An investigator for the Air Forces stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico.  They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter.  Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of a very fine texture.  Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed flyers and test pilots.

According to Mr. [REDACTED] informant, the saucers were found in New Mexico due to the fact that the Government has a very high-powered radar set-up in that area and it is believed the radar interferes with the controlling mechanism of the saucers.

No further evaluation was attempted by SA [REDACTED]...

- Memorandum from SAC Guy Hottel to FBI Director Hoover, March 22, 1950

 

Incirlik Air Base, Turkey
   (FBI New York Field Office, New York, New York)
   (FBI Academy, Quantico Marine Corps Base, Virginia)
   (FBI Atlanta Field Office, Atlanta, Georgia)
09 June 2015
1319 hrs local (1119 hrs Zulu; 0619 hrs Romeo)

"We're online, sir."

"Thank you, Sergeant."  Group Captain Grant Mewes makes a conscious effort to look into the camera, not the screen below it.  "I'm sorry to drag you away from your respective leaves but we have a developing situation.  As soon as we're off the line, Captain Kowalska and Mister Durand will be on a direct flight to Cape Canaveral with your rapid deployment pallets.  An Amber Cell support package will be no more than six hours behind them.  For those of you in America, the FBI offices that tracked you down have been instructed to assist with your transportation to meet them.  Chief, your briefing."  With the unexpectedly terse handoff, he leans back in his seat.

"Sir."  CWO3 Ted Bannon takes a sip from a coffee mug bearing the silhouette of a B-52 surrounded by the slogan Peace Through Superior Firepower.  "Captain, Miss Omdahl, gentlemen: you're gonna need some context first.  Pardon the digression, this will make sense soon.

"Last week, I got a call from a guy Barbrak and I used to work with.  Lieutenant Commander Chad Waters.  The commander's third-generation naval aviation; he's a Seahawk driver out of North Island.

"Commander Waters' grandfather was a former fighter pilot, Captain Floyd Waters.  He died last month in a state veterans' hospital in Daytona Beach.  It wasn't unexpected; he'd been hospitalized for Alzheimer's and cancer for two years.  The commander inherited a bunch of the captain's Navy memorabilia, which he's spent the past couple of weeks going through."

Bannon clicks something on the laptop PC in front of him and a scan of an archaic U.S. Navy personnel file appears in the videoconference window.  "Here's where it starts getting weird.  This was in Captain Waters' personal effects.  It shows him assigned to something called Observation Squadron Fifty-Four in the late fifties.  The commander hadn't heard of this before, so he started digging and came up blank.  There's no such squadron - never has been.  But it shows up in the Veterans' Administration records.  However, the Navy's own personnel records show Captain Waters assigned to Air Development Squadron One during that time."

"At this point, Commander Waters contacted me, probably because I'm the best pipeline he has into the Chiefs' Mafia."  Something tightens around Bannon's eyes.  "Neither of us thought it was anything more than a records fail, but I made some calls.  A buddy of mine is retired and works for the VA now.  He came up with a list of fourteen other elderly veterans who were assigned to this nonexistent squadron in the mid- to late fifties.  They are, or were, all in Florida, and nine of them have died in the last two months, in or near VA hospitals or state veterans' facilities."

Bannon clears the personnel file from the videoconference.  "So by this point, this looks statistically improbable, but you're askin' yourselves how this is a Task Force Forty-Seven mission.  Well, six of those deaths, including Captain Waters', were recorded as natural causes.  But the other three..."  He clicks again and the videoconference feed is replaced by a grainy surveillance camera video, paused on a view of a parking lot.  "One was a hit-and-run traffic accident, no witnesses.  The second was a shooting during a liquor store robbery in Boca Raton - again, no suspects, but the local police are working it.  The third..."

