zero hour

The Incorrigible Mr. Zeppo's Reign Of Terror (III)

Part 1 / Chapter 1 / Scene 3

Establishing shot- Fly over of The Pentagon in Langley, Virginia.

[Text in the lower left corner of the screen- The Pentagon, Langley Virginia]
[Music: a spoof mash up in the style of Mission Impossible, James Bond, Jason Borne series]

Zooming into and through various hallways and layers of the maze-like building commonly known as the Pentagon, until we arrive at imposing double doors of the Office of Director of National Security Investigations. A brief pause, and then we zoom in through the doors, rejoining the conversation where we left off in the last scene.

Mack: Gentlemen... and lady. [she takes a moment to make piercing eye contact with everyone] This case is much bigger than any of you realize.

[Jerkins & The Director look at her, then each other, then back at her. Lana literally places her face in her palm.]

Mack: This goes deeper than your three missing serial killers. [she produces a file from her satchel, which was on the side facing away from Jerkins. He makes a subtle face indicating he is aware of his poor fortune, for she had to lean way over to get the file and that must have been quite the view down her blouse] Five years ago, Syrian/Turkish border- [Satellite Photos sequence] the remnants of the Refugee Camp in the city of Kobani fled the rubble they'd been hiding under and made a run for it up into the mountains. Militants followed. We tracked both groups by satellite for the first three days, the administration was in PR mode, pushing congress to approve sending the refugees aid, and the assailants air-strikes, you know- the usual gambit... when... they disappeared.

Jerk: You lost them...?

Mack: No, Jerkins, they were gone.

Dir: They ran off?

Mack: You're not listening- Disappeared.

Jerk: How?

Mack: First guesses were that the refugees had been slaughtered, buried in a mass grave. But when we had the correct asset was over-head, we used ground penetrating radar over a radius of 100 miles around the last sighting... nothing.

Dir: No trace at all?

Mack: No sir, they were there one day... and then they were not there the next. Both groups, the refuges and the militants, had been within 15 miles of each other, up in the remote foothills of a vast mountain range. By dawn, when the next satellite was in place, they were no-where to be found. Gone.

Jerk: [as if it were a foregone conclusion that everyone else would agree with] Aliens.

[Both Mack & Dir. make eye contact as they ignore Jerk's comment]

Mack: A year and a half later, during that rash of international "Radical Islamist" shootings- Same thing. [Satellite Photos sequence 2]

We were hunting down an elite group of radicals which investigations uncovered were responsible for the majority of the so-called "lone wolf" shootings.

We tracked them down to a remote location. Monitored them for three days while we prepped an op, on the forth day- vanished.

Jerk: [more urgency in his voice as if this vindicated his first declaration] Aliens!

Mack: Early last year, the sixth Malaysian airliner that "crashed" [Satellite Photos sequence 2] We had crash site coordinates, sent a team to survey.... found nothing.

Jerk: I'm telling you...

Mack: In all three cases, the matter got kicked down in priority, buried in a cold case file dump.