Dancing Joker

The Dancing Joker is quite possibly the best professional assassin in the Inner Sphere. His real name is unknown and in the novels he is commonly referenced to his most famous code-name Dancing Joker.

Description

He is of average size and weight. He is of neither asian, nor african descent. His hair is straight and probably black.

He has no morals and doesn't mind killing anybody. He regards himself as an unstoppable force of nature.

He is a master of disguise and regularly creates false persona as cover. This goes so far, as he rigorously adopts the character of the person he impersonates. For example, he only smiles, if there's a reason for his role to smile. And he doesn't show emotion when eating something delicious, when his role is used to eating this.

History

His first famous victim was Melissa Steiner-Davion. Her daughter Katherine Steiner-Davion hired him, to kill her. He planned to kill her with a bomb. He knew that her favourite flower was Mycosia pseudoflora and that nobody would suspect anything wrong, when garden pottery with this plant would show up. He created garden pottery out of plastic explosives and arranged it at a tribune, where she would hold a speech. The plot went of as planned and Melissa Steiner-Davion died. As collateral damage Salome Ward was killed and Morgan Kell was mutilated.

Crown-Prince Victor Steiner-Davion succeeded in capturing the assassin. He needed him, because he had found out, that Ryan Steiner was somehow involved in this plot. Victor's agents catched him, by arranging an accident. The assassin crossed the street, disguised as a normal pedestrian and a car drove into him.
The plan was to kill Ryan Steiner with a sniper rifle and almost everything went as planned. Ryan Steiner died while he was talking to his personal assistant Sven Newmark. Then the assassin killed his wardens and disappeared. (Sven Newmark would later play an important role in uncovering Katherine Steiner-Davion's involvement in Melissa Steiner-Davion's assassination.)

In 3064 Katherine Steiner-Davion again hired the assassin. It was in the midst of the FedCom Civil War and Katherine wanted to break the spirit of her brother Victor by killing the most important person in his life: his love Omi Kurita.

The assassin got his first chance on Coventry. Omi and Isis Marik were visiting Victor during a short period of reconciliation. The arrival of Isis Marik was the assassin's chance to regularly enter the mansion: He posed as a mentally disabled delivery boy and spent days transporting carpets and furniture. When he felt ready, he entered the house by night. He reached the door to Omi Kurita's bedroom and heavily wounded her body-guard Tiaret Nevversan, with salvo from his needle-gun. That was when Isis stabbed him from behind with a letter opener. He answered with a punch to her face and turned around to kill Omi, when Tiaret fired a bullet into his chest, which broke a rib. The assassin barely escaped.

In 3066 the assassin finally got his second chance to kill Omi: It was on Luthien, in the palace of the Kurita-family itself. The assassin disguised as an asian gardener who immigrated to Luthien from the recently reconquered Smoke Jaguar worlds. He manipulated the souvenir Victor gave to Omi: a stone which had a special place in the garden. He knew, that no gardener would dare to touch the stone, so he installed a trap and slightly moved the stone. When Omi Kurita corrected it's position, poisoned darts were fired into her arm. She died with Victor's name on her lips.

The assassin knew, that prey stirs attention by movement. And with the completion of his mission he had turned from hunter into prey. Theodore Kurita immediately shut down all interstellar travel in the whole Draconis Combine, but the assassin was unaffected: He already lived his life as a neighbourhood-watchman.

Victor sent Jerrard Cranston to help the Draconian authorities in catching the assassin. But it seemed like this help wasn't appreciated as Cranston was held busy with bureau-work. Finally it was Minoru Kurita who tracked him down.

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Sources

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