If only life is like a techno song...
Sunday, December 17, 2006
「 dancing away 5:48 PM 」


GTA series story line

1971

The Forelli crime family has Liberty City in its iron grip. Tommy Vercetti is the right-hand man of the Don, Sonny Forelli. This has been a way of life for him for quite some time now.One day, Tommy is ambushed and arrested by the local police department. Tommy is charged and convicted of drug dealing and serial murders (he killed eleven men). He's sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison with mental counselling and no chance for parole. His bosses could easily make bail, but instead they disown him. Without outside help, he's doomed to serve the entire term.

1986

After a decade and a half, Tommy Vercetti is finally released from prison after serving his sentence. Sonny Forelli consults with his partners on how to handle his problem student. Tommy caused a lot of trouble in the seventies, and his sudden reappearance is liable to upset the locals.With a view of continuing to keep his operations out of sight, Sonny immediately carts him off to Vice City. The Forellis' man there is a crooked lawyer called Ken Rosenberg. He'll be in charge of directing Tommy. Sonny really doesn't care what Tommy does as long as he stays far away from Liberty City.Tommy catches the next flight to Vice City, where Rosenberg meets him at Escobar International Airport. Unfortunately, things almost immediately take a turn for the worst.Ken's worked for a while now to set up a drug deal between the Forellis' Vice City men and some suppliers. As Ken intends it, they got to the grower, then fly it every so often in their helicopter to a pre-decided point, where one of his boys picks it up. They in turn send it off to Liberty City, where Sonny makes a whole lot of money off it through re-sale, and rewards them handsomely for their efforts.Tommy, Ken, Harry, and Lee meet on the Vice City docks as planned, but the brothers quickly double-cross them. They kill Harry and Lee as Tommy and Ken narrowly avoid the same fate, then run off with both the drugs and Sonny's capital - three MILLION dollars.Needless to say, Sonny is not impressed. Anybody else would be dead for this, but because it's Tommy, he gives him a chance to redeem himself. After swearing to return the money and put those responsible to justice (?), Tommy regroups with Ken at his law office off Vice Beach.Retired colonel Juan Garcia Cortez is holding a big party out on his yacht and all the big names in Vice City are going to be there. Cortez was the man who helped Ken set the cocaine deal in motion. Rosenberg obviously can't attend, but he still has his invitation, and since Tommy is new in town, he can go in his stead. After a quick trip to Rafael's to update his wardrobe, Tommy jumps on board (literally) and rendezvous with Cortez. He has other matters to attend to, being the sorta-life of the party after all, but asks his daughter Mercedes to show Tommy a good time. She takes the liberty of pointing out all the Vice City players.This is valuable information, but she is soon distracted by the appearance of Ricardo Diaz, one of her daddy's army buddies, and Tommy is left alone for the rest of the night. He returns to the office. Now Tommy figures they need a streetear, so Rosenberg suggests Kent Paul, an old friend, at The Malibu. Tommy 'persuades' Paul to give up some information. Paul admits that the chef at the Oceans hotel might be involved. The conversation with the chef isn't productive, but Tommy meets Lance Vance in the kitchens. Lance shows him around town and gets him a piece.Tommy's already made some connections, but things aren't going so well - he still hasn't found the money and his bosses are coming down to Vice City to check up on him. To buy more time, Tommy has to intimidate a jury into letting Sonny's cousin Giorgio go. Then, in another bid to keep the barbarians outside the gate, Ken speaks with Avery Carrington, whom Tommy saw at the yacht party. Carrington is interested in some land, but the owners won't sell - Tommy convinces them it might be a good idea. In return, Carrington promises to keep the locals off his back.Meanwhile, Tommy has also been working for others, including Cortez and Diaz. Cortez, for example, requests that he takes care of the shamefully behaving Gonzalez, yet another face TV recognizes from the party. Next, he steals some kind of mysterious technological wonder from a Frenchman, and along with Lance Vance he oversees a business transaction between Ricardo Diaz and some Haitians. But the Haitians betray Diaz and run off with the money and their produce - this is starting to sound familiar. Diaz is almost killed, but makes it through thanks to Lance's quick trigger finger. Tommy gives chase, kills the snakes and returns Diaz's property.Cortez really loves his toys. Being retired military, things that blow stuff up are the best. He gives Tommy a big chance to put a bit of a dent in his debt, hiring him to steal a bit of fancy new military hardware. Tommy duly acquires it, but the French are quick on the riposte. Cortez now has two pieces of their missile technology, and that's two more than they want him to have. Cortez does the smart thing and quits while he's ahead, and alive. Tommy escorts him to Vice City Docks and he races off back to his home country, but not before offering Tommy his reserved boat launch as a token of his appreciation.Cortez may be gone, but Diaz is intrigued after Tommy's performance at the exchange. They at the horse racetrack (ever the popular gangster place of good times.) Diaz, like so many others in this town, is obsessed with making money, which is why he bets so heavily, and why he hires Tommy to track down one of his minions who is scalping him for 3% of what he should be getting. He pays up...and not literally, either.When Tommy sees him next, he's in a fury. Somebody's selling real estate on his watch, and that's simply unacceptable. He orders Tommy to meet his friend Quentin, who will fly him in so that Tommy can take care of business. In reality, Quentin has Diaz completely fooled: He's actually Lance Vance. Diaz killed Lance's brother and he suspects he intends to kill Vercetti as well. Lance flies him in on a helicopter as Tommy rides shotgun. Eventually Lance manages to land, then takes off, leaving Tommy to finish up.It's also become clear that Diaz is insane. Tommy finds him shooting at pigeons who land on his car. Diaz has heard that the Vice City boatyard has just completed work on a boat that's even faster than his, and he wants it. Tommy, of course, steals it for him. Tommy sure must be one smooth thief. He soon finds a use for the speedboat he just stole, however. Every month a freelancer moors off Vice City's coast and sells his cargo to the first guy there. With Lance in tow and the speed demon dinghy, Tommy beats the other bidders to the yacht, though not without a fierce gunfight. Now he knows Diaz is responsible for the deal going wrong and he's collected more than enough information on him.Lance sees an opportunity and jumps Diaz, failing completely. Diaz holds him at the junkyard. Kent Paul contacts Tommy unexpectedly and delivers the news. Tommy breaks in and busts Lance loose, but thanks to that bit of idiocy all his careful planning has gone to waste. Lance has forced Tommy's hand.It's time to move. Lance reveals that he has saved up an impressive armoury over the year. Tommy and Lance assault Diaz's mansion and kill him. With Diaz out of the picture, Tommy is free to turn his old haunt into the Vercetti Estates, and also to buy other real estate as it suits him. Ken Rosenberg and Avery Carrington join them and the newly inaugurated gang, the Vercettis, sets up shop. Everyone agrees that Tommy needs to start earning some respect and getting his name out there. He starts by extorting the overdue protection racquets from local small business owners.Some problems arise when one of the Vercetti thugs is supposed to light up a mall, but he gets the fuses wrong and the bomb ends up not going off. The police are all over it like your dad on Velveeta. The cops are liable to figure out who it was any second, and the Vercettis better not be at Vercetti Estates when they do. Tommy thinks for a moment, then proposes the solution: They steal some cops' uniforms, poke around the crime scene, then torch the place, destroying all the evidence. They jump a few cops, steal their uniforms and squad car, and take a look around the mall. When nobody's looking, they set the bomb to blow and get the hell out of there.This is all well and good, but Sonny Forelli is quite tired of waiting at this point. He sends a man down to collect his money. Tommy takes it in stride and just caps him, but he has to work fast. He has Rosenberg load up a briefcase with three million dollars in counterfeit cash. Tommy grudgingly gives him the fakeitude, but all is not well. Lance Vance sold him out to the Forellis. A gunfight ensues. Tommy kills first Lance and then Sonny. Now he has his three million dollars back (he recovered the original paper) and his revenge is complete.Ken returns and is against at the carnage. But he soon brightens up when he realises what's happened. For now, Liberty City is out of the picture; it's all about Vice City now. The remains of the Vercettis control the south. Tommy has won.

