Everyone manages to make it: Tim (Laurence Archer), Dave (Jack Cross), Nick (Vincent Cray) and Bruce (Cyrus Billings).
We take up pretty much where we left off, with most of the characters regrouping after Angel's sniper attack upon them outside the Alamo. Vincent is still cowering in the Tremere Chantry, terrified by his own shadow. And Beezel. And Angel. And Nastasha. And the IRS. And the other characters.
Jack Cross arms himself with the photo album of Angel's men and their hangouts that Shepherd compiled prior to his untimely death. He calls up his Police Contact to try and arrange for some official action against Angel's goons. Cyrus helps out by applying his Influence 3 as liberally as possible. Their goal is to arrange for a city-wide crackdown against gang activity. Cyrus finds that his major obstacle is the unwillingness of police controllers to free up overtime money for unnecessary gang sweeps, a problem that is overcome through judicious application of threats and intimidation. Jack is astounded by the fact that all he has to do is walk into a police station for Angel's name is on everyone's lips. The two of them estimate that by around Tuesday (three days from now) the first police sweeps will happen.
Jack learns that Angel's drug income is estimated to be some $8 million per year. Most of this money is shipped overseas and laundered thoroughly enough that it disappears quickly. His sources (who include Sattler and Crask) think that a lot of the money doesn't come back. The Prince's minions tell him that Angel also has 10 legal ghouls, all of them members of one of the gangs he controls. Beyond them, he can probably muster about 100 mortal gang members. Angel isn't a particularly well-liked Brujah, but he is an important one. He provides money and thugs to solve the problems other Brujah face, and is probably owed a substantial amount of prestation not only by the local Brujah, but also by those in Dallas and Houston. He has one surviving coterie mate, a Toreador named Logan who currently lives in a heroin-induced stupor out in Austin. His one known Haven is a one-block region of the Carter Arms housing project (Sattler and Crask actually know the specific building he inhabits).
Laurence also plumbs his media contacts, looking for journalists writing hard-hitting exposes of the drug trade. He is surprised to find that there are fairly few journalists writing stories like this, probably because journalists who do this sort of thing get roughed-up and shot quite often. He does come up with a very complete list of drug-related indictments going back several years. He promptly gives this pile of papers to his overworked researcher, charging the ghoul with the task of breaking it down into an organizational chart of Angel's operation.
Laurence and Jack get together later to compare notes and develop a more complete picture of the situation. They find that:
Cyrus gets a call from Philip, a young Gangrel who seems to spend most of his time out in the wilds. The only time Cyrus had ever seen Philip before was at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock, where he found Philip talking to Nigel about hunting lupines. Philip says that he's got a package that's supposed to be for Cyrus, and has already spent two days trying to track down Cyrus' phone number. They arrange an appointment at Brackenridge Park, in an hour. Philip also asks what Cyrus' opinion is of Otto's Cowshead Beer. Cyrus, whose memory is that Otto serves Horsehead Beer, offers that it tastes terrible, but that the effect is worth it.
At the park, Cyrus waits around for fifteen minutes before Philip calls him on the phone. Philip betrays a certain quantity of distrust with "you fucking city folk," and says that he's left the package at the goat petting zoo nearby. Cyrus heads over to the petting zoo, where he finds a small cardboard box containing four microtapes. Cyrus stops by Wal-Mart to buy a tape player, then listens to them all. All four tapes are of extremely poor quality, and include a number of random "administrative" conversations in addition to the ones of interest (normally, Angel telling his underlings what to do).
Cyrus arranges with Laurence to have his researcher duplicate the tapes onto higher-quality media.
All of the characters visit the Chantry to talk to Isaac and fetch Vincent out. Isaac answers the door. Jack talks to him about Angel's impending destruction, and urges him to take advantage by expanding his drug businesses. The characters then ask about seeing Vincent. Isaac curtly informs them that he is recovering from wounds. The characters continue to press until Isaac promises to see what he can do. They wait outside the building until someone comes to fetch them.
After some delay, a ghoul finally emerges to fetch everyone to the waiting room. The characters notice that while the Chantry entryway looks like painting is in progress, the building interior is pristine. Some of the brighter characters suspect that this is just another of the fiendishly clever stratagems employed by the crafty Tremere to keep unwanted undead visitors away.
After a lengthy delay, Vincent finally appears in the waiting room. He squeals like a gut-shot cat at the possibility of having to leave the Chantry, but is won over by Cyrus' and Laurence's appeals to guilt: they hold out the possibility that Vincent could help them find Shepherd, his former coterie-mate. Before Vincent departs, he equips himself with a gym bag full of guns and a full set of camouflage. Notable among his weapons is a large handgun loaded with dragonsbreath rounds.
