The Phoenician Scheme (2025) Movie Script
1
We're only losing altitude of 50 feet per
second.
Let's clear that bridge then reassess.
There might be a more survivable crash
site.
More survivable crash site.
I told you!
I warned you!
Lit tarmac, short runway, 25 knot
crosswind, lightning!
You just allowed me to
complete a proper safety
check despite incredible
threats of seven times.
It was important to take up.
You needled me, achieved me, and bullied
me, but I managed to get us airborne anyway.
And now, needless to say, if we've been
blown up by somebody trying to assassinate
you again, then we're gonna crash after
all!
If we survive, I'm reporting you to the
Trans-European Aviation Authority.
You're fired.
What's that?
What'd you say?
You fire.
A fire in the middle of emergency port
lane?
Mayday, mayday, mayday, Charlie, we'll
send you a request for immediate clearance.
I've got a cornfield and a, uh, looks like
a soybean field, which is gonna be softer.
It's inclusive.
Never mind.
I'll be in the cornfield.
At this moment, rescue workers are
laboring to extinguish the fiery wreckage
of a new-fated dual-engine aircraft in a
perhaps futile attempt to recover and
identify the remains of Anatol Shaja
Korda.
International businessman, Maverick in the
fields of armaments and aviation,
among the richest men in Europe.
This was Korda's sixth recorded airplane
crash.
Dogged for years by accusations of
profiteering, tax evasion, price fixing,
bribery, Korda specialized in the
mediation of clandestine trade agreements.
His moniker in financial circles,
Mr. Five Percent.
He is survived by ten children,
nine boys, one novitiate
nun, his daughter Liesl, and
is pre-deceased by three wives.
A controversial figure, some will mourn his
death, others inevitably will celebrate.
Who was this man?
How do we recognize him?
Does he have even an identity?
Let us consider his life and deeds.
Grandmother, why are we here?
I don't know you.
Space strapped to
a chair, surely a horrific display of...
Actually, no, he's still alive.
Mr. Korda, sir.
Oh, fine.
What's that?
In your hand?
I don't know.
I think it's a vestigial word that I tried
to get it back in.
It's not as easy as it looks.
The chair recognizes the bureaucrat from
Baltimore.
Thank you.
Subject, Jaja Korda, our single common
enemy who works consistently and
relentlessly against the interests of all
our competing nations.
The one item only on our agenda,
which unites us.
He swindles our banks.
He dodges our tariffs.
He ties up our courtrooms in tactical
lawsuits.
He provokes war, as
well as peace, in direct
conflict with our shared
diplomatic agenda.
Subject's new venture
relies heavily on personal
capital and wildly
overreaches liquid resources.
Our objective, with your approval,
disrupting, obstructing, impeding,
crippling Korda's enterprise in
any manner possible, with option
to cancel an event of subject's
sudden and probable death.
All in favor?
Aye.
Please, though, I expect you to seek news
of my death.
The reports were inaccurate, needless to
say.
Let me get directly to the point.
I have appointed you sole heir to my
estate, which you may come into sooner
rather than later, and
provisionally manager of my affairs
after the events of my
actual demise on a trial basis.
Why?
Why what?
Why sooner rather than later, since you
survived again?
And why am I so led to your estate?
You have eight sons at last count.
Nine sons.
Nine sons?
What about them?
They're not my heirs.
Why not?
I have my reasons.
Which are what?
My reasons?
I'm not saying.
I'm saying I'm not saying.
It's been six years since our last
meeting.
I apologize.
I apologize.
I forgive you.
Are you dying?
Thank you.
No.
But I keep getting assassinated
unsuccessfully so far,
and I can't allow my enemies
to benefit from killing me.
That's the top priority in my life at this
time.
If they get me, you get them.
Provisionally.
Like an audition?
Like a trial period.
Of being your daughter?
Of being sole heir to
my estate, a manager of
my affairs after the
events of my actual demise.
The personal family aspect, I agree.
That matters for the discussion.
But for now, there's much to explain,
and it's all in these shoe boxes.
Bordeaux Land and Sea Phoenician
Infrastructure Scheme.
My most important project of my lifetime.
Thirty years' work.
May I move?
Over there.
Over where?
Over there?
What?
They say you murdered my mother.
What?
They say you murdered my mother.
Who said that?
Who said that?
They.
That's what they say.
I feel they need to address it.
It's why I agreed to come here today.
They say that?
Well, it's, uh, forgiving.
I know you're pious.
It's a goddamn lie.
I never murdered anybody's mother in my
life.
Okay, I have no choice but to take away
your word.
I never personally murdered anybody at
all, ever.
You've arranged murders, perhaps?
Don't put words in my mouth.
Of course I didn't and don't.
I've employed violent men to do violence
on occasion in the distant past.
I take no relish in it.
They say you murdered all your wives.
I'm gonna sue them for libel in that case,
whoever they are.
If you can provide me with their
identities.
In fact, I was very fond of
your mother and never would
have murdered her under
any circumstances whatsoever.
I didn't know her that well.
I thought you came here because I summoned
you.
My plan is to be a nun.
Not anymore, right?
Your brothers are there.
Jasper, David, Philip, Michael, Harry,
Jamie, Samuel, Stephen, Thomas.
Hello, boys.
Will they be joining us for lunch,
huh?
Of course not.
They live in a dormitory across the
street.
I don't know what they're doing here.
It's today, Saturday.
I might explain it.
How about Jasper at Crossbow?
Be careful of your eyes.
He's a very good shot.
He understands this changes your life.
Listen carefully.
This shoe box contains my idea for the dam
we're going to build.
This shoe box contains my idea for the
canal we're in the middle of digging.
This shoe box contains my idea for the
tunnel we already finished drilling.
I think he sharpens him.
I suppose I have a suction cup.
This shirt box contains
my plan to assemble
the massive workforce
required for the project.
In short, we're going to need slave labor,
but that's available to us.
This hat box contains my negotiations with
parents in shipping, mining, and railroads.
These littler sock boxes contain my
agreements with titans in banking,
real estate, and black market syndicates.
Excuse me.
Hello.
Yes?
You're not my ex!
Who the deuce is that?
He's been eavesdropping on us.
I'm the new tutor.
Ah, of course.
Welcome.
Bring me the polygraph.
I always keep a tutor on staff to give
lessons to an intervals of my free time.
He's going to teach us about insects and
related subjects.
He's an expert in that field.
We'll be with you shortly.
This is my daughter, Liesl.
This is Professor... Bjorn.
Professor Bjorn.
Insummation.
The boxes on this carpet altogether
present a blueprint to set the wheels of
commerce and motion throughout a
potentially rich, now dormant region.
Then to retain an
appropriate but extremely
valuable 5% of the revenues
for the next 150 years.
This is just... crazy.
Yes, I admit.
If it works, it's a miracle.
What are you going to?
What's in the glove box?
That's the gap.
We'll discuss that later.
You still didn't sign it.
I told you I'd take my vows at the end of
the month.
I told you, unfortunately, no.
The church could claim a lien on our
family business.
You can still believe in God if you wish.
The pigeons are there.
Not for me.
I'd take anything across the bed in the
daytime.
How about you?
Me?
I could eat the horse and eat silly
attention.
You're invited to lunch in that case.
Thank you, sir.
Point your finger.
Full name?
Do you want to join me?
Please, birth or slow?
Are you wearing a bow tie?
Are you now or have you been employed in
the conduct of industrial espionage?
No, no, no.
Or engaged as a professional contract
assassin for high?
I guess not.
You're only ever cut far.
You'll be across this news, huh?
Peace be with you, Reverend Mother.
I write with perplexing tidings.
See what I mean?
Poison.
My father has appointed me provisional
successor and prospective beneficiary of
his vast fortune gained entirely,
as you know, through unholy mischief.
How will your slaves be compensated?
I believe they'll receive the smallest
stipend.
It's really up to the king.
We can't interfere on that level.
God may have something to say about that.
See, we've got slavery in the Bible.
I'm against it.
What worth is the pledge of a swindling
rogue?
There's a terrible famine in this region.
Is she rocks on me?
I know, that's us.
This friendless man bewilders me.
In what sense, that's you?
We did that.
Normally, they'd just be the normal level
of poverty there.
But presently, we control the grain.
Now we make our move and we supply
provisions on our own terms.
My word.
Is that ethical?
It's damnable.
To hell.
Nevertheless, I foresee an opportunity to
accomplish by the grace of God.
Significant good works
with the enormous
resources he proposes
to place at my disposal.
I'm aware of his combination.
I can't tell you where the safe is.
That'll mean my will.
Perhaps this could be even his deeper
intention.
Where does it come from?
Mexico.
They're not the cactus.
I mean this ruthless brutality.
You don't know me.
The boys live across the street.
There's no love in this house as far as I
can observe.
God is absent.
Why?
I remain profoundly
reluctant to leave the order
and long for the hour of
my return to sanctuary.
I think it's not my fault.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy which
starts in the nursery.
No one cared about her for me except my
nanny.
She was dismissed and put to shame.
What for?
She overstepped her position.
I had to be done.
Also, his poor boys, my brothers,
thirst and hunger for sisterly affection.
The wings have a scent which gets on your
fingers if you catch them.
Some smell like lemon, some smell like
chocolate, some smell like urine.
Are you interested in butterflies?
Is that a real question?
Is this a note?
I'm interested in the welfare of all
living creatures.
Very good, very good.
What advice can you afford your humble
servant, me?
She was murdered, by the way.
Not a suicide, the official ruling.
I think I know who did it.
But I've tried to stay out of it,
frankly.
The son of my father.
He's the murderer, I suspect.
The son of your father.
In other words, your brother.
My brother.
Uncle Newbar, he's my mother's murderer.
I suspect.
We always hated each other, of course.
But we do conduct business together through
an intermediary because he's very clever.
Thou shalt not kill.
I agree.
We must bring that man to justice if what
you say is true.
Wake up, my darling.
Houston.
Sign the paper in front of you.
When I swore my ward of solemnness done
and we shall bring ferocious revenge down
upon this cold-blooded butcher,
your Uncle Newbar.
Meaning, get him arrested.
I think so.
He is one of our principal partners,
of course.
I pray on the matter.
Amen.
God has called me here for a purpose.
No slaves, no famine, no dormitory.
You're on a trial, period.
We've acknowledged your sacred covenant,
Miss Lucille.
A secular Rosary will arrive from the
jeweler later this afternoon.
I hope you'll find it to your liking.
P.S.
How is your rheumatism?
I pray for your health and comfort.
Jasper.
Bless us, nice.
I heard a guest, which we are about to
receive.
What's this about?
Don't make him be religious.
I already did.
I'm reading Genesis.
Amen.
Amen.
Why would anybody do something they didn't
tell him to do?
Does this suit come from our usual
kitchen?
I feel it tastes better.
It does taste better.
I have a French cookie.
I have a Belgian cookie.
What?
What?
What?
What are you afraid of?
Don't worry.
They eat only worms and crickets and
sometimes they're own mates.
Are you men or mice?
You should be lions.
No bugs at the table.
I am sorry.
Of course.
Yes, sir?
His nails are good.
Thank you, sir.
They're good.
Also, he likes your suit.
Did you eat dinner with your father when
you were a little boy?
No.
A new rule.
From this day forward, you're allowed a
maximum of two authorized friends.
Each of you.
We're going to make a list.
Nobody not on that list will be permitted
to enter these premises at any time.
Also, a new motto.
Break, but don't bend.
I didn't know you live in a slum.
Fix the leap.
Never buy good pictures.
Buy masterpieces.
Why do you adopt children into this
madness?
I play the odds.
Of course, I have my boys, but the adopted
ones might turn out to be better.
This fella could be smarter than Einstein
for all we know.
This is a bashable rivet.
Perhaps the most effective device of
mechanical hardware ever conceived for the
purpose of permanently coupling two beams,
rods, posts, or pillars.
It's the foundation of
modern civil engineering,
though its usage, of course,
dates from the Bronze Age.
Regular price, ten for nickel.
Wake up.
The new plane is on the tarmac.
We're living in ten minutes.
What?
Wake up.
Why?
Where are we going?
I'll tell you in the air.
Tell me now.
I'll tell you in the car.
Tell me now.
Obey me.
I'm going back to sleep.
It's sabotage!
Look, over the past fifty years,
the market value of bashable rivets has
risen calmly, measurably,
from three and a quarter to
twenty-seven and a half
Yankee dollars per K barrel.
Last night, rivets rocketed to nine
hundred.
What does that mean for us?
It means the gap explodes.
There's a run on bolt spikes of pulverized
gravel, too.
All categories of construction materials
across the entire western near east.
My enemies have manipulated, and the
markets have manipulated.
