Delta Green: Strange Authorities

by John Scott Tynes

  Alphonse shook his head ruefully. “I can’t go near those people.” He sighed. “We were tight with Wackenhut back in the ’60s, before the shutdown. Fellow travelers, really. When we went underground in ’70, Reggie Fairfield started using them for a lot of ancillary DG work. They never knew what we were really all about. Just thought we were a bunch of frothing Goldwater cowboys out to save the world from Communism. Reggie even served on their board of directors for a few years in the mid-’70s. Then he had some sort of falling-out with them. He didn’t tell us the details; he always kept that stuff pretty compartmentalized. Reggie was good at that.” He laughed. “Hell, I’m still drawing a pension from Wackenhut under one of my aliases. If you ever wondered where we get our funding from, well, we’ve juggled a lot of books in our time.”

  Abe looked incredulous. “Damn.”

  “There’s a lot of water gone under Delta Green’s bridge, agents. Most of it doesn’t smell too good.”

  “So what does this mean?” Vic asked. “What’s OUTLOOK Group up to?”

  “That I don’t know, but I can guess. Obviously, they’re tied in with the people responsible for what’s happened to Cell S. OUTLOOK and Groversville are just two of their operations. Based on what we learned from Groversville and the personnel list we’ve assembled, I’d bet that OUTLOOK is conducting medical research for them, probably involving the neo-tissue and God knows what else. There’s another thing, too, though I’m not sure how it fits into this. Besides Krogen, OUTLOOK’s other owner is someone named Albert Yrjo—Dr. Albert Yrjo, actually. He never turned up in your surveillance photos. I found a book he wrote in the Library of Congress: The Group Dynamic in a Stress Environment, from 1966. I’ve only skimmed it, but it looks like Dr. Yrjo was doing psychological research at NYU, running traumatic simulations to see how people would react. Nasty stuff. How he managed to segue into an ex-CIA think tank that’s gone into medical experimentation . . . well, it’s not a pretty picture. I’d surmise they’re in MKULTRA territory. Brainwashing, programming, and worse.”

  “Who the hell are these people, Alphonse?” Stephanie asked. “Who’s running this show?”

  Alphonse sat quietly for a few moments. “They’re a lot like us. They know things other people don’t know. But their angle is different. It’s exploitive. Where we see shadows, they see stealth technology. And unlike us, they’ve never been shut down.”

  “It’s them, isn’t it?” Vic asked. “The ones who killed Fairfield.”

  Alphonse nodded. “Reggie pushed too hard. They pushed back.”

  “But that’s what we’re doing now,” Stephanie said. “We’re pushing.”

  “Yes. But so far, we’re still within the rules of engagement.”

  “The what?” Abe said. “We have rules with these people?”

  “Unspoken ones, but yes. They’ve got dirt on us, but they know we’ve got dirt on them, too. So we’ve got a sort of truce. For the most part, our respective agendas rarely overlap. They’re very tightly focused.”

  “What about now?”

  “Now? Well, they made the first move. They took Cell S. That gives us certain leeway—they expect us to respond, and they’re willing to take the hit we deliver if it still furthers their goals. In this case, I think that goal is Groversville—Promise, I mean. Whatever they’re up to there, they want us to stay clear.”

  “So?” Vic said. “What do we do?”

  “We stay the hell out of Promise, that’s what we do. That’s why I yanked you out of there. But we can still go after our people. That much, I think, they’ll be willing to tolerate. And in tolerating us that far, we’ll get a little closer, find out a few things—they will, too, of course. Maybe we can teach them a small lesson, discourage them from pulling this kind of crap on us again. But if we push too hard, if we break the rules of engagement, there’s no telling what will happen.” He looked at each of them. “We’re on very dangerous ground, here, agents. We have to be careful.”

  The room was quiet. Abe pulled out the bottle of bourbon and began passing plastic cups around. Alphonse lit a cigarette and sipped at his drink.

  Vic broke the silence. “So we can still go after OUTLOOK. That’s where they took Susan and probably Shasta, and that makes it fair game.”

  Alphonse nodded. “I’d say so.”

  “So what’s the next step?”

  “Our only real option is some sort of raid. We have to hit them very fast, find our people, and get the hell out. But that means we need a lot of manpower, and that’s not easily done. Ideally, we’d pull a Waco on them—sic somebody like the ATF on OUTLOOK, use them as cover to get inside and do the job, and let them take the fallout. The trick is keeping it low-profile until we’re ready to strike. With their connections, they could get wind of a major investigation and get it quashed.”

  “Then we’ve got them,” Stephanie said. “We can nail them to the wall.”

  “How?” Alphonse asked, leaning forward in his chair.

  “They’re doing medical work. We know that from the personnel. We made that medical-waste truck that came through, and I’m betting that discharge we caught on the thermal is them incinerating medical waste that they can’t trust to the truck company. I made some calls this morning, and OUTLOOK doesn’t have permit one. They don’t have any authority to perform medical procedures, dispense drugs, nothing. Between the EPA and OSHA, we can get a warrant from Justice. We could bring the DEA in on it, too, since they probably have controlled drugs on the property, but that’s too high-profile. I can contain it to just my guys and OSHA, make it look like a routine violation case, and we’ll have Deputy U.S. Marshals kicking down their doors before they know what hit them.”

  Alphonse cackled. “The EPA and OSHA. Hell, that’s the stuff! Keep it beneath their radar, direct your people away from OUTLOOK’s CIA roots, and we’ll catch them with their pants down.”

  “Damn,” Vic said, looking admiringly at Stephanie. “I knew there was a reason we brought you along.”

  Stephanie grinned. “It’ll work. I know it’ll work. But if we’ve got somebody at Justice, it’ll go smoother. Do we?”

  “Yeah. We’ve got a friendly over there who’s helped us out before—a deputy U.S. attorney. Funnel it through her and she can keep a lid on it until it’s showtime. She’ll also know the right judge to sign the warrant. And no, before you ask, we don’t have any judges in our pockets.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Stephanie said.

  Alphonse nodded. “But this is going to take a couple weeks to set up, even on a fast track. Thomas, Tonya, I want you two to go home and get back on the job. We can’t keep you out here for this.”

  Vic got stern. “Damn it, Alphonse, I want a piece of this!” Abe nodded in agreement.

  “You’ll get it, agent, but not yet. When it’s time for the raid we’ll bring you back in. You three and Cell N will be our reps on the raid. It’ll be up to you to find Susan and Shasta and get them out of there, along with whatever files you can lay your hands on.” The pair looked mollified.

  “Terry, you’re back at work in the morning, too. Play this as an anonymous informant who’s ratting out OUTLOOK from the inside. Maybe they’re doing illegal organ transplants, or unlicensed cancer therapy. No bioweapons, though. This needs to be as boring as you can make it.”

  Stephanie nodded. “No problem. I’ve prosecuted a couple cases like this before, actually.”

  “All right, then. You two get to the airport and take the next flights home. Terry, let’s work out some details and get the story straight. The clock is ticking.”

