As evening approaches, we all get ready to tackle our assigned tasks for the night. Paris and Rossi take Jake Jake’s ordinary (much to Rossi’s disappointment) rental car and drive to the Caledonian Hotel, Cahill, Corey and I go to the tattoo, (Nun)Chuck goes to the Quickening to await his chance to bleed and Fiona and Mitchell also go to the Quickening to be on hand to identify the remains.
As we are entering the Tattoo, we get stopped by someone who wants our tickets. Tickets? I don’t even have my driver’s license. I tell him that Cahill has them. Cahill looks confused, but Corey recognizes the guy and gets us in.
Paris and Rossi enter the hotel and immediately spot a lovely restaurant. Paris makes a mental note.
They walk up the imposing staircase and make their way to the Vaughn’s suite. Since they’ve forgotten to bring a shuriken with them, Paris uses a conventional lock pick set and after a minute or two gets the door open.
They begin a thorough search of the room. Paris finds a laptop computer and a thin file on ISIS, the agency, not the goddess. There is a safe, but she has also forgotten to bring the ACME electronic safe opener so she leaves it alone.
Rossi searches the bedroom and finds another laptop and Mr. Vaughn, the playwright’s latest work. He takes a moment to edit the play. He then checks the bathroom and finds a video recorder under the sink at the same time that Paris finds a camera in one of the ducts. Rossi cuts the wires on the recorder and takes it out.
While Paris packs the laptops and video recorder into a piece of luggage, Rossi tries to open the safe. Not surprisingly, he fails. After he has entered so many incorrect codes that the safe is - as Paris would say - broken, they leave.
They walk out of the hotel and Rossi sees two men in a car watching the hotel (actually they were intent on fixing their coffee, thus allowing Paris and Rossi to leave unnoticed).
Rossi offers to get Paris a salad, but she claims that she’s sworn off salads for awhile. They decide to drive to the keep and get our belongings back.
Meanwhile at the tattoo, we see all of the big wigs. As they are watching the fireworks, they are joined by none other than Mulroy. I want to follow Mulroy out and kill him, but Cahill won’t let me. I look around for Mulroy so I can at least see where he is going and spot him with some woman and our favorite delivery person, Dominos. Knowing that Paris is one of his favorite toppings, I call her.
Rossi is remarking to Paris that he can see so much more when he drives sans sunglasses at night as his phone rings. She wants to answer it so he doesn’t get distracted, but he wants to prove that he can drive and play with his toys at the same time, so he answers. I ask for Paris. She practices the raspberry on him.
Anyway, we have a lovely spy-speak conversation about pizza and shoes. I tell her that the pizza guy is with her host from the Versailles, she tells me she is going to get some shoes and I ask her to pick up some things for me, including my get-out-of-Scotland-free card. Then I ask her how it went and if she’s acquired anything. She tells me it went fine and yes, they have some things. I tell her it may not be a good idea to take those things with her to the shoe store and she decides that they shouldn’t go right now. Me and my big mouth! So close to getting that damned passport.
Meanwhile, at the hospital, Jack freaks out when a strange nurse (who happens to resemble a Russian hit woman named the Ice Queen) comes in to give him his shot. She injects something into his IV, which he rips out with his teeth. He screams for the cops to come in and they call for some interns who in turn call for some doctors. Then the fire marshal shows up because they have exceeded the maximum occupancy for the room. Anyway, Jack manages to have the nurse thrown out of the room, but the doctor orders the IV restarted and draws another injection from the same bottle.
After some time, Jack feels some pain in his chest. A group of doctors come running in. Someone notes that the manitors are indicating a cardirac arrest. (All GM mis-speaks are to be included in the reports from this point on, by order of the report writer’s alter ego) The head doctor powers up the paddles and smiles at Jack, who now sees that it’s Mulroy. Jack finally flat lines and looks for the light. He is astonished to see that the light is not a brilliant white, rather it has a green jello glow and those waiting to welcome him into the light are none other than Inspectors Something Scottish, Clusine and Callaghan.
Jack awakens in a cold sweat.