1987

Carl 'CJ' Johnson was born in small-town Los Santos - hardly the greatest place for a kid to grow up, but he called it home for a long time. Despite his mother's Christian influence he wasn't exactly a model individual, though, and on top of that the crooked police officers who roamed his neighbourhood constantly harassed him - and the rest of his family, for that matter, but they took particular pleasure in pushing CJ around. In 1987, he leaves to pursue bigger opportunities in Liberty City - and because he allowed his brother Brian to die. He stays for five years

1992

CJ gets a call from his brother Sweet. Their mother is dead. Murdered, perhaps. CJ returns to attend the funeral, but he arrives too late and misses it. He takes a taxi away from the airport, but his old nemesis officer Tenpenny and his cronies Pulaski and Hernandez pull him over and arrest him, 'confiscating' his money while they're at it. Tenpenny killed another officer only moments ago because he threatened to expose them, though at this point only the three officers know who did it, and tries right there to pin it on CJ. On their way to the station, they receive a radio message regarding the officer they just killed. Forced to abandon CJ and return to the crime scene, they drop him off in Rollin' Heights Ballas turf. He finds a wreck of a bike and makes his way to his old house, now owned by Big Smoke.After Big Smoke's initial consternation at having a stranger in his house, the two reunite as old friends. Big Smoke suggests they visit Sweet at the cemetery, where CJ's mom is being interred momentarily. It is not a particularly happy reunion. Sweet now leads the Grove Street Families, doing his best and often failing to keep them clean, and in CJ's five-year absence a lot of good boys have been killed in their turf wars with the Ballas, the Grove Street's rivals since CJ was a kid. Meanwhile, Kendl is dating Cesar Vialpando, whom Sweet heartily disapproves of. Los Santos has turned into one big gangster battleground. In short, it is not a fun place to be. CJ is determined not to get involved in all this, but he isn't given a choice. The Ballas, knowing where they were going to be, have been staking out the cemetery, and do a drive-by. Nobody is hurt, but Big Smoke's hot vintage car gets caught in the crossfire and is totalled. The homies grab bikes and pedal for all they're worth back to Grove Street, narrowly avoiding the Ballas' wrath.CJ intended to pay his respects and then get right back to his clean, legitimate life in Liberty. He gets a haircut and puts on his colours, then helps Ryder reclaim some of the Grove Street's tags, meanwhile blotting out the Ballas. They're starting to reclaim their old hood. The former splendour of Grove Street is starting to be restored. CJ and Ryder try to recruit their old associates B Dup and Big Bear back into the fold, but are refused. CJ is starting to realize that Los Santos, and Grove Street in particular, is way more messed up than he thought. He's come home to a city of crackheads. He resolves to start taking out the pushers. Several more confrontations with the Ballas soon ensue, all of which CJ is involved in. They then strive to procure firearms. All the gangsters have gotten more sophisticated and more dangerous weaponry since CJ was last in town; their old supplier can hardly even keep up nowadays. Nonetheless, they purchase some guns from him in case the Ballas come marching down Grove Street. But with their new arms, they strike back at the Ballas with a drive-by of their own.The Seville Boulevard Families aren't pleased with the Grove Street activities. Word gets out and Sweet has to hole up with his girl inside a Seville Boulevard house. CJ rushes over and drives them away in the nick of time, but the damage is done.Sweet's dislike of Cesar Vialpando continues. When Kendl storms out of the house to get to him and away from Sweet, Sweet tells CJ to follow her and make sure Cesar doesn't try to pull anything cute. Kendl meets Cesar at a low-riders car club, where CJ quickly schools Cesar. CJ and Cesar are uneasily acquainted face-to-face. Afterwards, alone, CJ and Cesar decide that although they aren't exactly friends and they definitely don't agree about Cesar's relationship with Kendl, that doesn't mean they have to be on each other's cases all the time. So they're cool, sort of.Even though Big Bear and B Dup have become slaves to drugs, rapper (and self-proclaimed gangsta) OG Loc is only too happy to rejoin them; he's just been released from prison for a relatively minor infraction, and CJ, Sweet and Big Smoke pick him up. OG Loc's first prerogative is to take his revenge on Freddy, another rapper whom he claims stole OG's rhymes. They met in prison, but that doesn't mean they're friends; OG kills him. For his part, CJ helps out Big Smoke with a few small-time jobs, like busting up drug deals. Meanwhile, Tenpenny is harrying Big Smoke for no reason in particular.CJ is in tight now. He and Ryder got to a house on the East Beach and steal a whole lot of guns from an ex-army suit, then from a local Nation Guard depot, more than tripling their inventory.OG Loc decides he's going to go hard-core gangsta rapper and get his image out there. He decides he'll start building his reputation, and to do that he needs to record a few songs. He's been working janitorial duty at the Burger Shot, and he heard a van with a killer sound system come through the drive-thru one day. Overhearing their plans for a beach party that evening, he has CJ steal the van, then rips it all out. Next, he wants the rhyme book of famed Los Santos rapper Madd Dogg. CJ breaks into Madd Dogg's mansion in the hills and makes his way past the rapper's personal security squad to steal it right out of the recording studio. CJ then takes out Madd Dogg's promotions manager, Scipio, because he's slandering OG and cramping his style big time. Being fired from Burger Shot for mouthing off is just the catalyst he needs. It's finally time to get heard! OG hosts a party at his Grove Street house. It isn't very well received, mostly because his songs are horrible. Halfway through, a GSF homie runs in and tells them they have five minutes before Ballas start swarming Grove Street. CJ, Sweet, Ryder, and others suit up, and a couple more GSF boys drive ahead to block the road. They then proceed to take down every Balla who so much as glances at Grove Street.In the meantime, Tenpenny has come to see CJ as a potentially useful tool. Using intimidation as a handy motivation, the first assignment he gives CJ is to assassinate one of their problems, a Vagos ganger - no corpse, thanks. CJ doesn't realize until after that he's trapped the guy's girl inside. He runs in and drags out Denise Robinson. They agree to maybe go out or something, sometime, yeah. Tenpenny alerts CJ to a meeting between the Russians and the Ballas, which he listens in on. Next he pushes the Ballas out of Glen Park with Sweet at his side. A Balla called Little Weasel gets dropped during that fight. The Ballas hold a proper funeral for him, and the GSF homies jump them, just like they had done to them at Beverly Johnson's burial. They catch a ton of them in the same place at once, and the bloodshed is great. They take out Kane, the Ballas leader. GSF is on the map!Sweet has a plan to unite all the Families into one big syndicate. CJ, Sweet, Ryder and Big Smoke hop in the van to meet the rest of the Families at the Jefferson Motel. Somehow, though, the Los Santos Police Department has found out about the gig, and they start to rappel from helicopters to apprehend the GSF homies. Ryder and Big Smoke split, but CJ runs into the motel and joins Sweet. They fight their way out and Big Smoke doubles back to pick them up. The police give chase, but they escape after some insane driving and the sacrifice of the car.This