Session 8: Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays

Sangumbo, now safely behind some large rocks, draws his weapon. Some distance away, Garrett stands up from behind his cover to steal a peek into the cave; another gunshot is heard and he falls to the ground. “I’m okay,” he yells meekly. The agents can tell that the weapon their assailant is firing is a bolt action rifle; however, how many bullets the magazine holds is unclear.

Colorados gets on the radio (cell phones have no coverage out here), and calls the tribal police station. With Garrett on the line, he calls for backup from the CHP – specifically, a SWAT team, as they are in a standoff with someone who is evidently a sharpshooter.

Agent Sangumbo locates a long branch, and deftly manipulates it so as to become visible from inside the cave. Another shot is fired. Jones and the other officers deduce that he is trying to exhaust the gunman’s ammunition. The ploy works, and the gunman fires again, amazingly striking the narrow branch. Sangumbo tries other tactics, like attempting to dislodge some of the earth above the cave mouth with a large rock, but is unsuccessful. Periodically a shot is fired from the cave, keeping them all at bay.

About ninety minutes after Garrett’s call, a helicopter can be heard approaching. It lands in a nearby field, and six SWAT members arrive with body armor, shields, sniper rifles, M84 flash grenades and tear gas. The cave is quiet as they make their approach. With tactical precision, the SWAT team smoke out the cave and then quickly move in to apprehend the gunman, but emerge from the cave empty-handed. There was nobody (alive) in the cave.

When it is safe to do so, the agents enter the cave themselves. There are three bodies here: two are little more than knife-marked bones; the other is more intact, yet drained in the telltale manner of the other recent victims. Colorados identifies this body as one of the Shamans. Sangumbo notices a narrow, natural vent in the roof of the cave. It seems possible (though dangerous) that someone could have forced their way through the vent to the ground above. There is a Lee-Enfield Mark III rifle on the cave floor near the vent, and another, stranger device.

It is a spherical object, slightly larger than a basketball, that seems to be made out of some very hard plastic or metal. It is vaguely transparent, and peering in they can see some sort of lights or electronics. For its size, it is not very heavy, perhaps only a few pounds.

The agents climb out of the valley and locate the vent opening among some loose dirt. There is a booted footprint visible, and Sangumbo manages to follow the gunman’s trail into the hills. They follow for some twenty minutes, but find themselves tracking over the same prints more than once, and realize that the man they are tracking is extremely familiar with this landscape. They are being led astray, and somehow the man has evaded them. However, from the abundance of footprints, they deduce that the gunman is of above average weight and height and wearing combat boots. They also know that he is at home in these mountains, probably a survivalist, and suspect that he has some military training given the marksmanship he displayed back at the cave.

“Does that sound like anyone you know of in your tribe?” asks Jones.

Colorados considers. “There is a man, Santana, who has lived up here for years. He would fit the description, but he’s never hurt anyone. He likes to keep to himself.”

The agents return to the cave and begin to arrange the bodies for transport. Jones goes to pick up the sphere, but Colorados stops him.

“I’ll take that,” he says. “It may be some kind of native artifact.”

“It’s not an artifact! Look, there are electronics inside,” Jones tells him.

“This is a homicide case on sovereign land,” Colorados argues. “I will keep this. You can look at it if you like.” Sangumbo tries to discern the man’s motives, and decides that while Colorados can’t really believe that this is an artifact, it does look like it might turn out to be valuable. He takes some photographs of the sphere before Colorados takes it away.

They begin to make some calls to organize a manhunt for the suspect. The helicopter takes Garrett, Sangumbo and the shaman’s son, who is now conscious, to the hospital in Escondido. The shamans’ corpses are taken to the FBI forensics lab at the Reservation, where they determine two things:

1) The victims were killed at a rate of about one per week, with the last one being killed nearly a week ago;
2) Bloody fingerprints are lifted off the bones of one of the bodies, and they match the prints of Master Sergeant Emanuel Santana, who deserted the US Army Special Forces in 1971 while on leave for his mother’s funeral. As such, he is a federal fugitive, and the FBI now has jurisdiction on this case.

Jones makes a mental note to pick up the sphere from the tribal police in the morning, but for now, there is a manhunt underway. It is now just past 9:00 pm.

The hunt begins in town on the Reservation, and heads in the direction of the cave. On hand are nearly one hundred volunteers from the Reservation, a half dozen tribal police deputies, ten additional FBI agents from San Diego, forty CHP officers under the direction of Frank Garrett, and twenty US Marshals. Jones and Sangumbo are in a helicopter equipped with infrared sensing equipment along with some CHP officers; the rest of the search party is on the ground. The CHP has also supplied a K-9 unit, providing the dogs with the rifle found in the cave for reference.

The hunt continues for an hour when they receive a call from Colorados. He returned to the station to pick something up and found all three deputies on duty were dead.

They turn the helicopter around and return to the station. Colorados is in shock, all he can do is gesture to the bodies of the deputies. They have all had their throats slit and been scalped. Not a shot was fired. They review the surveillance video and see one of the deputies watching basketball on a small television. Silently, a figure in an army surplus jacket steals behind him and murders him with a combat knife. Presumably, the other deputies met their ends in a similar fashion. No weapons were stolen but the strange sphere is missing. The timestamp on the video shows that he was here forty minutes ago.

The dogs arrive and pick up the scent. Santana is heading in the other direction, towards the reservoir where Stoltz and Martin’s campsite had been. He is moving fast. The dogs track him through the night, and the CHP has to switch dog teams periodically. By morning they have traveled nearly twenty miles and are now on a neighboring Reservation. They become stuck at a narrow river for some hours, as Santana traveled upriver before emerging on the other side. Soon, the Agents receive a call that they believe they have Santana surrounded, on a rocky hilltop where he is presumed to be resting.

The agents quickly arrive at the hilltop. Sangumbo, still injured, opts to stay in the helicopter while Jones decides to work from the ground. Armored US Marshals are halfway up the hill but still have not spotted Santana. Suddenly, Jones sees some movement – a grey-sleeved arm briefly shows itself against the grey rocks of the hilltop. He announces Santana’s location over his headset. The US Marshals advance, and presently a firefight begins. Although they are armored, they sustain heavy casualties from the man on the hilltop, who shoots with preternatural accuracy. Three men are down and three more take their place, and then Sangumbo sees a spray of blood from under the rock that Santana is hiding beneath. “He’s hit,” he announces in the headset. The Marshal in the helicopter orders the pilot to drop down to where they can see Santana. He looks like he’s firing with a handgun. The Marshal positions himself for a shot with his M16A4 rifle.

Meanwhile, Santana has taken some more hits. He has just finished changing clips when the sniper in the helicopter hits him. The top of his head is blown off, and he slumps backwards. “We got him,” says Sangumbo. The officers on the ground raise a cheer, and carefully move in to collect the body.

Then, Santana gets up again, and shoots one of the Marshals dead. The sniper on the helicopter panics and starts shooting wildly. Sangumbo can’t believe his eyes, and so he doesn’t. “Some kind of medical miracle, like that guy who lived his whole life with a railway spike through the head,” he thinks. He tries to calm the US Marshal, and convinces him to take his time before shooting. The firefight continues for a while longer, with Santana taking many hits. His body is a tattered ruin. Finally, they release the dogs on him, who ultimately take him down.

Now, he seems genuinely dead.

They transport his body to the mobile forensics lab at the Begay ranch. Before he’s placed in the body bag, Jones takes the quiet precaution of handcuffing his arms and legs. Nearby his body is a military duffle bag containing the strange sphere, which Jones takes as well.

