Mid-West Campaign
Session Ninety

Tuesday, 28 August 2001

Furthermore, Jane is not convinced that they have presented sufficient evidence that it is them on the CCTV footage from the past. What they have (at best) is circumstantial evidence and Malkin's unshakeable hunch. Jane suggests that they need to collect more evidence in the here and now and then, if they still want to use time travel, they should go to Artemis Black. This, she hopes, is the sort of sensible, rational and goody-goody decision she will be making all the time when she returns to active duty.

Jane argues that if time travel really is involved that it doesn't matter when the agents actually do it. Plus, if it really is them in the past, then they know that they must find a way back because they already have will have done it. By this time she has confused herself, so she shuts up.

McPike points out that they have only assumed that security division will stone-wall them, as they haven't actually tried calling them. McPike pulls out his mobile phone and telephones Lois Ellington. Lois remembers the arson very well. She was one of the three people who stepped out of the SUV, the others were Zachary Vale and Derek Wireman (who is now deceased). She admits to meeting with CTU, and they were exchanging intelligence. No else in her department knew of the meeting. However, she won't say what the intelligence was, nor what progress was made on the subsequent internal investigation with the agreement of her CTU colleagues.

She says that if McPike wishes to continue to grill her, he should consult her office hours. The agents take this to mean that she wants to tell them something, but cannot do so over the phone. Perhaps she is being monitored? Of course, after putting the phone down, McPike realises that he doesn't know where Ellington works. Any electronic attempt to find her, might be flagged up to the Carnivore Diagnostic unit and brought to the attention of those monitoring Ellington. This reduces the party's options.

Leaving Jane's home, they head to the Wichita public library and look through the Virginia telephone directories for Lois Ellington. She is not there. McPike remembers that she had a New Hampshire accident, so they look through the Washington DC and New England directories. It takes a very long time, but eventually Elise finds her phone number and address in Washington. By early evening, the agents have arrived in the capital at Ellington's address of 1422 Waltham Street.

Malkin disgusies himself as a street cleaner and Smith looks around the streets, as McPike and Steiger remain in the car. They keep the house under surveillance for several hours - so long, that the local police take in interest in them. By 11:00pm, Ellington has not returned home. The agents send Elise up to knock on a neighbour's door and see if anyone knows where she is.

1422 Waltham Street is an apartment block, with two apartments on each floor. Ellington's only neighbour is stunningly handsome man in a towel. He asks Elise in and the two chat over coffee. He is obviously hitting on her, and she is responding to the attention after spending so long in the company of three very ugly men. The man hasn't seen Lois for about a week. The pair exchange phone numbers. He is called Glen Casey. With a spring in her step, Elise corroborates Casey's story with the building supervisor. He says that Lois was last on site at 7:00pm on 21 August. It all seems to track.

Elise has been gone for a long time. Malkin is extremely suspicious, but Elise is coy. The agents return to a local motel as stumped as ever. Malkin suggests returning in the dead of night (about 4:00am) and going through Ellington's post for clues. McPike begrudgingly agrees to this.

Wednesday, 29 August 2001

At 4:00am Malkin, disguised as a Rastafarian returns to the apartment block. Elise is his driver, and she is not thrilled at the role. Malkin heads up to the door to the apartment block to find it locked. He completely fails to pick his way in and returns to the car for a jemmy. Thinking better of it, he slumps into the front seat next to Elise: an abject failure. Elise thinks better than to ask him any questions.

As they pull away, Elise glances up at an enormous bill-board advertising a product for Calvin Klein. The model is Glen Casey! Elise feels suitably smug.

Without any further leads, the agents head to Quantico (where the security division is based) to try and find Ellington. Quantico is also the headquarters of Artemis Black. Black himself doesn't see the agents arriving, but his secretary and general dogsbody Nathan Harlow (Fit Nathan) recognises Elise. It is widely assumed that this version of Nathan is a demon but for reasons known only to him, Artemis Black has decided not to take any steps against this current Harlow.

Fit Nathan is stunningly bored as he spends his days making Artemis coffee, peeling Artemis grapes, plumping Artemis's cushions and doing all manner of menial tasks that befit a lowly functionary. He is desperate for something meaningful to do, so he quickly hurries after Elise to see if he can help with the ongoing case.

Fit Harlow is not a welcome addition to the team, and the agents certainly don't want his help. Meanwhile, Artemis Black notices that his coffee pot is empty. As the pot is six inches out of his reach he calls for Harlow to go and refill it. There is no reply. Artemis becomes increasingly irate. Looking out of the window, he sees Harlow talking with Malkin, Steiger, Smith and someone he doesn't recognise. Then he remembers it is "Josephine" McPike. Artemis hammers on the window to no effect, then grabs the coffee pot and thunders down the stairs. He chastises Harlow for derelicting his duty and sends him back inside with a flea in his ear. After ascertaining the mid-west team are here for a work-related reason he storms off.

With an hour to kill before the canteen opens, the four agents go to the site library to look up (paper) records of Ellington, Wireman and Vale. They only really find anything on the senior agent. McPike discovers that Ellington enjoys a senior position for her age, and had evidently been fast-tracked. Currently only 32, Ellington joined the FBI from a New Hampshire legal practice in 1997. In 2000 she was promoted to senior special agent, and has taken on the roll of leading agent on her team.

At midday, the agents head to the canteen and wait to see if Ellington arrives. She doesn't, but Zachary Vale eventually comes in with a group of colleague. Stalking his quarry like a particularly misshapen jungle cat, McPike corners Vale in the toilets. He discreetly pumps Zachary for information. Zachary recognises McPike, and sympathises with is current predicament. Everyone thought that it would be Josephine McPike who would have been censured after sleeping with her boss (and her boss's wife). It seems she was saved by a clerical error.

Zachary Vale reveals that Lois Ellington is not in Quantico. She is working on something called Operation: Walled Garden (Casefile CI0203/NH2), which is an initiative based around the proactive search for foreign intelligence assets on United States soil. The operation is led by leading agent Kurt Wallace of the Intelligence Programme. The obvious way to get in on this would be to talk to Artemis: which is just what the agents do.

They head up to Artemis's office. Fit Harlow is there peeling grapes. He is mad with the team and deliberately makes them wait fifteen minutes before seeing Artemis. McPike tells the boss everything. Artemis doesn't like the idea of time travel. Samael is calling the shots now, and no-one knows what his opinion of time travel is. There is a real danger that he would just squash time-travellers out of hand. Artemis says that the team should pursue Ellington, and if they come up with compelling evidence for time travel then they should bring it back to him.

He also says that the north-east team are currently working on Operation: Walled Garden. They are employed as team: beater. They are there to make indiscreet enquiries and flush the spies out of the woodwork, so the real heroes can come in and make arrests. He believes that the team is hanging aroud New Hampshire and Vermont looking shifty. Artemis decides to reassign the north-east team for a few days to give the mid-westers cover to go in and talk to Ellington.

Late the evening, the agents touch down at the airport in Concorde, New Hampshire. They are met by Kurt Wallace; he is a large man and leading agent in the intelligence division. He says that there are a number of teams in the area working under either him, Lois Ellington of the security vision of Clyde Wooldron of CTU. Their contact will be Clyde Wooldron. They are told his phone number.

Wallace explains that they are in New Hampshire to draw out counter-intelligence agents. They are currently investigating a boarding house belonging to one Alice Jones. Alice is a known asset of an eastern European regime, and it is thought that the boarding house is a centre for espionage. The other agents were staying at the boarding house. He then bids them farewell.

The agents hire a couple of 4-by-4s and then try to plan their cover story. McPike thinks that they should all be from the same office, on some sort of corporate holiday. During the discussion, Elise's telephone rings: it is Glen Casey. "Who is Glen?" Malkin asks repeatedly and has to be dragged away by McPike. Glen invites Elise to go with him to see the newly release Dark Files: The Movie. Elise knows that his film is based loosely around the events of Operation: Certain Death, and could like to see it. However, being out of state she postpones the date.

