A killer solo

[Raziel]

Raziel settled down into his private booth at the bar. It was a good place for a meeting with an unknown third party. Nice and public,yet the booths were acoustically sealed for privacy. The booths were bugged of course, but that was because Spynet had bugged them.

In Raziel's left pocket was an encrypted data crystal. In his right was a hold out blaster. He didn't particularly enjoy working with contractors, particularly recommendations from others he hadn't worked with before; they added an element of the unknown to the equation. Raziel's operations were a particularly delicate balancing act of cost risk and reward. In this instance the man had a very specific skill set that filled a gap for the next mission. A mission that would leave ACA borders.

Raziel's memory, nearly eidetic from training, had everything on the planned op stored, yet he had precious few details on the man he was meeting. He didn't have much of a trail, but given the mid level work he was doing that was likely because he was either new on the scene or had been chased out of another sector. The Spymaster was posing as a low level agent today, this kind of work wasn't usually for him. However, his ability to latch onto nearby thoughts and emotions made him perfect to carry out first contact with a new party. He took another long sip of his cool drink and waited.

[member="Maccus Thorne "][member="Jenna Templar"]

 

[Maccus Thorne]

Maccus shuffled into the bar, quietly singing. "I can hear what your thinkin'...all your doubts and fear. But if you look at my eyes in time...you'll find the reason I'm 'ere. In time, all things shall pass away, perhaps I'll come back someday..." The man was clad in black, and his black dress shoes tapped against the floor as he slowly made his way through the bar. He clutched the handle of his guitar case tightly in his hand. He glanced into each private booth, examining each one carefully. He shuffled past each booth at a slow pace, glancing into each one.

[member="Raziel"]

 

[Raziel]

Well, there was the guitar case he'd been told to look for. The man actually carried it around with him. Interesting. Raziel leant over his drink and made a subtle gesture as he started to pass his booth.

[member="Maccus Thorne"]

 

[Maccus Thorne]

He slowly turned his head to look at the man, giving a slight nod. He then placed the black guitar case on the table with a thud, before slowly taking a seat and looking up at the man, no expression on his face. He kept his gaze locked onto the man, even as he slowly unlatched his guitar case and popping the top open. He slowly pulled the acoustic guitar out, slamming the case shut and staring at the man. He strummed the guitar lightly, waiting for the man to speak.

[member="Raziel"]

 

[Raziel]

Raziel placed his hands back on the table as the guitar came out of the case. As quick as he was, he'd still moved his hands close to the holdout in his pocket. When dealing with an assassin of unknown ability, you couldn't be too careful when they reached inside a case.

"A prominent politician, with a taste for your kind of music is having a fiftieth birthday party. Pardon my bluntness, but I need you to answer this question before going any further. Are you talented enough for that kind of gig?"

[member="Maccus Thorne"]

 

[Maccus Thorne]

"Of course, I've been doin' this for a long, long, long time. You want me to make it look like an accident? Slit throat? Slug to the skull? Just tell me his location and I'll make sure he doesn't live to enjoy the party." He said, a grin on his face, continuing to strum the guitar.

[member="Raziel"]

 

[Raziel]

Raziel's lips curled in a wry smile. "Actually I was specifically referring to your playing. This is going to be a classy party. If you couldn't play that kind of gig, there would have been no reason going into further details. As it happens we've received enough references on your other skills, but I'm glad you have the gist of things.

"You're not going to be entirely solo on this. We did have a man on staff for the event, but somehow Omega intelligence picked him up and now he's in a detention centre. Well, now he's in the ground I expect. There was an unfortunate incident before he could talk.

"We'll handle the travel and will be monitoring the situation. For the main event, if you like, we have a fairly potent neurotoxin. Delayed start by maybe fifteen minutes. It's an odorless, colourless liquid. The politician will need to ingest it and then you'll need to get out quickly. Security will be fairly tight. Does this sound plausible?"

[member="Maccus Thorne "]

 

[Maccus Thorne]

"Plausible? Nothing is impossible, of course it's plausible. I'll get the job done, hell, I'll write a song for 'em." He released a wicked grin, slowly placing the acoustic wooden guitar back into the case and shutting it, latching the silver latches with ease. "As I like to say, I'll be singin' at his funeral." He said, bursting into laughter. "Wait, am I simply causing a distraction or killin' him myself. I can do both, you need to clarify the small details for me." He said with a polite nod, tapping his guitar case with a grin.

