Mid-West Campaign
Session Six

Saturday, 7 October 2000 (continued)

As soon as Mullice is gone Jane phones Joshua Blackthorne in his hospital bed. Joshua advises them not to tell the Idaho FBI about the brain bugs. They can claim an hallucination brought on by the green gas that Jane saw. They formulate a story that the green gas also caused the Prentice family to act out of character and kill one another. Joshua says he will fly out to the Idaho office and see them immediately.

Soon after an FBI team led by Special Agent Vanessa Tatum arrives at the Prentice farm. Harlow and Munroe are taken by the FBI to Boise, Idaho.

Sunday, 8 October 2000

A package is delivered to the FBI office in Boise, Idaho addressed to Jane Munroe. It is another playing card. This one is the ten of hearts that has been torn and scrunched up.

At 15:00 Jane Munroe and Nathan Harlow are interviewed about the events of previous day. They follow Blackthorne's recommendations and blame the entire thing on a hallucination brought on by the green mist. The agents are examined by doctors and released.

Monday, 9 October 2000

Back in Wichita, the team (including a discharged Joshua Blackthorne) discusses the playing cards received thus far and what they are going to do about them. Artemis Black hypothesises that the cards might represent something from our pasts. For example, Nathan may have done something in the past that got him metaphorically burned (the 2 of hearts), and Jane was used them screwed up and thrown away by Apache Joe (the 10 of hearts). The theory has some weight but Jane still wants to thump Black.

Blackthorne is increasingly concerned that these card are able to slip through all security measures and reach his agents where-ever they are. He telephones Eisenstein who arranges for the postmaster's office to conduct an investigation. While on the phone Black asks Eisenstein if it is possible for Jane to see the most recent Apache Joe case file. Eisenstein refuses, citing Jane's questionable decisions of the past few months.

Tuesday, 10 October 2000

Despite over half the team still being injured, work begins on case BV004. Jane is extremely excited to be going to Apache Joe country, but she is cautioned about interfering with the investigation. The agents review the case on the flight:

Ethnic Indian artefacts stolen from a bonded warehouse in Brownsville. Stolen are a suspected iron age axe-head, a cup, a ceremonial rod or medicine stick, a medallion (worth between $20-30,000), and a painting of a tribe on an enormous red clay tablet (about 5' × 6' in size). All the artefacts are Cherokee except the medallion that comes from New Mexico. The thief is reported to have worn a Kevlar jump suit similar to that issued to police in the area. No suits are reported missing by the police, so it is likely an old suit bought on the second-hand market. The contacts are Special Agent Mike Colefield (of the Indian Country Unit), Special Agent Dwight Hernandez-Brown (of the local FBI) and Sheriff Gerard Blackfeather (local law enforcement).

The agents go to the warehouse and speak to the owner, Lewis Sneddon-Small. They are told that night watchman Roy Mayhew, saw an open window on 03:05 on 2 October 2000, and requested access to the warehouse. Sneddon-Small arrived at 03:50 and opened it up. After noticing a break in he phoned customs at 03:55 and Special Agent Coalville at 03:58. This can be established by his mobile phone record. He says that the boxes were opened and the contents disturbed.

The agents look at the video of the warehouse. Fifteen minutes of the footage is not of the warehouse, but actually of what was playing on the Playboy channel at that time. Harlow recognises the film as Lesbian Spank Inferno Volume 2 and can tell us the exact time it was playing as he was apparently watching it from his hospital bed in Birmingham, Alabama. The snippet of this film played between 02:30 and 02:45. This was the time of the robbery.

Harlow analyses the tape. He notices that something has been spliced into 53 frames of Lesbian Spank Inferno 2. Each of these 53 frames contain on letter of Cherokee script. We contact Sheriff Blackfeather and get him to translate the letters. The message inside the tape reads:

The truth was told
The doom was opened
Never again shall
Tsalagi Nvdagi fly

Blackfeather says that the Tsalagi Nvdagi means a nation of people. It is a gathering to represent all Texas Cherokee and their brethren throughout the United States. It was formed in 1993.

The agents look at the window that was used to gain entry to the bonded warehouse. It is little bigger than a man and very high from the group, requiring a ladder to be able to reach it. There is camera near the window. Harlow checks it out. It has been interfered with from the inside, not the outside. Likewise, the window was opened from the inside. This was obviously an inside job, and a pretty poor one at that. Harlow falls off the ladder into a number of crates of blue cheese.

The slate of the tribal scene could not possibly have been carried up a ladder and out of a small window. It would have taken a fork-lift truck to remove it. The agents assume that the slate never arrived in the warehouse in the first place.

The agents check the bonded numbers on the crates with those reported missing. Some of the crates reported missing are still in the warehouse, and are still locked. We open one case that should contain the rod to find the rod is missing. Something very fishy is going on. Sneddon-Small is obviously up to his neck in it, but he is either incredibly incompetent or has been betrayed by someone else. We note that Special Agent Mike Colefield never really checked what was missing before handing the case over to evidence response.

The agents leave the scene and discuss the matter, not wanting to tip their hand too soon. Sneddon-Small and the security guards Chris Skipper, Ian Jewitt and Roy Mayhew are guilty of a large customs violation, but they are probably not the masterminds behind this. If the agents want any chance of recovering the stolen artefacts they have to work out when they were actually stolen, and who wanted to have them stolen.

The artefacts had been sent from the British Museum in London. They were sealed in London with special lead bonds, transported to the airport and flown to Houston. They were sent from the airport to Houston to a bonded warehouse in Houston and from there to the bonded warehouse in Brownsville. There are therefore several links in the chain where the artefacts could have disappeared.

There are three local and national art-dealers who might be interested in this material. Emilio "Grippee" Grenzoli in Brownsville, Terri Madison in Dallas and Clive Fenner in Houston. Checking Sneddon-Small's accounts, the agents discover that over $70,000 has been transferred from Madison to Sneddon-Small since the middle of 1999, the last large payment was less than a month ago. Madison is a known collector as well as an art dealer. The agents get search warrants for the homes of Sneddon-Small and Madison. Sneddon-Small's accountant, Lucy McGee is also implicated.

The haulage company that transported the artefacts the last leg of the journey from Houston to Brownsville is owned by Christopher Bennet in partnership with Clive Fenner. The agents begin to smell a conspiracy. They decide to hold off on arresting Sneddon-Small as he may tip off his accomplices. They decide to investigate everything else before taking that step.

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