A sordid tale of espionage, blackmail and murder. My latest playthrough of Scalphunter, a game of Solo Cold War Espionage. Scalphunter is available from Itch and DriveThruRPG, free or pay what you want.
D.Ops, the Director of Operations, pulls Lawson into a meeting and briefs him on a sensitive job that’s just landed on his desk. It is vital for the security of the country that a senior member of the Prime Minister’s cabinet drops his support for a new bill that will open a loophole for Soviet trade expansion in a so-far neutral Middle Eastern country. The cabinet member, codename DREAMER, is not under suspicion himself but perhaps being naively influenced in what SIS consider the wrong direction.
Lawson points out that spying on a member of the government is outside SIS’ brief. D.Ops and Lawson both know that anyway but it wouldn’t be the first time.
“Find something on DREAMER,” D.Ops says. Lawson finishes his tea and returns to his office to start planning.
Mission: Exploit Weakness of Important Person (Interaction)
Highly Complex (10) Urgency: Routine (6)
Task 1
Lawson has determined that DREAMER keeps flat in Bloomsbury, North London, that he uses rather than travelling home to Surrey on long days, and where he entertains visitors. He dresses as a maintenance guy in overalls, toolbelt and the usual stuff and lurks around inside the upmarket apartment building waiting for DREAMER to leave. There will be a short window of opportunity before DREAMER’s immediate neighbours return, so Lawson makes a rapid entry before DREAMER has even reached the street outside.
Quick Force Entry (Action) – Harm/Exposure
6
+Progress (1)
Task 2
This is where Operation Morpheus takes a dark turn. Lawson has taken his new ally Blair Baker into action, and has set her to keep an eye on DREAMER and see if he is himself under surveillance from opposing forces with an interest in keeping him on his current path. Blair is highly skilled at tradecraft and spots a man covertly shadowing DREAMER. The follower breaks off his surveillance and moves rapidly to what Blair assumes may be a rendezvous. She follows him into a multi-storey car park.
Counter-Surveillance (Tradecraft) – Exposure/Stress
Ally: 1 — She has 3d6 in Tradecraft and every single die rolled was a 1!
Discard Blair permanently
Blair was skilled in Tradecraft but lacked real-world experience, or she might have realised this was a trap. The man she was following had spotted her and led her deliberately into a secluded place without witnesses. He struck without warning or mercy, grabbing Blair from behind. She “fell” from a sixth storey window in what was later reported as a suicide.
Task 3
Unaware of the danger Blair was in, Lawson continued his job inside DREAMER’s apartment
Install electronic bugs (Tradecraft) – Exposure/Oversight
6
+Progress (2)
Microphones are planted in the telephone, the light-switches and in the bed-side alarm clock. Lawson leaves the flat and locks up carefully behind him, then returns to the department to await Blair’s return.
Task 4
Blair’s death cast a pall over the whole department, and the next morning consisted of a grim meeting in “C”s office, with D.Ops, D.Int and Lawson present. Lawson was pressing for the location and elimination of Blair’s killer to be a priority. D.Int told him sharply that Lawson’s careless deployment of an improperly trained newcomer was the direct cause of her death. D.Ops shut Lawson up before he could say something career-ending. “C” eventually ruled on the case. There would be no derailing of Operation Morpheus to pursue the killer. That would be a separate investigation. In the meantime Blair Baker’s death would be presented as a tragic accident.
Shift Blame/Cover Up (Standing) – Oversight/Exposure
6
+Progress (3)
Task 5
D.Ops took Lawson aside after the meeting with “C”, both mean seething with unexpressed anger – in Lawson’s case this showing as temper, in D.Op’s case as cold, cruel seeming pragmatism.
“We still need leverage on DREAMER,” he tells Lawson, “But need to back off for now. I need you to write up everything on the case so far and we’ll reconsider our approach after the weekend.”
Lawson pushes back on this, but D.Ops is adamant.
Resist Internal Delays (Standing) – Oversight/Exposure
6
+Progress (4)
Task 6
Lawson does not spend his time writing up the case. He spends it making contact with other Scalphunters who are, off the books, asking a lot of questions to witnesses around the car park where Blair was killed. By Sunday evening Lawson has a description of the man who entered the car park before Blair did, and who left, wearing a different coat, shortly afterward.
