Back In Europe, On The Job
Feb. 21st, 2005 11:01 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsRemy heads off to Europe, trying to narrow down who killed Wisdom's father.
It didn’t take much to keep Remy’s anger hot and full. He had been a master assassin; a sadist who had taken intense joy in destroying the lives of others in the most thorough and disgusting ways possible. While he was finally trying to stop running away from everything of Gambit, one of the things that defined how he could never go back was actually seeing the effects that people like he had visited on others. How many lives ended up destroyed by his thinking of people as things; unimportant names worth nothing more than amusement and bank figures.
He flipped through the papers that had been sent to the mansion from the elder Wisdom’s autopsy. Ricin. That dirty little fuck of a drug had been the cause of death, lethal and barely traceable. If it hadn’t been for Pete Wisdom’s status as a security asset and the infamy of Georgi Markov’s assassination, the poisoning would have never been discovered. Wisdom would have been just another old man who died from a virulent illness of undetermined nature.
A particularly alert doctor had run a series of tissue samples and picked up the traces of the toxin. They’d passed the information along to the Wisdom family, as well as the offices of MI5. That had led to Pete’s nearly uncontained explosion, and more signs that Wisdom was clearly no longer playing with a full stack. LeBeau had offered to shake the trees in Europe for information about the assassination, if just to keep Wisdom from running around his old haunts with his game not all the way on and getting killed.
Ricin was the key. It was an old Soviet staple. The Agency liked cyanide for most work, or one of the new Dow developments with the long jawbreaker names to use on their wetwork. But the Soviets had found a typically Russian solution for poisons; develop one from a plant as common as the castor oil plant, that breaks down almost completely in the tissue and looks like any number of illnesses. It was likely one of the most effective poisons on the market, but had barely received any kind of usage outside of the former Warsaw pact countries.
Remy’s hope was that Blanche Sitnizki was still as well connected in the underground market as she used to be. If someone was looking for ricin in any quantities, the deal either went through her or news about it would get to her. That meant that Remy could find them for the right price.
Oddly enough, he wasn’t looking forward to it.
And Gambit displays his winning people skills by asking nice questions to a man who could hold the answers.
Ulm was beautiful at night. The lights of the cathedral made the stone glow white and blue in the darkness. It was cold and crisp, a late winter gasp at frost. Remy lit a cigarette, drew on it until it blossomed cherry red in the night.
The spire of the Ulm cathedral was one of the tallest in Europe, forested in outcroppings and gargoyles up the entire length. From his perch, Remy could see the lights of the entire city, sprinkled like rare gems across the ground. He took a moment to enjoy the view before he turned to the body next to him.
The man was upside down, hanging from a rope which was looped over an overhanging gargoyle and rotating gently in the night air. His legs and arms where tightly duct-taped, so he couldn’t twist too much. Remy put an appropriately sadistic grin on his face and removed the man’s blindfold.
His scream echoed off the stones.
“Dat’s what Gambit like to hear. So, Antoliy Sirov, late of de operational end of de KGB, freelancing for all sorts of people dese days. My name is Gambit.” There was a second moan of terror. “Guess dat means you heard of me.” Remy dragged on his cigarette, deliberately allowing Sirov to get a long look at the drop he was hanging over.
“Look, what do you want with me?” Sirov said. He was a hard man, accustomed to a brutal life in European operations. But the drop, combined with the appearance of a man who’s name was synonymous with sadism had shaken him.
“Information, Sirov. Dis is de part where you tell me de truth about everything I ask, and den I tell you dat you might get out of here still able to walk. Or, you say dat you’ll never tell, and Gambit does horrible things to you because it funny.” Remy said. “Dat about summarize it for you?”
“Nyet. I don’t know anything.”
“See, dis is what I wanted to avoid.” Remy leaned down, eyes meeting with the upside down man. “You been buying poisons for a job, one dat I assume dat you did personally. If dats de case, you know a lot, and just don’t want to share.”
“Job?”
“Ricin, Sirov. You delivered a pellet of ricin into de body of a man named Wisdom.”
“Nyet!” He shouted. “I don’t do the field work. Someone else took the contract.”
“Dat’s progress. See how easy it is? You still even have both ears.” Remy smiled again, drawing on his cigarette. “So, you got de ricin for de job. Who ordered it?”
