Sariel sees the team heading toward the docks and joins them, as he approaches the team he nods to everyone, not saying anything. As they approach the boat Sariel notes the man jetting away, and attempts to see the name on the boat that the man got onto.
He nods to the crew and keeps his shoulder-bag. he will follow the team and ask a few questions once they are away from the crew.
The name on the boat seems to be in some African language, he's an African looking male about 40'ish
Joe will ask the captain about the name of his boat and why he chose it.
Kingsman has you go over the key to the other boats mooring, the man slips below decks. You call out a few times, but he's not coming topside. One of your crew guys comes over, you get the feeling he do's not want to talk to you.
"Sir, are you no coming with us?
while there is a distraction Sariel writes the name of the African boat down on the edge of the newspaper he is carrying, he then tucks the paper back under his arm and places his hand back in the pocket he is carrying the magic pistol bag in.
Nice to meet you fella's So the diving good here? We heard good things. Titus climbs aboard and makes chit chat with the guys.
"best in the world they say Sir, always some thing new to find, please this way, I will show you to you cabins. If this is all of you we can set off. They say some bad weather so we are talking the long way to the dive site. Could I ask why you want to go there, its not known for being a interesting place to dive?"
"best in the world they say Sir, always some thing new to find, please this way, I will show you to you cabins. If this is all of you we can set off. They say some bad weather so we are talking the long way to the dive site. Could I ask why you want to go there, its not known for being a interesting place to dive?"
"Really now? Do you know why the men who passed away chose such an unusual spot to dive then?" John seems genuinely surprised that such experienced divers chose a spot divers wouldn't be interested in. John decides he doesn't want to start off questioning these guys. "Would you guys mind if I come back up after I unpack my things. Hang out and chat for a bit?"
Both Carlo and Esmond stop dead at your words, Carlos looks at Smith sideways he voice accusing.
"You.. You know about the deaths? the men who came on this Boat and died Mr...Cooper is it not, who told you?... We where told you where a simple diving trip now you talking about dead men, is this some kind of sick game or are you Police, Yes! you sound American some of you, you American Cops.. Mr Cooper? FBI?.."
He picks up his bags,
"Magoona says he sees you come from police building"
he nods to the African boat.
"We have already talked to them, they know everything, is just an accident, I think it funny a booking to same place know I know why. We don't want any more trouble Mr Cooper. No this we don't want, we in clear. So! I think it best we cancel this booking and you go find another boat."
He nods at Esmand who moves to take your bags back up again and off the boat.
John stops dead in his tracks. "Now that is not the reaction I was expecting. Tell me, why would you cancel our trip just because we read the papers. Four men died on this boat, why wouldn't we know. We rented this specific boat because of our interest." John flashes his ID. "We work for the same company and are doing a follow up investigation." John takes a breath pulling his faux anger back and shifting to a nicer tone. "Look, we have to get this done. We would love to prove this isn't an incident. Sirs, I can tell you I've been authorized to give a good amount of money to whoever can help me stop the payout of this insurance policy. So, do you gentleman wish to make more money than you dreamed of or send us home and get an extra weekend off?"
You can see the internal conflict going on in Carlo mind as he looks at you Smith. He looks at Esmond who shrugs.
"Ok, we not cancel trip, we set off and then talk more"
They say not more and take your bags to your rooms showing you each one.
Soon the two have the boat cast off and under way, they put drinks out for you on the back deck, As you sit and wait for them, they seem to have the boat on auto as they both some to see you.
"Now we can talk, so talk, how much you offering?"
John carries his own bag down, he then waits on deck in plain view of anyone who looks. When the men approach he smiles up at them, "That depends what you have to offer. We're not the police and I really don't care if you tell me you broke the law. Your information has to pan out though. What you can offer me changes what I can pay you."
Sariel stands on the deck, mouth hanging open, glaring at Mr. Smith; hand in his pocket tightly gripping the handle of the berretta.
what the h@!!? what happened to “They do not know who you are and why you are there. To them you are just tourists” and” It is always good to keep as low a profile as one kind” we just told the most likely suspects that we were after them.
Sariel moves behind Smith watching the two crewmen. He says quietly to Smith in French.
M. Cooper me rappeler de vous dirai plus tard pourquoi je ai été si précieux pour les chasseurs de morts-vivants
The hairs on the back of John's neck stand on end feeling the anger brooding of his partner. John's composure never slips. It's evident from anyone watching that John is used to high risk plays like this. The air of calm is radiating from him.
"Un risque calculé . Je aurais dû le lancer à travers le reste d'entre vous."
"What you saying?? Arrr it don't matter, we broke no laws, ca-pish, but we work for no family as well. But, even if your are or are not cops, it dos not matter, you talk about a family's business and they stop you talking ever again. So we are taking risks here not you. We have information, good information, something we did not tell the policea, For that we need a $100,000, $50,000 each. trust me it's good, You pay that into this account, then we talk tell, you what we know."
