AP (FC) - The Gurlitt Heist Part I

Two Thursdays ago, while all the cool kids were at Dreamation, I stopped by the FLGS for game night. I knew many people were going to be away for the con and wasn't sure if game night was going to happen. Surprisingly, there were seven of us in attendance, so we unanimously decided to play a Fate heist game that someone pitched. I was extremely excited, because I had only played FAE once before and hadn't tried Fate Core yet. Finally, I had my chance.

We played through most of the planning stages of the heist, but the actual job took place the next session (last Thursday). The story was a lot of fun, and I knew from the get-go that I'd thoroughly enjoy the system. Fate is one more game I can add to my #51in15 list and falls under #10 of my Gamer's Resolutions for this year. I also got the opportunity to use my fudge dice in a live game for once, so that was really exciting as well.

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Premise

Cornelius Gurlitt, son of the Nazi-era art dealer, Hildebrand Gurlitt, had been selling his father's collection of artwork from Switzerland for many years. Cornelius Gurlitt claimed his father had obtained the artwork legally, many of which were seized from Jewish owners during the Nazi-era, though at least 240 of the 1,280 works are now known to have been stolen or looted. Many more works were discovered at a Munich flat owned by Cornelius Gurlitt and had since been relocated. They were being logged as evidence and kept at the Justizpalast in Munich. Many of the original owners died in Auschwitz, and a significant number of paintings were to be handed over to the Museum of Fine Arts Bern in Switzerland, who Gurlitt named as his sole heir. He recently passed away.

Our characters assembled to take on a high-paying job stealing some of those stolen artwork for an unknown client. They didn't know what the job was going to be, where it was taking place, or how much they were getting paid, but they were told it was going to be their biggest score yet. 

The Face sent out messages to assemble the team. The Thief spotted a clandestine message behind a stolen painting during her last heist. The Driver received an encrypted phone call. The Hacker saw the message as it displayed across digital billboards all over Times Square. The Hitter was approached by a group of men while drinking at a bar. He was about to beat them up but stopped once he heard their message. 

Once the team was assembled, they made plans to meet their employer in a cafe in Paris. The last member of the team, the Expert, joined them a little bit later in the story.

This article serves as the inspiration for the story.

Cast

Sir Mordred, the Face

Alana Corvid, the Thief (played by me)

Sabine Becker, the Driver

Shadow Sa7an, the Hacker

Bloody Dimitry Mandelov, the Hitter

Gunther Wagner, the Expert

Source: http://tinyurl.com/lvlk7rn. Credit: Leonid Afremov
Image used without permission.

The Gurlitt Heist

Part I

Taking On the Job

2015. It was a cold, dreary day in Paris, France. The clouds were dark, the skies were gray and there was a torrential downpour, as every member of the team made their way to the designated cafe to meet Monsieur Blanc, their employer.

Sir Mordred was a tall, handsome, middle-aged man of status, refinement, and wealth. He wore an expensive suit and carried an umbrella, as he walked from his nearby, five-star hotel to the restaurant.

Alana Corvid was a petite, lithe brunette in her late twenties with brown eyes and curled hair bound back in a pony tail. She wore tight jeans, knee-high boots, and a light gray raincoat, as she got out of a taxi which pulled up next to the cafe.

Sabine Becker was a slightly older, taller, athletic woman with light brown hair that was also pulled back in a ponytail. She wore jeans, boots, and a different colored raincoat. She had her own transportation and parked her vehicle next to the cafe before getting out.

Shadow Sa7an and Bloody Dimitry Mandelov both took the subway, though not necessarily together. Shadow was a nondescript individual who often wore anarchist shirts, while Dimitry was tall, bulky, and sported many tattoos with a recognizable mug that was wanted by Interpol. 

Monsieur Blanc was the only person in the cafe sitting outside in the pouring rain, sans umbrella. He calmly drank from his glass, as the rain splashed onto his plate and dripped down his face and suit.

The team met up around him, and Sir Mordred scoffed and said he would get them a table inside like a civilized person. Alana was eager to join him. Bloody Dimitry was wary about insulting their employer and made a comment, but everyone, including Monsieur Blanc, agreed to migrate inside where they found a quiet table far enough from any prying ears.

"So what is this job?" Sir Mordred asked.

Monsieur Blanc explained that his client had requested certain pieces from the Gurlitt collection that were being held as evidence at the Justizpalast in Munich. He said a lot of people have been coming into the Justizpalast, claiming that the art belonged to them and feeling guilty about what happened. Blanc also explained that his employer wanted them to steal the exact pieces he requested, no more no less, so as not to cause any suspicion. The job would pay an upward of up to twenty million Euros if carried out as requested. A percentage would be deducted for any work they were not able to retrieve and if they aroused suspicion.

