11160/A Shark in the Pond

A Shark in the Pond
Date of Scene:	07 March 2020
Location:	Ekaretina Vespucci's Compound in Queens
Synopsis:	Great White Shark brokers a deal with the Contessa, for a sniper rifle to assassinate a British ambassador. The plan, is complex, but simple, and of unusual origin.
Cast of Characters:	Ekaterina Vespucci, Great White Shark

---

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
It is late evening and Ekaterina Vespucci's compound in Queens New York is hardly abuzz with activity. In fact the only noticable thing about it is that the lights are on in a warehouse district that is more or less shut down and dark at this time of the evening. AT the entrance to the large concrete structure there is a single panel with a button to press to request entrance. The setup at the entrance is fancy requiring an eye and fingerprint scan for entrance - or consent from someone who is buzzed inside. The area seems alomost dilapidated with this tasteless bulding being a well maintained exception.

Great White Shark has posed:
A black sedan cruises through the streets, late at night, with its lights low and yellow-white New Jersey plates. It pulls up outside the compound, and the rear door opens, slowly and with a little notch of extra force from the swinging push of an arm. The Great White Shark climbs out, dressed in his Bahama shorts and his loafers and Hawaiian shirt, carrying a mixed drink in a Tiki glass in his left hand.

He casts his baleful gaze across the compound, looking above to the windows and the old cracked walls, before he steps forward, sipping his drink through the cocktail straw extending from the red-liquor's brim inside the head idol container. There's a mild swing of his shoulder as he looks about, raising his glass to the driver, who then cruises off into the night.

The Shark waits outside, to be buzzed in, drinking his cocktail.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
It takes a while - perhaps the Shark should have hit the button himself - but after a few minutes he is noticed and a loud buzz can be heard. The men that open the door are military types - one introduces himself as John Noble the head of the 'Contessa's' security. Though casual conversation as Warren gets his tour of the enclosed compound has almost all of the men referring to 'the Contessa' as 'Kat'.

A shooting range and multiple sleeping quarters are passed through before Ekaterina's inner lair is reached. The Contessa as she is known on the streets is a small girl who looks no older than in her late teens or early twenties - a typical college freshman. She is in the middle of a studio working on a photorealistic painting of a rather handsome male. She is a little above five foot - has large cornflower blue eyes which many cite as her most appealing feature - and is not intimidating at all. Not much of a crimelord.

Great White Shark has posed:
There's a low bubbling suck as Great White Shark pulls his Mai Tai past his lipless mouth and sharpened teeth, his eternally parched throat sucking down the stiff, aluminum sensation alcohol.

"Contessa, I take it," comes Great White Shark's final greeting, after a few minutes of carefully viewing the painting, with a degree of appreciation given towards the frame and how it interacts with the angles of the depicted male's shoulders and the cant of the brush in Kat's hand as it moves over the painting.

Having evaluated his potential business partner, he slips forward on his greasy, briney shoes and moves to stand to her right, his left side offered briefly before he swivels to face her directly. "You can call me the Great White Shark. Thanks for the meeting."

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
The Contessa half turns offering Shark a half smile. She is not affected by his confronting appearance - her men weren't either but they had the whole ex military thing going on. The party accompanying Shark depart. Leaving him alone with her ostensibly.

The Contessa's salon is a whole room full of renaissance tier art - some photorealistic paintings and a number of sculptures that have a similar almost frightening realism. 3d printer art produced by the hand of this tiny lady - many in luxurious marble.

She turns and curtsies to the Shark putting her brush aside. "Sonna La Contessa Ekaterina Di Vespucci," she says in archaic Itlaian. She has flecks of paint and stone in her hair - a constant with her. "Great White Shark is a little unweildy - have anything shorter? I for example prefer Kat."

Great White Shark has posed:
"Call me Warren, then," Shark says, sucking through his straw, before the Mai Tai reaches the base of the Tiki head glass, the ice clinking about as he produces a fizzling slurp, before lowering the glass out of range of his face.

"I'm here representing Fyodor Dotsev, a local specialist out of Gotham. He's in town on work, representing a shipping conglomerate out of Kazakhstan. He's an honest businessman, and I need a discreet favor, as does he. I was hoping to arrange the pair of you to accomplish his goal."

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
"He falls short of the great author Fyodor Dostoyevski by a scant few syllables," Kat flexes her literary muscles. "Warren it is then - can I fix you another drink whilst we talk? I am depressingly sober." She moves over to a large bar nestled in her studio. Somehow it has escaped the paint and dust of her sculptures and is quite clean. Kat pours herself a basic boubon on the rocks - her offer left in the air. "I run a club and can make a mean cocktail," she qualifies her offer. "So what does our Fyodor want? And why is he so shy that he needs to send an intermediary?"

