Once I had finished the first mission of HITMAN‘s new “Patient Zero”-campaign in Bangkok, I was intrigued by what would happen next. For what did happen once Agent 47 checked out of Thailand was Diana calling to tell him Nabazov’s death had triggered what appeared to be a wake-up call for a number of the cult’s sleeper agents scattered all over the world. Or rather, scattered all over Season One’s previous locations, sans Marrocco, I should mention, which is fine with me, but also sans Paris, which is rather sad. I love that map!

But, whatever.

These agents are ready to spread the deadly virus mentioned in the first mission and, naturally, it falls to Agent 47 to eliminate them, before they succeed.

Mission 2, The Author
En route from Thailand our favorite hitman changes course to head for Italy, more specifically for Sapienza, where he is to eliminate one Brother Akram, a cult member not known for subtlety, and one Craig Black, the author of a YA novel series involving, I’m guessing, vampires and werewolves vying for a maiden witch.

(Actually, a swarm of bats and the howl of wolves follow 47 through the twilight streets of the picturesque town of Sapienza, along with a chilling wind)

Also, 47 has to pocket a sample of the virus, which is to be handed over to the author by Brother Akram stroke midnight in the church’s graveyard… Exciting!

Now, I confess I wasn’t very stealthy on this one, which just means that there are still a few fun challenges to beat.

Here is what I did:

1. Surprise visit
Craig Black is reading from his latest novel in the church and Brother Akram is hiding out in one of the houses close to the beach, probably meditating until the bell strikes midnight. Now, you can either dress up as Craig Black or as Brother Akram and attend the meeting, but I decided to go with the cultist first.

To get to him, get into the house opposite the town hall and into the apartment above the butcher’s shop (that’s right, it is dear Rocco’s apartment), which isn’t locked. Rocco is asleep, apparently having exhausted himself playing a PC game featuring – HITMAN!

Erase the video footage he – probably illegally – recorded of you climbing the stairs, sneak past him onto the balcony and carefully drop down. Why carefully? Because the resident of the apartment below will frequently stroll onto the terrace to sit in the chair and will rat you out to the guards lining the streets if she spots you. So, I took her out and hid her unconscious body in the bathroom. She’s got a crowbar in her kitchen (handy!) and you’ll actually need that, so go get it.

Once you have the crowbar, drop down to the house next to the one the roof of which you are on and break open the bathroom door. In the next room, which is the kitchen, you’ll find one bodyguard and, if you time it right, Brother Akram. There is another bodyguard outside the kitchen on the balcony and he will spot you, if you attack either one ot the two men.

I actually knocked out both bodyguards and Brother Akram, then quickly hid all three bodies in the bathroom, snapped the cultist’s neck and put on his suit. Also, I snatched up the vial with the virus he was carrying, plus his apartment key.

2. Attend the meeting as Brother Akram or Kill Craig Black dressed up as the Superfan
In your Brother Akram disguise you are free to head towards the church and the cemetery, but Craig Black won’t meet you until the church bell tolls midnight. You can trigger the bell if you sneak downstairs toward the crypt and into the room where in the original Sapienza-mission you’d have found the priest’s outfit (the door to the left of the guard watching over the crypt’s entrance), but you’d have to have a damn good disguise not to be found trespassing. More on that later.

Let’s pretend I kept the Brother Akram disguise and waited in the graveyard until the bell finally tolled and Craig Black attended the meeting. Bad news there: He’ll realize you are anyone but Brother Akram and flee. You’re still eligible for the achievment “The footsteps you hear…”, though.

So, once I had fouled that up, I loaded the previous save, snuck into the sewers (still in the cultist disguise) below the church and to the beach, then waited until Craig Black took up his position at the meeting point and shot him in the head with my silenced pistol, before making my escape via speed boat.

As I mentioned, I did not do this one stealthily.

The other option is dressing up as the superfan,who is allowed to go anywhere on the premises, except the graveyard, and getting another, very nice achievement. To do this, go into the sewers and wait until a young man dressed in a scary costume appears from the direction of the crypt to take a call. Meet THE SUPERFAN! He’s there for a photo shoot with Craig Black in the crypt that won’t happen unless the light has been repaired thanks to a screwdriver (you can find the screwdriver in the small section in front of the door leading from the crypt up into the church, but to repair the light unnoticed you need to wear a technician-disguise). Choke him into unconsciousness, hide his body in the dumpster close by and take his disguise as well as his invite to the lecture.

Go upstairs into the church to attend said lecture and wait until Craig Black finishes and starts perusing the copies the fans laid out for him to sign. Step up behind him and do what the Joker did with a pen in Batman: The Dark Knight. Prepare to make a run for it, since Craig Black’s bodyguard will spot you (I have yet to find an effective way of distracting him without distracting Black too) and you’ll have your “The pen is mightier than the sword”-achievement.

As mentioned, I have still a lot of challenges to do in this mission… For example, the Purify the Spirits Achievement.

