Mystery covert group¶
The mystery covert group is the unidentified armed organization behind the voice on the task force's pocket radio, whose dead "advanced team" leaked the nerve agent into Marblehead's water in The Summer Service.
| Type | Organization (unidentified) |
| Aliases | Advanced team; the contact's side; the Marines |
| Affiliation | Unknown |
| Spokesman | The radio contact |
| Status | Active, unidentified (as of Summer Service 06) |
| First appearance | Summer Service 05 (as the voices calling themselves the Marines) |
Overview¶
The group is known only through the radio contact. It has a commanding officer, an "advanced team" that is dead at the bottom of the ocean, a liquid anti-worm agent, a weapon called a "Casaba" that must be fired from the air, and the ability to track the glowing angel thing (Summer Service 06). The spelling "Casaba" is as heard in the recording.
History¶
The Marines¶
In Summer Service 05, unseen voices cut into the team's frequency, bark "We're the goddamn Marines. Get off the line," and tell everyone to switch to frequency B. Kurt Larson wonders why Marines would be in radio range and apparently afraid for their lives, and resolves to make phone calls once back in town. In Summer Service 06 the radio contact apologizes for "my commanding officer's rudeness earlier," and Andre later describes updates from "the Marines" on the creature's position (Summer Service 05; Summer Service 06).
The advanced team¶
Andrew Howard asks over the radio whether the "advanced team" was the dead crew in the boat with a bite out of it, found on the dive. The contact answers, "Oh, you do know about the advanced team," and apologizes that the broad-spectrum synthetic nerve agent leaked when "we got blown up" (Summer Service 06). The wreck itself was found on the dive in the unrecorded Summer Service 02; see The stealth wreck.
The worm campaign¶
The group knows about the worms and has developed the anti-worm agent from captured samples. The contact says "we're gonna have to kill all these people" once they no longer have special support, and adds that the agent "won't kill anything else, probably." Kurt suggests crop-dusting after the storm. The group plans the shot at the creature with Kurt and the team and leaves the canister on the freeway (Summer Service 06).
What remains unknown¶
Who the group serves, who its commanding officer is, and what "where I'm from" means. Its relationship to the angel thing is also unclear: the contact says the creature is "not there to help" the convoy of infected, which is why it will have to come out of the water (Summer Service 06). In Summer Service 05, Kurt wonders whether the nerve agent in the water was another party's attempt to contain the worms; the Summer Service 06 revelation fits that only partly, since the group also plans to kill the infected (Summer Service 05; Summer Service 06).