[member="Raziel"]

 

[Raziel]

"Oh no, the show is all yours. We can't get anyone else inside. We'll be close by monitoring the situation and we'll handle getting you to Harrin and the extraction. There's liable to be heavy security around the event for...certain reasons," Raziel replied. He slid the data crystal across the table. "The details are on there, we'll send you a message with the details of getting through the encryption shortly. There are going to be around a hundred at the party and you're the booked entertainment between the second and main courses. You'll be expected to play on stage, but also mingle around the tables after a few songs.

You can contact us if you need any further information, which we may or may not provide, and also if you need any up front expenses. Same clause applies," he added with a smile. At least he was certain now, this wasn't an enemy plant. Not unless the man was a powerful Force User trained to deceive mind readers anyway. "The party is next week."

[member="Maccus Thorne"]

 

[Maccus Thorne]

Maccus slowly reached into his black suit, reaching into his pocket. Then suddenly...He pulled out a box of cigars, along with a cigar cutter. Pulling out the cigar, he sliced the tip, holding the cigar up to his lips, before striking a match and igniting the tobacco. He slid the pack over to [member="Raziel"]. On the pack, a company's name was printed on the front, along with the words "Vanilla Cigars." Printed below it. He passed over the cigar cutter, smiling, before blowing out several smoke rings. "Nice meetin' ya..." The man muttered, before going silent.

(Are we starting another thread for the assassination?)

[member="Raziel"]

 

[Raziel]

[member="Jenna Templar"]
@Maccus Thorne

OOC/ Moving the thread through time and to Harrin in Omega Space. This isn't going to have a tangible effect on the war and has been discussed with OP leadership. Jenna and any OP intel/security types are more than welcome to join in and have fun! [No ROLFSTOMPAGE please]

Raziel took a seat in his hotel room. He sat his datapad on the table before him and waited for to get through the high-end crypto. Firstly just to turn on the device, and then to access to small network they’d set up for this operation. These days security through obscurity was fairly effective. There were so many devices out there transmitting that adding a few more did not stand out. The dinner had many local political figures and even a few local celebrities.

The man in question was in his mid-fifties, but didn’t look much above forty. He either retained his hair colour, or used dye. He certainly kept himself in reasonable shape. The dinner was relatively formal and guests were arranged in a large hall at circular tables seating twelve or so people each. A small stage was at one end of the room for entertainment.

Assassination was not actually something Spynet engaged in often. It was considered unsavoury by almost all intelligence agencies and a very last resport. However, this murder had to take place and needed to be public.* The man had also been particularly outspoken about the nature of the Moross Gods recently. With a bit on intelligent groundwork, they might even have been able to pin the event on the churches of Aatrox.

Raziel placed a small earpiece in and activated the visual feed from a small device on the assassin’s shirt. The encrypted signal was shaped to blend in with background noise, yet was very hard to crack. An abandoned vehicle in the street was acting as the base transmitted between them, if anyone did manage to spot the signal, at least they’d be led there rather than Raziel’s hotel room.

“Are you in place?” Raziel asked. Hopefully the asset was now backstage preparing for his performance. Raziel would relay further information on guests, local knowledge as required. He’d also assist with the extraction if necessary.






*I haven’t actually figured out why yet…because story. I’ll come up with this later.

 

[Maccus Thorne]

Clad in his signature black suit and dress pants, he gripped tightly onto his guitar case as he examined the dinner and it's guests. He n around and as if clearing his throat, he held his sleeve up to his mouth and spoke into the device. "Indeed." Was all the man had said.

Attempting to avoid the guests, he gave a polite nod to a man dressed in elegant attire, before examining the stage he was preparing to play on. Slowly, he stepped up the small amount of steps leading over to a chair in the middle of the stage. He slowly took a seat, carefully unlatching the case.

He popped the lid open, placing a gloved hand on the wooden body of the guitar, while he kept his other hand on the outside of the guitar case that read "Maccus Thorne" in large, golden letters. Before placing his hand on the hidden compartment installed on the inside of the case. The compartment held two slugthrowers, four blades, and a single thermal detonator. Grinning, Maccus removed the guitar, along with a black guitar pick.

[member="Raziel"]

 

[Raziel]

"Excellent. The mark is on the near table on the left. Hold the pick in from of the camera pointing up if you can see him. Remember they'll expect you to mingle after your session while they're on the next course. That's going to be the best opportunity. Be pleasant and try and keep chat brief, but I'm on hand to provide additional information if needed.

"You're from Aargaw, a close trade partner. Classically trained before dropping out and a session musician for a well known artist until recently. Stay away from politics, but we can remind you of the recent sporting results if you need some more small talk."

Raziel's comm bleeped and he switched his audio out to another channel, before saying: "report."

"Might be nothing, but we just traced another check on the background of the ID we set up for the hit man," came a voice in clipped tones.

