LogDead Drop Vienna-Jason-4

Game log for the 2020-08-30 session of Dead Drop: Vienna, as taken by Jason

The team returns to Vienna to sift the take from The Hot Spot. Betts notifies us that she's got some business to take care of, but she's found a friend, Angel, who might be able to fill in. Wilmer gets a call from a contact who heard that Wilmer had been in Zagreb. He's connecting the dots between Wilmer being there and The Hot Spot going down. People are talking. There was a train derailment in Zagreb this morning (about a week later), which was rumored to be punishment from Mladic's backers to the Yugoslavian authorities who failed to protect him. Wilmer denies all involvement or even knowing the name Mladic. Wilmer then passes the warning along to the team.

We decide to investigate the source of the silver and gold bars we found in The Hot Spot, which was Solomon Shapiro of Paris. Ditch has his heart set on flying the team to Monaco (to pick up Angel) and then to Paris, because there's no reason to travel by train when he can fly. He has to look around a bit and make a few deals, but comes away with the use of an absolute shitbox of a high-wing fixed-gear monoplane that will not kill us, unless it does.

Angel, who knows people in Paris, meets up with Henri Montblanc. They barely exchange words before he begins fussing over her appearance. Shapiro's known for his very fine detail work, but there's a touch of scandal attached to his shop. He came out of Eastern Europe, didn't go to Israel in '47, and settled in Paris. He speaks French with an Alsatian accent, and terrible Hebrew. He is, unsurprisingly, known to keep large quantities of precious metals on the premises.

Mirabelle goes to a curbside cafe to do surveillance. She's there when an armored car rolls up and begins bringing unmarked wooden crates into the shop. They're clearly very heavy crates. She also observes ordinary customer traffic, working hours, etc. She doesn't see anybody who looks obviously out of place. The shop isn't a top-tier jeweler but it has some impressive pieces. She looks for the security cameras and concludes that the "video surveillance in effect" sign is all they have.

Winston studies records of the jeweler's shop. It's old. The previous owner died under mysterious circumstances in 1946 - he was found locked in his own vault.

Ditch tries to figure out if anyone has robbed this place before, and what happened. He tries to pass himself off as an IRA operative looking to raise money. People tell him that the Jewish Anti-Defamation League takes a dim view of crimes against Jewish shops, and that the time someone tried to rob the place, they got shot in the process. They give him a line on an art transport company that might make for an easier target. He also gets the name of the last guy who tried to take Shapiro off, Pierre Cointreaux, currently incarcerated. Ditch claims to be his cousin to get in and visit, then offers Pierre a little commissary cash for information.

Pierre reveals that he had a crew of 3. They got in using a gap between in and the adjoining building, breaking through the side wall and all the way into the vault. Once they were in, though, weird stuff started to happen. Their safecracker began speaking in tongues. The safe is an ancient model that they were able to crack, but still, there's something super weird about the place. The safecracker started shooting at the other two crooks for no reason. That's weird, right? Pierre thinks it's some sort of Jewish black magic.

Wilmer goes to talk to the local Vietnames expats, looking to see if maybe there's some premium talent available. He finds the local respectable businessmen who control crime within the community. He recruits a local safecracker to help with the op, named Ho Trung Hai. Ho speaks a little French and no English, so he's going to have trouble talking to most of the team.

Angel goes into the store as a customer to set the scene. A little later, our van pulls up, and Ditch, Winston, and Wilmer come in hard, masked, and armed. We take control of the place almost instantly. We pull the blinds and make people hit the deck. Someone in the back room starts to close the door, but Wilmer gets there in time, sticks his foot in the door, and his pistol in the guy's face. Aside from Angel, it's the counter girl, the guy in the back, and Shapiro. Shapiro starts saying he doesn't want any trouble, and Ditch hits him with the butt of his shotgun, growling "no talking."

Winston signals for Ho to come in. Ditch goes to a spot where he can see the store and the back room. Wilmer searches the back room for business papers, but finds they're locked in a safe. He ends up going at it with a sledge and a prybar, but accidentally pops an alarm wire. He swiftly reconnects it, but the damage is done.

The phone rings, and it is of course the Gendarme reporting the alarm. Angel picks up the phone. She doesn't quite convince the cops, and they suggest they'll send a car over. She tells them not to waste their time, so they compromise on sending someone by eventually. It takes Ho a little while to get into the vault, but he gets there.

The vault is huge, probably twice the size of the showroom. There are drawers along one wall, boxes along the back wall with their own individual locks, and shelves along the third wall. In the back right corner, there's a thing that looks sort of like a coat rack, but there's a raven perched on it, looking at us. Winston starts looting the left-hand side racks, which include a ton of precious metal bars. After a little while being watched by the bird, Winston tosses some holy water on it. It caws. With the safe taken care of, Wilmer makes it look like he's forced Angel to cooperate at gunpoint, and they do a bucket brigade thing to get the precious metals out of the vault into the car.

On the third trip, the bird flies out of the vault and on to the counter. Ditch stabs it. It's quick, as crows are, so he doesn't quite murder the crow (get it? get it?) and it starts flapping and flailing. He drags it off the counter and stomp-murders it.

On the spur of the moment, Wilmer starts jabbering in Polish, trying to sound like this heist is part of a Polish terrorist plot.

Ho gives Winston a hand unlocking the locked drawers of the vault. Between them, they go right through this. The sound of the boxes being unlocked makes Shapiro very nervous, visibly so. Some of the drawers contain loose stones, or earrings, but some of them contain papers, and one is a very pretty diamond and emerald necklace. Then he realizes that drawer had a false bottom, and finds even more papers underneath.

Outside, Mirabelle sees the young couple that was shopping yesterday come back. They're puzzled that the door is locked. She warns the agents inside that someone's at the door. Mirabelle gets out, dressed in work coveralls, and asks them if they're waiting for something. They are, of course, and she tells them she's there for an emergency plumbing call, the place is closed, and they should come back tomorrow. The guy wants to wait for them to reopen, the girl wants to give up and move on to her dress fitting. He mentions that they were lucky to even get an appointment, but they leave.

Once the truck is full of loot, we take Angel "hostage", tell Shapiro that if he calls the cops, she'll die, tie him and the clerks up, and leave. Shapiro begs Ditch to reconsider. Ditch sneers. Mirabelle carefully drives the heavily loaded van away.

As we're making our way back to Vienna, Wilmer gets a phone call. It's a masked voice telling him that the recordings from the conclave contain clues that he hasn't found. It urges him to listen to the guest speakers. How did anyone know we had recordings? Speculation immediately turns to where Betts went.

After assuring Angel that we'll "take care" of Betts, we replay the tapes and listen for the guest speaker. One of them is the voice that was talking to Father Umberto in the bomb shelter, the one who insisted on no funeral flowers. It turns out to be Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, a professor of religion who is under consideration for becoming Archbishop of Munich.

Back in Vienna, Ditch gets a call from Grace. She's sobbing, saying she fucked up bad and he needs to help her. She's calling from jail, and she can't call Alfred, so she needs cash right now to buy an inspector. She was stealing some dope and got busted. Ditch just says "ok". Grace is extremely grateful. She offers him sex and drugs. He's on board. He's so onboard he ODs, but Grace is right there to take care of him, and he bounces right back.

Wilmer starts drinking. Every time he starts to sober up, he remembers the phone call Winston got, and he drinks some more. It's like a four day bender before he starts to come out of it.

Angel trains.

Mirabelle trains and lies low to reduce our heat.