Aldrich Kemp

> *“I'm not serious about anything if I can help it.”*
>
>

**Aldrich Kemp** is a criminal mastermind who runs the Themis Group with the aid of a small group of trusted advisors. While responsible for a a host of criminal activities including assassination, espionage, kidnapping, theft, racketeering, smuggling and blackmail, Kemp chooses not to see himself as a criminal and has claimed instead that when it comes to going by the strict letter of the law… he prefers not to dwell on technicalities.

Despite being connected with so many illegal activities, Kemp actually has a very strong sense of right and wrong. This has meant that on more than one occasion he’s used the considerable resources he has to hand to bring down other, more dastardly criminal plots.

## Early Life

Kemp was born into a wealthy family of philanthropists who were involved in a number of charitable organisations. He acquired an adopted sister, Nakesha, when her parents, working for Kemp’s parents, were killed by a Soviet militia group during the Angolan Civil War.

In 1985, while the family was flying from Mozambique to Istanbul, the Kemps’ private plane developed apparent engine problems. They crashed in Sudan, and Nakesha and Aldrich were the only survivors, surviving in the desert for two days and only making their way back home after encountering a trader caravan travelling to Khartoum.

Now orphaned, Aldrich and his sister were taken in by his mother’s sister, Lilith 'Aunt Lily' Tregowan, whose own business was somewhat less altruistic than her sister’s had been. Kemp eventually attended Cambridge University. However, while Nakesha was writing her dissertation at Edinburgh University, her research indicated the plane crash that killed their parents had not been an accident after all, she, Aldrich and Aunt Lily all came to an agreement that this had to be avenged. In the process of discovering the cabal of corporate interests that the Kemp Foundation had crossed, Aldrich and Nakesha uncovered a number of conspiracies and secret societies and unwittingly set themselves up as natural heirs to some of these criminal enterprises due to the resulting power vacuum.

## The Themis Group

It’s unknown exactly when Kemp set up the Themis Group but he relied on his Aunt Lily’s knowledge of criminal activity and convinced her to join the organisation as a founding member. Other top members of the group include Nakesha Kemp, Sebastian Harcourt and Alice Boone.

The main strength of the Themis Group is its secrecy - enforced by ‘the million-dollar rule’, whereby compromised associates are either paid $1m for their silence, or a contract worth $1m is taken out on them.

Kemp’s sense of theatrics and playfulness means that, despite being head of Themis, he doesn’t take anything too seriously. He can appear to be easily distracted by food and drink but this is more a reflection of boredom when he’s already completed his assessment of any given situation. Having an obviously very high IQ, his tendency to become easily bored and to be able to think many steps ahead might explain why Kemp is not a fan of watching the television.

As a security measure, Kemp spent time in Bhutan with monks who provided him with psychic defence training, however, the effectiveness of such training was cast in doubt when Vladimir North was shown to have clearly conducted some measure of mind control on Kemp when they met in Bogota.

During his criminal dealings, Kemp was shot while with Mrs. Boone in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. He also faked his suicide in Bahrain as part of a wider plan to get at a sheikh.

## The Black Windmill

In 2021, the existence of the Themis Group was deduced by analyst, Clara Page. The following year she was assigned to find out more about the group based on the only information known to the British intelligence community - the name of Themis’s leader. This investigation coincided with the discovery of DSGE agent, Guillaume Benoit, which pointed to an as-to-yet-unknown weapons programme involving infrasound.

Aldrich Kemp, not trusting these coincidences, chose to reveal himself and Themis’s existence to Clara Page, hoping to use her to track down who was responsible for Benoit’s death. Eventually, Kemp had to level with Clara Page and explain that her parents were actually ex-employees of Lilith Tregowan and Themis but had gone into a protection programme of sorts to hide them from Conrad Spijker. Kemp’s knowledge of Clara Page’s real heritage meant he was able to ascertain that her boss, Mr. Bartholomew, had betrayed her to Spijker and he eventually worked with Page to infiltrate Spijker’s secret base in the Urals and kill Spijker.

Despite working well together and obviously having a soft spot for Clara, Aldrich continued to maintain operational security and drugged her at the end of the mission so that Page could not reveal the whereabouts of Themis House.

## Cascade

A year later, Kemp faked his own death by employing terminally ill doppelganger, Wilhelm Ausberger. Kemp became aware of an imminent assassination attempt and employed Ausberger to take his place so that Kemp to investigate his own death in the hopes that would lead to the actual culprit.

Kemp again drew Clara Page into his plans but this time, to keep her safe, he assigned her a secret bodyguard, Sabine Seah. Not resisting a little joke, Aldrich insisted that Seah pretended to only speak Malay, even when Seah and Page became lost in the sub-Saharan forest. Along with other key members of Themis, Kemp eventually uncovered a conspiracy whereby he was framed by Vladimir North to look like the mastermind behind a biological attack that would kill billions of people. North’s access to mind-control technology allowed him to control the actions of others, as well as wipe their memories, which led to Kemp becoming owner of the airline, Liberty Flights, without knowing it.

Kemp and Page eventually turned the tables on North by turning Mrs Boone’s own mind of horrors against him. Despite this second successful mission together, Kemp again drugged Page in order to maintain secrecy around the whereabouts of Themis House.

## Appearances

* Who is Aldrich Kemp?
	+ All episodes
* Who Killed Aldrich Kemp?
	+ All episodes

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 WiAK: "Clara Page"
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 WiAK: "Themis House"
3. ↑ WiAK: "The Spirit of the Age"
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 WKAK: "Bogota"
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 WKAK: "The Man Who Sold the World"
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 WKAK: "The Murder Clowns"
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 WKAK: "Funeral in London"
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 WiAK: "Kholat Syakhl"
9. ↑ WKAK: "Liberty Flights"