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Ximena "Ex" Huang
β 33 β FEMALE β 5'8" βΊ
β 33 β FEMALE β 5'8" βΊ
P R O F I L E
Ximena is a professional above all else. Having been raised for a corporate career before joining the tightly structured ranks of the military she believes in keeping things consummate. She doesn't have much in the way of close friends, perfectly capable of being friendly with people but preferring to leave space between her and them. She'll go out for a beer or head over for a barbeque and make pleasant small talk all the while but there's always some level of reservation.
When on the job, whether it be running guns into Chicago, attending a board meeting, or hunting the undead Ximena acts with purpose. She doesn't agonize over decisions or jump into things blindly, she simply takes the time she needs to identify the solution to her current problem before acting on it.
Her family sees a very different side of her. She's able to be a person around them, laughing often and smiling even more. She is devoted to her husband and even more so to her kids, determined to give them an easy life without needing to worry about Border Patrol or rip-off lawyers.
She is, of course, entirely terrified that they might end up dead because of her 'hobby'.
While her father was not a religious man her mother certainly was. Ximena was raised as a rural form of Folk Catholic. She believes in the Trinity and honors the saints even if the Holy See doesn't quite agree with her definition. While the Supreme Pontiff might object to her shrines to Santa Muerte and JesΓΊs Malverde they have yet to steer her wrong.
D A Y S - G O N E
Ximena was the product of a changing planet, born two years after the Cold War in the leader of the First World to parents from the Second and Third. Officially, Ximena's father Wei was an early adopter of the economic reforms that began to ripple across China in the late 70s while her mother Jacinta was studying business at the National University in Mexico City. They met when Wei was observing the fabrication company Jacinta was interning at, struck it off, and formed a family. Ximena was born in Arlington, Virginia and was thus the first in her family with U.S. citizenship. She would be groomed for a career building up her parent's burgeoning American business empire but ended up joining the Army. She served with distinction as a member of a Female Engagement Team in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning a Bronze Star for courage under fire when her team was ambushed before returning home to be a businesswoman.
While this version of events isn't necessarily wrong, it is a series of lies by omission. Wei Huang was no mere entrepreneur but a career smuggler out of Chongqing with ties to both the Triads and local Communist leadership. When the party's grip on business began to loosen he quickly established contacts with criminal elements in Hong Kong and the Western Hemisphere, specializing in the arms trade. The collapse of the Soviet Union opened a treasure trove of weaponry to the highest bidder, weaponry desperately needed by narcoterrorists and street gangs in the Americas.
Jacinta Molina was the only child of a widowed sicario in the Gulf Cartel, raised into the family business by her father. This was somewhat unusual for a girl but she had a knack for the trade, becoming an accomplished hitwoman and a minor underworld figure in her own right. By the 80s she was regularly running cocaine across the U.S border and assassinating noncompliant cops while attending college for the sake of appearances. When Wei came to Mexico to sort out a ship to the Gulf Cartel it fell on the Molinas to entertain him, thus beginning an international criminal connection.
Jacinta was drawn to the jet-setting lifestyle and exotic locations Wei visited in his work, and Wei was drawn to an attractive young woman fifteen years his junior. Neither party was particularly in love with the other but they enjoyed each other's company nonetheless and made a very good team. They spent a few years working and traveling together but this would be cut short by the arrival of a child.
With a daughter in their lives the pair pulled back from the business, settling into more subdued roles shipping guns up the Iron Pipeline and down into Mexico from their home base of Arlington, Virginia. On paper, Wei and Jacinta were running a reputable shipping business specializing in bulk dry goods and they instilled the importance of discretion into Ximena.
While her parents never hid the origin of their wealth and allowed her to participate it was always clear that the cover came first. This meant excellence in school and sports, a record devoid of even truancy certainly no flashy cars or wild nights at the club. Ximena went to private schools funded by stolen firearms, took part in robotics, chess and soccer competitions over spring breaks and shot AKs on her uncle's ranch in Mexican weed country, and helped to facilitate her first sale at the age of fifteen.
By sixteen she had shot a man, making her a professional criminal like her parents.
As far as their community, and more importantly, law enforcement was concerned the Huangs were the model immigrant family. They were hardworking people who spoke English and flew the flag, a common sight at barbeques and house parties. So when Huang Sr. was killed in his home no one could understand why. And such in such a grisly way too, his throat torn out so that the bed was soaked through with crimson.
Rumors abounded. Was it a serial killer? A sadistic robber? Perhaps punishment for infidelity? None of the suspicions held weight, nobody found any similarly mutilated corpses, and while infidelity was a part of the Huang lifestyle both partners had tacitly agreed to the other's activities.
Jacinta of course assumed that an old enemy had come for him, a rival from Hong Kong or Guadalajara taking him out like he had so many others. Ximena wasn't so sure. They weren't involved in the drug business and they had always been careful, staying neutral in wider gang conflicts so that their hands stayed clean. And if it was business, why had only he been killed when the whole family was involved?
She finished high school with top marks at seventeen (it's what her father would have wanted after all) but instead of applying to Berkeley or Dartmouth she allowed herself to be consumed by the mystery. The police had nothing helpful and there was little information to be found on online. Ximena was stumbling blind until she found a breakthrough by chance, when the prepaid rent on a storage unit in her father's name ran out.