At the Quickening, Fiona and Mitchell are enjoying the show and some drinks when they spot a woman who matches the description of Jack’s nun. They approach her table to get a better look and see that she is sitting with a man who resembles Jack’s priest. Colin, the bad guy in charge of security for the club, sits with them and they have a discussion in Irish Gaelic. Mitchell is able to read their lips and figure out that they’re discussing Jack’s still-living state.
When Colin leaves, Mitchell and Fiona sit at the table with the nun and the priest. They exchange small talk about the recent block buster hit The English Mental Patient, and find out that the two are twins named Maureen and Sean. Mitchell spots Ben Black at the bar doing his Cocktail imitation and asks Maureen to accompany him to the bar. Sean is torn between trying to come on to Fiona and trying to keep an eye on his sister.
Ben Black mixes a hot drink, so identified by the flames, and gives it to Maureen to drink. The assembled crowd is chanting drink, so she does. Unfortunately, Maureen is used to drinking stout which, while served warm, is never on fire when it approaches her highly flammable hair, and she is immediately ignited. Ben Black deftly whips out the seltzer nozzle and waters down the drink, putting out the flaming Maureen in the process.
Sean, who has been watching his sister protectively, notices that she is on fire and then sees the bartender point and shoot. He runs for the bar while drawing his weapon. Mayhem reigns (it was not quite Armageddon, but hectic nonetheless). Sean’s shot hits the bar, Mitchell yells ‘duck’ while diving onto the bar, Black is ducking, Fiona is tackling Sean and a confused and dripping Maureen makes sure that she is no longer on fire.
Fiona tackles Sean, doing several bruising points to him in the process. He is able to break her hold and the two of them wrestle for the gun. Sean manages to keep possession of it. Maureen spots her brother rolling around on the floor with Fiona and runs toward him with Mitchell following her. As they arrive and Sean is trying to leave, Fiona picks up a chair and throws it at Sean. It smashes him in the torso, cracking several ribs.
The bouncers arrive and one of them takes Sean’s gun and pockets it. The whole group is taken to the basement of the club. After a few minutes, Colin lets Sean and Maureen leave, but asks to talk to Fiona and Mitchell. He takes out Sean’s gun and asks whose it is as he takes it apart, wipes it clean of prints, and reassembles it while wearing gloves.
Eventually, with a warning not to set any more girls on fire and not to start anymore furniture fights, he lets them go.
They go upstairs where a dejected Ben Black informs them that he is no longer allowed to tend bar.
They look around for the Irish twins, but don’t see them. They decide to take a chance that the twins have gone to a hospital to get Sean’s injuries looked at.
After having no luck at two hospitals, Fiona and Mitchell finally spot Sean laying on a gurney by the X-ray room of the third. They approach him and Mitchell tells him that they are looking for two pious Irish people who paid a visit to an international terrorist in a hospital yesterday, because they have work for them. He gives him a card with a cell phone number and an indication of a base pay of £ 25,000. Fiona and Mitchell leave and return to the safe house.
Back at the safe house, we all compare information. We look through the files on Mathilde Vaughn’s laptop and find numerous references to Ecstasy. After looking the information over into the wee hours of the morning, Fiona is able to piece together the fact that Vaughn has pulled emails relating to orders of Ecstasy from her email service.
Rossi, having no computer skills, decides to extricate the video tape from the recorder, but the tape is as attached to the recorder as was the Quickening flier to the bar bulletin board, and he rips the tape. Paris looks at it and tells him it’s broken.
Paris has been trying to call Dominos all night and finally, around dawn, he answers. She asks if he is working for Ed Mulroy, but he denies it. She tells him she was just making sure, which peaks his curiosity and paranoia. They agree to meet to discuss business later.
I bemoan the lack of a shoe shopping spree and Paris tells me that Jake Jake informed her that the SPOATS were engaging in a training exercise in the Loch Lomond area, so we’ll have to wait.
Since everybody left the Quickening before the ultimate challenge final, we have no idea how (Nun)Chuck fared.