  The next two weeks were busy ones for Stephanie. She and Alphonse settled on the illegal organ-transplant scenario, running with the idea that OUTLOOK was buying organs from Mexico and putting them into rich old alcoholics and other well-heeled people who didn’t like the risk and the wait of the official transplant channels. Stephanie’s “anonymous informant” dropped her the info, and she took it to her superiors. They repeated s
ome of Cell T’s surveillance work, making the medical personnel, the waste-disposal company, and the incinerator. EPA scientists took clandestine air samples during the burn periods and found traces of biological matter and pharmaceuticals. EPA researchers checked out Stoli Bros. Medical Waste and found that while they had contracts with a number of area hospitals, they didn’t list OUTLOOK as one of their clients. EPA investigators went over the hospitals’ paperwork and found that Stoli was disposing of more medical waste than they were picking up—officially, at least. Stephanie called a friend at OSHA and got them involved. An FBI liaison tied Stoli Bros. to one of the five families of the East Coast mafia; the mafia ran a number of garbage-disposal companies, especially in New York, and since the early ’90s they’d begun diversifying into the lucrative and growing medical-disposal industry. With the FBI’s help, the EPA and OSHA co-opted Stoli Bros. into the investigation. The head of Stoli agreed to testify against OUTLOOK in exchange for immunity for his company—and its owners in New York, whom he was clearly in fear of. Stoli also turned over OUTLOOK’s waste from a run in the second week of the investigation, which the EPA and OSHA examined; it confirmed the presence of illegal surgical procedures inside OUTLOOK. Stephanie pushed hard and had her evidence in record time, though it certainly helped that her case was pretty much made before the investigation even started. She also kept tight control on research into OUTLOOK’s personnel and history, keeping her colleagues busy with surveillance, physical evidence, and the rather colorful Stoli connection, while she doctored her corporate-research reports to hide any trace of the CIA’s involvement. Finally, she took the case to DG’s friendly at the Department of Justice and got the warrant started—but just barely, as a major snowstorm hit D.C. and shut down government offices for half a day just after she got things started at Justice. Due process prevailed over the elements, however, and the raid was set for Saturday morning, when the presence of OUTLOOK personnel should be at a minimum. The U.S. Marshals’ Special Operations Group would serve the warrant with a dozen deputy marshals in tactical gear, while Stephanie supplied a dozen investigators—including Vic, Abe, and Agent Nancy, who would pose as FBI and DEA reps along for the ride; the rest would be legit EPA and OSHA personnel. Agents Nick and Nolan would miss the raid. They were going to be busy destroying the two microwave and laser receivers OUTLOOK had on nearby buildings. The marshals would take care of the phone lines with the help of the phone company.

  A week into the official investigation, Alphonse brought Stephanie some news. Agent Susan had resigned from the ONI—again communicating by fax. She hadn’t been seen since they observed her entering OUTLOOK. Much like Shasta, she’d simply gone away. Unlike Shasta, she resigned, staving off any immediate official investigation.

  In the evenings, when she wasn’t conferring with Alphonse, Stephanie sat in her apartment petting Clotho and thinking. She was sure that this little operation would mark the end of her career with the EPA—Alphonse had warned her that the fallout was likely to be severe. His best-guess scenario was that the CIA or another agency would claim ownership of OUTLOOK and kill the raid-in-progress on national-security grounds. They might have an hour of free access, or more if they succeeded in blocking all the communications lines out of the facility, but soon enough the word would come down and the raid would be cut short. They’d have to move fast to find Susan and Shasta. In the aftermath, Stephanie would almost certainly take the fall for what would be portrayed as a massive cock-up, and her doctored reports on OUTLOOK might well be exposed. The EPA would take it in the shorts, and they’d throw her to the wolves. Alphonse said that if push came to shove, Delta Green would try to extract her and get her a new identity someplace else—but he couldn’t make any promises. Events might spiral beyond their ability to modulate.

  Stephanie didn’t give a damn. Her job, her mundane life, these things no longer mattered. They hadn’t mattered for months, maybe years. But Delta Green was different. There were people in trouble, people who desperately needed her and all the courage and talent she could bring to bear. People she cared about. She would not let them down, no matter the cost. This would be her finest hour.

  Vic spent the two weeks bored out of her gourd. She was back at Oly Park, walking the trails, helping campers, supervising foresters. She didn’t even go to Seattle for the weekend, which prompted a worried call from Sue. Vic had effectively ceded control of the Cell to Stephanie, given the circumstances, and her inactivity drove her up the wall. She spent her free time in her apartment, playing guitar and reading, anything to make the time go faster. She resisted contacting Alphonse, or Stephanie, or Abe. She cleaned her gun. She swept the floors. She vacuumed the curtains. She bought jigsaw puzzles and threw them away. She drank vodka to get to sleep. She waited.

  Abe was back at the FBI office in Milwaukee, picking up his case-load from the agents who’d taken it over while he was “consulting with the DEA.” Looking over his current projects, Abe came to the conclusion that they collectively inhabited Shit City, U.S.A., and he had to force himself to maintain any interest or focus on the work. He played basketball every evening when he left the office, and spent as little time at home as he could. Carol gave him funny looks and started arguments he refused to finish. He ignored her and read bedtime stories to Eric.

