Preparation For Dual Ops
MutantsMichael — 10/4/24, 8:33 AM
From the information Jocasta got out of Colston Westbrook, it's his belief that Dr. West had some kind of connections in Oklahoma (where he was the head of the Psychology department at the University of Oklahoma before coming to UCLA) or in Texas (where he was, in a very shady fashion, brought in to psychoanalyze Jack Ruby during his trial for an insanity defense). He has been a very public figure, there are photos of him from all over the place over the past two-plus decades of his public career in the Air Force working with Korean War POWs, at the University of Oklahoma injecting circus elephants with LSD, at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in '66-'67 working on drug use in the Haight, of course at UCLA the past five-plus years. So with all that press and data and intel, Pat and Mitch can get a pretty complete picture of the man, and with Westbrook's belief that he might currently be in Oklahoma or Texas, a vague idea of where he might be. The challenge now comes in narrowing that down. If Mitch wants to scry with Pat, to aid Pat's attempt, he'll need to give me a Clairvoyance-13 roll. If Mitch wants to have the range to scry for Jolly himself, he or he and Pat will need to climb to 10,000 feet.
Dr. Cronk — 10/4/24, 8:51 AM
Mitch can climb. Climb, Mitch, climb!
MutantsMichael — 10/4/24, 8:53 AM
Yeah, we don't need to do a full taxing summit march this time around, Panther Meadow is at 7,500 feet so maybe we find a nice clearing a little further up the mountain so Pat doesn't tax his Winston-and-booze-inflamed heart too too much.
[8:54 AM]
So I guess both of us should roll and we can sort of combine/compare our respective remote viewing rolls instead of an aid roll. Clairvoyance-13 for Mitch.
Dr. Cronk used
roll
Dice GolemAPP — 10/4/24, 8:59 AM
@Dr. Cronk rolled
3d6:(2+6+1)= 9MutantsMichael — 10/4/24, 9:00 AM
heyyyyy birds of a feather
MutantsMichael — 10/4/24, 9:13 AM
So it's evident to both Pat and Mitch as soon as they press their minds' eyes out there, letting their minds sort of drift towards Texlahoma first on Westbrook's lead, that Jolly West is being protected by a similar bubble of antiscrying protection that the Bohemian Club in the City evinced when the two of them tried to peer at it back in May—"Weaving spiders, come not here," and so forth. So no, they can't seem to see where Jolly West is right now, and Mitch's Illuminated powers allow him to understand that yes, Jolly is under the direct protection of the Owls right at this moment. Mitch and Pat both, however, are able to get a feel for the general location of where Jolly West is right now, and in both psychics' vision, it's this skyline that greets them. In Pat's mind's eye, he's getting a picture of this skyline as it exists right now, as well; no tricky chronovision at all. Dipping down out of curiosity to the Hertz Rental ad/clock on top of the Texas School Book Depository, Pat wants to precisely check the time, but the digital display has been on the fritz for months. He soon finds a clock elsewhere in Downtown Dallas that confirms it's the here and now he's seeing, down to the minute.
MutantsMichael — 10/4/24, 10:12 AM
Pat also sensed the Owlish protection laid over West. "Do they have a satellite club in Dallas?" Pat asks Mitch after getting hold of this vision.
October 6, 2024
MutantsMichael — 10/6/24, 8:35 AM
It comes to Mitch that checking his photos of the Full Owls from the Little Black Book will give him a way into answering Pat's question, and lo and behold, amongst the few Dallas names amongst the photographed pages, one stands out in Mitch's Illuminated/Serendipitous vision:
Trammell Crow Bryan Tower 2001 Bryan Street Dallas, Tex. 75201
Bryan Tower did indeed seem to be the locus of the anti-scrying protection Mitch and Pat sensed. If Mitch shares this information with Pat, Pat blinks for a moment or two, as if trying to recall the name. "Wait. I've heard that name before! He was a buddy of Russ and Hal's. One of SCANATE's private funders, along with the Church's Fried Chicken guy. Who is also from Texas." A quick check of the Little Black Book shows that Bill Church Jr. is not among the Full Owls: too new money, undoubtedly. "I remember Ingo telling me that Crow had a thing for Ingo's paintings, he was always complimenting them and buying them for his 'private collection.'" Pat considers this connection to his last job, the West Virginia job offer he escaped from, and Mitch's scrying on Crow's latest and biggest addition to the Dallas skyline. His aura shudders under the weight of coincidence and confluence, and he draws a sharp in-breath. "Weird."
In an effort to bring together all the intel and the esmology performed thereto, Sophie helpfully lays out a pair of operations with which URIEL could engage to gain intel and strike a blow against the Owls using two Sandmen with knowledge of the Project's involvement in high-level American intelligence operations since the 1950s: Sidney Gottlieb and Louis Jolyon West. She has named these dual ops, Operation TOBACCO (in honor of Gottlieb's pseudonym Joseph Scheider) and Operation CANNABIS (in honor of Jolly West's dalliances with the drug underclass).
