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FBI

The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is the parent agency of the Paranatural Incident Task Force and the employer of three of its four investigators.
Type Organization (U.S. federal agency)
Aliases the Bureau; Federal Bureau of Investigation
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Director William S. Sessions (to April 1993); Rudy Giuliani (from April 1993)
Status Active
First appearance Radford Horror 01

Overview

The Bureau of the campaign is a post-Cold War agency shedding people. In spring 1992 its counterintelligence and counterterrorism work is being downsized ("The Soviets are gone. The Chinese are making radios for us. We beat the evil empire"), and the new presidential task force is where four surplus careers are parked. (Radford Horror 01)

To the team in the field the FBI is mostly a set of services at the other end of a payphone: couriers who bring the case files, a switchboard, a secretary pool that trades gossip, a lab that takes days, translators, and an accounts office that reimburses motel rooms and pays for wrecked cars. It is also the cover. The agents present themselves as ordinary FBI men looking into missing persons, and "We're the FBI" is the team's answer to most obstacles, including Kurt, who is not. (Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 06, Summer Service 03, Appalachia 01, Appalachia 04)

Institutionally it treats the task force as a joke, then as an asset, then as a scandal. (Radford Horror 01, Appalachia 01, Appalachia 07, Radford Horrors 04)

Structure

Members

(Radford Horror 01, Summer Service 03, Walkers 02, Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 02)

History

1992: the task force years

The Bureau houses the new unit in a derelict barbershop it had been using for document storage and sends it to Radford. Sheriff Frank Roosevelt, who has never dealt with the FBI, has his deputy phone Washington to check their identification. (Radford Horror 01)

At Marblehead the Bureau is the team's lifeline. Big Bill takes the reports to the Oval Office, retasks a Navy submarine and calls out the National Guard; when he cannot be reached, the switchboard reports the Guard's delay and an intercepted shipment of illegal M16s bound for the town, and says it cannot send a helicopter. (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 04, Summer Service 05)

After Marblehead, Andre says, "the rest of the FBI has finally kind of stopped bullying you guys". That lasts until October, when the Georgia State Police announce that the FBI is surveilling candidate Bill Clinton. The Bureau's public position is that it had nothing to do with it. The original plan was for a representative with formal public-relations credentials to do the news tour; instead it coached the Biz and sent him onto David Letterman's program, and afterwards housed him in a safe house. See Clinton Surveillance Scandal. (Appalachia 01, Appalachia 07, Walkers 01, Walkers 02)

In Utah the FBI pays for the flights, the rental car and the Biz's gold fillings, and the team spends the last days of the case unable to reach it at all. (Walkers 01, Walkers 03, Walkers 07, Walkers 08)

1993: after the task force

With the unit disbanded, the Bureau keeps Andrew on a desk in New York working the World Trade Center bombing. He cannot be dismissed because his misdeeds are buried in classified cover-ups, and lower-level offices run betting pools on whether he is blackmailing Director Sessions or sleeping with him. Huell draws workers' compensation. The Biz's file shows a granted six-month personal leave for a "family emergency" and a stack of unanswered reminders. (Roulet Estate 03, Radford Horrors 01)

Kurt, visiting headquarters in April, finds the building as tense as it was after Iran-Contra. Sessions has been fired three hours earlier. Giuliani recalls the old team as consultants under Webster, to find Perot's missing agents in Radford and to produce an "acceptable fact pattern". (Radford Horrors 01)

The first week in Radford brings an expected Bivens lawsuit over the Safe Environment Fund fence, a retroactive warrant, and a reprimand for Webster. Giuliani wants the missing agents found within 24 hours, dead or alive. (Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)

Quote

"That seems really reckless to me, Webster, running lunatics in the field." (Andre as Giuliani, Radford Horrors 04)

Rules and customs

  • Domestically, the FBI's jurisdiction outranks the NSA's, according to Kurt. (Radford Horror 04)
  • Agents can commandeer vehicles in an emergency, at the risk of being chewed out. (Radford Horror 03)
  • The 48-hour hold rule applies to the team as to any other agents. (Summer Service 04)
  • "The chocolate milk in the canteen is not very good, and nobody likes it at the FBI": a fact offered by the Counterintelligence watcher at Marblehead as proof that he is genuine. (Summer Service 01)

Trivia

  • When the Biz phones for backup from Rhode Island in January 1993 and mentions his task force, the FBI operator is "not familiar" with it. (Roulet Estate 02)
  • Ezra, during the Radford Horrors premiere, said he had forgotten there were ever any other agents involved in the team's cases. Andre: "There weren't." (Radford Horrors 01)
  • Zack's summary of the job: "One of the main things you do as the FBI is scrape white powders into baggies." (Walkers 09)

Appearances

The FBI figures in every canon session as the team's employer. Its headquarters, officials or offices appear directly in: