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I agree it doesn't look good for Steve. I wonder how much of a chance there is of him being framed with the assination attempt?Mad Monk wrote:Well, it looks like Steve is the prime suspect.
I wonder if Fel is going to add any twists? Maybe Steve had help from inside Stonebrook?
There is also the symmetry between Kit's accident and Steve's. Could this be what leads to a reconciliation with Zach? I can see Vil declaring that no-one is to see Steve or pay his medical bills, and Kit persuading her that Steve should see justice, but should not be treated in the same way that he was. Of course, this will lead to more problems for Kit and Jessie in Chapter 49.
“Could he…” Jessie trailed off.
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Vil shrugged. “He’s as rabid a purist as his father, but he’s a lemming. He works a black hole job just so he can claim he works in the shipyard without doing any real work, but he just does what he’s told. He’s never done a single thing I can remember.”
“What do you mean?”
“He just drifts,” she answered. “Doesn’t take any initiative, doesn’t do anything. He just sits behind a desk and plays World of Warcraft all day, then goes home and cheats on his wife on a daily basis.
Between these two quotes it would seem they were two totally different people. The first shows a follower and a not too bright one at that. The second shows a leader of a large terrorist group that has been around for a long time. However there is a something in the story that might explain that dichcotomy.“I know who attacked you, Luke,” she declared. “It was Steve.”
“Steve?” Kit said in surprise. “Steve?”
She nodded. “Steve is the Grand Knight Templar of the Paladins, Kit,” she told him. “That’s supposed to be a secret, but I don’t think it would take you very long to dig it up. If the males that attacked you were Paladins, then Steve was the one that gave the order.
His parents, not just Zach, got him into the PPC. Can you say figurehead? He has the leadership postion but it would probably be that his parents are the real leaders not himself. This gives them deniability if something goes wrong, as it has.“Vil, both my parents are involved with the PPC,” she retorted. “Do they know Stevie is the Knight Templar? I can’t tell you. But they both know he’s in the PPC. They inducted him.”
People linked to Israel have in the past used bombs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izz_El-Deen_Sheikh_Khalilmichaelsuave wrote:I'm still wondering how they are going to tie jamal into this whole thing. I'm thinking, that when he cut those checks to pay "the bills" he was really writing out checks to the paladin. Otherwise, there is the posibility that he is a plan B, and Alice is making sure she can get at kit and Jessie even if her son failed.
Consider that the whole Vulpan family is going to be in one place, except for Zach and his family.“This is one of the new hires for the reception,” he said. “But he’s no security guard. His name is Jahal Mevas, he’s an Israeli Arab who used to work in the merc circles about twenty years ago, but he retired. He worked in Mossad as an infiltrator, since he’s a loyal Israeli yet he’s also obviously Arab.”
From about 2003 to about a year ago I played alot of MMORPG's including WoW, so I know how those in game systems work. The In game chat is all type written and is monitorable by the game developers. You have no right to privacy using in game chat, however most MMORG guilds use VOIP like Teamspeak (TS) or Ventrillo (Vent) were you rent a server and set your own passwords. Anyone can rent a Teamspeak or Ventrillo server for as little as $25 a month for a good size server that will handle 50 or more people. These services are the basis for the relatively new VOIP telephone service people are now getting into. These services also let the renter control access via assigned passwords and it would take a warrant to "wiretap" the service. So the PPC could use WoW to help build team work and people learning to follow orders, but those orders would go over TS or Vent not the in game written chat.kd7mvs wrote:One thought concerning Steve's different faces, the listless naif at the shipyards and the Grand Knight Templar; can you say "Deep Cover"? Can we also say obsession, and lack of interest, as in obsessed with the PPC and Species Supremacy, and not giving a rip about the shipyards. And World of Warcraft, doesn't this game have chat capabilities or some such built into it, allowing Steven to communicate with others through the game? Not having played it I'm not sure how its set up, but I know many of the MMPORPG's have player developed guild systems, care to consider the cover that could make if the online Guild was a cover for the real-world Paladins, how one could use the communications system to coordinate things using thinly veiled language? I mean, Paladins going on Holy Quests and Crusades just wreaks of neo-medieval roleplay, but also of the cant used by idealogical extremists such as the PPC's Paladins, couching their nefarious deeds in terms of Holy Mission, the better to justify to themselves as well as others that which has no excuse.
OK, so that was a convolute, multi-sentenced thought, but you get the idea.