During the conversation, Laurence uses his Visceratika to notice that there is something else in the room with them, Obfuscated up on the ceiling. He can't tell what it is, but it isn't too large and wanders around sometimes. There is something similar on the ceiling of the hallway. A few minutes after everyone has departed the building, Laurence points this out to Vincent, who does a good job of pretending not to know what the things are. After the other characters refuse to believe Vincent's act, he admits that they're probably just Beezel's homonculi.
The characters head out to the railroad tracks, near the construction site for Jack Cross' new Haven, to find a quiet place to talk.
Cyrus plays his four tapes for the other characters. Jack makes sure to put his mini-recorder nearby to make another set of duplicates. Everyone agrees that Angel must die. The plan is to wait until after the upcoming police sweeps pick up some of Angel's guys and destabilize his operations, then have Vincent pick their brains.
Both Laurence and Jack use their eldritch powers to examine the recordings for any additional clues. They don't find much, primarily due to the shoddy quality of the source recordings.
Sattler happens to run into Jack at the Prince's Haven on Sunday. Sattler warns him of the upcoming police crackdown, but Jack acts knowledgeable and says that he already knows about it. Sattler also inquires as to whether or not Jack has seen Vincent around. Sattler explains that he wants to be unreasonable to Vincent, considering that the Prince wants to speak to him, and oddly enough hasn't had the opportunity yet. Jack promises to let Vincent know if he should run into him.
Some time before, Laurence had detailed his researcher to look into the public life of the Brujah Laura Jones, whom had a reputation as a socialite in life. His researcher comes back with a couple of interesting tidbits. In particular, Laura Jones was once married to a Texas State Senator. After they divorced she remained an active socialite, but has kept an increasingly low profile over the last few years.
Cyrus wakes, pulls himself from the earth, and decides that he needs a new wardrobe. It isn't hard for him to make this decision, as he has been wearing the same outfit ever since he torched his old garage (and most of his possessions with it). He heads out and does a bit of shopping, pausing to rob a few people to get the money. He is increasingly irritated by the fact that most people don't carry much money in their wallets these days, preferring to use credit cards.
Jack takes the evening to move into his nice new Haven out at the railway yard. It is an old maintenance shelter, basically a large Quonset hut with no ends and a small office box built up near the roof. Rails go along the length of the hut, though they no longer lead anywhere outside. He has had a modified (and disused) railway car placed inside and rendered light-tight. The railway care is his Haven proper, though he is leasing the entire structure and the surrounding yard from the railway company.
Frank James calls Jack, introducing himself as an associate of Angel's, and asks to meet with him in about two hours at the City Council building. Moments later, he makes a similar call to Cyrus. Cyrus and Jack quickly inform all the other characters that they're invited to show up at the city council chambers. Vincent stipulates that he is only going to show up wearing a trenchcoat and heavy armor, making himself look like an overweight pervert.
Everyone shows up in a group. The instant Laurence gets across the threshold, he turns his Visceratika on to suss out the building, learning nothing terribly exciting. They find Frank James dressed in fine urban cowboy style, seated in a comfortable leather chair. Pleasantries are exchanged and Frank demonstrates that he is better at Auspex than Vincent is at Obfuscate. Frank then explains that he wants to talk to Jack and Cyrus alone. He leads them into a side office one at a time for this purpose.
Frank speaks first with Cyrus. Frank leads off very directly: "I don't like you calling out the cops. It's causing a lot of trouble, and it's sure to cause more" Cyrus defends himself by arguing that he's only going to cause trouble for Angel. Frank then asks, "You going to kill him?" Cyrus holds up one of the recordings he got from Philip (the one in which Angel hires people in Philadelphia to snuff Cyrus) and says, "Listen to this. Angel has done a lot against me. He shot me. He blew me up. I think some retribution is in order." Frank asks again, "You going to kill him?" Cyrus allows as to how he will, unless Angel apologizes to him.
