Play@YSDC

Rare Book Buyer Antiquarian
1510 Lexington Avenue


H-cell has been assigned the closed-down Rare Books shop, 1st floor. HOLDEN has the keys. All other operatives have received a TEXT with the adress and HOLDEN is assigned team leader. No details about the job except that it is related to the Lexington live concert due on Wednesday, August 1. At 7PM. Venue is the old site for Club Apocalypse on 1533 Lexington Avenue/98th Street. Only a one minute stroll from the venue will prove easy on the shoes.

Sunday July 8
16:40

The Rare Book Buyer is closed for business, but a woman in dark grey overalls is sweeping the floor in the foyer.

Not much time for sightseeing, but then, getting to New York City on short notice had been an adventure on its own already... The Rare Book Buyer. Say what you want about the guys up there, but they do have a sense of irony at times that he can appreciate. Times like these, for example. He has walked around the block twice already, just to be sure and get a feeling for the surroundings. So now John walks up to the adress he had been given.

He wears a light grey suit with dark shoes and an orange tie with some violet stripes and an LA Lakers logo on it. As he closes in on the place, he sees the 'closed' sign, but also that there is someone sweeping the foyer, so he knocks at the door to gain the attention of the sweeping woman.

"Excuse me, Miss ! I have an appointment with Mister Holden, would you know whether he's there ?"

As with everywhere in this city, parking is at a premium and almost as rare as hen's teeth. Lionel manages to find a spot a block up and parks his car, (his POV, not his unmarked cruiser), and walks towards the book store. He's carrying one of those NPR tote bags you get for pledging and it appears to have something in it. He arrives right about the time a gentleman with a loud tie knocks on the bookstore's door and asks about Holden.

Lionel(Smiling at the gentleman): "Holden, huh? My wife sent me down to see if he had anymore opera tickets. Do you see him?"

John turns, the woman in the hall forgotten, as he is asked about Holden. He#s not too sure what to think of the man opposite him, but Holden might be a good sign. 'Might' being the key word... He gives the man a quick stealthy once-over.

"Opera tickets, eh ? Didn't know he deals in those as well... Nah, haven't seen him so far. Any specific opera he has you tagged for ?"

He puts a bit of odd stress on the word 'tagged' to give the other guy a chance. He wants him to pick up on it, because his answer might go a long way in detemining what happens next.

"She says it's some kind of Rock Opera done by a group called Charnel Dreams, think she called them. Looked them up and Jeff Wayne they ain't. But she wants a Night at the Opera, so a Night at the Opera is what's happenin', know what I'm sayin'? Even had to drop by Greens to get a box of her favorite treats."

Lionel looks the guy up and down.
"By the way, you may want to ditch the tie while in Knicks-Territory; calling attention to yourself like that is a good way to get hurt."

"Hah, well, that better than nothing. last time my wife wanted to go out, we ended spending my free day at the races. She had a lot more fun with that than I did... But yeah, now that you say it, I've heard of those Charnel Dreams people. Not my style, but the things you do for family..."

He gives an exaggerated sigh and grins.

"I'm not afraid of the Knicks and neither of their fans. If this were New Jersey, I'd reconsider, but I don't feel too threatened here, really."

After short deliberation, he extends his hand to the other man.

"I'm Harris. Most people call me Harry, though."

The woman puts the broom away in a corner, and it refuses to stay put. "Damn it! Stay!" She manages to get the broom to be still.
She produces a set of keys from her utility belt and opens the door to the Rare Book Buyer. "You´d better hop in here fellas. Or the tennants may think we´re hosting a convention here."

She puts on a grey cap with a green leaf stylized within a white cirkle. "Must be mindful to have the proper attire at work. My boss is a stickler for Go Green."

Well inside the books store, she says. "I´m not sure when to expect HOLDEN but I may be able to answer some questions you may have. What are your assigned names, gentlemen?"

Interior of the closed book shop.

"I have HOLDEN on my list, among others. Now I need to check your credentials, or prepare another clean up." She walks to a check out counter and pulls out a drawer, smiling.

As the light begins to fade a battered open-topped jeep, looking like it has been driven from the jungles of the Yucatan such is the decay and dirt, pulls up across the street from the book store. A man, yanking the key out after slamming the jeep into park, hops out and quickly crosses the street.



He looks weathered, like an old surfer, and wears a flamboyant Hawaiian shirt over a plain white tee. He also sports battered khaki cargo shorts, large pockets bulging with papers and open-toed beach sandals with thick rubber soles. He pushes his sunglasses up onto his head and enters the store, flashing a winning smile at the assembled people: "So I'm here....which one of you HOLDEN?" His accent is West Coast with a hint of Latino that betrays his heritage.

His eyes flash around the room, taking it all in...

