WilyQ

I'm available to game on the 8th! Just sounding off here. 😁

I will be there! Looking forward to the game!

I don't remember the current gaming schedule but I won't be available to game this Saturday the 14th. Sorry. Just wanted to let everyone know sooner rather than later.

The death was not the blaze of glory I had always hoped for but then a hero's death is a rare thing. Many are the hunters who die an undistinguished death. I already have two other Hunter ideas in the works. Had only Murgatroyd been there Drew might have survived. 😉

I can play this Saturday the 16th but I cannot confirm my availability for the 30th. We are coming into the dreaded holiday crunch folks... the bane of gaming groups everywhere as the holidays wreck schedules and family gatherings upend our normal social lives...

Are we gaming this weekend (11/2/19)? I see on my calendar that I might have a schedule conflict but then I remembered Steve mentioning he might not be able to make it. So I was curious if we are gaming Saturday or not. If we are then I need to start shifting my schedule around. Just curious.

Unfortunately though Drew could not get off the roads fast enough and the police were getting better organized. Despite what Hollywood would have you believe most police forces know how to conduct high-speed chases. With a helicopter, radio communication, a central command center, and relatively little training is all it takes to successfully capture a fleeing suspect. Drew knew all of this of course but he wasn't able to ditch the car and flee on foot. As long as he could keep driving he had a chance. That chance was dwindling though and quickly. The police were now getting better at herding him where they wanted him. It was only a matter of time now. When Drew finally saw the inevitable roadblock at an intersection ahead of him he cut a hard left and drove through a set of double doors into a warehouse of some sort. He planned to drive through the building and out the other side to another street and escape the trap. It would have worked too except there was a cargo truck in his way and before Drew could react he slammed into the truck narrowly missing two men who had just closed the back doors of the vehicle. The men had jumped clear in time but the rear doors burst open at the impact and a group of women came jumping out of the back and ran for the hole in the wall made by Drew's entrance. Drew had no idea what was going on but the fleeing women managed to interfere with the police trying to enter the building so that was a bit of luck on his part. Drew jumped out of the car and made for the rear of the building still trying to flee the scene on foot now. Someone in the warehouse started shooting at the police and the police in turn returned fire. It was the perfect amount of chaos and confusion and Drew made the most of it getting away clean. He learned later that night watching the news that the police had conducted a surprise raid on a known base of human sex slave traffickers. Nice cover story for them and they were welcome to it.

The middle of the afternoon Drew came awake at a light knock on his door. It was the manager of the hotel. Drew was still staying in the poorer sections of Mexico City and by some miracle he had lucked upon the one honest manager in the city. Either that or the guy just hated cops that much. Drew wondered what the manager would have done if he knew Drew used to be a cop himself once upon a time. Luckily Drew wouldn't have to find out. He quickly gathered his things and threw on the tac-vest. He exited the room by climbing out the window and headed for the roof. The police were still setting up and going over the entry plan when one of them noticed him climbing the balconies to the roof. Drew made it to the roof and ran across to the other side and leapt the narrow gap to the next building. He crossed that roof and came up abruptly short of the edge. This gap was a full on street and too far to jump. He turned around to find a plan B when the police sniper helped him decide which way to go by shooting him in the chest. The sniper hadn't been set up when all the excitement started but he had gotten into position quickly enough. The shot knocked Drew off the roof and he plummeted to the ground. He grabbed a clothesline as it passed by and managed to hold on. Unfortunately the pulley system didn't hold on, coming free of the mortar from his sudden weight, and Drew swung downwards screaming above the street like some demented Tarzan. He smashed through a window and into someone's living room. Drew shook it off, apologized to the startled occupant, and exited the building into the street. Police were spreading out everywhere unsure of where exactly Drew had gotten too. No time for blending into the crowd. Besides between the sniper bullet to the chest, the arm wrenching Tarzan swing with the abrupt, and sudden stop onto someone's living room floor, Drew couldn't have made a run for it even if he had wanted too. It hurt to walk. It hurt to breathe. It was a miracle he'd gotten through that with nothing broken! A car pulled up a short distance down the street with the driver half stepping out his car to see what all the commotion was about. Drew felt bad about it but he was out of options and couldn't afford to let this opportunity go. He grabbed the man from behind and yanked him backwards out of the car. Drew hopped in, slammed the car in reverse, did a 180 rolling, tire squealing reverse turn, and sped off down the street. Drew was fairly certain L'Éminence Nocturne knew he was in town by now. SWAT level cops wouldn't have been called in to apprehend someone like Drew in the slums of Mexico City in such a short amount of time. That kind of thing would have taken some influence at the highest levels. Drew felt like he was finally making some progress!

