Chapter 18 – Mission Prep
The next morning they fixed a boatload of eggs Benedict which they served to the team with finely julienned French fried potatoes doused in truffle oil, parmesan cheese, and sautéed arugula. Try that combo next time you want to impress a houseguest. After eating, they went to the living room. When they left the kitchen the blue cats were sitting on the counter near the pantry. When they entered the living room, the cats were sitting on the piano. How does that happen?
The extended team was here, minus Henric, Constantine, and Gale. Gwen had decided to invite Richard, the writer, in hopes that he would turn this event into a book, or at least a short story. A fiction book or story, of course. If after hearing the game plan he decided he didn’t want to play, they knew he would keep quiet. They had decided not to invite Gale because they knew she could not keep quiet.
This was the strategy session, so Roger took the lead. Normally the strategy comes before the tactics, but not in this case. Gwen had decided, unilaterally, that they were going to pay Stirg a visit, so this was backfill.
Roger got out the team’s usual planning tool, an easel with a large pad of flipchart paper on it, and markers. He ran down the case for the others. “We’re 99% sure that Glissy’s real name is Anna Stirg, and that she is the twenty-seven year old granddaughter of Nazi hunter Pmirhs Stirg, billionaire resident of Charleston. Glissy now is living with Slev, and we trust her not to hurt us because that’s what The Deneuve’s intuition says, backed up by Gwen’s and Slev’s intuition. But she won’t tell us who she is, or anything about her past.” Roger transcribed this into three bullet points on the flipchart. “We know a little about Stirg’s history. People who have studied and documented the Nazi hunting campaign imply that Stirg has killed a number of people. We know he is Russian and Jewish, and came to Charleston so Anna could go to college here and because of Charleston’s unique history of Jewish culture and tradition. We think he’s very traditional minded when it comes to Russian and Jewish heritage. He tries to be a recluse but he has a temperament that gets riled and agitated easily, and occasionally he gets himself in the newspaper for doing one odd thing or another. That’s about all we know, though no doubt more information is available on the Internet.” Roger transcribed this into several more bullet points on the flipchart.
“We know he sent Anna into our house, armed with a Walther. We don’t know what he wants, but it probably has something to do with the Hermitage stuff. Even though we have co-opted Anna, we think he’s a serious threat to us; a conclusion based to a large degree on our intuitions. But we trust those intuitions. We’ve made the executive decision to retaliate, immediately. Anyone object to this?” No one did, but Peter and Pater, the ballet boys, looked uncomfortable. Gwen smiled at them and nodded. “Then the purpose of this meeting is to outline a strategy for our offensive. What do we want to achieve? What are our objectives?” Roger tore the top sheet off the flipchart and set in on the sideboard. On the next sheet he wrote, Mission Objectives.
As usual, Jinny spoke up first. He said, “Scare the shit out of Stirg.” Gwen nodded at this suggestion, though she doubted Stirg scared easily. Roger wrote this on the list.
Helstof said, “Find out why he sent Anna here.” Roger wrote this as the second objective.
Pater said, “Find out if he will donate a large sum of money to our ballet academy.” Everyone looked at Pater, even the two cats, because Pater was not known for his sense of humor, goofy or otherwise. Where had this come from? Who had he been hanging out with? Peter, his significant other, giggled. And no, neither Peter nor Pater were going on the assault mission.
Gwen silently telegraphed Roger to record the suggestion on the flipchart, her not wanting to stifle Pater’s newly-exhibited sense of humor.
“Anything else?” Roger asked. This was good. Missions with lots of objectives get messy really quickly. Two was a good number. Now he said, “We’ve all got to understand the consequences of this action. Unless we decide to kill Stirg there in his house, he’s likely to come back at us, so we will have to go on high alert. Do you know what that means? It means you’ll be looking over your shoulder. It means you’ll be carrying guns. It means the good life is over, for a while.” The four women looked impassive. Jinny snickered. Peter and Pater looked nervous. Richard looked perplexed, as only a writer can do. The cats remained inscrutable. Helstof went over to them and scratched their heads. They issued their “Caooh,” which had a palliative effect on everyone.
Gwen stood up. “Gun practice today at 1pm. Everyone.” She looked specifically at Peter, Pater, and Richard. They weren’t going on the assault, but she wanted to start training them for whatever came afterwards. She looked at Slevov and Helstof and asked, “What about Constantine and Henric? They need to know. And they need to know you’re going into action.” The two women nodded. “Jinny, execute the plan as soon as possible. Tell us when we leave.”
He said, “Hot damn,” and the meeting broke up.