CH3-04 Down by the shore

[Mr. Handy]

"I can refine my search and see what else I can dig up on Rudaj," says Liz. "Some hacking might be in order, but I'll have to be careful. We know they employ a hacker because they took down that website we set up, so they'll likely have defenses. I'd have to use proxies and multiple steps along my route so they can't trace me back."

[BenTheRat]

"Be careful Liz," Greg adds in while grabbing another slice. "You Brits might like that Indian food, but give me some good old pizza any day." He takes a bite and takes a good drink. "Wow, I needed this thank you guys. I need to probably get back to the translations, there might be some information there that will help us in dealing with this whole mess."

[Mr. Handy]

"I like a good curry as much as the next Brit," says Liz, also taking a new slice dripping with cheese, "but I know not to overdo it. Pizza is the fuel that keeps me going more often than not. I may be small, but I can really pack it away, and I've always been able to eat as much as I want without gaining weight. That translation looks like a long-term project, so the rest of us will need to continue our own work while you're doing that."

[ghill]

OOC:   OK... Mr H a be a bit more specific about what you plan on doing what avenues of research Liz intends to follow. If hacking what, where you intend to try and hack. BenTheRat - If Greg intends to go back to intensive study then we're back to POW rolls I'll deal with that in a separate post.

Andy - discovers the following

1) Jock confirms there are rumours but absolutely no evidence about Rudaj having or having had link to crime gangs but this is similar to every Russian Oligarch having links to the Russian Bratva.

Efforts to try and get Rudaj's current whereabouts do not bear any fruit.

2) Get a picture of Rudaj - from Liz perhaps Despite Liz's best efforts she cannot find any photo of Rudaj from which you can make out enough detail to say he is a man of above average height and build probably in his 50's with dark hair, Liz suggests there is some indication that someone has purged the web of anything more useful.

3) Look into the property deals. - See Liz's post

4) Find out where the rest of 'Gossham's' artefacts are - The professor has been through the Universities records and identified everything Gossham ever admitted to having or owning all of which he has accounted for and are currently held in secure storage either at the university's archaeology department or the AR lab at OU in Milton Keynes, where he got them tested.

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,I'd like to see what I can find out about [b]Redrupp [/b]and [b]Vosper[/b] (the law firm as well as the partners) on the Internet, starting with what's publicly available, using the same technique I used to research [b]Rudaj[/b]. No hacking just yet. Let's see what I can find out first, and then I'll know what to look for when the time comes to hack.

[ghill]

OOC:   Liz can quite easily ascertain the following: The offices of Reddrup and Vosper are on Carter Lane in the shadow of St. Pauls Cathedral in the heart of the city, A former townhouse which has been extensively renovated in a steel and chrome style (at least downstairs in the rooms visible on street view) Redrupp and Vosper by reputation. The offices of Redrupp and Vosper advertise themselves as experts in both company and commercial law, as well as advising high net worth individuals on their personal and financial affairs. Basically, if you want to hide your piles of cash from the Inland Revenue they're your man. By reputation, R&V are known to be highly litigious taking people to court if there is even the slightest hint, they or one of their clients has been involved in wrongdoing. Following in his father’s footsteps, Michael Reddrupp embarked on a career as a Solicitor after studying law at Hull University. He joined his father’s firm as a trainee in 1981 qualifying as a Solicitor two years later specialising in commercial law. He was made Partner and Head of Litigation in 1987 in which role he acted principally in commercial litigation matters. Gemma Vosper is the other senior partner in the law firm. She graduated with a law degree from London University in 1990, following a change of career. She became a Partner in 2003. Gemma specialises in property and employment law. The security IT set up for the offices seems particularly hardened and professional Liz can't decide whether this is unusual or not considering the firms high net worth and corporate clients. - Any attack on the offices will take time and effort.

[Mr. Handy]

Liz shares what she's learned with her friends. "Redrupp and Vosper is likely to be a tough nut to crack," she says. "Maybe I should start with Alex Rudaj's home computer. It's prolly less protected."