failure is bad, but it's about to get much worse. Sweet plans to stick it to the Ballas and tells a bunch of GSF homies to meet him under Mulholland Bridge. Unfortunately, Big Smoke has sold them out. He too has become a slave to drugs. Cesar Vialpando immediately takes it upon himself to show CJ. CJ is alarmed as he realises Big Smoke knows about the rendezvous, and the GSF are about to walk into a trap! He advises Cesar to take Kendl to a safe place and races to head off Big Smoke and the Ballas. He arrives in the middle of a heated gunfight between the GSF and the Ballas. CJ fights for so long, then the police arrive to break it up. Tenpenny, Pulaski and Hernandez arrive, dragging CJ out of the fray before he can be arrested. Sweet is caught and put in prison hospital awaiting trial. Tenpenny wants CJ to do some more jobs for them, as he needs them done. First, he has to take out a snitch who's hiding on Mt Chiliad. He takes care of this job easily. CJ and Tenpenny are sure to keep in touch.One day in a bar, CJ is surprised to find a spicy, knife-wielding Mexican woman holding it up, rather than the expected sight of Cesar knocking back a beer. She is Catalina, and she's very dangerous. CJ goes along with her to keep her placid. He helps her rob a gas station to start. Thwarted by bulletproof glass, Catalina steals the gas tanker instead and pulls it up to a truck yard. She sells it and its contents to a man named Whittaker for a nice chunk of cash.Tenpenny calls CJ to a motel. Here, he meets The Truth, an enigmatic individual indeed. CJ helps him out with an aggressive problem he's having. When CJ goes to The Truth's farm afterwards, he's still trying to sell him drugs. CJ isn't interested at all. Cesar and Kendl are now hiding out in a trailer park, and Cesar is convinced Big Smoke is selling drugs carted in from San Fierro twice a week. That's supposedly how he's getting all his money.CJ goes to Catalina's house to apologize for his earlier misbehaviour. She tackles him to the ground, but he sweet-talks her out of shooting him. They set off on a merry quest to rob banks and kill random people. They proceed to hold up a whole lot of Los Santos liquor stores and other small businesses. Next time, they rob a real bank. But after that, Catalina is very hostile towards CJ, apparently because he never calls. When they rob another bank, the police show up. They steal police motorcycles and split.Cesar calls CJ out to a farm to meet blind Triad leader Wu Zi Mu, or Woozie as his friends call him. Even though he's blind, Woozie challenges CJ to a car track-race (!) for pinks; CJ wins.His next race is under less friendly circumstances. Catalina shows up with Claude Fido in tow. She's in an almighty fury now; she takes it out on CJ's car with a crowbar. Catalina challenges CJ to race Claude. Again, CJ wins without much trouble, earning himself the deed to a San Fierro garage. Catalina scoffs at his skills anyway, claiming that Claude was actually doing two things at once while he was racing. She announces her intention to leave Los Santos forever: She's going to Liberty City. CJ wishes her well. Ironically, Catalina doesn't even love Claude at all, she's just taking him for business reasons, and to get back at CJ. Subsequently, The Truth's farm is attacked by police. They quickly torch his weed fields, then have to run. They can't stay where they are and Los Santos is closed to CJ for now. They flee to San Fierro, and CJ's homies (including Cesar and Kendl) set up shop in the garage he won. He recruits two mechanics, Jethro and Dwaine, and a technician, Zero. Kendl, the sharp businesswoman, realises that what they're doing has potential; they could develop and sell property. CJ and Cesar set to work fixing up the garage as she thinks about it some more.Now that he's settled in, CJ decides to exert a little influence on the landscape of San Fierro - a place which, by the way, he is thoroughly failing to enjoy. He plants some drugs on a DA's car to get him off Tenpenny's back, then takes over a construction site in retaliation for the workers thinking Kendl is a prostitute. He also helps out Zero in his personal battles with his nemesis, Berkley, which are really rather petty after the fact.CJ is still trying to figure out what the deal is with the San Fierro drug running. Cesar and Woozie both provide him with some information to that end. The Triads have information about the T-Bonez, who may be involved. CJ befriends and begins to work for Jizzy, gang co-leader and owner of the Pleasure Domes Club, in order to get in close and find out if and how the T-Bonez are involved. He's having a spat with T-Bone himself about how much money he should be getting, but he soon sets it off to the side a little. After getting in tight with the T-Bonez, he figures out when and where the Ballas come to get their shipments, and decides to ambush them. Now that he knows Jizzy is definitely involved in the Ballas' Los Santos drug operations, he goes to the Pleasure Domes Club and pops him.Shortly after, CJ, Cesar and the Triads set up to crash the meet. CJ hoists a sniper rifle from the roof alongside Cesar. CJ and friends shoot all the Ballas hanging around. Sadly, Ryder, too, has fallen by the wayside. He, T-Bone and his sellers start showing up. Toreno flies by in a helicopter, sees the bodies, panics, and floods the area with smoke bombs. CJ, Cesar and the Triads work quickly to take out all the T-Bonez, T-Bone himself, and Ryder.After that, CJ starts to work for Woozie. This is somewhat untimely, as a brutal gang war has just erupted. A Vietnamese gang, the Da Nang Boys, is relocating to San Fierro, and they don't like the idea that the Chinese got there first. They wipe out the Blood Feathers, one of the Mountain Cloud's strongest friends. (The Mountain Cloud Triad being Woozie's gang.) When CJ visits Woozie in his Chinatown hideout again, he learns the apartment is under Da Nang watch. CJ leads them away so that Woozie and the other Triads inside the apartment can escape to a safer location. He also bugs a Da Nang boat in the San Fierro harbour. In the meantime, Woozie has found out where CJ's former friends' crack lab is. CJ promptly blows it to bits. The Triads-Da Nang Boys war continues, but CJ leaves it alone for now. Cesar has a few ideas for improving the business.CJ gets an idea and goes out to the desert to make a better acquaintance of Mike Toreno. The Truth begins working for Toreno, too. As it turns out, Toreno actually works for a government agency. He asks CJ to commandeer a trucker, then perform all manner of other tasks. He proves time and again that he knows much more than he's letting on. He has some information about Sweet's prison condition, and he assures CJ that he's also ensuring Sweet's safety while there, since no one else can. He messes with CJ's mind. He also makes CJ learn to fly a helicopter. Government assassinations, equipment delivery, it's all fair. Eventually Toreno gets clearance to take out his tails, so naturally, he has CJ take care of that one too. Thanks to CJ's hard work, Toreno is now much freer to go about his business, and he's working on getting Sweet out of prison. The Truth calls CJ back to the airfield, his latest secret personal-occult base. The Truth wants him to break into the Area 69 military research base and retrieve the latest Black Project from inside. He then has CJ break into a train in motion and steal a bucket of green goo. According to The Truth, this is the ultimate knowledge of the universe. He's an interesting guy, isn't he?The time has come to move on from San Fierro. Woozie recently opened the Four Dragons Casino in Las Venturas, and that's where CJ and his homies head. It's a stressful business, though; they're Triads and Las Venturas is completely under mafia control, not to mention Woozie's new casino is now in direct competition with Caligula's Casino, the established mafia one. They push Woozie, so CJ elects to pull a heist on Caligula's. He gets a bundle of dynamite from a Las Venturas mine, and after some discussion with Woozie he realises he needs a map of the casino layout. He breaks into the back and photographs the blueprints. He procures a key card from Millie, the croupier. (Rockstar finds the sickest way possible for him to accomplish this, too...) By this point, eight people are in on the heist, up from the original two. They're ready. CJ parachutes in and sneaks into a power generator, planting satchel charges. When they go off, it'll cut the power to about ten square blocks. He's almost caught, but manages to make it back to their base of operations. They decide they're going into the casino disguised as the usual cash escort - an armoured car and a few police motorcycles. The bikes are easy, but for the truck they have to first steal a sky crane, then haul the armoured car off to a secure location awaiting deployment.Meanwhile, a fake chip is found in the casino. The Sindaccos, one of the three primary partners in Caligula's, own a plastic factory across town. The vengeful CJ blows it up.Then CJ finds out The Truth took an English band into the desert to partake in his spiritual rituals (if they can truly be called spiritual) and he lost them, waking up back in Las Venturas with no idea how he got there. CJ goes out to collect them and they ask to be taken back to Caligula's Casino to see a guy they call Rosie - Ken Rosenberg. Also, one of the band guys happens to be Kent Paul. And all of this opens up an opportunity to observe Caligula's without arousing mafia suspicion.It seems that although Rosie once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Tommy Vercetti, he's fallen on hard times. Any guesses what ruined his life? Yes, drugs. After a stint with the Liberty City mob he wound up in Las Venturas, running Caligula's as a neutral party - none of the three crime families trusts the other two. The Sindaccos and the Forellis are now feuding. Rosie is in fear for his life because there's a very good chance he'll get caught in the crossfire. CJ, Rosie and others make a few house calls, however, and soon all is well. Not so for Tenpenny. He realises 'the gig is almost up.' CJ has more important things to think about.Tenpenny calls CJ out to a remote house in the desert. He arrives accompanied by Pulaski and Hernandez. Pulaski hits Hernandez upside the head with a spade as Tenpenny wanders back to town for a night of fun, then orders CJ at gunpoint to dig his own grave, to share with Hernandez. CJ tries to persuade him to turn against Tenpenny, which would indeed be the smarter thing to do, but before he can finish digging Hernandez wakes up and attacks Pulaski. Pulaski shoots him and he falls into the ditch. CJ takes the opportunity to attack Pulaski, gives chase, and kills him.Back in Las Venturas another day, CJ comes across Madd Dogg standing on a ledge; he's a jumper. Feeling guilty, CJ tries to coax him down. Madd Dogg jumps anyway, but CJ is waiting with a pickup truck filled with cardboard boxes. At the hospital, CJ offers to become his new manager - funny since he was the guy who killed the old one. In other news, CJ, Maccer, Paul and Rosie do a hit on the Forellis' St Marks Bistro in Liberty.It's finally time to pull off the heist. The van pulls up to Caligula's, Woozie and Zero inside. They're the support team; CJ joins them and gets an earpiece. After one last check that everything's in position, CJ enters through the staff door. Planted gas bombs knock out the two guards in the safe room. CJ heads for the security door this time and uses Millie's swipe card. He opens a door for use by Woozie, Suzie, Woozie's assistant, and the owner of the apartment they used to plan the heist. Using the satchel charges CJ planted so long ago, they cut power, then break into the safe with more ordinary explosives. Mafia rush to the scene, but CJ holds them off. The group hurries back to the heist van where Zero is waiting along with two motorcycles. Two of them take the bikes, the others hop in the van and they all drive away.Back at the Four Dragons, Madd Dogg is back in action, and he wants to go home. Trouble is, some pusher seized his mansion. Nonetheless, CJ decides that everybody's going home to Los Santos. The Ballas got too strong to deal with, but now it's time for him to push them out again. CJ and four Triads parachute into Madd Dogg's mansion and kill everyone inside. They've successfully repossessed it, and now they've got a place to work from.Toreno waltzes back into the picture and needs CJ to do a few more, highly dangerous, jobs for him. CJ has grown quite weary of this by now. When he approaches CJ with yet another, CJ actually pulls a gun on him. He has good news, though. Sweet is being released from prison! CJ has to go pick him up! Aww, yeah. Sweet wants to head back to Grove Street right away to see what's been happening in his absence (and CJ's for that matter.) When they get there, they find it's been overrun with lowlifes and crack dealers. They run them out and kill the pushers. Now Sweet wants to stay and fix things up. CJ is done with the hood, for...good. He heads back to the mansion.In a burst of insight, Madd Dogg realises who stole his rhyme book - it was OG Loc! Actually, it was CJ, but he gave the book to OG, anyway. OG is recording a video, so CJ proposes they crash the party. OG flees. They catch up to him, along with his recorder, Jimmy Silverman.CJ and Sweet pay a visit to B Dup to teach him a lesson. Big Bear turns on him and denounces his druggie ways. He wants back into the GSF. CJ returns to Grove Street to have a chat with Sweet. Sweet still obstinately wants to stay in Grove Street. CJ wants to move on, but agrees he's never going to forget where he came from. Grove 4 Life!Back at the mansion, CJ, Sweet, Kendl, Cesar, Madd Dogg, The Truth, and Maccer are watching a TV news report. Officers Tenpenny and Pulaski have been charged with 'racketeering, corruption, narcotics and sexual assault.' Ridiculously, all charges against Tenpenny are dropped due to lack of evidence. Lack of evidence?? Come on! Los Santos is in a state of turmoil, so Sweet, CJ and the gang take steps to make sure nobody messes with Grove Street during the riots. Cesar plans to get the Varrios back in action. He, CJ, and three Varrios boys get together and take Cesar's neighbourhood back from the Vagos.There's only one thing left to be done: Payback on Big Smoke. CJ and Sweet go to the Crack Fortress and bust in. CJ fights and sneaks his way to the top. CJ finds Big Smoke on the fourth floor. They talk for a time about what happened, where did Big Smoke go astray? But Smoke tires of this after so long and pulls a gun on CJ. A scuffle ensues but though Smoke has substantially greater body mass, CJ overpowers him thanks to experience and the fact that he isn't stoned. Big Smoke dies of internal injuries shortly after.Suddenly Tenpenny enters with a bead on CJ. He wants a nice fat bag of Smoke's money, so CJ fills it up and carefully hands it over. Tenpenny is about to kill CJ, but CJ tricks him and manages to jump behind cover. Tenpenny fires madly at him but CJ is nowhere to be found. CJ gets away. They both leave the building, separately of course, and Tenpenny commandeers a fire engine. Just before it shoots away Sweet jumps on the back. There is a struggle. Eventually Tenpenny manages to drive the truck off a bridge where it lands in Grove Street. Tenpenny stumbles out then falls, dying on the ground.Everybody heads back to the mansion. Rosie, Madd Dogg, Maccer and Paul join them. Madd Dogg's had a hit! It's been a long, grim road, but it seems they've won. The rapping, the garage, the casino - the GSF controls all of San Andreas!