Great White Shark has posed:
"The particular business end of this discussion, that you are involved in, is one of your incentive-based interests, so he is using me for this acquisition," Great White Shark says, meandering to the bar and depositing his Tiki glass, before sliding his elbow up and crooking his right leg at the knee across ankles. Leaning, facing Ekaterina, he lets his right wrist droop and gestures with a single, raised forefinger (pinky missing, from the infortunate incident in Mister Freeze's cell), "It's an arms deal, and the appropriate measure would be many sequences of seperation, each one of them reversed in order from a potential trace-forwards."

Great White Shark casts his eyes to the bar. "I'll take a grenadine and a midori, with a highball of seltzer. They call that a Joker, in Arkham, he specializes in that one. Never drinks it, however."

Returning his attention, "The particular means of brokerage I prefer, is for you to acquire a sniper rifle for me, capable of firing in an urban environment down an alley from a building, through an avenue. I'll want this from a deal to the seller, for the buyer, as an arranged punitive suit, from sales point to your hands. Your manufacturer, of course, should be informed privately and repatriated from the fund as normal. This is a sensitive matter, and I wish to avoid MI-6 on the particular contract fee."

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
"Seems very elaborate for obtaining a simple sniper rifle - what has the man done to deserve a bullet I wonder through such an elaborate and expensive scheme?" She does a stand up job of making the drink - Kat loves cooking and cocktail mixing almost as she loves her art. "And what is your angle in this? Merely money?"

Great White Shark has posed:
"Besides the longterm addition to my rolodex of tricks, I collect a broker's commission."

The Great White Shark explains, as he watches the drink made, "The particular target is a British diplomat protected by MI-6, attempted to halt a Russian intelligence operation in Kazakhstan to secure their oil markets. Kazakh national policy is to expel foreign influence, and my client has been hired by an oil company that seeks outside investment."

The Shark turns his hand upwards, revealing his missing pinky, wrist bending his palm downwards. "The scheme is one I've created based on a study of MI-6 technique. MI-6, uses contract and international law research, to determine various culprits of acts they deem criminal, to retaliate with NATO, military support, MI-5, Scotland Yard, INTERPOL, assassins, etc."

The Shark turns his hand sidelong and raises a finger, thumb to his middle nail. "The key to this plan, is a series of coins with threads through them, using Sinn Fein politics. The thread, is our private discussion, along each end of the trail, to reverse the Nietzschean fraud of the series that criminal acts move through, MI-6 applying a simple Mosaic mutual brokerage analysis of the topic they find distasteful to oppose their own position, thus finding the truth of the matter. This way, the contracts, along each step, will be the opposite of the truth."

Great White Shark uncrosses his legs and pushes off the counter. "An national body, particularly one with a dead diplomat, will never stop hunting a criminal for any crime like murder, unless their very technique fails."

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
Kat sips her drink, "Only problem I have with elaborate plans is they all excite the part of my brain that was irritated when I first read Frank Herbert's 'Dune' and dealt with the 'Mentat' chapters. If a plan is too elaborate with too many things that can go wrong - it is barely a plan. It seems to me that a person or two who is not enmeshed in this MI-6 structure might behave differently to how you might expect. They might even 'fail upwards' as Kevin Smith artfully put the profession of celebrity. But count me in - it is an interesting ride to be sure. Even if it fails."

Great White Shark has posed:
"It's a simple template, with the same move, performed every line of a standard, accepted process of transaction."

Great White Shark takes his drink, and places the straw from his Tiki glass in it, taking a long sip, the only way he can drink without lips and those sharpened, grinning teeth. Breathing through his noseless nostrils, with a hard inhale, he sets the drink down.

"Our template, is the reversal, of each sequence stage of the passage of the principle, the sniper rifle, from your manufacturer, to the hands of my hirer. The template is reversed through a private discussion, by myself as a broker, empowered by you as my access, with capital provided by my employer, with yourself receiving a generous fee, and of course, my commission. Each stage of an arms transaction process is an already known method, so the trick of the play is to take each stage of the process, seperate them, perform the reversal and the private broker trick with your access granted, and move to the next minor stage."

"It's complex in conception because it's new, however quite simple should one have the patience, which I do."

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
"We will see how it works then," Kat says simply sipping her drink. "Do we conclude our transaction with a handshake or?" Kat offers. "I can make you another drink. I can actually paint aperfect picture of you from memory right now if you choose?"

Great White Shark has posed:
"Paint a picture of my Tiki glass, on a nice little piece of canvas, and send it to me." He pats the glass with his stretched hand covering it. "It'd be real neat. Not me, I'm ugly." His gaunt, grinning mouth widens around the edges.

He looks at his mangled, claw-like hand, and then shrugs his shoulder. "We'll just call it square. Call the number I contacted your men with when you've got the manufacturer and the rifle set up. I just need the manufacturer address, and the personal notice from you, on my behalf, that I'm coming in. I'll handle the money wire and the discussion and the legal terms, then we stage it every movement backwards, until my employer has the rifle."