Mid-West Campaign
Session Two

Tuesday, 26 September 2000 (continued)

Jane 'autopsies' the original and duplicate USAF uniforms. She discovers that the collars and cuffs of the original uniforms have been scraped for skin samples.

In the evening, Blackthorne and Stone go to Ho Fong's to bring in Luke Miner. They speak to Vicky Costworth and put the fear of God into her. She won't be opening the door for the homeless again. Vicky gives the pair a quick tour of the place. They see the place where unclaimed garments are left. Vicky is surprised. There are significantly less garments there than there should be. Vicky says the girl on the counter that Black was suspicious of is a "low moral zone" - she doesn't approve of her taste in boyfriends.

Jane is alone at headquarters when Special Agent Alex Drake arrives. Jane bullies him into helping her investigate the place where Lady Elizabeth's body was found, as it is a short walk from HQ. They walk out through the railway cuttings in the rain, and find little. They go to an old outbuilding where a light is burning, but the occupant refuses to let them in. Jane gets annoyed, but she and Drake return to HQ.

Luke Miner is fat, unwashed, opinionated and obviously lazy. Stone takes an immediate dislike to him and decides to "bring him down". Blackthorne and Stone arrest Miner and take him to HQ. It is revealed that he is the one who falsified the document that said only 200 uniforms were returned to the USAF. Because of the link to military such an act was a federal offence. Miner is told he could be going down for a very long time.

Wednesday, 27 September 2000

In the early hours of the morning and acting on orders from Blackthorne, Jane and Drake go to bring in Charles Fong for questioning. Jane decides not to arrest him, as she is convinced he is not to blame and he seems quite affable. Charles Fong comes in for questioning willingly. En route he tells Jane that he won't work at the laundry forever; he is planning on being an architect. He seems to be hitting on Jane, but she ignores it.

According to Fong, Luke Miner is lazy and never does any work. All his work is actually done by Hugh Kowalski. Kowalski is employed to keep the machines running. Ho Fong does not pay his salary. He is employed by Mayfords Electronics. Charles Fong is soon allowed to return home.

Later in the day, Kowalski is interviewed by Blackthorne and Stone. He hates Miner. He also says that at 1:00am on 3 August 2000 - just a few hours before the James and Keller picked up the uniforms - Kowalski noticed four bundles of military laundry in the building. This included the duplicate uniforms, so where did it come from?

In the afternoon agents Blackthorne, Stone, Black, Munroe and Drake brainstorm the case. Harlow is not present as he is still following up the Juicy Lucy lead. The facts are the 200 uniforms were brought in on 31 August and were cleaned on 2 August. After they were cleaned they were stored in enormous bundles that could not be tampered with during the day. How were 200 uniforms sneaked into the building without anyone seeing? The obvious answer is they were brought in over a number of nights - but by whom?

It is proposed that Gilgoolie is responsible. He is a scientist specialising in neuro-viruses. The collars of the uniforms were scraped for cell samples. He was in the area and could have smuggled the uniforms into the laundry over a period of time. He wanted to get these duplicate uniforms into the airforce base. Why? Could he have impregnated them with something? A virus? The need for find Gilgoolie is urgent.

The agents discover that Gilgoolie withdrew $5000 from his bank account shortly after leaving the university. This money was spent on laboratory supplies. Those supplies were delivered to an address familiar to the agents - namely the railway shack that Jane and Drake visited yesterday evening!

The agents hammer on the door of the outbuilding but are told to bugger off. Jane tries to kick the door down but it is reinforced steel. Gilgoolie fires at the door with a heavy calibre hand cannon. The bullets do not penetrate to the agents. Gilgoolie begins destroying the interior of the outhouse. It is soon on fire. The agents drive 4WD under the only window that will allow ingress. The glass is smashed and Stone, Munroe and Drake enter the building. The room is full of scientific equipment and a computer.

Gilgoolie shoots at the agents. Stone is hit although his flak jacket takes most of the damage. He returns fire accidentally blowing Gilgoolie's arm off. Gilgoolie dies in a matter of seconds. Drake puts out the fire.

The team conducts a forensic study of the scene. Gilgoolie's computer is taken away for analysis. Much (if not all) of Gilgoolie's work has been destroyed. Among Gilgoolie's belongings is a musical score by little-known composer Nikolai Rosakov called Requiem for the Broken. Rosakov apparently wrote two famous works one of which (this one) was never heard fully. It is said Rosakov went mad writing the piece and never finished it.

Back at HQ Jane autopsies Gilgoolie's body. Blackthorne assists. Fatigued by the day's toil, Jane fumbles the incision into Gilgoolie's skull. Immediately a green mist comes out of the hole. This is caught on video-camera. On removing the skull it is revealed that Gilgoolie has six lesions in the sensory area of his brain. Blackthorne likens the holes to the feet of a large insect and seems very disquieted by the idea.

Thursday, 28 September 2000

A letter arrives for Joshua Blackthorne informing him that he is to be awarded an honorary degree by the University of Texas in Dallas. He is invited to attended on Tuesday, 12 December 2000.

The results of Gilgoolie's blood tests arrive. Gilgoolie had a strange cocktail of drugs in his blood. He has stopped taking the medication he had been prescribed, in favour of a combination of drugs of his own devising.

The agents chase up the last leads in the case and visit Gilgoolie's university colleagues. They discover he was working for Michael Levin of the Department of Agriculture. They had employed him to invent a neuro-virus that would target arthropods, to cleanse crops. On the day he did not report for work he was picked up by the police in a state of disarray. His work in the outhouse was to try and detect a chemical residue that seemed akin to bug shit. He was looking for it in the shavings he had taken from the two hundred original uniforms, but had not found it. He had created some sort of anti-toxin he obviously hoped would kill arthropods and impregnated the duplicate uniforms with it.

Outlandish theories are thrown about by several agents. Was he trying to kill giant brain-hugging arthropods? Did he think these bugs had infiltrated the USAF? Although there is no intention of writing such a thing in a report, it is deemed a good idea to exhume Lady Elizabeth's body and CAT scan it just to be on the safe side.

Munroe and Blackthorne have the body exhumed. They fly with it to Quantico, Virginia where the nearest available cat scan that they can use is located.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group make some telephone calls to tie up the lose ends. The 200 duplicate uniforms were part of a batch of 400 that were sold to a Todd Gimble at the Right to Bear Arms Army Surplus Store in Wichita. He has records saying that Gilgoolie was the buyer of 200 of those uniforms and a gun on 1 May 2000, which ties in nicely.

Special Agent Alex Drake is reassigned.

Friday, 29 September 2000

Lady Elizabeth undergoes a CAT scan at Quantico. There is no "Brain Bug" hiding in her head. With this case WK001 is considered closed. Luke Miner, who has been in custody all this time is charged, and is likely to spend ten years in prison for interfering with army uniforms. We would have been less hard on him had he not been so obnoxious.

The agents now take a few days down time before their next case.

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