IC: Maksim, Thomas, Andrei & Caroline Drive to Harlem.

[Raiko]

The few pedestrians who have got close to the car dart aside as, horn blaring, Andrei accelerates rapidly along 137th Street, leaving Lenox Avenue behind.

[coffee demon]

Andrei keeps glancing into the rearview mirror.

"What does it LOOK like happened?" he growls.

"I hope you got what you wanted in that shop, Thomas, because we've got every negro in New York alerted now!"

He pauses for a second. His upper lip inches up into a snarl.

"Thomas, you will NEVER... EVER go off on one of your STUPID PLANS AGAIN! WITHOUT TALKING IT THROUGH WITH THE REST OF US! DO YOU SEE ALL THIS BLOOD? LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT ME! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WALK IN LIKE SOME... SOME GOD-DAMNED AMERICAN COWBOY!"

"YOU'RE LUCKY I HAD THE COMMON SENSE TO GUARD THAT ALLEY, OR YOU'D ALL BE DEAD!"

Andrei is struggling to maintain self-control. His knuckles are white, gripping the wheel tightly. He's still watching the rearview mirror, but also starts looking for someplace to ditch the car - a vacant lot, an old warehouse area, or anywhere where there might not be people around.

[OC: Disclaimer: the thoughts and actions of Andrei do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of CoffeeDemon ]

[Maksim Rukov]

If the old maxim about divide and conquer proved accurate, they were all doomed, Maksim thought to himself, somewhat cheerful that someone else was being scolded now. The best thing to do was keep his head down and watch all suspicious characters. He wasn't going to just take pot shots on a crowded day-light street, even if he could be reasonably certain a person was a cultist. Better to wait and watch and save his ammunition for when he actually had to kill someone.

[warhammer]

"Settle down, pal." answers Thomas. His tone is angry but he makes an effort to not raise his voice.

"You're not the one whose friend and business partner is probably trapped or buried somewhere in that shop's cellar, are you? You ever think of that? Last time I checked I did not force you to come along if you didn't wanna. A man is responsible of nobody's actions but his own. If you wanted me to go by myself, I would have. And I put my own safety on the line as much as you did. The trap could very well have been inside the shop."

[coffee demon]

"Shut up, Thomas."

Andrei's voice is cracking. He doesn't want to hear anyone else's point of view at the moment. Not only that, he's extremely stressed, and solely acting on adrenaline at the moment.

Halfway through his argument, Andrei interrupts and repeats, "Shut UP, and help me find a place to hide this car."

[warhammer]

"You know, just because you've had a bad day, that's still no free ticket to lose your good manners." says Thomas, possibly in an effort to annoy Andrei by being overtly calm. "Good manners are free. Everybody can have them. Just a minute ago you were ranting about talking things through, now you tell people to shut up. Pull yourself together and start making sense again."

[coffee demon]

Andrei falls silent, and keeps driving. Through the rearview mirror, Thomas can see that his eyes are flickering back and forth, like he's running things through his mind. He shakes his head occasionally, as though he's holding an irritated conversation with himself.

"Just.. STOP.. talking and find a place to hide the damned car."

Andrei is still extremely high-energy, and Thomas' calm logic is only making things worse. It looks like he's more likely to pull over the car and start strangling Thomas than anything else.

[OC: I'm trying to play this as though Andrei just came out of a Pulp Fiction "I shot a man and he exploded all over me" moment, with a little less self-control.]

[Decrepit]

Caroline tries and fails to avoid the eye-rolling that Andrei's and Thomas's bickering is inducing in her. As her mind drifts some, she suddenly realizes that although Andrei hadn't been shot, someone else must've been, and she'd failed to even wonder about that, much less help someone who'd been injured. For all she knew, it could've been an innocent bystander--not that that mattered; ultimately, her oath bound her to help anyone. It'd only been a few days, yet she could already feel the needle of her moral compass being redirected by the magnet of dire necessity. Or maybe it was by her own cowardice. It was easy enough to just drift along with the bullish men here, help only the "good guys," think first of her own safety.

"I want to know what happened," she says finally, as firmly as she chan manage, trying to regain some initiative for herself.

