OOC: Okay, so Casablanca isn't in Marrakech but for what is likely to be one scene I didn't want to change the thread formatting!

Fortunately Felix had planned for the need to make a swift departure from the city. Following the carefully laid plans you make your way to the strategically placed rental cars and exfil, anonymously, from the city. Sidney, likewise, packs up your base camp and slips quietly out of the city.

A few hours later you find yourselves ensconced in a nondescript hotel room in Casablanca with Olivia Liu. One window overlooks the sea and a cool breeze comes in diluting the otherwise stuff atmosphere inside. Wayne and Felix have been sent in to debrief Olivia who spent the drive in shocked silence, staring blankly out of the window.

Sidney has set up in a different location across town with Kate acting as security though a mix of detailed pre-planning and an extremely careful drive out of town means it would take a monumental effort for someone to have tracked you down.

Stopping outside the door Wayne looked at Felix. "How do you want to play this? I am pretty good with people, I think I can get her to open up, but I don't know what questions to ask."

Felix considered a moment, "I do not think playing is necessary.  We are not interrogating.  It might be useful to find out what she knows of those after her, as it might assist in getting her to safety.  But, I think we should concentrate on assisting her in feeling safe.  To answer /her/ questions to the best of our ability."  He eyed Wayne levelly, then smiled reassuringly, "For that, I do believe you would be perfect."

Wayne nodded, "Alright then." He pulled the bolls from the sash pockets and put them away. He folded the sash and put it away as well. He knocked on the door, giving a moment for response before entering. "Hello again. I'm Wayne and this is Felix. Things happened kind of fast before, so you might not remember. We are with The Black Knight Agency. That is a translation, the name is actually German. Can I get you anything? Tea, or coffee? Maybe something to eat?"

He paused and let her answer. Once she had he continued, "May I sit with you?" Assuming she said yes he took the chair across from her. "You must have questions. I'll answer what I can. Felix might know more about details than I, though. I'm kind of the muscle he is the brains." His smile is easy and reassuring.

Felix offers a friendly nod as he is introduced, "Guten tag, fraulein."  IF she does make any requests, Felix takes care of getting whatever it is.  If he doesn't, he will go about making some tea anyway.  He'll continue to let Wayne lead the conversation.  No sense overwhelming the woman with a barrage of voices right off the bat.

Besides, it gave him the opportunity to observe.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:33, Tue 01 June 2021.

Olivia introduces herself as Olivia Liu and gratefully accepts a cup of tea, though passes on any food. She's happy enough with Wayne taking a seat near her and doesn't flinch away. With the tea a little colour returns to her cheeks and there's a spark behind her eyes, "Damn right I have some questions. Who the hell were those guys in Marrakech? ANd what exactly are you guys? Like the A-Team?"

Wayne adjusted in his seat. "Working backwards, we are the Black Knight Agency, we are a private security consultant company. We are...kind of...like the A-Team only we aren't fugitives from justice. Some of our members are former military. I am not. I am kind of a world traveler Sho-Lin-monk. So I guess I am more like Kung-Fu." He holds up his arms and lets the sleeves drop, "No burn scars either."

Wayne went on, "As to who the guys in Marrakech were, we aren't actually sure. We were hired to ex-filtrate you back to Europe." He shrugged, "We brought both of our big guns on knowledge that you were in trouble and that the trouble might extend to us." Being a bit OCD, Wayne drew the ball bearing out and began rolling them in his palm without looking at them.

Felix settled in with his own cup of tea (He, of course, offered Wayne one before himself) and listened politely.  He smiled a bit at Wayne's explanation, then simply offered, "I am mostly what you might call management.  Paperwork.  Boring things."  He took a sip of his tea, before continuing conversationally, "We were hoping, perhaps, that you might have some idea who was after you?  It might help us avoid them as we get you back to safety. Anything you wish to share might help. But, of course, I leave it up to you entirely."

Olivia chuckles slightly at Wayne's response and takes another drink of her tea. Responding to Felix she gives a slight shrug, "I don't really know who they are. Most recently I was doing some work in Romania - had a tip off that there was something suspicious with aspects of the mining industry out there and exposing corporate corruption is my forté. I got busted taking some photos at a dig sight and the crazy bastards they had on security started shooting at me! They pursued me back to civilization but I thought I would ditch them on a flight to Africa. I seriously doubt that some Romanian rent-a-cops had the ability to track me all the way here so I have no idea who was after me now."

OOC: Getting the feeling I might not have left enough to work with from my last post so expanding it a bit.

