Diane Martina Laurent (1925 - 2016) also known by her nickname as The Jay, later known as Martina Laurent, was a Franco-Italian Master Assassin of the Italian and French Brotherhood of Assassins from 1944 to 1986. serving as a tech specialist in the French Brotherhood under French Assassin Mentor Isabelle Andreu. As a tech specialist, Diane was responsible for intercepting messages from other Assassin Brotherhoods, as well as tampering with Templar communications within Europe. She was also known for her role in the Assassin mission ‘Operation Rabbit’s Foot. Diane is of French and Italian descent.
Early Life and Assassin Career
Diane Martina Laurent was born in the early hours of February 9th, 1925 in Lyon, France to Martin Laurent, a hardware store manager, and his wife Francesca, who stayed at home to look after her newborn daughter. They would briefly live in Forli so that Francesca could live closer to her family. Diane’s mother was a member of the Italian Brotherhood of Assassins. Diane’s parents separated when Diane was six, with her mother taking complete custody of her. Due to Diane’s parents not being able to afford elementary school due to their traveling cycle, Diane was homeschooled by her mother. During this time, Diane would tinker around with her mother’s telegraph machine. She would also begin to be educated about the Assassin Brotherhood at the age of ten, which is when they returned to Lyon. Diane would learn everything from Assassin theory, combat in all forms, freerunning, and stealth. Noticing that Diane was excelling at her studies, she was sent to law school at the age of 14 in 1939. It was here where she met Vivian Cadieux-Foden for the first time, although their interactions were limited at school. Diane was pulled out of school when World War 2 broke out.
WW2 and Mission in Italy
When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, Diane and her family laid low as Vichy France was established as a German puppet state. Diane and her mother would work closely with the Free French Forces, where Diane would be used as a pickpocket to gain key documents useful to their cause, as well as use her skills with a telegraph machine to eavesdrop on messages exchanged between the Nazis. She would do this over the course of four years before her mother sent her to Milan with the mission of assisting communist partisans locate and kill Benito Mussolini, the former fascist dictator of Italy.
Just shy of her 20th birthday in 1945, Diane joined a group of communist partisans as they plotted the downfall of Benito Mussolini. Diane was responsible for locating Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci. Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle informed Diane that if Mussolini was captured, she would be rewarded by attending the execution, and pulling the trigger. After a couple of months, she succeeded in locating them by intercepting a telegram from one of Mussolini’s men. Diane informed Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle, telling him that they were near the village of Domo near Lake Como, and that they should attack as soon as possible. Stelle heeded Diane’s word, and the two of them and a group of partisans set out to capture Mussolini, a task in which they succeeded in doing. During the fighting, Stelle gave Diane a submachine gun.
The next day, a crowd gathered outside of the Villa Belmonte, waiting for Mussolini and Petacci to be brought to them. Diane made her way to the front, along with another partisan named Walter Audisio, upon seeing Mussolini’s bald head. Once Diane got to the front of the crowd, both her and Audisio shot Mussolini and Petacci respectively. She watched as the partisans loaded the bodies onto a truck and traveled to Milan. Diane herself traveled to Milan and watched the people and the partisans tie up Mussolini and his dead followers to a gas station roof from a distant rooftop. After the war, Diane helped the Italian Assassins back on their feet for a few years, living out of an apartment in Milan. When she finished assisting the Brotherhood, she went on a hiatus to focus on her personal life, abandoning law school. Upon her brief return to France, her mother bestowed upon her daughter the rank of Master Assassin. She would later return to Milan to be with her boyfriend Enrico.
Master Assassin Career
Joining the rechristened French Brotherhood
In July of 1955, Diane heard a knock on her apartment door in Milan. She opened the door and was greeted by Vivian Cadieux, a woman she went to law school with in Lyon, and that she was here because she had a proposal. Sitting down with her in Diane’s living room, Vivian informed Diane that she admired what she did in the downfall and execution of Mussolini, and for that, she extended an offer for Diane to join the French Brotherhood under Isabelle Andreu as a tech specialist. It was an offer she couldn’t refuse. A few days later, Diane and her family boarded a flight to Paris with Vivian, beginning her life anew as a member of the French Assassin Brotherhood. Upon her arrival in Paris, Vivian brought her to the Sainte-Chappelle bureau, where she met archivist and bookkeeper Irina McCall and Mentor Isabelle Andreu herself, describing Isabelle as ‘short but intimidating.’ Shortly after their arrival in Paris, Diane and her husband bought a house on Ile-de-la-Cite, and set up in her own temporary station within the bureau. She was also gifted her own Master Assassin outfit, which represented her Franco-Italian heritage.
With her work at a telegram company in Paris, Diane, along with her cohort Vivian with her job as a lawyer, through their jobs brought in a steady income for the Brotherhood, that helped their Assassin cell renovate the Cafe Theatre and restore the old Assassin bureau beneath Sainte-Chappelle, where they would carry out their operations. Diane was responsible for watching over the telegraph machines and intercept messages from the Templars, and report possible targets and threats to Isabelle, such as the breach of the Dorian Family Crypt. She would also be responsible for sending several messages to various Brotherhoods over the course of her career.