[Raiko]

Harlem, New York – Abandoned Factories by the River
2:50pm – Friday 16th January, 1925

Andrei finds an area where there are a couple of disused factories on the East-bank of the Harlem River. It's a few blocks away from Ju-Ju House and nobody seems to have followed them.

[coffee demon]

Checking the rearview mirror one last time, Andrei swerves down a road between two unused factories. He slows down, looking for a good place to hide the car.

"Three men came out of the building across the road. One went running for reinforcements, the other two attacked me with machetes."

His neck is starting to itch with the drying blood.

Andrei pulls into an old factory and parks the car in the dark. Not saying anything, he strips off his bloody jacket and shirt. Inspecting his undershirt, he sees that only a bit of blood stains the collar.

He vigorously wipes his face with the clean part of his shirt, asking Caroline to point out areas he missed. After a few moments, he asks her, "What happened to you?"

[OC: I'll be away for the rest of the day, but Andrei would like to ditch his jacket and overshirt, clean his pistol, ensure there's no evidence in the car, and take a cab back to Elizabeth's. He's extremely grumpy, not very talkative, and avoids speaking directly with Thomas.]

[warhammer]

Thomas lights a cigarette and, likely, avoids speaking to Andrei, preferring to lean against a wall and let Caroline do the talking.

[Decrepit]

"Not much, Andrei," Caroline replies. "We'd just noticed that there was a trapdoor under a rug in the JuJu House. The owner was in the back looking for something when we heard the shot.

"Now answer my question."

[Maksim Rukov]

Maksim squeezes Andrei's shoulder and looks Thomas in the eye. "You have to take responsibility for the rest of your team. That is what a leader does. As you led us there, what happened is your responsibility as much as ours."

[coffee demon]

"I just told you", Andrei mumbles to Caroline. He watches to see Thomas' reaction to Maks.

[OC: If we can take any items we own out of the car, and get a cab out of here, we could just as easily take up the conversation in the apartment, and get the other players back in...]

[warhammer]

"I agree with you one hundred percent, Maksim." says Thomas. "I'm not a man to dodge responsibility. I was answering Andrei's quip about the "stupid plan". If it was indeed so obviously stupid, like I told him, he wasn't forced to come. Some of us made that choice and stayed at the apartment. The deal was clear: I came up with a plan, good or bad, that's not the point. I stated the plan clearly and asked who wanted to come along. That is all. Not coming along was a perfectly valid option."

[Maksim Rukov]

"That's not true," says Maksim. "We didn't have that choice. It's not just about whether the plan is sound or not, it's also about leaving you to die. When you risk your life, you risk the lives of those around you because they're willing to risk themselves for you. You didn't ask us to come along but we can't stand by and watch you die. And as for your plan, you didn't lay it out clearly, not until we were in the car."

"I didn't know you were about to start searching the place, and neither did Timour, not a chance would he miss that. You wanted to go through the place and you wanted to go through it now. I don't blame you on the last point, about not fully explaining what you wanted to do, we all gotta learn and I'm sure you don't have much experience in this sorta thing. But you gotta realise there's more that leads someone to come along then just because they thought your plan was smart."

[Raiko]

[OOC: If nobody objects we could say you successfully get back to the Dakota Apartments by taxi. Then you can continue your discussions there with the others. You'd arrive back at the Dakota in approx 40-45 minutes game time, which would maybe be enough time for any adreneline rushes to have ended

Then we can learn which Timour values the most: Mick's life, Andrei's life or his car]

[Maksim Rukov]

OOC: Maksim has made his point. He's more then happy to move on back to the apartment and won't bring this up again for now. How about we just wait to hear Thomas' response -if any (or Caroline's, if she has anything to add) then take it over there?

[Raiko]

[OOC: That's fine, I didn't realise you were posting while I was.

I'll wait until everyone has said their piece, then I'll move you all back to the Dakota

EDIT: Damn accidently overwrote my previous post with this, editting now]

[Decrepit]

OC: I've got nuttin'. I guess Andrei basically did say what happened already ... maybe I can get him to change his story if I ask enough.