Old Man of the Mountain: Kinda Awkward

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Adrienne, Garrison and Jake fake their way into the local customs department at the airport, to see if they can identity the man they are searching for.



"You look ridiculous, you know." Garrison Kane said, as the three of them strode through the front gates of the airport security section. Jake Gavin's uniform was that of a Madripoorian Colonel, with all the gold braid and piping that the security forces had decorated themselves with. His identity was perfect, Col. Osmann Sheptik, a former German paratrooper who had come to Madripoor for the better pay and instant promotion as part of their army. Sheptik was currently on the Billitung Island post, no danger of showing up soon, and his Malay was poor enough that his file said he normally spoke English only.

Their investigations had turned up little, except some details about a flight from Bangladesh to Madripoor, a small twenty seater that had dropped off the official records. It made sense, that Lhatsun had found his way onto a smuggler's run into the city, to try and disappear. They only had a rough window in which the plane had left, leaving open hours of possible arrival during the date. However, one advantage was that he would have had to come through the main terminal for basic safety. Either Lhatsun had money with him, but no security from robbery, or had money waiting. Either way, the only way to keep it long enough to get clear of the airport would have been to work through customs, and bribe the locals to look the other way when stamping his fake passport, something Madripoor authorities were very good at doing. It was thin, but it was also all that they had right now.

"I don't know. I think the gold braid really brings out my eyes," Jake snarked in response. Kane could be as surly of a bastard as he wanted, as far as the shapeshifter was concerned, as long as he delivered when it was time for him to play the part of Arrogant American Fed. Or Canadian. Whatever.

"And if you think this is ridiculous, wait till you hear me do my best Colonel Klink."

He glanced at Adrienne from behind his aviators. He supposed he should consider himself lucky that she hadn't tried to shoot him yet for dragging her into this, although all that really told him was that she probably wasn't his kind of woman after all. "Ready, Fraulein?"

"I've been ready since I left the damn mansion," Adrienne snapped. Or rather, since she'd realised this was Garrison's mission and that he'd be coming along, and worse, that she'd be working with him. "Let's get this the hell over with. Hey, maybe they'll start shooting at us and you'll take a bullet in the ass, Klink," she added hopefully, holding Jake responsible for her being here with Garrison. "Maybe you both will." She sighed dreamily.

"Let's try to be vaguely professional. This is a place that due process is often a matter of finances, and you two are not the people I want to share an Asian prison cell with." Garrison muttered as they passed through the doors to the security office. Now it was all Jake's show to get them access to the answers they needed.

Despite his earlier threat to refer to Garrison as Agent Hogan, Jake was all business the moment they hit the door. He had the bored swagger of the kind of soldier who took easy promotion in an island nation, and one disdainful look combined with the gold braid and piping was enough to send the secretary scurrying for the head customs official.

The one thing you had to love about Madripoor, Jake thought as the man appeared, was that everyone had an angle. The bureaucrat was clearly a
man who knew opportunity when he saw it, and he quickly ushered them
into his office.

"Kin--I may call you Kin, ja?" Jake asked in German-accented English as he settled comfortably into a chair. "Our American friends are looking to keep this matter quiet, and they understand that this is a great inconvenience on your part. They are looking to be...proactive when it comes to making sure that you are compensated for your troubles."

"Agents Kane and Frost, FBI. Col. Sheptik has assured us that you will understand our need for this visit to be fast, and officially, to never have happened. We're looking for a specific man who we believe entered this country under a false passport between the hours of seven and ten last Wednesday." Kane said in fluent Cantonese, making a guess from the man's non-Malay features. Besides, Kane didn't speak Malay, and putting the man off-balance using his own language was both a gamble to take control of the conversation, and a way to hide it from the rest of the staff. "We need to see your security footage from that time window, as well as the visa forms collected during those hours."

"This is most unusual." The man said, confirming Kane's guess by responding in Cantonese. "Customs are a vital part of our national security, and even with the military's support, granting access to a foreign national is not something done lightly. I must consult my ministry." His nametag said Kwok, and his opening was typical. If his men had taken a bribe to allow the Sikkim diplomat through, a percentage would have crossed his hands, and he wasn't about to deliver himself into a trap.

"Col. Sheptik mentioned that fact. However, this is an important investigation. One that potentially involves threats to the military protection of Madripoor." Kane had just waved the big stick, that trying to dissemble about this could lead to a showdown with the military, who essentially controlled the nation. Now he showed the carrot. "However, when the Colonel explained the situation that it could put dedicated officers of other ministries in, we agreed that we'd be happy to show our gratitude for their help and discretion with a donation to your professional association."