As we all lay down for some much needed sleep, thoughts of the day’s events work their way into our dreams: Fiona is felling opponents in a deadly fire fight with chairs, tables and other pieces of furniture, Mitchell rolls fitfully as all of his drinking buddies go up in flames, Ben Black is winning a quick draw seltzer contest, Rossi is caught in a nightmare land of broken mechanical devices, I’m following Mulroy through a crowded street armed with nothing but a beer bottle, and Paris, of course, is having a lovely dream about the pizza guy.
It is time to ponder the questions before us: how many pieces is (Nun)Chuck in? Will the Irish twins take Mitchell’s bait? Will Rossi ever get to drive one of those cool cars? Will Ben Black ever be allowed to tend bar again? Will Paris spend a lovely day in the company of Dominos? Will Jake Jake ever leave the safe house? Will I risk an encounter with the devilishly clever and incredibly well-trained SPOATS in order to get my #$%& passport back? Will Cahill finally shoot my cell phone? Will Jack have anymore dreams about assassins or green jello? Will the GM spend this week trying to think of ways to get back at a certain player?
The answers to these questions and more will have to wait until the next report.
Awards
Paris
Sheila
Rossi
Jack
(Nun)Chuck
The Irish Twins
Simon Timothy
We all awake bright eyed and bushy tailed late the next morning. A call received on my malfunctioning, deafeningly loud, targeted for destruction cell phone has revealed that (Nun)Chuck has, in fact, survived his ultimate challenge. Apparently the grueling 80 second match ended with the synchronized lapse into unconsciousness of both contestants. As the bleeding men were carried off the platform, they were heard to mutter, "all right, we’ll call it a draw."
(Nun)Chuck informs me (over my completely non-secure, seems-to-bring-the-SPOATS-any-time-it’s-used cell phone) that he has been in the secret hallways around the perimeter of the Quickening, he may be able to get a job there (in the Quickening, not the hallways) - although we’re not sure what he would be employed as, and he has an invitation to the Raspberry Ball.
(Nun)Chuck goes to see his fairy god-mother to have his rags sewn into an outfit for the ball.
Paris gets Rossi to give her a ride to Edinburgh so she can meet Dominos for a lovely meal and delightful conversation. He still denies working for Mr. Ed (that’s Mulroy), whom he met by coincidence at the Tattoo. Dominos, the delivery guy, not the pizza or the tile game, does not believe that the kind and gentle Mr. Ed is capable of torturing anybody. He claims that his job here was set up over a month ago and his purpose is to bring something out of the country. Paris, the agent, not the city, plans to meet him at a festival event tomorrow and charm the name of his employer out of him.
Mitchell’s plan to have the Irish twins call him has worked and Mitchell arranges to meet them at McGinnty’s Bar.
Britain’s snootiest arrive to find the twins already enjoying the local lager. After a thoroughly frustrating verbal exchange proves that Sean, painkillers and ale are not the ingredients for coherent conversation, Mitchell and Fiona leave. Maureen catches up to them before they depart and asks the two to contact them later when Sean will be more rational. Mitchell offers a somewhat fuzzy assurance that he’ll be in touch.
Britain’s snootiest return to the safe-house where a bruised and battered (Nun)Chuck has made an appearance. We discuss what should be done with the McBobsey twins and what we know. We don’t know why Mr. Ed is so intent on finding Belle – I mean Paris, the agent, not the city. We don’t know if Sir Elliot Keene is involved. We don’t know what’s going to happen at the Raspberry Ball. We don’t know who hired the McBobsey twins. We don’t know much. Wait! We do know that the twins are not members of the clergy – Catholic or otherwise. Cahill rejects (Nun)Chuck’s unsolicited offer to kill the McBobseys and, perhaps thinking that I might be predisposed to act against anyone who tried to do in my partner in crime, Jack, decides to go see the them … alone.
Cahill brings in an old IRA acquaintance to identify the McBobsey twins as they arrive at the bar (apparently the site of both the twins’ sleep and nourishment). When the twins enter, the IRA acquaintance calls Maureen over, introduces Cahill as Richard Conners and quickly departs.