Who's that?
Arsonists.
I hired them to burn the house down if
necessary for insurance purposes.
They're just doing an assessment right
now.
That's not my suitcase.
I got you a new one.
The other one wouldn't be suitable for
this voyage.
It looks like a picnic basket.
Today, tonight, and tomorrow, we're
rendezvous with every titan in every shoebox.
I've intended we agree what we already
agreed.
But in fact, we don't.
We can't.
Somebody's got to cover the gap.
How much is the gap?
The gap?
The gap is not like that.
Yes, it's partly a deficit in funding
against our total projected revenues.
But more precariously, it's a missing slice
of a pie that was too big for the pain.
I mean the amount.
Everything we got, our entire fortune,
plus a little bit more.
We've got to do it.
Initial countermeasures rendered highly
effective results, as you can see.
Subject now engaged in desperate campaign
of clandestine site visits.
Crisscrossing region to confront each
principal partner in effort to
re-renegotiate terms of charter
agreement and salvage enterprise
before official signature
signing ceremony end of month.
Also, newly obtained
medical report indicates subject
may be suffering trauma
from blunt force head injury.
Are those screws or bolts?
Possibly both.
Likely accumulated over several incidents.
What's in the fruit crate?
Leave that alone, it's fragile.
What is it?
That is fragile.
Leave the fruit crate alone.
But what is it?
It's hand grenades.
Is it satisfied?
Can you accept not to be careful around
it?
Why are we travelling with a box full of
hand grenades?
I have extras.
A large number of them.
For me, at this time, a hand grenade is
cheaper than a bullet.
Do you use them?
That's not really the point.
Point your finger.
You'll be acting as my administrative
secretary for the time being.
The last one got blown in two,
as you know.
That rucksack, which you're
responsible for, contains
all the liquid currency to
my name at this moment.
Keep it on your person at all times,
and don't lose it.
I'll do my best to grant Scott.
Look at this one.
Isn't it remarkable how he's able to hang
on at this airspeed?
Well, does he hang on at this airspeed?
Should we do a lesson now, or should I
talk to you?
I expect you know about tarsel segments,
the tiny hairs with claw-like structures
that grip microscopic irregularities on an
apparently smooth surface.
But the dragonfly is also furnished with
little pads.
Hold that thought.
Call it pretty freely.
When was your last confession?
I think I was 14.
Oh, dear.
Do you still believe in God?
Sadly, no.
Are you an atheist?
I'm a scientist.
Are you an atheist?
Are you chaste?
No, particularly.
Is that important?
I don't really know.
Are you very terribly pure yourself?
Obviously.
How can you ask me such a thing?
Look at me.
It wouldn't matter in the least.
Even if you were the cheapest girl at the
Theotheus brothel in a seedy red-light
district on a swirling orb, nothing could
detract from your loveliness.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I speak my heart.
I'm a bohingian.
I thought you were born in Oslo.
Not bit thrilling, boy.
Actually, I've only been to one brothel.
It left me cold.
We're starting our descent.
Prepare your documents before we beat
planes so you never delay my schedule.
Passports.
That's yours.
I don't have a passport.
Normal people want the
basic human rights that
accompany citizenship
in any sovereign nation.
I don't.
My legal residence is a shack in Portugal.
My official domicile is a hut on the Black
Sea.
My certificate at a boat is a lodge
perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking
the sub-Saharan rainforest accessible only
by goatback.
I don't live anywhere.
I'm not a citizen at all.
I don't need my human rights.
What was that?
I think nothing.
It's the same sound I
heard last time before
the plane exploded,
but this time it didn't.
So, nothing to worry about.
Myself, I feel very safe.
You have a long journey, don't you?
You must find a suitable place to bury it.
Yes.
I never lost interest in you, by the way.
I always followed your progress with great
interest.
Followed how?
Bjorn!
Where's the rucksack?
In the car.
Followed how?
Well, I generally kept buried as
operatives observing your activities or
report cards with medical history or
personal information.
You've been spying on me all my entire
life.
It's not called spying when you're the
parent.
It's called nurturing.
Or at the very least, interest.
Here comes the prince.
Actually, that's some other fellow.
I think that's us.
Driver, get the hand grenades.
Driver!
You warned yourself, good girl.
Oh, no, the assassin's shot your driver.
I pledged to compensate his family on
behalf of the king who regrets the
presence of damaged brigands in the
Imperial realm.
I think I recognized that assassin.
He used to work for me, maybe.
Who's this?
My daughter, Liesl.
How do you do your harness?
She's a bride of Christ.
What a pity.
You may address me directly.
I beg your pardon.
You're stunning.
Thank you.
They got him right through the pump.
The driver, I mean.
Poor man.
He didn't suffer.
I believe he did suffer.
I brought you a humble symbol of the
gratitude of my father's people for your
heroic endeavors toward the prosperity of
our Commonwealth.
Another knife.
He's got one, too, under the habit of
showing him.
Helping me mow, thank you.
I brought it at the airport.
Help us up to our hand grenades.
You're very kind.
How confident are we in this tunnel?
At the current stage of construction.
One hundred percent.
Don't be alarmed by that, Trevor.
Would you like to hold my hand?
I was going to suggest the same thing.
Thank you, both.
It's a very good talk.
Myself, I feel very safe.
Yes, but you're in the habit of surviving.
I beg your pardon.
But I'll schedule it.
This is not the document we agreed to
validate.
What?
Of course it is.
You've been fiddling with it.
The deal's already in place.
This is just a symbolic meeting to connect
the unfinished tracks.
It's a formality.
Not anymore.
Well, help yourself to a hand grenade.
Have you been fiddling with it?
Apparently.
Somebody's got to cover the gap.
Somebody else.
I'll change it back.
We can see the point.
We're walking away.
The resources of our bountiful treasury
have been acutely depleted during the
drilling of this...
That's not our problem.
It is.
And yours.
Goodbye.
Let's resolve it the
way we did in Colorado
with the dispute over
the Fourth Junction climb.
Two on two, first to five.
This puts us at a spectacular
disadvantage.
I've never played the game in my life.
I don't even know the regulations.
We're the underdog, yes.
I still like our chances.
Basketball, by the way, is their greatest
strength.
That's their greatest weakness.
Two beers, please.
Not for me.
I've never tasted hard liquor in my life,
except convenient wine.
That's not hard liquor.
Anyway, on a hot day in the dark tunnel,
beer's delicious.
You should drink, please.
Okay, two beers.
Call it.
Heads.
Heads.
One sip.
A respectable attempt.
Classic backhand layup.
I beg your pardon.
I didn't say anything.
Did you hear what Mr. Reagan just spoke to
me?
When he refers to my mother,
he refers to the sovereign
queen of a population of
ten million loyal subjects.
He didn't say anything about the sovereign
queen.
Don't listen to that.
He's trying to get in your head.
Just play your game, Farooq, if I may call
you that, you're honest.
I don't know how to play my game.
It's utterly foreign to me.
You're good.
I'm not done.
Who's it?
Does that count?
It doesn't count, but I've never seen it
done before.
You've got to bounce it when you move.
That's the rule that you'd have mentioned.
How well do you know him?
How well do I know?
I know Todd Corbin, Sasha, your father.
Not well, mostly by reputation.
I see.
What's your directive in that case?
My directive?
If you have one.
I would say, I think, to prove himself to
me.
Also the other way around.
Am I prying?
Are you prying?
Am I being half and
half prying and for selfish
reasons genuinely concerned
for your future welfare.
What's it like?
I wonder.
Plumbing to earth.
On five.
How many times?
Six so far.
Yikes.
Sportsmanship, gentlemen.
Quite a game.
Nothing personal.
Get it right this time, twerp.
Could you imagine falling in love with a
man like me by the way that was that tickly?
You're drunk.
On three beers.
I think I mean it as a genuine question.
Sisters of the cloth do not engage in
romantic behavior of any kind.
Or a litter vow.
And I can't stop flirting with the prince.
Besides, I thought you're not a lamb
anymore.
You're a business lady.
Is this allowed?
You asked me that before.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Left-handed blind man over the shoulder
swoop.
Get out!
That was the worst plane crash I ever
survived in my life.
I think I died, actually.
For about a minute and a half.
It's coming back now.
Can we give up?
Just so Josh, as you say, play your game.
I'm not really a sportsman.
I'm more interested in gardening,
for instance.
My enemies are everywhere.
I'd like my daughter to come to me.
She's drinking beer in the dining car with
your administrative secretary.
Fetch the nut.
This is actually a tutor.
And six home legs sometimes.
Sorry for my bad manners.
But the beers were too strong.
I was present at your birth.
My midwife was a leathery old hag.
I'd cut the umbilical cord with hedge
clippers of my own design.
I was very fond of your
mother and never would have
murdered her under any
circumstances whatsoever.
How'd you get so religious?
My surviving parents sent me to live in a
convent at age five.
To keep you away from boys?
Didn't expect you to get brainwashed.
And the only child that did was to try to
be a proper father, too.
But it wasn't possible.
Your name for my grandmother.
She didn't recognize me.
Is this typical of him?
In my experience, not at all.
Normally, I'd say he's the shrewdest,
most resourceful businessman alive.
Well, I shall.
From the end of the train tracks.
If Farooq succeeds, the
deal proceeds according
to the original document
before I fiddle with it.
But you cover 10% of the cap and I swear
my word is seldom this solid.
Me?
You.
You missus.
There's half a million Swiss friends in
that rucksack.
It's yours.
That rucksack.
Okay, Farooq, if I may call you that,
your highness, take the shot.
Is it acceptable for me to repel them all
in this manner?
We knew your mother.
One moment.
One moment.
Good husband.
What tribute is this?
Running.
She's not your daughter.
You do have my eyes.
Do people not tell you that?
Nobody ever told me I have anybody's
anything.
I think I seek it.
Except you're assigned to bleep.
What's that?
I don't know.
We'll find out.
He has my eyes, too.
Uncle Naval.
He's not human.
He's biblical.
What did you pray specifically?
To get Prince Farooq to make that
impossible granny shot.
Even as an atheist without God's will,
he would have botched it by a mile.
It's not witchcraft.
The phrasing of it which I don't recall
doesn't matter.
What matters is the sincerity of your
devotion.
That's it.
That's what?
No, that's it.
What?
That's it.
The pilot says you got a telephone call.
On an airplane.
Who is it?
Mr. Savorant Montrg.
What's that?
Hello, Reuben.
Hello, hello.
Bonjour, Reuben.
Oui, oui, t'es a bien de rouleur.
The tunnel and the parfait.
Oui, oui, la France en la Courpaux cover
your gap.
Oui, la totalitarian.
Et tu l'un d'aravie.
Oui, oui.
As you swim.
Bizzou, bizzou.
Did you just tell Montrg what the
Sacramento Consortium agreed to cover the gap?
No.
All of it, you said.
I speak French, of course.
You'll fill in with it again.
Okay, yes, but I'm doing a strategy.
Listen carefully.
Is this supposed to be here?
It was under the lunch trolley.
Oh, dear.
How much time does it say?
Eighteen minutes.
Perfectly fine.
We'll end in time.
Myself, I feel very safe.
One, two, three.
I
Will not be allowed to go outside the
place.
We'd want to go outside the place.
I'm your agent like supper.
In the meantime, help yourself to hang a
knife.
You're very kind.
May I offer you champagne cocktail?
Not for me.
I've never tasted hard liquor in my life
except a beer and communion wine.
That's not hard liquor.
It's a delicious concoction with cherries
and a sugar cube.
Okay, two champagne cocktails.
I recognize your handwriting.
This is your... obviously the Sacramento
Consortium refused to cover the gap and
you're trying to secretly blackmail me to
salvage the agreement.
Actually, I suppose its extortion is so
crude and you've been fiddling with it.
That's absurd.
It's far-fetched.
What do you get?
Just suspicious ideas.
It's very fresh.
How could we know you were going to
receive an anonymous letter to you?
Nothing you say will convince me.
I'm absolutely unflinchingly certain you
are responsible for this, as you say,
anonymous letter.
If you deny it again, I'm throwing you
out.
Is that what you are?
Is that what you are?
Is that what you are?
The man has got your fucking work stuff
together!
Well,
anyway, you're wrong about my handwriting.
You are what we drafted.
Why do you just do that?
We just admitted everything after swearing
us to never reveal your deceitfulness even
under pain of torture for the rest of our
lives.
You call that a strategy.
What's the change?
He doesn't fall for it.
They cover 10% plus Farooq another 5%.
What's the big problem with you?
Too many airplane crashes, I think.
I'm walking away.
One taxi.
I'll change it back.
We can see the point.
Too late.
No, no.
I'll change it back.
We can see the point.
Still too late.
No, no, no, no.
I'll change it back.
We can see the point.
What was that?
On behalf of the Jungle Unit of the
Intercontinental Radical Freedom
Militical, all manages and watches into
the bag, please.
Where else can?
Who are they?
I don't know these stories.
Must come from out of town.
The proceeds of this
seizure will benefit not only the
administrative activity of
our organisation, but also...
Orphans and widows, the blind, the
sick, the wounded, farmers, teachers.
..
And the construction of hygienic
wastewater disposal systems.
Why is he shooting my ceiling?
Just rob my customers and make you a
getaway.
You're a getaway?
No.
None of the thuds generated by the sale of
your property will be squandered.
The pamphlets articulate our policies.
It's too much.
Why are you shooting my ceiling?
This is a robbery on behalf of the
Jungle Unit of... I understand that.
I'm asking about my ceiling.
You idiots are destroying a magnificent
nightclub.
Grab the loot and get out!
Let's communicate.
You took a bullet for me.
I took a bullet for you.
I'm aware of that.
I witnessed the event.
Where's the wound?
Right here where the blood is gushing out
of me.
It's not too bad, actually.
I think your diplomatic credentials slowed
it down.
Excuse us.
For that needless violence.
Did they shoot you?
They shot me, but your father did
something heroic, I suppose.
It should have been him, actually.
Pluck it out.
Me?
Go ahead.
No, my son.
Wait.
The meeting's at midnight.
Are you still walking away?
How can I?
Now.
Two taxis.
Don't mention anything.
To Marty about the Gap.
Just pretend our job is building trust and
cementing.
Bjorn!
Where's the rucksack?
Oh, I shouldn't keep it in the taxi.
Any of you folks allergic to powdered
insecticides?
Of course not.
I knew you folks bearing firearms or other
weapons on your purse.
I carry a dagger.
May I ask the purpose of the hand grenades
you folks brought on board?
It's a gift I think he has extras.
Do I need a blood transfusion?
Hiya!
Hiya!
Come in!
Good to see you, man.
Come in!
Hiya!
How are you, man?
Come in!
Hiya!
Hiya!
Come in!
I've been shot, but my diplomatic
credentials slow it down.
This is my daughter, Liesl.
Do you need a blood transfusion?
I'm a negative universal donor,
if that's what you're looking for.
Who shot it?
To go east from out of town.
Jeez, man, you shoot him back.
Not yet.
This is Professor Bjorn, my administrative
secretary.
Welcome aboard.
Make yourself at home, man.
Have a seat.
Use it there, use it there, use it there,
use it there.
I sit here.
Don't ask me to come to the Gap,
man.
I know about the bachelor with it.
Of course not, man.
It's just a symbolic meeting.
It's a formality.
How about that song?
Is that the music?
Help yourself to hang me.
You're very kind.
I woke up in the middle of the night to a
commotion downstairs.
Shouts and slams and breaking glass.
A shriek like a cat trapped in a cupboard.
I got up and snuck out through the hatch
in the upstairs gallery.
They locked me in at night.
I slid down the square of our banister.
Deadstalk didn't see me, the ender-butter
at the time.
I walked down the long front room gallery.
Bum-bun in one hand, mousy in the other.
The grandfather clock chimed 3am.
The door opened and my father stepped out
into the light.
He was wearing white pajamas and a white
dressing gown.
His face was covered with cuts from a
plane crash as usual.
His hair was wild.
Go to bed, you said.
Where's Mama?
I said.
Asleep, you said.
But it wasn't true.
She was there.
Standing in the
reflection in the mirror in
the doorway behind you
at the back of the room.
She had on gloves and a coat.
Her blouse was unbuttoned.
Her breasts were naked.
Your mother won't be living with us
anymore, you said.
Go to bed.
I walked in reverse to the stairs,
then I ran.
They sent me away in the spring.
Objection, your honours.
That's such a distorted version of this
story.
It's told from a child's point of view,
which is forgivable, but madman.
I never saw her again.
I'm not on trial here, am I?
I'm going to confess something terrible
which you may never forgive me.
Pick five, man.
The reason I know who killed your mother,
which I didn't do, is because I did do
something else which may be costed to
happen.
Your mother wasn't a nun like you.
She took lovers.
One, one was your uncle, no bar.
I profoundly resented this insult in spite
of my own infidelities and I tricked them,
not of my own unwriting, into thinking
your mother was betraying him behind his
back with my administrative secretary at
that time.
The result?
He murdered him both, I think.
Did you love her?
I was very fond of her, no.
We must bring that
amount to justice, meaning
get him arrested if
what you say is true.
I swear my word is solemnly stolen.
Let's give it.
I apologize.
I forgive you.
Just like that.
That was my confession of something
terrible.
I told the police it's a lie and your
mother's dead.
I always expected the worst from you.
I forgive you if I talk to you.
We can no longer honor the precise terms
we'd weak to validate.
This document outlines our revised
proposal.
That's enough blood, man.
How dare you!
You liar!
Somebody's gonna help me!
You think you had the gold!
No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait!
Prince Farooq and his father cover five
percent.
The Sacramento brothers cover ten.
Marseille Baba, we do fifteen.
You're the richest, twenty-five.
Why would I do that?
We made an airtight, legally binding
contract.
No, I said twelve point five.
Fifteen because I took a bullet for you.
Why?
It's because if you don't, I refuse to put
the pen back in.
You're the last hand grenade.
It's a great scheme,
which, if it works, is gonna
benefit all our partners
for generations to come.
We're privileged to thank you for your
participation.
Liesel, how?
I'm not leaving you in, so you can hand
grenade yourself as a business tactic.
You ask me my strategy?
This is my strategy.
Will it work?
No, but my daughter and range are the
shrapnel who won't.
Liesel, how?
You should go.
You should go.
Why wouldn't I just say yes now and betray
you later?
You're putting a hand grenade to my head.
I trust you.
I think I trust you, too, in return.
Not to tell the truth or keep your word,
obviously.
But I suppose I'm moved by this absurd
performance.
I'll pitch in, man.
Twenty percent.
Sharply compromising
my chances of profitability
in an already extremely
high-risk venture.
Just to watch you conduct the grand
finale.
Thank you for the blood.
You're welcome.
Intercepted message from
subject in transit suggests
possible strategic merger with
House of Sussman and Corda.
Also, encrypted dispatch from undercover
operative reports as follows.
Target's resources continue to dwindle as
partners grow dubious and bewildered.
Target repeatedly places
significant cash funds
directly into operative's
personal possession.
Tried to misplace, however, operative does
not have heart to steal or destroy.
Too cruel under circumstances.
I'll debate that with him.
Further, Target has appointed daughter,
his official successor.
Currently a nun.
Not for long, I hope.
Should I be kneeling?
The only terms I dictate is
our marriage on a statutory
basis would have to be
a purely romantic union.
I'm obliged to keep my daughter's soul
here to my stake.
My father and his father, your grandfather,
I mean, nearly killed each other.
Maybe you know that, do you?
No, I'm new to my family.
Best friends, whatever it means in their
case.
They went into business together,
formulated the very effective poison gas,
killed tens of thousands of soldiers,
made tens of millions of dollars.
One day in their laboratory, a heated
argument erupted into a slugging match.
They attacked each other with lethal
measures of an experimental new version of
their weaponized aerosol,
which fortunately turned
out to be less effective
than the original compound.
Both survived, but that was the end of
their partnership.
I asked my father 40 years
later, nearly on his deathbed,
still suffering minor neural
effects from the incident.
What was the argument about?
You know what he said?
Mm-hmm.
Who could lick who, I guess?
Or whom?
That maybe is the source of most of our
problems on this barren earth.
Who could lick who?
Or whom, I guess?
If something gets in your way,
flatten it.
That was my father's advice before he cut
me out of his will.
He asked to be mummified and buried in a
pyramid.
We bought the land and drew up the plans,
but never built it.
We had him cremated instead.
Nothing he can do about it.
Is this phased?
Of course.
It's a proxy for the real one,
which I'm unable to pay for at this time.
If you care to advance via portion of
the funds... I'm not paying for anything.
I authorize 150 year lease on the property
and water rights.
Maybe I might consider briefly marrying
you as an experience, like a chapter in a
book, depending on the
advice of my tax attorney,
but I'm not going to
help you cover the gap.
It's against the interest of my utopian
outpost.
I'm not asking you.
I'm telling you as your potential future
husband.
No.
I'm not asking you.
I'm begging you.
That's your favorite second cousin.
No.
Well, pay me.
Why?
If she does marry me, I'm not sure we
can't compel her to cover the gap,
depending on the jurisdiction where the
wedding takes place.
Do you believe the official ruling my
mother's death was caused by suicide?
No.
Who murdered her then in that case,
in your opinion?
I only know what they're saying.
Is my uncle my father?
The diplomatic pouch arrived.
Open it.
List of contents.
One, fresh socks, ten pairs.
Two, a book.
Please of the Americas by Carcel and Feud.
Three, financial reports for review.
Four bills to be paid.
Five, emergency directive urgent.
Six, fresh handkerchiefs.
Go back to five.
Yes, might be important.
Bring it back.
It's sabotage again.
Give this to the pilot.
New flight plan.
Where am I going?
Home.
A parliamentary motion just passed
intended to thwart me specifically.
I need to be there with the normal rate by
noon tomorrow.
What happens if you don't?
I become an English subject.
Then they seize our worldwide assets,
extradite me and send me to prison.
Ah, got it.
This is for you.
Happy birthday.
How old are you?
Twenty-one.
We can't read your handwriting.
Is this a one or a seven?
It's... God damn it.
It's a G.
He's been fiddling with it.
What?
You're tapping in Morse code.
Am I?
Was I?
I didn't notice.
I was trying.
He is being... fiddling with it.
You speak Morse code.
Oh, no, no, not fluently.
I learnt that there's a screw in point.
You speak Morse code.
I'm the librarian of our
back at the convent,
collection of classical
Latin scrolls and codices.
I do decipher them.
Fascinating.
Godly!
Somebody poisoned his beer.
We should have tested it.
Did you let him drink in the cockpit?
Just beer.
Stand back and hang on.
Uh-oh.
Why am I up here being stalked by a
fighter jet?
I have a vocation.
I think I recognize that assassin too.
He used to work for me also.
I'm just inheriting myself from you.
What a terrible thing to say to a father,
especially during her trial period.
Good heavens, he's back!
Next time he strikes us, pay him with a
hand grenade.
It is an act.
I bear no hostility towards your father or
his interests.
Your father, however, on occasion,
bears decisive hostility to the United
States government and its allies and
enemies.
It's my job to observe,
report and maintain... Yes, I...
Well, it's an interesting story,
I suppose.
After the war, my own
primary interests are very similar
to the persona I present
to you as Professor Bjorn.
I completed my studies at Princeton and
had to establish an expatriate scientific
journal, publishing poetry, drawing and
ecological prose.
Eventually, our government
offered to subsidize the magazine
in an effort to promote
American cultural interests.
But really, they just wanted us all to
become intelligence operators.
I hope you don't feel betrayed.
I could go ahead and turn back into my
normal self right now, if you like.
It's not that different from how you see
me already.
See what I mean?
Basically the same person.
Hello.
You're different.
I'm not actually a Bohemian.
I'm a moderate conservative, politically.
Also, I'm not from Oslo.
I'm from Wilmington, Delaware.
Also, I know how to
drink, although I do find
I'm less inhibited when
I pretend to be drunk.
Also, I wrote that book.
It was going to recommend it to us.
Is that a fake mustache?
No, yes.
Based on my real one, which I usually
have.
I do feel betrayed.
Me too.
You're lunatic!
I feel deeply terrible about this.
You employed me in good faith to teach you
about insects.
This is a wonderful setting for us to
continue our lessons.
I've never seen so many bugs in one place
in all my life, with the possible
exception of a garbage dump near Rome,
which was equally breathtaking.
Why do you ask if I could imagine falling
in love with a man like you,
hypothetically?
Yes.
Is it part of your mission?
No, it wasn't part of my anything.
I might justify it as trying to infiltrate
your family business, but to tell you the
truth, I still mean it as a genuine
question.
Both as Professor Bjorn and as Agent
Carlson of the covert North Americans...
Don't help me!
Don't help me.
Wrap this around a tree trunk.
I may go under for a moment, but I'll save
him.
No, you won't.
I'll save myself, myself.
Bless us, and these thy holy gifts.
What's this about to receive to thy
merciful bounty?
We humble ourselves.
Dost thou not fear, God, before thee in
thy name?
Amen.
Amen.
Are you against slavery and the Bible?
It's damnable to hell.
I believe that we see the small stipend.
The yield of Adam's loins crucified my
only begotten Son.
I know, I know.
Jesus.
I'm not dead yet.
Why didn't you let me sink?
It's redundant.
Our mission is strictly dedicated to
sabotaging your business interests.
We never resort to extralegal violence.
I'm not callable.
I'm aware of that.
What's the idea?
To demolish your enterprise and pillage
all its assets.
That was horrible.
I'll never forget it.
I'll feel a traumatic effect on myself
until the day I die.
Really?
I don't know if I feel terrible or
flatter.
Or both.
Like maybe I matter.
What did they do to you?
More family?
I'm sorry I frightened you.
It won't happen again.
How do you pass my polygraph?
We're taught to.
It's not difficult.
You do karate?
Of course.
I'll teach you if you like.
Well, it's too late.
I don't know how many more times I can
die.
These filthy books should all be burned.
Except this one.
It's sacrilegious, but it speaks to me.
Keep it.
It's yours.
Open your birthday present.
I love it.
It's a beautiful piece.
What's your real first name, Agent
Carlson?
I'm happy to just go by Bjorn.
My
Only pleasant memories of a miserable
childhood take place below stairs.
I was allowed to dine with the household
staff once a week.
They pretended to love me.
What choice did they have?
To this day I'm a very good cook and
dishwasher.
Six-fifteen.
The cop crows.
The robin brings worms to its chicks in
the nest on my window sill.
Sister Mary pumps the water pump at seven.
The bell rings for morning prayers.
The shape of the day each day is exactly
the same.
We like it that way.
As a little boy I kept fleas
and plastic bags in my
bedroom and did my morphology
and microscopy at night.
I lived with my mother's sister.
My parents conducted their research
abroad.
Aunt Beth was very kind, but she never
approved of my practices.
The house was regularly fumigated,
resulting in a great loss of specimens.
Later, out of jealousy and loneliness,
I betrayed them.
The kitchen staff.
I told my father the truth.
They steal.
I thought I would become his ally.
Instead, he gave me a tremendous beating
and didn't speak a word to me for 90 days.
He fired them all just the same.
I'm going back to the sisters.
No, you don't.
Oh, can you?
We're marooned.
Besides, who am I so aware?
On a trial basis.
That's finished.
You're hired.
I don't forgive you after all,
I'm ashamed to say.
Plus, we've got to get revenge on Uncle
Newbar.
We'll bring it to justice if you prefer.
I'll leave that to you in your conscience.
I don't have one.
Plus, what about the poor slaves and the
family?
I'm going back to the sisters.
To pray and study and work
diligently to overcome my
weaknesses of character
which are probably genetic.
In other words, it's all my fault again.
You can burn the house down after all if
we survive.
There you are.
Hello again, here in the middle of the
jungle.
How extraordinary to stumble across your
crash site, I gather.
Hello, hello, hello.
I'm not a businessman.
On the contrary, I'm a communist
revolutionary heavily armed and living in
a secret jungle encampment with a band of
freedom fighters.
However even I can see your plan on its
surface to fight a baited load of economics.
That's what I've never been done before.
My plan supplies everything.
What's your connection to the company?
Me?
I pretend to be as administrative
secretary, but really I'm the tutor.
But actually, in fact, I'm a spy for the
United States government.
Wow.
Religion is a sigh of the oppressed
creature.
It's a protest against suffering.
I agree.
You're not an atheist.
Of course I am.
But my colleagues, however, only claim to
be.
I had a private army once.
Big headache.
15 minutes to spare.
Where's my notary.
We need fingerprints and signatures.
You're all official witnesses.
Mother superior.
Peace be with you, my child.
A fighter jet shot us down in the jungle
by the grace of God.
We survived.
You received my letter.
Yes, I wrote you back.
I'm prepared to take my vows.
Read the letter first.
We received a marriage license and an
intellectual contract.
I assume you're aware of the proposal.
I didn't know she says yes.
You're very pious, Sister Liesl,
but you're not plain.
The stones on your pipe, for instance.
Not to mention the opulence of your
rosary.
And this astonishing dagger.
A gift from a prince.
Mother superior, you've approached me when
I most require your trust and guidance.
Worldly adornments do serve certain good
people for the good.
We're not all destined to deny ourselves
man's earthly pleasures.
Some thrive in tranquil simplicity.
Others find beauty in color, splendor,
in jubilation.
This is no approach, my child.
You're a rich girl, always were.
Of course, I would continue to cherish
your ongoing patronage of the abbey.
He just won't be a nun anymore.
Is God more interested in my money or my
soul?
I can't speak for him.
Maybe I can assist in this area, both
as a father and as an expert mediator.
And gather you kicked her out.
I'm urging Liesl to return to her family
and greater society.
Will the superior still want us to fund
the construction of the new refractory?
With gratitude.
Of course.
Yes.
Are you authorized, by the way, to do a
baptizing if somebody wants to be Catholic?
Me?
You're an atheist.
I feel I have a religious awakening now,
if that's what we call it.
Tell me how this awakening came to pass.
Well, I would say partly it's because of
my near-death episodes.
I get a kind of visions.
Never mind the details.
Then partly there is a fiduciary benefit.
And mostly, and I would weight this factor
up to maybe 75%.
It's simply the influence
of my daughter's
influence, which has a
profound effect on me.
And I think at my age, in the end,
finally, it's better I just go on our side.
The point is to be delivered from sin and
purified.
It doesn't work if you're lying.
I'm not lying.
I'm capable of and
willing to genuinely believe
in the opposite of my
personal convictions.
I can do that in certain situations.
You remember the combination?
Another shoe box?
This one's all done.
What's inside?
I don't know.
Supposedly a relic quarter of our family
history.
Sealed half a score to go, but my father's
notary.
I will do it to you.
But since we're here, take it.
I'll live in it later.
My great-grandfather built the hotel.
Liesel would have been the fifth
generation proprietor except my father
sold it to an American conglomerate,
who ruined it, of course.
The venue is situated on a precarious
border among three fiefdoms, two of which
remain under martial law after a military
coup.
In exchange for me allowing you to steal
the painting rolled up in that shipping
tube, you and your
terrorists provide security
services to our entire
party throughout the event.
Oh, they sold a painting.
You'll officiate.
It's good timing in a business sense.
Punching all number five
has been duly sanctioned
in accordance with
the laws of this territory.
Even an immediate divorce might bear
profit.
Igrazia, ciao.
You reach him?
Yes, his holiness refuses to cover the
gap, any of it.
I know Felix, he's stubborn.
We'll need to sweeten the pot.
You know many pottery, idiots,
beautiful scone.
Tell him I offered nine more souls.
Are you still an enemy spy?
At the moment, no, I thought I might be
more useful as a double agent.
I couldn't pay you any extra.
Well, no, naturally, it would be included
in my tutorial fees.
My operational handler, codename
Excalibur.
Agent Carlson.
Excalibur.
I know about the bashable rivets, and the
bolt spikes and pulber has grappled too.
This office couldn't even confirm or deny
any such knowledge.
Nor would it.
Don't let to acknowledge said knowledge.
It's sabotage!
In fact, I swore my word of solemnness to
honor.
I'll never let you win.
Ah, I arranged for you to accuse him of a
person, by the way.
Your Uncle Mubarak.
Of course.
It's crucial we confront this unspeakable
evil.
Also, it's even more crucial we secure his
financial investment position.
As you know, I never admit the possibility
of and even avoid the word failure.
Maybe that's a weakness.
On the other hand, we
were only missing one
slice of the pie that was
baked too big for them.
Just a dud.
Just a dud.
Myself, I feel very safe.
Thank you.
Senua Ba has arrived.
Off the record, the gap might be
bottomless, closer to an abyss.
In fact, there is even more to it now.
A further dimension than I previously
anticipated.
The emotional gap.
It betrayed.
You used to work for me.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Me?
No.
I was in disguise.
Oh, Dr. Mansman.
I recognize this assassin.
Who hired you to kill me?
No, no.
So side down.
If it turns out you're not my daughter,
can I adopt you?
With your permission?
Yes.
Well, in that case, whatever happens,
we'll be fine.
Restate the purpose of this visit.
Exactly as we agreed, my dear Novar.
The validation of your
proprietary share is up
to 55% of hands against
the interim shortfall.
This is just a symbolic meeting,
it's a formality.
Liesl has additional objectives,
of course, as you're aware.
My father promised you
a range for me to accuse
you in person, that's
what I'm here to do.
Why would I lie to her?
She wasn't my wife.
Help yourself to a hand grenade.
I've been very kind to have, ma'am.
Would you look tight, Lisa?
I don't know, they never tested it,
to my knowledge.
You have my eyes.
Do people not tell you that?
Nobody ever told her she has anybody's
anything.
I'll wait outside.
She's not your daughter.
I don't care.
One thing you'll never know, because you
can't.
The truth.
Although, in my opinion, he was probably
your ministry secretary at that time.
He's the father.
Actually, I think I know it for a fact.
I'm astonished you didn't see it already.
And if I did kill him...
I'd never admit it.
I invented that lie.
Did it trick you?
Of course you did, but it was true.
The blood type spoofed.
Probably.
You got my blood?
And hers?
I've got everybody's blood.
No, you don't.
Yes, I do.
No, you don't.
Of course I do.
No, you don't.
They say you murdered all your wives.
Wait.
I'll put all this on, just so I don't lie.
I did murder that wife, your mother,
or any other.
I would even go so far as to say I'm
incapable of it.
Whatever they say about me, behind my
back, whoever they are.
I wasn't taught to either, to beat the
polygraph.
Where did he come from?
I can't remember.
I'll open the shoebox.
My father, on his birthday.
My uncle, all A's.
My mother, on a wedding day.
A carton of six poison gas ampoules.
A rare stamp, a gold coin, a skeleton
cube, secret letters.
My grandfather, some of him just ashes.
I'll take one.
It's a staggering and ambitious project.
I've been situated entirely in a perpetual
war zone.
For the next 150 years, I'd rather sell
guns, bombs, and ammunition.
It's our family business.
My know is final.
Wow.
You're pulling out your entire investment
and breaking your promise to me.
Stabbing everybody all at once and
ultimately in the back.
Yes.
Why'd you come here, in that case?
I couldn't resist.
My prestigious asylum
partner taking a complete loss of
all my assets with no
opportunity for any future upside.
I'm still allowed for unlimited debts and
deficits.
Fine.
I'll do it.
Fine.
I'll do it.
The slaves will be paid.
The famine will be finished.
The famine will be finished.
We'll beat those bureaucrats.
We'll beat those bureaucrats.
And my most important project of my
lifetime comes to pass.
Without us.
I don't want a fortune.
Now
at this time, the first symbolic
demonstration of our abundant desert hearts.
Born from deep within the earth,
rich, elemental.
Listen, you've lost for another while.
Oh, shit.
I'll be right back.
Yes, my dear, no part.
How could I assist you?
I've changed my mind.
I'll do it myself.
Stupidness.
I know it.
I'm not the business deal.
My know is final.
I mean, your assassination.
I'm sorry.
So it is you, the enemy, who taught you to
murder me all along.
The son of my father, my own half-brother.
Yeah.
I've got everybody's blood.
No, you don't.
Yes, I do.
No, you don't.
Yes, I do.
I won't die.
I never.
..
You're worse than me.
You're not human.
You're biblical.
No.
Can't you stop?
Can't you leave me alone?
Why do you need to always keep
assassinating me all the time?
You know the answer.
I don't need to say it.
Who could let go, I guess.
No!
Let's communicate.
When I pray, no one answers.
Only pretend he does.
Then I do whatever I think I probably
would have suggested.
Usually it's obvious.
Amen.
Peace be with you, Reverend Mother.
Our new quarters, the modest, cramped,
meagre and shabby, are, nevertheless,
charming and versatile.
The boys to my delight finally begin to
thrive and flourish.
I do serve a purpose here.
Agent Carlson resigned as
a double agent and accepted
a staff position at our
local grammar school.
My stepmother annulled her brief union
with my father.
And one, and two, and three, and four.
My father's entrepreneurial
energies remain robustly
invigorated by the
austerity of our poverty.
I do admire his resilience and ambition.
Though I don't believe these come from
God.
The Phoenician scheme continues to deepen
and widen.
It may be a sizeable step backwards for
civilisation.
But it will produce some good works,
I'm sure of it.
Could you imagine marrying a man like me?
I mean it as a genuine question.
Is that paste?
No, yes, I think so.
I don't know.
It's the same one.
Cousin Hilda sent it back.
I asked your father for his consent and he
loaned it to me to give to you.
P.S.
To this day he's a very good cook.
And dishwasher.
Two whiskies.
You say yes.
On a trial basis.
Parts.
We're only losing altitude of 50 feet per
second.
Let's clear that bridge then reassess.
There might be a more survivable crash
site.
More survivable crash site.
I told you!
I warned you!
Lit tarmac, short runway, 25 knot
crosswind, lightning!
You just allowed me to
complete a proper safety
check despite incredible
threats of seven times.
It was important to take up.
You needled me, achieved me, and bullied
me, but I managed to get us airborne anyway.
And now, needless to say, if we've been
blown up by somebody trying to assassinate
you again, then we're gonna crash after
all!
If we survive, I'm reporting you to the
Trans-European Aviation Authority.
You're fired.
What's that?
What'd you say?
You fire.
A fire in the middle of emergency port
lane?
Mayday, mayday, mayday, Charlie, we'll
send you a request for immediate clearance.
I've got a cornfield and a, uh, looks like
a soybean field, which is gonna be softer.
It's inclusive.
Never mind.
I'll be in the cornfield.
At this moment, rescue workers are
laboring to extinguish the fiery wreckage
of a new-fated dual-engine aircraft in a
perhaps futile attempt to recover and
identify the remains of Anatol Shaja
Korda.
International businessman, Maverick in the
fields of armaments and aviation,
among the richest men in Europe.
This was Korda's sixth recorded airplane
crash.
Dogged for years by accusations of
profiteering, tax evasion, price fixing,
bribery, Korda specialized in the
mediation of clandestine trade agreements.
His moniker in financial circles,
Mr. Five Percent.
He is survived by ten children,
nine boys, one novitiate
nun, his daughter Liesl, and
is pre-deceased by three wives.
A controversial figure, some will mourn his
death, others inevitably will celebrate.
Who was this man?
How do we recognize him?
Does he have even an identity?
Let us consider his life and deeds.
Grandmother, why are we here?
I don't know you.
Space strapped to
a chair, surely a horrific display of...
Actually, no, he's still alive.
Mr. Korda, sir.
Oh, fine.
What's that?
In your hand?
I don't know.
I think it's a vestigial word that I tried
to get it back in.
It's not as easy as it looks.
The chair recognizes the bureaucrat from
Baltimore.
Thank you.
Subject, Jaja Korda, our single common
enemy who works consistently and
relentlessly against the interests of all
our competing nations.
The one item only on our agenda,
which unites us.
He swindles our banks.
He dodges our tariffs.
He ties up our courtrooms in tactical
lawsuits.
He provokes war, as
well as peace, in direct
conflict with our shared
diplomatic agenda.
Subject's new venture
relies heavily on personal
capital and wildly
overreaches liquid resources.
Our objective, with your approval,
disrupting, obstructing, impeding,
crippling Korda's enterprise in
any manner possible, with option
to cancel an event of subject's
sudden and probable death.
All in favor?
Aye.
Please, though, I expect you to seek news
of my death.
The reports were inaccurate, needless to
say.
Let me get directly to the point.
I have appointed you sole heir to my
estate, which you may come into sooner
rather than later, and
provisionally manager of my affairs
after the events of my
actual demise on a trial basis.
Why?
Why what?
Why sooner rather than later, since you
survived again?
And why am I so led to your estate?
You have eight sons at last count.
Nine sons.
Nine sons?
What about them?
They're not my heirs.
Why not?
I have my reasons.
Which are what?
My reasons?
I'm not saying.
I'm saying I'm not saying.
It's been six years since our last
meeting.
I apologize.
I apologize.
I forgive you.
Are you dying?
Thank you.
No.
But I keep getting assassinated
unsuccessfully so far,
and I can't allow my enemies
to benefit from killing me.
That's the top priority in my life at this
time.
If they get me, you get them.
Provisionally.
Like an audition?
Like a trial period.
Of being your daughter?
Of being sole heir to
my estate, a manager of
my affairs after the
events of my actual demise.
The personal family aspect, I agree.
That matters for the discussion.
But for now, there's much to explain,
and it's all in these shoe boxes.
Bordeaux Land and Sea Phoenician
Infrastructure Scheme.
My most important project of my lifetime.
Thirty years' work.
May I move?
Over there.
Over where?
Over there?
What?
They say you murdered my mother.
What?
They say you murdered my mother.
Who said that?
Who said that?
They.
That's what they say.
I feel they need to address it.
It's why I agreed to come here today.
They say that?
Well, it's, uh, forgiving.
I know you're pious.
It's a goddamn lie.
I never murdered anybody's mother in my
life.
Okay, I have no choice but to take away
your word.
I never personally murdered anybody at
all, ever.
You've arranged murders, perhaps?
Don't put words in my mouth.
Of course I didn't and don't.
I've employed violent men to do violence
on occasion in the distant past.
I take no relish in it.
They say you murdered all your wives.
I'm gonna sue them for libel in that case,
whoever they are.
If you can provide me with their
identities.
In fact, I was very fond of
your mother and never would
have murdered her under
any circumstances whatsoever.
I didn't know her that well.
I thought you came here because I summoned
you.
My plan is to be a nun.
Not anymore, right?
Your brothers are there.
Jasper, David, Philip, Michael, Harry,
Jamie, Samuel, Stephen, Thomas.
Hello, boys.
Will they be joining us for lunch,
huh?
Of course not.
They live in a dormitory across the
street.
I don't know what they're doing here.
It's today, Saturday.
I might explain it.
How about Jasper at Crossbow?
Be careful of your eyes.
He's a very good shot.
He understands this changes your life.
Listen carefully.
This shoe box contains my idea for the dam
we're going to build.
This shoe box contains my idea for the
canal we're in the middle of digging.
This shoe box contains my idea for the
tunnel we already finished drilling.
I think he sharpens him.
I suppose I have a suction cup.
This shirt box contains
my plan to assemble
the massive workforce
required for the project.
In short, we're going to need slave labor,
but that's available to us.
This hat box contains my negotiations with
parents in shipping, mining, and railroads.
These littler sock boxes contain my
agreements with titans in banking,
real estate, and black market syndicates.
Excuse me.
Hello.
Yes?
You're not my ex!
Who the deuce is that?
He's been eavesdropping on us.
I'm the new tutor.
Ah, of course.
Welcome.
Bring me the polygraph.
I always keep a tutor on staff to give
lessons to an intervals of my free time.
He's going to teach us about insects and
related subjects.
He's an expert in that field.
We'll be with you shortly.
This is my daughter, Liesl.
This is Professor... Bjorn.
Professor Bjorn.
Insummation.
The boxes on this carpet altogether
present a blueprint to set the wheels of
commerce and motion throughout a
potentially rich, now dormant region.
Then to retain an
appropriate but extremely
valuable 5% of the revenues
for the next 150 years.
This is just... crazy.
Yes, I admit.
If it works, it's a miracle.
What are you going to?
What's in the glove box?
That's the gap.
We'll discuss that later.
You still didn't sign it.
I told you I'd take my vows at the end of
the month.
I told you, unfortunately, no.
The church could claim a lien on our
family business.
You can still believe in God if you wish.
The pigeons are there.
Not for me.
I'd take anything across the bed in the
daytime.
How about you?
Me?
I could eat the horse and eat silly
attention.
You're invited to lunch in that case.
Thank you, sir.
Point your finger.
Full name?
Do you want to join me?
Please, birth or slow?
Are you wearing a bow tie?
Are you now or have you been employed in
the conduct of industrial espionage?
No, no, no.
Or engaged as a professional contract
assassin for high?
I guess not.
You're only ever cut far.
You'll be across this news, huh?
Peace be with you, Reverend Mother.
I write with perplexing tidings.
See what I mean?
Poison.
My father has appointed me provisional
successor and prospective beneficiary of
his vast fortune gained entirely,
as you know, through unholy mischief.
How will your slaves be compensated?
I believe they'll receive the smallest
stipend.
It's really up to the king.
We can't interfere on that level.
God may have something to say about that.
See, we've got slavery in the Bible.
I'm against it.
What worth is the pledge of a swindling
rogue?
There's a terrible famine in this region.
Is she rocks on me?
I know, that's us.
This friendless man bewilders me.
In what sense, that's you?
We did that.
Normally, they'd just be the normal level
of poverty there.
But presently, we control the grain.
Now we make our move and we supply
provisions on our own terms.
My word.
Is that ethical?
It's damnable.
To hell.
Nevertheless, I foresee an opportunity to
accomplish by the grace of God.
Significant good works
with the enormous
resources he proposes
to place at my disposal.
I'm aware of his combination.
I can't tell you where the safe is.
That'll mean my will.
Perhaps this could be even his deeper
intention.
Where does it come from?
Mexico.
They're not the cactus.
I mean this ruthless brutality.
You don't know me.
The boys live across the street.
There's no love in this house as far as I
can observe.
God is absent.
Why?
I remain profoundly
reluctant to leave the order
and long for the hour of
my return to sanctuary.
I think it's not my fault.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy which
starts in the nursery.
No one cared about her for me except my
nanny.
She was dismissed and put to shame.
What for?
She overstepped her position.
I had to be done.
Also, his poor boys, my brothers,
thirst and hunger for sisterly affection.
The wings have a scent which gets on your
fingers if you catch them.
Some smell like lemon, some smell like
chocolate, some smell like urine.
Are you interested in butterflies?
Is that a real question?
Is this a note?
I'm interested in the welfare of all
living creatures.
Very good, very good.
What advice can you afford your humble
servant, me?
She was murdered, by the way.
Not a suicide, the official ruling.
I think I know who did it.
But I've tried to stay out of it,
frankly.
The son of my father.
He's the murderer, I suspect.
The son of your father.
In other words, your brother.
My brother.
Uncle Newbar, he's my mother's murderer.
I suspect.
We always hated each other, of course.
But we do conduct business together through
an intermediary because he's very clever.
Thou shalt not kill.
I agree.
We must bring that man to justice if what
you say is true.
Wake up, my darling.
Houston.
Sign the paper in front of you.
When I swore my ward of solemnness done
and we shall bring ferocious revenge down
upon this cold-blooded butcher,
your Uncle Newbar.
Meaning, get him arrested.
I think so.
He is one of our principal partners,
of course.
I pray on the matter.
Amen.
God has called me here for a purpose.
No slaves, no famine, no dormitory.
You're on a trial, period.
We've acknowledged your sacred covenant,
Miss Lucille.
A secular Rosary will arrive from the
jeweler later this afternoon.
I hope you'll find it to your liking.
P.S.
How is your rheumatism?
I pray for your health and comfort.
Jasper.
Bless us, nice.
I heard a guest, which we are about to
receive.
What's this about?
Don't make him be religious.
I already did.
I'm reading Genesis.
Amen.
Amen.
Why would anybody do something they didn't
tell him to do?
Does this suit come from our usual
kitchen?
I feel it tastes better.
It does taste better.
I have a French cookie.
I have a Belgian cookie.
What?
What?
What?
What are you afraid of?
Don't worry.
They eat only worms and crickets and
sometimes they're own mates.
Are you men or mice?
You should be lions.
No bugs at the table.
I am sorry.
Of course.
Yes, sir?
His nails are good.
Thank you, sir.
They're good.
Also, he likes your suit.
Did you eat dinner with your father when
you were a little boy?
No.
A new rule.
From this day forward, you're allowed a
maximum of two authorized friends.
Each of you.
We're going to make a list.
Nobody not on that list will be permitted
to enter these premises at any time.
Also, a new motto.
Break, but don't bend.
I didn't know you live in a slum.
Fix the leap.
Never buy good pictures.
Buy masterpieces.
Why do you adopt children into this
madness?
I play the odds.
Of course, I have my boys, but the adopted
ones might turn out to be better.
This fella could be smarter than Einstein
for all we know.
This is a bashable rivet.
Perhaps the most effective device of
mechanical hardware ever conceived for the
purpose of permanently coupling two beams,
rods, posts, or pillars.
It's the foundation of
modern civil engineering,
though its usage, of course,
dates from the Bronze Age.
Regular price, ten for nickel.
Wake up.
The new plane is on the tarmac.
We're living in ten minutes.
What?
Wake up.
Why?
Where are we going?
I'll tell you in the air.
Tell me now.
I'll tell you in the car.
Tell me now.
Obey me.
I'm going back to sleep.
It's sabotage!
Look, over the past fifty years,
the market value of bashable rivets has
risen calmly, measurably,
from three and a quarter to
twenty-seven and a half
Yankee dollars per K barrel.
Last night, rivets rocketed to nine
hundred.
What does that mean for us?
It means the gap explodes.
There's a run on bolt spikes of pulverized
gravel, too.
All categories of construction materials
across the entire western near east.
My enemies have manipulated, and the
markets have manipulated.
Who's that?
Arsonists.
I hired them to burn the house down if
necessary for insurance purposes.
They're just doing an assessment right
now.
That's not my suitcase.
I got you a new one.
The other one wouldn't be suitable for
this voyage.
It looks like a picnic basket.
Today, tonight, and tomorrow, we're
rendezvous with every titan in every shoebox.
I've intended we agree what we already
agreed.
But in fact, we don't.
We can't.
Somebody's got to cover the gap.
How much is the gap?
The gap?
The gap is not like that.
Yes, it's partly a deficit in funding
against our total projected revenues.
But more precariously, it's a missing slice
of a pie that was too big for the pain.
I mean the amount.
Everything we got, our entire fortune,
plus a little bit more.
We've got to do it.
Initial countermeasures rendered highly
effective results, as you can see.
Subject now engaged in desperate campaign
of clandestine site visits.
Crisscrossing region to confront each
principal partner in effort to
re-renegotiate terms of charter
agreement and salvage enterprise
before official signature
signing ceremony end of month.
Also, newly obtained
medical report indicates subject
may be suffering trauma
from blunt force head injury.
Are those screws or bolts?
Possibly both.
Likely accumulated over several incidents.
What's in the fruit crate?
Leave that alone, it's fragile.
What is it?
That is fragile.
Leave the fruit crate alone.
But what is it?
It's hand grenades.
Is it satisfied?
Can you accept not to be careful around
it?
Why are we travelling with a box full of
hand grenades?
I have extras.
A large number of them.
For me, at this time, a hand grenade is
cheaper than a bullet.
Do you use them?
That's not really the point.
Point your finger.
You'll be acting as my administrative
secretary for the time being.
The last one got blown in two,
as you know.
That rucksack, which you're
responsible for, contains
all the liquid currency to
my name at this moment.
Keep it on your person at all times,
and don't lose it.
I'll do my best to grant Scott.
Look at this one.
Isn't it remarkable how he's able to hang
on at this airspeed?
Well, does he hang on at this airspeed?
Should we do a lesson now, or should I
talk to you?
I expect you know about tarsel segments,
the tiny hairs with claw-like structures
that grip microscopic irregularities on an
apparently smooth surface.
But the dragonfly is also furnished with
little pads.
Hold that thought.
Call it pretty freely.
When was your last confession?
I think I was 14.
Oh, dear.
Do you still believe in God?
Sadly, no.
Are you an atheist?
I'm a scientist.
Are you an atheist?
Are you chaste?
No, particularly.
Is that important?
I don't really know.
Are you very terribly pure yourself?
Obviously.
How can you ask me such a thing?
Look at me.
It wouldn't matter in the least.
Even if you were the cheapest girl at the
Theotheus brothel in a seedy red-light
district on a swirling orb, nothing could
detract from your loveliness.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I speak my heart.
I'm a bohingian.
I thought you were born in Oslo.
Not bit thrilling, boy.
Actually, I've only been to one brothel.
It left me cold.
We're starting our descent.
Prepare your documents before we beat
planes so you never delay my schedule.
Passports.
That's yours.
I don't have a passport.
Normal people want the
basic human rights that
accompany citizenship
in any sovereign nation.
I don't.
My legal residence is a shack in Portugal.
My official domicile is a hut on the Black
Sea.
My certificate at a boat is a lodge
perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking
the sub-Saharan rainforest accessible only
by goatback.
I don't live anywhere.
I'm not a citizen at all.
I don't need my human rights.
What was that?
I think nothing.
It's the same sound I
heard last time before
the plane exploded,
but this time it didn't.
So, nothing to worry about.
Myself, I feel very safe.
You have a long journey, don't you?
You must find a suitable place to bury it.
Yes.
I never lost interest in you, by the way.
I always followed your progress with great
interest.
Followed how?
Bjorn!
Where's the rucksack?
In the car.
Followed how?
Well, I generally kept buried as
operatives observing your activities or
report cards with medical history or
personal information.
You've been spying on me all my entire
life.
It's not called spying when you're the
parent.
It's called nurturing.
Or at the very least, interest.
Here comes the prince.
Actually, that's some other fellow.
I think that's us.
Driver, get the hand grenades.
Driver!
You warned yourself, good girl.
Oh, no, the assassin's shot your driver.
I pledged to compensate his family on
behalf of the king who regrets the
presence of damaged brigands in the
Imperial realm.
I think I recognized that assassin.
He used to work for me, maybe.
Who's this?
My daughter, Liesl.
How do you do your harness?
She's a bride of Christ.
What a pity.
You may address me directly.
I beg your pardon.
You're stunning.
Thank you.
They got him right through the pump.
The driver, I mean.
Poor man.
He didn't suffer.
I believe he did suffer.
I brought you a humble symbol of the
gratitude of my father's people for your
heroic endeavors toward the prosperity of
our Commonwealth.
Another knife.
He's got one, too, under the habit of
showing him.
Helping me mow, thank you.
I brought it at the airport.
Help us up to our hand grenades.
You're very kind.
How confident are we in this tunnel?
At the current stage of construction.
One hundred percent.
Don't be alarmed by that, Trevor.
Would you like to hold my hand?
I was going to suggest the same thing.
Thank you, both.
It's a very good talk.
Myself, I feel very safe.
Yes, but you're in the habit of surviving.
I beg your pardon.
But I'll schedule it.
This is not the document we agreed to
validate.
What?
Of course it is.
You've been fiddling with it.
The deal's already in place.
This is just a symbolic meeting to connect
the unfinished tracks.
It's a formality.
Not anymore.
Well, help yourself to a hand grenade.
Have you been fiddling with it?
Apparently.
Somebody's got to cover the gap.
Somebody else.
I'll change it back.
We can see the point.
We're walking away.
The resources of our bountiful treasury
have been acutely depleted during the
drilling of this...
That's not our problem.
It is.
And yours.
Goodbye.
Let's resolve it the
way we did in Colorado
with the dispute over
the Fourth Junction climb.
Two on two, first to five.
This puts us at a spectacular
disadvantage.
I've never played the game in my life.
I don't even know the regulations.
We're the underdog, yes.
I still like our chances.
Basketball, by the way, is their greatest
strength.
That's their greatest weakness.
Two beers, please.
Not for me.
I've never tasted hard liquor in my life,
except convenient wine.
That's not hard liquor.
Anyway, on a hot day in the dark tunnel,
beer's delicious.
You should drink, please.
Okay, two beers.
Call it.
Heads.
Heads.
One sip.
A respectable attempt.
Classic backhand layup.
I beg your pardon.
I didn't say anything.
Did you hear what Mr. Reagan just spoke to
me?
When he refers to my mother,
he refers to the sovereign
queen of a population of
ten million loyal subjects.
He didn't say anything about the sovereign
queen.
Don't listen to that.
He's trying to get in your head.
Just play your game, Farooq, if I may call
you that, you're honest.
I don't know how to play my game.
It's utterly foreign to me.
You're good.
I'm not done.
Who's it?
Does that count?
It doesn't count, but I've never seen it
done before.
You've got to bounce it when you move.
That's the rule that you'd have mentioned.
How well do you know him?
How well do I know?
I know Todd Corbin, Sasha, your father.
Not well, mostly by reputation.
I see.
What's your directive in that case?
My directive?
If you have one.
I would say, I think, to prove himself to
me.
Also the other way around.
Am I prying?
Are you prying?
Am I being half and
half prying and for selfish
reasons genuinely concerned
for your future welfare.
What's it like?
I wonder.
Plumbing to earth.
On five.
How many times?
Six so far.
Yikes.
Sportsmanship, gentlemen.
Quite a game.
Nothing personal.
Get it right this time, twerp.
Could you imagine falling in love with a
man like me by the way that was that tickly?
You're drunk.
On three beers.
I think I mean it as a genuine question.
Sisters of the cloth do not engage in
romantic behavior of any kind.
Or a litter vow.
And I can't stop flirting with the prince.
Besides, I thought you're not a lamb
anymore.
You're a business lady.
Is this allowed?
You asked me that before.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Left-handed blind man over the shoulder
swoop.
Get out!
That was the worst plane crash I ever
survived in my life.
I think I died, actually.
For about a minute and a half.
It's coming back now.
Can we give up?
Just so Josh, as you say, play your game.
I'm not really a sportsman.
I'm more interested in gardening,
for instance.
My enemies are everywhere.
I'd like my daughter to come to me.
She's drinking beer in the dining car with
your administrative secretary.
Fetch the nut.
This is actually a tutor.
And six home legs sometimes.
Sorry for my bad manners.
But the beers were too strong.
I was present at your birth.
My midwife was a leathery old hag.
I'd cut the umbilical cord with hedge
clippers of my own design.
I was very fond of your
mother and never would have
murdered her under any
circumstances whatsoever.
How'd you get so religious?
My surviving parents sent me to live in a
convent at age five.
To keep you away from boys?
Didn't expect you to get brainwashed.
And the only child that did was to try to
be a proper father, too.
But it wasn't possible.
Your name for my grandmother.
She didn't recognize me.
Is this typical of him?
In my experience, not at all.
Normally, I'd say he's the shrewdest,
most resourceful businessman alive.
Well, I shall.
From the end of the train tracks.
If Farooq succeeds, the
deal proceeds according
to the original document
before I fiddle with it.
But you cover 10% of the cap and I swear
my word is seldom this solid.
Me?
You.
You missus.
There's half a million Swiss friends in
that rucksack.
It's yours.
That rucksack.
Okay, Farooq, if I may call you that,
your highness, take the shot.
Is it acceptable for me to repel them all
in this manner?
We knew your mother.
One moment.
One moment.
Good husband.
What tribute is this?
Running.
She's not your daughter.
You do have my eyes.
Do people not tell you that?
Nobody ever told me I have anybody's
anything.
I think I seek it.
Except you're assigned to bleep.
What's that?
I don't know.
We'll find out.
He has my eyes, too.
Uncle Naval.
He's not human.
He's biblical.
What did you pray specifically?
To get Prince Farooq to make that
impossible granny shot.
Even as an atheist without God's will,
he would have botched it by a mile.
It's not witchcraft.
The phrasing of it which I don't recall
doesn't matter.
What matters is the sincerity of your
devotion.
That's it.
That's what?
No, that's it.
What?
That's it.
The pilot says you got a telephone call.
On an airplane.
Who is it?
Mr. Savorant Montrg.
What's that?
Hello, Reuben.
Hello, hello.
Bonjour, Reuben.
Oui, oui, t'es a bien de rouleur.
The tunnel and the parfait.
Oui, oui, la France en la Courpaux cover
your gap.
Oui, la totalitarian.
Et tu l'un d'aravie.
Oui, oui.
As you swim.
Bizzou, bizzou.
Did you just tell Montrg what the
Sacramento Consortium agreed to cover the gap?
No.
All of it, you said.
I speak French, of course.
You'll fill in with it again.
Okay, yes, but I'm doing a strategy.
Listen carefully.
Is this supposed to be here?
It was under the lunch trolley.
Oh, dear.
How much time does it say?
Eighteen minutes.
Perfectly fine.
We'll end in time.
Myself, I feel very safe.
One, two, three.
I
Will not be allowed to go outside the
place.
We'd want to go outside the place.
I'm your agent like supper.
In the meantime, help yourself to hang a
knife.
You're very kind.
May I offer you champagne cocktail?
Not for me.
I've never tasted hard liquor in my life
except a beer and communion wine.
That's not hard liquor.
It's a delicious concoction with cherries
and a sugar cube.
Okay, two champagne cocktails.
I recognize your handwriting.
This is your... obviously the Sacramento
Consortium refused to cover the gap and
you're trying to secretly blackmail me to
salvage the agreement.
Actually, I suppose its extortion is so
crude and you've been fiddling with it.
That's absurd.
It's far-fetched.
What do you get?
Just suspicious ideas.
It's very fresh.
How could we know you were going to
receive an anonymous letter to you?
Nothing you say will convince me.
I'm absolutely unflinchingly certain you
are responsible for this, as you say,
anonymous letter.
If you deny it again, I'm throwing you
out.
Is that what you are?
Is that what you are?
Is that what you are?
The man has got your fucking work stuff
together!
Well,
anyway, you're wrong about my handwriting.
You are what we drafted.
Why do you just do that?
We just admitted everything after swearing
us to never reveal your deceitfulness even
under pain of torture for the rest of our
lives.
You call that a strategy.
What's the change?
He doesn't fall for it.
They cover 10% plus Farooq another 5%.
What's the big problem with you?
Too many airplane crashes, I think.
I'm walking away.
One taxi.
I'll change it back.
We can see the point.
Too late.
No, no.
I'll change it back.
We can see the point.