Taking on a role in the Field
In 1966, after suffering a second major concussion, Isabelle took a step back from engaging in field work to recover, which led to Diane taking her place in the active field. Isabelle’s step back was a permanent one as well, with Diane taking her place on a permanent basis. The most prominent mission of her field career was the infiltration of the Abstergo Industries building in Rome to rescue Irina, who was captured by Abstergo in 1968 and subject to several examinations due to her heterochromia and their belief in her being a Sage. The operation was dubbed by Isabelle as ‘Operation Rabbit’s Foot’, and involved Diane and Xavier posing as scientists who were new to the company. Isabelle couldn’t send Vivian, due to her commitments in Germany. Isabelle couldn’t go herself due to her concussion history. Arriving in Italy, Diane and Xavier were placed on the same floor as Irina, much to their convenience. Waiting for a few days, they hatched their plan, which was to disable the cameras on their wing, take out the security guards, and free Irina from her cell. Both Diane and Xavier were successful in taking out security guards along the way, while Diane made her way to the security camera room while Xavier carried on. Diane quietly took out the security guard in the security camera room and quickly disabled the cameras and rushed over to Xavier, who was having difficulty with the passcode to Irina’s room. Using her Eagle Vision, Diane inputted the correct code to open the door. Grabbing Irina, who looked rather ill, they told her that she was being rescued and to act like she was wounded. The only resistance they encountered was a security guard, who asked them where they were taking Irina, to which Diane replied that they were taking her to the doctor. He let them pass, but they snuck out a back exit to a vehicle they had called in earlier, barely just escaping by way of a smoke screen. The car transported them back to the airport, where they flew Irina out of Italy and back to France.
The next day, they arrived back at Isabelle’s place, showing her that they succeeded in their mission. Isabelle commended the two Assassins for their bravery and heroism, and would make sure that other Assassin cells and the President would hear about their bravery. For their actions in the operation, Diane and Xavier received the Legion of Honour for their efforts.
Later Assassin Years
Post - Operation Rabbit’s Foot, Diane was now going as Martina Laurent. Her later years in the Brotherhood were spent keeping a close eye on both the Soviet Union and the United States as the Cold War continued to rage on. In 1983, Isabelle announced her retirement from the Assassin Order, citing numerous injuries as her reason for retirement. She announced Vivian as the new Mentor, with Martina as her second in command. Her time in that role didn’t last long, as in 1986, a new mysterious Mentor was taking over leadership of the Brotherhood as a whole. Outraged by this, Martina and Vivian retired from their posts as Assassins in protest, citing that there was no point in making the Brotherhood’s actions public, and this would lead to great consequences for the Assassins.
Great Purge and Later Years
In December of 2000, The Mentor was struck down in Dubai by Daniel Cross, and in doing so, exposed the location of all Assassin cells around the world. This was an act by Abstergo in revenge for Isabelle’s Operation Rabbit’s Foot back in 1968. The Sainte-Chappelle cell was destroyed by an Abstergo task force. One final time, Martina and her fellow Assassins met up in Vivian’s cellar to meet up one final time before they parted ways. Shortly after their meeting, Martina and her son Niccolo booked a flight back to Italy, this time choosing Forli as their place of residence, where she would lay low. Martina would continue to maintain correspondence with her fellow Assassins and attended Isabelle’s funeral in 2012 along with Irina. The two of them would attend Vivian’s funeral two years later in Manchester. Diane Martina Laurent herself would pass away a year later on August 25th, 2015 due to complications from a sudden blood clot in her leg. She was 91 years old. She was interred in the War Cemetery in Foril.
Personal Life
Growing up, Diane was an extremely extroverted child despite being homeschooled. She would actually visit fellow children at the playground of the school near her house. As she grew up, this stuck with her, as she immediately got along with her fellow Assassins when she moved to Paris to work with the French Assassins.
Diane was an incredibly focused and determined individual, not wanting to be bothered when she was working on a select task, and wanting to get it finished immediately. There were instances where Diane would be focused on trying to intercept a message and Irina would interrupt her with a message from Isabelle, and Diane would unleash a swear-filled tirade towards her, which got her into trouble more than a few times with Isabelle. One of these tirades nearly forced Isabelle to expel Diane from the Brotherhood.
Despite her impulsiveness when it comes to getting tasks done, Diane was a really caring and understanding person. If she hurt any of her fellow Assassins in any way, Diane would take them aside and have a civil conversation with them, explaining her actions and apologizing if she was in the wrong.
It is widely speculated that Diane was diagnosed with ADHD, despite her feverish claims of her not having it.
Romantic Life
In 1950, Diane met Enrico Gorvaldi, a communist partisan, while living in Milan. The pair would meet up whenever they were able to, whether it be for a cup of coffee or a walk through the city. After two years of dating, Enrico moved in with her, and a year later, he proposed to her in front of the Milan Cathedral. The couple would get married on October 10th, 1954 inside a small chapel in Milan. He would accompany Diane on her move to Paris a year later. On January 10th, 1956, Diane gave birth to a son they would name Niccolo Sebastian Gorvaldi. Diane would train her son to be an Assassin, ultimately earning his Master Assassin rank in 1977. Diane and Enrico would remain married until Enrico’s death in 2013.
Weaponry and Talents
As an Assassin, Diane was well versed in all forms of combat, whether it be close quarters or ranged combat, but Diane’s specialty lay with tools and how they could be used to kill someone. She could quickly on the fly concoct a trap that could catch an enemy off guard or divert them away from their position.
It helped her out during pivotal missions such as Operation Rabbit’s Foot, where she used a specialty smoke screen that she created to divert Abstergo security guards as they loaded Irina into the vehicle for transport to the airport.
Diane also possessed the sixth sense known as Eagle Vision, and used it frequently in her missions.
Trivia
- Diane never consumed alcohol or any drugs.
- Diane was known for her unique fashion sense.
- Diane was fluent in English, French, and Italian.
- Politically, Diane was a devout leftist and staunchly antifascist.
- Diane’s looks and appearance are based on Canadian curler Briane Meilleur.
- Her character theme song is ‘Who I Am’ by Code Orange