Cahill makes several reference to nuns, priests, Paris, the city and the agent, and international terrorists. Sean’s face proves repeatedly that he will never succeed at poker, although Maureen remains pretty calm. The twins ask for a moment to talk to one another and disappear up to their room. There is a great commotion as they begin to pack up their belongings, including a Polaroid camera, some really awkward-to-carry LPs (somebody tell these fools about CDs), and an iron, in preparation for a hasty retreat, dropping several dresser drawers in the process. Cahill’s knock at the door startles them and they consider leaving via the window, but Cahill has come bearing beer, so they let him in.
After several more thinly veiled references by Cahill to the twins’ recent activities have proven that Sean couldn’t even win a game of Go Fish and caused his pupils to dilate wide enough to allow him to give birth, Maureen yells for him to buy some sunglasses and asks Cahill to come to the point.
What follows could only be considered an exercise in patience and endurance for Mr. Cahill and I’ll bet he won’t mind listening to my succinct and fact-filled reports now. Playing on their love of all things Guinness, the bickering blarney-blurting McBobseys manage to frustrate Cahill in record breaking time. Cahill threatens several kneecaps and gets the twins to tell him that they were hired by Cowan Collin, of the Quickening fame, to kill the International terrorist Jacques (for a pathetically small amount of money), but they turned down his offer of much more money to terminate Paris, the agent, not the city, who is the financier behind Jack’s dastardly deeds.
Sean attempts to gain the upper hand by knocking Cahill’s gun out of his hand and pulling his own. Unfortunately for Sean, he is pointing his gun at Cahill’s bullet proof vest and Cahill definitely had something up his sleeve (which is now pointed at Sean’s head). Sean, realizing that he is not helping his case, puts his gun down. Maureen, perhaps realizing that the result of intervening will be a shot to her brother’s non-poker face, watches the testosterone exchange with estrogenic disdain.
Cahill decides that they are useless, because they are running out on an IRA contract (this surprises the McBobsey twins who apparently did not know that Cowan was still active with the Republicans) and they don’t know any of the top bad guys at the Quickening. Maureen then comes up with a plan to have the twins go back and accept the contract, fake the demise of the delicate damsel and the trussed terrorist, thus putting an end to the attempts on the lives of the green jello/porridge hating, missing his poor cat, Checkers, tired of being chained to a hospital bed and visited by assassins, International cabaret terrorist, Jacques; and the not-so-tired of having a lovely evening Paris, the agent, not the city.
Cahill agrees to the plan and tells them to go downstairs for nourishment, um as in soda pop, not dark and chewy ale, to refrain from taking any medication, and to await Mitchell’s call. The twins tell him that they can’t go downstairs, because they won’t be able to hear the phone. A thoroughly frustrated Cahill resists the urge to shoot the pair on the spot, takes their whiskey and leaves.
Cahill returns to the safe-house and prepares the group. Mitchell calls Black and tells him to prepare for the demise of the Messenger (that’s Jack) that evening.
Rossi goes outside to check that his car is clean and prepped and stops awestruck as he sees that it has miraculously morphed into a stylish and regal Rolls. He is informed by one of Britain’s snootiest servants that he does not meet the dress code requirement for sitting in the Rolls.
Paris and I are doing an inventory for this evening’s activities. We check on the lovely car and feel relatively assured that Paris can, in fact, have a lovely evening in it (you know – barring any assassination or kidnapping attempts), all the while ignoring Rossi, who is rolling on the ground and speaking in tongues. I would have thought that he’d converted to some stupid Pentecostal cult if I hadn’t recognized the strange sounds as the compression ratio and engine size for the Rolls and seen the he was only rolling on the ground in an attempt to loosen his tongue from the gravel driveway.
As the Raspberry Ball approaches I think about what we have: one driver who is so crazy about the idea of driving the Rolls that he has momentarily forgotten about his still virginal state; Paris, who is crazy about her new evening gown and the prospect of giving Mulroy the raspberry (it’s the little things, you know); (Nun)Chuckerella, who is crazy about being able to go to the ball; Black, who is crazy about being able to fake someone’s death; Jack, who is stir-crazy in his hospital bed; the Irish twins, who are – let’s face it – just plain crazy; and Cahill, who is crazy about the Cracker Jack-less team he has working for him. Oh yeah, Jake Jake, or Fed Boy – as he likes to be called – thinks his employers are crazy for sending him here. And me, well let’s just say that I’m crazy about the whole plan, because I don’t have to go to the Raspberry Ball!
Well, with this team and our (lack of a) plan, how hard can this be?? (That one’s for you, Mr. Cahill!)
AWARDS
The Irish Twins
(Nun)Chuck
Sheila
Paris
Rossi
Cahill
So here I am, hopelessly depressed because we got Jack back, but we lost Paris, the agent, not the city, Mulroy is dead, but neither Jack nor I got to kill him, my *#%^ phone gets worse every day, the gorgeous pizza guy is dead, the Irish twins have perpetrated one of the most violent murders in London’s modern history and I’m still in *#%^ Scotland and I still have no passport.
The events of the evening and the next day can be broken down into three major events: the hospital homicide, the Raspberry Ball assassination and the London butchering.
Here are the important events in a nutshell: I finally get an extra-large bottle of extra-strength aspirin, Jack gets ‘killed’ right under the nose of an English bobby, Paris performs a successful raspberry maneuver at the ball, Mulroy gets his throat cut, Paris disappears, (Nun)Chuck buries his stuff in the woods, Dominos loses his head, (Nun)Chuck doesn’t leave the country, and the Irish twins test their butchering skills in a London apartment.
The preparation for the hospital homicide and the Raspberry Ball assassination:
As Paris, the agent, not the city, is getting ready for the ball and (Nun)Chuckerella is going to his tailor, Mitchell and Fiona go to McGinnty’s to meet the McBobsey twins who are unhappily sipping sodas at the bar. After they make their plans for the evening’s assassination and Mitchell checks that their room is clean and their toys are put away, Mitchell and Fiona return to the safe-house while the twins go to the Quickening to accept the contract on Paris.
Back at the safe-house, Paris has a drink with Cahill and presents me with a lovely extra-large bow-tied bottle of extra-strength aspirin. Rossi is getting all gussied up in a chauffeur’s outfit.
After wishing everybody a good time at their respective ball and/or assassination, I find a video, make some popcorn and settle down for a Paris-style lovely evening. Cahill comes in and makes me stop the movie so we can deliver the props to fake Paris’s death. At least I don’t feel so bereft of belongings, because I now have an extra-large bow-tied bottle of extra-strength aspirin to go with my broken cell phone (which I have switched from sonic boom (ring) to seismic activity (vibrate) again) and my gun.
The Hospital Homicide:
The twins dress as a nurse and a doctor and gain entry into the hospital. They go to Jack’s room, but the bobby won’t let them in, because ever since the recent assassination attempts and one really bad nightmare, Jack only wants his regular doctors to treat him. Maureen tells the bobby that they have his payne medication so he should ask the patient if it’s okay that they enter. Since Mitchell already filled Jack in on the plan, Jack is more than happy (not really - he still harbors some residual distrust of the clerics-turned-medics) to allow his former-would-be-assassins-turned-saviors in.
The bobby inside the room won’t leave, so Maureen tells him the shot has to be injected into Jack’s butt. The bobby closes the curtains. She successfully injects Jack with a chemical to slow his heart rate down (without actually killing him) and Sean shoots Jack. Or rather he would have, had the gun not jammed. Sean clears it and then shoots, making Jack appear to be a bloody gurgling mess.
They walk out from behind the curtain, and the bobby, who never left the room, goes to pull the curtain. They start running. The stunned policeman first looks to see where they’ve gone, then turns and sees the bloody body. Sean pulls the fire alarm, they run down the stairs and escape to Fiona and Mitchell’s waiting car.
And boy are the twins f’in glad that Baku, the overzealous custodian, cleaned up the blank round from the floor before the police found it.
The Raspberry Ball Assassination:
Meanwhile, at the Raspberry Ball, Paris exchanges words and innuendoes with the head honchos. They all nod and make the I-know-something-about-you-that-you-don’t-know-that-I-know faces.
(Nun)Chuck arrives and makes his way to where the ultimate fighters have gathered. His former opponent greets him and congratulates him on a good draw. A confused (Nun)Chuck looks down at his napkin doodling - someone should tell him that you don’t do that on cloth napkins - but then realizes that the guy is referring to the outcome of the fight.
