'MAGNUM P.I.'
"LITTLE GAMES"
'SPOOKS' (aka 'MI5')
CHARACTER STUDY:
KRISTA VILLAROCHE aka TESSA PHILLIPS
Krista Villaroche was a preventions analyst/investigator for Wakeman Insurance. Her last big case dealt with the security of the Robin's Nest estate in Hawai'i for the Robin Masters Jewelry Design Competition in 1984-85. She succumbed to the temptation to assist her father, legendary jewel thief Doc Villaroche, in making one last big score by stealing the entries in the competition, including the Karachi Diamond which was insured for about $175 million.
Although it angered Doc, Krista was relieved when she found out that Thomas Magnum had anticipated her plans and switched out all of the jewels, to be replaced by his Vietnam memento tream ring featuring the Cross of Lorraine. She returned the ring with thanks for saving her soul and with the promise that one day she would return the favor.
Right after this case, Ms. Villaroche was approached by the British intelligence organization know as MI5, with a request to pull off a job for them at the American Embassy in London at the Court of St. James. This of course would mean it was on American soil. Should she be apprehended while committing the crime, the agency would disavow all knowledge of her.
They needed the best at her craft to pull off the heist since the security system for the embassy, but the safe in particular, had been designed by a former thief working for the SIA, Alexander Mundy.
Having proven herself successful in the "acquisition", Krista was offered a permanent position with MI5, which she accepted. However, she was too well-known in many circles as not only Krista Villaroche, but also as the daughter of Doc Villaroche. So she chose a new identity: that of Tessa Phillips.
("Phillips" was her mother's maiden name, and the first name was a diminutive of the nickname her father called her whenever he told her "bedtime stories" about kidnapped Persian princes, the Crusades, and the Nazi connection to the Karachi Diamond. "Tessa" was short for "Contessa".)
When Doc Villaroche died under suspicious circumstances, something in "Tessa Phillips" changed; she became hard and cynical, always attempting to gain the upper hand in the office politics at Whitechapel. And, having discovered how easy it was to create a new persona, she invented several fictional members of her team as a section chief in the Counter-Terrorism Unit. This way she was able to draw about four more salaries in addition to her own.
Once her ploy was uncovered by MI5 agent Zoe Reynolds, Krista/Tessa had no option but to flee, as she would be facing "extreme sanction" as a traitor to the state for stealing from the Crown. Unable to use her identities as either Krista or Tessa, she assumed one of her other emergency aliases not known to the bureau. She then called upon the memories of the stories told to her by her father of the Karachi Diamond and of its possession by Martin Bormann in South America*.
And if Bormann was able to elude capture there, being one of the most wanted men by the whole world......
To this day, Krista/Tessa is safely ensconced in South America under a new identity. She may yet reappear on the Toobworld stage.
(There is some conjecture in the contstruction of this biography.)
BCnU!
* In the Trueniverse, Bormann's remains were found in West Berlin back in the 1960's. The Toobworld follows the line of contention espoused by Nazi Hunter Simon Wiesenthal that Bormann escaped to South America.
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