Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

This mission crosses over with Ladies Half Price.

Type	MISSION
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend
Niko and Packie meeting Gay Tony and Luis Lopez to exchange Gracie for the diamonds
Appears in	IV
For	Gerald McReary
Location	Alderney State Correctional Facility, Acter Industrial Park
Target	Diamonds
Conditions of mission failure
Wasted Busted Packie dies Gracie dies Vincent destroyed
Rewards
Rewards	None
Missions
Unlocks	One Last Thing
Unlocked by	She's a Keeper
Technical Information
Time of day	In-game time

“

Niko Bellic, how is it that whenever something is stolen from me you are not far away?

”

— Ray Bulgarin

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend is the final mission for the McReary Family. In this mission, Niko Bellic and Packie McReary arrange a deal on Charge Island to exchange their hostage, Gracie Ancelotti, for a ransom of diamonds. The mission later appears through Luis Lopez's point of view in Ladies Half Price.

Description

Niko meets Packie and Gracie in a car on Frankfort Avenue in Northwood. He and Packie offer to give the Ancelottis back Giovanni Ancelotti's daughter, Gracie, in exchange for diamonds that Luis Lopez stole back in an earlier incident. While Gracie is successfully returned to her family, the deal is interrupted (for Niko and Patrick only) by Ray Bulgarin, whose men temporarily steal the diamonds. Niko and Packie engage them in a prolonged gunfight, but the man with the diamonds throws them onto a passing dump truck out of spite, trusting neither Bulgarin nor Niko and Packie to let him live. Packie does indeed kill him, and the pair are left with neither their hostage nor their ransom. Niko comments in Serbian: "Fucked up. As usual."

Mission objectives

In order to complete the mission the player must:

• Go to Packie's car in Northwood
• Drive to the Charge Island Sewage Works
• Go around the back to the exchange point
• Take out Bulgarin's men
• Make your way across to the walkway
• Take down the reinforcements
• Take out the last of Bulgarin's men
• Follow Packie
• Take Packie back to his Ma's house in Dukes

Walkthrough

Head over to the safehouse on Frankfort Avenue in Northwood. Packie and Gracie are waiting for you in the car. Hop in and drive to the Charge Island Sewage Works.

Drive into the yellow marker at the exchange point, which is an abandoned oil factory. A cutscene shows the deal. The deal becomes botched when Ray Bulgarin steals the diamonds and Luis Fernando Lopez and Anthony Prince escape with Gracie, so basically Packie and Niko lose everything.

Gain cover and shoot Bulgarin's men. There are about a dozen, so take your time. Use a grenade only when Packie is far from the detonation point. Once the nearby men have been wiped out, get closer and ambush the remaining ones. Follow Packie to the hallways above ground. There will be a lot of men on the aboveground hallways so use the pipes as cover.

Packie and Niko will split up with Niko taking the "low road" and Packie taking the "high road." The view will focus on three cars that skid on the ground nearby; use a rocket launcher or a few grenades and blow up the cars before the men can spread out and cause trouble.

Meet back up with Packie and corner the two men with the diamonds. Watch as the men drop the diamonds into a moving Biff dump truck below. Packie curses and draws his gun; help Packie kill the men, then slide down the ladder. Drive Packie to his Mom's house in Meadows Park, Dukes. On the way, Packie will lament the failure of their plan.

Video Walkthroughs

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

After the Mission

On the radio and in The Liberty Tree an article mentions a poor man living in the garbage finding a bag of diamonds, and becomes rich. The man said he was going to Vice City to open a weapons business. However this is ret-conned in The Ballad of Gay Tony where in an updated version of the story states that he found them in the trash in Meadows Park (as seen in the closing cutscene of the mission Departure Time) in Luis' side of the story.

Trivia

• This is the last time Luis and Niko cross paths.
• Interestingly, both protagonists end up having to calm their respective associates down during the deal cutscene (Niko with Packie, Luis with Tony).
• It is possible to follow Packie when Niko and him take different paths in search for the diamonds, so the player will only have to defend themselves.
• In the opening cutscene where Niko speaks to Gerald, Gerald is seen smoking a cigarette, even though there are several "No Smoking" signs clearly visible.
• If Niko wears a hat in this mission, it will be removed during the cutscene, and following the cutscene, Niko will have it back on.
• In GTA IV, Luis speaks with a more Dominican accent, while he speaks with a less accent in TBoGT.
• Tony's glasses and haircut change between this mission and Ladies Half Price; he has tapered sides and wears blacked out sunglasses in this mission and become black and purple glasses and a full head of hair in Ladies Half Price.
• If you haven't killed Ray before this mission, Niko will automatically call him afterwards. Niko will mention that a "serious Russian" he knows also claimed that the diamonds belonged to him, and inform Ray of their likely destination.
• If Pest Control is completed before this mission, the dialogue will change. Also Niko will tell Packie that he has intentions of going after Ray Bulgarin, Packie says that it ain't gonna come true, foreshadowing the mission Departure Time, where Bulgarin is killed by Luis.
• After the diamonds are thrown into a Biff, you can see the Biff driving down the freeway overpass, albeit without the diamonds.
• Dimitri Rascalov will call soon after this mission to accuse Niko for stealing off Bulgarin a second time. It appears Dimitri knew about the deal and informed Bulgarin which is what led him there, and thus Dimitri is the reason why the deal went sour. Dimitri also says he went to where the deal took place, only to find Niko's body not with the others, to his disappointment.
• After the mission is completed, a Weazel News report will state that Elizabeta Torres was arrested and given a 300 year sentence. This means her trial ended after Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend, following her initial (or possibly eventual) arrest after Have a Heart.
• After the diamonds are dropped into the Biff, most of the cars on the streets of Liberty City are Biffs (they can spawn in any variant) until the mission ends.
• Despite Luis being a hostage and witness in Three Leaf Clover and a gunman in Museum Piece, Niko and Packie do not seem to recognize him during the deal, despite clearly being seen by Packie and Derrick as they kill Eugene Reaper, and Niko when he ambushes the deal in Museum Piece. If Niko phones Roman after the mission, however, Roman will tell him how a "Dominican looking guy" (Luis) was both at the ambush for the diamonds and in this mission, at the deal.
• The mission has the same name of Marilyn Monroe's song in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
• It is revealed in TBoGT that Niko used a Carbine Rifle during this mission.
• This is the only crossover mission in the GTA IV era alongside with Ladies Half Price not to involve Johnny Klebitz. 
• When being chased by the police, Packie will throw a Molotov Cocktail out the window, but it's not very effective.
• A dark green Vincent is used during this mission. But in Ladies Half Price, the car is black instead, but you can still see it with black rims.

  

  Bulgarin's man holding the diamonds over the side of the catwalk

• In this mission, Gracie mistakenly calls Tony "daddy", with Tony replying "sweetheart". Before the release of TBoGT, this caused many players to believe that Tony was Giovanni Ancelotti. These lines remained in TBoGT, alothough it was made clear that Tony was the one who made the deal, not Ancelotti.
• Even though the man who drops the diamonds off the catwalk is supposed to be one of Bulgarin's men, he speaks with a distinct Italian-American accent. However, this may be because he is simply a hired gun, not a full member of Bulgarin's organization.
• This is the final appearance of Gerald McReary, Ray Bulgarin and Packie McReary outside of friend activities.