He hands you a slip of paper with a Spanish bank account name and number.
"Once we have the money safe then we will talk, there is a satellite phone on ship you can use that."
He nods and they both head back to running the ship.
Sariel snears at the sleazy seaman and says to Smith
Je pourrais mettre une balle dans chaque rotule et voir si son prix baisse. Ou vous pouvez obtenir son prix vers le bas avant de vous remettre la carte de crédit.
Once the two men leave John laughs light. "I won't use the teams account for this. My hunch, I'll put my money on it." John turns and faces Sariel, "So do tell, what makes you so valuable?"
Sariel smiles at Smith
I have the ability to sense the undead, and for a moment there I thought you were brain-dead
as far as I'm concerned the vote may still be out
Sariel continues
did Mr. Clarkson give you the information about the gangsters in the casino? I didn't know if it would help or not. Also May I borrow the file for a couple of minutes, I have a hunch I would like to follow up on
After the conversation Sariel will sit down and look over the file
John seems surprised at that statement, "Like a power of yours? You sense I'm dead?" John seems a little unsettled by that, but doesn't push it further.
"Take it as long as you need. Mind me asking what your hunch is? I'm not the type to discourage any pursuit, but I like a hub for all the information coming in."
sarcasm, it’s not just for breakfast anymore
Not being able to tell if Smith was being ironic or not he lets it drop
No I don’t mind, saw a map in the motel and it got me thinking. We flew into Lampedusa Island, same as our victims. But they were diving off of Alicudi Island, on the opposite side of Sicily. It would have been much more intelligent and easier to fly into Sicily and book off of its north coast. Whoever booked them to Lampedusa was probably working with the mob, the “family” our crew here was working for and probably the folks who were at the casino last night.
Sariel looks around for a moment
here it is Mr Tabpol's wife made the changes, there is our conection. Speaking of connection, what did we find out about the people at the casino?
Sariel hands the sheet to Smith.
John closes his eyes scanning through the information he saw this morning.
"One of the black range rovers the plate was tied to a confirmed mafia thing. The rover was also tied to a ship that sunk on an island 18 months ago.
A guy with the range rover, blonde, was also at the sunk ship.
Owner of the ship was Juan Ramon Paz Fernandez, ex-owner of the casino.
Juan ran a betting syndicate out of Canada into the US to get past some new gaming laws. Internet gaming laws. The big location for this betting syndicate is Macau in mainland China."
As Smith talks Sariel pulls out his sudoku games book and dates the top of the first blank page and begins writing numbers down in the squares. He then asks Smith
were they all Italian Mob? Or is there an eastern European connection, our lady appears to be Polish.
Thinking for a moment
In a perfect world I’d take a look at Tabpol's body, cause trust me dead doesn’t necessarily take you out of the picture, Anyway how are we going to handle our crew here?
"Not sure what "families" we might be looking at.
Dead doesn't take you out of the picture. You guys are wierd, seriously.
Not sure on these guys either. They have information at least we learned there is something going on."
Sariel turns to the first page in his book and reads the quote verbatim
Could “a new Banking Algorithm program for futures trading” also calculate wagering? That type of information would give whoever owns it a monopoly on gambling, I mean a terrorist organization would want to destroy banking but would the mob? They would want to control gambling or possibly futures investment further down the line
Sariel thinks for a minute
it doesn’t matter why they want it, just if they have it or not, right? Oh, I say when we deal with the crew, pay their extortion money then when we have the information, drop a couple of these mob names, tell them if they don't return the money we will tell the "family" about their little information side business. But lets deal with them after we get done with the boat trip, we use the excuse to wait until the very end to see if they are on the up and up. They are less likely to kill us if they think we'll pay them money.
Sariel thinks some more
Also we need to know what the African connection is, so far we have Italian mob, the Chinese's gambling syndicate and our African ship captain where does he fit in?
"I thought the same with the gambling. All that matters is the if not the why though."
Honestly, I'd rather not extort the guys, really not worth it. It's just a few thousand anyways."
Sariel shrugs
it's just not the Chicago way
well, at least wait to give them the payment when we are done. I'll sleep better if they are hoping for payment from us. If you don't mind I'm going to snoop around the ship a little, I'm more comfortable if I know the lay of the land
Sariel gets up and goes below deck, he will check all the rooms carefully, picking the locks on anything locked. Once he is satisfied that the boat is clean (or collecting anything dangerous) he rejoins the team on the deck.
The baot seems clear, you fine 2 flare guns and 2 harpoon guns, Also diving kit for the team, some bits old some brand new.
Once you let them know they have been paid, they make a call and then seem to relax. They come back, sit down with you, they bring food that they them selves start to eat as well. Carlo smiles and starts to talk.