Much of what she found while clearing the place out was useless or uninteresting, probably stolen valuables and mementos from Wei's travels. But there was a key to a safe deposit box and the bank it was in didn't care much about a dead gangster's privacy. Ximena slid the right people the right amounts and was allowed in.
The documents listed a history of transactions going back to the early 90s, a business so evil Wei had never brought his wife in on it. He had been shipping people across the globe, some kidnapped and others tricked, hundreds of them over the years. Ximena's first guess was sex trafficking but as she followed the trails back to the same few shell companies she found reports of grisly crime scenes and hastily abandoned warehouses.
She was eighteen when she pieced it together and nineteen when she allowed herself to believe it. Monsters were real, the Cucuy out of her grandmother's ghost stories did stalk the night. Her father had been selling people to vampires and had made the mistake of threatening them.
It was the kind of shock that made a person leap to rash decisions. Ximena gave her mother barely a day's notice before she shipped out to boot camp, joining the US Army in search of...she didn't know.
As a speaker of Spanish, English, and Mandarin she was an attractive choice for a translator. She was given cultural training and taught fluent Arabic as well as conversational Farsi before being sent to join the War on Terror as a member of a Female Engagement Team, supporting male soldiers and special forces by engaging with local women in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The work suited her, bringing a sense of peace that she hadn't felt since her father's death. The shock of his murder and the discovery of his side business rattled Ximena's morals. She had become keenly aware that her family profited off evil, not the fairly mundane shipping of arms and ammunition but literal blood money. While Ximena would never be considered a good person even she had a line she drew somewhere.
Upon her honorable discharge at twenty-four, Ximena set out to figure out what she was going to do. Having been raised a devout Catholic by her mother she knew her father had condemned himself to hell but familial ties demanded he be revenged anyway. The monsters he had worked with would be struck down as punishment for his sins and theirs both.
But just finding them would time, effort and money. Ximena spent nearly five years slowly piecing together the secrets behind the Masquerade, getting glimpses but never a full picture. Werewolves, demons, magic, all sorts of fairytales made real but her focus remained the Undead. Vampires were as smart, if not smarter than she was on top of being stronger, faster, and more durable, trying to tackle every other foe at the same time would be suicide.
Not that her quest wasn't already. She got very good at ignoring that reality, building a life built on lies for herself just like her father had. She ran guns as was the family tradition, found a good man, and had kids with him. But while her husband knew she was an arms dealer and sometimes murderer he was unaware of her stockpile of silver bullets. He accepted her antithetical belief in God and tolerated the shrines to Santa Muerte and JesΓΊs Malverde while remaining unaware of their true power to her.
As their children grew from infants to toddlers he asked her to ease off the arms dealing, terrified that she'd be shot dead in front of them. Ximena agreed, even suggesting a move to Baltimore. One of the smaller Huang front companies was located there and was easy enough to convert into a real business. While she wouldn't totally stop practicing the family trade she'd cut back, and become more legitimate.
Of course, Charles didn't know that she had found allies in Baltimore. The shift in careers was only to facilitate her years-long search for her quarry. Ximena willingly gave up some of her independence to ally with her parent's old organizations, sacrificing personal pride for a more steady stream of work. With the Gulf Cartel and the Triads feeding her contracts, she was able to stop searching for gangsters looking to buy and focus full-time on the Undead.
M E M O R I E S
-James "Jim" Logan: Ximena's husband. They met through a friend and hit it off due to a shared interest in amateur robotics, quickly falling in love. Jim is understandably anxious about his wife's business under the facade of shipping, which is why she wouldn't even dream of telling him about her hunting.
-Ivana and Miguel Logan: Her children, twins at age six. They're bright kids with good futures ahead of them, and Ximena is determined to give them a life of luxury. Her work, legal and illegal, keeps her from seeing them as much as she might like so she tends to spoil them as a way to make up for it.
-The Men Behind The Screen: Ever since she stopped independent sales Ximena's dealings with the bosses down South and out East have been through encrypted connections and messages via courier. She couldn't positively ID the people paying her, and she likes it that way. A professional doesn't need to know anything more than "Route Shipment A through your company to this shell account at Point B."
As long as they pay her on time and give her the resources she needs she'll happily keep working for them.
More TBA as needed.
C R E E D
πΌππππππ
D R I V E
π ππππππππ
E D G E S & P E R K S
Arsenal: On paper Ms. Huang possess a Wear and Carry Permit for the state of Maryland, citing a burglary that occurred at her company office while she was working late as her reason for applying. She's regularly renewed said license and has not yet fired a shot in anger.
Ximena also has access to military-grade weaponry ranging from surplus carbines abandoned after the Second World War to modern machine guns sold off by disgruntled quartermasters, and she's not averse to using them against her enemies living and undead.
Global Access: While she's not a particularly skilled systems cracker Ximena has access to contacts from multiple international organizations, the triads and the cartels both quite happy to keep tech geeks on payroll. With a cheap burner laptop and a few minutes to contact the right people she can be granted access to pretty much any database she might need to snoop around in.
