Mid-West Campaign
Session Seventy-Eight

Monday, 11 June 2001

At the West Coast base the earthbound group gathers. Artemis Black, Dominic Rocaan, Todd O' Connell, Jack Burchill and Michael Hunt celebrate the salvation of Earth once again. Admittedly it wasn't a direct threat but it's still pretty cool. An hour after Artemis saved the world for a second time they have established that the spacebound party is alive but trapped in space.

Dominic receives a telephone call from one of his voodoo contacts. He has a hot tip that a bakalou spirit is setting up a lodge in one of the Los Angeles sewers. Dragging Todd with him (despite the agent's protests and pockets full of vol au vents) he departs the West Coast HQ.

Artemis telephones Georgeson. He wants a means to stop the whole world from seeing the stricken vessel when it drifts in front of the moon. Georgeson says that although he might be able to stop electronic satellites from working, there is no way he could do the same for optical telescopes.

He adds that there is too much background radiation from the explosion to get a clear fix on the location of the shuttle, which means Georgeson cannot teleport the agents home. However, the ship is self-repairing, and in a few days it should regain power. In the meantime, he can only hope that it's heading in a safe direction.

Dispensing with the telephone Georgeson projects a holographic image to the West Coast base to continue his conversation with the team. He explains that his readings suggest the shuttle is a Pinis class. Hunt embarks on a campaign of puerile jokes that everyone tries to ignore. The shuttle, Georgeson continues, could be anywhere between thirty to fifty-two feet in length. It also has room for cryonic storage, although the group wouldn't know how to operate it to stow themselves safely until they can be rescued.

Suddenly, the telephone rings: it is Michael Levin. "Whatever you're doing, leave the building now!" he declares. It sounds important so the agents quickly decamp. Michael Hunt telephones Georgeson to scan the area. "You have incoming!" the hologram announces as the agents run for the garage.

Outside Hunt spots movement in the skies. There are four blackhawk helicopters (troop transport and rocket carriers), two iroquoi spotter helicopters, two jet planes and four apache helicopter troop transporters. To avoid becoming an overwhelming target the team splits up. Thirty hellfire missiles swarm to the building. Two thirds of the west coast headquarters is levelled.

Burchill jumps in the McLaren and disappears at speed into the distance, under the noses of the incoming assault. However, he is still worried that he is being pursued. After a minute he spots movement in the distance and he skilfully hides his car under a freight truck while a spotter plane buzzes him. Assuming that he is being tracked by his cell phone, he throws it away. As soon as the spotter plane leaves the scene, he zips out from under the truck and drives to Arizona at full pelt.

Artemis Black jumps into his armour-plated limousine and orders his chauffeur to drive him to safety. Meanwhile Michael Hunt leaps behind the wheel of the nearest vehicle (the ice cream van) and guns the engine. He chugs slowly to safety under the cover of "The Teddybear's Picnic". Suddenly, another hellfire missile streaks across the grounds. The trail of the missile blinds Hunt who loses control and turns the ice cream van on its side. The missile strikes Artemis's limousine that erupts in a ball of flame. Surely no ordinary man could have survived such a conflagration.

But Artemis Black is no ordinary man. His limousine may be a twisted pile of smoking metal, his chauffeur man be nothing more than a damp smudge, his body armour might have a hole in it large enough to squeeze a toddler through, but he is Artemis Black, and Artemis Black doesn't lay down that easily!

Grievously wounded, but still on his feet Artemis steps out of the burning wreckage and dusts himself down. He looks at the aircraft readying themselves for another pass and decides discretion is better part of valour. He legs it to the gates where he flags down a passing UPS van and fast-talks the bewildered driver into taking him to safety.

The day-old resurrected Michael Hunt, blinded, shocked and pissed off, stumbles out of his upturned van and hides in the pond while trying to regain his sight. He is the version of Nathan Harlow who made a deal with Leith, was threatened and killed by the Joker and met the devil himself. Though technically twenty-five he is in the body of a sixty-four year old Hawaiian man and has been dead for six months. Being brought back to life alongside a version of himself from his original death before he possessed the cahuna's body, and a version of himself that he has never met or even dreamt of, has proven to be taxing. In the last twenty-four hours he has been resurrected, met two alternate selves, helped destroy an alien spaceship and been blown up in an ice-cream van. The safest thing to do is to hide.

As he hides, he hears the zip lines activate and men slide down to the ground from the attack helicopters. His sight slowly returns and he can see heavily armed men with guns moving about. They throw grenades into the van and the remains of the limo just to make sure. Hunt remains still and is able to gather intelligence. He observes that the soldiers were all wearing standard issue equipment. Carrying M16 A2 carbines with silencers and wearing black face masks: they are clearly black ops. However, despite their obvious success in destroying the base in under 40 minutes Hunt quietly mocks them for not finding the fat man under the ice-cream truck in the pond.

The leader speaks into his radio, "This is Captain McKenzie to base. We have zero confirmed kills, collateral is at maximum, eyeball one has lost target, eyeball two is on target." There is a buzz on the radio. "Roger that, out." One of the helicopters land, the soldiers get onboard and the craft flies away.

Meanwhile, Artemis is becoming concerned that he is being pursued. Turning his mobile phone off he abandons the UPS van and takes a subway train heading toward the docks. He intends to buy the hat and coat of a homeless man and spend the night on the streets. He's done this before on a mission and is confident he can do it again. But something is preventing Artemis from following through with this plan: it is his tremendously ego.

He's just saved the world for the second time! He's not going to be driven to ground by a bunch of thugs no matter how big their guns are. Instead he heads to the airport and boards his private jet, moments later he is airborne and on his way to Washington. As he cannot contact his agents directly, Artemis now phone Georgeson and discovers that all of them are alive. Schult, however, has taken himself off line. Artemis then contacts Rock Mulholland to keep the East Coast team up to speed on recent events.

As his pilot skilfully shakes off the plane that was following him, Artemis begins to phone around and see what he can discover of these events. First he calls Levin. Michael says that the west coast HQ were attacked by Majestic. He doesn't know why Majestic have taken the successful evidence response mission so personally - possibly they just want to prevent other organisations getting hold of alien assets. Artemis says that he wants to set up a meeting with Majestic. Levin says he will do his best, but he has no direct contact with Majestic - he only knew of the operation because he had a friend in the area. He agrees to meet Artemis when the plane lands.

Next Artemis phones Huntingdon Price who congratulates Black until Artemis explains the "snags", such as the appearance of the space ship on optical telescopes and the attack from Majestic against the base. Huntingdon-Price suggests they had a rapid response team ready to attack another target in the area that was diverted there because of the team's actions. Black takes the opportunity to give Huntingdon-Price an ultimatum about Vitrano and Lavin after their short-lived successful assassination of Benedict. Huntingdon Price suggests that they are put on permanent retainer as they are far too useful to simply remove. Artemis's suggestions of what to do with them are considered too final. Another thing not to tell Jane.

After this Artemis proposes methods for diverting attention away from the space ship and Huntingdon-Price agrees to get a Russian craft up in space in a day's time to create some sort of distraction or distortion. The Russian space programme is all part of his operation anyway.

Back in Los Angeles, it is forty-five minutes before the emergency services arrive at the remains of the west coast base. Michael Hunt has already begun to assess the damage. The East wing is completely destroyed, the central area is burning and it may spread. The building is leaning violently to one side, this was probably caused by the vault collapsing through the floor. Hunt eventually approaches the police and fire crews and asks them to contact the local FBI office to send someone down. He is loathe to contact anyone directly in case they all get bombed again.

Unfortunately, his call is intercepted and the agents that arrive are Vitrano and Lavin. Sod's law. Hunt hides for a moment and contemplates the mechanics of assassinating them. He knows they know where he is and are probably just waiting to shoot him so he decides to confront them. While he was waiting Vitrano and Lavin have convinced the local police that Hunt is "Nathan Harlow", a terrorist guilty of mass bombings. As he's dragged away he tells Officer Jenks to contact Artemis Black and tell him that Vitrano and Levin have taken him away.

At this point, Jack Burchill has come to his senses and turns the car back to the west coast HQ. However, but this stage their attackers have stationed snipers in the area and he is shot repeatedly and forced to flee the scene again. He quickly takes the McLaren to Wichita and contacts Artemis Black from there.

Black tells him to stay away from the West Coast base - until Burchill mentions the sniper, at which point Artemis tells him to call Rock and arrange to be picked up on their way over. He orders them to take the snip down. They should aim to save life (except the sniper, of course).

Soon after, Burchill meets the east coast team at the airport. Rock seems eager at the "hunt the Sniper" game and volunteers Burchill as bait. Rock gets hold of an old Vietnam helicopter to use as a platform for his own ambush. The odds of finding the sniper and hitting him with the equipment Rock is using are unbelievably slim, but that doesn't seem to put a dent in Rock's confidence.

Around this time, Artemis touches down in Washington. He meets Levin at the airport: Levin is surrounded by an inordinate number of security personnel, though Monty dominates the scene entirely by himself. It is at this point that Dominic Rocaan calls Artemis. He reports that there was an "incident" in the sewers. Artemis can hear Todd whining in the background. Artemis warns the pair not to go back to the base and perhaps to hang out in a crowded safe area. They can contact the others for a full briefing.

Back in LA, the helicopter lifts into the air with Ashamiko at the controls and Rock hanging out the side with a very big gun. "Just like back in Nam!" he yells happily. Burchill takes an obvious approach to the base in the McLaren. Short of painting "shoot me" on the bonnet he has done everything possible to draw attention to himself. It pays off. He is shot through the window and through his armour. This hurts. However, he gets a bigger shock when the visor of his helmet being taken out with the next bullet. Alive but shocked he is disappointed to hear Rock call out on the radio: "Don't have it, we need another shot."

Burchill complies and has to shift into the passenger seat to counter the tire that was shot in the first exchange. Ashamiko acquires the target in the tree, but can't specify further. It would be nice if she could because Rock shoots the wrong tree. The sniper takes out the another window of the McLaren, and the bullet glances off Burchill's helmet. Jack begins to get impatient with this game.

Ashimiko and Rock decimate the tree from the helicopter. Paco Baker, leading team two, pulls up in a Humvee to retrieve the sniper's body. Burchill sits in his car. Shaken and stirred.

Once the excitement is over, Dominic Rocaan returns to headquarter, pristine in his immaculate suit. He is a direct contrast to Todd who is thigh deep in black stinky goo. Quickly assessing the situation (and suitably smug that he missed all the gun play) Dominic heads off to chat to the police who saw the attack on the sniper.

Meanwhile, Vitrano and Lavin have taken Michael Hunt to a remote cabin and asked him some very difficult questions. They threaten him with torture and he cracks like a soft-boiled egg. Vitrano and Lavin say that they had no part in the assault on the west coast base. They tell him he doesn't know what he's gotten mixed up in. (Hunt agrees!) "Eisenstein was a member of the Sons of Solomon, MK Ultra and Majestic… until he died and came back invigorated and as powerful as when he was a youth." They believe one of those groups that conducted the assault.

Strapped naked to a chair with the two psychopathic mercenaries warming up the pokers Hunt considers his options. He tells them about the wish, the mass resurrection, Todd and the magic door, the Nanites, the destruction of the alien ship with the large bomb and the attack on the base. He can not tell them who gave them the bomb, anything about how to manipulate Todd or aliens other than the Shaggai. His knowledge is incomplete due to his ongoing death.

Vitrano and Lavin suggest killing him. He is not too keen on this and is stuck on reasons to keep himself alive until he remembers his lack of morality. The two were looking for ways to prove that Hunt would turn as a double agent. They get him to sign a confession that classic Harlow was involved in the corruption in his previous role, although this does not actually implicate the Cahuna's body. He suggests they give him lots of money. This seems to do the trick.

Money will be put in the account in the name of Sipowicz. He'll get $100,000 to start and must spend half of this today. In future he must spend $10,000 a month. This will allow them to have leverage against him in the future. With business concluded he's drugged, dropped back in town and then goes shopping.

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