“Orders come through a blind trust in Switzerland. I pick up the information from a lockbox and set up the job. When it’s done, I get paid through a numbered account.” Sirov sputtered, and LeBeau bit back a curse. He was afraid of that. Good operational security wasn’t all that hard to set up, but it seemed like Sirov’s employers had taken the time.
“And you never wondered who gave the orders?”
“You ask questions and you end up dead.” Sirov was feeling slightly more confident now, and to help his anxiety, Remy let his cigarette hover close to the rope. The rotations turned him away from LeBeau, and while he was thinking of other lines to take, he noticed the tattoo on the man’s left hand again. It was a typical Spetsnaz tattoo of the thunderbolt.
Something clicked in LeBeau’s mind. He’d seen that tattoo before, in the DVD Amanda had given him. Sirov had been one of the men at the Hellfire Club party. Suddenly, everything fell into place.
“So, why did Alphonso order de assassination?”
“That’s crazy.”
“Homme, I got you tied up at de top of a church. Dat’s supposed to be sane behaviour?”
“Come on, Gambit. You’re a professional. You know if I talk, I’m a dead man.”
“You don’t think I won’t kill you? Worry ‘bout me first.” Remy held the cigarette against the rope. The plastic covering would take a while to light, but the heat started to melt the coating, creating a satisfactorily large plume of greasy smoke.
“Don’t! Stop!”
“Why did Alphonso have Wisdom killed?”
“He didn’t say. Something about proving who was in control.”
“And Amanda?”
“Who?”
“De girl you and your friends beat de shit out of last year.”
“I don’t know. I was just there as muscle. Alphonso wanted people he could disappear back outside of the club. He doesn’t tell me anything!”
“You lying to me?” Remy said quietly, and the fear that lashed across Sirov’s face was as good as any lie detector.
“Nyet.”
“Bein.” Gambit hitched up his coat, and stubbed his cigarette out on the stone work. “Sirov, in ‘bout five hours, de sun come up enough for people to notice you. Since you still have dat Interpol record, de police likely put you right in a cell. Dat means de people you work for figure dat you talk and have you executed before you can talk more. See, what I’d like to do is cut de rope and watch you splash, but dat would be wrong. Too direct. So, Gambit put you in a situation dat makes sure dat you going to die. And dat idea makes me very happy indeed. Salut, Sirov.” Remy said, reaffixing the gag and leaving the twisting, struggling man to his fate.
It didn’t take much to keep Remy’s anger hot and full. He had been a master assassin; a sadist who had taken intense joy in destroying the lives of others in the most thorough and disgusting ways possible. While he was finally trying to stop running away from everything of Gambit, one of the things that defined how he could never go back was actually seeing the effects that people like he had visited on others. How many lives ended up destroyed by his thinking of people as things; unimportant names worth nothing more than amusement and bank figures.
He flipped through the papers that had been sent to the mansion from the elder Wisdom’s autopsy. Ricin. That dirty little fuck of a drug had been the cause of death, lethal and barely traceable. If it hadn’t been for Pete Wisdom’s status as a security asset and the infamy of Georgi Markov’s assassination, the poisoning would have never been discovered. Wisdom would have been just another old man who died from a virulent illness of undetermined nature.
A particularly alert doctor had run a series of tissue samples and picked up the traces of the toxin. They’d passed the information along to the Wisdom family, as well as the offices of MI5. That had led to Pete’s nearly uncontained explosion, and more signs that Wisdom was clearly no longer playing with a full stack. LeBeau had offered to shake the trees in Europe for information about the assassination, if just to keep Wisdom from running around his old haunts with his game not all the way on and getting killed.
Ricin was the key. It was an old Soviet staple. The Agency liked cyanide for most work, or one of the new Dow developments with the long jawbreaker names to use on their wetwork. But the Soviets had found a typically Russian solution for poisons; develop one from a plant as common as the castor oil plant, that breaks down almost completely in the tissue and looks like any number of illnesses. It was likely one of the most effective poisons on the market, but had barely received any kind of usage outside of the former Warsaw pact countries.
Remy’s hope was that Blanche Sitnizki was still as well connected in the underground market as she used to be. If someone was looking for ricin in any quantities, the deal either went through her or news about it would get to her. That meant that Remy could find them for the right price.
Oddly enough, he wasn’t looking forward to it.
And Gambit displays his winning people skills by asking nice questions to a man who could hold the answers.
Ulm was beautiful at night. The lights of the cathedral made the stone glow white and blue in the darkness. It was cold and crisp, a late winter gasp at frost. Remy lit a cigarette, drew on it until it blossomed cherry red in the night.