Regret came looking for him alright, the very next day in fact, when by chance he stumbled upon a trio from the same gang searching the neighborhood. The would-be victim from the night before was with them. He looked like he'd been roughed up but he clearly had bargained Drew's life for his own. Drew had spotted them first luckily and he spent the rest of the day staying out of sight and tailing the group. Drew wasn't expecially good at tailing people though. He had never needed to be and he lost them in the crowded streets. He didn't see anything worthwhile that might have pulled the men off the street though and so he kept moving along with the general flow of the foot traffic if for no other reason then because Drew had nothing better to do. He was going to have to leave this neighborhood now anyways. A taxi running a red light and nearly hitting Drew snapped him out of his walking fugue. It was then that Drew saw that same trio of gang members going through a hole in a fenced off area. He almost missed them. The area was a building under renovations that look to have been started but never finished. Drew found a good spot to hide, settled in, and waited until the last hour before dawn to go inside. By that time he figured everyone in there would be asleep or too drunk to fight by that point. He was not prepared for what he found inside. He found them in a cage. An assorted mix of men and women ranging in ages from late teens to early 30s. Drew still didn't know what he had discovered but he knew it was bad business. He found their jailer asleep at a table with a television set still playing some spanish soap opera. Drew killed him in his sleep and then found the keys to the cage on his body. He grabbed the man's gun as well before returning to free the victims. Drew pointed the way out and they all fled up the stairs. Drew doubted that he had ever received that many blessing in his entire life, but he quietly accepted them, all the while urging them to hurry along. As he moved further into the large basement he heard a printer churning out a copy followed by the sound of a chair squawking as the weight in shifted. He came up behind the man and put the man in a choke hold. The man was unconscious in less than a minute but Drew kept the pressure on for another minute just for good measure. He grabbed the freshly printed copy and saw it was a purchase order... for liver. No for a whole liver. Drew was no Joey when it came to computer proficiency but he wasn't completely hopeless when it came to them. A few minutes later Drew knew what this was. It was a human organ harvesting operation. He'd heard about these places before. Pick a third world country where life is plentiful and cheap and organ harvesting was big business. Plenty of wealthy people out there needing replacement organs who didn't have the time to wait in line on a transplant list for their turn at a new kidney, heart, or any number of other organs in the human body. But they did have money, so they could afford to buy one, and skip the line entirely. Drew crunched the paper up in his fist as he casually shot the man he had just chocked out. The shot was particularly loud in the mostly empty basement and he heard probably a half dozen voices roused from sleep in alarm. Drew wasted no time moving through their ranks gunning them all down in their half dressed states. He replenished his cash along with a small amount ammo, punctured some 55 gallon drums of something labelled Extremely Flammable on them and let the drums empty out. One zippo lighter drop later the place was engulfed in flames. Drew moved on and disappeared into the crowds. He may not be any closer to finding L'Éminence Nocturne or figuring a way out of his more pressing problem but at least he was going to do some good before they finally found him.

Obviously he knew it was L'Éminence Nocturne but the files Section M had shared with him during the debriefing on L'Éminence Nocturne focused almost entirely on the groups' actions and influence within the contiguous United States. If Section M had any information regarding L'Éminence Nocturne in Mexico they hadn't felt the need to share it at the time. Probably because they hadn't thought it would ever be relevant. Drew checked into a hotel in a part of town tourists and outsiders wisely avoided. No knowing who or what he was looking for, the first two days of his search had been uneventful. The second night though had yielded something that sounded interesting though. Drew had overheard a very drunk local bragging to his friend about dumping a body in a place where the evidence would be gone by morning. It wasn't much to go on but something was better than nothing. L'Éminence Nocturne was known to use necromancers in the States after all. Probably more so here in Mexico. So Drew went to the site and investigated the area. Unfortunately for Drew it wasn't L'Éminence Nocturne or necromancers. Nope. What it was was a large pack of ghouls. The Drunk local knew the ghouls laired in the basement of the abandoned building and dumped the body down an elevator shaft. Ghouls aren't undead but they do eat the dead. Ghouls are also fast, tough, and strong. Especially the leader! Fortunately ghouls aren't bullet proof. Tougher than a human but put enough bullets in them and they die like everything else. Afterwards Drew had searched the building but after hours of fruitless searching he had come up with nothing to go on. If this building was known to the locals as a place for dumping bodies then it stood to reason that if he just waited long enough he might find someone who could point him in a new direction. The kind of people making deposits here almost certainly would have information Drew would find useful in his hunt. It was Drew's misfortune though that the next group of people entering the building were just two gang bangers with a man hogtied and being dragged behind them. Drew quickly dispatched the two men. Anyone willing to feed a person to a pack of ghouls didn't deserve mercy. But the rescued man didn't know anything useful. He was just some guy who had run up too much debt gambling and couldn't pay it off in a timely manner. Drew had to give credit where credit was due. After nearly three days of searching he had not turned up anything credible on L'Éminence Nocturne. For a large and powerful organization such as they were they were really good at staying out of sight. There were no rumors, no gossip about them, not even whispers in hushed tones about the group. People just did not know they existed. Drew wasn't sure which was more frustrating sometimes... being forced to abide by the accords himself or hunting monsters who knew how to use the accords for their own dark benefits. He had never been on this side of the equation before and he wasn't entirely sure what he could do to rectify the situation. Drew let the man go free. Maybe not the smartest thing Drew could have done but he couldn't very well hold the man captive. Drew would just have to take his chances and hope he didn't come to regret this small act of mercy.