The video window expands and plays.  From the angle and the swath of sidewalk and landscaping in frame, the camera is mounted above a building's entrance.  From the handicapped parking spaces at the far edge of the picture, an elderly man with a cane is slowly walking toward the entrance.  Another man - tall, slender, dark-haired - enters from the left and casually but swiftly moves to intercept.  There's a brief exchange of words.  Without warning, the elderly man begins to reach for something in his pocket, but the tall man blurs into motion, his hand lashing out toward the other's throat with a long knife.  The elderly man crumples, his neck all but completely severed.  As the killer turns away, almost casually, the camera catches him in profile.  His impassive face is that of "Charlie Sheen" - not the actor, but the alien that Michael Dacovetti put down with a borrowed assault rifle on a Melbourne street.  The specimen that's now the centerpiece of the world's highest-classified traveling anatomy exhibit.

"So, there you are," Bannon says, clearing the video window from the conference feed.  "Definitely our problem."

Mewes sets aside his tea and straightens his shoulders.  "This is off the script we've seen the Attars use in prior contacts.  Until now, they've operated in the context of terrorism and destabilization.  This appears to be a targeted killing and the - what's your word, Mister Choi, 'victimology?' - is suggestive of a broader pattern.  Miss Kowalska, your team is to investigate and take appropriate action as the situation firms up.  Generate a suitable legend for your team, or for those personnel who can't pass for American.  Supporting documentation will arrive with Amber Cell.  Your liaison with American military authorities is Commander Stephen Vest, whom I believe most of you know.  Mister Choi, you're obviously on point for engagement with local law enforcement.

"Questions?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:25, Sun 31 Jan 2016.

Durand had been back at Incirlik for several days. Should anyone care to inspect his passport they would see no  evidence that he had been anywhere other than his stated leave destinations of Paris or Geneva. but whilst he had indeed spent a few days in each of those places the bulk of his leave had been spent elsewhere, a circuitous route that had taken him from the Gulf States to North Africa, one that had ultimately yielded him a name and a place, a place that he and the man now sitting on the other side of Karolina Kowalska had concluded that they could not go alone.

The DGSE operator was glad to see the Polish Captain back, had been happy to relinquish leadership of the team back to her. In a way he was more than happy, for there had been a sense of relief in thinking that he was now a step further removed from the bullshit politics that seemed to accompany Grey Cell. Australia had brought those challenges home to Durand, how their job had been made more complicated by the inter agency dick measuring that had gone on.

He had listened to the briefing in silence. When Cape Canaveral had been mentioned his initial thought had been that their next mission was going to be something to do with the American launch facility, that perhaps the Attars were interfering with that in some way. It was an area that the Frenchman had a good deal of familiarity with, courtesy of his last posting to the French equivalent in Kourou. He'd visited a few NASA facilities during that assignment, including the Kennedy Space Centre, attended meetings, met a few of his American counterparts, some of whom he reflected might still be in post.

As Bannon continued however  that thought was pushed from his mind as it seemed that the Space Centre was not the reason that they would be travelling to Florida. When the Chief has finished the Frenchman breaks the silence that follows. "A couple of questions if I may Group Captain, Chief. Firstly, forgive me, I understand how this falls under our remit, however I'm a little unclear as to our role. Are we being called in officially? Or is this being sanctioned through some sort of back channel?"

He pauses, shifts towards Bannon. Durand likes the Chief and has no particular problem with doing a favour for a friend, even if that involves flying under the radar - his own recent activities were hardly authorised by any official body, including Task Force 47 - but their problems in Australia have left him wary. "To be clear Chief, I'm good either way but I think the answer to the question affects how we carry out our investigation."

"Secondly, what else can we find out about this Observation Squadron Fifty Four? Officially or otherwise? Maybe someone can talk to the surviving veterans? And has anyone done anything to put them under some sort of protection? They clearly seem to be at risk." Durand looks towards the image of Choi on the screen. "James, is that something that your people can take care of it isn't already being done?"

