11148/Showdown in Vatican City

Showdown in Vatican City
Date of Scene:	03 March 2020
Location:	Rome, Italy
Synopsis:	The Prince is found.
Cast of Characters:	Silk, Indiana Jones

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Silk has posed:
Cindy was uncertain how long an archivist would chase a jawbreaker, so she knows she has to act quickly. She follows the shelves on the wall to the location indicated on the computer and climbs...silently. She doesn't know how loud that robotic retriever would be, and she doesn't intend to find out. Besides, climbing that high might get her out of eye level for him, if he should return.

Indiana Jones has posed:
All the books, from scrolls to heavy tomes, each have their own plastic container, with temperature/humidity units in the thick lids to keep decay at bay.

The location on the computer leads her to a high shelf, the container marked SAINT MARIA'S FOLLY (1527). Inside is a thick tome with an iron clasp. A note remarks, "Unable to open lock without destroying lock. Hire locksmith."
It was dated 1834 and again in 1977. Good help might be hard to find in Rome.

Silk has posed:
Cindy deftly removes the time from the plastic container and replaces it with a blank journal she pulls from a small leather sling, where the book had been hidden beneath her hair. She replaces the blank journal with the old tome, and covers it again with her hair, before making a jump to another location on the shelves to come down from. Better not to be in that exact spot if someone comes in before she can escape. She'll worry about that lock later.

Indiana Jones has posed:
The cardinal passes by her, walking towards the front. Then he sees someone and says, "Here, now...what is..."

And then the thump of a silenced pistol shot.
Three men with Brethren combat gear come in. Initially it makes no sense...then she realizes the gear does not fit well. Either the tailor is sick with the flu...
Philipe Belloq is heard from the entrance to the building. "<Find it,>" he says in accented French.

Silk has posed:
Cindy watches breathlessly as she climbs onto the ceiling and moves quietly along toward the window where she came in. It isn't far, and the window is up high. Hopefully she can make it before she is even noticed.

Indiana Jones has posed:
Cindy is in luck. Apparently this is not a place where people look up, and soon Cindy is outside again.

Indy's voice comes in quietly through the earpiece. "Silk. It's Fedora. Status?"

Silk has posed:
Cindy blinks as she climbs down the building on a stealthy diagonal. She has an earpiece, but no way to talk to him without grabbing her cell out of a pocket. She can make it to him before she could fish that out to message him, so she thwips out a web and swings past one building, leaps and flips over a smaller hut, scales one more building and lands on the ground beside Indy. "Got it, but the Brethren are inside now, looking for it. We gotta flyyyy, Daddy-O."

Indiana Jones has posed:
Indy chuckled. That had sounded so familiar. Daddy-O?
"Whatever you say, ya game dame." He opened the door for Cindy, then hopped over the hood to get into the driver's seat.
Another ten seconds, and they were on the road.
"Dial 112 for the police. Tell them there's shooting in the archive in Vatican City. Then hang up. Just that, then hang up."

Silk has posed:
Cindy slips her phone out of a skintight pocket and dials...waits...then speaks. "There's been a shooting in Vatican City," she says. Then she hangs up the phone, and looks to Indy. "How'd you know?"

Indiana Jones has posed:
"I didn't." Indy grinned. "But someone hears 'gun in the Vatican,' and it's red-alert time, guaranteed." He slowed down as they reached a quiet avenue with a fountain at the other end. "We'll stop here. Let's see what you have."
Indy pulled into a metered parking spot, then got out and looked around. He could hear sirens but they were far away.

Silk has posed:
Cindy pulls her hair aside and over her shoulder, then slides the tome out of a leather sling on her back. "Says they can't open it without destroying the lock. They tried for like forever, apparently. Or they never tried. One of those." Cindy hands the book over to Indy to inspect.

Indiana Jones has posed:
Indy glanced at the book, then opened his own journal, flipping a few pages. He was about to ask of she was sure this was the book, but of course it was. Cindy was not sloppy.

"This isn't the book. Not as Sister Mary described it." He tested the metal hinge holding the book closed, then sighed, handing it to Cindy.
"Break the lock. Brak the hinge, if you have to."

Silk has posed:
"Oh no....maybe someone got ahold of it before we did..." Cindy grasps the lock between her thumb and forefinger and just gives it a twist, twisting the metal and tearing it off the book with a clean /snap/. Then she opens the book between them, and peruses the pages.

Indiana Jones has posed:
Indy looks through the book, reading the contents, but he is also feeling along the edge of the book.
Suddenly he chuckled, slid his hand under a bunch of pages, turning them all at once.

The rest of the pages past that point had been hollowed out in a perfect rectangle.
The leather-bound volume described by Sister Maria lay precisely within the cavity cut into the book.
Indy pulled it out, looking at it carefully.
"It's THE PRINCE," He said softly.

Silk has posed:
Cindy sighs with huge relief. "Yesssss," she breathes, pumping both fists into the air in victory. "See? I told ya we could do this. We have it, and they don't. The police are probably arresting those tools even as we speak. What could possibly go wrong?"

Indiana Jones has posed:
Indy gave her a tired look. "Will you PLEASE stop saying that out loud?"