Paris, knowing that her one true assignment for this evening has not yet been completed, seeks out Mulroy. She and Mr. Ed exchange some not-so-niceties and she gives him the raspberry, scoring a never-before-seen-in-the-history-of-snooty-upper-crusty-society-events perfect ten from the former East German judge. A surprised Mr. Ed compliments her on her maturity and departs.
Across the room, (Nun)Chuck is squinting to see what Paris is doing, until he realizes that he is squinting his already slanted eyes and can’t see anything. He then asks one of the fighters to point out Mulroy to him, and sees Mr. Ed, who has rejoined his cronies at the adult’s table.
Paris goes to engage Dominos, the delivery guy, not the pizza or the tile game, in lovely conversation. She sees that he is at a full table and turns to leave. Dominos follows her.
(Nun)Chuck watches until Mr. Ed makes his way to the little boy’s room and follows him. (Nun)Chuck’s unsolicited plan to kill Mulroy in the bathroom is foiled by the fact that there is an attendant stationed there. (Nun)Chuck fades into the shadows of the hall outside the bathroom and waits. When Mr. Ed comes out, (Nun)Chuck sneaks up and slits Mr. Ed’s throat from behind. He drops the body and goes to bathroom, because killing always makes him want to rid his body of its impurities.
(Nun)Chuck then leaves the bathroom, steps over Mr. Ed and goes back to the main hall. On his way out, he passes some unfortunate gent, bumps into him and plants the bloody knife on him. Now if only we had some gloves that just didn’t fit quite right …
Anyway, the poor unsuspecting man sees Mr. Ed, and must have realized that it was a silent kill, because instead of screaming, he quietly passes out next to the body. (Nun)Chuck heads toward the back hallways so he can make his escape.
Back in the main hall, the music stops and some authority type jumps on the stage and orders everybody to sit down where they are immediately. Paris, who didn’t realize they were playing musical chairs, sits. Dominos sits next to her. Some other authority types go around and pick the literal types up off the floor and put them in chairs.
Back in the hall, (Nun)Chuck finds that the exit doors are locked, so he pulls the fire alarm and escapes into the night - well sort of. You see, shortly after that, not only are the police, the fire department and all of the security from the club and the security accompanying the dignitaries at the ball swarming the place, but the SAS (the moat wasn’t large enough to justify the SPOATS) have also shown up and are swarming the place. After he has successfully hidden all of his knives and equipment, (Nun)Chuck is spotted and ordered back into the not-on-fire castle with the rest of the crowd.
As Cahill and I are driving toward the Quickening, we are passed by all sorts of emergency service and special forces vehicles. Cahill runs the car around and we both guzzle some extra-strength aspirin tablets. Cahill calls Mitchell and tells him that the hit on Paris is off for tonight.
Corey spots (Nun)Chuck and asks what is going on. (Nun)Chuck tells him to pretend he didn’t see him. Corey tells him that he can’t find Paris, the agent, not the city. (Nun)Chuck makes another escape attempt and this time is successful.
Meanwhile, Rossi, who has been shining up the Rolls, is stunned at the arrival of the police, the fire department and the SAS.
Cahill and I arrive back at the safe-house and find Mitchell, Fiona and the twins eating my popcorn and watching the credits of my movie. We sit down to discuss what has happened. My elation at seeing a bandaged Jack wheel himself into the room is cut short when he asks me to get him out of Scotland. In the words of the Scots - not bloody likely! If I expend any energy on getting anybody out, it will be me.
The next few minutes were kind of chaotic, so let me recap. Mitchell finds out that it was Mulroy who was killed. Jack and I are celebrating with a drink, Maureen is making Sean put the silverware he stole back, (Nun)Chuck arrives and finds that although we are pleased that Mulroy is dead, we are less than pleased that he has taken matters into his own hands - probably causing the kidnapping of Paris, and Cahill is considering shooting his own kneecap.
I try to call Paris’s cell phone, but there is no answer so I call Rossi. He and Corey are at the car, but they don’t have Paris and they are not allowed to leave yet. I tell them to wait until the last possible minute to leave once they are released.
