Videos sourced from the Organized Crime & Reporting Project
The Dracula Dossier goes into some detail about the Romanian mafia, though it is brief by necessity as covering it all would be at least one book in and of itself. I recommend the OCCRP as a useful source of supplementary information and this week I'm going to draw on it to sketch out a mini-scenario for you to use as you see fit.
The main book points out that the thriller relies on escalating thrills to keep the viewer engaged. The reward for danger is information; having information puts you into danger. When the hero rests, add more danger. (p180, NBA). Double Tap goes on to describe several different Thrilling contests (Digital Intrusion, Infiltration, Surveillance, Manhunts) and the Resource Guide includes Mission Skeletons. I'm going to be using all of these.
Just looking at the videos, a couple of interesting scene locations pop out: Spain, Popa Sapca Prison, Istanbul, a construction company, nightclubs. I can borrow from this pool to create the locations I'm going to need. Quick and dirty every time, mind you; this isn't the moment to be describing cities in detail.
Now I need to decide the kind of operation I want to create. The Resource Guide offers several options, any of which might apply: Destroy, Flip (an asset), Heist, Hit, Hunt, Rescue, Sneak, Trace, Uncover. I'm going to go with Flip, with a touch of Rescue just for flavor.
The asset I want to Flip is in Popa Sapca Prison. He used to be heavily involved in human trafficking, taking women from Turkey to Spain. He has information about a Conspiracy operation but he'll only talk if his conditions are met. Additional complication: Popa Scapa is unfriendly territory, and if he stays there then he may end up dead before he can talk.
Popa Sapca: Formerly for political prisoners, this is a working prison. If you don't work, you get half rations. You can work in the kitchens (very difficult to get assigned there, high demand), you can make wooden crates for transporting vegetables, you can work in a nearby concrete factory. This information dates back to the 1980s and things are almost certainly different now, but I can use this in plot so I'm keeping it. There's also a prison football team. Religious groups visit Romanian prisons. That's enough Google; it's easy to get bogged down in research.
So what have I got? A former Communist political prison now populated by some of the worst of the worst. There are work programs, a football team, and regular visits from an American evangelical religious group whose Chicago founders have Romanian links. Some of the work programs take place outside the prison, so in my fiction if there's any smuggling it probably happens via that work program; either the inmates or drivers/guards take packages into the prison.
In Dossier terms this is a Warm site, which means the Conspiracy has its tentacles here. It probably doesn't have a full-fledged Node, but there are plenty of former Renfields behind bars strung out for lack of the good stuff, and more than a few Ruvari Sgzani. There are no secrets in prison; the Conspiracy will find out if anyone talks.
The Flip target is Sorin Barbu, a former human trafficker now serving a five-year sentence. He used to transport women from Istanbul, Turkey, to nightclubs in the New Golden Mile, Marbella, Spain. He knows more than he should about Conspiracy operations in Spain thanks to his connections with organized crime there, specifically the Romanian syndicate Wolf Brigade. According to Sorin the Brigade carried out several hits while he was working in Spain supplying girls for the Brigade's hangouts in the New Golden Mile. He knows the hitters, the targets, some of the burial sites, and he knows these things because the Brigade coerced him into disposing of the bodies. 'You used to work in construction,' they said. 'You know how to dig a hole.'
Vampirology (0 point) soon realizes that some of these so-called hits are vampire attacks, and it's possible there may be some ferals down in the Golden Mile thanks to this creature's activities.
The Flip target comes to the agents' attention thanks to Charlie Popescu, an American evangelist trying to get attention paid to Sorin's case. Charlie thinks Sorin is unjustly imprisoned, and as a brother in Christ Charlie feels obligated to help Sorin out. Charlie's been talking to the American embassy in Bucharest, and he's been very indiscreet. If the agents know about Sorin, it's only a matter of time before the Conspiracy finds out.
Sorin's flip trigger (on the MICE scale of Money, Ideology, Coercion and Ego) is Ego. He sees himself as a protector, and he wants to go on protecting people - specifically Fatma Yildiz, a prostitute he became close to. He knew Fatma was falling in love with one of the johns, and he also knew that the john in question was one of the hitters whose bodies he was burying. This could only end badly for Fatma, so he brought her back to Istanbul where she would be safe.
Flip condition: If the agents ensure Fatma's safety, Sorin will talk.
What Sorin doesn't know: Fatma was the one who turned him in to the authorities.
Danger: If the agents don't move Sorin, or arrange some kind of protection while he's in prison (Network is helpful here), then Sorin will end up shanked long before the agents can complete the mission.