-Letter of The Law
Fr. Alexander Stone, SJ
β 29 β MALE β 5'10" βΊ
β 29 β MALE β 5'10" βΊ
P R O F I L E
If not for an unquenchable desire to get to the bottom of things, Father Stone wouldn't be a professor of philosophy, or a Jesuit. Heck, maybe not even a priest at all. Those who know him well, such as his confreres in the Society of Jesus and his fellow academics, make it a point to keep their dealings with him dull, perfunctory, and as brief as possible; those who do not, such as those unfortunate enough to be his students and confessors, find themselves regretting afterwards that they piqued his interest by opening up to him more than they ought to have. It is for this reason that none of Fordham University's frequent churchgoers would ever want to confess their sins to Father Stone lest they run the risk of having him ask them a litany of inconvenient questions β a predicament he finds himself in even now as a chaplain in Loyola University Maryland.
D A Y S - G O N E
With the exception of his mentor and fellow Jesuit Fr. John O'Malley, now at an age when men of the cloth typically hang up their vestments for good, nobody in the world actually knows why Alex Stone decided to become of all things a son of Ignatius Loyola, let alone why he's always been the way he is.
What people don't know is that the sometimes cold, yet often inquisitive young priest was once Little Alex, a sanguine and carefree orphan of the Saint Gerolamo Center down in Baton Rouge.
Except perhaps for the older Jesuit and others with him whose names Alex never learned, nobody else knows that one fateful December, it wasn't a who that took his friends away every other night or so β but a what.
A what that lusted after the flesh of young children, but not in the way most people thought. And definitely not in the way the muckrakers reported it, and would continue to report it, in the years that followed.
A what which, for some reason, needed things like torches, wooden stakes, and a medieval-looking sword to be put down for good.
Alex didn't have the words back then, but he knew.
Knowing that the child knew, and concerned about what he might divulge out of childish carelessness, O'Malley and his companions arranged for Little Alex to spend the rest of his boyhood in an institution for orphaned boys up in Quebec City of all places. Needless to say things were difficult there, and having to learn French from absolute ignorance because that was all the people around him spoke (more like insisted on speaking) was the least of his travails.
Nevertheless, Alex endured, and when he came of age he went to great lengths to find out where in the world the old priest was, and saw to it that he received a letter containing but a single line:
Je veux Γͺtre comme toi.
M E M O R I E S
- Fr. John O'Malley, SJ: Alex's savior (βsecond only to Our Lordβ). Sponsored Alex's studies first at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley and later in Fordham, where he received a PhD and later was ordained a priest of the Society of Jesus. Otherwise distant in more ways than one and unresponsive to letters, leaving Alex to his own devices despite knowing that the young man must be brimming with all manner of questions pertaining to the occult and then some. Told Alex only the bare minimum about the existence of hunters and cells, particularly the one in Baltimore, but only after the younger priest finally wrote him about his "Long Dark Night of the Soul" in great despair. βIn five years' time, if you're still alive and I'm still alive by then, I promise to tell you everything,β were O'Malley's words to him before they parted ways once more.
- The Society of Jesus: A Catholic order of priests and brothers worldwide, and the closest thing Alex Stone has ever had to a family. Renowned for their erudition bordering on the heretical and sometimes even blasphemous, yet completely oblivious to even the possibility of a world of darkness except for a scant few like O'Malley β and now Stone himself as well. While he enjoys genuine friendships with the older members in addition to those he attended seminary with, Father Stone can't help but feel irked by the fact that he is sometimes jokingly referred to throughout the Society as βFr. Alex Jones,β owing to his predilection for conspiracy theories, paranormal podcasts, books such as David Paulides's Missing 411 and The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and TV shows like The X-Files β but most definitely not βbombastic and buffoonish claptrapβ like Infowars.
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β J A C K R O S E β
β 40 β MALE β 6"3 βΊ
Left: 'Yakiv Rozarin' age 18: photo taken from French Foreign Legion Service Records. Right: Forensic Reconstruction of Subject's predicted current Likeness developed from Verified Positive ID Footage.
β 40 β MALE β 6"3 βΊ
Left: 'Yakiv Rozarin' age 18: photo taken from French Foreign Legion Service Records. Right: Forensic Reconstruction of Subject's predicted current Likeness developed from Verified Positive ID Footage.
P R O F I L E
FBI Cold Case Initiative: Task Force 3a Briefing Notes - Transnational Crime, Counterterrorism Section
Subject is a 6β3, 40 year old caucasian male of likely Northern European descent and uncertain origin, who is known to most regularly go by the alias βJack Roseβ. Heβs wanted by a whole host of sovereign states worldwide, including France, Britain, most of North Africa, and us - mostly on terrorism charges, but thereβs a lot of low profile violence around his case too. Iβve attached sections taken from Interpol material, and a psych profile kindly donated by MI-5, who Iβm told have had a cold case on this guy for more than a decade now. Take some of the below with a pinch of salt, itβs more than ten years out of date.
Something to note is that sightings of Mr. Rose became increasingly sparse after 2011. Itβs honestly unknown whether or not heβs still out there, at least as far as the wider Agency is concerned. I must also make this clear - his apparent 'anxiety' is no grounds to underestimate this man; Rose has been concretely identified as a participant in the destruction and killings of numerous agency interests across North Africa in the years after his Algeria bombings, and I spoke with a friend across the pond and he told me that Rose was apparently implicated, along with several others, in the suspected killing of a British agent located in Kenya in 2009.
