Participants:
| Scene Title | Pooling Information |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Liz drops the muldoon bomb on three others in the house, and beings to doubt what she saw. Plans are made to try and provoke a reaction and see what bites. |
| Date | December 3, 2009 |
Spektor House, Ryazan, Russia
When she lets herself into the house, Elisabeth is wet and covered with snowflakes. Pulling off gloves and jacket, the blonde calls out, "Abby? Teo? Hey, anyone here?" She glances into the living room as she reaches down to pull her boots off. Her hair is darkened with freezing water, but she ignores that. "Guys!"
Abigail was flicking around her computer, writing something down, two finger typing at an agonizingly slow pace. "In the living room!" Abigail calls out, lower lip succumbing to her teeth as she hits save to whatever it is that she's doing and closes the lid. There's tea beside the now brunette, feet crossed beneath her and slippers on the floor below the coffee table. A warm bright blue sweater and jeans her attire for the day. "Welcome back Liz!"
"'Ere." Teo's answer, however factual, is nevertheless somewhat garbled, toothpaste fizz mounded up between his lips and one cheek bulging from the internal pressure of the brush cinched between his molars. "'Saa?" By which he probably means to say, 'what's up.' He's clad in a hoodie and jeans, probably another layer or two underneath, though as far as onions go he's appeared wadded up in denser accumulations of garment before.
There is only the muffled fall of foot steps to indicate Francois' presence, his name uncalled on the check list but nevertheless, there was also the qualifier of anyone, and he probably counts. Hailing kitchenwards, he ambles on closer out of curiousity, a dishtowel in one hand, clad in jeans and a loose sweater, the loop of a T-shirts collar just barely visible from where the green wool begins. Feet in socks rather than shoes, apparently winding down early for the evening.
"Okay, so just … Abby… you're gonna wanna stay sitting. Remember that I mentioned to you that someone passed along information about James fucking Muldoon being in Moscow? And remember I asked Richard if he had any ties to the Vanguard?" Elisabeth is clearly a good bit agitated. Three days of recon ending in this intel will do that to her. "Richard says to me 'no! Last I knew, he was a Linderman goon or something', right? Which is just… I'm gonna kick him in the butt, cuz Mister I Have Intel About Almost Everything was dead WRONG…" She shoves a hand through her hair. "Fucking MULDOON is out at that foundry, in direct contact with Zhukovsky, and he and the Anya bitch …. have a target. And I'm thinking it's the good doctor, so we need to warn him to get underground tonight."
"Robert Caliban. I remembered" Abigail answers back, reaching for her cup of tea. "I called up Robert to make sure that he was, so that we could avo-"
Abigail's face pales slightly, knuckles turning white around her tea cup when Liz finishes. Eyes go down, looking to the computer, the floor, her te, computer again, anywhere but up at Abigail's face. Muldoon was here. It takes her a moment or two to look over at Teo, clearly unsettled by Liz's news. "Not a Lindergoon. Robert swore that he wasn't employed by him"
James fucking Muldoon? The swish of Teo's toothbrush going around and around in his mouth slows, finally, his brow furrowing steadily. There's a blink of pale eyes, an answering glance for Abigail, and then he's shuffling his socked feet faster past Francois, aiming at the kitchen sink to clear his mouth. He's too hasty about it: when he returns, there's still a curlicued smudge of spearmint white on his damp cheek, forgotten, ignored. "Linderman is American mafia," he notes, sidelong at the Frenchman. "Caliban works for him, one of Abby's… benefactors. Muldoon was a smaller-time crime boss operating off Staten Island, and he did—
"Terrible shit to Abby, and some other friends of ours. That is fucking strange," he concludes, after a moment, halting at the doorframe. "We know enough Vanguard operatives who would or should've mentioned that when Muldoon's name was floating around."
Shoulder bracing against the frame of a doorway, rapid fire explanation is listened to more intently than the prior puzzle. American mafia, personal enemy, fucking strange. That last part is accepted with a nod, because a lot of things have been that way lately, and Francois swings a look back towards the two women, tracking back to Liz, rewinding— to the bit about him not being Vanguard.
More to Abby, he offers, "How much do you trust your benefactor, Caliban? Is he ignorant about all except this man's location, or lying to you, do you think?"
There is a glare at Teo. "The only current Vanguard operative we have on our squad is Ethan fucking Holden, and he has determined that it's not worth his time or his own life to be bothered helping any of the whole goddamn lot of us unless he gets… I don't know. To renegotiate Ruskin's deal with the Feds or some such shit?" Elisabeth sucks in a deep breath and ruffles through her pockets, bringing out a bottle and dry-swallowing a pill from it. "Mother fucker," she says quietly.