Alana, who was a greedy, art thief and immensely interested from the start, asked which pieces the client wanted, but Blanc said he'd only tell them if they accepted the job. He assured them that the sum they would be paid was a whole lot more than what the works were worth if sold.

The group quietly talked it over and came to a consensus. They accepted the job. 

Monsieur Blanc nodded and gave them a list of the artwork which included paintings, etchings, statuettes, and a violin case. Once again, Blanc stressed the importance of delivering all the artwork, no more no less, and that all the contents in the violin case had to be there. Sir Mordred noticed Blanc particularly stressed that last part.

Alana asked what other valuable pieces were being held at the Justizpalast, and Blanc casually mentioned a couple of Picassos that were extremely valuable, amongst other catalogued and uncatalogued pieces.

He gave them an address to go to once they had their plan set. It was the residence of someone named Monsieur Lindback. They were to go there and place a call to Blanc, where they would further work out details on where they'd deliver the works after completing the heist.


Onward to Munich

At this point, a sixth player joined us and created a character that we naturally fit into the story.

Sir Mordred wanted to fly to Munich, and Alana was more than willing to take a plane instead of drive. Shadow decided to fly with them as well and used his hacking skills to procure them plane tickets.

Sir Mordred also mentioned that he had a contact in Munich named Gunther Wagner who was an art collector and entrepreneur. Sir Mordred placed a call to Gunther, using code words to hint at the fact that they were getting ready to do a job, and asked if he could meet them in Munich.

Sabine drove her car, and Bloody Dimitry went with her. He wanted to guzzle a bottle of vodka whilst in the car, but Sabine wouldn't let him. She said he could keep the bottle in the trunk and drink as much as he wanted to when they'd stop for gas, but Dimitry couldn't drink while they were driving. Dimitry was disappointed but obliged, and the two of them drove from Paris to Munich.

Sir Mordred, Alana, and Shadow were the first to arrive. Gunther met them at the airport and was instantly struck by Alana's beauty. He invited them all to his restaurant, where Sir Mordred filled him in on the details of the job.

Gunther called one of his contacts at the Justizpalast and learned that the art pieces were being held in evidence lockers on the third floor. Furthermore, there was an offsite warehouse that the Munich police also used to hold evidence. Sir Mordred, Alana, Shadow, and Gunther started talking about a plan to get the target art pieces into a delivery van and steal it. Gunther suggested using a terrorist threat which would put the police on high alert and force them to move all the artwork from the Justizpalast to the offsite warehouse. Then, they'd hijack one of the vehicles with Sabine as its driver and drive off with the stolen works. There'd be no suspicion, because all the artwork would be moved out of the Justizpalast, and one of the vehicles would simply, "become lost," in all of the chaos. However, there were major flaws with the plan which Sabine would later point out.

She and Bloody Dimitry were still en route to Munich.


Hijinks at the Horse Races and a Gallery Date

Given that they had some downtime, Gunther invited his guests to go visit the horserace tracks, after Sir Mordred brought it up. He had quite a bit of a gambling problem and wanted to go for personal reasons, but he thought he would use the opportunity to gather any rumors he could from the wealthy patrons there. Gunther knew some of those people and gave Sir Mordred a list of their names and descriptions. Sir Mordred invited Shadow along as well, hoping the hacker could work his magic to rig the races. He invited Alana too, but she declined and said she'd rather spend the evening with Gunther having dinner and taking a private tour of his art gallery.

At the race track, Sir Mordred gambled on horses and collected whatever information he could find. Shadow focused on his hacking, but instead of rigging the races, he changed all the horses' names to obscenities and reference to neo-Nazis and mongrels. Shadow was a compulsive anarchist at heart and couldn't help himself. He had to generate chaos. 

Meanwhile, Sabine and Dimitry finally arrived in Munich, and the entire team met up the next day to begin planning the heist.


The Plan

After hearing Gunther's plan about using a terrorist threat to force the police to move the artwork out of the Justizpalast, Sabine pointed several, key flaws: they didn't know which evidence lockers the works they were to steal were being kept, there wasn't a 100% guarantee that all those works would end up in the same delivery van, and a terrorist threat would actually raise more red flags and cause more suspicion.

