Report: Operation BLUE ISTHMUS

 Operation BLUE ISTHMUS

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AGENTS

• IAGO, Department of the Treasury, Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
• IMOGEN, IRS Criminal Investigator
• INDIGO, Black-Hat Hacker.
• IRENA, FBI Criminal Profiler
• ISAAC, Anthropologist
• ISOLDE, FBI Forensic Pathologist

10FEB98

WASHINGTON DC.

Agents of I-Cell are briefed in a meeting room at the Treasury building in Washington, DC. On paper, they are being assigned to a tax-fraud investigation task force investigating one "Vasili Karpov".

During a prior operation, I-Cell disrupted a meeting between Karpov and a group known to them as the Tadjbegskaya Bratva. Associates of Karpov were killed, while the old men himself was taken in federal custody. Investigators found little in the way of illicit goods being traded between Karpov and the Bratva, nor did they find the bound teenager one of them swore they saw Karpov give to the Bratva's enforcers as they entered the meeting.

Karpov was acquitted and allowed to return home. A follow-up investigation by I-Cell discovered compounding factors in his acquittal, one of which being the meddling of a Bratva fixer named Kostya Bekhterev, who was using powers pertaining to the parallel dimension known as the "Dreamlands" in order to telepathically harass the family of the judge presiding over the case.

The other one was alleged CIA interference in the prosecution's investigations. They learned through some bureaucratic contacts that Karpov was an old asset of the CIA's, a defector of the NKVD whose debriefing led to the routing out and killing of numerous soviet agents across Europe. Karpov was an assumed identity, his birth name is Fedor Berezhkov. The CIA believed the prosecution's investigations would threaten to reveal Karpov's true identity to the public, and would make the CIA appear unable to make good on their promises to future would-be defectors. After the agents confronted Karpov's case officer with evidence of human trafficking, they agreed to halt any futher interference, and to allow the agents to complete their investigation. It was known that Karpov had associates when he met with the Bratva, indicating he is a member of a larger organization unknown to Delta Green. I-Cell was tasked with identifying this group, establishing if they are a sub-faction or branch of another known faction, identifying persons of interest and leadership, and the faction's assets. All of which are to be compiled and submitted to A-Cell for assessment.

A call with the coroner revealed evidence that was omitted from the case against Karpov, which is that one of the men that travelled with him, a jeweller from Moscow-on-the-Chesapeake named Yevgeny Bronk, had been castrated. It was done with precision by practiced hands. It occurred to them that one of the only things that Karpov was found with was a vial of testosterone, which one would need to take in supplements if they were interested in avoiding the muscular atrophy that comes with the loss of the testes.

Some preliminary investigations done by Friendlies of IAGO indicated that Karpov had significant ties to Apollo Taxi, in Chesapeake City, and Smyrna Airport in Smyrna, Delaware. It was found that both businesses, as well as Bronk's jewelry business, made significant financial "donations" to support Families Without Borders, an adoption agency with close ties Karpov's community. Families Without Borders was found to be close to an unincorporated community Southwest of Chesapeake City, Maryland, known as "Moscow-on-the-Chesapeake", where Karpov and Bronk's mailing addresses were listed, and the home of all of the staff of Families Without Borders, Apollo Taxi, and a significant portion of the staff at Smyrna Airport.

Inquiries made by agents revealed that Karpov, and his insular community of Moscow-on-the-Chesapeake, was tied to a number of different businesses in Chesapeake Bay area, from Baltimore to Smyrna. It was found that the locals of the small community were almost exclusively Russian immigrants, and that it seemed they were predisposed to baldness and a slightness of figure, indicating that Bronk's castration wasn't the exception, it was the rule. Surveillance of Karpov proves confusing, as he seems to be able to leave his home without exiting it. Agents hypothesize everything from Gates to secret tunnels. Smyrna Airport was quickly found to the weak link the chain, as although it employed a great deal of workers from Moscow-on-the-Chesapeake, By its nature, it requires outside involvement and oversight. The agents set into rotating surveillance shifts, watching from a sleeping bag in the treeline. They slowly assemble a list of staff and the likelihood of them being involved with Karpov. They discover that the security at the airport hires mostly from Karpov's community, although its supervisor, Wyatt Lawrence is from Baltimore. The company, Rugin-Atkinson Security Solutions, lacks any notable connections to Karpov or his community beyond their business affiliation at the airport. They discover from inquiries with the FAA, as well as their own surveillance, that the majority of the flights coming in-and-out of Smyrna are from a air-transit company based in Chicago called Tiger Transit.