"I don't even know what to do with this information." She looks at Abby. "Mostly at this point….. I'm worried about the target. He was on the phone with Zhukovsky commenting about how…. he was giving the man condolences and commenting about how yes, healers could be trying to the patience or something. And then he got some kind of orders, and he said that he'd get with Anya and take care of it in the morning. 'Healer' in this instance could be obviously several people." Then she looks between Abby and Francois.
"I trust him as much as I trust Teo" Right, strange thing to say about anyone who works for Linderman, but then again, this is Abby and when it comes to Abby, sometimes even the crookedest or maniacal of villains doesn't break faith with her. "Robert Caliban has never done wrong by me. What he tells me, I don't feel a need to take with a grain of salt. He warned me ahead of time about the showdown that was coming between the Linderman Group and the Flying Dragons, even asked if I could be counted on to care for innocents who got caught in the cross"
Abigail's still pale and shaking her head. "He expressly said that Muldoon was not an employee of Linderman" She looks from Francois to Teo then Liz. "He did ask that I avoid killing him if possible. Makes me think that they might have something planned regarding him, but, I was under the impression that if he died, it would not be skin off anyone's teeth" Which means Abigail is certainly not going to shed tears for him.
"Could they be talking about Dr. Kozlow? I mean, I don't know how far the information has spread that i'm not exactly healing anymore or that Francois isn't a healer anymore"
The glare that lands on Teo's face incites a twitch in his cheek. He wipes his chin with his sleeve, palpitates and uncomfortable glance at the stairs despite that he knows that the Englishman in question has long since left the premises to pursue his own inscrutable leads. Or stuff.
One more twitch when he finds himself standing on the same rung in Abigail's ladder of alliance and esteem as a fucking mafia man, but Teodoro's far to graceful to bitch aloud about that. "Look," he says. "I know— these connections seem to be lighting up like fucking Christmas trees, but we have to be careful about how we take this information.
"Zhukovsky may be the most powerful illusionist in the world, and Anya already led us into a trap once. Kozlow— we have nothing to go on except his word and his favor, and I'm given to understand we had to show him all of our cards before he gave us either one." Teo's voice squashes in his throat, goes odd under the uncomfortable weight of adolescent self-awareness. He knows how all of this must sound, finds himself wondering whether that's just Ghost's sociopathic cynicism talking, even if it was his younger, cuddlier incarnation that had strung Deckard and the Feds along for months before permitting him any information and exposure whatsoever.
More than most things, he remembers the look on Cat's face. "I want to pursue things from the Dreyfus angle, too. See if he's been recalled by Zhukovsky since the conflict at the intersection, maybe try to catalyze a reaction with an anonymous note about Munin or Hugin. We should probably see about moving base, too.
"Especially if we're bringing Kozlow in," Teo finally proffers, trying not to sound overly reluctant about the prospect.
Francois doesn't share that reluctance— doesn't have a right to, either. His head tips in uncertainty when Elisabeth narrows a glance between he and the other former healer, discomfort setting in but he has no real argument. "Perhaps Kozlow, but Anya did have plenty of opportunity to identify me, especially if what they did was a trap from the beginning," he admits, arms folding with the dishtowel making a checkered sash draped over one shoulder as he listens.
"Ah, oui. I don't imagine the Vanguard would sever ties easily, especially as he still exists in Ryazan," he agrees, in seeming response to Teo's appeal about pursuing Dreyfus. "But it would not hurt to at least give Kozlow warning. We do not have to hide him under our skirts, oui?"
There's a moment there when Elisabeth looks like she's about to say something, and then she pauses. A thought crosses her face, and she frowns. "Okay…. this is ridiculously paranoid. Like…. RIDICULOUSLY paranoid and I have no idea how this man's power works. It might be a good call to talk about what you actually know about these people in particular, Francois. But… is there any chance he could have made me see Muldoon?" She looks hesitant. "Because the guard should have been the person who came by, and he didn't. Instead, Muldoon came out there and talked on his cell phone." Now she looks more than a little uncertain.
"Kozlow wants us to leave him alone" Abigail puts her tea down on the table before changing her mind and then picking it up for want of needing to do something with her hands. "We're not to look in on him, look for him, visit him. He demanded we forget about him"
Teodoro is beginning to feel like he's being terribly bipolar about this, and it shows on his face, a froggish flattening of his mouth and fingers that start to dart up at the back of his head and scuff before he aborts the motion in favor of jamming both fists into his pockets.