The spire of the Ulm cathedral was one of the tallest in Europe, forested in outcroppings and gargoyles up the entire length. From his perch, Remy could see the lights of the entire city, sprinkled like rare gems across the ground. He took a moment to enjoy the view before he turned to the body next to him.
The man was upside down, hanging from a rope which was looped over an overhanging gargoyle and rotating gently in the night air. His legs and arms where tightly duct-taped, so he couldn’t twist too much. Remy put an appropriately sadistic grin on his face and removed the man’s blindfold.
His scream echoed off the stones.
“Dat’s what Gambit like to hear. So, Antoliy Sirov, late of de operational end of de KGB, freelancing for all sorts of people dese days. My name is Gambit.” There was a second moan of terror. “Guess dat means you heard of me.” Remy dragged on his cigarette, deliberately allowing Sirov to get a long look at the drop he was hanging over.
“Look, what do you want with me?” Sirov said. He was a hard man, accustomed to a brutal life in European operations. But the drop, combined with the appearance of a man who’s name was synonymous with sadism had shaken him.
“Information, Sirov. Dis is de part where you tell me de truth about everything I ask, and den I tell you dat you might get out of here still able to walk. Or, you say dat you’ll never tell, and Gambit does horrible things to you because it funny.” Remy said. “Dat about summarize it for you?”
“Nyet. I don’t know anything.”
“See, dis is what I wanted to avoid.” Remy leaned down, eyes meeting with the upside down man. “You been buying poisons for a job, one dat I assume dat you did personally. If dats de case, you know a lot, and just don’t want to share.”
“Job?”
“Ricin, Sirov. You delivered a pellet of ricin into de body of a man named Wisdom.”
“Nyet!” He shouted. “I don’t do the field work. Someone else took the contract.”
“Dat’s progress. See how easy it is? You still even have both ears.” Remy smiled again, drawing on his cigarette. “So, you got de ricin for de job. Who ordered it?”
“Orders come through a blind trust in Switzerland. I pick up the information from a lockbox and set up the job. When it’s done, I get paid through a numbered account.” Sirov sputtered, and LeBeau bit back a curse. He was afraid of that. Good operational security wasn’t all that hard to set up, but it seemed like Sirov’s employers had taken the time.
“And you never wondered who gave the orders?”
“You ask questions and you end up dead.” Sirov was feeling slightly more confident now, and to help his anxiety, Remy let his cigarette hover close to the rope. The rotations turned him away from LeBeau, and while he was thinking of other lines to take, he noticed the tattoo on the man’s left hand again. It was a typical Spetsnaz tattoo of the thunderbolt.
Something clicked in LeBeau’s mind. He’d seen that tattoo before, in the DVD Amanda had given him. Sirov had been one of the men at the Hellfire Club party. Suddenly, everything fell into place.
“So, why did Alphonso order de assassination?”
“That’s crazy.”
“Homme, I got you tied up at de top of a church. Dat’s supposed to be sane behaviour?”
“Come on, Gambit. You’re a professional. You know if I talk, I’m a dead man.”
“You don’t think I won’t kill you? Worry ‘bout me first.” Remy held the cigarette against the rope. The plastic covering would take a while to light, but the heat started to melt the coating, creating a satisfactorily large plume of greasy smoke.
“Don’t! Stop!”
“Why did Alphonso have Wisdom killed?”
“He didn’t say. Something about proving who was in control.”
“And Amanda?”
“Who?”
“De girl you and your friends beat de shit out of last year.”
“I don’t know. I was just there as muscle. Alphonso wanted people he could disappear back outside of the club. He doesn’t tell me anything!”
“You lying to me?” Remy said quietly, and the fear that lashed across Sirov’s face was as good as any lie detector.
“Nyet.”
“Bein.” Gambit hitched up his coat, and stubbed his cigarette out on the stone work. “Sirov, in ‘bout five hours, de sun come up enough for people to notice you. Since you still have dat Interpol record, de police likely put you right in a cell. Dat means de people you work for figure dat you talk and have you executed before you can talk more. See, what I’d like to do is cut de rope and watch you splash, but dat would be wrong. Too direct. So, Gambit put you in a situation dat makes sure dat you going to die. And dat idea makes me very happy indeed. Salut, Sirov.” Remy said, reaffixing the gag and leaving the twisting, struggling man to his fate.
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