[ghill]

Its a matter of moments for Liz to check and then check again but to Liz's surprise there doesn't seem to be an internet connection to the house in Beaconsfield

[Mr. Handy]

"Odd," says Liz with a smirk, "Alex Rudaj has no home Internet. It's almost like he doesn't want to get hacked. Well, if I'm going to try to get into Redrupp and Vosper's data, it's going to be the toughest nut I've ever cracked. I'd need to prepare carefully, and it would take a while."

[carnage_lee]

Andy Wade

Andy stabs at the 'end call' button on his mobile, ending what seems like his twentieth call to the few contacts he has, he's not happy.. not happy at all. All he seems to have done is trade the few favours he had for the same information.. plenty of rumour but no proof.. no proof linking Rudaj with anything even remotely dodgy. Reading between the lines Andy got the distinct impression that a lot of people thought that investigating the Albanian crime gangs was a seriously bad idea. Worst of all was the tense conversation with Jock the editor who had initially sent him onto the story. Jock had made it crystal clear that too much time had passed without Andy filing anything and unless he could come up with anything juicy he was probably persona non grata at the papers' offices.

Glumly he rejoined the others and sat down with a heavy sigh. "Well that was a waste of time.. there's a lot of rumours about Rudaj but no one has ever been able to pin anything on him, I got the impression that anyone caught poking their nose into his business doesn't get anywhere, witnesses clam up or disappear and his tame legal team aka Redrupp and Vosper do great work in binding people up in red-tape and getting injunctions issued. I think you'd count yourself lucky if it was only R & V that went after you, to be honest." Andy looks at each of the others... they all know what he means.

Andy gulps down half his pint. "To be quite frank... we're the only people that have anything like 'the goods' on Rudaj and what we know is a lot of conjecture. There's probably enough to weave together into a fairly convincing story to link Gossham's death to Rudaj via the Kush n derten, or whatever the fuck they're called, link. And we could probably stretch things to link the land purchases on Malta and the closing of the Brichester digs to Rudaj but that would involve naming R & V directly, which is probably suicide." Andy stops, looks around before continuing in a low voice "Look, the bottom line is that if I don't get something to the paper 'toot sweet' my career, crappy as it is, is finished. The problem is ... if I write anything I'm probably finished too."

OOC:   OK, Andy knows that if they don't go after 'the rogue Verbi' then at some point Rudaj and his 'empire' will catch up to them. If they do go after Rudaj then they need to get clever.. very clever. From his stand point the best bet is to write two or three pieces on Gossham's death - probably 'playing up' the ancient treasure angle and releasing snippets from Gossham's thesis and possibly using pictures of the coin (necklace/belt) and gold book and some of the pictures from their Albanian trip to shore up that angle. Done right it might be enough to be able to persuade the paper to get him (maybe the others too) back to Malta ... to research the 'clincher' to the story - to do that Andy will have to gold back a lot of the 'proof' so that Jock can't stiff him and send someone else ... even then it'll be tricky to pull off. Malta is a problem... we would not have any supplies (weapons) and the Albanians are plugged into the organised crime on the island. Alex might be able to get us contacts but that's dangerous. We 'might' be able to use the supplies that may be at the excavation sights but that not going to get us a lot more than tools. Their best bet is to get as much info from Greg's research to work out how to stop/delay whatever Rudaj is planning - Rudaj has to do the same research - Gossham was killed before stuff got translated - which is why the ALbanian from Malta had to hit the cave network - they needed the 'real data' - so they have two weeks(?) head-start on the research. If we want to stop this we have to get to Malta.

[Mr. Handy]

"In that case, we don't have time for a cyber assault on Redrupp and Vosper," says Liz. "Perhaps I could target Kush nderton. Their servers should be more vulnerable - then again, I might say the same of the Bank of England. Might be interesting to check the charity's emails and see if we can find a connection to Rudaj or the law firm."

[carnage_lee]

Andy Wade

Andy nods, "OK, yeah, that sounds good. I can get started on my piece and hopefully you can find a 'juicy' e-mail or two. Anything you can dig up I can work into the story, with enough spin it will start to look like a conspiracy... ought to be good enough to keep the paper on board."

"So Greg, is there any mention of 'Malta' in what you have discovered?
Something that might pin down where Rudaj and his goons might be drawn to?" he asks.