Still too late.
No, no, no, no.
I'll change it back.
We can see the point.
What was that?
On behalf of the Jungle Unit of the
Intercontinental Radical Freedom
Militical, all manages and watches into
the bag, please.
Where else can?
Who are they?
I don't know these stories.
Must come from out of town.
The proceeds of this
seizure will benefit not only the
administrative activity of
our organisation, but also...
Orphans and widows, the blind, the
sick, the wounded, farmers, teachers.
..
And the construction of hygienic
wastewater disposal systems.
Why is he shooting my ceiling?
Just rob my customers and make you a
getaway.
You're a getaway?
No.
None of the thuds generated by the sale of
your property will be squandered.
The pamphlets articulate our policies.
It's too much.
Why are you shooting my ceiling?
This is a robbery on behalf of the
Jungle Unit of... I understand that.
I'm asking about my ceiling.
You idiots are destroying a magnificent
nightclub.
Grab the loot and get out!
Let's communicate.
You took a bullet for me.
I took a bullet for you.
I'm aware of that.
I witnessed the event.
Where's the wound?
Right here where the blood is gushing out
of me.
It's not too bad, actually.
I think your diplomatic credentials slowed
it down.
Excuse us.
For that needless violence.
Did they shoot you?
They shot me, but your father did
something heroic, I suppose.
It should have been him, actually.
Pluck it out.
Me?
Go ahead.
No, my son.
Wait.
The meeting's at midnight.
Are you still walking away?
How can I?
Now.
Two taxis.
Don't mention anything.
To Marty about the Gap.
Just pretend our job is building trust and
cementing.
Bjorn!
Where's the rucksack?
Oh, I shouldn't keep it in the taxi.
Any of you folks allergic to powdered
insecticides?
Of course not.
I knew you folks bearing firearms or other
weapons on your purse.
I carry a dagger.
May I ask the purpose of the hand grenades
you folks brought on board?
It's a gift I think he has extras.
Do I need a blood transfusion?
Hiya!
Hiya!
Come in!
Good to see you, man.
Come in!
Hiya!
How are you, man?
Come in!
Hiya!
Hiya!
Come in!
I've been shot, but my diplomatic
credentials slow it down.
This is my daughter, Liesl.
Do you need a blood transfusion?
I'm a negative universal donor,
if that's what you're looking for.
Who shot it?
To go east from out of town.
Jeez, man, you shoot him back.
Not yet.
This is Professor Bjorn, my administrative
secretary.
Welcome aboard.
Make yourself at home, man.
Have a seat.
Use it there, use it there, use it there,
use it there.
I sit here.
Don't ask me to come to the Gap,
man.
I know about the bachelor with it.
Of course not, man.
It's just a symbolic meeting.
It's a formality.
How about that song?
Is that the music?
Help yourself to hang me.
You're very kind.
I woke up in the middle of the night to a
commotion downstairs.
Shouts and slams and breaking glass.
A shriek like a cat trapped in a cupboard.
I got up and snuck out through the hatch
in the upstairs gallery.
They locked me in at night.
I slid down the square of our banister.
Deadstalk didn't see me, the ender-butter
at the time.
I walked down the long front room gallery.
Bum-bun in one hand, mousy in the other.
The grandfather clock chimed 3am.
The door opened and my father stepped out
into the light.
He was wearing white pajamas and a white
dressing gown.
His face was covered with cuts from a
plane crash as usual.
His hair was wild.
Go to bed, you said.
Where's Mama?
I said.
Asleep, you said.
But it wasn't true.
She was there.
Standing in the
reflection in the mirror in
the doorway behind you
at the back of the room.
She had on gloves and a coat.
Her blouse was unbuttoned.
Her breasts were naked.
Your mother won't be living with us
anymore, you said.
Go to bed.
I walked in reverse to the stairs,
then I ran.
They sent me away in the spring.
Objection, your honours.
That's such a distorted version of this
story.
It's told from a child's point of view,
which is forgivable, but madman.
I never saw her again.
I'm not on trial here, am I?
I'm going to confess something terrible
which you may never forgive me.
Pick five, man.
The reason I know who killed your mother,
which I didn't do, is because I did do
something else which may be costed to
happen.
Your mother wasn't a nun like you.
She took lovers.
One, one was your uncle, no bar.
I profoundly resented this insult in spite
of my own infidelities and I tricked them,
not of my own unwriting, into thinking
your mother was betraying him behind his
back with my administrative secretary at
that time.
The result?
He murdered him both, I think.
Did you love her?
I was very fond of her, no.
We must bring that
amount to justice, meaning
get him arrested if
what you say is true.
I swear my word is solemnly stolen.
Let's give it.
I apologize.
I forgive you.
Just like that.
That was my confession of something
terrible.
I told the police it's a lie and your
mother's dead.
I always expected the worst from you.
I forgive you if I talk to you.
We can no longer honor the precise terms
we'd weak to validate.
This document outlines our revised
proposal.
That's enough blood, man.
How dare you!
You liar!
Somebody's gonna help me!
You think you had the gold!
No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait!
Prince Farooq and his father cover five
percent.
The Sacramento brothers cover ten.
Marseille Baba, we do fifteen.
You're the richest, twenty-five.
Why would I do that?
We made an airtight, legally binding
contract.
No, I said twelve point five.
Fifteen because I took a bullet for you.
Why?
It's because if you don't, I refuse to put
the pen back in.
You're the last hand grenade.
It's a great scheme,
which, if it works, is gonna
benefit all our partners
for generations to come.
We're privileged to thank you for your
participation.
Liesel, how?
I'm not leaving you in, so you can hand
grenade yourself as a business tactic.
You ask me my strategy?
This is my strategy.
Will it work?
No, but my daughter and range are the
shrapnel who won't.
Liesel, how?
You should go.
You should go.
Why wouldn't I just say yes now and betray
you later?
You're putting a hand grenade to my head.
I trust you.
I think I trust you, too, in return.
Not to tell the truth or keep your word,
obviously.
But I suppose I'm moved by this absurd
performance.
I'll pitch in, man.
Twenty percent.
Sharply compromising
my chances of profitability
in an already extremely
high-risk venture.
Just to watch you conduct the grand
finale.
Thank you for the blood.
You're welcome.
Intercepted message from
subject in transit suggests
possible strategic merger with
House of Sussman and Corda.
Also, encrypted dispatch from undercover
operative reports as follows.
Target's resources continue to dwindle as
partners grow dubious and bewildered.
Target repeatedly places
significant cash funds
directly into operative's
personal possession.
Tried to misplace, however, operative does
not have heart to steal or destroy.
Too cruel under circumstances.
I'll debate that with him.
Further, Target has appointed daughter,
his official successor.
Currently a nun.
Not for long, I hope.
Should I be kneeling?
The only terms I dictate is
our marriage on a statutory
basis would have to be
a purely romantic union.
I'm obliged to keep my daughter's soul
here to my stake.
My father and his father, your grandfather,
I mean, nearly killed each other.
Maybe you know that, do you?
No, I'm new to my family.
Best friends, whatever it means in their
case.
They went into business together,
formulated the very effective poison gas,
killed tens of thousands of soldiers,
made tens of millions of dollars.
One day in their laboratory, a heated
argument erupted into a slugging match.
They attacked each other with lethal
measures of an experimental new version of
their weaponized aerosol,
which fortunately turned
out to be less effective
than the original compound.
Both survived, but that was the end of
their partnership.
I asked my father 40 years
later, nearly on his deathbed,
still suffering minor neural
effects from the incident.
What was the argument about?
You know what he said?
Mm-hmm.
Who could lick who, I guess?
Or whom?
That maybe is the source of most of our
problems on this barren earth.
Who could lick who?
Or whom, I guess?
If something gets in your way,
flatten it.
That was my father's advice before he cut
me out of his will.
He asked to be mummified and buried in a
pyramid.
We bought the land and drew up the plans,
but never built it.
We had him cremated instead.
Nothing he can do about it.
Is this phased?
Of course.
It's a proxy for the real one,
which I'm unable to pay for at this time.
If you care to advance via portion of
the funds... I'm not paying for anything.
I authorize 150 year lease on the property
and water rights.
Maybe I might consider briefly marrying
you as an experience, like a chapter in a
book, depending on the
advice of my tax attorney,
but I'm not going to
help you cover the gap.
It's against the interest of my utopian
outpost.
I'm not asking you.
I'm telling you as your potential future
husband.
No.
I'm not asking you.
I'm begging you.
That's your favorite second cousin.
No.
Well, pay me.
Why?
If she does marry me, I'm not sure we
can't compel her to cover the gap,
depending on the jurisdiction where the
wedding takes place.
Do you believe the official ruling my
mother's death was caused by suicide?
No.
Who murdered her then in that case,
in your opinion?
I only know what they're saying.
Is my uncle my father?
The diplomatic pouch arrived.
Open it.
List of contents.
One, fresh socks, ten pairs.
Two, a book.
Please of the Americas by Carcel and Feud.
Three, financial reports for review.
Four bills to be paid.
Five, emergency directive urgent.
Six, fresh handkerchiefs.
Go back to five.
Yes, might be important.
Bring it back.
It's sabotage again.
Give this to the pilot.
New flight plan.
Where am I going?
Home.
A parliamentary motion just passed
intended to thwart me specifically.
I need to be there with the normal rate by
noon tomorrow.
What happens if you don't?
I become an English subject.
Then they seize our worldwide assets,
extradite me and send me to prison.
Ah, got it.
This is for you.
Happy birthday.
How old are you?
Twenty-one.
We can't read your handwriting.
Is this a one or a seven?
It's... God damn it.
It's a G.
He's been fiddling with it.
What?
You're tapping in Morse code.
Am I?
Was I?
I didn't notice.
I was trying.
He is being... fiddling with it.
You speak Morse code.
Oh, no, no, not fluently.
I learnt that there's a screw in point.
You speak Morse code.
I'm the librarian of our
back at the convent,
collection of classical
Latin scrolls and codices.
I do decipher them.
Fascinating.
Godly!
Somebody poisoned his beer.
We should have tested it.
Did you let him drink in the cockpit?
Just beer.
Stand back and hang on.
Uh-oh.
Why am I up here being stalked by a
fighter jet?
I have a vocation.
I think I recognize that assassin too.
He used to work for me also.
I'm just inheriting myself from you.
What a terrible thing to say to a father,
especially during her trial period.
Good heavens, he's back!
Next time he strikes us, pay him with a
hand grenade.
It is an act.
I bear no hostility towards your father or
his interests.
Your father, however, on occasion,
bears decisive hostility to the United
States government and its allies and
enemies.
It's my job to observe,
report and maintain... Yes, I...
Well, it's an interesting story,
I suppose.
After the war, my own
primary interests are very similar
to the persona I present
to you as Professor Bjorn.
I completed my studies at Princeton and
had to establish an expatriate scientific
journal, publishing poetry, drawing and
ecological prose.
Eventually, our government
offered to subsidize the magazine
in an effort to promote
American cultural interests.
But really, they just wanted us all to
become intelligence operators.
I hope you don't feel betrayed.
I could go ahead and turn back into my
normal self right now, if you like.
It's not that different from how you see
me already.
See what I mean?
Basically the same person.
Hello.
You're different.
I'm not actually a Bohemian.
I'm a moderate conservative, politically.
Also, I'm not from Oslo.
I'm from Wilmington, Delaware.
Also, I know how to
drink, although I do find
I'm less inhibited when
I pretend to be drunk.
Also, I wrote that book.
It was going to recommend it to us.
Is that a fake mustache?
No, yes.
Based on my real one, which I usually
have.
I do feel betrayed.
Me too.
You're lunatic!
I feel deeply terrible about this.
You employed me in good faith to teach you
about insects.
This is a wonderful setting for us to
continue our lessons.
I've never seen so many bugs in one place
in all my life, with the possible
exception of a garbage dump near Rome,
which was equally breathtaking.
Why do you ask if I could imagine falling
in love with a man like you,
hypothetically?
Yes.
Is it part of your mission?
No, it wasn't part of my anything.
I might justify it as trying to infiltrate
your family business, but to tell you the
truth, I still mean it as a genuine
question.
Both as Professor Bjorn and as Agent
Carlson of the covert North Americans...
Don't help me!
Don't help me.
Wrap this around a tree trunk.
I may go under for a moment, but I'll save
him.
No, you won't.
I'll save myself, myself.
Bless us, and these thy holy gifts.
What's this about to receive to thy
merciful bounty?
We humble ourselves.
Dost thou not fear, God, before thee in
thy name?
Amen.
Amen.
Are you against slavery and the Bible?
It's damnable to hell.
I believe that we see the small stipend.