It explains a bit about why theyβre so happy to let us have their cold case files. This was almost fifteen years ago, when he was in his physical prime and fresh out of serving the French - but Rose doesnβt strike me as someone who gets less dangerous. -E
Subject is a 6β3, 40 year old caucasian male of likely Northern European descent and uncertain origin, who is known to most regularly go by the alias βJack Roseβ. Heβs wanted by a whole host of sovereign states worldwide, including France, Britain, most of North Africa, and us - mostly on terrorism charges, but thereβs a lot of low profile violence around his case too. Iβve attached sections taken from Interpol material, and a psych profile kindly donated by MI-5, who Iβm told have had a cold case on this guy for more than a decade now. Take some of the below with a pinch of salt, itβs more than ten years out of date.
EXCERPT 1 - Taken from Interpol I-24/7 Shared Database, dated January 2012, section labelled 'Physical Appearance'.
Jack Rose, 30 years old, North European ethnic background with uncertain locality, with approximately 6"2 in height. Subject is of broad build with a boxy, long-legged stature, sometimes described as the 'swimmer's build'. No confirmed sightings exist of Rose with visible tattoos or other distinguishing marks and scarring. His hair is dark brown, most often worn cut very short, almost to buzzcut length - most recent sightings (2011) suggest that he has grown a beard. His eyes are blue, but he has been known to use coloured contact lenses.
Jack Rose, 30 years old, North European ethnic background with uncertain locality, with approximately 6"2 in height. Subject is of broad build with a boxy, long-legged stature, sometimes described as the 'swimmer's build'. No confirmed sightings exist of Rose with visible tattoos or other distinguishing marks and scarring. His hair is dark brown, most often worn cut very short, almost to buzzcut length - most recent sightings (2011) suggest that he has grown a beard. His eyes are blue, but he has been known to use coloured contact lenses.
EXCERPT 2 - Redacted Person of Interest file originally from MI5's records, section labelled 'Psychological Profile: Known abnormalities, habits, and motivations.' No date attached.
Subject is known to have a significantly disordered personality, and suffers from notable disinhibitions regarding violence against others, as well as anxiety and paranoia. He is nonetheless a highly disciplined and objective oriented individual, who likely uses a meticulous nature and attention to detail as coping mechanisms - evidenced by recovered materials from <REDACTED>, see <REDACTED>. It seems likely, given what is known of his personal history and his psychopathology, that the Subject has a stressful lifestyle with limited outlets for relief - something that on at least one occasion has contributed to positive identification in retrospect, by way of reckless behaviour (see <Records Withheld>, CCTV footage showing a bar fight instigated by the subject in Morocco, 2005).
He typically avoids spending long periods of time in crowded environments, rarely eats or drinks in public, and generally prefers to find quiet places to pursue recreation or relaxation if he does so at all. Data recovered from an improperly disposed of harddrive suggests he has a varied taste in music, with interests spanning several genres from British pop music to Iranian folk songs.
Eyewitness accounts from individuals known to have had contact with Rose - eg, shopkeepers or event staff who interacted with him in verified CCTV footage - typically recall very little in detail about him whatsoever. He is typically described as being quite friendly, but a little awkward, and 1/3 of these accounts mention that he has an 'intense' quality about his speech and mannerisms, which some statements given to police describe as being unnerving but not intimidating or threatening.
Subject is known to have a significantly disordered personality, and suffers from notable disinhibitions regarding violence against others, as well as anxiety and paranoia. He is nonetheless a highly disciplined and objective oriented individual, who likely uses a meticulous nature and attention to detail as coping mechanisms - evidenced by recovered materials from <REDACTED>, see <REDACTED>. It seems likely, given what is known of his personal history and his psychopathology, that the Subject has a stressful lifestyle with limited outlets for relief - something that on at least one occasion has contributed to positive identification in retrospect, by way of reckless behaviour (see <Records Withheld>, CCTV footage showing a bar fight instigated by the subject in Morocco, 2005).
He typically avoids spending long periods of time in crowded environments, rarely eats or drinks in public, and generally prefers to find quiet places to pursue recreation or relaxation if he does so at all. Data recovered from an improperly disposed of harddrive suggests he has a varied taste in music, with interests spanning several genres from British pop music to Iranian folk songs.
Eyewitness accounts from individuals known to have had contact with Rose - eg, shopkeepers or event staff who interacted with him in verified CCTV footage - typically recall very little in detail about him whatsoever. He is typically described as being quite friendly, but a little awkward, and 1/3 of these accounts mention that he has an 'intense' quality about his speech and mannerisms, which some statements given to police describe as being unnerving but not intimidating or threatening.
Something to note is that sightings of Mr. Rose became increasingly sparse after 2011. Itβs honestly unknown whether or not heβs still out there, at least as far as the wider Agency is concerned. I must also make this clear - his apparent 'anxiety' is no grounds to underestimate this man; Rose has been concretely identified as a participant in the destruction and killings of numerous agency interests across North Africa in the years after his Algeria bombings, and I spoke with a friend across the pond and he told me that Rose was apparently implicated, along with several others, in the suspected killing of a British agent located in Kenya in 2009.
It explains a bit about why theyβre so happy to let us have their cold case files. This was almost fifteen years ago, when he was in his physical prime and fresh out of serving the French - but Rose doesnβt strike me as someone who gets less dangerous. -E
D A Y S - G O N E
I'm not even going to try with the excerpts for this one - you'll get a fuller picture in your personal briefings.
