Fantasy Whatever Gets You through the Night by TMaskedWriter

[Ramesh_Rocky]

"That schwein..." He began to yell before stopping himself. He shined the torch on the ceiling and now saw the gaping hole that once held the glass of a skylight before continuing in a lower voice.

"There's a REASON nobody's been here since then! Something fucking BIG happened here! Which means they know all about this place! SHE knows all about this place!"

* * *

"Yeah, we know all about this place." Contessa Helena de San Finzione told Mander, lighting a cigarette while he sped them to the scene. They decided Bessie had been through enough today and were now in the Lotus Esprit. "It's the warehouse where Whyte scammed the Triads into setting up their human trafficking stop. The one we shut down the night before Morgan attacked me. It's down on the docks and Luc's right: a boat's his only hope of getting out now."

"That's a bit of a coincidence, innit?" Mander asked, rounding a corner.

"Not as much as you'd think." Helen answered, putting the cigarette lighter back. "This is a big city in a tiny country, but we're not Gotham. Our warehouses and amusement parks are mostly in use. There aren't a lot of abandoned ones to choose from." The cigarette hadn't quite caught, so she took a series of small puffs to get it going. "One of the earliest things we figured out about them was that they didn't do much prep work before setting out. Otherwise, they might've learned why the place was abandoned: because it was Triad-owned, and I threw them out of San Finzione about a year ago."

"So," Mander said. "The casting announcement comes out and Schell finds out his grandson's got the part. Might even be proud of the kid for a second before realizing what this is gonna mean for him. What the fuck's he gonna do? How does he stop a movie from being made? WITHOUT harming the grandkid. Answer: Kill the director. So, he calls Dietz."

"It's a Nazi hitman's dream come true!" Helen added. "Dietz probably never shuts up about his family's past, and now a real Nazi from Way Back Then has a job for him. Schell's probably got a hoard of Nazi gold to finance the operation with and this is his grandson here, which explains the huge bankroll. He probably paid Dietz in swastika-stamped bars of it."

"Right," Mander followed. "That the target happens to be Jewish as well is just icing on the cake. The Director has to die; the hate crime part's just an added bonus."

"But he needs a crew and he doesn't have a lot of time to put a decent one together. Like you were saying yesterday, he's such a dick that nobody'll work with him a second time. So, he HAS to trade on his name and rep and get his crew from the ranks of those who'd be impressed by them; jackoffs from some FRAUD Nazi version of Craigslist. Adolfslist?"

"And like we discussed yesterday, gets back the level of criminal who'd advertise on Adolfslist; cause you're probably right about that name. Fellow racists with a few priors; they're serious and check out, but they ain't the ace team of Aryan Supermen he was hoping for. Can't be helped; the clock's ticking. He's gotta do this early enough on in the process; before the studio's sunk too much money into it. Otherwise, even someone without Your Countessness' personal reasons might look at the expense thus far and conclude the same as you: The show must go on with a new director."

"When that fails," Helen followed along. "Sabotage the production however he can while keeping Tad out of harm's way until it's NOT worth continuing the project! We still don't know the point of the castle attack: Assassinating Maria, wrecking the set and surrounding neighborhood, or a two-for-one deal. The set's being rebuilt, and Compton wants to work the damaged wall into the story. They're going to blow up a prop wall at the studio, then drive tanks through the real one for the invasion scene. It's still a big damn hole in the castle wall until then, though, so it's being guarded. We've stepped up security everywhere else too, on the off chance he's trying the same misdirect shit Whyte was into."

"Either way, same end result: Your Countessness is even more determined not to let fucking Nazis stop her. The show WILL go on! Now Dietz has to escalate; do one of them cowboy hits and kill enough people that you'd have no choice but to shut it all down. He's got two ways he can go about it: Mass shooting with the guns and costumes or bombing campaign with the C-4. He ain't above killing innocents but there's one he can't allow to come to harm: Tad Chase. So, he can't risk using bombs unless he knows for certain Chase won't be there."