With Doug Walters in the wind, J-Cell set about getting a search warrant for the Enolsis chapterhouse. Fortunately, FBI forensics had already run samples taken from the Mercedes. The blood type matched Ronald Valiant's military records, and they even discovered it was a genealogical match for Senator DiTorrio thanks to a hospital trash bag JENKINS had absconded with.
Given Valiant was a wanted fugitive with a laundry list of violent offences, JOSEF had no issue getting a federal judge to sign off on a clandestine warrant. He even assembled a crack team of US marshals from the St. Louis field office for backup on the warrant service. Meanwhile, Scanlon was ratfucking every tracer round and smoke grenade he could find from the FBI armory. If bullets didn't hurt that shapeshifting monster, maybe burning magnesium and phosphorous would.
Thusly equipped and backed up by half-a-dozen doorkickers, JOSEF, JEAN and Scanlon arrived at the chapterhouse in the early morning. After one of the marshals jimmied the backdoor for them (none of the Agents knew how to pick locks, much to their chagrin), the trio slipped inside Valiant's apartment. Inside the painfully white interior they found a small armoury of explosives, kevlar and automatic weapons (from which JOSEF liberated two frag grenades), a jeweller's saw for cutting up the weird quartz crystals and a shitload of homemade pornography. They also pulled the chapterhouse's accounting records from Valiant's PC, but no one had the financial literacy to notice anything amiss.
Meanwhile, JENKINS was busy compiling a blackmail folder on Senator DiTorrio when he received a call from ASAC Gaston. The senator had discharged himself from hospital and was on the way to a private airstrip to flee to Virginia. JENKINS and Gaston's men piled into a trio of bucars and set out to follow the slimy politician, in case he led them to his illegitimate son. Sure enough, DiTorrio's motorcade pulled over and the senator hopped out to make a call on a roadside payphone. JENKINS borrowed a parabolic from another FBI agent and listened in on the conversation.
Senator DiTorrio made a call to the residence of one Henry Kilroy, the boyfriend of Diana Smith - the attractive Enolsis receptionist - and owner of the brown sedan Valiant had been driving. His disgraced son answered the phone and the pair got in a heated argument, with DiTorrio insisting Valiant flee the country, or at least St. Louis. The drug-dealing wizard refused, and cajoled his father into revealing the identities and hotel rooms of most of J-Cell.
JEAN rushed to their hotel rooms and sanitise them before someone got there first. JOSEF and Scanlon took their squad of goons and headed to the Kilroy residence for a final confrontation.
Henry lived with Diane in a two-storey suburban home on the outskirts of St. Louis. The pair split their forces, Scanlon taking three marshals around back and JOSEF preparing alongside another three to rush the front door. Scanlon's team approached without being detected, listening in as an armed Valiant shouted inside. The gunman was demanding a half-dressed Diane come upstairs, but both she and Henry were clearly terrified of "the thing" that was waiting. Eventually he psychically cajoled her into obeying him, living a paralysed Henry standing alone in the kitchen.
Scanlon hesitated. It would've be easy to just let Valiant take Diane upstairs to whatever awful fate awaited her. To clear the ground floor so the marshals could extract Henry and to cut off avenues of escape. But he hadn't joined Delta Green just to chose the easy option.
"BREACH".
The door exploded inwards, the battering ram crumpling the lock. Valiant grabbed Diane as a human shield and suppressed the doorway with a burst of machinegun fire. Scanlon ignored the hail of buzzing bullets and pushed inside, blinding the sorcerer with his strobe light. Hearing the gunfire, JOSEF sprinted across the lawn, but couldn't make it to the front door before Valiant reached the staircase and began dragging Diane up it. The wizard's next burst went wide, giving JOSEF long enough to line up a headshot and put three bullets right into Valiant's forehead.
A brilliant flash of pink light exploded from the wizard's face as a psionic shield protected him from being canoed. Valiant didn't escaped unscathed, screaming as molten copper splattered his face. He dropped Diane down the staircase and gave the marshals a clean shot. The subsequent burst depleted what was left of his shield, sending Valiant scuttling away and screaming for "Hope" to save him.
The facestealing monster came sprinting down the staircase - straight into Scanlon's M249. The light machine gun roared, blasting chunks of protomatter from the thing. JOSEF followed up with a smoke grenade, pitching 15 ounces of burning phosphorous into its chest. Enraged, the monster laid about with its inhuman strength, sending Scanlon flying and making most of the marshals run away screaming. JOSEF threw his stolen hand grenade, wounding everyone in the room with fragmentation. Before the monstrosity could bisect his friend, Scanlon threw another smoke grenade and killed it in a burst of fire.
One of the remaining marshals shouted out a warning from outside - Valiant had leapt from an upstairs window and was making a run for it. The marshal pursued onto a neighbouring property, finding him trying to escape in the homeowner's car. He shouted for the wizard to surrender. Valiant panicked and fired his shotgun, hitting a tool cabinet instead. The doorkicker raised his rifle and responded in kind.
Except he didn't miss.
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