Владивосто́к...

The EIS team have stopped off in Japan, on route to Russia for their new mission. Liberate Albert Einstein. The EIS team consists of Alfie Baldrick, the one man rifle section; Mimi Dubois, maîtresse of skills; Madeline Forsyth, the living shadow; and Sven Hyse, the Norwegian shapeshifter.

Kokura, Fukuoka, Japan, January 1950

MI6 agent, and the teams contact in Kokura, Keith Yardly escorts the EIS team to a backstreet in downtown Kokura. The area would be considered as a slum in less polite circles, but the inside of the building is neat and tidy and the team find a lounge area set up like a photographic studio and Madeline is quick to recognise all of the tools required to forge travel documents. Off of the lounge there is a kitchen with food and drinks and a second room with several rails of clothing suited to the weather conditions in Russia. Madeline spends several minutes looking through the forging materials and eventually walks back to her team mates in the kitchen with a nod of agreement to the quality of the documents.

Over the course of the next few hours the team work on creating their new identities. Madeline adds some flashes of grey to her hair and uses make-up to age her appearance slightly and becomes Maria Orloff a census official in the Ministry of Agriculture and Procurement of the USSR. Mimi dyes her hair brunette and removes her make-up entirely, much to her chagrin, and adopts the persona of Tatiana Dmitrieva, Orloff's secretary and aide.

Sven steps into the dressing room and reappears ten minutes later looking completely different. Agent Yardly and the forger both look taken aback and Sven attempts to reassure them that he is just very good at disguising himself. What the Norwegian had really done is transformed himself to look like one of the American soldiers he had studied, and once he was done he had become Nico Adamovich another census official specialising in fisheries.

The team stand around looking at Alfie and eventually decide a way forwards. Madeline does an excellent job of making it look like he has a very nasty rope scar across his throat and Mimi gets the forger to create him a card stating:

Я немой и не могу говорить!

Which she then translates for him as 'I am mute and can not talk'. Alfie heads into the dressing room and closes the door. He then duplicates and manages to pull together enough clothing to disguise seven Baldricks, he then absorbs all of the Baldricks back into himself and steps out of the room ready for his photo to be taken. Mimi suggests that he also start to grow a beard and he responds with his standard:

Yes ma'am!

When all is done Alfie has become Andru Markov, driver and general dogsbody for the ministry officials. Sven asks Yardly about access to weaponry and is told that Artium Debbin, our contact in Vladivostok, will provide us with weapons once we are within Russia. Yardly also exchanges $300 of the teams funds into roubles and provides them with four tickets from Vladivostok to Moscow aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway. The team scrutinize the maps that they have access to and calculate that they will need to disembark at Novosibirsk and make their way to Semipalatinsk and then on to Kurchatov.

Yardly tells them that Kurchatov is a walled city and that it is unlikely that their fake identities will gain them access and so Madeline talks to the forger and manages to secure the team three sets of blank identification papers as a precaution. The MI6 agent also gives the team an address in West Berlin that is the designated safe house to deliver Einstein to, Alfie splutters aloud:

West Berlin? We have to get him to West Berlin?

Before a stern look from Mimi silences him. Mimi then gets the team to empty their kit and their pockets out onto the table and she works her way through removing any items that could link them to their old lives, much to Alfie’s horror this also includes discarding their American cigarettes and lighters. Madeline points out their EIS identification cards and the team agree that they should be left behind and they ask Yardly to dispatch them back to Sawdon in London. Madeline takes Mimi to one side and quietly says:

This may well be our final mission for London, and sending back the identification papers is practically a resignation letter. Whilst we are in Russia I will have no compunction about helping myself to a nest egg, preferably Fabergé. Are you with me?

Mimi smiles warmly at Madeline and reaches out her arm to grab the English woman’s shoulder before nodding emphatically.

Early on the morning of Friday 6th January 1950 the EIS team are driven by MI6 Agent Yardly to the port where they board a cargo ship bound for Vladivostok. Their forged papers are given a cursory glance as they climb aboard and they are settled into their cramped cabin as the ship sets sail just before ten in the morning. As the ship slowly pulls away from the harbour Alfie accompanies Mimi on a walk around the upper deck, it was then that they both spotted the rising crests of serrated scales of massive size parting the waters through the wake of the cargo ship. Alfie stands mouth agape pointing while Mimi pushes out with her senses and confirms that whatever the gargantuan creature is, it is definitely enhanced. At that point the fear of monsters that Mimi gained fighting the Horror of Sidney Square Gardens gripped the French woman’s heart and she froze in place. The sounds of an air raid siren could be heard on the wind issuing from the direction of Kokura harbour.

With the fear and intrigue of the waterborne monster ebbing away the further the cargo ship pulls away from Japan the EIS team settle down into shipboard life. Sven and Alfie keep a low profile and spend a lot of their time in the cabin while Madeline and Mimi mingle with the other passengers. Madeline spends time listening to the conversations taking place between the Russian passengers and starts to borrow snippets of their stories to weave into the team’s own tale to create an even stronger cover story for them. Mimi engages one Russian lady in conversation and asks her about her home, which just happens to be Vladivostok, and while the women is talking about her home city Mimi reaches over and, touching the back of her hand, borrows her knowledge of the city and surrounding areas.

That night the cargo ship encounters rough seas, while the rest of the team sleep soundly through the worst of it Mimi is kept awake and heads for the galley feeling green around the gills. She sits down next to a small group of Russians and is handed a small glass of vodka which she throws down her neck and feels a little better.

The cargo ship pulls into Vladivostok harbour, a little behind schedule, just after three in the afternoon on Saturday 7th January 1950. The queue to disembark the vessel is long and slow moving, mostly down to the officious Soviet Political Officer closely inspecting papers and questioning the passengers. As the queue slowly snakes down the gang plank Sven takes time to closely observe the Commissar and commit his visage and voice to memory. Eventually the EIS team get to the customs check point and Mimi steps forwards adopting her role as the groups secretary and explains to the Political Officer the reason for the groups visit to Japan. The Commissar pays far more attention to Mimi, or rather Tatiana, then their papers and only pauses to make a note of Tatiana’s address before waving them through.

As they exit the harbour they spot a man swathed in a heavy coat holding a sign displaying the name of Maria Orloff. The team head for him and he introduces himself as Artium Debbin and shows them to his car, a large wallowing beast of a vehicle. Once inside and driving through the streets of Vladivostok Madeline asks Artium if there is any news from Kokura, the MI6 agent nods and tells her that there are reports drifting in from Japan about an attack by some kind of giant creature that destroyed the port and made it’s way to the centre of the newly built area. In a rare moment of clarity, Alfie points out that must have been the middle of the explosion site for the bomb dropped at the end of the war.

Debbin then tells the team that he was contacted by a sleeper agent within Kurchatov City and that it is believed that Albert Einstein is being held captive in a recently set up prison complex adjacent to the main research facility within the walled city. Debbin goes on to ask if there is anything that the team need and Sven quickly explains that we need as many pistols as he can get, preferably with silencers, and a collection of knives. After a circuitous route, making sure that they are not being followed, Debbin pulls up outside an apartment complex and shows the team up to a nice apartment before leaving them to settle in. Mimi heads straight for the kitchen and starts to prepare a hearty dinner.