Olivia reaches into her bag and pulls out a slightly battered laptop which she flips open and, after tapping in a brief password, turns to you to show a folder containing a selection of photographs, text documents and links to websites. "This is everything my source sent me about the Romanians and everything I managed to get on top of that. You're welcome to it if you want it - this one is a little too perilous for my blood. If you get to the bottom of it I'm sure my paper would pay for the scoop and my source is clearly interested so you might be able to get them to fork out for your work if it's a payday you're after."

She opens her emails and hunts down a message from the source. As she pulls it up to give you the email address you note, perhaps not with that much surprise, that it's Harker - the same person who hired you. "I'll warn you they're an odd sort - half of that stuff they sent me is about ghouls and monsters. Think they're a bit of an obsessive but their info checked out alright."

Wayne looked at Felix oddly and then back to Olivia, "Ms. Liu, honestly I've seen shit. The world isn't as solid as people say." He handed the file to Felix. "Can you think of any place we can stash you?"

Felix gratefully accepted the laptop and began a quick perusal of the offered files.  Not a thorough search of course, but years of office work gave him highly honed scanning skills.  To get the gist of large files.  The high notes.

Olivia nods, "I've got contacts all over the place. If you can get me to an airport I might go and spend a couple of months in South America. I figure that's got to be far enough to avoid whoever it is I've pissed off. I can leave you a couple of ways to contact me if you need anything else."

Felix's quick scan of the files shows some definitely odd things. It's a collection of articles, reports and photographs curated by someone linking it together. Much of it is fairly standard (unusual accounts, reports of questionable activity etc.) in respect of a Romanian mining concern though there are also a number of articles about vampires. The obvious link between Romania and vampires is there but it isn't instantly clear where the mining angle comes in. In addition to those files are the additional research Oliva completed and, especially, the photographs taken the night she was attacked. There is the expected heavy machinery and portacabins but the dig site itself seems odd - it appears to be a castle. Not the standard location for a large mining company...

Wayne nodded, "Fair enough. I'm sure Felix has some plane tickets in his back pocket somewhere. There is a shower upstairs if you want and private rooms."

Felix didn't look up from his perusal of the files, taking a moment to read some particularly interesting bit.  He does note, however, "Oh, yes, of course...  Plane tickets are easy enough.  Identification, passports, etc.  All this can be done.  But, I believe, our employer has a safe location and a new identity already in place."  He moves on to the next page, "Your contact, this Harker, is the one who hired us to get you out of Marrakech."

"Harker, yeah, strange one that. Only ever communicates online but seems to have a lot of access, they can get some really deep information. I did try to do some digging in to them before, professional curiosity, and I think they're London based but damn difficult to track down. There's some contact details in the files if you want to raise anything with them directly - though if they got you on board you probably had it anyway."

Olivia rises to stand, "A shower and a sleep sounds like a pretty good idea. Unless you need anything else from me first?"

Wayne looked at Felix for the answer as he did not need anything more.

Felix politely stood as Olivia did, being careful of the laptop as he did so, "Oh.  Yes.  Of course."  He nodded down to the laptop, "Would you mind if I continued to look through this?  Perhaps make a few copies?"  He then looked over to Wayne while Olivia decided, "And, perhaps you should be in charge of direct security and protection protocols, yes?  Mrs. Liu's safety is our responsibility till she is safely under her new cover and location."

Wayne nodded at Felix as he stood with the smaller man. "Will do. I'll personally stand guard at her door if need be."

Olivia is happy with you keeping as much of the data she has as you want; her view is that she's washing her hands of it for the time being given the events of the last few hours.

Beyond that any more questions for Olivia Liu or are you happy to move things along? There's a couple of leads you might wish to run down besides anything else you might think of.

I am good with moving ahead.

Without leaving your hotel rooms Sidney manages to make contact with Harker through the encrypted channels you have used previously. The response is with you within an hour and you are soon in an untraceable interne chatroom. Harker is effusive, or at least as effusive as faceless internet correspondence can be, in their praise for your actions in saving Olivia Liu.

They quickly steer the conversation on to Olivia's findings in Romania and it is not long before they ask if you would be willing to finish looking into the strange goings on at the excavation site though, unaware you have seen Olivia's files, there is no mention of anything supernatural and you are giving just an overview of strange mining activity in rural Romania which they would like looking into. However, they also mention that they might have something even more sensitive if that job isn't to your speed. That they refuse to share further details about online and insist on meeting you in London to discuss further...

Your fee for the Marrakesh job is with you before the chat window closes. Say what you like about your faceless employer, they are never tardy with the money.

Wayne thought about it. After a few minutes he said, "I'm curious to meet our mysterious employer if nothing else, so I vote for London."

Felix was quick to agree, reading through what details were provided, "Yes.  I would very much like to meet this person as well..."