1994

Throughout its history, no one entity has been able to maintain overall control of Liberty City for long, but this is especially true of the early to mid-90s. In particular, there could be observed brutal competition between the three largest mafia families in the country: The Forellis, the Sindaccos, and the Leones. The Forellis were in charge during the 80s, but after Sonny Forelli's death they were pushed back. Salvatore Leone has his sights set on taking over, but we're still in the opening moves. One of his earliest plays is to have his most loyal mafioso, Toni Cipriani, whack a made man. This could easily bring on a huge gang war as honour among thieves makes killing a made man anything less than blasphemy if his family authorizes it. As such, Toni, fearing for his life and those of his fellows, immediately flees to Vice City, where he lies low for four years, waiting for the situation to blow over.

1998

After a term of cautious observation, the time is finally right for Toni to return to Liberty City. The first thing he does is catch up with Don Salvatore. Salvatore congratulates him, then assigns him to Vincezno Chili. Now, Toni ranked much higher than Vinzenco when he left, so he feels cheated to be working for him now after the sacrifices he's made. He reluctantly signs on and Vincenzo sets him up with a safehouse in Atlantic Quays.Vincenzo has a few jobs he needs Toni to do. He's got the best at his disposal, after all, so he might as well use him. Toni's first task is to motivate a Chinatown dealer who hasn't been bringing home the bacon. This encounter yields some troubling news: The Sindaccos are moving in on Chinatown. We can't have that! Toni methodically moves through Chinatown icing every Sindacco dealer he can find. Next Toni reacquaints himself with JD O'Toole, an old friend who runs a gentleman's club and is in the mainstream of Liberty City activity. After taking care of O'Toole's Sindacco babysitter, he becomes the Leone's streetear.Remembering the very large debt that O'Toole owes him, Toni heads over to collect. O'Toole needs a few things done first, so Toni helps him out. At one point O'Toole gets quite anxious as the police prepare to storm the club, where Salvatore is paying a special visit. Toni whisks him away and receives an invitation to do some special jobs directly for Salvatore. O'Toole proves his worth, tipping Toni off about a Sindacco plan to blow a Leone gambling house sky-high. Using further information from him, Toni reciprocates by bombing a Sindacco establishment.Toni performs other menial tasks for Vincenzo, such as firing (at) inept associates, and picking up a car loaded with drugs. Unfortunately, the cops were watching the car and took off after him as soon as Toni pulled away. Toni fully believes that Vincenzo set him up, and leaves angry. Vincenzo surely won't stand for that. He lures Toni down to the Portland docks, promising not to treat him like dirt anymore. When he gets there, a number of angry men with chainsaws ambush him. Toni barely fights them off, and Vincenzo proceeds to attack him himself. Toni kills Vincenzo, straining their relationship even further.Salvatore makes use of O'Toole's services, both informational and commercial. After leaving the club one session, some Sindaccos kidnap Salvatore with the intent of executing him, overlooking the fact that it would be easier to just shoot him on the spot rather than driving across town. Toni gives chase and saves Salvatore's life. He does the same thing when Salvatore goes on the rampage in the area around O'Toole's club, killing every Sindacco he can find. Toni covers him with sniper fire. O'Toole has done so well, Salvatore decides to make him a made man! Or so he thinks. Salvatore is an extremely paranoid little man. He asserts that O'Toole screwed over his old boss and would therefore do the same to him, and has the Irishman killed.Toni hasn't spoken to his mother in four years, it would have been too dangerous, so he pays her a visit. Ma Cipriani sternly admonishes Toni for never calling, comparing him to her new Sicilian boyfriend, Giovanni Casa. Though nobody else knows it yet, the Sicilians are poised to wreak havoc on Liberty City's hierarchy. Toni stymies this one in particular, getting some deprecating snapshots of Casa indulging his fetishes. Ma doesn't care. She further scolds him for being afraid of the Triads, but Toni quickly proves himself and kills a number of them. She further complains that if Toni were a real man, like his father, he'd win the street race happening that day. Toni obliges her. But after Toni took those photos of Casa, he stopped paying his protection money, so Toni puts him through his own meat grinder, selling the product. Even after all this, Ma still isn't satisfied. She explains to Toni that he is a worthless shell of a human being, and she's called in a hit on him. Dozens of mafia gangsters descend on his position and Toni frantically fights them off. He stops trying to please her after this.Meanwhile, Toni has taken up Salvatore's offer and has been doing jobs for him. Salvatore's having some serious difficulties in Portland. For one thing, although he was instrumental in orchestrating (ha ha, get it?) the rash of union strikes going on in Liberty, they're not repaying the favour. Toni pays off union foreman Jane Hopper so that Salvatore can get 24 hour access to the docks to offload drugs, but she isn't having any of it. He goes after her boys instead. Most of them are persuaded, and Toni intimidates the remainder. Now all that's left is Hopper, so Toni takes her for a little ride and she folds like deuce/five off-suit.Toni once met Salvatore's wife Maria in his office. She goes through his address book and calls up Toni. She has Toni drive her around so she can steal things from various places. Another time, he chauffeurs her to a drug spot as she's throwing a party. She's really taken quite a liking to him and tires very hard to get him to sleep with her. She even puts herself up as first prize in a street race, daring Toni to attend and win it. She's Salvatore's girl, though. She hooks up with a guy called Wayne instead, but he beats her, so Toni kills him. The next time he stumbles upon her, she's dying of a drug overdose. Fortunately she has just the cure, which is another drug that balances the first one out, though it takes her quite some time to remember where she left it. When she comes to her senses she ends the perceived relationship.Toni has continued working for Salvatore, and picks up a drug shipment from cartel leader Miguel (you might think it's spank, but it almost certainly isn't.) And then, fresh off the curve from a war with the Sindaccos, they're right smack in the middle of another one, this time with the Diablos. They're trying to take over Hepburn Heights. Toni fends them off, but remarks the Diablos will eventually be successful (he's correct.) Toni also picks up a bunch of cash from a drop at Callahan Point and delivers it to Salvatore, much to the Triads' chagrin. Salvatore is also in trouble with the current mayor, who's