By the counter, a janitor pulls out a Colt Special .38 from beneath the counter. She lays it down beside the cash register.
She raises an eyebrow and replies, "It ain´t me honey. Who shall I take a message from?"

Lionel walks into the store, thinking less-than-complementary thoughts about all the James Bond bird-**** he has to put up with when tagged.
"You can call me Lionel, ain't met Holden yet..." He looks at the Woman, " 'less that you."

OCC: bad timing.
At the woman: "You can tell Holden that Lionel's here for those Opera tickets he texted me about."

"Me? I´m Shaw. And HOLDEN is a no-show. As far as I´m informed you people should present yourselves and I´m to verify that you are on my list." Shaw puts her finger tips on the counter and waits. "I´ve not met HOLDEN yet. And it obviously ain´t you lot."

The man is not phased by the sight of the pistol, 'Yeah thought as much. Can no one can just hello anymore?' the thinks before closing the shop door behind him. He turns on his most charming Latino smile and simply says "HUSKER. You called me, so I'm guessing things must be...difficult." He is not a particularly tall or well built man, but he moves with a powerful assurance as he throws himself down is a chair, pulling a tired face once again.

"Welcome, HUSKER. A-cell sends their regards." Turning to the other two gentlemen, Shaw says, "I have no Lionel on the list."

Lionel sighs.****ing 007 crap.
"Halphoh, call me Halphoh."

"Sure thing, Lionel...Never had a doubt. You mr tie-man, what about you?"

"Harris, Miss."

John is clearly mostly amused by how this turned out. At least something of a nice twist on how things usually go. He smirks and looks from one of the other guests to the other and back.

"Ah, mr HARRIS, that makes us all friendlies." She leaves the counter and resumes, "A quartet is missing, counting with your team leader. But that can´t hinder us. For all I know, you were the only ones to make it in one piece. The Network might have tracked the rest of the crew." She waves at the three men to follow her to a corner, furnitured with leather couches sporting high backs."I´m here to see that you stau alive, now that you have reached the safe house. I have a group on stand by in Washington, should things go pear shaped. But for now - what do you boys know about the assigment?"

Shaw touches her ear and listens.

"Gentlemen, it seems HOLDEN is being delayed. Which one of you would feel suited to take the team leader brief? I will leave you alone for a minute to discuss."

She leaves the store and takes post at the entry on Lexington Avenue.

OOC: Take it over to the OCC thread?

"I'm too old to be leading anything other than the conga-line to the bar!" Quips Husker. He tilts his head expectantly waiting to see who will volunteer. He learned in the Marine Corp long ago not to volunteer. Volunteers catch bullets...

"Well, what do we know about this? All I know is that this club got shut down 22 years ago and the owner left the country. Now, it's doing a grand re-opening complete with a upcoming act. The why the owner left and and why it's reopening now, I dunno. I can only guess it wacko-related if the back office wants us to check it out."

"Neither of you are local, are you?" He looks at Henderson, "Well I know you're not." *grins* "I can take lead when we case the club, but I don't know enough about this run the mission."

If John has learned one thing in the military, it was the age old adage... Never be the first, never be the last, never volunteer.
On the one hand, it is probably wise to stick to the wisdom passed down the generations from one man to the next, on the other hand, he has already violated one part of the principle and so, fucking up further is no concern anymore. This is a DG assignment, what's the worst that can possibly happen anyway ?

"Not local, no." That uch is pretty obvious, but he still confirms it to Lionel with a sly smirk. "In that case, I think the young ones need to take over with their greenness and daring. I'm not too familiar with the lay ogf the land, but before we have to form a comittee to decide anything, I'll assume leadership and show you two old men how its done."

Shaw returns and takes HARRIS aside and whispers in his ear. Shaw hands a few print outs and sits back prepared to asnwer any questions the agents might have.

HUSKER starts to sift through the paperwork and groans inwardly, 'this again, I thought I'd put this behind me'. He takes time to study his companions over the papers, 'dammit, Kat used to do the reading side of things. I wonder how she's been?'. After a while he sets them down, "Okay, so what's the plan? We wait for HOLDEN or we go?"

17:40
HECTOR is nearing in on the address of the rare books buyer.
HOLDEN is touching down at LaGuardia airport.

"Well, also part of the instructions I got was to get some items from the local GB." He holds up the bag. "This is one of them, an academic book about some early 19th century armies."

Halphoh glances over at Husker, "If I'm right about the vibe I'm getting from you, I got a toy in the trunk of my car that'll be right up your alley." grin

OOC:   If Husker's the SpecOP type I think he is, then he'll be able to make better use of that goofball firearm I got from the Greenbox.

Harris nods and sits down, flipping through the papers.

"And on the 8th day, God was bored and most likely a bit cranky and hungover, and so, to keep himself amused, he created paperwork. And while it is good to know he's on our side, its better to know he wants three copies of everything, filled out and signed well before the deadline passes."

