Delta Green: Strange Authorities

by John Scott Tynes

  “Thanks for letting me come.”

  “We need you. I’m not willing to involve any more of our personnel in this situation. It’s too big and too dangerous as it is. If you’re going to be compromised anyway, I want to squeeze as much utility out of you as I can before it’s too late.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Spare me the goddamn sarcasm. You’ve put us in jeopardy. I back my people up in the line of duty, but you get zero sympathy from me for this cowboy bullshit. I’ll help you insofar as it helps Delta Green, but the rest of the mess you’ve made is yours to clean up.”

  “Do the others know?”

  “No, and you’re not going to tell them.”

  “Compartmentalized,” Abe said bitterly. “Got it.”

  “Damn straight. I’m not going to let you drag your partners into the shitstorm you’ve unleashed.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes. The lights of Washington blazed in the night sky all around them as they drove towards Bountin. Alphonse finally broke the silence.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Abraham.”

  Eight o’clock Saturday morning. Showtime. Stephanie, wearing body armor, spoke into a radio and gave the order to get moving. She was standing upright in the back of a big black panel van the U.S. Marshals had brought, surrounded by six deputy marshals in the SOG. They wore full tac gear and carried M16A2s. The van lurched forward and began driving down Marginal Way.

  Behind Stephanie’s lead van there were two more vans containing the rest of the raid party: six more SOG deputy marshals, five EPA investigators, four OSHA investigators, Abe, Vic, and Agent Nancy falsely repping the FBI and DEA, and two Prince Georges County Deputy Sheriffs along so the task force could make nice with the locals. Behind the third van was a huge motor home chock full of Electronic Counter-Measures gear that Alphonse’s friendly at Justice had managed to requisition; the independent counsel wasn’t using it this weekend. They sped down Marginal Way, making a straight line for the front gate of OUTLOOK Group. As they neared, Stephanie spoke into the radio again.

  “Approaching target. Sandman One, Sandman Two, green light, repeat, green light.”

  Agents Nick and Nolan were inside two different office buildings elsewhere in town, waiting inside stairwells. On Stephanie’s signal they each emerged onto the roofs of their respective buildings wielding sledgehammers. Nick reached the microwave receiver perched on an air vent just as Nolan reached the laser receiver mounted on the corner of the roof. Both raised their sledges and brought them down in cruel arcs, smashing the equipment.

  “Sandman Three, green light, repeat, green light.”

  A third deputy sheriff was at an open phone company junction box two blocks away with two company engineers. He nodded at them and they flipped several switches. OUTLOOK’s phone lines were deactivated.

  “All units, radio silence begins now. You know the drill. Sandman Four, green light, repeat, green light.”

  In the ECM motor home, a Justice Department technician started turning his equipment on. Within moments, every form of broadcast signal within a half-mile went to static—car radios, headsets, walkie-talkies, cell phones, and so forth, all neutralized. The technician smiled and ate a butter cookie.

  The task force would not be able to communicate except in person. But in return, Stephanie hoped that it would buy them time inside OUTLOOK before the hammer came down.

  They were nearing the gate. Stephanie could see the two khaki-clad guards in the booths swapping looks and picking up telephones. A vicious smile stole across her features.

  “Eat shit, assholes,” she muttered under her breath.

  The ECM motor home came to a halt. It didn’t need to be any closer. The three vans pulled up to the entrance in a line and stopped.

  “Go go go!” Stephanie shouted. The back doors flew open and four marshals in tac gear piled out, followed by Stephanie. Two marshals ran for the left guard booth and two ran for the right. Stephanie on a bullhorn, breathless: “U.S. MARSHALS WE HAVE A FEDERAL SEARCH WARRANT DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND OPEN THE GATE NOW!”

  At each booth, a marshal shoved a copy of the warrant against the bulletproof glass while the other poked the end of his rifle through the murder hole. The two guards stood, curiously unruffled, and did nothing.

  Stephanie on the bullhorn, catching her breath: “I REPEAT, U.S. MARSHALS, WE HAVE A FEDERAL SEARCH WARRANT. DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND OPEN THE GATE NOW.”

