Vinnie struggles with his assailants. Despite being struck in the head and gut with coshes and rifle butts, he doesn't buckle – he has had far worse (and was in fact famously tough in his gangster days). When he pulls his small knife, the man who grabbed him immediately restrains his weapon arm. Still, Vinnie is trained and slippery enough that the gunmen are forced to pay attention to him, which means that they're otherwise occupied as the van hurtles toward Paul.
At the same time, Wen comes running down the street, moving as fast as she can toward Paul, Vinnie, and the van. She witnesses Vinnie being grabbed, followed by Paul doing a shoulder check for Vinnie and the accelerating vehicle. As soon as Paul sees the situation, he produces a small pistol as if out of thin air. Wen can't identify the exact model, but it looks like some sort of subcompact backup gun fitted with a tiny suppressor – her guess is a Glock 26. Paul starts blazing away immediately, blasting the van's windshield and then double-tapping the driver in the head.
In the back of the van, Vinnie hears the windshield shatter and then feels the vehicle lurch – the driver just got tagged. One of his assailants lets go, turns, and reaches over the front seats to grab the wheel. With his opponents somewhat preoccupied by their sudden change in fortune, Vinnie realizes that he has an opening. He waits for the van to lurch and then kicks off the toward the still-open side door. Both he and the man restraining his arm spill out onto the street. It's painful, but considerably better than being beaten to death, shot, or killed in a collision.
Vinnie and his opponent struggle in the ditch. Vinnie frees his arm for long enough to deliver a nasty stab before finding himself tangled up again. Wen runs up a moment later and lands on Vinnie's opponent with both feet. There's a nasty crunching noise and the man falls limp. Before Vinnie can struggle to his feet, his own injuries get the better of him and he keels over as well.
Meanwhile, the van veers down the street. Paul easily avoids being hit, and then spins and unloads his pistol at the vehicle as it swerves away, picking up speed as the men in the back try to get it under control. It's unclear whether he struck anything vital or anyone aboard, but he's clearly a good pistol shot – none of his slugs miss the van. After that, Paul turns to see how Vinnie and (to his eyes) Dot are doing.
To Jili, the pistol shots sound like an engine backfiring. This and the noise of a vehicle screeching down the street willy-nilly soon have everybody at the pub pressing against the window or leaning out the door to see what's going on. Jili notes that the strange man isn't among those watching. Stealing a glance in his direction, she sees him remove a submachine gun from a satchel on the floor and stride purposefully toward the door!
Jili hastily sends the others a text. Fortunately, she has fast fingers! Anabel is the only one in a position to pay attention to her phone, and is in fact heading out the front door of her flat with a first aid kit when she receives the note. Still playing at being Dot's mother, she yells a warning down the street . . . in Mandarin, which she and Wen have established is the language that Vicky uses when angry with Dot (reasonably so, given that Dot is an adopted Chinese kid and Vicky is a linguistics prof). Wen's initial reaction is to run for the pub to help Jili.
Back at the pub, Jili spots an old cricket bat hanging alongside various other sporting implements. She stealthily snatches this off the wall. As she turns back toward the gunman, she sees that he has stepped into the street and started menacing the crowd at the pub with his weapon, yelling at them to stay out of his way. They comply by cowering, diving prone, or dashing back inside. Then the thug turns his attentions to Paul, up the street.
When Wen sees the gunman, she yells "Gun!" and dives behind a garden wall. This warns Paul, who also takes cover. Vinnie just lays there in the gutter – although by now Anabel has reached him and is making a show of delivering first aid. Paul's move forces the gunman to waste a few precious seconds walking further out into the street to get a clearer shot at him.
All of this buys Jili the time she needs: She comes rushing out of the pub, swinging the bat at the gunman's head. The first whack misses but the second doesn't – it connects with a sharp crack. The man drops instantly. Jili immediately lets go of the bat and yells, in a shaky voice, "Th-that's for trying to hurt my b-boyfriend!"
At this stage, the situation is defused. Anabel sees to Vinnie's wounds, while Paul checks that everybody else is okay. Jili and Wen play Sunita and Dot very convincingly, stammering, bawling, and generally acting freaked-out. The only local who doesn't seem convinced is David, although he's barking up the wrong tree, mumbling about the women being "bad news, like Mullen."
Paul then approaches the pub crowd, calms them down, and manages to talk people out of calling the police. This is simple enough, given that just about all of the would-be witnesses on the block are present, the publican is a personal friend, and nobody actually witnessed anything but an out-of-control van and a man brandishing a gun. When Paul walks back up the street to check on Vicky and Vinnie, he finds Vinnie awake and standing. Vinnie's stabbed opponent, however, has bled to death in the street.
Realizing that there's a corpse and a submachine gun to dispose of, Paul takes action. First, he wraps the SMG in a greasy kitchen rag and hands it off to the publican, who grumbles something about "putting it with the others." Next, dashes up the street, returns in his car, and stuffs Vinnie's victim and the unconscious gunman in the back. Finally, he tells everyone watching that he's going to drive the two thugs to the ER, and will call the police from there to avoid bringing trouble down on the neighborhood. Paul's neighbors have no problem with this; he's an ex-cop and a friend. Paul pauses for long enough to collect Vinnie's knife and his own shell casings, and then drives off.
Once Paul leaves, everybody goes home but Jili, who stays at the pub faking the shakes and worrying about her boyfriend. Julia comforts her, explaining that there are punch-ups all the time, and even guns occasionally, in Belfast. Apparently, she personally has stopped several fights over the years, and regards any girl willing to whack a thug as having her head screwed on right. As far as Jili can tell, the people in the pub genuinely seem to believe that the men Paul drove off with are merely hurt and that nothing worse than a brawl happened here tonight.
Anabel isn't convinced that Paul is headed to the ER, though. She's a good judge of people, and suspects that the two thugs are going to get a bullet in the head and be dumped somewhere that a cop would never look, along with Vinnie's knife, Paul's pistol, and the shell casings. It's just a guess, but it fits with her reading of Paul, and of course his background and demonstrated skills. He's unlikely to want to have to explain the situation to his former colleagues on the police force.
Vinnie, meanwhile, has his own thoughts about the night's events as he stumbles home with Anabel's help. He counts three mortally wounded or dead on the part of the attackers: the van's driver, the man he stabbed in the gutter, and the gunman who was lurking in the pub. That leaves the man smoking in the car and two or three thugs in the van – maybe three or four survivors out of seven involved. In his experience, that's a harsh blow for a criminal crew or a gang of dirty cops. It's very likely that if the same people take another swipe at Paul, they won't have the manpower to try brute force again.
Hearing Vinnie's take on things, Anabel fears that the situation just became more dangerous – not less. For one thing, Paul's enemies will now be desperate. For another, they're likely to forgo trying to abduct Paul, which seemed to be their goal tonight, and attempt to assassinate him via sneakier, deadlier means. In her opinion, the Agents could use more manpower . . . and possibly a medic. She decides that in the morning, she's going to call Qoqa in. Qoqa speaks several languages, so her cover will be "visiting academic associate of Vicky's."