Mid-West Campaign
Session Fifty-Nine

Saturday, 12 May 2001

Jane and Penelope are up first the following day. By 5:30am Jane is out on her morning run and Penelope is singing away in the shower. Woken by the terrible noise coming through the ventilation system, Drake pops open the vent in his room and crawls into investigate. A few moments later his head pops out of a hole in the wall inside Penny's shower. Penny screams and kicks Drake in the face. He falls back into the vent and is knocked unconscious, as he falls his TASER discharged and electrocutes the wet agent Jones. She collapses.

Jane returns from her run at the same time Agent Turn arrives from his near-by apartment. The find the place full of steam and trace the disturbance to Penelope's room. Turn rushes over to help Penelope, slips on the wet floor and knocks himself out against the wall. Jane sighs. She pulls Penelope away from the shower and makes her comfortable, drags Turn to another bed and fishes a punch drunk Drake from the vent. As everyone else recovers she goes downstairs and goes through the case notes.

Eventually everyone comes downstairs. Relations between Penelope and Drake are a little strained and she continually refers to him as a "Shower Peeping Pervert".

They seem to have three avenues open to them for case NW988. They need to run a full DNA check of the body in the morgue to see if it really is Dubieniec. They also have to analyse the sandwich. They start the DNA test off (it will take several hours) and all completely fail to identify anything odd about the sandwich. They decide to pass it onto the east coast team for further analysis. Then there is the matter of the guidebook to Winterset that Dubieniec had in his room. Closer examination reveals Marc Georgeson's town-house is in the brochure, and that the upper window has been repeatedly circled. Did Dubieniec go to Winterset? Is that were he got Gilgoolie's retrovirus from? This is more and more confusing. Then there is a knock at the door.

It is a well-dressed man called Gareth Hume who has arrived with a note for Jane and Julian. He carries an expensive looking invitation from Nigel Huntingdon-Price, the naval attaché to the British Consulate in New York. The pair have been invited to a ball there tomorrow evening. Without any explanation, Hume departs.

Jane's immediate instincts say that it is a trap and they should not attend. However, she is soon completely distracted by something she finds in the north-east team's case files. One of their outstanding cases is NY2229 - Federal Prisoner transfer. It seems that Raphael has been captured by the NYPD, and the north-east team has been ordered to transport him to Smith Town Federal Penal Complex (a large facility in upstate New York where notorious criminals are held).

A heavy discussion now ensues. It seems as though they have gone as far with case NW988 as they can, and now their investigations are bending back to the mid-west's case TL348. If the Raphael in case NY2229 is the archangel Raphael Barton then they have the chance to tie up innumerable loose ends. However, Jane is loathed to leave the situation in Newark. The brain bugs in control of the Ukrainian Mafia are doing terrible damage, they have to be stopped. However, Jane is at a loss as to how they could be stopped. They don't have enough fire power to bring down the entire inner circle, and if they disturb the nest the brain bugs could flee anywhere in Newark. Grudgingly, Jane realises that they have no choice but to leave the management of this situation to the Department of Agriculture. She trusts Levin after all.

So they concentrate on NY2229. Question: why was Raphael put on the most-wanted list in the first place and by whom? That requires a serious computer hacker, and in the absence of Chuck, Jane telephones James Perry. Jane flatters Perry into doing to hacking for them. Jimxxor is not quite up to the task. He gets the information, but he is forced to crash the entire Carnivore Diagnostic Tool Unit to cover his tracks. He phones back and says that the arrest of Raphael was inputted by FBI Special Agent Valerie Hudson who is working for the NSA. There is an appendum to this order, and it reads CINCNTOPFOR.

Perry has heard the rumours of the 'super-agent' that the FBI have working for them and wants to know the truth behind it. Jane (in a playful mood) says that she cannot confirm or deny the existence of an agent known only as "The Doctor". Within seconds it is up on Perry's website.

Jane is quite happy to do anything to thwart Valerie Hudson's agenda. She doesn't like the psychic, particularly after the revelation that she chose the location of the haunted Wichita HQ. Jane and Alex decide to stay and help the north-east team with case NY2229. The code attached to Hudson's arrest warrant are partially known to Jane as they were contained in the confidential report sent to the team by Hudson. : NTOP stands for Non-Terrestrial Originating Phenomenon, and CINC is probably Commander-in-Chief. The term CINCNTOPFOR was also mentioned in that document.

Jane telephones Benedict to get the go-ahead for this, but Benedict is not at the Wichita HQ. Jane checks her email and finds a message from Ben. He has been sent to Canada to liaise with the RCMP in Montreal. The two Russian assassins are still locked up in Wichita with diminishing food and water, so something will have to be done about them soon. This means that Jane is now in charge of the Mid-West Team again.

There are still a few bits of case NW988 to tie up. The DNA results come in about 4:00pm, and state categorically that the body in the morgue was indeed Peter Dubieniec. This is enough for the north-east team to sign off on the case. Then a thought occurs to agents. What did Dubieniec's body look like when it was brought in? The north-east team never spoke to the coroner (Dr Douglas Fairbanks) who autopsied the body. Perhaps they should.

A quick call to Jeanette Wilmington (secretary at the Newark morgue) reveals that Fairbanks has been missing for eight days! Wilmington is unwilling to say much over the phone and the agents (surprised by this new lead) fly to Newark, arriving just in time to get stuck in rush hour traffic at 6:30pm. Drake is far too impatient to wait, and navigates twenty miles of gridlock at high speed and on two wheels. Drake and Jane arrive at the morgue long before Turn and Jones. However, they took the wrong cars from the airport rental place, and Drake has been driving with Turn's papers. Any fall-out from these traffic misdemeanours will be visited upon him.

Inside the morgue, Jane talks to mortuary attendant Miles Range. He thinks that Fairbanks went mad (an occupational hazard in this line of work). Range says that he last saw Fairbanks picking up his samples, he said that he was going to take Dubieniec's body to Langley (something completely outside procedure). He had also recently split up with his girlfriend. The coroner on duty, Dr Ray Clifton, probably has more information.

Justin Turn telephones Langley: Fairbanks never made it there (although rumours of the activities of "The Doctor" have). After searching Fairbanks's desk and discovering a photograph of a middle-aged woman called Helen Carter (presumably his girlfriend), the agents head into the teaching theatre to find Dr Clifton. He is autopsying a body while singing along to ABBA. He is pleased to talk to the agents.

Clifton says that Fairbanks has been reported to the police as a missing person. He says that Fairbanks had worked at the morgue for fifteen years, but was acting peculiarly stoically just before he vanished. His girlfriend has been completely devastated by his disappearance. They head to the canteen. Clifton says that Fairbanks lived on a boat in the harbour, called the Crashcart. Jane telephones the local police. The agent in charge of the missing persons case Hal Keffer. However, he won't be in his office until the following afternoon.

They get further information from Clifton. He tries to describe where Helen Carter lives in New York. It isn't very clear so Turn goes outside to get a map from the car. While doing so, he stumbles into a mugging and stops a young girl from getting stabbed. He returns and they ascertain the location of Carter's home. Penelope wonders if Fairbanks's odd behaviour is connected to a previous case they investigated (that of Dr Jessica Bank: HWK001). Then Jane realises that Drake is missing.

Alex is lost in the hospital. However, he is not alone for long. He bumps into the Archangel Gabe who has instructions for him (in his normal condescending manner). He tells Drake that Winterset is not a 'great place', and the archangel isn't too struck with Newark either. It was the third to last place ever created (the second to last was Slough). Gabe gets tired when Drake fails to ask the right questions. In the end he flexes his divine might, and Drake starts weeping tears of blood as Gabe tells him "Do not let him go!" Then he is gone.

Drake finds his way back to the others, and tells them what transpired (although he has a time remembering exactly what Gabe said). The agents leave Clifton and check into a local hotel. They will continue with this case in the morning.

Sunday, 13 May 2001

The agents awake in the hotel and Jane goes to work chasing up some loose ends. She checks the Internet for any information on Nigel Huntingdon-Price (the ball she and Turn were invited to is this evening), but there is nothing on him.

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