  One of the guards spoke up, his voice eerily calm through the crackling speaker mounted next to his booth. “I have to talk to my superior before I can comply. The phone isn’t working.”

  The marshal in front of him thumped his fist against the glass. “I’m your goddamn superior, son, and you will comply with this warrant or we will take you into custody for contempt of a federal judge and obstruction of justice and then we’ll ram your gate down anyway.”

  The two guards looked at each other again, and one shrugged. They both opened the doors to their booths and tossed out H&K MP5s and Ruger m117 .38 revolvers. The marshals boggled. One guard pressed a button and the gate began to glide open. The marshals picked up the weapons and waved the guards out, then handed them over to the deputy sheriffs who had by now emerged from the second van. Four sheriff’s prowlers came around the corner, lights and sirens suddenly blaring, and blocked off the end of the road behind the ECM motor home. They’d be policing up any detainees and keeping the entrance secure.

  “LET’S GO!” Stephanie bellowed through the bullhorn. She and the four marshals piled back into the lead van and all three vehicles sped through the gate. They covered the hundred yards to the front door of OUTLOOK Group Inc. in moments.

  All twelve marshals came out of the vans at a run and blazed forward. They faced a large metal door with a mail slot and a small window at eye level. Four marshals gathered at the door and then one pulled it open, stepping back so the other three could enter. The lead one yelled: “U.S. MARSHALS! WE HAVE A SEARCH WARRANT!” The building swallowed them up.

  Stephanie led the investigative team, all in body armor, and they hurried up behind the rest of the marshals who were already spilling inside. The team followed.

  Inside was a small lobby, appointed with prints of country scenes and a large creeping ivy plant that spiraled up one wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side. A matronly woman was standing up behind a desk on the wall opposite the door, holding her empty hands gingerly in front of her. On top of the desk sat an old Selectric typewriter and a fashion magazine. Two guards in khaki stood off to one side with their hands in the air, Ruger revolvers lying on the floor at their feet. They seemed relaxed. The marshals were already dispersing down two hallways. Two marshals remained with the guards, hustling them over to a wall out of the way. They would move all three staffers outside to the deputies once the lobby was cleared.

  Stephanie took five investigators with her down one hallway behind the marshals. Another EPA inspector led the rest down the other way. Abe was with Stephanie. Vic and Nancy went with the second team.

  The marshals were moving down the halls, checking one room at a time. No one was inside. Stephanie’s team checked out the rooms once they were clear: two offices, a supply closet, a small, disorderly library with three desks and chairs, a sterile-looking conference room. They kept moving.

  The hall made a turn and came to an end at a door. Two marshals stood guard while three more went inside. Stephanie’s team followed them.

  They’d entered a plush office. A massive executive desk stood at one end, piled with magazines. The rest of the room contained a small conference table, some chairs, three televisions and VCRs, more country prints, and a desktop computer and printer. A small humidor rested on a corner of the desk. There was another door opposite the one they’d entered, and the marshals were already moving through.

  Stephanie directed a lady from OSHA towards the computer, and pointed Abe at the audio/video cabinet where she noticed stacks of tapes. As the rema
ining two marshals entered and followed their companions, Stephanie turned her attention to the desk. The magazines all appeared to be assorted political-science journals of recent vintage. The labels were addressed to Valentine Krogen, OUTLOOK Group Inc. She flipped open the humidor and found a layer of cigars concealing run-of-the-mill pornographic magazines. Abe pawed through the videotapes, none of which were marked. He popped one into a VCR and got it running. Two blond women with obvious breast implants were having sex with a strikingly hung man in a skull-tight crew cut. It was obviously a porno film. Abe snorted. “Hairless fuck-ape,” he muttered, then more loudly: “We got porn!” Two of the investigators laughed.

  One of the marshals stepped back through the inner door. “Ms. Park, you should see this.” Stephanie hurried forward, followed closely by Abe, who left the video running.