  On Saturday, about a week after he returned, he went to the gym for more basketball. The game went poorly, and he left in a foul temper.

  Phenomen-X was waiting for him in the parking lot.

  It took him a moment to recognize them. He spotted the video camera right off, of course, but he thought they were local journalists. He’d been on Milwaukee TV a few times in the course of his job. Then he recognized the short brunette from Promise, and then the two guys with her, and then his stomach lurched like he was in a falling elevator.

  He’d been made.

  “Agent Mannen,” the young woman called pleasantly as the old fart ran the camera and the balding guy with the bifocals stood behind them with his arms folded, smiling. “We’d like to have a word with you.”

  Abe jogged down the steps to where the trio were waiting for him in front of his car. He got right up in the small woman’s face, leaning over her. “Fuck off,” he spat.

  The woman was unperturbed. “Just a few questions for our audience. Who do you work for, Agent Mannen?”

  “I work for the F–B–fucking–I.”

  “We know that, Agent Mannen. We mean, who do you really work for? Like when you’re in Tennessee, for example?”

  “That’s none of your goddamn business. I’m a federal law-enforcement agent and I cannot discuss current investigations with the press. Or with you people.”

  “Your superiors believed you were consulting with the DEA, Agent Mannen. I didn’t notice any DEA agents in Tennessee.”

  “That just means they were doing their job, lady.”

  “Oh, were those DEA agents you were with when you drew your guns on us? Those two attractive young women you shared a single motel room with in Knoxville? Does Carol know about your little girlfriends, Agent Mannen?”

  “You leave my family alone!” Abe thundered.

  “Leave your family alone? But that’s your specialty, isn’t it?”

  Abe snapped. He gave the woman a roundhouse slap that drove her against his car. She folded to the ground. The other two froze in shock. Abe ripped the camera off the old fart’s shoulder and hurled it to the pavement. People on the sidewalk nearby were staring in horror. The young woman started yelling for help, her nose gushing blood. Abe shouldered past the trio and got into his car, his face an angry red, sweat pouring off his brow. The two men helped the woman up, and the balding one called out: “Your ass is ours, you MiB fuck! You tell the group we want some answers and we want them now!” Abe burned rubber and sped out of the parking lot.

  The Milwaukee Police Department arrested Special Agent Abraham Mannen at his home three hours later.

  It was Friday night. The raid was set for eight o�
��clock tomorrow morning. Stephanie sat in MPI’s office in Bountin with Alphonse and Cell N, going over the details one more time. Vic showed up, smiling and jumpy, fresh from the airport taxi. The roads had largely cleared since the snowstorm and flights were once again on track at Ronald Reagan National Airport, though it was still chilly and wet outside.

  “We good to go?”Vic asked as she came through the door.

  “All set,” Stephanie replied cheerfully. “The warrant was signed at five p.m. today. The marshals are assembling.”

  “Fuckin’-A. Here comes the cavalry!”

  Alphonse picked Abe up at the airport five hours after Vic arrived. He’d booked Abe onto a succession of roundabout flights under a false identity so the Milwaukee authorities wouldn’t realize he’d left town. They walked to the rental car in silence. Alphonse didn’t speak until they were on the road.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  Abe sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m out on bond. The arraignment’s in two weeks. I’m under an administrative suspension from the FBI pending an investigation. My wife is filing for divorce and she wants sole custody. That about cover it?”

  “I don’t suppose you have any idea how they made you?”

  “Yeah, I figured it out. When we saw them in Promise, that mouthy reporter shoved a tape recorder in my face. I destroyed the tape. They must’ve gotten my prints off the recorder, had someone run them and my FBI file came up.”

  “Idiot.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  “I spoke with Carincola, the producer. They’re willing to drop the assault charge. They’re also willing to not file a civil suit against you and the FBI, which they’re otherwise contemplating. In exchange, they want information.”

  “What information?”

  Alphonse chuckled coldly. “‘The truth,’ he said. Whatever the hell that’s supposed to be.”

  “What are you going to give them?”

  “I’m working on that. Right now this raid is our first priority. We’re at T minus seven hours.”