"You wanted these." He handed his papers to the the gorilla.

The 'great ape' took the papers and started to look at them as he waved for Jacob to find the cases.

Finding Louisa's suitcase was actually very easy. Only three of the compartments were occupied and the one that Louisa had been in still contained her suitcase. It was a light green hard cased American Tourister case with her address details contained on a leather label tied to the handle with a shoelace.

Getting it down was a bit more of a task - it weighed almost 20 pounds.

There were none of her cases in the luggage compartment of the train, so Jacob was able to take the case to the Visa Office along with his own. However, as he stepped down from the train, Louisa Walder was nowhere to be seen.

The Visa Office was a small, claustrophobic office with a long counter along the middle. A till was sitting at one end and Jacob tried to remember why it was there...

Knowledge check, please

Standing behind the counter was another officer. The Lieutenant handed Fleury's papers over to the other officer, who looked at them.

"Where are you from, Mr. Müller?"

He notices the address label. Does Louisa's story hold up? He grasps it in his hand and reads the address. Is she from where she claimed to be?



Interesting. Thoughts began to bubble in the American's head. Had she been thrown in a cell as the temperamental guards had claimed? Or was it something else?




10:52, Today: Jacob Fleury rolled 3 using 1d6 with rolls of 3.  Knowledge Check.



"Moers."

Louisa's home address was in Garching, which Jacob recalled was a town just outside Munich and home to a nuclear research facility that was part of the university.

As Fleury saw the Visa Office till, he remembered that he would need to change up 5 Deutsche Marks for 'Ostmarks' at the official rate of 1 to 1 (the real rate was more like 1 to 5) for each day that he was staying... and would have to spend the money in country.

The officer looked over the papers.

"Moers? Where is that?"

Interesting. The more he thought about it, the more he was beginning to think Ms. Walder wasn't just looking to pass the time, but had intentionally come into his orbit. Pretending to be drunk? No, she vomited on the guard. Coincidence. Likely.



"Can I get Deutsche Marks exchanged for Ostmarks here? "



"It's in west West Germany, on the western bank of the Rhine."

The officer started to look through the invitation letter and then reached for a visa card.

"Yes, you can exchange money here. You also need to pay for the visa. 15 Westmarks. How long are you staying for?"

When Jacob identified his alias' hometown, the guard looked up.

"North Rhine-Westphalia or Rhineland-Palatinate? Can't say I'm familiar with that area. I come for Rostock myself."
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:10, Sat 17 Aug 2019.

Good question. How long was he staying? He handed over the bills for the visa and thought how long does it take to meet a professor, receive his 'raw intelligence' and get out? "Two days," he said to be on the safe side, giving himself an extra day to accommodate unforeseen circumstances.

Two days, 5 marks per day. He handed him another 10 Deutschmarks to be exchanged for 10 Ostmarks. "Can I get that exchanged, please?"


"North Rhine-Westphalia," he said, succinctly. Every answer on the subject of his mythological hometown would be succinct, of course. He presented the mien of a bored, weary traveler.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:57, Sat 17 Aug 2019.

"I'm not the cashier here. She'll be over shortly." the passport control officer said and put that to one side.

He copied out the details from Jacob's passport onto the visa card, then also applied a visa stamp to the passport which he then filled in.

"Don't forget that you will need to register at the Leipzig police headquarters on your arrival in that city. They will also be responsible for dealing with any visa extension request."

Then he handed over another form to Jacob.

"Customs and Foreign Exchange Declaration. You must declare all monies in your possession and in your luggage."

Behind him, the door to the platform opened to reveal an old man with a walking stick. It was also starting to rain outside.

He nodded his head and edged over, making room for the older gentleman he espied with a glance over one shoulder. He filled out the form, writing 75 Deutsch Marks in the space on the paper. He'd arrived with 100, now minus 15 for the visa and another 10 to be exchanged.

Sliding the form back to the officer, he stood straight and took a closer look at the elder man that had just arrived. He especially noticed his hands. One thing he'd been taught in training at Langley is to always notice the hands--it's the hardest part of the anatomy to disguise.

The man was dressed in a dark brown jacket and was wearing thin wire glasses. Another Grenzer was with him, carrying his suitcase.

"Sorry for inconveniencing you, sir," the man said, "It's just I really can't carry stuff as well as I could..."

Perception roll please.

"No problem at all, sir. Take your time." He looked down at his hands.

09:57, Today: Jacob Fleury rolled 7 using 1d8 with rolls of 7.  Perception Check.

Jacob saw nothing untoward with the man's hands.

A blue uniformed customs officer now entered the room, and saw Jacob.

"You're the one with the drunken girlfriend, right?" he asked in a matter of fact tone.

He shook his head. "No, I don't have a girlfriend. The woman of which you speak came into my compartment and started talking to me. That is all. I'd never seen her before a few minutes ago."   

"I believe you. Thousands wouldn't", the customs officer said, "In any event, she's in a cell pending a decision on what to do with her. Don't want to wake up the prosecutor so she'll be here until at least the morning. Almost certainly be denied entry."

He looked down at the bags.

"Is that her bag? If so, give it to me and I will put it in a safe place."

The thoughts, ideas came and went quickly. He'd briefly considered Louisa might be something more than what she was pretending to be when he'd first met her. That idea vanished when she puked on the clothes of the custom officer. It was impossible for any credible intelligence agency to send an agent into the field that was prone to alcoholism--that vice would've become evident at some point and said agent would've never made it out of their home country. In any event, his final conclusion was that she was not pretending. She was what she claimed to be--someone attending a funeral, although not all of the details could be verified.

He had no good reason to hold on to her bags, no good reason to be an obstacle to an officer of a nation he wasn't a citizen of, and risk incurring further wrath. "It is." He handed him her bag.

"Right, now your bag please", the officer said as he started to examine the customs form, "Just 100 Marks? Nothing else?"

He shook his head. "I wrote 75, started with 100. And no, nothing else."

The officer started to open the bag and have a look through it.

He waited as the officer looked through his belongings, his thoughts drifting to Louisa, wondering what she was going through, and wondering if his instincts were correct about her.

After a couple of minutes, the customs officer nodded, smiled and closed the case.

He then stamped the customs form and handed back to Jacob.

"You will need to get this updated every time you exchange money during your stay in the German Democratic Republic. I'll exchange the money now."

The officer went to the old looking till and pressed some of the levers to bring up 25.00. The till then popped open and Jacob was handed five brown bank notes.

Each of them had the words "5 MARK DER DEUTSCHEN NOTENBANK DDR' on one side with the picture of some guy named Alexander Humboldt at the side. On the other was a drawing of Humboldt University.

"Right. We're done here. You can get back on the train now. Enjoy your stay here."

He accepted the customs form and the five bills, folding and placing the bills in his inside jacket pocket. "Thanks." He returned to the train and to his compartment.

As Jacob stepped back to his carriage, he saw a small shunting engine pushing a single carriage along the platform to join up with the rest of the train.

The compartment was empty and the carriage only had the noises of one man with his dog checking under all the seats for contraband.

He took a moment to notice the dog, what it was doing and how the man was handling the dog. He also looked around his compartment to see if anything had been moved or seemed out of place. He would wait for the guard and his dog to move on, out of eyeshot before returning to the seat in the compartment.

OOC: Take a perception roll please.

Jacob continues to study the scene...

10:22, Today: Jacob Fleury rolled 6 using 1d8 with rolls of 6.  Perception Roll .