  The door led to a very large room. At one time it had been some sort of conference room. There was a massive table, lots of chairs, chalk boards on the walls, and an old overhead projector shoved in a corner. Now, however, it was full of magazines. They were more political-science journals like Stephanie had seen on the desk. But there were hundreds—no, thousands of them, piled in haphazard stacks on the floor and table. Some of the stacks reached almost to the ceiling and were supported by the walls and by other adjacent stacks. The room was dusty. Stephanie walked towards the back of the room and picked up a random magazine; it was dated Summer 1961. There was no obvious order to the stacks, except that recent magazines were closer to the door. In the back half of the room there was only enough space between the stacks for one person to walk sideways. It reminded Stephanie of the occasional news reports of little old ladies with sixty cats and a house full of decades-old daily papers, moldering and occasionally toppling fatally over on their owner.

  “Dead end,” Stephanie called out to her team. “Let’s backtrack.” She left one marshal behind with the OSHA investigator who was still examining the computer. Then she hurried back into the hallway with four marshals, Abe, and three other investigators. Whatever secrets OUTLOOK might possess, Stephanie figured that Vic and Nancy would find them first. She cursed under her breath and double-timed it back with the others.

  In the other hall, the second team found bathrooms, a storeroom with office supplies and a percolating coffeemaker, and a small exercise room with very up-to-date equipment. Rounding the far corner, they came to a stairwell heading down below ground. Another guard stood there, pointing his Ruger straight at them.

  “Halt!” he yelled. The marshals froze, m-16s pointing at the guard. The lead marshal spoke up: “We’re U.S. Marshals executing a federal search warrant. Lay down your weapon and stand aside.”

  The guard stood firm, slowly shifting his aim to the lead marshal. “No. This is a national-security facility and you may not progress without authorization from my superiors.”

  “I don’t see your superiors here, son, but I do see this search warrant and you will comply or we will place you under arrest for contempt of a federal judge and obstructing justice. If what you say is true, we’ll get it sorted out. But right now, you are threatening the lives of federal officers executing a federal warrant and if we have to, we will use deadly force. Five on one, son. Make the smart play.”

  The guard and the marshal locked eyes. Vic, Nancy, and the rest of the investigative team stood back around the corner, listening intently to the tense exchange.

  Seconds ticked by. The marshal held the guard’s gaze and nodded slowly, affirming his intent.

  The guard lowered his weapon. “Okay, cowboy. It’s your funeral, not mine.” He placed the Ruger on the floor and raised his hands. Two marshals rushed forward and took him by the arms, then grabbed the weapon and hustled the guard back down the hall. “All clear,” the lead marshal called. The investigative team spun around the corner and saw the stairwell. “After you,” the lead EPA rep said. The marshal nodded and led his two partners down the stairs.

  Stephanie’s team arrived in the lobby just as the two marshals who had removed the first three staffers re-entered from outside, having handed their detainees over to the deputies. There was some sort of commotion down the other hallway, and then two marshals double-timed towards the lobby escorting another guard. Stephanie addressed the pair that had just come back in: “With us!” Then the group scurried down the hall, sidling past the latest detainee and his captors.

  At the end of the hall they found the second investigative team waiting at the top of the stairs. The lead rep, a middle-aged co-worker of Stephanie’s named Archie Sanders, nodded forward. “They just went down. We’re waiting for the all-clear.” Stephanie turned to look at the six marshals she’d brought, but they were already hustling down the stairs after their colleagues. Vic caught her eye. “So far, so good.”

  The explosion shook the building like a rag doll.

  A blast of wind and smoke blew up the stairs, engulfing the marshals.

  At the top of the steps, everyone went down in a confused mass.

  On the other side of the building, the marshal and the EPA inspector in the executive suite heard the boom, accompanied by a tremendous crash from the next room. Alarm klaxons began to sound. The marshal raced to the inner door and threw it open. Inside, the back half of the huge conference room had collapsed into a basement—or more accurately, had been blown open from below. Magazine confetti was floating in the air along with a huge ball of smoke. Debris from the conference table, the shattered floor, and whatever had been below was scattered pell-mell amidst the scattered thousands of journals. Fires were everywhere, fires that the marshal knew would engulf the massive piles of combustible magazines in moments and start a blaze that could bring down the whole building.