Back at the ranch, Jones and Sangumbo are on hand to observe the autopsy of Emanuel Santana. The coroner, Dr Gutierrez, is amazed at the state of the body. “I’m going to say cause of death was gunshot wounds,” he says. Nevertheless, he makes the Y-incision. Suddenly the body starts to thrash around. Gutierrez drops his scalpel, and a thin, clear tendril erupts from the body cavity and strikes him in the face. He drops to the ground, twitches, and then remains immobile, his breathing shallow. A clear mass of tendrils and ganglia emerges from Santana’s torso. It looks like some sort of jellyfish, yet colorless and transparent.

Sangumbo recalls a TV program he once saw about how Koreans eat live octopi as a delicacy. “Santana must have been into sushi,” he thinks.

Jones draws his weapon and shoots the creature, which skids off the examination table and lands on the body of Gutierrez. It starts to drag itself towards the coroner’s open mouth. Jones kicks it, and sends it flying across the room, where it slides down the tent wall and onto the floor. Sangumbo dumps a plastic garbage can and tries to contain the creature, but ends up cutting it almost in half. The outside half scuttles away. It seems to be unable to see, but it regrows its lost body mass in a matter of seconds.

The gunshot draws another agent into the tent. “Get the coroner out of here,” yells Jones. The man shoots at the thing, then complies. Sangumbo positions a gurney between himself and the thing’s dangerous tendrils, and manages to drop the garbage can on him completely. They locate a piece of clear plexiglass and slide it under the can, then carefully turn it over. The thing lies on the bottom of the can with its tendrils slapping against the plexiglass ineffectually.

After some debate, they decide to call the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. After several hours, a van arrives, containing a man claiming to be an official from the CDCP office in Los Angeles. He shows his identification. Several security-looking types accompany him.

Jones is suspicious. He tells O’Brian to check his credentials, but O’Brian is somehow unable to pull up the CDCP’s site. Instead, he calls the office and verifies that a man by that name works there. Reluctantly, the Agents turn the strange creature over to the official.

Not long after, another van arrives. This one carries men claiming to be from the National Security Administration, and their leader tells them that a piece of a surveillance satellite fell from orbit, and that they are here to collect it. Again, they have the proper identification. “This is evidence for our investigation,” Jones tells them.

“It’s a matter of national security that you turn it over. If you value your careers in the Bureau, you’ll give it to us.”

“But what would you do with this… Cylinder?” asks Jones.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” the man replies. Agent Jones, with an air of defeat, hands over the Rupert-cylinder to the men in the van.

“You’ve done a service to your country,” the man says, and they depart. Sangumbo notices that his camera is missing.

“What do we do with the sphere?” asks Jones.

“It’s not safe at the FBI headquarters; let’s give it to Colorados for safekeeping. They can’t look here.”


Epilogue 1:
O’Brian finally works out his connectivity problems and logs onto the CDCP intranet. He pulls up the personnel file of the official who came to collect the odd creature, and is surprised to find that the official by that name is a black man. The man who recently left in the black CDCP van was white.

Epilogue 2:
About a week later, the Agents receive a call at work from a Ms. Green, who would like to meet them at the San Diego Firehouse Museum, on Columbia St downtown. Intrigued, they go there on their lunch break. They meet “Ms. Green”, a stylish black woman of about thirty, and are told about Delta Green, a clandestine intra-agency government task force that could use their help. She offers to make Jones an agent, but deems O’Brian too fragile and Sangumbo too old. “You’re about to retire,” she says. “You can help our cause, but on an unofficial basis.” Sangumbo argues that he doesn’t retire for six months, and after some consideration she relents. She also tells them about Majestic 12, a dangerous organization who is bent on securing alien technology for their own purposes. “They have secured more alien tech in this operation. We can’t let that happen.” She tells them that if a mission comes up, they will be contacted by someone within the organization. Otherwise, they are to DENY EVERYTHING. She leaves in a car that is waiting outside.

Epilogue 3:
The Rupert-cylinder is transported in total darkness for hours. It senses that it is being placed on an airplane, then on another van, all under cover of darkness. Finally, it arrives at a facility somewhere, and is placed on a shelf in a laboratory. “Hello,” says a voice from beside it. “I’m Zach Brewer,” it says. “Please kill me.”

Session 7: Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays

New investigator: M. Dudley, private investigator from Massachusetts hired by WIE Insurance, Inc. to look into circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Begay family, for whom relatives are trying to collect life insurance policies.

The investigation continues:

“Am I under arrest?” asks Scot Thompson. Jones tells him he is not. “Then I want to go home.” Jones drives Thompson back to the Marina and they discuss the events that transpired in Mecca.

“Lots of people went into a rage. Must’ve been something in the water,” says Thompson.

“Then why didn’t it affect you?” asks Jones.

“Who said it didn’t?” he replies.

They speak very little for the rest of the trip, and when they arrive at the dock Thompson deliberately leaves his backpack, containing the Rupert-cylinder, in the back seat of the car, so that it can perhaps listen in on conversations and relate them to him at a later time.

The next morning, Thompson pulls up his dissertation on the vision of the Coyote Spirit he experienced a dozen years ago in the desert. He convinces himself that spirits don’t leave footprints, and takes his boat down to Ensenada.

M. Dudley, the private investigator, leaves his room at the Quality Inn near the airport and drives his rental Lincoln Continental up to the Los Coyotes Reservation.

Agent Harley O’Brian receives a call from Jones to report to the FBI trailer that is temporarily stationed on the Begay Ranch. When he arrives, he hears a knock at the trailer door. He answers it to find a man of about fifty, thin, with a full head of David Hasselhoff hair. The man introduces himself very self-assuredly, and asks O’Brian for the details of the situation. Death reports? Police report numbers? Suspects? O’Brian is overwhelmed by the man and tries to close the door. M. Dudley blocks it with his foot and steps into the trailer. O’Brian madly sends some plaintive text messages to Jones and Sangumbo that there is “a man in the trailer.” M. Dudley, looking to avoid trouble, asks for the flustered young man’s supervisor’s number.

He calls the number and reaches Sangumbo, who blows him off. “Call the coroner’s office,” he tells him. M. Dudley steps under the police tape and paces the Begay property, taking pictures and making notes.

Agent Sangumbo, without a vehicle, calls Sheriff Colorados to pick him up at Warner Springs Ranch on the way to the gas station, where he would like to continue his investigation in daylight. Colorados complies, and together with a handful of volunteers from the Reservation they continue searching the station and surrounding landscape. By noon they turn up nothing of interest at the station itself (Sangumbo had been looking specifically for something that might incriminate Major Frank Garrett, whom he distrusts) and they find no more shallow or open graves. However, he does find coyote prints surrounding the grave they exhumed the night before, and he determines that they are indeed the prints of a large coyote and not somehow manmade. As before, the trail these prints create begins and ends abruptly.

O’Brian discovers the backpack in his car. It is heavy so he opens it and finds a strange metallic cylinder with odd devices connected to it. He carries it into the FBI trailer and tells O’Brian to examine it. As O’Brian looks for a means of opening the thing (it appears seamless), it announces “The time is now one o’clock. Ping!” O’Brian checks his watch. It is not 1:00 yet.

“Get Scot Thompson back up here,” he tells him. O’Brian calls headquarters and an agent is dispatched, but calls back 40 minutes later to report Thompson’s boat is gone. O’Brian begins checking Thompson’s recent credit card transactions. Jones heads off to join Sangumbo in his search.

Throughout the day, the cylinder says several strange things to O’Brian. “Victoria Falls is the world’s highest waterfall. Ping!” and “Your Easy Mac is ready. Ping!” He tests it for any trace explosive compounds and finds none, but is unnerved by the thing anyway and places it outside.