Here is a couple of interesting quotes that fit the theme:Hearly wrote:(from page 17 of Chapter 37)
“Steve is the Grand Knight Templar of the Paladins, Kit,” she told him. “That’s supposed to be a secret, but I don’t think it would take you very long to dig it up. If the males that attacked you were Paladins, then Steve was the one that gave the order. Last night he called me and told me that he was leaving Boston for a while. I didn’t have to ask why, and I didn’t ask where. But if he’s running, then it had to be him.”
Steve called her Last night, after the attack, after Zach found out it was Paladins..
Edit:
If I remember my timeline correctly.
The attempted attack happened the Early Morning of the baby shower, the wedding was the next day.
Also thinking some more, ok Steve is a racist b*st*rd, But could the accident be what makes Kit reconcile with some of the Family?
The above quote points out that either it was a Vulpan using a cutout or a servant using contacts with the PPC.“They won’t say. The one thing they do say is that it wasn’t the Paladins that sent them, they all say that they were hired by someone else. Some guy paid them ten thousand each, told them about the tunnel, and told them when and how to do it.
The above qoute shows the long history the Vulpans have with the PPC and the Paladins. Now one thing you have to think on is Lucas's personality. Since we know from this quote he was in the PPC, and his family helped start it, what are the odds that Lucas was the leader of the PPC, the person the Head Paladin took his orders from? Now with Lucas dead who would be the natural replacement? Zach.Kit couldn’t prove it, but he was fairly certain that his family had helped start the PPC, and it was Vulpan money that funded many of their operations over the years. He knew for a fact that his father was a member of the PPC, he’d grown up listening to his father spew purist diatribe…but there was no public record anywhere that any Vulpan was in any way connected to a radical and unpopular organization like the PPC.
“I know you have no reason to trust any of them after what they did to you, and you have every reason to be angry, son,” Harland said quietly, “but remember one thing. Your father let his hate consume him, and you’re more than aware of what was the result. Don’t walk down Lucas’ path, son. You’ve seen where it goes. You can forgive but not forget, but if you never forgive, some day we’ll bury you beside your father and remark at how much like him you turned out to be,”
“No, Aunt Ruthie, I’m not,”’ he admitted bluntly. “There’s no way you can understand what it was like. And if you could, then you wouldn’t be saying these things to me now. Luke Vulpan the child who desperately needed his family, needed anyone when he laid in that hospital bed and nobody came, that Vulpan died that night, Ruthie. The family killed him with their neglect. Kit Vulpan the adult walked out of that hospital six months later. I’m not the same fox, and I have no reason to ever forgive those who killed the boy I used to be. I have every reason to never forgive my family for abandoning me.”
Keep in mind Steve is Zach's son so we could see Deja Vu all over again.They didn’t know what it was like, they couldn’t even fathom what it was like to lay in that hospital bed, his entire body feeling like it was on fire, and be so alone…so alone, then find out that his bastard father had tried to have the hospital literally wheel him out into the back alley and abandon him, leave him to die, it was like someone had reached inside him and ripped his heart out. That had been hell, absolute hell, the pain and the fear and the isolation and the horror of a terrified child finding out his father wanted him dead, and to feel so completely and utterly alone, was like a white-hot needle through his soul.
That might be the truth but would Zach believe it? The scene would go somethinmg like this.Hearly wrote:Oh, boballab and others, I'm not saying Steve might not have done it, but Just because he's in the PPC so far we only know that it wasn't ordered by the PPC to do it, and it was more Freelance work, with that said, Just because Steve was a member and ran, doesn't mean he did it/Ordered it etc, I mean If I was in his shoes hearing what happened in the position he is in with them, I'd have ran too thinking everyone would immediately say I did it.
True, But this is also assuming Zach Knew about the Tunnel, Heck, I'd think any of the elders could have known about it as they grew up there didn't they?boballab wrote:That might be the truth but would Zach believe it? The scene would go somethinmg like this.Hearly wrote:Oh, boballab and others, I'm not saying Steve might not have done it, but Just because he's in the PPC so far we only know that it wasn't ordered by the PPC to do it, and it was more Freelance work, with that said, Just because Steve was a member and ran, doesn't mean he did it/Ordered it etc, I mean If I was in his shoes hearing what happened in the position he is in with them, I'd have ran too thinking everyone would immediately say I did it.
Zach: You stupid shit I didn't tell you to try to kill Kit and then you had to go and tell them about the tunnel you Idiot!
Steve: I knew nothing about it, I didn't authorize the hit.
Zach: You lying Shit, you had to know how else did they know about the Secret tunnel? I'm not stupid like you, you shit!
Zach would never believe Steve's innocence because of the tunnel, he would be too angry at him and assume from the beginning he had to be lying.
