The Hijacking of Keats’ Pride

Written by Glenn Davisson

The game is set in Vancouver, the third largest city in Canada (and largest on the west coast). It has the largest port in the country, and one of the largest in North America (including the fourth largest cruise ship terminal in the world). There are nine million tourists every year, and the four container terminals handle 1.5 million containers a year. Only half of the permanent population considers English their 1st language. Outside of Los Angeles and New York City, it has the largest film and television production industry in North America, with all the “that’s weird, but not notable” stuff that goes with that. With the average detached home running $1.2 million, it’s one of the most expensive places in the world to live, and has neighborhoods that range from extremely wealthy to one of the first skid rows in the world. Vancouver has the highest crime rate in Canada (though not so high compared to many US cities). And it’s only a few miles from the longest undefended national border in the world.

Add in a very busy port, and the unions that go with it, and border and customs officials who have a tendency to be either sympathetic to the US, or willing to take bribes to make that mortgage payment (or both), and a picture emerges of a place where the CIA would have a significant staff of case officers, to manage their various local assets (people they bribe, or blackmail, or otherwise coerce or seduce into helping), and a good sized staff of analysts, looking for anything interesting in all that port and tourist traffic, but not much in the way of gunfire or explosives. A convenient place to move people or contraband into and out of the US secretly. Their operations are controlled from the Consulate, but are not in it. Instead, their office is ostensibly an import/export company near the docks, Weathervane Import/Export.

This mission is written for characters who are a team of CIA field officers, exiled to a place where nothing happens, for reasons other than incompetence (they angered someone more important than themselves, but not by doing a bad job).

Download The Hijacking of Keats’ Pride (with accompanying maps)