Frank then returns Cyrus to the rest of the group and takes Jack aside for another conversation. Frank is again characteristically blunt: "Cyrus is causing trouble. Why are you joining in, hurting some poor, innocent Brujah, and so soon after arriving in town." Jack responds, "Angel has been responsible for violating the Elysium at the Alamo. I was asked to do a job by my Sire, and that's what I'm doing. I'd prefer the cops didn't find him, but he needs to turn himself in to the Prince." Jack then explains that there are four tapes in his possession (coincidentally, the same ones that Cyrus gave him) containing a number of incriminating details. He follows up with a big song-and-dance about Angel needing to be brought to justice, but promises at the same time that he has no real desire to kill him. Frank doesn't sound too convinced. He concludes the interviews with a rather disappointed monologue: "I'd hoped to get you two to call off the police, but it doesn't sound like you're going to be reasonable. What efforts have you made to talk to Angel? Where'd you get the tapes anyway? How do you know they're not fakes? I figured all I'd need to do was call you fellows in, make some veiled threats, and get everyone to back down and stop harassing a fellow Brujah. But it looks like it's not going to work out that way. Anyway, give me a copy of those tapes." Jack agrees, so Frank provides him with the address of a local law firm and tells him to send them there.
Jack makes another copy of the tapes & mails it to Frank James' law firm shortly after the group departs.
Jack requests and is granted an interview with the Prince. Jack does a data dump on the subject of his meeting with Frank James, offering the less-than-shattering insight that, "I think he's an Elder." He then gives the Prince the tapes, and explains their provenance in deep detail. He accuses Angel of everything from trying to kill Cyrus to being behind the hunters, and suggests that there is a clan war in the offing.
Prince David tells Jack to take all the tapes to Joseph Kresh and let him hear them. As a matter of security, the Prince urges him to tell all of his coterie-mates about the meeting beforehand, and possibly to tell them even before trying to contact Kresh.
Prince David is fairly equitable on the subject of large-scale police sweeps, and tells Jack he doesn't mind letting them do as they will to Angel (taking, of course, appropriate care to not let them see too much).
As a final note, Prince David reminds Jack that he hasn't been informed of any of these details, though he has given Sattler and Crask occasional status reports as appropriate. With that, Jack is dismissed.
Joe arranges to meet with the characters at his place off Highway 10. A deformed-sounding ghoul named Igor provides directions. The characters drive through the beginnings of a luxury housing development, then down a long, winding road, and finally to what looks like Kresh's old Victorian mansion. This is a touch surprising to both Cyrus and Vincent, as they had thought that the mansion was destroyed long ago.
Jack, Cyrus and Vincent all head to the front door while Laurence stays behind to monitor the progress of the police raids. As they approach, the door is opened by one of the ugliest people they have ever seen in a butler's suit. He introduces himself rather appropriately as Igor, and ushers everyone inside.
The characters are taken to a waiting room, where Igor asks, "Can I offer anyone refreshments?" while unbuttoning his shirtsleeve to reveal a scarred forearm. Cyrus and Vincent respond in unison, "No." "Are you sure?" "YES!" Seemingly disappointed, Igor buttons his shirtsleeve up again and departs. Vincent uses his Auspex to confirm that the butler is in fact insane. Cyrus speculates that Vincent really didn't need Auspex to determine that.
Joseph Kresh enters after a couple of minutes. He is the very picture of Vincent Price, dressed in an immaculate suit no more than eighty years out of style. Jack plays the fourth tape for him, in which Angel talks to one of his hunters about disposing of Shepherd. Joseph is quite appreciative that Jack and Cyrus have brought this information to him, and thanks them also for bringing Vincent. Joseph starts to make permanent-seeming gestures towards Vincent, at which Vincent protests, "But… Shepherd isn't dead! He's in box nine!" Joseph very reasonably points out that Vincent is still a co-conspirator in this matter, and asks Vincent to come with him.
The characters, lead by Vincent, object to this idea. Vincent tries to leave the building. Cyrus, in an uncommonly inspired defense, argues that if you trip over your untied shoelace, you don't punish the shoelace, you punish the servant who tied the shoe. Despite the fact that this argument portrays him as little more than a bloodsucking length of string, Vincent agrees wholeheartedly. Jack continues to argue that while Vincent needs to be punished for his negligence, his punishment should be something like retrieving Shepherd's body. Joseph doesn't seem to think that this is much of a punishment, until Jack argues that retrieving the body will be a dangerous, bloody, unpleasant mess. Joseph immediately interprets this as meaning that Jack will off Vincent during the job, and approves instantly. Joseph mourns his fallen Childe for a bit, commenting upon how he'd been making good progress, abandoning such problems as caring about humanity.
On the way out, Vincent drops a lit cigarette on the carpet behind him out of spite.
The characters pull up across from the Carter Arms to watch the carnival. The police have turned out in large numbers, and appear to be rounding up everyone within a certain age range and taking them away in the paddy wagons. There are also fire trucks, ambulances and news crews present. The characters determine from the police scanner that other raids are also under way at other Latin Kings hangouts.
