Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Crime Network Session 2: The Executioners


The second session of Crime Network began with the release of Owen (a PC) from anti-terrorist custody on a Thursday afternoon. While he was being processed out of jail a van pulled up with the leader of the C.I.R.A. Nathan Kerrigan in the driver seat, his right hand man "Mean" Mike Connors riding shotgun, Maggie (a PC) and John (a PC) were seated in the center row, and obnoxiously chain-smoking in the rear of the van was the "borrowed" Sicilian assassin Tony Martino. When Owen approached the van "Mean" Mike shouted for him to sit in the middle row with his other two. "cheese-eating whiskered friends..."

Seconds into the ride Tony began to blow all of his smoke on the newly arrived Owen and Mike asked him what Owen hadn't given to the authorities. Sitting silently, Owen started at Mike through the rear-view mirror. Mike made a quick cutting motion across his throat and before Owen had time to move Tony Martino had a gun pressed firmly into the back of his head. Mike spoke loudly and in a clipped tone. He accused Owen of being the rat and of giving sensitive information to his British "buddies". He also told him that one of Owen's contacts, Jimmy "The Butcher" had been found dead recently with drill holes through his hands. Owen declined to respond and Tony reluctantly holstered his weapon and continued chain-smoking for the remainder of the drive home.

When the group arrived back at Murphy's Pub "Mean" Mike stormed into the bar angrily while Kerrigan reiterated his support for the group and for their mission to find the elusive C.I.R.A. rat. As Owen shook Kerrigan's hand Owen asked the older man how his daughter Fiona (an ex-PC) was doing after taking rounds from a Jamaican drive-by before they were all sent away. The older man's eyes immediately moistened as he told Owen about how Fiona was recovering in a New York hospital with his other daughter by her side. Kerrigan, steeling himself, reminded the group that they had an important meeting Saturday night with Eric "The Skin" that was supposed to solidify the two organizations trust in one another; and that Tony Martino would be shadowing them wherever they went. Owen promised that the transaction would be completed as promised.

After Kerrigan left Owen, John, and Maggie walked the neighborhood while they plotted their next move. Over Maggie's strenuous objections, it was decided that the three of them were going to meet up with Dewan Thomas Jr., the leader of the Jamaican Belfast Boyz to try to cut a deal with them so that the group could get the name of, or at least a lead on the rat.

Friday afternoon the three team members strode up to the vacant doors of the Sizzle nightclub. Moments before they got to the entrance, the door swung open and they were greeted by a doped-up Jamaican who ushered them inside with his handgun. The group looked at him with apprehension - Maggie looked on in terror - this was certainly not her idea...

The group was brought inside the Sizzle. Armed thugs were everywhere and the group attempted to act as calmly as possible, however, the massive display of firepower was not only impressive but also terrifying.

On the large dance floor in the center of the club, a 6'5 foot tall Jamaican, decked out in camouflage and carrying an HK G36K, stood next to Dewan Thomas Jr (the leader of the Belfast Boyz) and another gangster, who were dining on a lavish feast on an ad hoc table set up on the dance floor. The group was lead over to Dewan Thomas Jr. and the other seated gangster where they were brought seats. While seated, the group declined any food or drink and Owen immediately attempted to engage Dewan Thomas Jr. so that they could get some type of information about the rat that they were tasked with silencing.

After a long interchange Owen and Dewan had come to an agreement. Owen promised the Jamaican "community leader" three pounds of semtex in the coming weeks (since they didn't actually have any, Owen told them that they needed a week to ship it in) and Dewan gave the group an important clue. He told them that the rat was a rugby coach and player that is a part of the C.I.R.A. organization.


As Owen was racking his brain to figure out who exactly the rat was, the emergency exit door to the Sizzle was pulled off and a group of five Belfast Hell's Angel's burst into club while firing automatic weapons wildly. Bullets flew everywhere as the Angel's poured a deadly amount of fire into the almost vacant club.

Three Jamaicans dropped dead (including the mammoth bodyguard who lay just inches away from Dewan) and two others were wounded within seconds. John flipped the table over to shield the group and he, Maggie, and Owen returned fire with their handguns.
John was able to wound one Angel as they moved towards the DJ station that would offer them a considerable amount of cover.

The Hell's Angels continued to fire and dropped more gangsters while popping up and down behind the DJ's table. However, when one of the bikers' heads popped up Maggie drilled a hole through it. The bikers began to panic and they began to lay down a large volume of fire so that they could attempt to make a break for it.

Owen was reloading his gun while taking cover behind the flipped table with Dewan Thomas, another gangster, John and Maggie when the entire world became muddled. Without warning, and without any hesitation, the gangster next to Owen turned to Dewan Thomas Jr., pointed his gun at his head, muttered the words "f*** you", and squeezed the trigger. The affluent and media-savvy Jamaican leader's head was destroyed and his body collapsed to the floor. Owen, not sure how to react, raised his weapon and killed the gangster.

Before the group could attempt to grasp what was happening, the Hell's Angels made their run for the door. With triggers pulled back forcefully the leather clad outlaws ran or were drug out the emergency exit where they had just entered minutes before. Rounds fired from the Jamaicans ushered the group out while Owen, Maggie, and John struggled to comprehend what their next move was to be.

John was about to suggest a way out of the situation when a large trash truck slammed through the front entrance of the Sizzle. Standing with his upper torso exposed through the driver's side window of the truck, Tony Martino, the Sicilian "watchman" fired his Sig Saur at the closest Belfast Boyz and downed two of them. With a simple "get in the truck" Tony continued firing on the remaining Jamaicans while the group hustled towards their newly-arrived escape vehicle.