"We should at least warn him," he agrees, after a moment. "Maybe leave a message at his clinic. Something. Leave him a contact number if he changes his mind, maybe." He shifts pallid eyes up to stare at Elisabeth, for a long moment, his lips thinning to an anemically white line. "It's possible. Helena was tricked into seeing Edward once."
"He can ignore us if he chooses," Francois agrees, briskly, before casting a regretful look Elisabeth's way. His shoulders hike up, come down again. "What I know of Vanguard these days is limited, and I am not familiar with the particulars of this man's ability from before either. But if we were lured somehow by Anya and her visage, then I would think most things are possible. If Abigail trusts Caliban— and if we trust her trusting Caliban— " A wry, apologetic smile. "Then perhaps she should contact him and try to confirm."
Elisabeth meets Teo's gaze worriedly, rubbing her forehead absently. It's always that one spot; she can't help it, the movement's as much instinct as it is habit. "Shit," she murmurs. "Well, now I'm second-guessing everything I saw tonight. If it was an illusion, we could potentially cause problems for ourselves or for Dr. Koslow if we move on it at all. But if we don't move on it and it was valid intel — he's going meet with Anya tomorrow and 'take care of it'. But I guess that really could be anything." She pauses and asks, "What's happened to Zhukovsky that he requires condolences?" she thinks to ask aloud. "That, I think, we need to look into quickly. Before we move on the foundry. Could be useful." Her brain's flying all over the place. "Sending word for Koslow to watch his back, we have reason to think Anya might pay him a visit is the least we can do for the man. He can do what he wants with it. And in the meantime…."
She pauses and considers. "We need blueprints for that foundry, if that's the place we're going to go. We know the place is operational. Teo…. do you think you can do some invisible recon inside that place and see whether it's what we're looking for? That's going to be the best way to get in there, I think. And if it's not the right place, we've been wasting our time here." She sighs heavily and touches her freezing cold hair. "In the meantime… I'm going to catch a shower. I need to warm up. Francois, I would very much like to talk to you about what you know about the old Vanguard. It might give us some insights, but…. it can probably wait until morning." Probably. "I don't mean to sound like I'm barking orders, so…. talk among yourselves and tell me what works for you when I get back, okay?"
"I can call. I should use the phone they gave us, instead of my own" The brunette falls silent, listening to Liz in turn, not feeling bad at all about Francois's tail end of words. Abigail's trust is always questionable to others. Even Liz has professed that every thing before. "I'm going to go for a walk" Unfolding feet from beneath her and sliding them into her slippers. "et me know if I need to bodysit tomorrow yes?"
Whatever Teo wanted to add about running away, run away, the run awaaaay song to find some other bit of the woodwork to nest in— is brought to an abrupt fin. "I'll look for the blueprints," he says. "Try to look inside after the Dreyfus op. Appreciate it if you could bodysit." That's for Abigail, as he cranes his head and snakes a wave of a wetted toothbrush after her. "Although I will be conscious, just so you know. Probably. Have a good walk."
Francois only nods to Elisabeth, agreement that they will talk later, before he's taking his weight off the wall and dragging the dishcloth down off his shoulder. Green eyes track on over towards Abby, posture straightening some when he asks, "Do you desire company?"
"Just wake me up when you want to do it" That's fired off to Teo from Abigail, nodding to the fact that he won't be unconscious before she pauses at the doorway. Does she want company? It's a hands breadth or two before green eyes are finally met with blue. "Teo knows what I'm going to go do" Have a panic attack over what Liz told her where no one can see her. "Uh, give me, give me ten minutes? Finish your dishes, I won't be going anywhere. I'll be near the fort"
With any luck, Teo had spat out his mouthful of saliva and fluoride in the half of the sink that wasn't in use. The Sicilian's eyes are motionless in the pits of his skull for a protracted moment. The grim evening gets grimmer. "Si," he answers, after a moment. Means Teo's going to be hovering outside the bathroom door for ten minutes, under the pretense of returning his hygiene implement to its cup, before seeing her off for to the fort. Casual as you like.
There's not much other than honest and open curiosity when he glances between Abby and Teo. The towel twists between hands, and he offers his own Eurotrash reply; "Oui." If Francois knows better, than he has the sense not to notice. If he doesn't, than it's ignorance that has him at a casual swing back around the corner, and into the kitchen. The clink and slosh of cutlery and water follows.