The raids last for about two hours. By 05:30, the police have largely departed from the area, leaving behind a lot of yellow evidence tape. They let a few of the more-innocent people caught up in the sweep go. Most of the characters depart substantially before 05:30, but Cyrus continues to watch right up until dawn (when he sinks into the ground).
Cyrus takes a look around the Carter Arms just after dark the next evening. He finds a few cops still hanging around, guarding one particular apartment block that is almost entirely sealed off with evidence tape. There isn't too much else visible, even after Cyrus spends a couple of hours flapping about the area in bat form. He eventually flaps off into the darkness.
Cyrus heads over to his police contact (after a quick stopover at Jack Cross' place for some cash) to get some feedback on the results of the previous evening's raids. He learns that the police have managed to arrest about 50 known gang members, most of whom are on the characters' list of Angel's goons. The bulk of them are housed in Bexar County Jail, but a few of them are being held in the Federal Wackenhut facility. It also turns out that the fire trucks were there because one of the interior rooms in The Block was a meth lab that caught on fire.
The characters assemble at Jack Cross' place again to prepare for a foray to the Bexar County Jail. Everyone dresses in suits (including Cyrus, who is forced to borrow one from Jack Cross) and gets prepared to act like lawyers hired by Angel.
Bexar County Jail is a forbidding building, set between an array of burned-out factories and the longest string of bail bondsmen's offices in the world (every one of them offering 24-7 service). The characters intend to represent themselves as lawyers hired on behalf of three detainees, two of them known ghouls and one of them a simple mortal. Vincent takes point here, using his oily personality and substantial Dominate to make the masquerade stick.
Vincent uses his legal knowledge to arrange interviews with Octavio Los Gatos and Jesus Hernandez, both ghouls, and Maurilio Parrega (a mundane). The cops look at the characters with unbridled disgust as they file into the interview room.
While Vincent asks questions heavily backed by Dominate, Jack checks out their auras. Vincent asks a series of standard questions (listed below), using Dominate to enforce answers.
Octavio Los Gatos says that he thought Angel was in The Block when the raid hit. Right up until Vincent turns on the Dominate, Octavio insists that he's part of a painting business. After a quick session with Vincent's Dominate, he explains that Angel's right-hand man is a ghoul named Antonio Banderas (who Cyrus already knows is in the Wackenhut Detention Center). After answering a couple of questions with unaccustomed candor, Octavio realizes that something untoward is happening. He immediately looks down and hangs up the interview room phone. He then yells for the guard, saying that he's done talking to his lawyers. Vincent realizes that Octavio is uncommonly knowledgeable about how the world really works, and talks to the guard to make sure that the gangster isn't going to get access to a phone anytime soon.
Vincent starts out with Jesus Hernandez by ordering him to keep looking into his eyes. Determined to get additional information out of this fellow, Vincent leads with questions about weapons and gang organization. Jesus describes Angel's armory as consisting of a lot of pistols, some shotguns, and a few converted assault rifles. Jesus doesn't know anything about claymore mines. He seems to think that Angel's whole gang consists of about 30 Latin Kings (including 5 ghouls), plus 5 additional ghouls in the Crips, and is doing about $120,000 per month in business (substantially lower than the $8 million/year estimate Jack got from Sattler). He really doesn't know about any safehouses other than The Block, but claims that there had been deals cut with the police to ensure that it would never be raided. He's not too happy that it was, and that there wasn't any warning. Beyond that, the gang figured that anywhere a relative or girlfriend lived was a good place to hang out. He's sure that there were other places Angel kept as hideouts, but doesn't know where any of them were. He claims that Angel's gang members had four separate cellphone numbers to reach Angel, and also had worked out a scheme to communicate with him through the personals ads. Just to clean up, Vincent makes him think that the conversation went much differently: by the time he leaves the room, he thinks that he realized something was wrong and immediately looked away, behaving much as Octavio did.
Maurilio Parrega enters the room and immediately recognizes Cyrus, shouting, "Hey! I stabbed you in the back with a screwdriver!" It turns out that he knows even less than the ghouls. For example, it is news to him that Angel has agents in the Crips. Vincent doctors with his memories to make him remember only that he spilled his guts about the drugs. Out of a sense of utter maliciousness, Vincent also makes the poor bastard think that he's got a bed-wetting problem and a need to discuss it with his fellows.
The characters decide that leaving Angel's ghouls in the prison system might be dangerous, especially if they choose to talk. To mitigate this problem, the characters convince Vincent to Dominate (and pay off) a guard to make sure that something bad happens to Octavio Los Gatos.