The yield of Adam's loins crucified my
only begotten Son.
I know, I know.
Jesus.
I'm not dead yet.
Why didn't you let me sink?
It's redundant.
Our mission is strictly dedicated to
sabotaging your business interests.
We never resort to extralegal violence.
I'm not callable.
I'm aware of that.
What's the idea?
To demolish your enterprise and pillage
all its assets.
That was horrible.
I'll never forget it.
I'll feel a traumatic effect on myself
until the day I die.
Really?
I don't know if I feel terrible or
flatter.
Or both.
Like maybe I matter.
What did they do to you?
More family?
I'm sorry I frightened you.
It won't happen again.
How do you pass my polygraph?
We're taught to.
It's not difficult.
You do karate?
Of course.
I'll teach you if you like.
Well, it's too late.
I don't know how many more times I can
die.
These filthy books should all be burned.
Except this one.
It's sacrilegious, but it speaks to me.
Keep it.
It's yours.
Open your birthday present.
I love it.
It's a beautiful piece.
What's your real first name, Agent
Carlson?
I'm happy to just go by Bjorn.
My
Only pleasant memories of a miserable
childhood take place below stairs.
I was allowed to dine with the household
staff once a week.
They pretended to love me.
What choice did they have?
To this day I'm a very good cook and
dishwasher.
Six-fifteen.
The cop crows.
The robin brings worms to its chicks in
the nest on my window sill.
Sister Mary pumps the water pump at seven.
The bell rings for morning prayers.
The shape of the day each day is exactly
the same.
We like it that way.
As a little boy I kept fleas
and plastic bags in my
bedroom and did my morphology
and microscopy at night.
I lived with my mother's sister.
My parents conducted their research
abroad.
Aunt Beth was very kind, but she never
approved of my practices.
The house was regularly fumigated,
resulting in a great loss of specimens.
Later, out of jealousy and loneliness,
I betrayed them.
The kitchen staff.
I told my father the truth.
They steal.
I thought I would become his ally.
Instead, he gave me a tremendous beating
and didn't speak a word to me for 90 days.
He fired them all just the same.
I'm going back to the sisters.
No, you don't.
Oh, can you?
We're marooned.
Besides, who am I so aware?
On a trial basis.
That's finished.
You're hired.
I don't forgive you after all,
I'm ashamed to say.
Plus, we've got to get revenge on Uncle
Newbar.
We'll bring it to justice if you prefer.
I'll leave that to you in your conscience.
I don't have one.
Plus, what about the poor slaves and the
family?
I'm going back to the sisters.
To pray and study and work
diligently to overcome my
weaknesses of character
which are probably genetic.
In other words, it's all my fault again.
You can burn the house down after all if
we survive.
There you are.
Hello again, here in the middle of the
jungle.
How extraordinary to stumble across your
crash site, I gather.
Hello, hello, hello.
I'm not a businessman.
On the contrary, I'm a communist
revolutionary heavily armed and living in
a secret jungle encampment with a band of
freedom fighters.
However even I can see your plan on its
surface to fight a baited load of economics.
That's what I've never been done before.
My plan supplies everything.
What's your connection to the company?
Me?
I pretend to be as administrative
secretary, but really I'm the tutor.
But actually, in fact, I'm a spy for the
United States government.
Wow.
Religion is a sigh of the oppressed
creature.
It's a protest against suffering.
I agree.
You're not an atheist.
Of course I am.
But my colleagues, however, only claim to
be.
I had a private army once.
Big headache.
15 minutes to spare.
Where's my notary.
We need fingerprints and signatures.
You're all official witnesses.
Mother superior.
Peace be with you, my child.
A fighter jet shot us down in the jungle
by the grace of God.
We survived.
You received my letter.
Yes, I wrote you back.
I'm prepared to take my vows.
Read the letter first.
We received a marriage license and an
intellectual contract.
I assume you're aware of the proposal.
I didn't know she says yes.
You're very pious, Sister Liesl,
but you're not plain.
The stones on your pipe, for instance.
Not to mention the opulence of your
rosary.
And this astonishing dagger.
A gift from a prince.
Mother superior, you've approached me when
I most require your trust and guidance.
Worldly adornments do serve certain good
people for the good.
We're not all destined to deny ourselves
man's earthly pleasures.
Some thrive in tranquil simplicity.
Others find beauty in color, splendor,
in jubilation.
This is no approach, my child.
You're a rich girl, always were.
Of course, I would continue to cherish
your ongoing patronage of the abbey.
He just won't be a nun anymore.
Is God more interested in my money or my
soul?
I can't speak for him.
Maybe I can assist in this area, both
as a father and as an expert mediator.
And gather you kicked her out.
I'm urging Liesl to return to her family
and greater society.
Will the superior still want us to fund
the construction of the new refractory?
With gratitude.
Of course.
Yes.
Are you authorized, by the way, to do a
baptizing if somebody wants to be Catholic?
Me?
You're an atheist.
I feel I have a religious awakening now,
if that's what we call it.
Tell me how this awakening came to pass.
Well, I would say partly it's because of
my near-death episodes.
I get a kind of visions.
Never mind the details.
Then partly there is a fiduciary benefit.
And mostly, and I would weight this factor
up to maybe 75%.
It's simply the influence
of my daughter's
influence, which has a
profound effect on me.
And I think at my age, in the end,
finally, it's better I just go on our side.
The point is to be delivered from sin and
purified.
It doesn't work if you're lying.
I'm not lying.
I'm capable of and
willing to genuinely believe
in the opposite of my
personal convictions.
I can do that in certain situations.
You remember the combination?
Another shoe box?
This one's all done.
What's inside?
I don't know.
Supposedly a relic quarter of our family
history.
Sealed half a score to go, but my father's
notary.
I will do it to you.
But since we're here, take it.
I'll live in it later.
My great-grandfather built the hotel.
Liesel would have been the fifth
generation proprietor except my father
sold it to an American conglomerate,
who ruined it, of course.
The venue is situated on a precarious
border among three fiefdoms, two of which
remain under martial law after a military
coup.
In exchange for me allowing you to steal
the painting rolled up in that shipping
tube, you and your
terrorists provide security
services to our entire
party throughout the event.
Oh, they sold a painting.
You'll officiate.
It's good timing in a business sense.
Punching all number five
has been duly sanctioned
in accordance with
the laws of this territory.
Even an immediate divorce might bear
profit.
Igrazia, ciao.
You reach him?
Yes, his holiness refuses to cover the
gap, any of it.
I know Felix, he's stubborn.
We'll need to sweeten the pot.
You know many pottery, idiots,
beautiful scone.
Tell him I offered nine more souls.
Are you still an enemy spy?
At the moment, no, I thought I might be
more useful as a double agent.
I couldn't pay you any extra.
Well, no, naturally, it would be included
in my tutorial fees.
My operational handler, codename
Excalibur.
Agent Carlson.
Excalibur.
I know about the bashable rivets, and the
bolt spikes and pulber has grappled too.
This office couldn't even confirm or deny
any such knowledge.
Nor would it.
Don't let to acknowledge said knowledge.
It's sabotage!
In fact, I swore my word of solemnness to
honor.
I'll never let you win.
Ah, I arranged for you to accuse him of a
person, by the way.
Your Uncle Mubarak.
Of course.
It's crucial we confront this unspeakable
evil.
Also, it's even more crucial we secure his
financial investment position.
As you know, I never admit the possibility
of and even avoid the word failure.
Maybe that's a weakness.
On the other hand, we
were only missing one
slice of the pie that was
baked too big for them.
Just a dud.
Just a dud.
Myself, I feel very safe.
Thank you.
Senua Ba has arrived.
Off the record, the gap might be
bottomless, closer to an abyss.
In fact, there is even more to it now.
A further dimension than I previously
anticipated.
The emotional gap.
It betrayed.
You used to work for me.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Me?
No.
I was in disguise.
Oh, Dr. Mansman.
I recognize this assassin.
Who hired you to kill me?
No, no.
So side down.
If it turns out you're not my daughter,
can I adopt you?
With your permission?
Yes.
Well, in that case, whatever happens,
we'll be fine.
Restate the purpose of this visit.
Exactly as we agreed, my dear Novar.
The validation of your
proprietary share is up
to 55% of hands against
the interim shortfall.
This is just a symbolic meeting,
it's a formality.
Liesl has additional objectives,
of course, as you're aware.
My father promised you
a range for me to accuse
you in person, that's
what I'm here to do.
Why would I lie to her?
She wasn't my wife.
Help yourself to a hand grenade.
I've been very kind to have, ma'am.
Would you look tight, Lisa?
I don't know, they never tested it,
to my knowledge.
You have my eyes.
Do people not tell you that?
Nobody ever told her she has anybody's
anything.
I'll wait outside.
She's not your daughter.
I don't care.
One thing you'll never know, because you
can't.
The truth.
Although, in my opinion, he was probably
your ministry secretary at that time.
He's the father.
Actually, I think I know it for a fact.
I'm astonished you didn't see it already.
And if I did kill him...
I'd never admit it.
I invented that lie.
Did it trick you?
Of course you did, but it was true.
The blood type spoofed.
Probably.
You got my blood?
And hers?
I've got everybody's blood.
No, you don't.
Yes, I do.
No, you don't.
Of course I do.
No, you don't.
They say you murdered all your wives.
Wait.
I'll put all this on, just so I don't lie.
I did murder that wife, your mother,
or any other.
I would even go so far as to say I'm
incapable of it.
Whatever they say about me, behind my
back, whoever they are.
I wasn't taught to either, to beat the
polygraph.
Where did he come from?
I can't remember.
I'll open the shoebox.
My father, on his birthday.
My uncle, all A's.
My mother, on a wedding day.
A carton of six poison gas ampoules.
A rare stamp, a gold coin, a skeleton
cube, secret letters.
My grandfather, some of him just ashes.
I'll take one.
It's a staggering and ambitious project.
I've been situated entirely in a perpetual
war zone.
For the next 150 years, I'd rather sell
guns, bombs, and ammunition.
It's our family business.
My know is final.
Wow.
You're pulling out your entire investment
and breaking your promise to me.
Stabbing everybody all at once and
ultimately in the back.
Yes.
Why'd you come here, in that case?
I couldn't resist.
My prestigious asylum
partner taking a complete loss of
all my assets with no
opportunity for any future upside.
I'm still allowed for unlimited debts and
deficits.
Fine.
I'll do it.
Fine.
I'll do it.
The slaves will be paid.
The famine will be finished.
The famine will be finished.
We'll beat those bureaucrats.
We'll beat those bureaucrats.
And my most important project of my
lifetime comes to pass.
Without us.
I don't want a fortune.
Now
at this time, the first symbolic
demonstration of our abundant desert hearts.
Born from deep within the earth,
rich, elemental.
Listen, you've lost for another while.
Oh, shit.
I'll be right back.
Yes, my dear, no part.
How could I assist you?
I've changed my mind.
I'll do it myself.
Stupidness.
I know it.
I'm not the business deal.
My know is final.
I mean, your assassination.
I'm sorry.
So it is you, the enemy, who taught you to
murder me all along.
The son of my father, my own half-brother.
Yeah.
I've got everybody's blood.
No, you don't.
Yes, I do.
No, you don't.
Yes, I do.
I won't die.
I never.
..
You're worse than me.
You're not human.
You're biblical.
No.
Can't you stop?
Can't you leave me alone?
Why do you need to always keep
assassinating me all the time?
You know the answer.
I don't need to say it.
Who could let go, I guess.
No!
Let's communicate.
When I pray, no one answers.
Only pretend he does.
Then I do whatever I think I probably
would have suggested.
Usually it's obvious.
Amen.
Peace be with you, Reverend Mother.
Our new quarters, the modest, cramped,
meagre and shabby, are, nevertheless,
charming and versatile.
The boys to my delight finally begin to
thrive and flourish.
I do serve a purpose here.
Agent Carlson resigned as
a double agent and accepted
a staff position at our
local grammar school.
My stepmother annulled her brief union
with my father.
And one, and two, and three, and four.
My father's entrepreneurial
energies remain robustly
invigorated by the
austerity of our poverty.
I do admire his resilience and ambition.
Though I don't believe these come from
God.
The Phoenician scheme continues to deepen
and widen.
It may be a sizeable step backwards for
civilisation.
But it will produce some good works,
I'm sure of it.
Could you imagine marrying a man like me?
I mean it as a genuine question.
Is that paste?
No, yes, I think so.
I don't know.
It's the same one.
Cousin Hilda sent it back.
I asked your father for his consent and he
loaned it to me to give to you.
P.S.
To this day he's a very good cook.
And dishwasher.
Two whiskies.
You say yes.
On a trial basis.
Parts.