Kwok visibly relaxed. A bribe would tie them all into secrecy, protecting him and his men. He nodded sharply, and Kane waved Adrienne towards the records room. "Be quick." He whispered as she walked past. "He'll be on the phone looking to see if he can make any money selling 'Sheptik' out as soon as he leaves the room, and we need to be gone by then."

"Fuck you," Adrienne retorted under her breath at his mention to be quick, just loud enough for Garrison to hear. She'd done the professional facade thing in public, but couldn't bring herself to keep it up in front of Garrison despite trying. "Do I tell you how to do your job? Don't treat me like a fucking child. This isn't my first day, you know." She hadn't really gotten a chance to pay him back for acting like a petulant child at Harry's so now would have to do even though it wasn't the best time, admittedly.

"Come with me, Sheptik?" she asked Jake with a toothy smile. "I'd like you to watch my back." She had no sense of what was going on around her while she was reading something, so it would be useful to have Jake there in case something went south, but Adrienne wasn't about to admit that in front of Kwok. She gave Garrison a pointed look, to let him know she trusted Jake more than him to watch her back.

Inwardly, Jake was rolling his eyes, but as Sheptik he winked at Adrienne. "Of course, Agent Frost," he said, just loudly enough for Kwok to hear, "I would be more than happy to accompany you." He gave Kwok his best dirty old man grin behind Adrienne's back as he held the door for her.

Giving the dirty-old-man-grin a scowl, which Adrienne thought was rather in character for the professional, no-nonsense Agent Frost, she headed through the door. One of her hands was already wiped clean to avoid suspicion, so as soon as Jake had entered she began touching the visa slips, one by one. This would definitely be an exercise in powers control, she realized. Despite her annoyance with Garrison’s appeal that she hurry, the psychometrist did recognize the need to get this over with as fast as possible, which meant skimming timelines and then extracting herself from the readings in rapid succession, something she wasn’t really used to doing. She sorted them into piles, which she explained to Jake as she was halfway through the stack.

"These ones are legit. These ones are forgeries, but not by or for the man we’re looking for." The two piles were nearly even.

Out in the main room, Garrison shook off Adrienne's comment, instead taking a seat at the bank of monitors. One of Kwok's men began to cue up the monitors with records from the time frame that Kane had indicated. A possible three hour window meant thousands of faces to review going through the customs lines. It was an outside shot, but they had to try, especially if Adrienne couldn't find anything from the visa drafts.

With a stifled sigh, he began to go through the tapes, fastforwarding to look for a sign of the man they were looking for.

"Is there anything I can do to help you, Agent?" Jake asked in Sheptik's voice and accent. Better to play the part and assume they were being listened to. Adrienne told him to bugger off, concentrating, and so he wandered around the room, keeping one eye on the door and one out for anything interesting in the room. Besides the visa slips, there were files and papers everywhere, but nothing that could be easily searched without attracting attention. Jake finished his circuit and went to wait by the door, taking the opportunity to very obviously ogle Adrienne again. For appearances. Of course.

Bending lower over the table to give Jake more of a view, Adrienne continued reading the slips. She had a very clear picture of the diplomat in her head from their intel, having made a business out of scrutinizing people's physical appearances, so when she came across a visa being drawn up for a man standing anxiously over the shoulder of the counterfeiter who'd done many of the forgeries in her pile, she recognized the hoverer as the missing diplomat. Adrienne watched the slip being completed so that the name on it would be ingrained in her memory, thus avoiding the need to take the slip with her and arouse suspicion. Hiding her triumph in a well-placed scowl, she straightened up, giving Jake a barely perceptible nod. "We're done. Can we just go and leave Kane here?" she asked him hopefully.

"Agent Frost, as much as I would love to leave your sour-faced friend behind and sweep you away to my home on Billitung Island," he winked at her lecherously, "I do believe that your government would be very unhappy with me for taking one of its best agents. And we do not want that." Nor do I need you two to get me arrested in fucking Madripoor, he thought but didn't say, the smile never leaving his face.

He escorted her back down the hall to where Kane waited for them. "Agent Kane, I believe we are done here, unless there is anything else?"

"Where's the slip?" Kane asked, and took a look at the timestamp to bring up the image of Lhatsun on the screen. He printed out a copy and reset the tapes. Now they had a name and a current image of their target. All that was left was to find him. Garrison got up and nodded to the door.

"In my brain," Adrienne retorted in a low hiss. "It'll be there forever now."

"Which we can't show to people if we're trying to see if they've seen the guy." Kane said softly before turning to the others. "Thank you, Colonel. Mister Kwok." Kane said, as Jake pulled out a plain brown envelope, thickly bulging with notes and passed it over.

"I'd thank you for your help, but like we said, this never happened."