July 13th, 1997. St Louis, Missouri.
The Agents and Friendlies of J-Cell brought together by Delta Green into a secretive FBI taskforce. Their mission - investigating the bombing of a retired USAF Colonel.
- Agent JEAN / Faith McGuire, CIA.
- Agent JENKINS / James Jefferies, FBI.
- Agent JESSE / Dusty Morgan, ATF.
- Agent JOSEF / Ron Czerwinski, USMS.
- Jackie Scanlon, NNSA.
Ex-USAF colonel and director of McConnell-Bayless, Larry Daniel was hosting an orgy at his St. Louis mansion. Among the attendees was the City Commissioner, Stanley Cable, and Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Antonio DiTorrio. A bizarre explosion interrupted the party, killing every attendee except Senator DiTorrio and Daniel's house staff (who were sequestered away from the orgy).
When asked details about the "bombing", Gaston sighed and said it'd be easier to show them. After passing out the keys to some FBI bucars and rooms in the Hilton hotel, he led them to the scene. Daniel's mansion was located on a few acres of well-manicured gardens, surrounded by an 8-foot wall and police cordon, hedging out the swarms of reporters and lollygaggers eager for a glimpse of the carnage. Despite the heavy law enforcement presence, Scanlon noted the building showed minimal structural damage - just evidence of a few electrical fires.
JEAN spotted a pair of anomalies on their approach to the front doors. One of the slots of Daniel's impressive four-car garage was conspicuously empty. And though most the alphabet soup milling about was ATF and FBI, there was a lone Air Force vehicle parked outside.
Inside the building, Gaston pointed out the spot where Senator DiTorrio fell over an interior balcony along with a party girl he'd been busy with. The senator had survived by landing on top of her, breaking her neck and snapping his collarbone. JENKINS, JESSE and Scanlon investigated the scene, finding the pair had somehow landed directly *below* the balcony, rather than in front of it. Furthermore, there was no evidence of a blast wave that could've knocked them off it - all the nearby windows were intact, there couldn't have been any overpressure.
Further inside the mansion the Agents found bizarre shrapnel markings over the walls and ceiling, all radiating out from a central point. Though the explosion's epicenter was in the library, Gaston led them to the parlor to "show them something". That something was a woman embedded in the ceiling.
The corpse was grafted into the plaster, like the structure had been built around her body. It was as if the mansion had *blinked* out of existence, then trapped her inside it when it phased back to reality. With a gaunt expression, Scanlon amended his calculations with a simple line down from the balcony. The senator and his companion hadn't been thrown by a shockwave - they'd fallen through the floor.
After the forensic techs finished cutting the woman down, the Agents were left alone in the parlor. JEAN took the opportunity to warn them all about the Air Force car, and Gaston confirmed that there were USAF goons on site - rummaging through Daniel's study for "classified documents". JENKINS and JEAN hustled off to intercept the men in black, leaving the rest of J-Cell to investigate the explosion.
Colonel Daniel's study was filled floor-to-ceiling with books, evidently the library had been relocated here after its renovation. A pair of sombre suited men were ransacking the place, one destructively copying a filing cabinet while another prepared to brick the colonel's personal computer. JENKINS ordered them to stop, but the goons just waved him off without looking up. So he unplugged the keyboard. That got their attention. With a look that could've killed, one USAF agent rattled off an eye-watering number of NRO security clearances to JENKINS and told him to kick rocks.
Unfortunately for them, JEAN and JENKINS spoke fluent legalese. None of the geospatial-intelligence special access programs the MiB cited were relevant to Colonel Daniel's work for USAF (he was a weapons procurement specialist, he had nothing to do with spy-satellites). The two goons grumbled and stopped trying to bluff him. They introduced themselves as Cpt. Picton and Wentzlauf of the AFOSI, and apologised for the hardball tactics. They agreed to stop destroying evidence, but JENKINS didn't have the power to boot them from the case entirely. As a peace offering, they gave him an unredacted report from the NRO - showing a massive EMP blast from the mansion at the time of the "explosion". After exchanging business cards, the MiB left the Agents alone in the study.
Ignoring the piles of old USAF procurement reports, JEAN started rooting through Daniel's reading material. Alongside classic novels and military histories was an impressive array of volumes on New Age religion and the occult. The most heavily bookmarked was a self-help book titled "Inner Science", by one Herbert Price. Inside the cover was a glossy pamphlet from "Enolsis", some New Age movement, and a photograph of Colonel Daniels hugging a blond-haired US Marine in Costa Rica.
Researching Herbert Price on Daniel's PC, JENKINS found he was a middling sci-fi author that had founded Enolsis before fleeing the country a few hours ahead of federal indictments from the IRS and ATF for tax-evasion and gunrunning in the late 80s. Enolsis was still around, headquartered out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. They even had a chapter located in St. Louis.
Back in the mansion's library, the room had been renovated into a veritable sex dungeon, at least before it was blown to smithereens. The site of the orgy was littered with shattered furniture, scorch marks and more corpses collision-glitched into the walls and ceiling. In the centre of the room was a strange pile of grey dust, which Gaston confirmed was where the body of Colonel Daniels was recovered from. At J-Cell's request, he produced a series of polaroids taken by the first responders. They showed a mummified corpse in a bizarre kneeling/lotus pose, hands clutched around a chunk of quartz.
The crystal had been remanded by the FBI to Washington University's geology department, hoping to discern anything unusual with it. Colonel Daniel's corpse, along with the other bodies, were in the morgue of St. Louis General Hospital, awaiting autopsy. After reconvening with JEAN and JENKINS, the Agents realised the crystal in Daniel's hands was a "Realiser", a mediation focus used by the Enolsis movement.
Before leaving the mansion, J-Cell interrogated the immigrant housekeeping staff. Though they denied any knowledge of the incident or Enolsis, JENKINS callously threatened their green cards to get them talking. The Jamaican chauffeur admitted a man from Enolsis had not only befriended Colonel Daniel, but had been present at the orgy. He'd fled the scene using the missing Mercedes from the garage.
The staff began suffering bizarre psychosomatic episodes as JOSEF pressured them on the man's identity, putting his psychology degree to good use. JEAN noted similar symptoms to her agency's work in MK-Ultra, the housekeepers were all exhibiting signs of severe psychological conditioning. Before they broke down completely, JOSEF pried a name from them - Doug Walters.
J-Cell left the weeping staff with bewildered FBI agents, splitting up to pursue different investigations.
- JEAN and Scanlon went to the WU geology department.
- JOSEF borrowed a desk in the FBI field office to do some research.
- JESSE went to the morgue to watch the autopsy.
- JENKINS went to the University Health Centre to interview Senator DiTorrio.
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