trying to take him down for all the crime in Liberty. Toni drives Salvatore down to the docks to take care of it, but it's crawling with police and they've got the fuzz on them like a knitted sweater. They have only one chance - to jump the unfinished Callahan Bridge! They soar majestically over the open water and land with a thud. Portland had been cut off up to this point, but with the strikes toned down for the time being Salvatore decides he should move more into Portland.But by this point, Salvatore is fed up with the mayor. Toni ambushes him on his run and shoots him. This effectively forces a bi-election, and Salvatore is ready to capitalize on the opportunity. Then Salvatore drops a real bombshell: He's making Toni! He experiences a ritual eerily similar to O'Toole's execution, but he is indeed a made man after the experience. Toni's really starting to get some respect in this town! He even gets a congratulatory phone call from Ma Cipriani. He's finally won her approval.Salvatore wastes no time. He knows exactly who he wants in office: Media and entertainment millionaire Donald Love. First, he and Toni talk to a man who knows about Don Franco Forelli, who had the mayor in his pocket. He did at the behest of the Sicilians, who are trying to foster a feud between the Liberty Families so they can take over. Apparently they've been somewhat successful as war breaks out between the Forellis and Sindaccos, with a hit called on Salvatore! Once again, Toni drives him out of there. Paulie Sindacco tries to diffuse the situation but Toni run him down in a van. When Franco Forelli starts to figure things out, Toni kills him.Around the same time, Toni is approached my crooked LCPD cop Leon McAffrey. He makes a proposition to Toni, offering protection from the law in exchange for some services. He and Toni personally take down some Sindaccos. King Courtney's Yardies are eyeing up Forelli turf, so Toni lures them into a trap and the Yardies slaughter them. And when they have trouble keeping Newport, Toni chases the Forellis out once more. Lastly, Toni demilitarizes a Forelli munitions dump.At the church, Toni meets 'Father' Ned Burner, a journalist posing as a preacher so he can keep the stories coming. Toni covers up a doping story that would have eclipsed Ned, and ends up stealing diamonds for him as well. Toni also bangs up cars as they defile the holy atmosphere, and destroys a false idol who did a radio interview instead of giving Ned a break. He feels much better after this.He gets a call from Donald and now they need to focus on the election. Toni helps out Donald with some personal matters, namely a morgue party. Toni helps him campaign as well, running against a man named O'Donovan. Toni beats up the people covering O'Donovan's Forelli ties. It also turns out the Forellis own a silent share in the company that manufactures the voting machines, so Toni makes sure they're unusable. Toni also ensures that no physical harm comes to Love on election day, which is no easy task and involves a shotgun. Love sees he's down and has Toni rig the polls, putting Love's name on uncounted votes. But it looks like there's some evidence linking Love to the Leones, which Toni destroys. This effectively links Love to Toni, and he loses the election by a landslide, along with his entire fortune. He's out twenty million dollars. Makes Tommy Vercetti look downright wealthy, doesn't he?What's worse, the police have caught up to Salvatore and thrown him in prison! Toni talks to Salvatore, posing as his lawyer in order to avoid getting arrested. He instructs Toni to take the Hoods gang and go on rampage, beating up every Forelli and Sindacco in town. That'll teach 'em. The Liberty Sindaccos are pretty much dead anyway, but Toni has their leader Paulie follow suit. But just because the Forellis and Sindaccos are now 100% out of the picture doesn't mean that all is well. Not only have the Triads destroyed their Chinatown monopoly and the Diablos are set to take over Hepburn Heights, the yakuza are stockpiling weapons in Aspatria. Toni is stunned at the sheer volume, but he takes care of it nonetheless. Despite his best efforts, though, the yakuza will eventually control all of Torrington.This has dealt a severe blow to local yakuza boss Kasen Kazuki. Shortly after this little escapade, Toni receives a call from his wife, Toshiko. Toshiko has been ignored for as long as they've been married, and is none too happy about it. She wants to see him humiliated, defeated, and finally dead, and she enlists Toni to that end. Although his inventory was decimated he is picking up another order that day, which Toni scoops up first. Kazuki also runs the biggest casino in Liberty. Toni intercepts the armoured van doing the cash drop and burns Kazuki's money in the streets. She takes him on a sort of date to the opera where she discusses the nature of life; this angers Kazuki's men and they attack. Kazuki has worked out what's going on and is gathering his men to kill Toshiko and Toni. Before he can attack, Toni meets him in Belleville. After taking out the assembled yakuza, Toni kills Kazuki in a duel on the rooftop. Toshiko is glad at this news, but she's lost everything now and commits suicide.Donald Love, meanwhile, is living pretty much in the streets. He has a plan, though, and he needs Toni to help him. His old mentor, Avery Carrington, is in town with some plans for some prime real estate development. Toni kills him and hands them over to Love. Ned Burner witnesses the act and gets some pictures of Carrington's death, but Toni quickly heads down to the church and stops them going to press by killing Ned. With the help of Carrington and Burner's corpses, Love throws another morgue party. Using the plans for the Panlantic Corporation, Love is putting a deal together, but he needs some land - he puts in an order for an 8-Ball exclusive, which Toni eventually picks up and sets to work with. He destroys the Forellis' Fort Staunton, opening up some space. The cartel are angry with him, though, and swarming around his living quarters. Toni ships him out and gets him to Carrington's private jet, which he no longer has any sue for. After some thanks and promises, Donald leaves Liberty...for the time being.And with that, Salvatore is released from prison. The Sicilians try to interfere but Toni puts a stop to that. Salvatore is now royally pissed at them, since they're responsible for every inch of his lost power. They want peace now but Salvatore wants to ensure it's on his terms. He has a hunch they're going after O'Donovan. They get there first, but Toni and Salvatore chase them down and recover Liberty's beloved administrator. He now has the mayor in his pocket and kills the treacherous Sicilian Massimo as an added bonus. They head back to Leone HQ to celebrate. More than half their turf may be at risk, but with the other two families gone the Leones are in some ways even more powerful than they were to begin with. In reality, though, they are only a shadow of their former selves, and in a few short years will experience a violent fall from grace...