Two of the men on the Rugin-Atkinson Security detail at the airport were hired from Moscow-on-the-Chesapeake: Arthur Yerokhin and Eli Katayev. Both men have families, though all of their children were adopted from Families without Frontiers.

14FEB98

IMOGEN spends her Valentine's day visiting Maryland CPS. Families Without Borders is run from an office, orphanage, and dairy farm called Cornucopia House. Business records show it’s been ordering too many animals for its reported earnings from dairy sales–and no slaughtering on record.

The CPS case worker for Cornucopia House is visibly distressed and overworked. Her name is Kerry Houghton, and is unwilling to speak about Families Without Borders. Professional ethics, sure, but the visible alarm is another thing entirely. IMOGEN spots a relevant binder, even as Houten insists her uninvolvement with Cornucopia House.

She leaves to find the “actual” caseworker, and IMOGEN flips through the binder. 16 years of records. Multiple caseworkers. In every logged report, the exact same entry, the exact same wording. Talking to another caseworker, IMOGEN learns that everyone with the duty before Houten has suffered from suicidality, early-onset Alzheimer's, or some other malaise. One is still alive, suffering from dementia in Gethsemane Groves Retirement Home just outside Philadelphia.

Wyatt Lawrence, the security supervisor for Rugin-Atkinson, enjoys a clean (and illegal) background check by INDIGO before her cellmates travel to interview him. A few days later ISOLDE, IRENA, & ISAAC drive to Wyatt Lawrence’s home mid-morning to question him.

Lawrence’s home is filled with iconography and potential antiquities, which almost frightens ISOLDE into aborting the plan before ISAAC can point out they’re just cultural objects from the Mandeans, a perfectly mundane religious sect. Lawrence’s wife, a middle-eastern woman, is preparing shakshuka in the kitchen as everyone sits down. ISOLDE lays out the deal: an FBI operation is suspicious that Tiger Transit is smuggling antiquities. Could Lawrence, as head of security, take them on an inspection of the grounds? The man is compelled by duty but bound by law. He’ll allow an inspection, but visual only. No touching, no disturbing the cargo. Tiger Transit is… litigious.

15FEB98

Around 11 in the evening, Wyatt Lawrence lets I-Cell onto the tarmac from a padlocked vehicle gate. He escorts them to the hangar where Tiger Transit’s light cargo biplane is parked. The pilots smoke unfiltered cigarillos (Sobranie Black Russian, an import) copiously, the cartons spilling out of an opened container. ISOLDE takes a few stubs from an ashtray. DNA evidence. There’s a wire-mesh container stuffed with straw, the style of a gun locker. Inside, IRENA spots the mesopotamian incantation bowl. INDIGO knows it to be a potent artifact, part of a collection of esoteric items known as the "Black Tools of Dza-Ngar Phan", which I-Cell has encountered before. Although pilfering it is tempting to undermine the group's activities, their agreement with Lawrence to avoid tampering with the hangar, and its place in a strongbox, makes theft unfeasible. 

