Mid-West Campaign
Session Nine

Wednesday, 11 October 2000 (continued)

In the evening Jane finds an envelope concealed inside her laptop. It is another playing card, this time the ace of spades with a hole through the middle. The hole was made by a molten metal. There is also a 'splat' of what is later determined to be chemically pure tin in the envelope. She sends everything to Blackthorne.

Thursday, 12 October 2000

Harlow is recalled to attend a Computer Securities Meeting leaving Munroe, Stone and Black to pursue the case. Meanwhile in Quantico, Blackthorne has a meeting with Eisenstein. Eisenstein explains to Blackthorne that it is likely the playing cards evidence response are connected to case S89 - a serial killer calling himself The Joker who is murdering FBI agents around the country. The team investigating the killings is based in New Orleans. Eisenstein wants Blackthorne to bring the entire evidence response team to New Orleans where they can be debriefed by the investigating team.

In Texas, the agents check out the lay-bys where Enrique Solomones could have stopped in Pasadena. En route they discuss the nature of the summoning. Even Jane can't see how this could have anything to do with Apache Joe. Black thinks there could be some sort of cult involved. He has heard of native American occultists. He will check with his contact, James Whiteroad.

At the lay-by the agents find nothing, so they call in a tracker (Kris Rossey) from the forest service to have a look. There are two lay-bys the vehicle stopped at. At the first the tracker says that the truck stopped, the doors were opened and something moved to another vehicle that was waiting here. The other vehicle had an oil leak. This must have been Solomones transferring the rod to his pick-up. At the second lay-by, in the docks district of Pasadena, something very heavy was removed from the truck by a fork-life. This was undoubtedly the stone tablet. The tracker leaves on other business.

There are five warehouses in this area: three owned by Pasadena Company Shipping, one owned by coffee importer Texas 4 Coffee and one owned by Aman Shipping. Pasadena Company Shipping has a number of CCTV cameras trained on the area. The agents quickly get access to the tape and discover that the fork-lift could be going to one of five warehouses. The agents call into local law enforcement to help them search the warehouses for stolen goods. At about this time Joshua Blackthorne is lifting off from Virginia at the start of his flight to Texas.

Munroe and eight officers investigate the Pasadena Company while Black, Stone and seven officers head over to Coffee 4 Texas. As soon as they enter the Coffee 4 Texas warehouse, they are fired upon by assailants with automatic weapons. The police officers and agents return fire with handguns and shotguns. Several police officers are killed. Black is shot 18 times with automatic weapons fire, but survives because he was wearing body armour.

Jane leads her officers around the back of the warehouse and bursts in from the rear. They take heavy fire and two of Jane's officers are killed. Stone racks up the body count nicely, but Jane is relatively ineffective with firearms. Eventually only one of the perps is left standing. The police shoot him anyway, because of the number of their own that have been killed. The agents choose not to report this.

Altogether seven of the fifteen policemen were killed: officers Albert, Bert, Derek, Charlie, Gary, Keith and Jake. Only one of the shooters is still alive he will be questioned. The reason for the shooting is very soon apparent. The agents have walked in on an enormous drug smuggling ring. A metric tonne of illegal narcotics is found with a street value of $100,000,000!

On the plane flying back to the Texas, Joshua Blackthorne chokes on his martini as he sees his team on CNN again. This is the second time in ten days! The stress is too much for him. He has a violent seizure and collapses. The plane is forced to return to Virginia. Once there Blackthorne is rushed to hospital. He is later diagnoses as suffering from chronic food poisoning.

In Texas, agents Munroe, Black and Stone are admitted to the nearest hospital to recover from their gun-shot wounds.

Saturday, 14 October 2000

After two days Black, Stone and Munroe are well enough to leave their hospital beds and start moving around. Black talks to his occultist-chum Whiteroad who doesn't seem to like Black much. Whiteroad says that there is a Vengeance Cult in Texas, who are out to get descendents of a former governor. They are headed up by Alfred Bucktail Jesse.

The story goes that back in 1836 the secretary of state for Texas was Stephen Austen. He was friend of the Indians and made concessions to them. But the president of Texas at the time, Sam Houston, went back on Austen's word. Alfred Bucktail Jesse and his group are out to kill all the descendents of Sam Houston, but they aren't too fussy who they kill. The agents choose not to follow this lead.

Sheriff Blackfeather gets back to the party with his translation of the song that Solomones was continually singing. It is an ancient piece that today is commonly used as a dirge at Indian funerals. The subject of the song is the Cherokee equivalent of the Adam and Eve myth. The full ditty reads as follows:

Now discharged from hospital, the agents talk to one of the employees from Coffee 4 Texas (who didn't shoot at the police): Enriquo Hernandez. Hernandez says that the warehouse is owned by Jesus Martinez. The only surviving hood is José's nephew, Jesus. The agents ask Hernandez about the crate containing the artefact. He says that he remembers the crate being delivered. It was kept at the warehouse for a few days before being taken away in an unmarked van that was driven by friends of Jose Martinez. Black tries to hypnotise Hernandez but it doesn't do any good, in fact the tact-free zone that is Artemis Black so completely freaks Hernandez out that he refuses to let the agent anywhere near him. Jane can sympathise with this.

The agents talk to Jose Martinez, but he refuses to help. He knows he is going to be executed, and says he will only co-operate if the agents cut a deal and give him a new identity. After the death of seven police officers that is never going to happen. The group leaves Jose to live out the rest of his short life and return to Brownsville to tie up the investigation.

Sunday, 15 October 2000

The agents check all their warrants are in order. Late in the evening they move in to arrest Lewis Sneddon-Small. He is apprehended running out of his back door. They are also forced to arrest his wife, Vera, as she continually obstructs the officers and babbles obscenities at them.

Sneddon-Small is brought into the local office and allowed to make one telephone call. That call is to his lawyer (Stuart Rogers) as we suspected he would. The lawyer calls Victor Price and Clive Nett. The first is a lawyer in Houston, the second is a lawyer in Dallas. Sneddon-Small is obviously tipping off Terri Madison and Clive Fenner. The agents order teams in to arrest Madison and Fenner and search their premises. The game is finally afoot.

Mid-West Campaign Index | Previous Session | Next Session