2000

Mike and his friend Vinnie have been working for the Liberty City mafia for years now. Since they've started, Vinnie's been trying to get them out. Finally, after a long, long term of servitude, they've almost built up enough brownie points to leave Liberty for good.Before they can leave, they have to run a few more jobs for the mafia. After that, Vinnie promises, they'll be outta there and on the road to a better life (which, as you may know, has a lot of traffic). Mike's first job is to take out a pusher named Frederico Fido: The mob provides him with the stuff to sell, but he's been using more of it than he's selling, which is not a very good profit margin at all. This service along with some valuable information Vinnie offered up have has made the mafia only too happy to help them out. Mike steals a Banshee from the lot in Atlantic Quays and they're almost ready to roll. Mike's next job is to collect monthly protection money from unwilling tenants. Vinnie and Mike will also need some fake ID's, so Mike gets some from esteemed explosives expert and black market dealer 8-Ball. Shortly after, Vinnie tells Mike to meet him at Calhallan Point. Mike arrives just in time to watch his best friend die as Vinnie's car explodes.After his recent hits, the cops are now onto Mike and think this one is his as well. 8-Ball offers him refuge. As an old friend of Vinnie's, he promises to try and find out who killed him in order to exact their revenge. In the meantime, he's got some work to throw Mike. He disposes of Vinnie's body and escorts some of 8-Ball's girls to their offices, and delivers a shipment of raw nitro-glycerine to some of 8-Ball's clients. 8-Ball also hates a mob guy named Scorelli. He has Mike take out his thugs and steal his favourite car. Score one 8-Ball!Mike returns to learn that Vinnie was involved with a barkeep named Johnnie. He meets with him to find out what the deal is. Johnnie is another guy who wants to find out who offed Vinnie, and while he's doing that Mike can pay off Vinnie's massive debts to Johnnie (of the monetary variety.) His first job is to escort his girlfriend home; her father is a big politician and he'd rather not get caught. Unfortunately, she's quite drunk and more than a little footloose, so the first thing she wants to do is go to another club. This spirals into a huge romp around half of Liberty City. Mike's next task is to collect Johnnie's shipment of fake liquor. A disco opens right across the street, and that's not exactly the kind of people Johnnie wants hanging around, so he gets Mike to sabotage the business with a car bomb. He also gets Mike to steal a rocket launcher from the docks. His research, by the way, has revealed that Vinnie's death was unrelated to the mafia. Mike also intimidates a local senator into tabling his proposal to ban smoking in bars and restaurants - again, this would be bad for Johnnie's business.Johnnie would probably admit that he is himself an unscrupulous individual, but that hardly means he'll tolerate other such people in his establishment. Some guy beats the house using marked cards, so Johnnie sends Mike to teach him a lesson and extort ten thousand dollars from his winnings. Mike returns to the bar to find Johnnie dead and somebody high-tailing it out of there. He catches up with the guy on the docks. He's King Courtney, Yardie leader, and he claims Johnnie was already dead when he got there. Looks like Mike's going to need a new boss. King Courtney recruits Mike as a driver in the most important race of the season, Yardies versus yakuza. After Mike's admirable performance in this race, Courtney gets him to test-drive a Formula One racer that his Yardie friend intends to use in the Staunton Grand Prix. Mike proceeds to help King Courtney deliver coffee. O_oCourtney has a lead. He suspects Colombian Cartel leader Cisco of murdering both Vinnie and Johnnie, and maybe some of his Yardies as well. Mike crashes a Cartel meeting and strikes a blow to their operations, killing a handful of Cisco's lieutenants. One of King Courtney's boys spots Cisco relaxing at a local caf‚. Mike storms in and beats him to a pulp. Cisco did not, in fact, kill any of King Courtney's friends or associates, but he is impressed with Mike's brutality and rewards him by meeting him at his place. He's done with King Courtney for now. Cisco has a few more ideas about who offed Vinnie...the road goes ever onward.Cisco starts out by having Mike runs a special drug-smuggling shoe for him. One of the suppliers refuses to get to work until Cisco pays what he owes her, so Cisco kidnaps her favourite doggie, then has Mike stuff the shoe's secret compartment with bad, day-old organic meat, tell her it's her doggie, and warn her she'll meet the same fate if she doesn't get to work straight away. There would have been a million easier ways to persuade her, of course, but no. He then has Mike blow up a facility than manufactures surveillance equipment.Liberty City yakuza boss Kassen Asuka currently has her niece Yuka in her charge, and she isn't letting Cisco sell on her turf. Cisco orders Mike to jack Yuka's limousine, pick her up from school and bring her back to Cisco's hideout. Yuka's now an excellent blackmailing chip for Cisco, but it seems Mike has outstayed his usefulness and he gets cut loose.Coincidentally, he almost immediately gets a call from Asuka. She's heard a lot about him and would be thrilled to meet him. Actually, she has some work for him. Her niece Yuka has been tragically kidnapped! Do you suppose Mike knows anything about this? He might. He's in deep, after all. Anyway, Asuka wants her back, and Mike is just the guy to get her out of Cisco's clutches. Mike agrees to it as long as Asuka helps him find Vinnie's killer. (The man's obsessed!) Asuka promises to start working on it right away. Mike rescues Yuka from the very men he turned her over to. She reveres him. (Mikesama!)This success leads to Mike doing other jobs for Asuka, such as beating up a casino owner who's been refusing to pay his protection racquet. Mike also beats up a Vice City quarterback in town for a game against the Liberty City team so that Asuka can profit greatly from the early betting rounds. Asuka doesn't take rejection well and is starting to want Mike badly. Mike learns what happens if you actually refuse Asuka, though: She tells somebody to kill you. She wants Biff Rock's alligator shoes as a memento. When Mike gets jumped at the studio, he kills the security guards. Biff wants the footage, so Mike gives it to him in exchange for his alligator shoes. How sneaky.Somebody is trying to sabotage Asuka's chain of sushi restaurants with rotten blowfish. Mike tracks them down, steals the fishermen's delivery trucks and brings back the evidence to charge the fishermen's union with sabotage. It seems King Courtney is behind it all. Asuka kills the Yardies' delivery man by feeding him in pieces to the very blowfish he would have rot in her restaurants. The mafia want to screw with her business, too. She has some operations going on back in Asia so she decides to kill two birds with one stone and get some mafia 'volunteers.' Mike beats up a bunch of them, throws them in the back of his trucks and drives them to the docks where Asuka will have them deported to her labour camps.And Asuka has finally got a solid lead! To get it, all he has to do is take out one bad pimp who's been harassing Asuka's girls. Her resources are too strained because of the yakuza-mafia turf war, but with that task completed she divulges the location of the bomber who rigged Vinnie's car. When Mike arrives, though, the bomber is already dead. The bomber's pager has a message telling him to meet somebody at Wichita Gardens; he needs another bombing like the one at Callahan Point. Mike doesn't know it yet, but the customer is Vinnie, alive and well! Asuka informs Mike the police are after him for the bomber's murder, so he gets out of there. He then receives a page from someone called Xox (it's Vinnie) to meet him in Wichita Gardens. Cisco warns him not to go - it's a trap. He summons him to his airport headquarters.As it turns out, the bomber was one of Cisco's men. Mike guardedly goes to Wichita Gardens. Two thugs are waiting to jump him. Mike takes them out, then rejoins Cisco at the airport. Cisco wants to kill the assassin who killed the bomber who (supposedly) killed Vinnie. Unfortunately, Mike's really no closer to resolution.All at once, Liberty City is declared a bubonic plague-infested area. Who knew? Cisco needs to attend the meeting discussing this turn of events, but if he steps outside he'll get killed, so he needs Mike to be his decoy driver. As he hits the main drag, the Yardies start to chase after Cisco - that is, Mike. The hoods and mafia come after him as well, but Mike's slick driving skills keep him out of danger. Meanwhile, Cisco coasts on over to the conference. Cisco finds out at that moment the assassin of the bomber is hiding out in Pike Creek. Mike goes to check things out, but the assassin is now after Cisco!Mike arrives too late to save Cisco's worthless life. A car is speeding away from Cisco's airport. Mike tails it, stopping it dead. Inside is - Vinnie! All this time, Vinnie's been hiding in the shadows, pulling strings from the background. Vinnie betrayed him. Vinnie now sics his boys on Mike, but Mike takes care of them and attacks Vinnie. Everything bad that's happened to Mike has been Vinnie's fault. He kills him.He has Vinnie's money now, too. He gets a page from 8-Ball calling him back to Pike Creek. 8-Ball's been hiding out for some time. Vinnie sent some guys to take him out but he's fine now. 8-Ball warns Mike that the entire town wants Mike's head because they think he has Vinnie's money - this is true, but Vinnie wasted almost all of it, and all Mike got off him was $1000. Cisco's men interrupt their conversation, thinking Mike killed him. He decimates almost the cartel. The cops show up and arrest 8-Ball. Mike roughs up Paul, the cartel's second-in-command and therefore new leader, for information. The Yardies, Paul says, were holding back because they didn't want to have to compete for Mike's money with the cartel, but now they'll be after Mike in force. Mike kills Paul, and now it's time to face King Courtney.Mike parades through town killing every Yardie in sight. The police notice and try to apprehend him. Just then, Asuka pages him again and asks him to meet her in Wichita Gardens. She's not too keen on King Courtney either; he's trying to push into her turf. She knows Courtney's situation, where he's hiding, who's with him, etc. He's holed up in a veritable fortress but there may be another way in. Asuka lends him a few men but she doesn't love him anymore. How sad. To make matters worse, the mafia attack just as she leaves. Looks like she knew about it and didn't say anything. She's an enemy now. At the fortress, the men she sent turn and run just as he begins his assault! Still, Mike breaks in and lays a bead on King Courtney. Yardie thugs attack but Mike takes on all comers, then beats Courtney to a pulp. The Yardie leader concedes defeat. There's that taken care of.It's time to go. There's no chance of getting out of the city by car; the police want him too, and they've set up roadblocks among other things. His only shot is to head to the Shoreside airport and take Cisco's private plane. He blows outta there and there's nothing anybody can do to stop him. As he leaves Liberty City in the sunset, Mike reflects on the people he's met, and expresses regret for not being able to save Cisco's life or do something more for 8-Ball. Perhaps, he muses, he could settle down in Cisco's beloved Colombia. In any event, he's free from the filth and corruption of his former life forever.