There’s a cork board over the aircrew’s folding table, stuck with thumbtacks and red string and a half dozen interesting documents:

• Clipping from Forbes magazine, published three months ago: Photo of a gentleman in front of a collection of Aztec artifacts. Headline, “COLORADO PHILANTHROPIST GERMAINE DRENNON PASSES AT 67.” A retired US Army Colonel, connections to various museums.
• Candid photo of Drennon, purchasing items at an auction.
• Receipt from an auction:  ITEM #1337 ANTIQUE ORTHODOX ICON.
• Photo of the above: Icon in the style of Andrei Rublev. An emaciated man is crucified on an X-shaped cross. A man in a hooded black cloak kneels, pointing accusingly between him and a crucifix lying on the ground.
• Photocopy of an auction listing for Orthodox icons dating before the 1917 revolution.
• Photo of Germaine Drennon’s funeral: a man is circled, labeled “TOMAS DRENNON, US INFANTRY.”

The icon is particularly noteworthy. Its style and poses remind I-Cell of two other images. One, a chest tattoo on Yevgeny Bronk, of a monk (the emaciated man?) prostrate before a Neolithic Venus figure. Two, a stained glass window in the Basilica of Our Virgin Mother of the same figure lamenting before Mongol hordes.

I-Cell theorizes the cult is on a treasure hunt for a matching set of these objets d’art. 

16FEB98

Monday.IMOGEN asks IAGO for info on Col. Drennon. IAGO recognizes Drennon’s name. A smuggler of relics from the Middle East. Covered up the looting of Iraq’s cultural heritage by his subordinates, pressured into retirement. Drennon’s son served at the same time, in the Army Signal Corps.

Perhaps the incantation bowl was an item of interest to the Drennons. Perhaps the cult and Tiger Transit are using it as a bartering chip.

ISAAC researches Russian castration cults. The Skoptsi were a group of unknown origin, dating from between the 17th and 18th centuries. They went in and out of favor with the Tsar over the years, swinging radically between patronage and persecution. The last decades of the Tsardom saw heavy suppression by the Okhrana before their ultimate destruction at the hands of the Bolsheviks in the civil war, under association with the mad monk Rasputin. There’s an ambiguous account of Ottoman campaigns against such a cult in the Caucasus, where the army sent to stop the forcible castrations massacred them to the last, but not without being reduced to a tenth their original number.

IRENA and ISOLDE spend the evening doing visual surveillance of Cornucopia House. The farm seems spartan, not a very comfortable environment for children to grow up in. They see perhaps 13 children spend the afternoon playing outside in the snow under the watch of a gruff caretaker. One draws a babushka woman being hanged by the neck on the side of the house, and gets slapped and dragged by the collar inside. Three people guard the complex at night: a tan young woman, the bowl-cut caretaker, and a heavyset gentleman.

IMOGEN and INDIGO watch the Tiger Transit flight take off. While Stane and Ball, the pilots, ready the aircraft for flight, two cars drive onto the tarmac and nine people pile out. Vasily Karpov, accompanied by an unknown woman. Dasha Strasyk. Two men with olive skin and dark, curly hair. Three with more of the Eastern European look. Karpov hands Strasyk an envelope before leaving in his car with the woman, she and the remaining four board the plane and take off.

On the way back, the two get spotted and ambushed on the road. A short but brutal gunfight ensues. While the two lose their rental car, both escape harm entirely while leaving their five pursuers dead in the snow, driving away in a U-Haul prepped for their own kidnapping.

Aftermath

I-Cell decamps to Philadelphia to avoid the fallout of the gun battle, their report almost concluded. IMOGEN finishes some financial research on Apollo Taxi, making a connection to a small construction firm contracted to perform digging around Moscow-on-the-Chesapeake. She imagines the entire community must be linked through underground tunnels, explaining Karpov’s unseen movements.

The cell also interviews Franklin Price, the retired CPS worker, at his care home. Despite his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, the man is fairly lucid and quite friendly. When asked about Families Without Borders, he recounts the facility, children, and caretakers alike in nothing but glowing praise. As he goes on, he begins to suffer the visible symptoms of a panic attack.  IRENA, the last to leave the room as his nurses try to calm him down, hears him repeat a phrase: “The woman, the trees. The woman, the trees.”

END REPORT

By Fee Fi Fo Fin and Doubloonseven.