Operation TOBACCO (Watergate Hotel, 2650 Virginia Avenue NW, Foggy Bottom, Washington DC)
Sitrep: As discovered by Archie's daughter Jane, who is working in the office of Senator John Tunney, Sidney Gottlieb is believed to be the Church Committee's star witness for the committee's first avenue of investigation into biological and chemical warfare at Fort Detrick. Gottlieb is being held in protective custody by the US Marshals at the Presidential Suite at the Watergate Hotel until he can negotiate the terms of his testimony. It does appear that Gottlieb's testimony will consist of exchanging immunity for a "limited hangout" that will sate the public's desire for accountability, whitewashed through the ambivalent investigations of the Committee, and that Gottlieb will testify under the Scheider pseudonym to avoid exposure as an intelligence asset. Operational Objectives: URIEL's desire is to expose more of the American intelligence community's malfeasance in order to weaken the Owls, while keeping SANDMAN's existence secret for our possible co-optation once the Owls and their direct intelligence allies are exposed. To that end, the objectives with Gottlieb are fairly clear-cut: a) gather more information from Gottlieb on the purpose of the intelligence community's actions against the American people vis-à-vis their applicability to the reality war and SANDMAN vs. the Owls' desire to solidify their personal control over the West and the world, b) convince or forcibly compel Gottlieb to publicly (and not in closed session under a pseudonym) expose more of the intelligence community's domestic operations against the American people through the now-shuttered (and document-destroyed) MK ULTRA and other operations, c) gather any other incidental intelligence on how Gottlieb and the other members of the CWG's actions relate to a) and b) above. Security Situation: The Watergate Hotel's Presidential Suite, Room 1129, is a penthouse suite at the end of the 11th floor's longest hallway; the Church Committee has set up the US Marshals in the rooms adjoining the suite and there is a 24/7 guard station set up to protect Mr. "Scheider" from harm or unwanted visitors. As far as Archie and Marshall can tell, no one in SANDMAN knows Gottlieb is back in the US, so it is highly unlikely that any Project personnel are keeping tabs on him. Therefore, infiltration could be effected with good fake documentation (Senate staff or some other Capitol Hill entity, not FBI/Justice Department, who have their own designs on the Church Committee's witnesses) or a SANGUSH glyph or a combination of the two. Suggested URIEL Personnel: Given Marshall's desire to not be present for Gottlieb's debriefing, and Jocasta's desire to be part of the Jolly West op, it makes sense for Archie to be the head of this op. Sophie's esmology has suggested that Roger's abilities will make him a good teammate for this op, and as a backup NLP/memetics deployer, for Merrick to be possibly enlisted here as well. (edited)
MutantsMichael — 10/22/24, 8:50 AM
Operation CANNABIS (Bryan Tower, 2001 Bryan Street, Dallas Texas)
Sitrep: Operation CANNABIS, Sophie admits, looks to be a fair bit dicier. First of all, at the moment we only have Mitch's and Pat's remote viewing suggesting that Jolly West is holed up in Dallas real estate mogul (and full Owl) Trammell Crow's new skyscraper, the Bryan Tower, in downtown Dallas. What relation Jolly West might have to Crow, we're not sure, but there is suggestive tissue (i.e., Crow's patronage of SCANATE), that he may be invested in various "weird" research in California, which would certainly include Jolly's work with the Violence Center and at Vacaville. The Bryan Tower is a commercial piece of real estate, but some of the magazine articles seem to suggest that the executive suites on the top floors having living quarters that someone could certainly arrange to live in for some period of time. We don't yet have feet on the ground in Dallas to surveil the building, but once we do we might be able to see if there is evidence of West living in one of these or otherwise being hidden/obfuscated by Crow and the Owls (as West certainly is being mystically obfuscated by the Owls, as Mitch and Pat were able to tell). Operational Objectives: If it's true that West is cozy with the Owls on the first-order, it means our objectives with him would go far beyond Gottlieb. Intelligence gathering, by hook or by crook, is still top of mind; what West must know about the Owls and the Project goes far further than Gottlieb's presumed level of involvement with the Owls. West seems to have been involved in making sure the counterculture and Black nationalists were constantly eating their own tails over the years '67 to '74 in California, a direct command of the Owls (and probably Control). West also would likely have knowledge of what was happening in Los Angeles during Mitch's "lost year" and the cascading reality quakes that seemed to follow him around (and involve SANDMAN/MORNINGSTAR, ISOCLINE, and BLUE STAR). Let alone what he might know about the Kennedy assassination given his involvement with Jack Ruby. Getting West to "testify" for the Church Committee seems to Sophie to be far more dangerous, given how much West's activities seem to also involve the Project. So West is a fruit to be juiced. He's probably skilled at resisting mind-cracking as well, given his personal experience with both Brain Hacking and using psychotropics to control people's behavior. He'll be a tough nut to crack. Security Situation: As mentioned, we simply don't have enough intel right now to tell how well-protected West might be in the skyscraper, whether there's private security there who will need to be dispatched, whether they're SANDMAN-trained or just ex-mil commandos like the one Jo dispatched at the Grove back in July. Whatever the case, getting into the building and finding out where West is will require on-the-ground surveillance and snooping; remote viewing is not going to let Mitch or Pat peek inside the building first-hand. Suggested URIEL Personnel: This seems like a job for Marshall and Jocasta, obviously: Marshall to handle interrogation and Jocasta for the surveillance and physical side of the op. Mitch's involvement, even sans his full remote viewing capabilities, seems like a logical choice. As for non-Club members, it might be good to have Dave on the ground for backup, perhaps some URIEL-loyal Sandmen undercover commandos if they can be spared, and, as backup for Mitch, maybe we can convince Pat Price, with his personal involvement given his narrowly escaping recruitment/elimination by the Owls thanks to his West Virginia "job offer", to come down off the mountain and lend surveillance support. (edited)