The forest was dark, hot, and very humid. Drew was no survival expert but he didn't need to be. There were two 1 liter bottles of water and a handful of powerbars in the duffle bag . He had a rough mental map of the area from looking over the guard's shoulders when they tried to find a different road around the traffic jam. He knew there was a small town a few miles away off the main road and he was certain he was heading in the right direction. Hours later Drew crossed the Mexico City limits. He had made it to a town near where he had escaped the police, headed to the nearest bus depot, and once there had purchased two bus tickets. One headed north to Laredo and one ticket to Mexico City. It was all part of his plan to confuse his pursuers. He had turned on one of the phones, and sent it north on a bus. An hour later he did the same with the other phone on a bus headed to Mexico City. An hour after that he used his second ticket to take the next bus to Mexico City himself. He figured they would expect him to head north and try to return to the U.S. as fast as possible. His plan was that if they found the two phones and he was no where around they would naturally assume he had sent them on a wild goose chase. Therefore, he reasoned, they would not be looking for him in Mexico City. The safest place to hide was right under their noses. He hoped... The problem he faced in Mexico City was he had no idea what to do now that he was here. He hadn't thought this far ahead, and taking stock of his situation he began to realize just how well and truly screwed he was. He had no friends, no allies, no passport, no idea of who was hunting him, or where they operated.

Drew only spent about twelve hours in jail, not that it wasn't an eventful twelve hours, as he was introduced to the local inmates, and established early on that it was best to just leave the gringo alone. Fortune favored Drew though and by early morning he was escorted out of prison by a pair of guards. At first Drew assumed this was the work of Agent Harker making good on his favor. It soon became obvious however that these guards were not taking Drew to the airport or even the U.S Embassy. He pretended not to speak Spanish the whole time and the guards foolishly discussed the details of their orders. He wasn't fluent in Spanish by any means but he understood enough to know that he was in serious trouble and needed to escape. Fortunately it was a long drive to Mexico City and when the opportunity presented itself Drew acted without hesitation. A traffic accident on the highway had brought everything to a standstill for miles. When one guard had left to answer the call of nature Drew attacked the other guard who was more intent on his cell phone then his prisoner. The struggle was over in moments and Drew had just managed to get the cuffs off when guard #2 returned. That fight took a little longer but the end result was the same. Unconscious guard. He grabbed the wallets, phones, guns, ammo, a walkie talkie rig, and a tac-vest which he stuffed into a small duffle bag before heading off into the forest. People in the nearby cars never even once bothered to try helping the guards. They quietly watched the whole incident without saying a word but a few did record it on their cellphones. With any luck at all the videos would go viral, get seen by Joey, or someone in Section M, and Agent Harker would have some idea of where to start looking for Drew now that he was on the run.

After those weeks mentioned training in Quantico he went on a vacation somewhere tropical with an old ex-girlfriend to enjoy some well deserved R&R especially now that he could afford a nicer than usual vacation. He was living in the moment and really having a good time until one fateful night he came back to his beach cabana to find the ex-girlfriend murdered and the local thugs responsible hiding in the shadows waiting to ambush Drew. Drew of course won the fight having killed them using their own knives and guns against them. Before the last one, who looked to be the leader, died in the ground, Drew grabbed him by the hair and made the thug look him in the eye. If you were to ask Drew why he did this he would not be able to give you a straight answer. It just felt right. He gave the dying man a message... "You're going to be dead in a few minutes but I need you to listen to me carefully. You're probably going to be asked about what happened here tonight later on. When that time comes tell the one asking the questions this for me... Los Angeles wasn't personal. Los Angeles was business. Do not make this personal." Shortly after the man was dead and drew casually pick up his phone, fished a business card out of his wallet, and sent a text to the number on the card. Agent Harker. Drew Altman. Calling in Favor. Soon to be arrested by policia in Mexico. L.A. followed me south. Accorded the usual protocols. Thanks. At least now Drew could be reasonably sure he wouldn't be held in jail too long.

Okay... here at long last is the tale of Drew Altman's little vacation in Mexico. Its not complete but it is a work in progress. I'll post up what I have so far but I have to run into work for a few hours today. I was hoping to get this all done before the session today but the best laid plans of mice and men and all that...