Poisoning the Well (2004)

From publisher blurb:

This is a standard RPGA Network tournament for a team of four to six 4th-level agents (though the serial’s challenges and XP rewards are tiered so that the serial can be played by up to six agents of levels 9, 14, or 19 as well).

Walter Wainwright the Second is the insane, bankrupt owner of Wainwright Pharmaceuticals, whose latest drug makes people believe they’re migratory birds. Wainwright uses this “Avis drug” to re-establish himself as a financial power, and to gain revenge upon the shareholders who abandoned him.

In the previous Living Spycraft serial, SPA4-04: Empty Houses, Wainwright infected small villages in Southern England and hired gangs of thugs to clean them out. The agents were called in to investigate the most recent attack, in Wivelsfield Green north of London, and likely captured one or more of Wainwright’s henchmen in the process.

Today…

Three mercenary henchmen assist Walter Wainwright — Dominic Bender, a former MI5 operative, Arcadia, a smalltime thief and Wainwright’s opportunistic lover, and “The Faceless,” a fanatically loyal cult of hired killers. In the aftermath of “Empty Houses,” Bender and Arcadia are both likely captured and the Wainwright Pharmaceuticals home office is raided. The intelligence gleaned from this operation leads directly into “Poisoning the Well”.