Hellsing

A taxi pulled up along the tire-marked curb on a slightly muggy, cooled evening. There was nothing remarkable about this particular vehicle. No one would have thought twice about it as the passenger's side back door opened up to the sidewalk. Who would have cared if a dark-skinned, physically imposing individual slid out of the car and turned back to the driver, speaking his thanks and fair-wells in broken Portuguese? He was just another foreigner in the national capital, like the thousands already on Brazilian soil.

The large man turned away, using his momentum to close the door and let the driver be on their way. Then he stood at the curb, back to the street, for a small spell. Up and down the sidewalk he watched, looking serene and genuinely at ease with the world immediately surrounding him-- the soft squint and smile didn't fit very well with his broad physique and slightly crooked features. It was as if he was sensing the heartbeat of Brasília's entertainment district for the very first time. Two days earlier when the man had been asked his purpose for coming into the country, he had stated 'business'; briefly, as the city's night life bloomed, the atmosphere felt anything but.

Uttering the gentlest of sighs in resignation, he proceeded with a slow and steady walk towards the restaurant to his left. Having been forbade anywhere near an actual government building, his presence had instead been summoned to this establishment. As the man could see the moment he opened the door and stepped inside, it was ritzy. The atmosphere was dark and confining, rich in texture and scent. The man almost felt terribly out of place despite wearing his best business suit, and he took a few seconds to quickly run a hand through his white hair before the host stepped up to greet him. She was a little older than himself, right at forty or just past it, with greying hair and a women's pantsuit that looked more expensive than his own.

"Good evening and welcome, sir," she spoke to him in Portuguese. "Do you have a reservation?"

The guest startled a little, his hazel eyes widening as his heart skipped a beat. Now he remembered the other reason he felt so out of place tonight. The hostess eyed him, beginning to appear as uncertain about the man as he was about himself.

"Forgive me, my Portuguese is not very polished," he began to explain in an unsteady, slightly nervous baritone. It rumbled with the gravelly sounds of a long-time smoker. "I am... I am looking... for... Mister Ab-abílo... Benedito Silva.... Leitão? Leitão, yes. He is ex...expecting me."

The woman listened patiently to the muddled attempt at communication and frowned, giving the man before her the dull stare of a disappointed elder. "Do you speak English?" she questioned, still in Portuguese, but she noticed the immediate delight in on the man's face the moment 'Inglês' left her mouth. She swiftly changed languages, though her own English was tainted heavily by an accent.

"Mister Silva Leitão was expecting someone named 'Johann'. You do not look like a Johann."

Now it was the man's turn to give the hostess a very dull stare. He reached into a pocket inside his suit jacket and procured a driver's license issued in Washington DC. Stamped into it was his picture, a neutral expression with the slightest weary edges, with the name 'Johann Ambrose Malacharv'. The hostess could clearly see all of this, but she still maintained her skeptical stare.

"... lady, if you're trying to insinuate I should have a name like Ezequiel, I have better things to do with my time than bicker over what my parents signed to my birth certificate." Johann began to stuff the card back into its pocket. "Mister Silva Leitão is expecting me. Right now. You are making me late, ma'am."

"Very well. Right this way." The hostess muttered something in an unpleasant tone under her breath--'besta' from the sound of it--but the larger man let it slide and followed her deeper into the restaurant. They walked briskly towards the very back, maneuvering around tables and other patrons and staff coming and going through the front of the establishment. It was not to the kitchens they moved, but to a small room connected to the main one by a heavy wooden door already partially ajar. The hostess rapped upon it twice with thin fingers, and upon hearing an answer from within, pushed the door open entirely to allow her guest passage.

Johann immediately recognized this room as a VIP section, properly closed away from the din of regular business. A large round table sat near the back, surrounded by fine chairs and covered in a myriad of stemware and ashtrays. A cloud of smoke hung in the air, its presence thickened by lit cigarettes and cigars untouched yet by law to remain stifled. Seated at the table, smoking these earthy-scented pieces, were two men. Johann could pick out Silva almost immediately--the thin, younger man, with his hair already receding from his forehead, wore a red tie with a black suit--an utterly typical power-based wardrobe choice, and Johann had to hold back a frown at the predictability. The man beside him was around the same age but a little more buff. A security agent, Johann hazard to guess, and his hazel eyes did no attempt to hide their scrutinizing and search for any visible weaponry.

The Brazilians' dark-skinned, American guest didn't immediately sit down, having not been invited to do so, but he did look back to Silva and nod very politely to the government agent. What was Silva again? A congressman? A part of the president's cabinet? The details suddenly escaped him; he felt 'CIA' was the closest answer, but that was about as incorrect as national business went. Damn it, perhaps he should have listened to the details on the plane a bit more carefully.

"Good evening, Mister Silva Leitão," he rumbled in greeting--English still--once the restaurant's hostess was gone from the room. "Thank you for the warm welcome into your country and the opportunity for me to meet you in person tonight. My employer, Mister Sannis, tells me you have quite the... 'hefty task for my exact skills', as he put it when I spoke to him last. Hopefully I will not take up too much of your evening hearing the details straight from the horse's mouth, so-to-speak, and making due arrangements."