  “Son of a bitch!” he yelled. He turned to the inspector. “Yank that damn thing outta the wall!” The inspector pulled the cords out of the back of the computer while the marshal lifted the monitor off and tossed it to the floor. They picked up the CPU, the inspector bundled it under her arms, and the marshal led her at a full-tilt run back into the hallway. On the television, the women mimed ecstasy.

  The pair reached the lobby, where two marshals and two sheriff’s deputies were looking back and forth down the hallways, confused. “Fire!” the marshal yelled as he and the inspector rushed in. “Maybe a meth lab! Get the trucks!”

  “The radio’s out!” one of the deputies replied, panic on his young face.

  “Get in your goddamn car and go get us some help! This place is gonna burn!” The deputy sped out the door. The marshal turned to the inspector. “You! Take that thing and get to the street. Stick it in the ECM and stay there!”

  She looked confused. “The ECM?”

  The marshal sputtered. “The—the damn Winnebago! Take it to the damn winnebago and stay there!” The inspector turned and fled with the computer.

  “Christ almighty!” the other deputy said. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Find some fire extinguishers! And if you smell chemicals, get the hell out! You guys, follow me.” He took off down the hallway where he figured the team had gone, the other two marshals in tow.

  Stephanie stood up slowly, her ears ringing slightly. There was no debris or fire, and it didn’t look like anyone was hurt. The rest of the team got up gingerly. The six marshals on the stairs had apparently already moved into the basement. Three more marshals were coming down the hall from the lobby. Vic stepped over to Stephanie and spoke quietly between blasts of the klaxon.

  “Nancy’s gone.”

  Jean Qualls—Agent Nancy—had recovered from the blast immediately. She saw the marshals piling through the door. From amidst the collapsed agents she leapt up on her powerful, inhuman legs and landed at the base of the stairs in a feral crouch, a momentary growl escaping her throat. A wild mix of smells coursed from the basement, too subtle for a human to decipher. There was a chemical odor she made as some sort of explosive, as well as the fragrance of something on fire. But there was more—a human smell, the phe
romone signatures of numerous people, all oozing terror. She didn’t recognize the fear-smells as being any of the marshals, all of whom she had instinctively and unconsciously catalogued by odor. There were medical smells, too: disinfectant, pharmaceuticals she didn’t know, and the rich odor of the human body lain open, probably from surgery. The human smells were powerful, and fantasy images flashed in her mind’s eye of stacks of corpses, bulging with the secret flavors only she could savor. A hungry thought flashed before she could squelch it: Maybe there’s a morgue. But no. She wasn’t picking up anything that reeked of the dead. There was one more smell, a strange one, that at first resembled burning cardboard, presumably from the fire; but somehow, that wasn’t right. This was something new, something alive.

  Then she was up and through the door.

  Stephanie and Vic groggily took the lead and hurried down the stairs, sidearms drawn. The rest of the investigation team and the three marshals followed right behind.

  They entered a large room. There was some sort of desk station just inside the door, covered with computers and papers. Security doors lined the walls, twenty of them, each with a small window. A single hallway led left, hazy with smoke. The lights were flickering in that direction.

  Stephanie turned to the marshals. “Watch this hall!”

  Two of the marshals took up positions at the entrance to the corridor. The third grabbed her shoulder as she started to turn away. “Ms. Park, this building’s going up. The explosion went off beneath that big conference room, and all that shit’s in flames. I sent a deputy for the fire department.”

  “Shit!” Stephanie blurted. “Goddamn it! All right, watch that hall. You guys, take all that crap from the desk and get it out of here! The rest of you, with me.”

  She led Vic and Abe and several agents and they fanned out to check on the doors. They were all the same—cells with bare white walls. All but one contained single occupants, men and women of various ages and races, wearing patient gowns. Some were lying in their bunks, asleep or drugged or dead, but many were up and about. Those that were awake began screaming incoherently and banging at the locked doors as soon as they saw the agents outside.