[ghill]

Greg,There is no mention of Malta itself, However in the section, Greg has just translated there is a reference to the plateau where Verbti's great temple was, there is also reference to a flood putting two and two together would the plateau become an island? Greg will need to read/translate more to work this out.

Liz can quite easily hack the Kush Nerdton's registered offices (takes her an hour or so, it is an embarrassment of riches as far as data is concerned because there doesn't seem to be any kind of security or any more than your typically non-IT literate person would have. The problem is there is so much data and clearly, a great deal of it is complete garbage (eg invoice for the hire of town hall for presentation and demonstration of Albanian folk music) - sifting through this data will take a week or more and requires a LIBRARY USE roll (Not Liz who is otherwise occupied)

Library Use Success,The charity regularly buys air tickets for "charity workers" travelling to and from Albania including Alex Rudaj, there are a number of flights booked to Malta over the next two months with a flurry at the end of that time period.

Liz takes the best part of the week to get into Redrupp and Vosper, here this issue is slightly different the IT security seems pretty standard (good but not so good that given time Liz is unable to defeat it) but there seems little in the way of online presence certainly no folder structure for anything client related although there is evidence that these documents are generated online. Again a LIBRARY USE roll (Anyone) to sift the file stubs.

Greg II,When Greg, Clay and Jacob broke into the offices at Redrupp and Vosper they noticed some quite hefty document safes, the chances are any important documents are kept in those rather than network storage.

Spot Hidden Success,File names coincide with details of the property on Malta which supposedly belongs to Rudaj.

[carnage_lee]

OOC:   Library Use 40: Sifting through Data. [dice]2[/dice] Library Use 40: Examining 'file stubs' [dice]0[/dice] I suggest others try to make these rolls too, or we might have some missing info. Andy will also be writing a couple of articles to try and placate Jock and also to try and get sponsorship to get to Malta.

[ghill]

Andy - Articles for Jock,Give me an idea of what you are putting into the article and what links you are trying to draw. You know Jock of old and are reasonably confident that he won't print a story if he thinks there is more to discover. Especially if there is any chance of a legal comeback.

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,I'm the only one who can't make that Library Use roll (yet), as I'm busy hacking.

[BenTheRat]

OOC:   Sorry I've been super busy in the holidays (mostly playing Gloomhaven in my free time) should have caught up here. Was expecting some POW checks, that was the last I read. But going from here.

Greg settle back into his routine, but with the break, he had a chance to clear his head. He took his notepad he had been working on and flipped through every couple pages and made notes to himself. 'Eat Something', 'Go Sleep', 'Shower'.

"There at least I'll remind myself to do the basics in case this thing goes south." he says to himself.

Greg picks up the notepad and starts in on the next set of translations.

POW check,just to get things started. [dice]0[/dice]

[BenTheRat]

OOC:   haha, must have missed it, failed the very fist check.

[ghill]

Greg tries to take a more measured approach but soon finds himself as caught up in his research as he was before.

OOC:   Greg loses 1SAN. and cant help with any other research Greg, can you please roll me at least 5 POW rolls your looking for POW x3

Greg only,Feverish study - Failed POW rolls result in -1 SAN. At the point you've lost 5 SAN, you'll start to lose 1HP (as well) with every subsequently failed POW roll - representing the fact you have become so engrossed you don't look after yourself. You can stop at any time up to the 5 SAN limit. After 5 SAN you'll be obsessive about finishing your research. Remember you heal D3-1 every week automatically.

After two weeks of careful study of all the info Jacob can identify the following:

The charity regularly buys air tickets for "charity workers" travelling to and from Albania including Alex Rudaj, but there are a number of flights booked to Malta over the next two months with a flurry at the end of that time period.

Looking at file names from those recovered from Redrupp and Vosper Jacob is able to tie them to properties on Malta which supposedly belongs to Rudaj.

[BenTheRat]

OOC:   I think I've been rolling POW *5. Target is 51 then for POW *3 Can I heal while studying?

POW rolls,[dice]0[/dice] [dice]1[/dice] [dice]2[/dice] [dice]3[/dice] [dice]4[/dice]

OOC:   I failed 2 of the 5, passed 3. So I lose 2 more sanity and 2 HP.