Night’s Black Agents: Odd Jobs

The Agents in Night’s Black Agents are burned spies, out of favour with their former agencies, banished into the cold – but even a broken spy has uses. Smiley got called back from retirement all the time; unsanctioned operations call for unsanctioned assets. What sort of unofficial intel ops might your Agents get involved in between vampire-hunting missions? How might the Agents use their old skills and connections to make a little cash on the side? This article presents some ideas for each NBA background on little Odd Jobs that the Agents might get involved in between vampire-hunting missions.

Analyst

• Working for private intelligence firms, putting together threat assessments or financial reports on their former area of expertise (‘you know Romania, I believe? We have a client looking to do business in the region…’)
• Called in to be a fresh pair of eyes – or an external reviewer – on some sensitive report by their old agency. Of course, the agency will need some insurance that the disgraced former agent won’t betray them.
• Targeted for recruitment by enemies of their old agency – and these recruiters won’t take “no” for an answer.

Asset Handler

• Asked to provide an introduction between one of their old assets and their replacement as handler.
• Asked to broker a meeting between factions in their old area of expertise (‘The Houthis won’t talk to anyone except you…’)
• Called in to assist with an investigation involving an old asset (‘Who knew she was passing intel from the agency to you…?’)

Bagman

• Called in as a deniable middleman to handle some money laundering or cash transfer (‘we need someone to bring the money to the rebels, and you’re it’)
• Investigating misuse of funds that only members of their former agency should have access to (‘someone emptied the Reptile Fund… and we don’t know how.’)
• Getting blamed for debts incurred by the former agency. (‘Your CIA owes us ten million dollars – and they say you had it, and stole it. You will give us our money, or we sell organs on black market.’)

Bang and Burner

• Look, it’s just a little fire in a journalist’s flat. They probably won’t even be there.
• Look, it’s just a little insurance fraud. You can make it look like bad wiring, right?
• Look, it’s just a little bomb. It doesn’t have to go off. It just needs to scare people ahead of the election.

Black Bagger

• Obviously, it’s a deniable job. We can’t risk any of our people in Prague. But you’re not our people any more.
• The oligarch’s papers are in the safe. On his yacht. In international waters.
• We want to hire you to break into MI5. Just to test our own security.

Cleaner

• There’s, an, an embarrassing body we need to disappear. We can’t use our usual channels because this is, well, a private matter. Where’s the body? Um. Downing Street.
• We want you to get rid of this corpse – and have it show up in Munich next Friday. Make it look like he died there.
• So, here’s the thing. Two of my gunmen were interrogating this small-time thief who took a briefcase of mine, and the gun went off while they were driving, blood and brains all over the back seat. They’re at a friend’s house now, but his wife will be home soon – ah, knew I could count on you, Winston.

Cobbler

• Someone talented at making false passports and other forgeries will never, ever be short of work.
• A well-connected activist contacts the Agent, asking for their help in smuggling political exiles across a well-guarded border.
• Four of our long-term deep-cover agents have been killed in the last year. The one thing that connects all four of them – you helped set up those cover identities. Either you help us find out how the enemy identified them, or we blame you.

Cuckoo

• We need to, ah, test the loyalty of one of our agents, and you’re our test. Try to recruit them. Find out what it takes to turn them.
• We need you to reactivate one of your old deep-cover identities – and then fake your own death, so we can legally transfer the assets of that identity to another of our agents. You’ve got three weeks to die.
• That old cover identity of yours in Panama – we need you to take on that role one last time. All you need to do is walk into a plastic surgery clinic, so someone else can take over that role.

Hacker

• Again, hackers have obvious applications throughout the private sector.
• We’ve, ah, let it be known that you left some backdoors in our system. Someone’s going to try to recruit you. Or kidnap you. And then we’ll know who’s trying to get into our systems.

Investigator

• We need someone familiar with our operations to find out how our security got breached.
• A recent development on an unsolved cold case leads to the Agent’s successors to call them in unofficially. I know you’re persona non grata, but I bet you want this file closed too…

Medic

• I know you’re out, but I need someone who can dig a bullet out of my leg, no questioned asked. I’ll be at the old safe house in ten minutes, assuming I don’t pass out from blood loss.
• You knew that the head of station in Prague was allergic to garlic – and someone killed him by spraying him with hyper-concentrated allicin.

Mule

• Any occupation reliant on personal relationships might be dragged back for one last job requiring a particular contact. We need to get this package through the docks at Varna…
• A package too hot for any regular operative might get given to the Agent who’s already burned. Yes, it’s a suitcase of weapons-grade uranium. Don’t worry, it says here it’s a subcriticial mass.

Muscle

• You’re out. You’re nothing to do with us anymore. Everyone knows this. So I’m just going to leave this list of names here. And if any of them meet with a nasty little accident, well, we’d be very happy at this entirely coincidental bit of violence. I might even leave a few banknotes next time.
• Even if your previous employer wasn’t part of the underworld of organised crime, they’ve got connections. Debts that need to be paid. And one of the most fungible currencies of the underworld is ‘tough guys who can keep their mouths shut’.

Watcher

• Here’s the thing – we know that the enemy has you on their books. They know you work for us – or used to. They’ll spot that ugly face of yours in an instant. But we want to trip their security systems and put them on alert here in London as a misdirection. So, off you go, look unobtrusively obvious in front of the Turkish embassy.
• You’ve seen some things you weren’t supposed to see, and you filed them away. You’ve got a little stock of blackmail material – nothing earthshattering, but enough to ruin a few careers or squeeze a few people. Now that you’re running low on cash, it’s time to dig out one of those files and put it to use.

Wetworker

• No emergency, no offer of a temporary assignment, no called-back-for-one-last-case – just your fingerprints on a gun fished out of a canal, and an eyewitness that puts you at the scene. You’ll serve the agency one last time by taking the fall for your replacement.
• Hey, is contract-killers-for-hire.biz available?

Wheel Artist

• We need to fake an accident. Here’s the license plate; we’ll text you when they’re on the move. We need you to arrange a plausible, unsuspicious accident that delays them for as long as possible – but doesn’t attract the attention of emergency services.

Wire Rat

• Here’s the thing – when we were clearing out your workshop, we found one of your old boxes. And it’s ticking. No-one in the demolitions team wants to open it. Clean it up, will you?

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Night’s Black Agents by Kenneth Hite puts you in the role of a skilled intelligence operative fighting a shadow war against vampires in post-Cold War Europe. Play a dangerous human weapon, a sly charmer, an unstoppable transporter, a precise demolitions expert, or whatever fictional spy you’ve always dreamed of being — and start putting those bloodsuckers in the ground where they belong. Purchase Night’s Black Agents in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.