"Keep me informed," Raziel replied, before switching back to Thorne's channel.

"Might be nothing, but someone might have their eyes on you already. Be as discrete as possible, but we might need to do a hasty evac. We've got control of the internal fire system, so we'll set off the alarms and foam dispersers if we need to!"

[member="Maccus Thorne"]

(sorry mis tagged)

 

[Raziel]

There was no response from the musical assassin. That was concerning, particularly when there were signs that Omega intelligence might have caught onto the op. The Spymaster knew that soon he would have to make a call. They couldn't make too much of a scene, but they could complete the mission after the event. He had one of his personally trained assassins [member="Krytu"] stationed nearby ready to make a move.

They would have to do this the hard way, or decide to pull out if [member="Maccus Thorne"] had his cover blown.

 

[Maccus Thorne]

He slowly strummed the guitar, a grin on his face. "I can hear what your thinkin'. All your doubts and fear...well, if you look at my eyes in time...you'll find the reason I'm here. In time, all things shall pass away. In time you may come back some day...to live once more...to die once more. But in time your time will be no more." He began to play the guitar, ignoring [member="Raziel"] as he did so. He had an audience watching his performance and once he got the attention of the target, he began to sing once more. "You know your days are numbered. You count 'em one by one. Like notches in the handle of an outlaw's gun. You can outrun the devil if you try, but you can never outrun the hands of time. In time, you may come back some day..." He continued to play, concentrating on the song, seeming to be in a phase as he played carefully. After finishing the song with a final strum, his target, who was clapping slowly headed up on the stage, offering his hand. Maccus stared at his target, but his hand did not move. "You like that song? I'ma sing it at your funeral." Maccus said coldly, showing no emotion. The target, who looked quite surprised and confused, slowly nodded, before slowly heading back down the steps. Then with another strum of his guitar, he began to sing...

"There ain't no grave, that can hold my body down. Oh, there ain't no grave...that can hold my body down. When I hear that trumpet sound, I'm going to rise right outta the ground, ain't no grave...can hold my body down. Well, look way down the river, what do you think I see? I see a band of angels, and they're...comin' after me. Ain't no grave, can hold my body down. Well, look down yonder, Gabriel, put your feet on the land and see. And don't you blow your trumpet...until you hear from me. Ain't no grave, can hold my body down."

(Eh, I'm back from my LOA)

 

[Raziel]

"Alright, let's not overdo the portentous lyrics," Raziel whispered into the comm. "Tall Twi'lek on the table to the left of the mark is something of a rival to him. Use that if you need to."

Raziel continued to watch events unfold, but his attention was turned towards a second datapad. There was an increase in activity across highly encrypted radio channels and they had the fingerprints of high level protectorate comms. He was beginning to get concerned that this was going to end up messy, but he didn't voice this to the assassin. Instead he calmly reached for a lined briefcase under his seat and pulled out a pair of silenced hold-out blasters. He also took the time to put his identity cards, a different set to those he'd used to arrive, into his pocket.

[member="Maccus Thorne"]

 

[Maccus Thorne]

He slowly grinned, and fixing to play one final song until he began speaking with his target and the rest of the audience. Again, he slowly began to launch into another song. "Oh, it's the same ol' tune. Fiddle and guitar. Where do we take it from 'ere? New shiny speeders, it's been the same way for years...It needs to change. Somebody told me...when I came to Coruscant...Son, ya finally got it made..." Continuing to sing, he slowly finished the song, finishing it with a final strum. He then popped open his guitar case, slowly placing the instrument inside. After slowly closing the case, he climbed to his feet. Glancing over to the Twi'lek [member="Raziel"] had mentioned, he could not hold back a sadistic grin.

He slowly made his way down the stairs, heading off of the stage and continued at a slow pace. Finally standing only a few feet away from a security guard clad in black, he gave a polite nod, then turned to face him completely. "...do you know where I could find the restroom, sir?" He asked him, staring at the man with no emotion on his face. The man nodded, gesturing down a hallway. "Head down that hallway and take a left."

The man muttered underneath his breath. "Thank ya, sir." Maccus said, slowly making his way over to the hallway. Heading into the hallway, he walked past the restroom completely, gripping onto the stairway railing and quickly shuffling up the stairs. Stopping halfway up the stairwell, he removed some cigarette papers and some tobacco, slowly rolling a cigarette. He then removed his lighter, igniting the tobacco. He then slowly whispered into his comm. "What the hell do I do? Do you want me to kill somebody? Lure the damn target into the restroom and start slashin'?" He asked, exhaling cigarette smoke.