Agent Cecile Devereux - Personal Journal - Wednesday December 10^th 2008, 2100hrs

I'm back at my desk in the NO Field Office.  It's a weird feeling how you can go through several strange days and suddenly be back among the mundane and your brain just goes with it.  I have a load of emails sitting and staring at me, about half of them from Devlin. Highlight.  Delete.  There, that's better.

So the Majestic-Delta Green snafu seems to have come to a conclusion.  Monday afternoon and we were headed for New Orleans to interview John Edwards.  I say we - that was myself, Pierce, Chief and Agent Firth of 13 or Homeland Security or who knows what.  We got about halfway and into a wet Louisiana when our ‘unwanted' rescuers arrived.  Cell ORCA of Delta Green arranged a classic highway kidnap with a blocker and a pursuer and lots of guns.  They were fast and efficient - real shock and awe stuff.

Next thing we know, we're in an aerodrome with Oscar and his troops, Firth is dosed and hog tied and we're on the horn with Alphonse who tells us we're lucky to be alive and that most of what Thirteen told us was either twisted truth or plain lies.  His version of events has us turning up in shallow graves in Death Valley after our usefulness to the Majestic cause was done.  Pierce shrugged, I sighed and Chief railed against the injustice of the world.  Thinking back, that's a crock of BS - if something as powerful as Majestic wants us dead, I doubt a little inconvenient news coverage is going to stop them. What happened to Firth afterwards I don't know but I guess she was traded for whatever Delta Green wanted in return. Frankly, I wish I'd never heard of either group but I guess it's too late for that now. Resolution - get back safely to the Field Office and any ‘shallow grave' plans end up ruined. 

Anyway, to my shame, I bit on the bait, hook, line and sinker.  I guess we all did. Having fully automatic battle rifles shoved in your face makes an impression on a girl.  It was a nervous trip from Tempe, Arizona back to New Orleans.  We spotted MJ12 agents at the airport but in the rain, they missed us.  We went to Bourbon Street and split up to get cabs - Chief and I arrived at the Field Office together, only to find a welcoming committee in the underground car park, led by an ugly little man who looked like a fire had nearly got him once - shame he survived.  He called it a draw, whatever ‘it' is and whatever that means. Pierce was picked up by Romano's men which makes me wonder about that relationship - clearly the baseball cap and baggy jacket I was wearing really is a killer disguise. 

Pierce turned back up in the morning along with most of the rest of the team who had been turned loose by Firth's colleagues outside Gulfport.  Confused and spooked by having witnessed the sudden vanishment of Parisi (he turned into dust according to Wilmot who was standing right next to him when it happened), they hired a car and came straight back to the Easy.  Frost managed to smuggle out Chandler's spellbook and some of the relics MJ12 had recovered from Deal - he's busy exploring the text that he can read much to Pierce's irritation - well, Lord knows it doesn't take much.

We all took a breath when everyone was back in the Field Office.  Devlin had meetings and pointedly ignored us until late in the day when that option ceased to exist.  That's because I felt it was important we pushed on - only 5 weeks until ‘A-Day' for Stenneau.  So we picked up where we left off on Monday afternoon - heading to New Orleans City Hall to question Assistant District Attorney John Edwards.  He got distinctly uncomfortable at our line of questioning and I thought we had enough to make an arrest so he got led out in bracelets much to the surprise of all the fine City Hall workers.

He lawyered up as soon as we got back to the Field Office and Devlin got into it with me but thanks to Venetta and that damn jacket, as soon as both Devlin and Edwards understood what we knew, things broke real quickly.  I can tell when a man carries so much guilt with him that actually he's relieved to finally be able to tell the truth and that's what happened with Edwards.  Devlin even made it look like it was his mastermind plan to Herlihy - yeah, Big Easy politics at their finest.

Edwards's story is still being told as I write this.  He was threatened by Stenneau about Gloria's investigations but chose to ignore it and that got her killed.  Then, they went after his son and that's when he caved.  He arranged for the jacket - what would have been a critical part of Crook's defence - to go missing and set the stage for the prosecution of a lifetime; he surely had plenty of motive.  Venetta Davis set Vanessa Thomson the task of finding that jacket and she came good.  That both these fine women didn't live to see their hard work vindicated is a hard pill to swallow but such are the twisted paths of fate and destiny. 

Edwards is offering names in exchange for witness protection for him and his son - I'll call the Marshals shortly.  Then, first thing, it's a call to Doug Coupland, Crook's attorney.  This story will rock the city and maybe, just maybe, we've notched one up for the good guys. 

I can't help but feel as I watch the cleaners boxing Parisi's personal belongings and the empty desk next to that where Winchester used to sit that the price has been high already and we're still a long way from done.  Maybe Mike Hamblin was right about not inviting death to your door but what else can we do in the face of true evils like Stenneau, his smiling killers and their mad God?  I recall a quote from Pastor Martin Niemoller about the Nazis:

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Some things have to be stood up to whatever the price.  I think that's something all of us who survive to fight on understand.  RIP Gregori Parisi - may flights of angels sing you to your rest.