Two cents more
Personally, I love these threads. There is never an adequate resolution to the question, but the more people that talk about it, the more ideas get thrown into the mix. I find that helps to suggest possibilities, consequences, and relationships that might otherwise never have occurred to me.
First things first. The Dane. I'm certain Jack took the key. Why? "Smilin' Jack" is a pirate - a 16th or 17th century buccaneer. He knows the sea, how to sail, how to navigate - and how to board a ship. Of all the people in the game, he is the only one that has the goodies to do the job. The Kuei-Jin are unlikely, because neither the Chinese nor Japanese cultures had any serious history of deep-sea sailing until
after they encountered the Europeans.
At the same time, Jack would have set the bomb and took Messerach. He doubtlessly killed off the crew because rigging a bomb is a bit tricky with people whacking you with clubs, and because, once set, it would be bad if that bomb went off over the briny - not in the plan. Kill off the crew, though, and as soon as the ship is found, it's a crime scene and nothing gets touched. The bomb is safe.
Now, onto the sarcophagus. If your persuasion high enough, you can find out that Johannsen was anonymously given the information that led him to the sarcophagus. Finding it was not an accident. There are deeper machinations at work here. Whoever tipped him must have been aware of the clamor would raise. Getting it to LA is certainly no trick - after the crew is dead, sail the ghost ship into the commercial sea-lanes in and out of LA harbour and leave. Whoever finds it will take it to the nearest port - LA. A pirate would know these things.
Now, the main topic. Is the cabbie Caine? Some have said that if he wanted LA cleaned out, he could do it himself. He might - if he planned to announce his existence to the whole of the Kindred and start a blood-hunt on himself. He might be really powerful, but even a full-grown human can be bitten to death by mosquitos - if there are enough of them biting.
Plus, all of the clans have had 2 millenia to refine their abilities and knowledge, and, like it or not, they, too, know how to get hold of nuclear weapons, napalm and phosphorus rounds - assuming they even wanted to do it themselves. They have 6 billion humans with all their technology who would be just as happy as little girls to run
The Original Vampire to ground - if they were manipulated properly.
No, "The best trick the devil ever pulled off was to convince mankind that he didn't exist". He's managed to do that to virtually all of humankind and even most kindred. He's free. Nobody gives up that kind of freedom unless there is an overwhelmingly pressing need to do so.
So doing it himself? If I were him, I wouldn't even consider it. Look instead at this possibility: Tip Johannsen about the tomb. Tip Jack about Johannsen. Presumably, Jack gives the key to the Kuei-Jin to precipitate an all-out-war between the Cam and the Kuei-Jin, which works nice for him. Tip the Giovanni about the Sarcophagus - they love to collect that kind of thing, and the Nossies will sell information to whoever pays them the best.
Jack doesn't even need to know that he's dealing with Caine. He isn't being asked to do anything he wouldn't do himself given half a chance, so give him a whole chance. He'd go for it in a New York Minute with the least push.
Now, without any effort at all, what do you have? A Prince without a prize, willing to do anything to get it, the Giovanni with the Prize, who don't give a damn about the Prince, and the Kuei-Jin with the key, which somebody is going to need sooner or later. You couldn't possibly package up a civil war more elegantly.
Now, the anarchs are too weak to take out all three, and even if all three go to war, they're scarcely strong enough to take on anybody who is left, and there is always the risk that the three will ally, wipe out the anarchs, then go at it with each other, and you might wind up with exactly the wrong one left standing. Not good, and 'way too much left to chance. The Giovanni and the Kuei-Jin are not of Caine's blood, and the Cam denies that Caine exists. The Sabbat are a pain, too, but if you stir the pot enough, you
know the Sabbat are going to jump in. They have to. The Society of Leopold is, too but with all the hubbub, they're going to stick their neck out. The Anarchs are the Free Living Dead. They're not in it for power, or control, or dominance, or revenge, or whatever. They just heed the blood. So they are supposed to be the last ones standing.
So Caine engages in a little trickery. Maybe he has a hand-picked, powerful kindred minion of his own that he put in place ahead of time specifically to do the job once a suitable candidate has been found. The point is to get a candidate who has the tools to do the job
if they were a vampire and then turn them, but turn them with a sire powerful enough to give them an edge - a big edge - even over other vampires, and who have not been turned for so long they are above using anything and everything at their disposal.
A kine - turned and thrown into a meat-grinder, bang-bang, just like that. A particularly resourceful kine, turned by a particularly old vampire, so the blood runs strong in them. A hand-picked, hand-crafted caitiff tutored by Caine's own hand-picked messenger - Jack. The urge to survive is still strong, the threat of Final Death is immediate and constant, and they've got to use everything they've got to just stay out of the ashtray. They have to get powerful as fast as they can just to survive, and nobody is going to toss them a rope. Poof! You (your character, at any rate).
Thus, LaCroix gets his life-line. It's tied through Jack back to Caine, but since you don't know that, neither does LaCroix. Even Jack might not know. Now, because you were so recently human, you set about doing what you must to surivive, and in the process, fixing things.
After that, a bunch of stuff becomes incidental. You have to prove your worth, so there's Cathayan, the warehouse, the Voerman sisters, Vick and his lot, and coincidentally a few other things, but ultimately, the Sarcophagus. You're the only one LaCroix has that is just too naive to consider an ulterior motive. You're perfect because you're a fledgeling - gullible and disposable. That takes you to the Nossies, thence to Chinatown, and on to the Giovanni, and boom! One target down (you don't think you actually snuck that box out of the Mansion, do you? If you didn't cap the Giovanni going in, you did it coming out).
After that, there's Leopold and boom! Another irritating, but incidental, target out of the way. The Sabbat freak and boom! Another irritating, but incidental, target out of the way. Three down and two to go. By now, LaCroix is getting nervous and tries to get rid of you because you found out about the alliance with the Kuei-Jin, or maybe not, and you're just set up to think it was him, but if LaCroix didn't go after you, why are you suddenly
persona non grata at the tower, when at this point you haven't actually done anything to suggest that you were about to be a problem for LaCriox? Either way, now you're mad, next on the menu is Ming Xiao and boom! Four down, one to go. Now, all that's necessary is to set the detonator on that bomb. You remember the bomb, right?
The fortune teller told you to trust only the man on the couch and the Lone Wolf. Well, the Lone Wolf told you not to open it, and took some care to say that whomever did open it was deserving of the consequences. Then, of course, there is E's "Jack comes out of the box" crack. You have enough clues to know what to do next. Give LaCroix his key.
If you just happened to be a 2,000 year old Father of All Vampires, and you wanted to get rid of everybody in LA except the kine and the Anarchs, could you do it with four (count 'em - four) completely insignificant and totally unrelated moves that nobody in their right mind would ever think of linking together and laying back at your doorstep? I bet you could.
That sounds to me just exactly how a being like Caine would do something like that. If that just happened to mean that he had to drive around in a cab for awhile and have idle conversation with you (while never, you notice, actually
telling you to do anything) to make sure, covertly, that you were going in the right direction with the right intentions, I think he'd do that. Think of the last cab you rode in. Do you remember the driver's face? Name?
People have said that would be 'beneath' him, but if I read this right, he's stayed off the radar for long enough to become basically a myth. That doesn't really paint a picture for me of a being who is above being completely unnoticed.
Is the cabbie Caine? Maybe not, but if he isn't he's very old, very wise, very powerful, not aligned with anybody, and devious almost beyond comprehension. If it's not Caine, I'll be he has Caine's phone number
