It's been a difficult few weeks, running through the Russian underworld from one safe house to another. I think I may be close to my objective though; I hear more news of this 'Kyatkjsl' every day. He's been keeping offradar for some time. I'm meeting up with Yuri later, hopefully to find out once and for all where I can find the BossMan. Oh, Yuri... that guy can sure drink his vodka 
Gunshots!! We ran from the street corner, where we intended to meet our contact. It was an ambush!! Twisting through the alleyways, we headed for the Embassy. We didn't like to blow our cover, but we were under attack. Rounding the final corner, we felt brickdust shatter across our face, as rounds from a silenced automatic pumped into the adjacent wall.
We sprinted across the tarmac, feeling them closing behind. Closing our eyes against the rushing wind,we pushed as hard as we could... Soldiers, there... On the gates. "Help!" We cried. "We being chased! Let us in!" The soliders stood steadfast, not moving to open the gates. Looking up we saw the flag flying above the gate... American. "Shit!"
We turned to face our pursuers, and drew our weapons.... 
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So, it's been a tough week by all accounts. My primary access to t'internet has conked out, and so I'm left to posting this from the vast unknownness that is the public library. PDA gone, MSN messanger is now a distant memory. While here at the library though, I've set up a new email account to match my new pseudoname - jimreaperAThotmailDOTcoDOTuk
The sale of 75% of the shops owned by our company has hit the workforce hard. With only 36 shops left, there will be 26 redundancies made; six will be from our pool of 19. They started to make preliminary announcements yesterday as to the state of play. There were some people who were just released as of yesterday. The IT manager; good bloke, cricket fan, always a smile - didn't even see him leave. The head of security; worked with him in cash checking/security liasons - again didn't see him leave.
This has hit me harder than I thought it would, to be honest. Despite being safe in the knowledge that my job is secure, it was incredibly depressing to see people, who I've worked with for over three years now, in this situation. The rest of our department wasn't in work yesterday (bar one bloke, who's also safe thankfully), so Monday could be difficult again.
I'm finding it hard to take my mind away from everything that's happening; I can't even concentrate fully when playing poker. Which is usually my strongest attribute 
I think that "The Elite" will have to go on hold for a while, at least until I can get access to net, where I can spend a few hours writing away anyway.
That's all for now, and remember... smile when you can 