Elise says that as she is a skilled hunter and survivalist she will pretend to be their guide, and the other agents can pretend to be going away on a hunting trip. The group agrees to say that Malkin, McPike and Smith are employees of the Federal Postal Service. A bunch of postmen with guns: it has a certain verisimilitude. Elise contacts Classic Harlow and asks him to put together a website in order to legitimise her cover as a hunter. Harlow knows nothing about hunting, and quickly throws together the sort of site that would appeal to him if he was going hunting.

The website is entitled "Women who Hunt", and features Elise's head cut and pasted onto various bikini-clad, assault-rifle wielding bodies. Suffice to say that Elise is not impressed and berates Harlow down the phone, insisting he make some less than discreet changes.

In two cars, the agents head off to Alice's guest house. En route, Malkin telephones ahead to make reservations. He speaks to Amy Jones (possibly Alice's daughter). However, Malkin's telephone manner is not the best, and Amy is inclined to fob him off. Eventually, Malkin is asked for a credit card number. He doesn't have his own card, so he reaches into Oliver Smith's trouser pocket. Believing that he is being molested, Smith veers off the road and crashes the car into a lamppost.

The car is a write-off. McPike calls the guest house, and is unable to secure rooms until tomorrow. The agents decamp to a near-by motel.

Thursday, 30 August 2001

First thing in the morning, the agents prepare to take their one car to Alice's Guest House. Malkin notices that they are not carrying any luggage, and therefore their cover of a hunting trip will be blown in the first seven seconds. Elise drives the group to the nearest hunting outfitters and tries to make them look the part.

She suggests they get equipment to support waterfowl touring tomorrow. Black bear season starts on Monday. Unfortunately, Elise's attempts to engender restraint in her colleagues are fruitless. McPike, Malkin and Smith are behaving like children in a sweet shop, and over-burdening themselves with expensive and superfluous hunting accoutrements. Two inflatable rubber dinghies, bear traps, GPS equipment, hunting rifles, waders, hats, duck-calls, moose-calls. There are three cartloads of it, coming to a stunning $12,000 dollars! Malkin has gone for the English country gentleman look and is resplendent in tweed. Smith has bought all the knives in the shop, and has looks like a neo-hillbilly. McPike is just so damn ugly that nothing he wears makes any difference.

As McPike is paying with the FBI credit card, Malkin slips to the grocers next door and picks up a copy of OK and Hello magazines. He is determined to find some dirt on Glen Casey. He reads the magazines indiscreetly in the back of the car. Unfortunately for Malkin, Casey seems to be Teflon-coated. He can find nothing by praise for the man. Casey was apparently going with Katie Holmes, but they split up because she couldn't keep up with his sex drive. Elise says she wants to have a look, and Malkin quickly eats the offending article.

The agents pull up at the guest house. It is a large and plush affair. There are four floors with eight bedrooms on each floor except the top (which has six). The agents check in, and ham up the role of disgruntled postmen on a bender. A bell boy shows them to their rooms on the top floor (recently vacated by the north-east team). They settle in and then head downstairs for lunch.

Over lunch they discuss their approach for the mission. Smith points out they have already been pretty damn indiscreet. Out of curiosity Malkin pierces the bottom of the candlestick with his sharp finger nail cum claw. The candlestick is bugged. Everything they have been talking about has been broadcast. They have been in the guest house for an hour and they've already blown it!

They quickly adjourn to their rooms. A quick search reveals that they are bugged as well. In order to discuss this revelation, the agents go out to the car and drive to a secluded wooded area. What happens now? Do they call in help? Malkin things they should race back to the guest house and confront Alice. He says that he has the means to make her reveal her confederates. What next?

The investigations into Case CI0203/NH2 continues in Session 93

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