From beyond the edge of the mahogany tabletop, studious eyes peered through the thin veil of smoke as the large statured American promptly proceeded with polite introductions upon entering. At last, the slender man plucked the fragrant cigar from thin lips and addressed his guest with a charming smile. "Mister Johann Malacharv. What a pleasure to finally be able to put a face to the name. Welcome to Rio de Janeiro." Silva's English words were laden with a thick, South-American accent. With cigar clamped between a bony middle and index finger, the politician gestured toward the chair at the foot of the oval table. "Please, have a seat", he began by saying, before shooting a sharp sideways glance to the more muscular male seated to his left while twitching the cigar between his fingers indicatively. "...make yourself comfortable." The stout-statured man who had been idly twirling his earring (a small silver cross dangling from a short link of chain) between two fingertips, instantly picked up the nonverbal cue and quietly rose to his feet. He moved noiselessly to a rosewood sideboard. Sparkling seductively in the warm ambient light of the room, crystal snifters and bottles filled with expensive amber liquids rested on a slab of frosted glass beneath a large oil painting depicting rolling vineyard hills bathed in the many bruised hues of the sunset.... or perhaps it was the sunrise? From beside these ornamental arrangements of glassware and imported liquor, the muscular man picked up a wooden box, polished to a glossy sheen, and sporting a golden latch. Every grain, knot and swirl of the elegant wood enhanced by the faintest of a walnut stain.

With the box in hand, the man traversed around the table. That little silver cross swayed beneath his earlobe with every step until he came to a halt at the American's side, where he snapped back the golden latch, and gently propped open the polished lid. Instantly wafting from the now open container and lingering in the air was an aroma of savory, earthy delights. Each individual cigar had been rolled and pressed with artisan expertise. From the golden band encircling the dried tobacco leaves it was easy to tell that these smokeable delectables were exactly what Silva was enjoying one of at that very moment. The politician watched the two men at the other end of the table with a charismatic countenance. "Please, help yourself.... A little token of Brazilian hospitality, if you will." Silva's accent-laced syllables drifted across the glossed tabletop and toward his foreign guest. Regardless of whether or not Malacharv had accepted his offering, the Brazilian Union-official moved forward with the conversation all the same. Leaning back in the cushioned, high-back chair, he took a puff from the end of the cigar while his bodyguard returned the wooden box to its previous place on the sideboard. "Let me know if there is anything else I can provide you with right now..." His words paused for a moment as he tapped the excess ash from the burning end of his cigar into an ashtray in front of him. "...otherwise, we can get right down to business. I doubt you're too keen on spending your evening with a stuffy government official and his bodyguard... The nightlife attractions of Rio are much more appealing, I'm sure. So I'll make this as concise as possible."

Silva's guest spent the interim between his last words and the response to look his newest client over. Although the man knew better than to doubt and judge a book by its cover--and boy, had he come across some unsuspecting horror stories before--the Brazilian official looked like the thin, spidery, office-bound sort Johann had been expecting to see. Power suit included. With slightly pale lips already at their typical downturn, the lines and creases deepened slightly. Damn it. He'd tried so hard to stop doing that as of late. Ah well--there would be other opportunities to not be entirely rude to his hosts.

"Thank you, Mister Leitão," he rumbled, tone kept pleasant in contrast with his expression, which did indeed lighten a little once he had gotten over the other man's physique. One of the American's large hands reached out to the chair nearest himself, and with the grace of a slightly lazy cat trying not to fall from a fence, he sat down and comfortably leaned back against it. One leg lifted to cross over the other, slow in motion to avoid striking the table's underside with a show. Silva's cue to his bodyguard is taken very literally--Johann made himself quite comfortable. Hazel eyes darted over to the stouter man, once again not hiding the fact that they were scrutinizing the bodyguard's every movement. Sannis had mentioned over the phone to be aware of a paranoid streak in this one, and it was putting itself on display like a grand prize for all to behold.

Johann didn't pretend to be disinterested in the bodyguard's actions. He kept a very sharp eye on the man, where he was going, and what he was doing. Eugh! Everything was so ostentatiously fancy, far as he was concerned, right down to that lovely cigar box presented to him. The American reached across himself to pluck one of the cigars up for an examination.

"Mister Leitão, you didn't have to go this far to welcome me..." Playing the humility card, or sincere? It was hard to read which until his lips curled up into a sharp grin--definitely not sincerity. "Please though, really, this is quite satisfying enough," he added with a wiggle of the cigar. The other hand dipped into one of the deep pockets on his jacket, producing a lighter. The very end of the cigar was simply snapped off like a twig, using no more than his own two hands. It was rough, but it soon was smouldering away like a dying campfire.

"As for yourself, I also doubt you want to spend the evening with an ol' hitman and his sour attitude," he remarked with a chuckle, "so yes, let us get down to business, sir."