"Look I meant it, we broke no laws. Is very strange thing but we worried. We where booked to be in Lampedusa, ok two week booking for men who like diving, all good. Then out of the blue we are told we must get there two days early, another booking, paying top rate, so now we have two bookings in Lampedusa. This new booking is from a Mr Abbate. OK we says as we a very close to Lampedusa at that time so we rush there that knight and wait. No sign of Mr Abbate, then next day he shows up. Him and a friend a woman, she is very beautiful. They come on boat, gives us both a envelop with 1000 euros in and says get lest for 2 days. So we think, ok he no want his wife to see what he dos with beautiful woman. We have this before, boat says in docks whole time while man has party. But we no go far, get a hotel on the hill and keep an eye on her. We have hidden dead switch on boat so he is going no where with out us. We get to hotel get room, some food and sit out looking down at docks. Then we see beautiful woman get in black car and go. Ok we think, she go's shopping, he's a rich man. Then we see odd thing, another car come and two men comes. They go on boat and get into diving gear, next they over the side. In the docks, they down for again and again. Now we worried, they fitting drugs to boat? smugglers, but no. You know what they where doing, they where cleaning the boat bottom. We seen the tools, they even had new pain, underwater pain to fix bad spots. Two days they do this then they go, just before we have to head back and 4 men come in the after noon. Man comes sees us with beautiful again. She go's to car and he says strange thing. Shows us 10,000 and gives us a map, he says. 'The men who come, next they good friends of mine, they like diving interesting places. I know a good one here on the map. You take them there and I will give you the rest. O an don't tell them, I want it to be a surprise" He hands us 2000 euros and go's. We talk, it make clear now we think, he knows the men coming that's why he had boat fixed. He wants them to have a safe trip. So we agree, is 8000 euros no. So we take them men and we get to map place, they dive and are really happy when they come back. Great place they say, Amazing. We have no idea so we nod and say yes. We even thought about telling them their friend had said to take them, but he had said no telling so we kept silent. All that day they dived again and gain, that night they drank and talked late. We thought ok they happy, we happy, and we get 8000 once we take them back. Then next day early they dive again, but this time they did not come up when they should. I waited until air clock says they are out, and still they no come back up. Is clear water, we looked with tube but nothing I swear, I start getting ready to dive, see if I can find them I am just at water when the come back up all together. Jumps in brings them back for Esmand. They all dead, eyes white and no breathing. We panic, we make a mistake, but no, they looked after own diving things, place air in tanks them selves. Then we worry, This Mr Abbate could he be why they die. So I dive again, god save my soul I do, I go look at bottom of boat. I know you no believe me what I say next but is true. There under boat is words like Devil make, glowing words that move. I get back on boat as fast as I can and we call police and cast guard. We told head back to Lampedusa, we be meet buy cost guard. They come and we tell them where we ancker, but we not tell them truth, we tell them a place a male from where Mr Abbate says we go. they look say safe place. They look over boat but they no see what I see. No glowing words, just boat. We keep quiet and police ask us things. We say, men drunk, may not have put air in bottles. That's it, they happy and we clear to go. Then you came, but we talk, you have to understand we talked, our souls must carry this on high. By Mother merry we would have said something but who would believe glowing words under the boat. Is Crazy no? so we say nothing. We no look for Mr Abbate and he no come. Now you have given us a change, a change to tell someone this crazy story and to get out of this business. We your money we will start out own fishing boat, go to north sea and get white fish, make ourselves rich, and get the hell away from here. We are no going back to Lampedusa, two new crew will come when we get close to main land. But will take you to the dive site 1st, the real one. That way our souls are clear, we help the dead find justice if you can bring it. If you believe us or not that is the truth on my babys life."
Esmand nods in agreement, both men seem relived life a great weight has been lifted off them both.
"Could you draw these symbols or words or whatever? Do you remember them well enough?"
He reaches into his pocket and brings out a folded bit of paper.
"Then you don't think us mad, you.. you believe us?"
He opens it up and you see marks they seem all mixed up.
"I try but they moved about, I swear, like I was drunk."
He shivers
Then Esmand says.
"I look to, with the diving tube, is true, they move, I drew that part."
He points at a part of the page of scribbles.
"But they moved all de time"
Nick hates water. After the death of his father he'd avoided it like poison. Magic made it possible to avoid showers and baths, and he took it.
Stepping on to the boat was terrifying. He forced himself to go to the edge of the dock, then looked fixedly ahead and crossed the gangplank. When he reached the end and stepped on to the boat he all but dropped to his knees: just in time to hear Smith rip their cover to pieces.
Desperately he looked at the man, wondering if he was supposed to drop the two men into unconsciousness and erase their memories. Fears of the water evaporated as he started pawing at his pockets
Must be wanting to get information from them, then reset? Risky... I've got to talk to him about giving me some #@#$%# warning!