Rose is known to have enlisted with the French Foreign Legion in 1999, using the name Yakiv Rozarin and a convincingly faked matching Romanian ID card, speaking good French and with few references from his home country. It seems the French assumed he was an illegal immigrant, probably from Romania itself or a neighbouring country, but chose to follow the Legionβs tradition of recruiting rather than deporting him. It mattered little that his original ID was fake either way, because the Legionβs tradition of anonymity involved giving him a new ID under a name. Probably because it was a concise way to give him a name that sounded something like his real one, they dubbed him βJacques Roseβ. Of the many crimes Jack Rose has since been accused of, being imaginative was never among them.
He is known from his service records to have graduated basic training with distinction, and he was earmarked for specialist training during his first tour of duty in Kosovo, where he was reportedly among the first NATO elements to enter Kosovo itself. After the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 he was returned to France in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan, and the Legion evidently took this opportunity to upskill him. We know he was trained in the use of explosives and combat demolitions, that he earned marksmanβs qualifications but was never deployed in this capacity, and there are rumours he later engaged in parachute and special tactics training through the Legion as well. None of this is confirmed in his records, but key example skills that he would have acquired here go on to be displayed in his later activities.
Rose excelled in his career as a professional soldier, finding difficulty only in his interactions with less radical peers, or more rarely with civilians who vocally disagreed with his attitudes towards violence. In 2004 Rose was credited with having written a single anonymous threatening letter to Else Scholz, a German journalist reporting on allegations of Foreign Legion war crimes committed during Enduring Freedom. The letter accuses Ms. Scholz of being a βcowardly withered-dicked hippie fuckβ for her reporting on allegations of war crimes made against the Legion, and goes on to make threatening insinuations about how journalists reporting on such matters should be treated.
Rose served two further tours in Afghanistan before leaving his unit behind, possibly working covertly for the French in Algeria for a period - as his records list him as being currently serving but without deployment or training - and eventually disappearing in the line of duty. Interestingly, his records mark him as KIA rather than missing; the French claim to have ruled out tampering and appear to have classified this as a legitimate mistake. He was with them for almost exactly four years before his faked death, and having now had the chance to cross examine a number of different agenciesβ records, it can be fairly conclusively said that Rose did disappear while on operations in Algeria, and that - while his intentions remain a mystery - he was at least present during a verified road traffic collision in Marrakesh, 2004, which itself led to several gas explosions and a large fire. Whether by cruel design or by brutal opportunism, he was misidentified as being among the remains of victims from the fire.
He has been retrospectively identified in Libya in 2005, which may be where he was recruited and prepared for the attacks in Algeria in 2006. He has been linked more tenuously to various other bombings, robberies, and acts of terrorism across the Old World in the time since. It is currently the opinion of the intelligence community that Rose was disillusioned by whatever work he was doing for France before his disappearance and that this led him towards Marxism, radicalisation, and his eventual career as a terrorist; I have different opinions.
Roseβs role in the 2006 attacks may have been overstated by intelligence gathered; indeed, the idea of a Western veteran defecting directly to any sort of terrorist movement was quite sensational at the time, and may have led our immediate predecessors to assume he was responsible for more than he really was. Regardless, 2006 was the start of a career, for Rose, that saw him active as a bombmaker and field agent for a variety of marxist radical orgs across Europe and Asia, all for at least another five years; but then, in 2011, things change abruptly, and all the trails we had been following get totally thrown. His former political allegiances, his pretenses at real ideology, all along with any of the camaraderie he shared with whatever rag tag band of communists he was shacking up with at the time, were thrown out the window to allow for this disappearing act. The trail has been cold since, and we have no idea why.
- E
Rose is known to have enlisted with the French Foreign Legion in 1999, using the name Yakiv Rozarin and a convincingly faked matching Romanian ID card, speaking good French and with few references from his home country. It seems the French assumed he was an illegal immigrant, probably from Romania itself or a neighbouring country, but chose to follow the Legionβs tradition of recruiting rather than deporting him. It mattered little that his original ID was fake either way, because the Legionβs tradition of anonymity involved giving him a new ID under a name. Probably because it was a concise way to give him a name that sounded something like his real one, they dubbed him βJacques Roseβ. Of the many crimes Jack Rose has since been accused of, being imaginative was never among them.
He is known from his service records to have graduated basic training with distinction, and he was earmarked for specialist training during his first tour of duty in Kosovo, where he was reportedly among the first NATO elements to enter Kosovo itself. After the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 he was returned to France in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan, and the Legion evidently took this opportunity to upskill him. We know he was trained in the use of explosives and combat demolitions, that he earned marksmanβs qualifications but was never deployed in this capacity, and there are rumours he later engaged in parachute and special tactics training through the Legion as well. None of this is confirmed in his records, but key example skills that he would have acquired here go on to be displayed in his later activities.
Rose excelled in his career as a professional soldier, finding difficulty only in his interactions with less radical peers, or more rarely with civilians who vocally disagreed with his attitudes towards violence. In 2004 Rose was credited with having written a single anonymous threatening letter to Else Scholz, a German journalist reporting on allegations of Foreign Legion war crimes committed during Enduring Freedom. The letter accuses Ms. Scholz of being a βcowardly withered-dicked hippie fuckβ for her reporting on allegations of war crimes made against the Legion, and goes on to make threatening insinuations about how journalists reporting on such matters should be treated.
Rose served two further tours in Afghanistan before leaving his unit behind, possibly working covertly for the French in Algeria for a period - as his records list him as being currently serving but without deployment or training - and eventually disappearing in the line of duty. Interestingly, his records mark him as KIA rather than missing; the French claim to have ruled out tampering and appear to have classified this as a legitimate mistake. He was with them for almost exactly four years before his faked death, and having now had the chance to cross examine a number of different agenciesβ records, it can be fairly conclusively said that Rose did disappear while on operations in Algeria, and that - while his intentions remain a mystery - he was at least present during a verified road traffic collision in Marrakesh, 2004, which itself led to several gas explosions and a large fire. Whether by cruel design or by brutal opportunism, he was misidentified as being among the remains of victims from the fire.
He has been retrospectively identified in Libya in 2005, which may be where he was recruited and prepared for the attacks in Algeria in 2006. He has been linked more tenuously to various other bombings, robberies, and acts of terrorism across the Old World in the time since. It is currently the opinion of the intelligence community that Rose was disillusioned by whatever work he was doing for France before his disappearance and that this led him towards Marxism, radicalisation, and his eventual career as a terrorist; I have different opinions.
Roseβs role in the 2006 attacks may have been overstated by intelligence gathered; indeed, the idea of a Western veteran defecting directly to any sort of terrorist movement was quite sensational at the time, and may have led our immediate predecessors to assume he was responsible for more than he really was. Regardless, 2006 was the start of a career, for Rose, that saw him active as a bombmaker and field agent for a variety of marxist radical orgs across Europe and Asia, all for at least another five years; but then, in 2011, things change abruptly, and all the trails we had been following get totally thrown. His former political allegiances, his pretenses at real ideology, all along with any of the camaraderie he shared with whatever rag tag band of communists he was shacking up with at the time, were thrown out the window to allow for this disappearing act. The trail has been cold since, and we have no idea why.
- E
In 2011 Jack Rose abandoned his principles entirely. It wasnβt so much that heβd never had any - not so much that heβd been lying the whole time - but more that when the opportunity to move on arose, he simply couldnβt refuse it. They promised him resources, new skills, travel, and work - work that involved exactly what he was best at; problems that could fight back.
Even though he hadnβt known the so-called comrades he left behind so well, he felt a pang of guilt when he snuck out - just that one pang, and no more. The training would prove stimulating - far from the acrobatics and gunplay of an action film, or indeed his time in the legion, he was mostly made to develop his practical skills; breaking and entering, observation techniques, an abbreviated SERE course, and - perhaps most challengingly - a total re-training of his abilities at passing unnoticed. Where before he had been relying on his rurality, frequent movement, and extremely selective actions to avoid detection and capture, he was now being taught to adapt to the circumstances of modern life in the First World - how to live without attracting attention, how to move without arousing suspicion, and how to act without facing capture.
As long as his new employers would provide him with resources.
They trained him to their standards and sent him back out into the world with orders to stay in one place for no longer than three months. They would be in touch with work - sometimes for him alone, sometimes as part of a larger team - and would help with the clean up, as long as he hadnβt blown it.
He worked with them for almost ten years before he did.
His last job was where everything went wrong, and 'eye-opening' would be an understatement for just what happened; the target was a rich girl, the opportunity was her holiday - specifically, her name was Lily Barnes, and she was on a skiing holiday on a private mountain in upstate New York, operating out of an posh new chalet her father had rented for her birthday, with half a dozen close friends and about six dozen highly trained private security and personal staff. They were all quite thoroughly vetted - even the new, temporary hires - but his employers could spoof the results of his background check, and nobody notices a waiter when they're waiting.
The plan was fairly simple; the target and her mates usually went out skiing during the day, got fed and got drunk, high, and stoned in the evening, and they'd also set aside about a week in their holiday to travel over to a nearby resort and party with other people.
Waiter or not, poison was right out as a method - their food and their drinks were taken at the door by security staff most of the time, and when they weren't the delivery was still under watchful eyes of chefs, other staff, and yet more security the whole time from kitchen to plate to mouth. Firearms were also not going to be helpful - mostly because he didn't have any, but even more mostly because there were as many as 70 other men here who did. A more personal kill was also out of the question - the mark was never alone; she took her friends with her to ski, to dine, to drink, to watch movies, even to bed, which was a duty they were apparently rotating through and not getting even a wink of sleep from, always returning pale, hungover, and bleary eyed come morning. Once, Rose even caught one of them as he fainted on his way to breakfast, and the target just laughed and left him behind.
It was then that Rose made up his mind. He wasn't ultimately sure what tipped him towards the idea, but as he watched the sleek, almost businesslikely-cruel, black-dressed form of his target walk away, he had a brilliant idea.
Bomb.
A spare pressure cooker from the kitchen stores, a preparation made from fertiliser and oil taken from the chalet's greenhouse and central heating fuel tanks, respectively, plus two tins of nails and some broken glass to act as shrapnel. The electronics came partially from his own phone, and partially from TVs and other appliances in the disused rooms of the chalet.
He waited until the target and her party were away on their week in the nearest resort, and that's when he built it, and planted it in the one place he was absolutely sure she'd be at the time he needed her there.
The master bed.
