"How could something in a little town in northwestern Montana have anything to do with National Security?" I wondered aloud, puzzled by what had apparently gone on at the station shortly after I had left the night before and before Officer Barnes could leave, "The closest country to us is Canada, and we aren't on a major trading line where people from elsewhere in the world were to come in... and if we were bombed out of existence by someone... it wouldn't do serious damage to the country's economy... shoot, it probably wouldn't do real damage to the state's economy."
"I'm not saying what they said made sense, I'm saying what they said," Officer Barnes replied.
I gave a sigh at that. The "unknown man" who according to the ID was named Robert Honorius and was part of a Federal Agency I had never heard of. I had heard of the abbreviation of the organization's name, but that was mostly in history courses that covered some information of the development of the CIA. I had never heard of the Office of Strategic Sciences before. Because of that we thought he had faked the ID and appeared to be extremely good at what he did... but there was still too much of it that appeared to be legit.
The phone numbers on the card, that were contact numbers, did go to Federal agencies. Some guy running some kind of fraud scheme wouldn't be able to get those numbers right. Unless of course Honorius was a crooked agent, but they wouldn't send a team to remove all traces of evident about him as well as his body if he was a crooked agent and definitely not a civilian running a scheme. That made me think that Honorius was a real Federal Agent, and that he was apparently important.
That left a series of important questions that needed to be answered. If not on a personal level between him and myself, then at least on a jurisdiction level between the Columbia Falls Police Department and the Federal Government... and as Officer Barnes and I moved in to try and clock in before running our patrol, I overheard that some of those questions were being asked already.
"What do you mean you don't know about two agents coming here!" Officer Howard's voice hollered from his office, "two of them showed up at the end of our day shift, displayed legitimate identification and removed all evidence that we had!"
He did not sound pleased. I faintly heard a calmer voice answer on the other end.
"Sir, my office can not confirm or deny any..."
"I don't need confirmation that they were here!" Officer Howard answered, "I want to know WHY they were here, and WHY they had to through a bunch of "national security" BS at one of my best officers!"
"Sir, my office is a recruitment office," the voice answered, "I am not responsible for any sort of intelligence gathering operations of the Central Intelligence Agency, and if even I was... I am afraid I would not be at liberty to tell you, for National Security reasons..."
"And what about a small town is threatening National Security?" Officer Howard yelled back, angered that he was not getting anywhere with the guy, "is something threatening coming through the town? Is there something that we need to be aware of here?"
"I do not know, sir," the voice replied, "if agents did arrive, their authority came straight from offices in the Washington DC area, not from me. I can not even look at their orders to give you the proper response."
"Surely you have to know something... the guy was caught playing vigilante outside a school here!" Officer Howard challenged, "and those agents that collected him simply said "National Security" to questions... what is so threatening about a school? Why was he there?!"
"I said before that I do not know, sir."
"Then could you give me the number of who DOES know?" Officer Howard replied, "last I checked in these instances do carry jurisdiction issues. They can't just barge in here and interrupt a serious investigation without at least saying why... or providing us with a contact officer to coordinate things between our level and the Federal level!"
"I do not think my superiors would know, either, sir," the voice replied.
"How about the Director then?" Officer Howard growled, "give me his number and I'll yell at him for awhile! He must know why two agents did what they did!"
"I can not do that, sir," the voice answered, "the Director is very busy with many matters... and I do not have his number... too far down the chain of command. I'm not even an Analyst like Jack Ryan... I'm a recruiter."
Officer Howard only slammed his end of the phone down in frustration. Apparently he couldn't stand it any longer.
"Troubles, sir?" I asked.
Officer Howard looked up and sighed.
"Just the run-around after yesterday evening," Officer Howard sighed, "just barging in... breaking all sorts of jurisdictional rules..."
"At least that confirms that Honorius was a Federal Agent," Officer Barnes commented, "maybe you could call the regional FBI offices in Helena... maybe they could help."
"And would the FBI know what the CIA is doing?" Officer Howard sighed.
"Well, this "OSS" apparently has links to the CIA, the FBI, the Military, the National Security Agency... just about everything the government does that is top secret," I commented, "and one of their agents was discovered trying to stop Williams... and you said you called just about everyone that might conceivably know who Honorius or this "OSS" was. Wouldn't it be logical for these agencies to actually talk with each other?"
"That could work..." Officer Howard sighed, "provided they don't give me the run around... and I'm going to need a lot more coffee to calm down..."
Officer Barnes nodded, "of course, sir... we'll be running today's patrol, anyway."
To that, Officer Howard nodded, "best get going then. Hopefully I'll have a better explanation for you both at the end of the day."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The day's patrol was again quiet. There were a few minor and routine calls that were easily handled with no difficulty. These calls allowed me to ponder over the weirdness that was going on. Patten's little speech, which I still couldn't fully grasp where that had come from. And now the strange interactions with the Federal government.
Now, I was never by any means a "get the government off my back" person, but I did prefer the government to be honest about what it was doing in relation to dealing with the public. Honorius had played vigilante against a local terrorist and obviously lost. I could easily respect his wanting to stop Williams. To me it showed a great deal of courage, if not the right degree of tactics in dealing with armed gunman in a non-military like manner. But I still wondered on why he was there in the first place, and what this Office of Strategic Sciences meant.
I quietly pondered these things as we went through the day, trying to figure out what had just happened. Some of it was simply surprising, as Patten's remarks were unexpected, but to me, I could reason out that a person without all the facts could easily jump to the wrong conclusions. He struck me as a R.A.M. member that had been duped by Beauregard, as most of them were... and even if he wasn't a R.A.M. member, he certainly didn't do a thing to try and put out the firestorm that Beauregard had started. But, I didn't know Patten all that well, and while his comments on my temper did have me thinking, it was probably best to ignore him, as Molly said... and for the moment, the weirdness of dealing with the Feds seemed to trump anything Patten had done.
When we returned to the station after the evening patrol, we found that Officer Howard had called the FBI offices in Helena. They denied sending anyone to pick up our unknown man's body, and told him that they didn't think that the unknown man... Honorius... was a Federal Agent. It was essentially the run around again, and it left Officer Howard in a very sour mood.
"How are we to let the guy's family know what happened to him?" I asked.
"I don't really know," Officer Howard grumbled, sounding very annoyed, "this is actually the first time in my career that I've ever had to deal with some breach of jurisdiction like this... and they won't even tell me what's so important about Columbia Falls..."
"Maybe it's Molly and I," I commented, "the guy had an interest in seeing the Animatrix Serum go on the market... maybe he's studying various animal people for some reason."
"An interesting theory," Officer Howard sighed, "and wouldn't make a bad plot if this were a comic book or something... but that sort of thing doesn't happen in real life."
"I wouldn't have thought the Animatrix Serum was real at one point," I commented.
"That's real science though, George," Officer Barnes spoke, "the idea that they'd be studying you and Molly would be like some grand conspiracy theory better suited to the comics."
"And in any case, we can't figure out what he was doing here without direct answers from the Feds themselves," Officer Howard reminded, "and since they don't appear to want to talk, I'm afraid, this case will have to be closed... unless some new information comes in."
Both Officer Barnes and I sighed. It was the end for this portion of the case. Not the ending I wanted, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Unless something truly weird happened, we'd never hear about Honorius or the Office of Strategic Sciences again.