Mission Seven: You Better Watch Out...

Objectives

• Kill Lorne De Havilland
• Kill Chad Bingham, Jr.
• Retrieve Video Tape
• Escape the Estate

Intel

• Don't expect any presents this year - Santa drinks too much.
• The bartender knows how to help improve performance in the grottos.
• Waiters often shower in the staff changing room.
• Even small, annoying dogs eat sausages.
• The glass-bottomed outdoor jacuzzi looks down on the pier 70 feet below.
• Among the high society, spiked drinks are all the rage.
• Heavy light rigs are installed in the Photo Studio.
• Lorne recently hired a former US Airforce helicopter pilot.

The Setup

You've been tasked with infiltrating the mountain estate of Lorne De Havilland, a well-known pornographer. Your client wants you to eliminate De Havilland, who's making a bit of a side career in blackmail, as well as Chad Bingham, Jr., whom De Havilland is blackmailing after he happened to kill a call girl. Apparently the tape is being dangled over the head of Bingham's father, a senator, with the hopes of getting money out of him during a critical reelection campaign. You also need to retrieve the videotape that's being used to blackmail Bingham.

Now, this mission looks really complicated; there are four different map levels and a lot of different areas to wander around in. Once you figure out how to kill your two targets, though, and find a spot where you can obtain a bodyguard uniform, things simplify somewhat.

Note that the loading screen for this level features a third individual in the background, marked with a question mark. This Black Widow character doesn't appear to be an optional objective, so far as we can tell, but dwells in the love grotto area of the Main House level. You'll spot her when you first walk in through the door, as she beckons you into one of the siderooms, but if you enter after her, she'll turn you around and jab you with poison. Fun! It's possible to kill her by moving away while she's getting the poison out, then turning around and returning the assassination favor, but it's best to just leave her be, as far as we can tell.

The Uniform Dance

You're going to start off here with your normal suit, which is good for wandering around the pier and the bar area at the top of the elevator, but not much else. If you want to access the grotto and the VIP lounge, you'll need to get a VIP Guest uniform.

VIP Guest

To do so, get into the elevator here, then ride to the top. (You can avoid the CCTV by walking behind one of the guards standing next to the elevator's entrance.) The elevator only ever brings people up; no one ever seems to want to go down. That's good for you, though, since you can take advantage of the ride down to climb up into the hatch and pull out your fiber wire. If you got into the elevator as soon as the level started, then the second guest in should be one of the VIPs, allowing you to strangle him and steal his suit. (You can only change clothes when the elevator has stopped, by the way.) If you miss the first VIP, then you'll have to wait around for another one to come up. The VIPs are the guests with the flashing hearts on their suits.

If you want to head straight for a Christmas Guard uniform, note also the guard office near the laser tripwires elsewhere on this first level. If you wait for the guard inside to turn around and head to the soda machine, you can sneak into his office and ice him, but you'll have to dispose of his body off of the railing nearby before the other guard that patrols through here stops and finds it.

Bodyguard

With the VIP suit on, head into the bar area and speak to the bartender to grab the aphrodisiac, which'll come in handy later on. For now, though, just grab it, then head through the guarded passageway nearby to reach the VIP lounge. The love grotto is in the northeast corner of this section, behind a pair of red doors; the first thing you'll see when you enter is a VIP canoodling with the aforementioned Black Widow character. She'll enter a room and beckon you in after her, but again, if you enter, you'll have to either kill her or be killed. You can also find the unconscious body of the prostitute she's knocked out behind the couch.

Video Walk-through

This mission is complicated, but not insurmountable.

Watch It »

Regardless, your goal here is to head down the steps in the southeastern corner of the grotto, which lead down to a small balcony that's on the Staff Terrace section of the map. There's a bodyguard who periodically heads through the door to the upper level of the steps, but he's not all that hard to avoid. When you hit the balcony, jump over the railing onto the rock ledge along the cliff, then follow it along until you reach the terrace.

Now, in order to grab a Bodyguard uniform, you can pop open the utility box nearby and wait for one of the bodyguards to step outside to fix it. There's a small chance that you might be spotted if you use your fiberwire on him, since there's a couple of guards on patrols through the hallway nearby, so your best bet is to grab him as a human shield and drag him around the corner to the body disposal box before knocking him out and stealing his uniform.

With the bodyguard outfit on, you have unfettered access to almost every area of the map, with the exception of the helipad. You can actually reach the helipad, which is one of your exit points, but doing so will require you to be frisked, so you might have to give up some of your custom weapons to use it as an exfiltration point.