Karolina listened intently during the briefing, while taking notes on the TEMPEST laptop sitting in front of her.  Her fingers danced lightly on the keyboard, as she brought up a map of Daytona Beach, a weather forecast for that location, along with Google searches for Observation Squadron Fifty-Four and Air Development Squadron One.  Since the aggregate of the Internet searches conducted by Task Force 47 personnel could lead to the compromise of classified information, it was carefully protected from inspection.  First it traversed Blue Cell’s ISSE Guard, which controlled classified and unclassified data, ensuring the interconnected high-side couldn’t leak the S/SAP data that her laptop housed.  Once clear of the ISSE Guard, her request was serviced by a low-side firewall that farmed out HTTP requests to a series of world-wide proxies via ECC secured VPNs.

Of course Karolina didn’t understand the technology and engineering required to protect classified information while also ensuring she could also access a collection of shared information so vast it was sometimes called it the ‘8th continent’.  No, she just knew that the network was slow again today.  She had every intention of mentioning it to the IT guy following this meeting.

”We will need a full rundown of the names and any surviving family members as well Chief,” Lina said with a deferential nod as Bannon indicated that 9 of the 14 had been killed.  Lina was especially keen to interview any spouses.  Even men long-sworn to secrecy talked when their guard was down, something Karolina had exploited more than once.

”Our adversary may be trying to prevent us from obtaining historical information which has some nexus with their current operations,” Kowalska said.  She had taken to referring to the extra-terrestrials as ‘the adversary’ or ‘our adversary’ since that was easier for her to mentally processes than acknowledging that there was some kind of interstellar cold war happening on Earth.  It was the kind of delightfully non-attributive phrase that intelligence organizations loved.

”The recorded attack makes me think that the assassination was so important the adversary couldn’t delay their timeline in order to manipulate the situation to look like an accident,” Lina said, openly speculating.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:40, Mon 01 Feb 2016.

"Protection?" James asks. "That's tricky. If we're going to make this killing a federal crime, the Bureau's going to want to go all in. Do we want the FBI asking questions?"

Once again, questions of jurisdiction, disclosure, and operational security were obfuscating the mission parameters.

"Local law enforcement might be a better bet- less chance of them nosing around. If we can get a hold of some sort of squadron alumni list, could we gather the remaining survivors together in one place? They might be more inclined to talk to one another than to us." James looks at Dacovetti- listening devices were his purview. "And if we're trying to draw out the Attars, that might do the trick. On the other hand, it might not be a good idea to put all of the eggs in one basket."

-

The FBI field office in New York is a nicely appointed space, reasonably comfortable chairs, and even has access to a semi-drinkable cup of imitation coffee.  It would be reasonable to conclude that too much time in too many locales with good coffee has ruined the palette of one Michael Dacovetti.  Of course, when you drink for the caffeine, little details like taste become superfluous to the grander mission at large.  Neither he, nor his wife had been the least bit surprised when his iPhone had started to ring.  There hadn't been tears, just an acknowledgement of a return to normal after an almost unprecedented number of days together. A few more kisses and a "see you soon, my love," and the airman was out the door with his bags and handgun.  Maybe this is the specimen of marriage for normal people.  Those who aren't engaged in combat with aliens from the universe at large, he thought as he climbed into the waiting car.

The FBI hadn't looked too put out when they agents had been kicked out of the heavily secured conference room.  Probably an aftereffect of the great War on Terror that was starting to look increasingly like a warm up to something worse.

"Can we get a lip reader on this video?" Dacovetti asks abruptly. "Maybe we'll get something, maybe we won't, but I'd like to lock down the possibility.  And what was in his pocket?  I'd also like to know if the surviving members of this Squadron Fifty Four are talking to each other already.  If we can't get taps or records, maybe we can get into the switch stations and find out ourselves.

"If they are talking, we should find out what they know or suspect.  Putting all our eggs in one basket would severely expose us to losing all our connections in one botched operation, but it might be possible to arrange to link two of them up an observe what happens.

"Finally," he says, brain dump almost complete, "do we have any Grouse or Mallard indications? Or are we not operational there, yet? "  Michael leans back, and sips his coffee, then almost leaps back forward.  "Oh, and nice to see everyone."

Mewes nods to Sébastien.  "At least to start, Mister Durand, I'm afraid you'll be operating in grey areas again.  Our contacts in the Office of Naval Intelligence can't give you official standing to investigate a series of deaths that already have been ruled natural, not can they insert you into the homicide investigations that the local constabulary are conducting."  His eyes flick to the camera again, as close as he can come to making eye contact with the agents across the Atlantic.  "They have arranged basing facilities at Cape Canaveral and there are alternate sites on standby at Maysport and Pensacola, should you need to shift your operations centre.  Ah - Miss Omdahl, they've also arranged the loan of a Knighthawk and support crew.

"That being said, the Amber Cell package will include full briefing materials and," he winces slightly, "Charlie Sheen.  Captain Kowalska, you're authorized to fully read in local authorities at your discretion.  Our ONI liaison has suggested that involving the local FBI offices may provide official support even if a federal investigation isn't opened, but I recommend you consult with Mister Choi on that point.

"As far as VO-54 - that's Observation Squadron Fifty-Four - I'm afraid they're a cipher.  The only mention of their existence we've found is in the Veterans' Administration medical records."

While Mewes speaks, Bannon has been hammering his keyboard.  With a final flurry of keystrokes, he inserts a scrolling text file into the videoconference.  "Here we go.  This is sorted by date of death."

Ormond, Christopher K. (retired O-5; naval aviator)
Date of Death: 07 Apr 2015
Location of Death: Sims State Veterans' Nursing Home, Panama City, FL
Cause of Death: Heart attack
Next of Kin: Daughter

Jardine, Bertram D. (former E-6; Aviation Electrician's Mate rating)
Date of Death: 11 Apr 2015
Location of Death: Westminster Village Retirement Home, Pensacola, FL
Cause of Death: Heart attack
Next of Kin: None on record

Paredes, Simon W. (retired O-5; aviation maintenance officer)
Date of Death: 18 Apr 2015
Location of Death: Lake City VA Medical Center, Lake City, FL
Cause of Death: Heart attack
Next of Kin: Twin sister

Beck, Conrad E. (retired E-8; Aviation Electronics Technician rating)
Date of Death: 24 Apr 2015
Location of Death: Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, Gainesville, FL
Cause of Death: Stroke
Next of Kin: Wife

Buki, Felix M. (retired E-8; Aerographer's Mate rating)
Date of Death: 30 Apr 2015
Location of Death: Highway A1A, St. Augustine, FL
Cause of Death: Hit-and-run driver (under investigation by St. Augustine Police Department)
Next of Kin: Wife

Waters, Floyd K. (retired O-6; naval aviator)
Date of Death: 08 May 2015
Location of Death: Bennett State Veterans' Nursing Home, Daytona Beach, FL
Cause of Death: Stroke
Next of Kin: Grandson

Gardner, Quentin L. (retired CWO3; Aviation Maintenance Technician specialty)
Date of Death: 12 May 2015
Location of Death: Private residence, Tampa, FL
Cause of Death: Stroke
Next of Kin: Partner

Frye, George C. (retired O-8, naval aviator)
Date of Death: 21 May 2015
Location of Death: Coel, Young, and Abbey Law Office, Miami, FL
Cause of Death: Homicide (under investigation by Miami Police Department)
Next of Kin: Daughter

Stephanidis, Paul T. (retired E-7; Intelligence Specialist rating)
Date of Death: 01 Jun 2015
Location of Death: BM Liquors, Boca Raton, FL
Cause of Death: Gunshot (bystander in liquor store robbery) (under investigation by Boca Raton Police Department)
Next of Kin: Son


Bannon looks up.  "To answer your question, Captain, VO-54 is the only place these guys' service history appears to overlap.  I haven't found any other direct connections after that period between fifty-six and fifty-nine.  Some were in the same units afterward, but not at the same times.  And gimme just a second on the survivors... there ya go."


Albinson, Dana L. (retired O-6; naval flight officer)
Current Residence: Nininger State Veterans' Nursing Home, Pembroke Pines, FL

Ceelen, John W. (former O-4; aviation maintenance officer)
Current Residence: Freeport, Grand Bahama

Hawkins, Darnell D. (retired E-8; Cryptologic Technician rating)
Current Residence: Homestead, FL

Herrera, Alfredo E. (retired E-9; Naval Aircrewman rating)
Current Residence: Jacobson State Veterans' Nursing Home, Port Charlotte, FL

Paddon, Robert E. (retired E-8; Machinist's Mate [Nuclear] rating)
Current Residence: Key West, FL

He shifts his gaze to the camera to answer Dacovetti.  "The guy in the video was Rear Admiral George Frye.  That was the security camera from the building where his attorney's office was located.  The lip reader is a good idea; I'll get someone on that.  Um... According to Miami PD, Admiral Frye had a Florida concealed weapon permit.  The report says he was carrying," he raises his eyebrows, "a Smith & Wesson M&P Compact in .357 SIG.  Not your typical old guy gun.

"As far as your twidget shit, your hypereducated surf bum is packing the field array right now.  Getting that up and running will be his number one job once he's on the ground at Canveral."

In Atlanta, Caradoc glances sideways at Hannah when Mewes mentions the helicopter, but his face stays impassive.

The summary of the deceased draws a grunt from him, though.  "That's an awfully suspicious pattern," he comments.  "Three heart attacks in a row, then a sequence of three strokes.  Even for a collection of old guys.  I suppose it's too late for toxicology but if there's another death before we're in the AO, I very much want a full medical examination."

Durand's pen has been scribbling frantically on the yellow legal pad in front of him as Mewes and Bannon answer the various questions put to him. The revelation that they will be operating if not quite in the black then at least in the grey receives a brief nod of acknowledgment. "The obvious conclusion is that these men are being killed now because of something that they know, something that the Attars want to keep secret." The Frenchman agrees with Kowalska, although unlike the Pole he is still opting to refer to their enemy by the name that he knows them best.

"But to do it now suggests to me at least that it is something that they have kept to themselves for whatever reason, non? After all, if they had turned in any official reports whilst they were in the military those would be a matter of record. Highly classified perhaps but they would still exist somewhere and killing a bunch of senior citizens in Florida would not change that." Durand taps his chin for a moment, the tell tale sign that he is thinking, his eyes moving over what he has written down . "One of the survivors was a crypto guy, so he may have had access to a number of things. And would it be normal for someone assigned to a Squadron like that to have a nuclear rating like this Chief Paddon?"

Durand puts his pen down, looks at the screens again. "Have there been any reports of anything unusual occurring in Florida? Anything that would normally attract our attention? Reports of flying saucers, alien abductions?"In other words, the sort of stuff that classed as a normal day in the World of TF47. "Anything that might have caused the Attars to look at these guys and consider them a threat after all this time?" The Frenchman pauses for a moment. <Blue>"This is maybe a coincidence but isn't that near the Bermuda Triangle?"
This message was last edited by the player at 20:15, Sun 31 Jan 2016.

Bannon shakes his head.  "Chief Paddon is a huge fuckin' anomaly, Seb, even on that list.  We didn't have nuclear surface ships until Enterprise launched in '60.  In the late fifties, the only Navy nucs were in the submarine fleet.  There wouldn't've been voluntary transfers because guys who could meet Admiral Rickover's standards were too rare and valuable.  If one fucked up badly enough to get de-rated from the nuclear program, he'd've been kicked out of the Navy, not transferred to an aviation unit."

"Our intel section tells me there's been a spike in UFO sightings in the American south lately," Mewes says with a wince he doesn't bother to try to conceal.  "Not much has received mainstream news coverage but social media have picked up some of the more lurid reports."

"Huh."  Bannon stares at the ceiling for a moment.  "You're on to something, Seb.  These guys have been out of service for decades.  What changed?  Do the Attars have a new operational need to kill them?"  He frowns.  "I'm gonna say it.  Did we provoke this?  The first death didn't happen until after the Libya op."