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Profile of Cal Atwood
Cal Atwood is 40 years old and has brown eyes and light brown hair. His only identifying mark is a left shoulder bullet wound picked up in a 1991 firefight in Iraq. Cal was born in Rochester, New York in 1968, and his family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1976. After graduating high school, he attended the University of Virginia, where he was on an ROTC scholarship from his sophomore through senior years. He enlisted in the Army after getting his degree from UVA in 1987, and was accepted into the Green Berets in 1989. He served on a forward recon team in Iraq for three weeks before the 1991 hostilities, for which he was awarded a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. After attending West Point to complete post-graduate work in electrical engineering, he was honorably discharged. His employment is undocumented from December 1998 through September 2002. He joined Taylor, Racine & Associates, a New York-based international security firm specializing in corporate counterespionage, personal security and event security, in October 2002. He was named a partner of Taylor, Racine in 2006, and is now heading up the investigation into the rumors of salacious film outtakes being exhibited in the Far East. Cal is married to Katy, a social worker, and their children thus far are comprised of two dogs, a Norwegian elk hound and Welsh Corgi. Cal and Katy make their home on Long Island. Cal enjoys wine, golf, and is known to have a quasi-addiction to Chiclets gum.
Profile of Reggie Harris
Reggie Harris was born in the Bronx in 1973 to a mother of Panamanian descent and a father of mixed Ethiopian and Indian blood. For a part of his early childhood, Reggie also lived with an aunt who resided in Memphis. The product of this upbringing was fluent in Spanish, Arabic, backwoods country and regimentally proper English, and about every street lingo used from Chinatown to Harlem. Diminutive in height, Reggie quickly learned that survival in the Bronx depended on his runnin’ with the right gangstas and, when he outgrew that stage, his ability to outthink and outtalk the hustlers, dealers, pimps and crews that infested his streets. Reggie spent some time spinnin’ tracks in a few clubs as Grand Mixer Reggae, and it was at one of those that Reggie’s life changed. Somebody wuz skimmin’ the cash, but the bosses couldn’t figure out how – so they asked Reggie to help out by keepin’ an eye on the registers. When Reggie figured out the scam and the cops were called in, Reggie had an idea he’d like the undercover life. The club’s bosses gave him a helluva reference, and it didn’t take but a couple of months for him to land on his feet at Taylor, Racine. Reggie picked up the tradecraft of blending into his surroundings and, with his linguistic skills, he got so he could pass himself off as a migrant trabajero from Mexico, a software programmer from Bombay, or an African-American student from Alabama. This chameleon-like skill has Reggie in high demand for undercover work, his latest assignment being to help the “Cal-man” get some answers for their client, the Motion Picture Federation (MPF).
Profile of Tomas DeLauro
Tomas DeLauro has ruled the MPF for over 25 years, during which time it has become the de facto information clearinghouse and premier lobbying organization for the major Hollywood studios, as well as a few smaller studios and film distributors. A man aptly described as knowing where the proverbial bodies are buried throughout Hollywood, DeLauro is obsessed with the studios’ image, facilitating their global expansion plans, maintaining their preeminence in film media, and overseeing their complex relationships with A-list actors and actresses, as well as agents, from his vulture-like perch. In sum, DeLauro is not a man to be trifled with – power, money and high-level contacts dominate his very existence. As chairman of the MPF, DeLauro also happens to be the man to whom Cal must report as his investigation proceeds – an uncomfortable position at best.
Profile of Marcie Shapiro
The reigning queen of big-budget mega-movies and an unmatched box office draw, Marcie Shapiro is the bad girl of Hollywood who’s suddenly gone legit via her marriage to Ron Shapiro, super agent. Now receiving between $15 and $20 million a picture, Marcie is steak for the paparazzi dogs, who track her, hound her and chronicle her every minute. She’s beautiful, conniving and knows how to use her looks, and spends much of her time feeling sorry for herself – how’s a woman supposed to live in a glass cage? Her latest movie credits include Moonshot I, Moonshot II and Diminished Danger, blockbuster hits that have solidified Marcie’s place at the top of the Hollywood hierarchy. Marcie is also beginning to feel her late 30’s age, though. Younger stars such as Sasha Kerelovsky are beginning to nip at her heels, and there’s only so much that plastic surgery can do.
Profile of Sasha Kerelovsky
Discovered at a fashion show in Milan, Sasha Kerelovsky is a Russian ex-pat who’s now living the American dream – success, fame and money in abundance. Graduating from modeling, to art-house films to smaller budget films, Sasha now seems on the verge of a career breakthrough as her exquisitely gorgeous features and lilting Russian accent have become well-known to audiences worldwide. Her growing reputation as an accomplished actress is only overshadowed by looks that would stop any man in his tracks. As it happens, Sasha’s relationship with another actor has reached an end, and when she meets Cal, both Sasha and her elderly Russian “baba” are taken by a man without the pretensions and hang-ups brought about by life in Hollywood. And unlike U.S.-born actresses who are needful of pursuit, Sasha has a refreshing, direct approach to relationships with the opposite sex. Of course, there’s only one issue…
Profile of 01,059,969
The shadowy numeric signature of a supplier of pirated material to the Macau, Hong Kong, and mainland Chinese undergrounds. Hidden behind numbered bank accounts in Liechtenstein, layers of zombie servers, and inscrutable language reminiscent of natural-born Mandarin speakers, 01,059,969 is indeed an enigma. Joined in a criminal communion with a Far East criminal syndicate, even the syndicate is unable to identify who lies behind 01,059,969 despite extraordinary efforts. As the syndicate begins to suspect that 01,059,969 is possibly shopping pirated material to other criminal gangs, it redoubles its efforts to penetrate the veil of secrecy around 01,059,969, looking to leverage the identification into an exclusive supply arrangement or, perhaps, even one controlled by the syndicate.