The SECOND GUNMAN Palmer Lime
From Sarajevo to Los Angeles, from Naples to Ukraine, the contents of a certain Confidential Report detail the many lives of a man usually only known or referred to as... The Second Gunman.
This figure of mystery is a criminal, but one who is associated not only with some of the worst crimes of the last 100 or more years but also with quixotic quests, usually involving one or more beautiful women. Photographs have shown glimpses of him; his face has changed several times. From Berlin in 1946 to Washington in 2024 he is there at th end of things, profiteering, occasionally killing, always intriguing.
A wanted criminal, no government looks for him too hard, on the off chance they find this most useful of men.
F: Average (06)
A: Average (06)
S: Decent (10)
E: Decent (10)
R: Astounding (50)
I: Average (06)
P: Average (06)
Health: 32
Karma: 62
Wealth: 90% of the time Bad (04); the other 10% of the time World Class (30), but when World Class never for longer than a month or two.
Popularity: -30
Talents / Specialities:
Sneak, Hide, Climbing, Swimming, Hold Breath, Streetwise, Urban Survival, Sewer Survival, Pilot single engine prop, Drive Car, Ride Motorcycle, Pilot Speedboat, Encylopaedic knowledge of local laws, Fast Talk, Pistol Marksmanship*, Trick Shot, Acting, Impersonation**, Disguise**
Powers:
Some believe that the Second Gunman is a Hellspawn of some kind; others that he is an Elemental of the 20th Century, the distillation of the wickedness of the Century of the Sun. One study group within CIA is convinced that he is one of the most powerful Mutants ever known to have existed. One of his old acquaintances is certain Palmer Lime is a Revenant.
Contacts:
Ah Li (lover, deceased)
Anna Schmidt (lover in 1946, alive as of 2023 but extremely elderly)
"Baron" Kurtz (criminal associate, deceased)
Bradford Webster (friend, business associate, deceased)
Holly Martens (friend, pulp writer, deceased)
Jada Conforto (lover, deceased)
Popescu (criminal associate, deceased)
Suzannah Golightly (lover)
Limitations:
Hunted by CIA
Hunted by The Arm
Hunted by previous criminal contacts who he has betrayed
I AM the Bad Guy
Notes::
The Second Gunman has his moments of heroism, but he is a supervillain, a charming urbane anti-hero. Charming or not, he will ruthlessly kill on occasion.
As "the second gunman" he is a suspect in the murders of Archduke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Reinhard Heydrich, JFK, MLK Jr, RFK and numerous other murder plot victims. He is believed to have impersonated Alex, Harvey and Lee Oswald in the period 1956-1960 and to have been present during many of the revolutions and coups of the 20th and 21st Centuries.
He was nearly caught by operatives of James Jesus Angleton at the scene of the death of J. Edgar Hoover and is believed to have taken minox camera photographs of as many of Hoover's private files as he could before being discovered.
He was almost captured as part of a DEA operation in Honduras during George H.W. Bush's war on the CIA's competitors in the drug trade, and again in Wuhan during the international military games held there shortly before the so-called COVID19 outbreak occurred.
Palmer Lime normally carries on his person a .38 revolver or a 9mm self loading pistol of some kind. He has no sentimentality about particular weapons - or anything or anyone else.
At one point Palmer Lime impersonated a Greek shipping magnate and hired himself to investigate his own whereabouts. The seemingly inexplicable part of that story is that there are photographs of both the Greek shipping magnate and the Second Gunman, together, at a masquerade ball.