At this point, the characters consider the larger problem of having to deal with ghouls who have been arrested. Laurence proposes that the best plan would be to ghoul a prison guard and use him to "deal" with these problems. Cyrus suggests that the best plan might be to find a borderline psychopath, perhaps an ex-Vietnam tunnel rat, and get him hired as a prison guard. In the end, the characters adopt neither of these plans.
Vincent summarizes the information he got from Angel's ghouls and delivers it all to Isaac. He proposes that Isaac can use this information to expand his own distribution and sales operation to fill the vacuum left by the destruction of Angel's operation. Isaac is clearly pleased by this boon, but also not too happy at the thought of sticking his neck out and possibly acquiring the wrath of Angel (if he resurfaces later on).
There are a few more police raids, but it looks like Angel managed to get enough warning to clean up the worst of his operations and disappear. There is an outside possibility that Angel burned up along with his meth lab. Most of those gang members arrested are eventually released. Those that are left are prosecuted mostly on drug possession and firearms charges. More important, the façade of a painting business is widely reported as the sham that it is.
In the long term, three of Angel's ghouls are headed for the prison system, even though all of Angel's gang members are able to make bail and get themselves released by the end of the week.
Expecting possible retributions from Angel, Laurence ensures that both of his ghouls are equipped with armor and weapons. He also gives them orders to not leave their apartment. His mechanic (who is currently charged with making bullets for him) thinks nothing of these orders. His researcher is a touch more disturbed.
Jack Cross, who is only able to feed from criminals, hunts down one of Angel's mortal dealers and kills him for food. Feeling rather bad about this, he does his best to find some of the guy's relatives and get them put into a social program to better themselves.
Logan calls Cyrus with the sad news that a long-time associate of his recently passed away. Cyrus offers his rather insincere condolences. Logan reassures Cyrus that he is certain that the murderous bastard responsible will be brought to justice. He is unwilling to provide Cyrus with an address so Cyrus can send him a parcel.
The characters try Angel's four "emergency" cell phone numbers. Only one of them leads to a human, as opposed to a message service. The person who answers the fourth phone number isn't Angel, and claims that Angel is busy. Cyrus leaves a message that, "If you keep your fingers on your side of the table, I'll keep my fingers on mine."
Jack Cross leaves a message in the personals section of the newspaper, using Angel's code phrases, carrying a message implying that Angel needs to contact the Prince. He also places an add saying, "Royal Painting Company closed down due to bad management. Cross/Cyrus Enterprises."
Jack talks to the Prince after doing this, explaining what he has done. The Prince admits that he has tried to Summon Angel several times, with no visible effects.
The characters spend a couple of weeks watching the personals page, looking for any signs of response. They see messages left by several of Angel's ghouls, but no response from Angel. Likewise, the characters get no response to Jack's ads.
The characters suffer a number of minor responses to their escapades. Laurence finds his doorway inundated with paint one evening. All of the characters notice personals ads poking fun of them. They conclude that the other Brujah are making a rather half-hearted attempt to exact "revenge" for the bad things done to their comrade.
Cyrus spends much of his time watching one of Angel's ghouls. He continues to watch up until the ghoul gets a visitor. Cyrus sees the visitor enter, then hears a brief disturbance. He flaps in to see the visitor, a Middle Eastern type with a hooked nose, wrapping up the ghoul's body in a tarp. He deadens the lights in the room, then drags the body out into a nearby van. Cyrus latches himself on to the top of the van and follows the fellow through the city, watching him repeat this process a total of seven times. The assassin demonstrates that he is Kindred by the fact that he uses Celerity once. He occasionally doesn't bother shutting down the lights, and normally simply knifes his prey. After he finishes his rounds, he drives out to a disused quarry, ties rocks to each of his tarp-wrapped parcels, and drops them into the water. He then drives the van into a parking lot, changes to an old-style VW bug, and drives to a dorm at UTSA.
Unable to follow the assassin any more, Cyrus flaps down to a pay phone and calls Vincent to use Auspex upon the assassin's van. Vincent is able to determine that Mr. Nassif is a secretive, quiet man. He doesn't want anyone to interfere with him. During the time he was driving the van, he was fairly content: he has done his job, and he's quite satisfied by the professionalism he was able to observe. He has left little physical evidence in the van, nothing more than a couple of tarps and some spare duct tape.
The session ends with the characters waiting to let the excitement from their efforts against Angel die down. All characters gain four experience points.