On the night they returned to the chalet, the target took one companion to bed - the same young man who'd fainted on his way to breakfast - and retired early. Rose had prepared his exit in advance - he would leave some basics and a change of clothes in a bag placed inside the staff toilet cistern not-quite-closest to his own quarters, and he would collect them and change before heading out to the chalet gardens to collect the remainder of his vital equipment, secreted into some flowerbeds and a shed at the far end of the quad. Then he would make his way over the fence and down the mountain, recovering a set of skis and warmer clothing left for him by the company on his way.
Then he would trigger the bomb.
When the time finally came, the device worked like a charm, and as the windows on the master bedroom were blown out by the explosion, he watched from his hiding place on the mountain through binoculars. The bomb alone wasn't enough to set off an avalanche - a popular myth, in Rose's view - so he made ready with his skis. Nothing could have survived being in that room - much less on the bed.
Which is why his blood froze when he heard the target screaming - not in pain but in rage - from all the way across the mountain.
Unbeknownst to him, he had interrupted a Ventrue's rest, and blown up a member of her herd in the process. She wasn't exactly unscratched herself - but unlike he had assumed, she was never in bed at all, and the main blast essentially missed her completely.
In blind panic, he reached again for the binoculars, and he saw her pacing naked through the growing plumes of smoke, recoiling from the snaking coils of new flame as they reached out for her.
She looked around in a frenzy, searching for a way out - and somehow, she locked eyes on him directly.
If her survival wasn't enough, and if her very clear, very threatening eye contact wasn't enough, the genuinely soaring 30-foot leap she made to the next roof over absolutely was. Rose heard sirens go off at the chalet, saw her leap again - this time starting in his direction - and he knew it was over.
Contract scrubbed. Cover blown. Agent burned.
Time to go.
He made it halfway down the mountain before getting caught in a minor avalanche and breaking his wrist in the fall. For whatever reason - perhaps satisfied with the grave she felt she was leaving him in - Barnes broke off her pursuit there. It took three days to find the nearest settlement and a house he could at least stay warm in, and without the supplies left for him by the company he'd never have made it - but he did. He went straight to Albany to recover supplies from some old dead drops the agency didn't need to know about - but he couldn't visit the ones they did. He had failed in his mission and he'd done so in the worst way - no matter how, he'd gotten made by his target.
He was on his own, now, and he knew what would happen if the company found him. They had a way of being brilliantly humane with their own, but Rose was not just some dog to be put down, and now he had questions that needed answers.
He made his way down further, through Albany, detouring through NYC to look for old contacts who weren't there any more, and then finally through Philly and on to Baltimore.
When he found his first body with a half-healed bite wound, drained of blood and discarded carelessly by a desperate predator in the shape of a human being, he finally managed to put two and two together. The reason his target survived, the reason she took her little harem to bed on a rotating basis, why they were always so pale come morning, why that one had fainted, why the target herself never ate publiclyβ¦
A Vampire.
A creature he couldn't kill.
To him that almost felt bigger.
It was a miracle he'd survived the first time, even considering just how much he'd survived to get there - but he'd never met something or someone he couldn't find a way to get to, in the past, and whether he made another shot at this target or not, he still wanted to know if he could.
For a while he tried on his own - but when an invitation came, he jumped at it.
Even though he hadnβt known the so-called comrades he left behind so well, he felt a pang of guilt when he snuck out - just that one pang, and no more. The training would prove stimulating - far from the acrobatics and gunplay of an action film, or indeed his time in the legion, he was mostly made to develop his practical skills; breaking and entering, observation techniques, an abbreviated SERE course, and - perhaps most challengingly - a total re-training of his abilities at passing unnoticed. Where before he had been relying on his rurality, frequent movement, and extremely selective actions to avoid detection and capture, he was now being taught to adapt to the circumstances of modern life in the First World - how to live without attracting attention, how to move without arousing suspicion, and how to act without facing capture.
As long as his new employers would provide him with resources.
They trained him to their standards and sent him back out into the world with orders to stay in one place for no longer than three months. They would be in touch with work - sometimes for him alone, sometimes as part of a larger team - and would help with the clean up, as long as he hadnβt blown it.
He worked with them for almost ten years before he did.
His last job was where everything went wrong, and 'eye-opening' would be an understatement for just what happened; the target was a rich girl, the opportunity was her holiday - specifically, her name was Lily Barnes, and she was on a skiing holiday on a private mountain in upstate New York, operating out of an posh new chalet her father had rented for her birthday, with half a dozen close friends and about six dozen highly trained private security and personal staff. They were all quite thoroughly vetted - even the new, temporary hires - but his employers could spoof the results of his background check, and nobody notices a waiter when they're waiting.
The plan was fairly simple; the target and her mates usually went out skiing during the day, got fed and got drunk, high, and stoned in the evening, and they'd also set aside about a week in their holiday to travel over to a nearby resort and party with other people.
Waiter or not, poison was right out as a method - their food and their drinks were taken at the door by security staff most of the time, and when they weren't the delivery was still under watchful eyes of chefs, other staff, and yet more security the whole time from kitchen to plate to mouth. Firearms were also not going to be helpful - mostly because he didn't have any, but even more mostly because there were as many as 70 other men here who did. A more personal kill was also out of the question - the mark was never alone; she took her friends with her to ski, to dine, to drink, to watch movies, even to bed, which was a duty they were apparently rotating through and not getting even a wink of sleep from, always returning pale, hungover, and bleary eyed come morning. Once, Rose even caught one of them as he fainted on his way to breakfast, and the target just laughed and left him behind.