To gain this achievement, you have to drown both Craig Black and Brother Akram dressed as the Superfan. To do that, follow these instructions:

1. Plan accordingly: Pack a lockpick, the emetic poison vial and have the emetic poison siringe delivered via agency pickup right to the sewers.
2. From the mission starting point, get into the sewers, knock out the Superfan, hide his unconscious body, take his disguise and get that siringe.
3. Now, I was sure this wouldn’t work, but it did: Disguised as the Superfan, get upstairs into the church, and once Craig Black has finished reading, poison his water bottle (the one on the “altar”) once he leaves, which everyone will get upset about but not alarmed, then hide somewhere close by.
4. Craig Black will, at some point, return to resume the lecture. Wait until he finishes and takes a sip from the poisoned bottle and starts feeling sick, then follow him to the toilet and drown him. Don’t forget to hide his body. Good riddance!
5. Now make your way to Rocco’s apartment, destroy the suveillance evidence then head back one level downstairs and pick the lock of the apartment there to get rid of the female witness. Choke her and hide her unconscious body in a convenient closet. Then drop down to Brother Akram’s apartment, pick the bathroom door’s lock and overflow the sink.
6. Wait for the bodyguard to come in, choke him out and drag/leave him outside. In my case, the bell struck midnight at this point and Brother Akram left. While waiting for him to come back I took out the second guard, the one on the balcony, and hid his body.
7. Now, remember that the achievment is for drowning both targets as the Superfan. Yet Brother Akram will be very suspicious and run if you stab him with the emetic poison siringe in any other disguise than that of a bodyguard. Luckily, there are two around that currently have no need of their suits. So, suit up and wait for a convenient moment to stab Brother Akram.
8. Wait for him to go to the bathroom to throw up, change your disguise back to the Superfan and drown him. Don’t forget to take the sample of the virus.

There you go.

It is still very much fun and, I think, the hardest of all four missions to accomplish stealthily. For the next mission is actually not that much of a challenge. Or is it?!

Silent Assassin and Sniper Assassin
So, I finally managed to beat the Silent Assassin as well as the Sniper Assassin challenge. Here’s how I did it:

Silent Assassin
1. I prepared and packed the exploding phone and a lockpick. Also, I picked up any crowbar or brick on the way to silently and stealthily take down potential witnesses before they could spot me.
2. Next I went to Rocco’s apartment, erased all records, went downstairs to silence the female witness and dropped down to Brother Akram’s apartment. There, I picked the door lock, overflew the sink and took out the bodyguard who came to investigate. Him I hid outside.
3. Now, in my case Brother Akram grew alarmed for some reason though he did not spot  me and ran (Target Lockdown). I waited until the remaining bodyguard had resumed his position on the balcony outside the kitchen, then snuck inside and silently took him out. Next, I placed the exploding phone in Brother Akram’s room and waited for him to come back upstairs. Another remote explosive will work as well, I assume.
4. The moment he opened the door I activated the phone, he took it and was killed by the explosion when answering the call. The bodyguards outside in the staircase did not notice a thing so I hid his body in the cupboard and took the vial before disguising myself as Akram.
5. As Akram, I snuck back out the way I had come and made my way to the graveyard for the meeting. You can trigger the bells prematurely, if you want. And save the game manually, before you proceed.
6. Now, as mentioned before, Craig Black will at some point realise you are not Akram. Until he does, he will follow you anyplace. So I took him down to the beach or at least halfway down the stairs, out of sight of that guy mending the graveyard, then knocked Black out and snapped his neck before dragging him inside the sewer entrance. The guy had heard the close combat sounds and ran to alert a guard, but by that time I had dragged the body way back into the sewer tunnel and as soon as I heard a guard coming down the stairs I dropped the body and made my escape.

Sniper Assassin
The Sniper Assassin-challenge is a tough one. For while your kills will certainly be noticed and the bodies found, you must never be spotted, neither by witnesses nor on a camera recording. Also, a sniper rifle is an illegal item to carry around for anyone but a guard. And the only adequate sniper’s nest I found on this map is the top of the church’s bell tower. Unfortunately,  there is only a single agency pickup location in this mission: in the sewers underneath the church. So this is what I did:

1. I had the Lancer delivered to the pickup location, but in hindsight I should have chosen a silenced rifle. I also packed a lockpick.
2. From the mission starting point I went into the sewer entrance by the beach and pocketed a brick near the entrance. Next I picked up my rifle and walked through the sewers towards the exit by the graveyard, but turned right by that door leading to a staircase behind the morgue.
3. I picked the door’s lock and snuck up the stairs, picked up another brick then waited for an opportune moment to sneak towards that small chapel on the right overlooking the Mediterrean. That guy mending the graveyard hangs around there and I threw a brick at his head while he was leaning on the balustrade to alert the one guard remaining in the vicinity and when he ran over to investigate I stealthily and quickly made my way around the other side of the chapel towards the back of the church.
4. There is a member of the church staff tending a grave there, but he also got a brick in the head and then was hidden inside the garden shed.
5. Using the lockpick I got into the church’s back entrance and, timing it right, snuck past the two guards on the first floor as I made my way up the church tower. Last I had to take out the guard on top of the tower, but that is also just a matter of timing, since he spends most of the time watching the square anyway, facing away from you.
6. At this point I saved the game, put on the guard’s suit, shouldered the rifle and headed down to the basement to erase all recordings. Then I triggered the church bell.
7. After, I got back up to the top of the tower and saved the game again. Then all I had to do was wait for my targets to move into my line of sight. I shot both, dropped the rifle and vaulted the railing. Yes, indeed, you will want to wait until the guards rushing your position have calmed down, woken up the one you previously knocked out and left. The one in his undies will leave too at some point. As mentioned before, a silenced rifle would have been better.

8. Now, did you know there is a drainpipe right outside (actually left of) where the stairs end on top of the tower? I slid down that pipe, but made sure that no guards remained in the vicinity down in the graveyard before I did that.
9. Last, I quickly headed over to Brother Akram’s body and picked up the vial. Then I made my escape via the sewer tunnels under the church and got on the speed boat. Remember, you may have gone unnoticed so far, but you may still draw attention, leaving the scene of a violent crime. So be careful.

And that’s it!

So, how did you go about this mission? Let me know in the comments!

Vanessa