Glancing up he saw some ACME members enter the library. They hadn't seen him yet, but he was wearing a suit of armor, so he decided that it was time to leave. He walked nonchalantly towards the rear door at first, but had to hasten his step after knocking over a children's book display.

Exiting the building he realized that he had left Carmen's clue on the desk. Too late now--he would just have to hurry to the destination.

(Where is Sir Vile going and what is he planning to steal? Role-playing.)

He had just made it to the courtyard as he heard the alarms go off inside the Waterloo barracks. Dat was Heer Vile, he thought. According to the plan, the knight had just rushed into the jewel chambers and dropped a smoke bomb containing a mild hallucinogen. Now the cameras could no longer see the hulking figure and the police wouldn’t believe tales about a knight in shining armour from the dazed witnesses. And yet, at that very moment, a massive armoured fist smashed though the security glass and extracted the Imperial State ground.

Goed.

Eddie had just reached the entrance to the White Tower and could no longer see how Sir Vile suddenly crashed through the window and let himself fall, but he did hear the gigantic thud of the armour absorbing the blow as it reverberated inside the courtyard.

Eddie had barely had time to get into position when he saw Sir Vile enter through the same door he’d taken into the Armoury in White Tower and suddenly… stop and stand as still as a statue in front of the wall, unseen by the visitors who hadn’t heard the commotion through the thick stone walls and were still engrossed in their sightseeing.

Brave jongen. He’d followed the plan perfectly.

It was Eddie’s turn now, as he made his way to Sir Vile and rasped the accorded signal on his breastplate. Gently, Sir Vile loosened his gauntlet, giving Eddie access to the crown, which he replaced with two train tickets and an inconspicuous slip of paper.

He now had only a few seconds to leave the place before the theft was confirmed and the area cordoned off. Despite this, he couldn’t resist one last glance at the unmoving Sir Vile, now being admired by two small children.

Sir Vile would exit later, under the cover of the night, but Eddie was already blending in with the crowd in the underground, who would never have dreamed he was carrying their country’s most precious possession in a bag from Tesco’s.

His disguise was perfect. In a city where 7% of the population was of Indian ethnicity, who would suspect him? In an armoury, who would suspect a suit of armour?

[Seeing how long it has taken ACME to solve the clue, surely, we have at least a day or two of head start, right? Sir Vile should be gone by the time the agents land.]

By dusk a crowd of eight children surrounded Sir Vile, laughing and rubbing his armor with some sort of brightly-colored sticks. He just didn't understand the children of the future. So loud, and...happy. What good were they if they weren't out working the fields? They could all use a good epidemic to ground them a bit, he thought.

Losing his patience when one of the girls began stuffing grass into his armor's crevices, he bent over to shoo them away, flicking his metal wrists in an outward motion. This created a brief pause of complete silence. Then several of them began to scream in high-pitched tones and run around, drawing the attention of nearby adults. Hrmm...not good.

Panting through a clamorous exit, Sir Vile examined the clue that the mysterious Indian man had placed in his gauntlet:

Where an ofen and furnace formed one city
Your next target is in Parliament
Higher than highnesses, an authority
So mighty that, although cross-bent,
Sat near to Arthur in the king's Last Sleep.

Out of the need to hold it close to his facemask and run simultaneously, he ended up stumbling dramatically. Standing again, he caught glimpse of the slip of paper whisping back towards the Tower in the evening breeze. No matter--he knew this one.

(OOC: Glad you two could make it!  Let's catch Sir Vile and Eddie Mology!!)

"Good work guys!" Brian exclaimed, "And I solved the other half of the clue!  The Crown of Hungary is in the Hungarian Parliament Building, and on it is an image of Jesus Christ, the mighty cross-bent authority, whose followers had a major influence on the tales of King Arthur.  Who wants to C-5 to Budapest!?!" Brian said, eager for action.

(Correct object and location. The Holy Crown of Hungary is itself the highest authority in Hungary: the King is chosen for it, not the other way around. The cross at its apex is famously bent, and it was depicted in Edward Burne-Jones' masterpiece The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon. Here's a zoom-in of the section that has it--it's on the ground. http://cgfa.dotsrc.org/burne/p-burne18.htm)

Istvan, head of Parliament security, pressed the rewind button on the machine below monitor four. While the tape inside whirred he smirked at the image upon monitor one: the two American agents were gesticulating impatiently to his men, who were blocking the exit from the crown jewel room. Hah, Istvan thought, let them wait. Serves them right for coming in here, ordering my guards around as if I couldn't handle this myself. He stopped the tape and pressed play, then on second thought stopped it again and rose to get some coffee. Finding the sugar bowl empty, he stomped into an adjacent room and ordered an employee to retrieve a new bowl from the break room, then grudgingly returned to his seat and started the machine.

This tape showed the central hall, where the employee at the front desk had called in suspicious activity. Sure enough, there was a knight reading a magazine--some loon, no doubt--but no thief. Then entered one of his guards with an empty trash bag--picking up the slack from the janitorial team, he'd have to be commended--which he used to replace a trash bin. The knight stood up and took the bag--wait a second. Istvan rewound the tape to just before the knight stood. Yes, he had definitely hidden something there. What was it, a slip of paper? A note? Probably nothing. He'd have one of the guards put it on his desk.

Stepping back into the crown jewel room he ordered a guard in rapid Hungarian, jerking his thumb towards the central hall. Approaching the two ACME agents he smiled politely and spoke in accented English: "I'm so sorry but we have a technical difficulty and the tapes cannot be played. But we now have a suspect, and so your services are no longer required. My men will escort you out." With a gesture to the four guards, Istvan exited.