Around noon, Garrett arrives at the gas station and takes them to the stretch of highway where the abandoned cars were discovered. He has spoken with the tow truck driver and has a fairly high level of confidence as to the correct locations. Soon Sangumbo picks up a coyote trail but loses it in a rocky area. Garrett, however, locates an opened grave containing the exsanguinated bodies of the elderly Dutch couple a few hundred yards up the hillside.

“What do you know about the coyotes?” asks Jones.

“I told you before,” says Colorados. “The Coyote Spirit is helping us.”

“I think we need to speak with the shamans you were telling us about.”

“They should be home this evening. We can go see them if you want.”

Meanwhile, O’Brian is doing some research. Mack Tooley had shot himself in the head, and the coroner who examined him committed suicide by disembowelment (seppuku) in Nashville two weeks later. He seemed at a dead end, but found another case of disembowelment around the same time in the same city: a certain Father Franklin Willard, who ran a homeless shelter killed himself in the same manner when he fell under investigation for a string of disappearances among the local homeless community.

Further, Elijah Jackson, a homeless man who had been staying at the shelter, made the news when shortly thereafter he was shot in the stomach and killed after walking into a man’s house in the French Quarter of New Orleans. This man, David Charles, appeared dead in a Houston hotel room soon after that. The autopsy listed the cause of death as disembowelment, but labeled it a suicide even though no knife was found at the scene.

He also looks up the massacre in Mecca of a few months earlier and turns up an interesting blog on the subject, with entries posted by a certain “R.P.” He pulls an archive of Rupert Putkin’s writing from the Union Tribune (“2003 Del Mar PoodleFest”) and generates an algorithm to compare the writing styles. It is a very close match, 90-95%. He retrieves the IP information and orders the ISP to turn over the user’s information connected with this address.

Sangumbo and Jones arrive at the FBI trailer in the late afternoon and O’Brian fills them in. From his parked rental car, M. Dudley listens in on their conversation with a Spytek remote listening device. The trail of murders seems to move steadily from east to west chronologically, and have all the telltale signs of Satanic Ritual Abuse. Clearly, the Begays were willingly involved in some ritual suicide, which precludes their relatives from collecting their sizeable insurance payouts. Case closed.

Around dusk they arrive at the shamans houses, three dilapidated shacks on the outskirts of the Reservation. There is nobody home. Jones peers in the dingy window of one house and sees it is elaborately decorated with kitschy Native American art pieces, with coyotes heavily represented.

Colorados heads into town and returns with a younger man who he introduces as the son of one of the shamans.

“I expected them back tonight. My dad was supposed to come to my house for dinner.”

“Do you know where they are?” the agents ask.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t want to go there in the dark. You could break an ankle up there. I will take you in the morning.”

In Ensenada, Scot Thompson is patronizing his favorite local bar, The Corral. He flirts with his elderly waitress. “Man, I’d like to dry-dock that grandma,” he says to himself.

That night, Jones and O’Brian share a room at Warner Springs Ranch. O’Brian continues to experiment with the cylinder. He submerges it in the bathtub and finds it to be waterproof. “There’s a Gilligan’s Island Festival on all night tonight. Ping!” it tells him. O’Brian wakes up at 6:00am after a mere two hours sleep.

They assemble at the Shamans’ houses and begin their journey on foot. “We’ll need lots of water,” says the young man. “It gets hot up there.” He takes them through strange, circuitous trails that they would otherwise be unable to discern, seeming to double-back on themselves yet always gradually increasing in altitude. Finally, after about four hours, they arrive at a low valley and can see a cave opening a the other side. The shaman’s son calls his father by name.

“Proudfoot?” says Jones.

“No, you asshole, his name is Dave,” he tells him.

There is no answer, so he heads down the hill followed by Jones and Sangumbo. As he steps in front of the cave opening, a gunshot rings through the valley and the young man is blown to the ground. Agent Sangumbo rushes to his side to determine the extent of the injury, and the unseen gun fires again, striking Sangumbo in the shoulder. He scrambles back around some boulders for cover. Garrett and Colorados quickly assume defensive positions…