It was then that Rose made up his mind. He wasn't ultimately sure what tipped him towards the idea, but as he watched the sleek, almost businesslikely-cruel, black-dressed form of his target walk away, he had a brilliant idea.
Bomb.
A spare pressure cooker from the kitchen stores, a preparation made from fertiliser and oil taken from the chalet's greenhouse and central heating fuel tanks, respectively, plus two tins of nails and some broken glass to act as shrapnel. The electronics came partially from his own phone, and partially from TVs and other appliances in the disused rooms of the chalet.
He waited until the target and her party were away on their week in the nearest resort, and that's when he built it, and planted it in the one place he was absolutely sure she'd be at the time he needed her there.
The master bed.
On the night they returned to the chalet, the target took one companion to bed - the same young man who'd fainted on his way to breakfast - and retired early. Rose had prepared his exit in advance - he would leave some basics and a change of clothes in a bag placed inside the staff toilet cistern not-quite-closest to his own quarters, and he would collect them and change before heading out to the chalet gardens to collect the remainder of his vital equipment, secreted into some flowerbeds and a shed at the far end of the quad. Then he would make his way over the fence and down the mountain, recovering a set of skis and warmer clothing left for him by the company on his way.
Then he would trigger the bomb.
When the time finally came, the device worked like a charm, and as the windows on the master bedroom were blown out by the explosion, he watched from his hiding place on the mountain through binoculars. The bomb alone wasn't enough to set off an avalanche - a popular myth, in Rose's view - so he made ready with his skis. Nothing could have survived being in that room - much less on the bed.
Which is why his blood froze when he heard the target screaming - not in pain but in rage - from all the way across the mountain.
Unbeknownst to him, he had interrupted a Ventrue's rest, and blown up a member of her herd in the process. She wasn't exactly unscratched herself - but unlike he had assumed, she was never in bed at all, and the main blast essentially missed her completely.
In blind panic, he reached again for the binoculars, and he saw her pacing naked through the growing plumes of smoke, recoiling from the snaking coils of new flame as they reached out for her.
She looked around in a frenzy, searching for a way out - and somehow, she locked eyes on him directly.
If her survival wasn't enough, and if her very clear, very threatening eye contact wasn't enough, the genuinely soaring 30-foot leap she made to the next roof over absolutely was. Rose heard sirens go off at the chalet, saw her leap again - this time starting in his direction - and he knew it was over.
Contract scrubbed. Cover blown. Agent burned.
Time to go.
He made it halfway down the mountain before getting caught in a minor avalanche and breaking his wrist in the fall. For whatever reason - perhaps satisfied with the grave she felt she was leaving him in - Barnes broke off her pursuit there. It took three days to find the nearest settlement and a house he could at least stay warm in, and without the supplies left for him by the company he'd never have made it - but he did. He went straight to Albany to recover supplies from some old dead drops the agency didn't need to know about - but he couldn't visit the ones they did. He had failed in his mission and he'd done so in the worst way - no matter how, he'd gotten made by his target.
He was on his own, now, and he knew what would happen if the company found him. They had a way of being brilliantly humane with their own, but Rose was not just some dog to be put down, and now he had questions that needed answers.
He made his way down further, through Albany, detouring through NYC to look for old contacts who weren't there any more, and then finally through Philly and on to Baltimore.
When he found his first body with a half-healed bite wound, drained of blood and discarded carelessly by a desperate predator in the shape of a human being, he finally managed to put two and two together. The reason his target survived, the reason she took her little harem to bed on a rotating basis, why they were always so pale come morning, why that one had fainted, why the target herself never ate publiclyβ¦
A Vampire.
A creature he couldn't kill.
To him that almost felt bigger.
It was a miracle he'd survived the first time, even considering just how much he'd survived to get there - but he'd never met something or someone he couldn't find a way to get to, in the past, and whether he made another shot at this target or not, he still wanted to know if he could.
For a while he tried on his own - but when an invitation came, he jumped at it.
M E M O R I E S
'Sophia' - Head of the team who sourced, prepared, and fed intelligence to Rose while he was on operation for 'The Company'. Their relationship was often strained on account of their strongly differing professional approaches, but they were also an effective team, and an equally strong mutual respect existed between them throughout much of Rose's career. Especially towards the end of his career with the company, Rose and 'Sophia' were growing quite fond of eachother as colleagues, and she became one of the few individuals about whose wellbeing Rose ever expressed concern publicly. While she cooperated fully with the Company in their interviews with her after the disaster of his last job, she is likely to at least 'overlook' evidence that Rose is still alive, if she believes she will not be found out for it.
No others.
C R E E D
Martial - though with touches of an Inquisitive approach.
D R I V E
Curiosity.
E D G E S & P E R K S
Edges:
Global Access
Once among the few in the French Foreign Legion with no true personal history, and once a high class killer and infiltrator working to contract, Rose is more than capable of evading detection from more than one source; physical, digital, analogue, he's only very rarely ever left a trace he was there, and he was taught to erase that evidence too. It's mostly down to some old tools of the trade he never bothered to return, but he's no stranger to IT himself either.
Perk: All-Access Pass
Ordnance
Explosive material, components, and precursor chemicals. Rose is also adept not only with military and civilian demolitions explosives and weapon systems, but with the improvised variety too.
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