A Vicious Little Firefight

This article describes a breach in Operational Security by temporarily (?) Insane Agents that does not necessarily comprise a leak, but the contents still border on Stopping Leaks. The article resembles Leaving an Agent to the Wolves.

The incident

On 28 November 1998, Scott Lavers described a long-awaited breach of basic security and asked the DGML for its thoughts on the probable repercussions. Some Delta Green Agents had been investigating a warehouse and entered it illegally. The group consisted of two FBI agents, a Customs Investigator and a DEA agent. They all knew they were acting illegally and had accepted that. A police cruiser came around on a routine check, catching the agents as they were leaving. Their reactions were unorthodox. The DEA and Customs men ran, one of the FBI agents froze, and the last man saw his career burning down in flames. A vicious little firefight ensued, leaving both the cops and the frozen FBI man wounded. The FBI shooter carried his partner off. It was only the fact that his buddy was wounded that stopped him finishing off the two cops.

Probable consequences

  • The agents' best option is probably to remove/destroy as much of the forensic evidence as they can manage. All in all it sounds as though their prospects are quite poor. (Allen Schezar)
    • If the agents left a car, it will contain a lot of such evidence, as will the warehouse (fingerprints) if gloves were not used, and the blood left by the wounded agent. (Graeme Price)
    • In future, park well away from the target. Case the place first if possible (find out the frequency of security and police patrols). Leave no evidence. Use clean weapons. Never carry identification if you are going to do something illegal (in case you get slotted). If you must carry identification, use it to get yourself out of the situation. (Graeme Price)
  • Time to work out a violently lethal Federal Penitentiary scenario. (Man in Black)
    • A prepared jail scenario may come in handy under other circumstances as well. (David Farnell)
  • Alphonse does not know everything about what happened on a given mission. Agents can downplay certain events or leave elements out of their reports. (Steven Kaye)
    • The incident should ideally be reported to Cell A. If so, the ballistic fingerprints of their weapons will do a vanishing act. The wounded agent could be a problem, but there may be a medic who can clean up the wounds, no questions asked. The agents will then get a very stiff talking-to from a representative of Cell A, who will point out the foolishness of their action, and that they endangered both the mission and the organization, especially if they got caught. Then it will be time to pull them off the case and arrange a de-briefing/reasssignment. In this specific case, even if the police officers involved can make a positive ID, it will probably turn out that the agents in question have watertight alibis. It was dark, probably raining, there was someone shooting at the officers, they were wounded, scared and confused etc., so a positive ID will be difficult. (Graeme Price)
    • If the agents did not report their situation to Cell A, they are in real trouble. First off, the wounded agent needs medical attention; if he goes to a civilian hospital with a gunshot wound, then the police are going to be informed as a matter of course. Second, without the help of Cell A or clean, untraceable weapons, the ballistic data will be a give-away. If the cops catch them, then the conspiracy is in danger. Who knows what deals these agents will cut to save their own skins? Especially as they have already opened fire on innocent bystander cops when they could have either run or talked their way out of the situation. The agents pose a security risk. There will be procedures (reluctantly) applied to eliminate said risk. (Graeme Price)
  • Excommunication. If Agent Galahad goes a little whacky and starts discharging firearms inappropriately, G Cell is cut off. "Don't call us, we'll call you." Members of G Cell are carefully contacted later, but in the meantime every DG-related pager number, phone number and email address they have been given is dead; unless keeping them active for disseminating disinformation is possible or desirable. (Mark McFadden)

Credits

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