He smirks, as the BG items are mentioned.

"I have a ski mask, an overall from the sanitation department and some spray cans with a post it telling me to watch Boondock saints for advice on how to use them. And reminding me to pick up all digits afterwards."

After a short look back on the papers, he sums things up a bit.

"So, intel. We should probably dig up something about the club ownership and Carnal dreams. Another avenue we might want to secure is Operation Sandman and all we can get about the drug called 'The dreaming man'. Apparently it was a highly unusual drug originating from Harfleur. Especially with the Voodoo bloodbath, it seems like M-Cell was facing serious and capable opposition that was able to get to them 8 years after the fact or so it seems. Perhaps it might be worthwhile to try and find survivors of the massacre back then. Another matter of possible interest is this Franklin Hoder...

In addition to that, it might be a good idea to stake out the club and make a few notes who comes and goes.

Additional ideas or remarks, gentlemen ?"

Francis, was tired, he'd been called into the office on a Sunday for an urgent update on the situation in England. The meeting had started at 2pm, over two hours ago; and nothing mentioned so far could be described as urgent or an update. The British government were still blaming the Russians, which in Francis' opinion was probably on the money but some weird claims by the then Foreign Secretary had muddied the waters about the provenance of the nerve-agent used in the attacks. The fact that two more people had been exposed was a surprise, it didn't seem likely that those people had links back to Russia. Was this second contamination a smoke-screen, to discredit the British, it was certainly a viable option and, quite frankly viable to the other supposition that a 'rogue element' had access to Novichok.

The meeting wound up; with as Francis had suspected nothing new, nothing concrete, he wondered if the British were sanitising their intel. Something that seemed more and more likely given the current political status and that would make everyone's job a lot harder. The only thing that the analysts could agree on was that there was no evidence of this becoming a wider problem but without having viable suspects keeping tabs on any groups likely to be using nerve agents was next to impossible. All the known elements were on watch-lists already. Nothing else could be done at this stage.

Francis made his way back to his office, locking the paperwork in his secure filing cabinet. Turning to leave his hand brushed the top drawer of the unit under his desk, he stopped and on a sudden whim opened the drawer. He was surprised to see the blinking light on the phone, he'd missed a text! Quickly unlocking the phone he checked the messages, there were three from the same 'unknown number'. He frowned, why three messages? Usually he got two, location and drop off that was it, no more no less, always two addresses. He scrolled down, the first address he recognised it was the Manhattan Mall the second an address on Lexington Avenue, the third simply said 'Meet Holden, identify yourself as Hector'.

Francis check the text messages again then his watch, he could get to both places in about an hour, he wasn't sure exactly where the Inflexion Avenue address was but his guess would be somewhere in the 90's, he'd check once he got the the Mall - that was his first 'port of call'.

Unlocking the bottom drawer he took out his Glock 19 and fastening the holster to his belt. Pocketing his 'Green phone' he left his office and headed out across St Andrews Plaza towards Chambers Street where he could ride the subway to Penn Station, it was only a couple of hundred yards walk from there to the Mall.

The Mall wasn't very busy but at this time yesterday the place would have been quite packed with 'Saturday Shoppers'. He knew the way to the lockers, he'd been there twice before. Always directed by the text messages and both times to collect an item to be dropped off elsewhere in Manhattan, though never to the address on Lexington Avenue. The combination to the locker had been changed. He punched in the digits and opened the door, he couldn't help but look around and was relieved to see there wasn't anyone close by.

There was just a large white plastic carrier bag in the locker, Francis picked it up and double checked there wasn't anything else inside before closing the door and re-engaging the lock. He headed for the east exit, Google told him that he'd miss the next no 6 subway train but he should have enough time to get to the 33rd street subway to pick up the one after that.

Finding his carriage almost empty Francis took a look into the bag, there was a uniform of some kind inside, one of the fancy ones, used for formal occasions and something else. Silky to touch he almost laughed realising it was a ladies wig. Blonde, a long blonde wig, kind of weird. His other assignments had been sealed boxes, metal, locked, like the one that his son's scout troop used to collect keep money in. Petty cash boxes, that was they type he'd collected before, not some random items.

This was definitely odd, perhaps it was a test, he shrugged mentally - it was almost a year since his last 'courier job'; perhaps things had changed.

He rode the rest of the journey trying not to think about why he'd been contacted again and was soon standing oppose the address on his phone, the sign said 'Rare Books' the windows were empty, the place was vacant and yet a petite woman with dark hair was sweeping the foyer. Crossing the street he approached the door, and knocked on the glass.

The woman stopped her work and approached the door, unlocking it and pushing it open a little. "Yeah.. what do you want." she said in a disinterested voice, dark eyes looking directly at him.

Francis smiled, "I'm here to meet with Mr Holden, I'm late though... is here here?" he asked, his eyes narrowed, there was something almost familiar about the woman, not her voice, the way she'd walked across the foyer maybe?

