(Count Neri Caponne consults with some of the five families, whilst his girlfriend Sophia and her pet monkey Herpes, looks on. Cardinal Bennacci practices some shapes in the background with his Excorcist kit)
1. Italians
You are Count Zeppo Capone, world renowned archaeologist and Knight Commander of the Vatican. You have been sent by the Holy Father in Rome to discover the whereabouts of the soon-to-be-born Anti-Christ. You are then to destroy this vile creature back to the fiery pits of hell from whence it spawned. Your will be helped in this task by Cardinal Remondo Benacci, the Exorcist General, and an old school friend of yours from La Spezia. Your cover story is that you are archaeologists in search of the treasures of Alexander, and this should be maintained at all times to confuse and confound your enemies.
The foretelling of the arrival of the Anti-Christ is as old as history itself. However the first recorded documentation of the prophecy was in a long thought lost 7th century tract by Jacob of Edessa (633-708). However you discovered this precious document in a previous adventure (c.f. ‘The Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven’), and have been working with Vatican scholars ever since to uncover its meaning.
This you have now done. In short, when the ‘Eye of God’ - a curious alignment of a large slow comet and the moon - appears in the eastern sky, then the seed of the devil has been impregnated in a human host. That was eight months ago, and so you have only four weeks till the arrival of the Anti-Christ on earth, a time when the Book of Revelations will come true, and the world will end in a manner too horrific to contemplate (note 1).
Your enemies are primarily the agents of The Dark One himself. They are many and legion, Some of them, the Cultists, have dedicated themselves to bringing about the end of the world and are proud in their evil. Others are unwitting tools of his will, thinking they are doing good, when in fact they are channelled into the destruction of the world. There are also artefacts, which in the right hands – yours – could be used as powerful weapons of good, but which in the wrong hands will substantially increase the chances of the End of Days. Foremost amongst these is ‘The Spear of Destiny’, containing a fragments of the True Cross, which was stolen recently from the Schatzkammer Museum in Vienna. It is rumoured to have been spirited to the current theatre of operations, which does not bode well.
In addition to your day job, you should never forget that you are also Capo di tutti, Head of the Five families, The Cosa Nostra, The Mafia. You are The Godfather. Which has its advantages.
Note 1: Interestingly fictionalised in the 1999 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, ‘End of Days’
Forces at your disposal: c.800men
(Italian Alpini embark on transit barges in Italian Somaliland prior to the move to the Bay of Bengal)
2. British
You could have sworn that twit Dwyer said ‘fire!’ and not ‘retire’ from that sump of excitable natives in Amritsar.....he then gets a plum posting in the NW Frontier and you are told to go tiger hunting in Gilgit until it all blows over. Not that it’s too much of a fag. Perfect countryside for shooting all sorts of wildlife, the natives are friendly (and then some!) and best of all the climate. Cool, pure and disease free. All that and Sir Harry Flashman has opened a men’s recreational facility north of the town....
You are military governor of the Gilgit region. Despite the current tensions between Britain and the Afghanis, yours is considered a low risk region due to its inaccessibility. Consequently the area has been stripped of the majority of its front line troops to re-inforce the western front with Afghanistan.
On one particularly lazy day you receive a wireless message from GOC India instructing you to form a column and proceed with all haste to the remote town of Alichur, deep in the High Pamirs. Apparently some joint Boche-Yank and British scientific research centre is in trouble. Your orders are to establish what has happened and rescue the Boche scientists who apparently have disappeared. There is also a warning that the Bolsheviks are operating in this area. To you, the godless communist and the heathen Hun are much of a muchness, but orders are orders. This does however present you with an opportunity to spend time in the footsteps of your Masonic hero, Alexander the Great. Rumours of his treasures being secreted somewhere in Kafiristan and/or the High Pamirs are woven deep into Masonic mythology.
Objectives:
1. Get to Alichur ahead of the rumoured Yank and Boche rescue missions and rescue the Boche scientists.
2. Obtain all relevant Boche scientific data and secret it back to England unbeknownst to the others.
3. Obtain a full knowledge of the Bolshevik activities and future plans in the High Pamirs
4. Discover the lost treasures of Alexander.
Forces at your disposal: c. 950 men
(Brigadier Linn out bagging breakfast)
04 June 2008, 07:37:02 PM