Next step is to locate Fatma, which means going to Istanbul. I'm not going to go through a whole Google for that; Istanbul's a capital city, well known, unlike an obscure prison in Romania. Streetwise narrows the search to a Gecekondu (squatter district) on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, where Fatma's living with a dozen other women. She works as a dancer in a Kadikoy nightclub. Fatma wants to go back to her lover in Spain. She's convinced he'll marry her and she'll live the high life on a yacht. The Conspiracy doesn't have any direct ties to the Turkish mafya group that runs the nightclub, but they have a friendly relationship. Fatma served her purpose when she helped put Sorin behind bars. The Conspiracy doesn't care what happens to her, but it cares very much if she goes back to Spain and causes a fuss. The Turks have been given a fat bribe and asked to take care of Fatma if it looks as if she's going to bolt.
Twist: Fatma isn't going to bolt. She's going into business. When she worked with Sorin she met quite a few Romanian mafia, including people who worked for a rival syndicate, the Centurions (cue Yojimbo option). The Centurions want their slice of Marbella's New Golden Mile. Fatma's being promoted from prostitute to procurer, and the women in her Gecekondu are her first shipment.
So on the principle that Information leads to Danger, the Information that Fatma's in Istanbul working for a nightclub run by a Turkish godfather immediately leads to trouble when Fatma runs away with her Centurion pals, and the Turks assume these nosy agents had something to do with it. Violence ensues, as trigger-happy Turk thugs bust up the agents' safehouse looking for Fatma.
By this point the agents have probably racked up Heat. If Heat is 5 or more, cut scene: Interpol. Turkey's well known for using Interpol aggressively to punish critics and dissidents. The Turkish mafyia pulls some strings and gets the agents put on an Interpol watch list for alleged organized crime offences (people smuggling). Senior Agent III Svitlana Dobrovolska is assigned the case. Cut scene ends with her beginning her investigation. This scene threatens Danger to come, since the agents don't know whether Svitlana's on the up-and-up. An honest Agent can be reasoned with; a crooked one cannot.
The action moves to Marbella, Spain. The New Golden Mile is Marbella's latest attempt to capitalize on a vast sea of money. It's high end houses, businesses, golf courses, and expensive shops, as far as the eye can see. As to where all this money's coming from, it might have something to do with Marbella's corruption problem. Mayor after mayor has been jailed in recent years in a string of allegations of money laundering and bribery that goes back to Mayor Gil (1991 to his arrest in 2002). The town nearly went bankrupt in 2006, and was briefly run by an unelected, appointed council before elections in 2007 put the People's Party in charge. Marbella's heavily in debt, which makes it vulnerable to approaches from, say, Romanian organized crime.
Or the Conspiracy.
There's been a Node in Marbella since the days of Mayor Gil, and a lot of the Conspiracy's money was funneled through friendly Marbella banks. The Conspiracy invested heavily in local Golden Mile real estate as well, banking its cash in brick and mortar. This came to a crashing halt in 2007 when investigations began in earnest, and the Conspiracy pulled out some of its assets and almost all of its money, selling its Golden Mile properties. However things are looking more promising nowadays and the New Golden Mile promises to be as lucrative as the old one was.
The vampire in charge of it all, Anna Kaufman, whose antecedents go back to before the Great War when she worked in film, is taking charge of this effort. She's the power behind the throne for local drug gangs, and she works through a Renfield hitter nicknamed The Southpaw, also known as Zubi after the football player Andoni Zubizarreta. Through Zubi and People's Party politician Maya Bardina the Conspiracy exercises control over the New Golden Mile.
Anna has a problem. Back in the early 2000s when things were looking much better she promoted a Renfield to full vampire status: Gordon 'Bones' Honeybone, a former London hard boy with remarkably handsome features. Bones was an excellent enforcer with criminal contacts in the UK, France and Spain, but he was never management material. His new status went to his head. He sees himself as a cross between Michael Caine and Christopher Lee, and relishes it a little too much. He's the one Fatma's in love with, and he's also the one whose carnal appetites has created a batch of new ferals that Anna doesn't know about - so far. Bones has killed some of those ferals himself, but the rest are causing trouble.
Meanwhile the Centurions are muscling in on turf the Wolf Brigade controls. The Wolf Brigade has a mutual assistance pact going with Anna's drug dealers through Zubi, but the Centurions are hungry for power and see the Wolf Brigade as yesterday's villains. So far Anna's interests aren't directly threatened so she's happy to let all this play out - until the agents get involved.
Up in Popa Sapca, Sorin Barbu has a ton of information on all these players. He knows all the Wolf Brigade's officer cadre, and has a surprising amount of detail on Anna's people too. This includes businesses they own, operations they run and assets they control - but most importantly he knows which New Golden Mile mansions have bodies in their basements, because he put them there. If the agents can convince Sorin that Fatma is either safe or not worth protecting any more, Sorin will spill all kinds of beans.
If the Interpol option is active then Svitlana Dobrovolska is in Marbella, gathering information and planning her next move. She'll need cooperation from the locals, but if she can get that then a sudden GAR raid is all too likely ...
Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment