1. What the Public Hears:
Highway Killer Goes Out With A Bang!
Vietnam Vet Gone Bad Bombs Police Department
UPI--August 8th, 2000
PHOENIZ, Ariz. – The mystery of “The Devil’s Highway” ended in fiery tragedy today when the man apparently responsible for killing as many as 10 people in and around the Phoenix area, was apprehended today after a bloody shootout with local law enforcement officials and investigators with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The alleged killer, one Emmanuel Santana, a resident of the San Carlos Apache Indian reservation and a former Green Beret and Vietnam War veteran, was shot to death in an extended gun battle with law enforcement officials in rugged terrain to the south west of the city. When his body and personal effects were taken to the main headquarters of the Phoenix Police Department, an explosive device found with Mr. Santana detonated in the station’s evidence room, killing four Federal agents and a local officer…local human rights groups and social activists are calling for an investigation into what they call “the unjust killing of an oppressed victim of America’s racist society” and vowed were organizing a candlelight vigil to mark the death of Mr. Santana. The Reverend Jesse Jackson stated at a Democrat fundraiser that…

2. What Happens to Your Characters
A swarm of NSA, DoD, FEMA and NIST (Nuclear Incident Situation Team) agents descend upon the Phoenix PD HQ and seal off the entire floor where the autopsy was performed, and where the “bomb” went off. No one is allowed in or out except these agents. You are brought in for questioning about your role in the affair, going through at least a dozen interviews, both with your director, Randy Pike, together, and separately. You are told, and sworn to secrecy upon being told, that Emmanuel Santana was wanted in connection with a plot by a major Columbian drug cartel to seize nuclear weapons materials from Los Alamos National Laboratories. Santana, a federal fugitive with experience in covert operations from his time of service in the US Army Special Forces in Vietnam, enhanced and used the fires set near Los Alamos by the US Forestry Department to infiltrate the Labs and steal an experimental explosive core for a nuclear device. The explosive core, sans its fissionable materials, was the device you recovered from Santana. The core is essentially a series of explosive “lenses” or shaped-charges that would detonate simultaneously,  with the shock wave focused on the fissionable materials and compressing it into a critical mass. The core uses special high explosives, which is why it did as much damage as it did to the PD building when mishandled by the local Phoenix police officer killed in the blast. They further believe that the German “tourists” were former East German GRU agents for hire, and the other missing “tourists” were from the Columbian cartel. The hikers and others were simply tragedies – innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time, or unrelated to the Santana case, like the Braverman affair.

Randy Pike, at first eager to distance himself from your actions, steps forward to claim credit as your director after a hearty “thank you and congratulations” seems likely. “Good job men,” says the NSA official, one Captain Kent Davis, “We apologize for any hard feelings the actions of our team may have caused, they were operating under a fuller set of information than yourselves at the time and may have been overzealous in executing their duties to the nation.”

There is no mention made in any account, public or government, about cannibalism or the mutilation of the bodies found. There is no mention made, or questions asked, about the “Traveller,” or the shots fired during the autopsy.

You each get 5 experience points, and a letter of commendation in your files. Phil, you develop a new Quirk, "Aversion to Slugs."