Rossi tampers with the engine and tells the police that his car won’t start. They send over some SAS-types who fix the car. Rossi then tells them that he can’t find his keys. They send someone over to pop the ignition and start the car, but Rossi realizes that Giles, the snooty head butler, will not see the humor in that situation and miraculously finds his keys.
Since Corey mentioned that the last person he saw Paris with was Dominos, I try to call him (Dominos, not Corey). He answers the phone, provides me with little useful information and tells me to hold on while he answers the door. I hear some noise in the background, so I narrate for the group: bad things happening at the pizza guy’s place … swords being drawn … someone beheaded … glass breaking … OW - really loud noise on the line … is every phone in Scotland conspiring against me?? I hate this place. I beat the receiver into submission and listen again, but the line is dead.
Mitchell calls and sends someone over to Dominos’s hotel room.
Rossi arrives and spends the evening pouring ale for Maureen.
In the wee hours of the morning, Mitchell receives a phone call telling him that Dominos has indeed been beheaded and the girl of questionable integrity that was with him performed a high dive out of the window, but missed the pool (mostly because there wasn’t one).
We have another meeting. We are no longer sure if Paris is even alive and most of want to storm the castle immediately. However, Sean manages to say one intelligent thing when he suggests that the twins go to collect their money for doing Jack in. Hoping that they can get information about their second target, Paris, Cahill tells them to go in the morning. (Nun)Chuck also wants to go, so he can collect his prize money. Cahill sends Jake Jake to investigate the murder of American citizen Dominos.
The next morning, (Nun)Chuck drives to the Quickening. He gets past the guard at the parking lot, and takes a trip through the woods to get all of the knives and equipment that he buried there last night.
The twins go to the front and knock. They are taken to see Cowan. He pays them more money than was guaranteed for Jack’s slaying and tells them something about the contract being fulfilled, except that they have to go to London and cut Dean something-or-other’s head off. They agree, take the money and leave.
(Nun)Chuck is taken to see Llewelyn Flinn. Flinn seems very tired as he pays (Nun)Chuck $100,000 (American). He tells (Nun)Chuck that they would prefer it if he ((Nun)Chuck) simply left the country and they even provide him with a one-way ticket to California as well as a ride to the airport.
(Nun)Chuck asks them to stop at his hotel room and calls me from there. He is a little apprehensive about his escorts and wants someone to follow him. I tell Cahill and go to finish watching my movie. Cahill insists that I go with him and everybody in the room tells me the ending. I HATE this place.
Sean and Maureen arrive as we’re leaving and mention to me that they are going to London to kill someone. Mitchell calls customs and tells them to detain (Nun)Chuck and not let him leave. He looks at me to see if that’s what I want. Of course it is, if I can’t leave, nobody can!
Cahill and I follow (Nun)Chuck to the airport. I mention to Cahill that the bad guys are going to check that someone used the ticket and volunteer to be the traveler. He doesn’t seem to like that plan. He drops me off so I can follow (Nun)Chuck and he follows the car to make sure they leave.
As far as I can tell, I am the only person following (Nun)Chuck. He stops at a phone and calls my cell phone, which is still on seismic activity. I answer politely. He wants to know what I am doing. Well, let’s see … I’m following you - just like you asked, you moron. My head hurts, but I can no longer take any of the tables from my extra-large bow-tied bottle of extra-strength aspirin, because Paris may already be dead and it would be the last thing she gave me.
My phone shocks me again. My side is beginning to hurt so I answer a little less politely. It is Sean. He forgot to tell me that he thinks Paris is not dead yet because of what Cowan told him. I pop two aspirins.
I get some satisfaction as I watch (Nun)Chuck get taken away by customs and suddenly realize that I am in the airport with nobody else around. What’s to stop me from just taking a flight out of here? Oh yeah - no money, no ID, no passport, no ticket … I make a brief call to my therapist to tell him I am depressed about not being able to leave. For some reason, he seems to be in a really happy mood today.
Not wishing to waste this opportunity, I look around for someone to steal a passport from. However, apparently everybody is itching to get out of here, because they are all guarding their papers with their lives.