Instead, Sabine suggested a much subtler plan. They could forge papers to request a transfer of evidence from the Justizpalast to the offsite warehouse. They would need to figure out where the evidence lockers were on the third floor, which locker(s) the artwork was being kept in, store all the artwork together in a separate container, make forgeries of the pieces to transfer to the warehouse, disguise themselves as police officers and go in during office hours to carry out the transfer, drive to the warehouse and deliver the forgeries, take the real artwork to a separate warehouse and switch vehicles, deliver the pieces to their client upon setting up a time/place for the final drop off, collect their cash, and complete the job.

Source: Wikipedia. Credit: Nino Barbieri
Image used without permission.

Preparations (1/2)

Wearing civilian attire, Sir Mordred and Alana visited the third floor of the Justizpalast as though they had claims on some of the artwork being held there or were bringing the police information about other, uncatalogued works.

While Sir Mordred talked to one of the guards, Alana saw another guard entering the evidence locker after being buzzed in. Inside, she saw a third guard sitting at a desk, going over paperwork, which evidently had to do with a plethora of uncatalogued pieces they were trying to log into the system.

Meanwhile, back at Gunther's estate, Shadow gained server access to the Justizpalast to be able to control the cameras and assist with the reconnaissance work. The artwork they were after hadn't officially been logged yet, but they were definitely being held somewhere in the evidence room. Shadow also set up a tracking device for Alana to plant onto one of the pieces the second time around at Sabine's behest.

Outside, Dimitry took a lonely stroll through the streets of Munich and decided to cause chaos of his own to rile up the local police. He spray painted all sorts of obscenities and Nazi symbols in order to get police to notice him (despite being wanted by Interpol). When they pulled up to stop and arrest him, Dimitry assaulted them all and ran off.


Preparations (2/2)

Now that they knew where the artwork was, they still needed to figure out which evidence locker(s) they were being kept in. Ideally, they wanted to consolidate the artwork into one container to make the transfer easier and even less suspicious. 

Gunther acquired police uniforms, and Sir Mordred and Alana revisited the third floor of the Justizpalast, disguised as officers, to enter the evidence room and perform the necessary tasks.

Sir Mordred brought fake paperwork with him to distract the guard outside as well as the desk clerk inside, while Alana snuck into the room and began searching through the files that the clerk had been mulling over. After a bit of time searching, Alana found the art pieces they were looking for and the two Picassos she had her heart set on; they were scattered between three, different crates. She gathered up all the pieces, including the Picassos, and moved them to a different container before the desk clerk came back. Alana made sure to mark the container, and she also placed the tracking device Shadow gave her onto one of the pieces.

Gunther took some time researching Monsieur Blanc and found out quite a few interesting things. Blanc had recently been seen at Action for Deutschland meetings and was previously in Kiev talking to the Organizatsiya. He was a well-connected man and mainly operated out of Sweden. Many in the team became highly suspicious of him, especially Sir Mordred.

Sabine was tasked with acquiring forgeries of the artwork (she knew people who could create them for her), including the two Picassos which Alana specifically requested. After finding out what Gunther learned about Monsieur Blanc, Sir Mordred wanted Sabine to get two sets of forgeries. After dropping the first set off at the warehouse, he wanted to con their employer with the other set and keep the real artwork. Sabine was against it. Sir Mordred didn't trust Blanc's client and urged her to change her mind, but Sabine didn't give in and flat-out refused. Sir Mordred then tried to figure out why she was so adamant about going through with the original plan, but he couldn't get a read on Sabine.


Making the Call

Sir Mordred, Alana, Shadow, and Gunther all stayed back, while Sabine drove Bloody Dimitry to Monsieur Lindback's apartment - the address where they were to place the call from to Monsieur Blanc.

The first thing Dimitry noticed after getting out was a dumpster filled with heaps of newspapers that were missing the financial sections. When he got to the apartment itself, there was police tape plastered in front. He informed the rest of the team but decided to proceed anyway.

Back at Gunther's, Shadow quickly searched for information and found out that Monsieur Lindback was recently murdered via a home invasion.

Inside the apartment, Dimitry discovered decades of financial journalism with blood stains all over the place and an antique, rotary phone with a random, direct line leading out of the building.

Dimitry picked up the phone, and it automatically dialed in. He heard three dial tones followed by Monsieur Blanc's voice who asked if they had a date set for the job. Dimitry said, "Friday the 12th," and Blanc told him that they were to deliver the artwork Sunday the 14th at the Gröna Lund in Stockholm.

The call ended, and Dimitry hung up. He and the rest of the team weren't sure if they were being set up or not, but they had officially committed to the job and had no choice but to go through with it.

End of Part I