The Ship Inn sits overlooking the bay, decorated inside to look like the belly of a galleon – timbered walls standing in for a hull, ornate glass windows, smokeless wall sconces flickering against shafts of real sunlight through small skylights above. It reads as an upmarket restaurant, and mostly is one. It is also, on a fairly regular schedule, where Zhakarov eats.

FILE NOTES

A tail on the NIL diplomat Thom turned up exactly that pattern – dinner at the Ship Inn, on a rotation, with company Section 18 very much wanted to meet. What the Agents got instead, the one time they staked the place out to intervene on a rival hit against him, was a lesson in how little of Zhakarov actually shows up to his own dinners. The man at the table took a real beating protecting the room; word came back through channels later that the “Zhakarov” the Agents had just saved was a body-double, sworn to identity-swap amulets and public appearances so the genuine article never has to sit still in the open. The Chuza Cutters, gunning for the wrong face all night, found that out the hard way.

FLOORPLANS

Whatever the real Zhakarov thought of the Agents interrupting a hit meant for his own stand-in, he took it as a favour rather than an insult – a rare piece of goodwill from a crime boss who owes Section 18 nothing, and one that’s bought more than one Agent a quieter week since.

STATUS: Filed under Locations. Watched, on and off, whenever Section 18 has the manpower to spare – see Zhakarov for who’s actually eating there, and who almost certainly isn’t.