I do the phone dance again due to another incoming call. My side is on fire from the constant taser-ing it’s taking from the phone and I’m depressed, so I answer the phone rudely. It’s Cahill. He wants to know what’s wrong. I don’t tell him, but he guesses it’s because I couldn’t leave.
My feet feel like lead bricks as I go out to his car and I cast a backwards pathetic longing glance at the departing planes. I tell him that Paris may not be dead yet and that the twins are on their way to London to kill Dean. For some reason, he feels that it is difficult to get the real story from the twins when they’re together, so he calls Mitchell and asks him to have the twins questioned separately about what Cowan said.
The twins are less than pleased to see two heavily armed SAS guys get on their train and sit across from them. They go to the bar car and the SAS dudes follow.
When they arrive in London, they are met by two waiting cars. A glance behind them reveals that the SAS guys are going to make sure they get in the cars. Each of them is asked what Cowan said and, surprisingly, they seem to have heard almost the same exact conversation. The cars drop them off near their target’s location.
The twins then go to Dean’s apartment. Sean knocks on the door and it is answered by kilt-boy (you know, the little shit who was dealing ecstasy, the drug, not the mood, at the Quickening). Sean starts to ask if Dean is in, but Maureen pulls her gun out and pushes her way into the apartment. While Sean holds kilt-boy, Maureen runs to the back room, where Dean is trying to escape through the window. She shoots him several times before he finally dies on the fire escape. She starts dragging him back into the apartment.
Out in the living room, kilt-boy and Sean are bitch-slapping each other (really bad dice rolls). Sean becomes irate that he is engaging in such an unmanly activity and shoots kilt-boy several times. Then he goes to help Maureen get Dead-Dean into the bathroom. They have no sword, so they get the largest kitchen knife they can find. You see where this is going, right?
Sean then strips off his clothing (to avoid blood splatters) and begins to cut Dead-Dean’s head off while Maureen searches for valuables. Not being terribly experienced in the field of decapitation, there is a terrible clamor from the bathroom as Sean fights with Dead-Dean’s head. His cries of ‘I want the head’, ‘just get off, will ya’ and ‘give it to me now’ have attracted the attention of the landlady, who is putting her keys in the door. Maureen goes into the living room and fakes an orgasm the likes of which hasn’t been heard since the diner scene in When Harry Met Sally, and the landlady turns and leaves.
Maureen returns to the blood-bath-room and finds Sean triumphantly holding up the head. Then he becomes sad as he realizes that they have no camera. Maureen finds some money and some drugs.
The two moral McBobseys stand in the blood splattered bathroom, Sean with head (not his own) in hand, Maureen with Dean’s money in hers, throw the drugs in the toilet in disgust at the evils of the modern world, and flush.
While Sean showers, Maureen wipes his prints off of the bathroom surfaces. Then they go for fish and chips and then take the train back to Scotland.
So where do we go from here? Well, we decide that someone should go talk to the true head honcho, and since it has to be someone with tact, certain people have been eliminated from consideration, leaving Fiona to go speak with Sir Keene Elliot in that snooty yet seemingly polite way the Brits have.
What are our assets? That’s a tough one: we have Jack, who is stuck in a wheelchair with his index fingers in the point position due to the casts on them; Sean and Maureen, whose twisted sense of morality confuses even me - and I can rationalize almost anything; (Nun)Chuck, who is a little too eager to kill anybody whose name may have been mentioned in a negative way; Jake Jake, who is simply relieved that he was with all of us when Domino’s murder occurred, so he knows it wasn’t us; Rossi, who is developing bar tender’s elbow from trying to pour enough glasses of beer for Maureen; Fiona and Mitchell, who are surely on the safe-house staff’s shit lists for bringing the crass Americans and boorish Irish to their once quiet and orderly place of employment; Cahill, who is finally realizing that I don’t exaggerate too much in my reports; and me, and I can’t figure out why I can’t seem to find a way out of this haggis-eating hellhole.
AWARDS
Jake Jake
The Irish Twins
(Nun)Chuck
Sheila
Paris
Rossi
Cahill
The GM