Maggie was the first to the rear of the truck and realized that the passenger side was unavailable, so she simply pulled herself up and dropped into the trash-filled container. John and Owen followed her lead and jumped into the rear portion of the truck also. Seconds later Tony Martino's Sig locked open, he dropped the gun onto the seat and attempted to throw the truck into gear.

After what seemed to be hours, Tony got the truck to lurch to life and he turned the monstrous truck onto the road and began to accelerate. When Tony looked up from the stick shift he saw that there were dozens of Hell's Angels circling the block and that the only way to escape was going to be thru their diesel-fumed roadblock.

Tony, while an accomplished assassin, was a lousy driver; specifically when it came to driving with a stick-shift. The cumbersome garbage truck stumbled forward at twelve miles per hour which enabled three of the mounted Hell's Angels to close in and open fire.

Bullets and slugs dinged off the sides and rear of the truck. One (un)lucky shell managed to ricochet off the back wall of the trash truck and numerous pellets lodged themselves into Maggie's lower back. She let out a howl of pain and Owen moved to treat her gushing wounds while John covered them by firing his gun at the circling bikers.

While Owen tried to staunch Maggie's wounds, Tony slammed the truck into a parked car. The group was strewn about the rear compartment. In a bit of a daze, with motorcycles surrounding the truck, John jumped out and ran to the driver's door. Yelling "don't shot me" to Tony Martino, John hopped into the driver's seat, dislodged the truck, and slammed it into gear.

John accelerated as quickly as possible while Tony got on the foot rails of the truck and continued firing at their two-wheeled pursuers. When the group was roughly a mile away from the Sizzle John yelled for Tony to get back in the truck and John slammed on the brakes. Owen threw Maggie over his shoulder, and together with Tony, they ran ahead of the truck down and alley. Then, John put the truck into gear and drove into the alley as far as he could before he became wedged. John closed his eyes and he fired an entire magazine into the truck's windshield. When he opened his eyes again the windshield was gone and he crawled through it onto the hood, and then he jumped to the ground and followed the rest of the group. The motorcycles engines could be heard in the distance behind them, but no-one in the group ever paused to look behind them.

Clumped together in the rear office of an abandoned warehouse the group pondered what to do next. Maggie had been stabilized but it hurt her to exert much effort. With the police, "Welsh" Bob and his paramilitaries, the Jamaicans, and the Hell's Angels all looking for them, and with the C.I.R.A. not wanting to assist until they eliminated the rat, the group decided that they had to follow up on the lead that Dewan Thomas Jr. had been murdered in front of them. The only rugby coach/player in the C.I.R.A. was Darren Lynch and the group figured that now was the time to pay him a visit.
Under the lights of the local rugby pitch Darren Lynch was loudly coaching a recreational pick-up game. When the group pulled up in their recently-hotwired car they did not arouse any suspicion.

As the players shook hands and walked towards their vehicles, Owen dialed up Darren while the John looked at him through a pair of stolen binoculars. After a terse conversation it was decided that Darren would meet the group at a house a few miles away. Unbeknownst to him, the owner of the home had done contact work for Owen before, information extraction work...

Within seconds of arriving Tony Martino had put his Sig against the back of Darren's head and led him down a hidden staircase located in the rear part of the contacts garage.

With his hands secured in chains high above his head, Darren screamed out for help. Owen, tired, angry, and un-interested in Darren's pleas for help, started the video camera. What was supposed to be the elimination of a rat was about to turn into a genius play for power.

The group let the contact do his job and "interrogate" Darren Lynch. The group left the man to his devices and smoked in the garage upstairs while listening to the inhuman-sounding screams that came from below them.

Two hours later, the contact came up the steps wiping his bloody hands on a towel. He told them that Darren had confessed and that he wouldn't be alive much longer. Owen patted him on the shoulder and thanked him for his assistance. The contact told him that he was owed, big time.

With that Owen went back downstairs and awoke Darren Lynch. Smacking him awake Owen told him that he was going to kill him but he wanted Darren to confess, on tape, that "Mean" Mike Connors was the puppet master that made him rat to the Jamaicans. Darren, bleeding and bewildered, mumbled but nothing coherent came out. Owen shook him harder and told him to tell the camera that "Mean" Mike was the reason why the C.I.R.A. had been compromised. Darren told the camera what he was instructed to say and for his troubles his life ended quickly.

With Darren dead, there was only one element of the plan remaining. Owen took the tape out of the video camera, meet up with John, Tony and Maggie, and dialed up "Mean" Mike. After being screamed at and verbally insulted, Mike agreed to meet up with the group at a local parking lot to discuss their next moves.

When Mike arrived the group had both cars' lights on. Owen and John were standing outside of the vehicles while Maggie had her gun trained on Tony in the backseat of the late Darren Lynch's car. Tony had promised not to make trouble but he would not be a part of what he knew was to come.

When Mike got out of his car he wanted to know what the hell had happened at the Sizzle earlier that day. Owen and John took the verbal insult in stride and waited until he finally ran out of steam. When neither Owen or John would answer his questions, Mike knew what was happening. He cursed them for cowards. He told them that they were the reason that Ireland would never be unified. He told them that they were scum and that he hoped that their children would be defiled and executed by British troops and left for dead in the streets.

Then "Mean" Mike Connors straightened himself and told them that he would see them in hell. With that, Owen raised his shotgun and "Mean" Mike Connors left this world for good.

The next morning, in middle of two separate streets in downtown Belfast, the bodies of two males were found. They were both naked, they had whiskers drawn on their faces, and had blocks of cheese stuffed into their mouths. Within three hours the two men were identified as Darren Lynch, a local rugby coach and "Mean" Mike Connors, a local thug with a penchant for violence.