GM Events

A City Held Hostage | 10.15.1962

Over the past several days, chaos would grip the city, reaching from its streets into the chambers of government. At the centre stood Mayor Horace Humphry, and the bitter confrontation that preceded the death of District Attorney Richard Dent. During a meeting of the City Council, the District Attorney would openly challenge the Mayor’s intentions and professionalism, questioning whether he was fit to hold office. Calling upon the VSK and his personal guards, he would demand Dent’s arrest and removal from the meeting.

The District Attorney’s detention would prove short-lived. Escaping custody, Richard Dent would flee to the Dreadfort, where his ally, the Field Marshal, would shelter him deep within its bunker. Beyond its walls, Mayor Humphry would order a relentless hunt, determined to see his threat carried out. Yet the Mayor’s allies would not remain loyal for long. With every insult, every furious command and every betrayal, Humphry would drive away those upon whom his authority depended. Orders that once brought obedience would meet hesitation, and then outright defiance.

With the District Attorney secured, the hunt would close around Mayor Humphry. Learning that his former allies were now pursuing him, he would make a desperate dash for the Japanese Embassy, seeking sanctuary behind its guarded doors. His refuge would last barely ten minutes. The Embassy guards would admit the Field Marshal to discuss the matter. What followed behind those doors would remain unknown. When they opened again, the Mayor would emerge and be placed into the custody of the American Bureau of Investigation and the Governor, leaving those gathered outside with more questions than answers. Rumours would spread through the city before any official account could be given. Some claimed the Embassy guards simply wanted no part in Humphry’s troubles. Others suggested that, after a generous and conveniently timed bonus, those same guards could now afford a very comfortable retirement.

Mayor Humphry would be transported to the headquarters of the American Bureau of Investigation, where he and the Governor would spend hours behind closed doors discussing the future of his office. No account of that conversation would emerge, but when the doors finally opened, their expressions would speak volumes. The Governor would depart with a faint, triumphant smirk. Humphry would follow with his head bowed, the fury and arrogance that had gripped City Hall replaced by a conspicuous silence.

By the following day, the Mayor would march to the headquarters of the American Bureau of Investigation, where District Attorney Richard Dent was stationed, and take him into the Governor’s Office. The door would close behind them. Moments later, a single gunshot would break the silence. Richard Dent would be found lifeless on the office floor, a single bullet wound to his head. The feud that had brought the city to the brink would end behind a closed door, with the District Attorney dead and the Mayor’s public threat hanging over the scene.

Once again, the city would believe that Mayor Humphry’s tyranny had finally reached its end. Once again, the cell doors would open. The Governor would declare the killing of District Attorney Richard Dent an act of self-defence. Repeated detention of the Mayor had done little to quiet his resentment. Convinced that he had been humiliated and treated beneath his station, the Mayor would leave with a final promise: by the following day, he would have what he wanted, whatever it took. Throughout the next day, Mayor Humphry would tighten his grip on the New York Police Department, pressing the Commissioner to place its officers firmly under his command. Every demand would bring him closer to the force he wanted: a personal army with which to carry out his plans. The Commissioner would hesitate, but his initial reluctance would give way to compliance. Under the Mayor’s direction, officers would be deployed against those Humphry regarded as enemies, drawing the department deeper into his widening feud. With each order obeyed, the Mayor would grow bolder. His threats now had uniforms, weapons and the authority of the law behind them.

The breaking point would come when Mayor Humphry turned his attention towards Field Marshal Colt McCoy. Acting under the Mayor’s direction, police would target the Armed Forces, bringing his campaign of intimidation into direct confrontation with the military. Humphry would vow that the Field Marshal’s final sight would be the Mayor himself a threat that, after Richard Dent’s death, few could afford to dismiss. For the city’s leadership, this would be the final straw. Tensions would erupt across New York once more, while Humphry, consumed by his determination to crush every opponent, would push towards a confrontation that threatened to engulf the entire city.

With National Guard personnel beginning to arrest his officers and Mayor Humphry refusing to back down, the Commissioner’s patience would finally break. His department was bearing the consequences of a feud the Mayor seemed determined to escalate. The decisive moment would come when the prospective District Attorney informed the Commissioner that the Mayor held no operational authority over the departments he was attempting to command. The orders that had drawn the police into Humphry’s campaign would now face an open challenge.

Word of the conversation would reach Mayor Humphry, who would immediately order the arrest of the man he accused of spreading discontent. The Director of the American Bureau of Investigation would intervene, blocking the arrest and telling the Mayor to stand down. Humphry’s response would be another furious outburst. Unwilling to tolerate the challenge, he would demand the Director’s arrest as well an order that would finally turn the Commissioner decisively against him. This time, the police would refuse to act. Commands that had once sent officers into the streets would go unanswered, leaving Humphry confined to the briefing room as control of the department slipped from his grasp. Beyond its doors, the men he had treated as his personal army would no longer obey him.

With the Mayor’s remaining support gone, Field Marshal Colt McCoy would be admitted into the Police Station to confront him. Inside the briefing room, the encounter would unravel within moments. Humphry would draw his pistol, his shouted demands filling the room. With only a single guard still at his side, he would order the Field Marshal’s arrest and level the weapon at his head.

McCoy would take two steps back.

A sharp crack would split the air, followed by gunfire echoing through the station. When the shooting stopped, Mayor Horace Humphry would lie dead on the briefing room floor, brought down by the Field Marshal he had threatened to kill. After days of arrests, threats and bloodshed, Humphry’s final order would die unanswered in the room where his authority had already abandoned him.

Trouble in the Caribbean

The Caribbean, once a haven for pirates and thieves, flourished beneath foreign banners, its lawless shores brought under the rule of two mighty Empires. Yet with every conquest, their reach stretched further, until neither could watch all it claimed to command. Now, the old ways return. Beyond the patrols and the watchful eyes of distant capitals, fugitives slip into forgotten harbours, hunted men take new names, and those marked for death find shelter beneath the palms. The flags of the Empire still fly, but their authority fades with the horizon. For those with nowhere left to run, the Caribbean offers one final refuge, a place to bury their past and live out their remaining days, beyond the reach of those who would drag them home.

For months, the National Security Bureau had quietly woven a network of informants through the Caribbean, buying loyalties and planting eyes within the very harbours its enemies believed safe. Those who fled there might escape the Empire’s shores, but they would not escape its reach.

Today, that patience bore fruit.

Word reached the Bureau that former General Arthur Thorne had learned of the deal struck between Feldmarschall Colt McCoy and the Generalkommissar Otto von Gorlitz. Deep within a supposed sanctuary, a name had resurfaced, and the men listening in the shadows were ready to act.

Generalmajor Arthur Thorne had fled to the hidden harbours of the Caribbean, hoping to place an ocean between himself and the custody of the National Security Bureau. Like so many fugitives before him, he mistook distance for safety. He imagined long years beneath the palms, a drink in his hand and the setting sun upon the water. With every quiet evening, he grew more certain that his pursuers had lost his trail. One night, beneath the darkened Caribbean sky, Generalmajor Arthur Thorne, sat alone on the beach, hidden from the public and the sun. Suddenly a scream would be heard, attracting a local patrol. The Patrolmen would discover him dead on a folding chair with an icepick rooted deep within his skull, his blood staining the sand surrounding him.

By dawn, German money had bought the local patrol’s silence. No report was filed, no warning reached the harbours, and Arthur Thorne’s final scream became another secret swallowed by the Caribbean.

Far across the Atlantic, a letter arrived at the office of Otto von Gorlitz. It bore no signature and offered no explanation. Only a single line: “The thorn sleeps beneath the tide.”