The description perfectly matches a known KGB illegal called Markel Gorshkov that MI5 have had their eye on for some time. Arthur Young, Lawson’s friend within MI5 passes on Gorshkov’s address as a favour, and also warns Lawson that there is an MI5 team keeping an eye on Lawson unofficially just in case. Lawson thanks Young and tells him he owes him one.
In the early hours of Monday morning, Lawson leaves home and quickly spots the MI5 tail on him. He doesn’t have time for anything fancy so he sets about losing them quickly in what starts as a series of sudden turns and turns, once he is out of immediate view, into a sprint into and through a series of residential gardens.
Evasion/Escape (Action) – Harm/Stress
5
+Progress (5)
+Harm (1)
He ends up a little scratched up but otherwise okay and makes his way to Gorshkov’s address in South London.
Task 7
Gorshkov is a late riser. Lawson makes sure he doesn’t wake up.
Surgical Assassination (Action) – Stress/Oversight
3
+Progress (6)
+Stress (1)
He makes it look like an accident. Nobody in the department will be fooled but he doesn’t care.
Task 8
D.Ops is blazing mad on Monday afternoon when a report of Gorshkov’s death reaches him from an even more furious MI5 visitor. Lawson denies any involvement with expertise trained into him by a decade of covert work.
“Get back on DREAMER,” he is told. “He’s attending a conference in Brussels tonight.”
Lawson flies out and reads the briefing notes on the plane. DREAMER is speaking at an international trade function and staying in a luxury hotel that will be filled with other foreign diplomats. Security will be through the roof and since Operation Morpheus has shady provenance to say the least, Lawson will have to do this very carefully. Later that day he is posing as an Irish journalist and mingling with the press-pack before slipping away into the interior of the hotel.
Infiltrate Secure Area (Tradecraft) – Exposure/Harm
4
+Progress (7)
+Exposure (1)
Task 9
The hotel is too big and there are too many foreign security goons around to risk blundering about blindly, so Lawson takes a risk. He recognises one of the British delegation and contrives a meeting. She knows that Lawson is involved in intelligence work from a previous meeting, and assumes she should be helping him. All he needs to know is where DREAMER is and who is with him. She offers the information without hesitation, but will mention it later to her own superiors in a spirit of sharing a forbidden secret.
Call additional support (Standing) – Oversight/Stress
4
+Progress ((8)
+Oversight (1)
Task 10
With eyes-on DREAMER, Lawson watches him as he attends a formal dinner in the conference centre, and trails him back to the hotel. He then trails him again as DREAMER leaves the hotel alone and makes his way to the Rue de la Senne and enters with the air of a child about to steal a biscuit from the larder. Lawson checks the names on the door-bell panel and makes a note of them.
Shadow Target (Tradecraft) – Exposure/Stress
+Progress (9)
+Exposure (2)
Downtime
2
-Exposure (1)
DOwntime
4
-Harm (0)
Downtime
2
-Oversight (0)
Task 11
After a relaxing rest of the night and following day, while DREAMER is giving his talk at the conference, Lawson is busy. He’s gained access to the apartment in the Rue de la Senne and marveled at how well equipped DREAMER’s mistress is for the life she leads. He installs some more listening equipment and sets up recording devices in the empty room next door. DREAMER isn’t due to return to London until tomorrow so Lawson is counting on him returning to his love-nest this evening – and he suspects it will make for interesting listening.
Install electronic bugs (Tradecraft) – Exposure/Oversight
6
+Progress (10)
ENDGAME
DREAMER returns to London after a successful business trip. He’s on the front pages of a few of the more serious newspapers. A discreet gentleman from the Foreign Office approaches him in his office and raises a … delicate matter that has been brough to his attention. DREAMER turns pale when he hears a brief extract of the audio tape, and positively green when it’s pointed out that he may soon be appearing on the front pages of all of the newspapers.
The Foreign Office man, Lawson in fact, then offers him a lifeline. The whole sordid matter could be entirely forgotten… if the new bill being discussed were suddenly to find itself without DREAMER’s support.
Fearful but venomously angry, DREAMER acquiesces.
5
Partial Success
-Exposure (0)
Personal Cost –
Harm (0) + Stress (1): Roll 4 – No increase to Burnout
Exposure (0) + Oversight (0) – no Blown roll
Advancement +2 EP
Otherworlds 