"Yes, sir. Step insid, HECTOR."
The woman lights a cigarette and makes no effort to open the door. "Please, tell the visitors inside, that I´ll be back in an hour." She draws at the cigarette and walks off.

Three men are discussing something in a corner furnishured with leather couches.

HUSKER offers his hand to Halphoh, "Marcus LaHabra, please to meet you" That grin again, "Yeah I served a few tours with the corp before heading back home and getting mixed up in all this. I was an ATF agent at the time of the SANDMAN incident, to be honest I've tried to put it out of my mind. I may have some of Tony's files in storage somewhere...". Movement outside caught his sharp eyes and cuts off mid-sentence, "looks like we have another friend!"

Francis saw the others stop talking amongst themselves, guessing that's his queue he steps forwards, "Hey.. I'm Hector and I've beed told to report here, with these." he holds up the carrier bag "Is Holden here?" he adds, looking at each of the others in turn.

Melinda was making the catalogue of several pieces that had been smuggled to the USA; most came from the middle east when she received a message.
"My daughter probably needs some money". She look at the message: unknown sender. She paled and the read the message. No doubt about it. Well, it was already past her time, so she would continue next day. She left to the meeting.
Finally, she arrived at the place. It seemed empty, except for a women. She smiled and approached:
"Hi, I'm Melinda and I'm supposed to find here Holden".

"Naw, Holdon ain't here yet."
Halphoh looks over the newcomer's shoulder.
"Hey' where'd Shaw run off to?"

OOC:   HARRIS has assumed the role as team leader for H-cell. Refer any questions you had to HOLDEN directly to HARRIS from now on.

SweeperAZ wrote: "Hey' where'd Shaw run off to?"

"If you mean the woman that was watching the foyer.. she said that she was going on a 'smoke break'. he shrugs. "I guess we better make sure the front door's secure..."

Francis heads back to the front door to lock it, if anyone else wants to get in, they can knock.

HUSKER leaps out of his chair as the woman enters the room and clutches her in a amiable bear hug before pulling away sheepishly, “Hot damn it’s good to see you Mel, how have you been?”

HARRIS seems to have gotten another message. He frowns as he reads it. Interesting, but not particularly well-boding... But first things first. He waits until HUSKER and the other person have finished their greeting. He's a bit wary of a person with no H-themed name presented, but HUSKER seems to know her and if he is tagged, hes willing to assume she is as well.

"Well, I don't know whether we're complete yet or not, but I guess before we go into further planning and details, we can shortly get a general overview of who's here and do a general introduction to get an idea how we can mesh our abilities best... So, as some of you might already know, my codename is Harris. For the time being, I have taken over responsibility for this mission from Holden. I guess we can dispense with some formality here, as we're all in the same boat. People normally call me Harry of Frank, both works. I am with the IRS and thus like to think I'm somewhat good with numbers. I also got some weapons training in the Navy, should that become necessary."

That was, from his perspective, the most important part, smaller bits could still be added if necessary. He looked around if someone wanted to pick up here. Also because they might be able to figure some things out from who came from what agency.

[OOC: Dunno if this is the place, but thought, a small introduction wouldn't hurt ! We'll get back to facts and figures quickly enough, I guess... ]

"Like I said, I'm Halphoh, becuase alliteration sucks. And I'm a local homicide detective."

OOC:   This is my first DG/Mythos game so I don't quite spretchin ze lingo yet.

"If we need anything the NYPD has on Sandman, I could probably get it; me and Marney, my buddy in records, go back a bit, so he wont ask too many pointed questions unless it's something restricted, then I'll have to bribe him.

"Well, do you mind that I wait then?"- says Mel still smiling.

Kathryn Petersen has been sitting in her car, watching the bookstore and, more importantly, looking for anyone else watching the bookstore. It strikes her as risky to have their safe house just down the block from the target building. Sure, it lets them better keep an eye on the place, but it also means that they could be observed in turn. It doesn't fill her with confidence that nobody in the safe house has noticed her observing them, though she is good at what she does. Maybe she's just being paranoid, but paranoia has helped her stay alive all these years, and considering that that building was involved, it was certainly warranted. She has watched both Marcus and Melinda arrive, pleased to see them again. Now that they're here and she's satisfied that the bookstore isn't being watched, she goes up to the front door and knocks.

Hearing the knock at the door, HUSKER gets up from his chair and walks briskly to the door, peering out into the street. A flash of recognition crossed his weathered face and he snaps open the lock and yanks the door so hard it almost comes away from the frame. He checks, realising he is making an ass of himself and then smiles warmly, "Hi Kat, how ya been?"

Kathryn folds her arms around Marcus and gives him a squeeze. "I'm all right," she says. "How've you been, Habs? It's good to see you again."