When the men admit they do have information, and it is obvious it'll take longer than five minutes, Nick pauses indecisively.
"I won't use the teams account for this. My hunch, I'll put my money on it."
Going to have to talk to Cornelius: he was right to tell me to look things up, and that 'sensing dead' thing is going to bite us
Thoughts distracted he snaps to when the men start talking, trying to see the words written on the paper.
"So. The words are gone now, right?"
"我不想让他们看到我的魔术"
He go's and gets a long pipe that telescopes out, it has a lens that can be meant up and down at the bottom, to handles hole the top with a view screen, like a ipad screen.
"It has lights and camera, we use it to check the hull. We can stop the boat and look if you like. But we looked nothing there now. Not like we could see that day."
Yep it was same kind of arcana writing but you don't think it was a spell, more a message, you will need to cast read magic and see what you get.
"Huh. I have a theory."
Well I would like to hear it. After hearing all that I'm a bit concerned. Seems a trap of some sort was set for these men. Do the docks have surveillance? Maybe we can get the plates of the car the lady used. I'm sure Mr. Abbate is a fake name but we can check it out as well. You guys did what you could. You tell a story like this to the cops and you may get locked in the looney bin.
Sariel, returns to the deck just in time to hear the crews tale, standing behind the party carefully listening, occasionally taking notes in the edge of the newspaper he is carrying. awaiting his turn to speak he asks the crew.
what part does the African sailor we saw leaving your deck play in all of this?
after the crewman explains the African sailor Sariel asks the team
do we have any photo's of the people we have seen to collaborate faces?
Sariel you show the crew the Photos and they point at the Blond man as Mr Abbate.
"That's him, that is Mr Abbate and he had the same black car."
Sariel, more interested now, asks the crewmen
is the woman the same also, look careful now
"Yes but she had blond hair and she was taller than this picture"
John looks each of the two men in the eyes. "What you've told us here today has been a great help. I am no priest and can not absolve you of your lies, but you did no wrong in causing these mens deaths. I will be happy to help you men start fresh. I would ask, you stay with us to the dive site and our investigation there. The sooner we solve this, the sooner these men's souls can rest."
John glances up at Nick. "去检查你的书。找到你能和把它带回来给我们"
Sariel asks the crew members again
before we finish, what part does the African sailor who we saw run from the ship play in all of this?
"he is a freind, we sent him to see who had booked us, if it was the blond man, we where not going to stay, but he told us of you and said you had gone to the police station. "
Sariel, not believing the "oh him, he's just a friend' answer attempts to discern more about their motives
There telling the truth
Great, well you seem to have found the ones we need to talk to good work. William. What info do we hope to find continueing the dive. Seems the spell or what not that got them was put on the underside of the boat. Though you two did say the location was given to you as well. Yeah I guess there still may be something there. Lets hope these guys are cocky. Seems to be what always makes these types slip up. You guys got anything to drink on here?
"Spell, so you think as we do, this is the Devils work, We ever went in the water where the they dived but they said something odd was down there, Something old but new... I could not follow what they talked about my English is ok but they use long words said fast."
He gets up,
"yes we have drink, if this is lus-ifurs doing then we want our souls safe"
He makes the sign of the cross and gos to get the drinks.
Sariel, out of respect, also crosses himself. He then asks
bottled water please
he then turns to the party and asks
what do we do now? I think it would be beneficial to know what the "Devils Work" was before we dive. Also do we want to dive everyone or do we want to leave someone up top to watch our backs?
looking at Tailor he says
I may be getting ahead of myself, Mr. Clarkson what was you theory?
Seeing that the men have left
"It definitely sounds like arcane glyphs, but it sounds more like a message. I might have to get closer, start looking for traces, to know more. Certainly I could have set something up that compels people to drown if they just went and read something I wrote."
arcane glyphs, set something up that compels people to drown, that serious trouble
Sariel asks Tailor
this closer look for traces, you mean the bottom of the boat or the location that it happened or both?
"The hull. Y'know, given a location was arranged, the location itself is probably important, else why bother."
"Look - I'm all for solving mysteries, but... This was premeditated murder. There was a reason to kill all four. That means the program is compromised. That means our job is done."
"We need to report this, now. Yeah, if we look more we can maybe we can shut down the leak, but we're in bonus territory now."
He coughs
"Also, given what this guy's done before I do not want to be hanging around the two witnesses when he's ready to clear decks. Something that doesn't stop the four murders looking like an accident, I'd say. Maybe give it a while, then the boat sinks?"
You have been some time under way now, its about 5pm to your left you see a large storm, it seems to be what you going around to get to the dice site. As you look behind you note another boat is behind you, some ways back but after a time there is no mistaking its dogging you root as well. As the crew move the boat so this boat behind moves. Its a little bigger then yours and looks fast like yours.