2001

Feeling rejected, Catalina leaves Carl Johnson and takes Claude Fido as her new lover. The happy couple leaves San Andreas behind to start out in Liberty City. We catch up to them now, nine years later.Catalina, as I've explained, actually sees Claude as just a tool. She's secretly become involved in the Colombian Cartel since her arrival in Liberty. When Mike went on rampage, she and Claude decided to lie low, then take advantage of the chaos to pull a bank heist. Traitorous witch! She shoots Claude and leaves him for dead, then takes off. Claude is loaded into a police-escorted prison van along with 8-Ball and someone else. The cartel halt the convoy as it's going across Callahan bridge and throw open the doors. They're looking for the other guy, but Claude and 8-Ball take the chance and make a run for it.They spy a nearby car. 8-Ball can't drive because of his hands, so Claude does, but he does know where they can take cover. He directs the mute Claude to Portland's Red Light District, where he has an acquaintance in Luigi Goterelli. The bomb the cartel used to assault the police convoy took out Callahan Bridge, so for the time being they're stuck there too. Luigi always needs a good driver, so he hires Claude to take his girls from place to place. There's also a new drug on the street called spank; Luigi asks Claude to kill the pusher, steal his car and get it re-sprayed.Incidentally, Claude ends up getting to meet Joey Leone, the son of Don Salvatore, the man who currently has most of Liberty in his grip. Claude also ensures that Luigi's business isn't threatened by competition. When the annual policeman's ball rolls around, Claude makes sure Luigi's hos get there for a handy profit. Meeting Joey Leone later proves to be a stroke of luck for Claude, as it turns out Leone Jr has some work for him too. He gives Claude a car, 8-Ball installs a car bomb, and Claude parks it in front of Lips Forelli at St Marco's Bistro - always pay up when you owe a Leone. Joey isn't any more pleased with the advent of spank than Luigi, and Claude ends up killing another pusher, this one in Chinatown. He follows up by stealing the Chinatown payroll van and handing it over to Joey, who filches it for every penny in it.The next time Claude sees Joey, he's with Salvatore Leone's capo, Toni Cipriani. Cipriani has him on chauffeur service, first to Chinatown to collect some protection money, then to St Marks. Joey has him on a few more driving missions, to dispose of a corpse at a junkyard crusher, as the driver in a bank heist, that sort of thing. This gets the attention of El Burro, leader of the Diablos gang. The Diablos love racing, and Claude proves his worth in a street race near Callahan Bridge. El Burro is impressed. Claude performs yet another car bombing; he's becoming quite proficient at them by now. When some Triads wreck his car, Claude teaches them a lesson. When a van filled with Diablo-made pornography is stolen, Claude jacks it and directs it to its intended destination.Claude finds himself under the employ of Marty Chonks, owner of the Bitch'n Dog Food Factory in Chinatown. His crooked bank manager has been scalping him, so Claude escorts him to Marty's hood so he can execute him. He does the same thing to some thieves who want a cut of his house insurance scam (though this is really only fair since he hired them for it.) It just gets colder from here. It seems he's got some serious money issues. He cashes in on his wife's life insurance as well. The man she's having an affair with doesn't look on that too kindly, and kills Chonks. Claude is short one boss. He turns to Toni Cipriani.The Triads have really been bugging Toni lately, so the first thing Claude needs to do is wreak some Chinatown havoc to show them who's boss. Next thing you know, Don Salvatore's called a meeting. The Triads have become a real problem. Claude drives Joey Leone, Luigi Goterelli and Toni Cipriani to the meeting. Halfway through the Triads chase after them with their fish vans, but Claude evades them. The four enter Salvatore's conference room to discuss the issue. In the meantime, Salvatore has Claude drive his girl Maria around town. She has him drive her to her drug-dealing friend Chico, who tells her about a party that night in Atlantic Quays that she decides to check out. The police show up and they jet out of there. Before she retires for the night, she thanks him for the first genuinely fun evening she's had in a long time.The meeting doesn't go so well. There's only one solution, and that's all-out war between Leones and Triads. Toni has a few ideas for Claude to take on, and they all involve killing Triads. Claude uses another Triad fish van for a car bomb, but this time he lets it off next to the gas canisters in the Triad fish factory. BOOM! Up it goes! And that's a good temporary fix for the Triad problem.With that out of the way, Salvatore turns his attention towards the spank-selling Colombian cartel. All his efforts to uncover the cartel schemes have been thwarted. There's a rat someplace! Salvatore suspects a guy named Curly Bob, so Claude tails him. The don's instincts were right. Curly Bob meets with Catalina and cartel co-leader assistant Miguel at the docks next to a big boat. He's a rat, all right. Claude kills him.Salvatore realises the cartel must be using the boat as their spank factory, and he wants Claude to blow it sky-high. He gets 8-Ball to handle the 'boom' department. It's a pricey venture, but worth it. Claude and 8-Ball drive over to the docks; 8-Ball sets the bomb while Claude provides covering fire with a rifle. Salvatore is most pleased.Despite his promise that Claude would be a made man, though, he sets Claude up. He says all he wants Claude to do is take an incriminating vehicle to the trash compactor, but Maria phones for Claude to meet her at Callahan Point instead. The job's a trap; Salvatore thinks Claude and Maria are going behind his back. He offered up Claude to the cartel. Maria isn't about to let that happen. She's with Kasen Asuka, fresh off a curve from trying to double-cross Mike. They take a boat to Staunton Island. It looks like Claude will be staying there for a while. Asuka leaves with the invitation to set up in her Belleville warehouse and visit her at her condo once he has. A short time after, a news report tells of Callahan Bridge's repair.Asuka is willing to let Claude work for the yakuza, but she wants to make sure she has Claude's unswerving loyalty; after all, the mafia and the yakuza are in the middle of a very bloody gang war. Claude duly takes out Salvatore Leone and returns to Asuka's condo. Her brother Kenji is there waiting with her and Maria. He now owns the casino and he'll have some work for Claude later on. For now, Asuka tasks Claude with taking out all the meddlesome mafia spying on her assets. That's the final push. The mafia are done. Claude goes to the condo again, but it seems a reporter has been hiding out in the bay and spying on Asuka and Maria. Claude takes care of him. He also delivers a man named Ray his paycheque from Asuka. She's his man inside the LCPD. He's having some troubles right now, which Claude agrees to help him with later, but he does provide useful information: For example, one of Asuka's drivers is an undercover cop whom Claude needs to fire.Other Staunton residents are starting to become aware of Claude, and his services are in high demand. Without Mike to drive for him anymore, King Courtney needs a new skilled driver. He invites Claude to a competition among Yardies and other hopefuls from the outside. The winner becomes Courtney's new official driver. Claude wins, if you can believe it. Courtney tests Claude's ability by challenging him to drive up to Hepburn Heights and kill a bunch of Diablos. Claude passes. (Turning his back on his old boss, El Burro...harsh stuff.) His first big mission is to steal some cars for a few of King Courtney's hits - specifically, a mafia Sentinel, a yakuza Stinger and a Diablo Stallion.Courtney needs a stash from a car he has at Bedford Point. When Claude searches the car, he finds a note from Catalina. She knows he's been up to no good. Also, she's sent a small army of suicide bombers to take him out. Everybody's a critic. Claude barely manages to escape with his life. That's the last of Claude's dealings with King Courtney, then, isn't it. He takes up Kenji on his offer.Claude soon returns to Bedford Point, but this time he's with a kanbu Kenji's had him bust out of jail. Kenji also has a debt to repay; a man once did him a favour and he's only now found out how to reciprocate. The man loves motorcars, so Kenji makes a long list of hot wheels to offer him as a gift. Claude jacks one model of each and drives them to a garage in Newport. Even though the yakuza's mafia troubles are effectively over, they're still facing war from the cartel, and the Colombians are negotiating an alliance with the Yardies. Claude breaks up the meeting as well as its attendees. Apparently, he doesn't do so well. Yardie spank-dealers are everywhere! Kenji gives Claude one chance to redeem himself. Claude accepts, killing every Yardie dealer on the streets of Liberty! Kenji still isn't very happy, though, so Claude leaves well enough alone. Where to now?Ray has some work for him, so it'd be a pity to pass it up. Ray wants him to protect his friend Phil Cassidy from the cartel, whom he's maddened. In return, from that point on Phil gives him great rates on any hardware he buys from him. Claude also collects some embarrassing evidence against Donald Love, stopping it from becoming public knowledge. When Ray suspects his partner is a rat, he hires Claude to take him out. Unfortunately he does it all wrong. The guy survives! Claude ambushes his van between Carson General Hospital and the courthouse. Whew! Crisis averted.Mr Donald Love, grateful for Claude's previous service, has some further uses for him. Love's first task for Claude is to rescue one of his contacts from some South Americans - the same guy the cartel were looking for when they jumped the convoy on Callahan Bridge and unwittingly set Claude and 8-Ball loose. Love then wants him to turn his back on Kenji. In order to buy more real estate, he wants a gang war. The yakuza and cartel are already mad at each other anyway, so Claude steals a cartel car, hops out and fires a rocket launcher at a window. Kenji and everyone else inside dies instantly. It's on.Love has an interesting way to transport goods from outside the country to Liberty: A private plane does a flyby and drops them into the water. He asks Claude to retrieve them. As it turns out, though, they were actually just decoys. Now it's time to retrieve the real merchandise. Claude finally finds its location after traipsing around all of Shoreside. While there, he happens to spot Catalina, Miguel and Asuka having a little chat. Catalina has it. Asuka was effectively fooled by Claude's using a Colombian car: She thinks Miguel killed Kenji. Miguel denies it but Asuka isn't buying. Catalina takes off, but not before Asuka requests her services at a later date. She proceeds to torture Miguel.Claude next acts as escort for Love's friend. Love delivers the package to his friend, but others want it. SWAT teams surround him. Claude has to see him safely through the situation. The next time he goes to see Love, though, he's gone. What? Oh well. Ray needs to get out of town, fast. Claude drives him to Francis International Airport. Now there's a nice, easy way to make some cash. D-Ice, leader of the Red Jacks, has some more interesting stuff for him to do.Recently a new gang has surfaced, the Purple Nines. D-Ice sees himself as oldschool gangster, while the Nines are worthless young punks. It's bad for his rep to have them marching around, so Claude roars around D-Ice's turf blowing them away. They respond by getting armoured vehicles, but it requires a great deal of armour to withstand an explosion. Then D-Ice takes a break to deal with some other issues, namely the rigging of his car and a whole bunch of platinum suddenly up for grabs at the airstrip (a Federal Reserve flight crashed.) Okay, back to the Nines. One street brawl pushes them out of the picture - for the time being. Asuka needs Claude again.Actually, to start with she does him a nice service. Catalina has three squads roaming Liberty whose sole purpose is to hunt down Claude. Claude lures the squads to Pike Creek where some of Asuka's men are waiting to cut them down. Catalina also has plans for making spank way big. She's using The Kappa Coffeehouse as a front for selling it. Sell drugs on Asuka's turf? I don't think so. Claude blows it away. Asuka continues to press Miguel for information. She's able to warn Claude of a spank shipment coming in by plane; Claude goes out on the water and shoots it down as it's coming in. Claude returns to the condo.Asuka is dead. Maria has been kidnapped. Catalina has left a ransom note in the amount of $500,000. Claude gets the money and shows up; he's got no other choice. He hands it over, but Catalina isn't about to just let him walk away. She orders her Colombian lackeys to kill him, then takes off in a helicopter. Claude wrestles his way free and chases after her by car. Catalina thought she was safe, but when she spies Claude she immediately tries to get airborne again. Claude rescues Maria and shoots down the helicopter using a rocket launcher.The two escape and prepare to lie low for a while. Maria admits that she loves him. Her incessant chatter seems to irritate him somewhat, however. A shot is heard.