Descend the rope to enter inside the auction along with Vaarvel

There was no reason to hold Tschau up, nor did you see a great opportunity to act on Goodbye's secret orders just yet. For now, you'd join Vaarvel and make a timely entrance alongside her. Sticking close to your fellow agent could only improve your survival rate... unless she was the one killing handlers, in which case, proximity to her would accomplish just the opposite. Ironically, in this case, the various criminals visiting the auction would act as effective witnesses to stop her from doing anything funny.

Quickly, you approached the woman and took her arm, so that the two of you could walk with them linked. By doing so, she could avoid thrill-seekers hitting her up and you could avoid interested takers as well... not that you really wanted to avoid hookups, but getting in bed with unknown terrorists in the middle of a mission could have its share of perils. In a more private setting, you might be interested... but were there ethical concerns with that? Hmm...

"You look like you have something on your mind." Vaarvel smiled and pressed the softness of her bosom against your arm, as if to force you to focus on the situation at hand. It actually helped, somewhat.

Rather than telling her what you were actually thinking, you pivoted to a new topic (for how well that tended to work against the astute conversational analyst that was your partner). You told her you weren't sure what to call her.

"Good point... Call me Vanessa, if the occasion arises. Hm hm... I gave that to you pretty quickly, didn't I? Maybe that's my real name? Really, you can call me anything but Vaarvel, as long as you're consistent... I'm not the kind of amateur who's going to miss your intent or the target of whatever statement you make."

As one part of your mind rolled over whether there was any possibility Vaarvel had just given you her actually birth name, you asked what she was planning to call you.

"... My husband, if anyone asks." Her face adopted that mask-like grin again... It was always hard to tell what she was thinking.

The two of you entered arm-in-arm, finding no need to actually give anyone the aliases you'd been thinking up. It was either a testament to the cockiness of Adder or else, a testament to how little criminals liked giving out their names, aliases or otherwise, that there appeared to be no predefined guest list. Perhaps Adder didn't want to lock out any bidders? Whatever the case, it made it pretty easy to enter and keep your disguise solid.

"Don't be distracted by any of the booby prizes, Mister Speck. You're going to see a lot of technology you'd consider to be international threats tonight, but when they bring out the super-weapon... You'll know it. Adder is going to make sure everyone knows it's the top prize so they get top dollar for it. The tricky part is going to be making off with it ourselves..."

You desperately held your tongue, not letting slip some lame joke about how distracted you currently were by certain sets of booby prizes... Only Sean Connery could get away with a line like that.

The two of you spent a while pretending to be interested instead of alarmed as you moved from the latest in weapons, munitions, combat robotics, chemical weapons, and a few things that wouldn't have been out of place in a science fiction movie, looking for what must be the main attraction. If you really were an interested criminal, and Vaarvel really were your wife... it could be something like a pleasant date for super-villains.