Mission 3: Hit Me with Your Best Shot

Theme Song: Hit Me with Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar

Plot Summary: With help from inside M.I.6, a former Italian syndicate member (Giovanni Di Fortelli) targets the new double-ohs along with many others for assassination by giving terrorists a deck of cards with their faces on them. This would cover for moving the headquarters of the organization he belongs to, TAROT, into England -- and would be financed by holding the North Sea oil rigs hostage.

Sessions:

1. Impressed with their last mission, the new M invites the double-oh's to his club. Unfortunately, his health food kick means that the club has no alcohol and unappetizing-looking salads. 008 (Falstaff) gets a call, but in the phone booth he is attacked by a burly man and a woman with an uzi. He defeats them handily, and finds a playing card -- the 8 of spades -- with his picture on it in the woman's pocket. Later, M informs them that this is further proof of the leak in MI6, which seems to be in Q branch. He asks them to take a retreat at a health spa with various Q agents. There they investigate several of the Q operatives: Dr. Elaine Turner, Dr. Walter Cobbett, Jonathan Maclean, Dr. Lawrence Powell, and Captain Michael Roberts. A ruse by 003 suggests Turner or Maclean as the watchful, nervous ones. On the second day, Falstaff visits the village where a drive-by shooting is attempted on him. At last, they find a note encoded to Dr. Turner which points the finger at her.
2. They follow Dr. Turner on a weekend cruise to Aberdeen. On board, they bug her room and overhear her plotting with Giovanni Di Fortelli. He reports that "3" has now been taken care of. Hyde later finds out that his wife Marie and daughter Sally are on board. In a face-off, DiFortelli reveals that they have already been poisoned and wants to bargain for the antidote. Hyde instead captures him and tortures him into revealing it. He finds a number of cards on him, including:

   Sebastian Hyde, 003 - 3 of Spades
   James Bond, 007 - 7 of Spades
   Quentin Falstaff, 008 - 8 of Spades
   Blake Cannon, 009 - 9 of Spades

   They then follow Dr. Turner to a meeting with "Esther" at the docks in Aberdeen. Esther turns out to be a ship headed to bring supplies to the North Sea oil rigs. They alert M.I.6 regarding Dr. Turner and sneak on board. They find a secret compartment which they open to find Louis Luca surrounded by a set of high-explosive mines.
3. (Scheduled for August 21, 2004)
   Getting the drop on Luca, they then talk with his boss, who introduces himself as Karl Skorpios. After some pleasantries, Skorpios activates the mines. All three agents run for it and the ship is blown apart. 003 (Hyde) and 009 (Cannon) are picked up by a U.S. frigate in the North Sea, where they encounter Naval Intelligence officer Scott Tomlinson. 008 (Falstaff) is missing, and is picked up by a brawny Scottish fisherman named Phil McRevice. Investigation of the remains turns up more cards.

   Scott Tomlinson - 10 of Clubs
   Eileen Goldstein - 6 of Diamonds

   They are briefed on Skorpios and his nascent TAROT organization. They remember an address on a package in the mine room, 100 Eaton Place in Edinborough. That turns out to be the estate of Lady Victoria Lynn Richmond. 009 (Cannon) sneaks in and investigates her office and goes through the papers in her safe. She did and job for TAROT and was offered a position, but had not accepted it yet.
4. (Scheduled for September 11, 2004)
   003 (Hyde) and 008 (Falstaff) check out the address listed, but it is abandoned and trapped with a nerve gas cannister. Hyde does find that call was placed to there from M.I.6 headquarters within the past week, though. Tomlinson encounters Dr. Turner, who drops by Lady Victoria's estate to recruit her. He gets a ride from her and bugs her car, but she escapes and flushes the bug. They are re-equipped by Q and find a lead to the hotel, but it turns out to be a trap based on false information given by Jonathan MacLean, who was blackmailed by Dr. Turner into helping her. However, he had overheard about how they were leaving by boat. The agents then crash in on the boat (literally) and decisively capture DiFortelli and his operation. Tomlinson finds his girlfriend Eileen in the boat with someone named 'Paolo', who tries to take her hostage. He rescues her, but has strong suspicions that while she wasn't part of the plot per se -- her banking business is quite dirty. Dr. Turner escapes, however.

Featured Characters:

• Dr. Elaine Turner: a pharmacology specialist at Q Branch, who was revealed by the double-oh's to be a traitor.
• Dr. Walter Cobbett: an automobile specialist at Q Branch.
• Jonathan Maclean: a cryptographic and electronics specialist at Q Branch, who was nervous enough to notice Hyde's note-taking. However, after an semi-intimate evening with him, Falstaff thought him unlikely to be a traitor.
• Dr. Lawrence Powell: a aeronautics and space science specialist at Q Branch.
• Captain Michael Roberts: a former field agent who was recruited into Q Branch for his work in jury-rigging and usability.
• Louis Luca: the Northern Italian infiltrator who tortured Hyde, who was incapacitated in one shot by Falstaff while in a meeting with Prince Kamal.
• Giovanni Di Fortelli: an Italian mobster who apparently left the syndicate. He is now apparently involved in an operation known as TAROT.
• Karl Ferenc Skorpios: the founder of TAROT, spoken to only via radio.
• Lady Victoria Lynn Richmond: a high-class burglar and fence who has used her position as the widow of an English lord to cover her many thefts.

Date: July 1984

Experience: 5000 (4 sessions at 1000 each, with the final one doubled for a successful ending), and 3000 for Tomlinson.
Fame Points: +13 for Cannon, +3 for Falstaff, +8 for Hyde, +8 for Tomlinson.

Real-world Background: There are many references to England's state of affairs here. Thatcher-dominated eighties England was beginning to have some hope of recovery. However, Irish terrorism remained a major force, in 1984 compounded by problems with the miner's strike. Later that year (on October 12), the Brighton hotel bombing would take place: killing five people in an attempt on Thatcher and other cabinet members. On the other hand, discovered in the early 1960s, the North Sea oil reserves are one of the largest non-OPEC producing regions in the world. The first North Sea oil came online in 1971, but the fields were not intensively exploited until rising oil prices in the 1980s made exploitation economically feasible. Inacessibility and dangerous conditions at the floating offshore rigs require complex and expensive production methods.