In 2003, amid the widespread looting that followed the fall of Baghdad to American-led coalition forces, a group of military and civilian intelligence officials went briefly off the grid to explore the basement of a mysterious facility in the heart of Anbar province.
At the time, conventional intelligence analysts believed that the small cinderblock structure located there was a receptacle for documents cataloging Saddam Hussein’s WMD program. They gave it the codename WHITEBOX.
We knew the truth, or part of it—WHITEBOX was a long-standing source of anomalous phenomena, sealed shut after the first Gulf War by Saddam’s secret team of Sufi exorcists. Sources agree that the structure covered the entryway into a subterranean complex, but differ on its nature and contents. A former high-ranking Baathist (informant codename BOGGLE) claims that it was a natural cave network, and that it contained a series of scrolls written in reverse Arabic script, which he called the anti-Koran. Our inside man in the Sufi exorcism team (informant codename BIPED) says that was a ruin dating from the Early Dynastic period of Sumerian civilization (approx 2900 – 2300 B.C.) and that it was home to an ancient demonic entity known to humankind as Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld.
How the cell calling itself the Circle discovered the facility remains unknown. Confirmed facts are as follows:
On April 11, 2003, marine sergeant Neal Gingerich, army lieutenant James Rice, army communications specialist Ruby Kumar, CIA arms control operative Elizabeth Mitchell, Navy SEAL Bradford Lower and NSA cryptanalyst Joanne Waller joined together to breach the structure’s defenses. They encountered and overcame stiff resistance from local tribal forces seeking to prevent their entry into the structure. In the course of the firefight much of the modern upper building was destroyed by surface-to-surface missile fire. The six rogue actors penetrated into the underground structure below, remaining there until April 13. On that date a National Guard unit appeared on the scene under orders to secure the facility. They entered a life of petty crime and drug abuse, until
he fell into the orbit of café owner Marguerite Bechard. Bechard made her establishment a center of the city’s avant garde art scene. Acting as a heroin-dispensing muse, she inspired writers and painters to include Esoterror-friendly themes and images in their works. The origin of her Outer Dark allegiance has yet to be established.
Bechard employed Julien Caillet as debt collector and all-around muscle. Marguerite was found eviscerated in her bathtub in 1956, after which point Julien went back home. Paris police ignored Caillet to focus on Bechard’s Algerian former lover, who was convicted and guillotined for the crime.
Unless one counts a pair of shaky incidents from 1949 and 1951, the disappearances began in earnest in the fall of 1956, after Julien’s prodigal return. The first likely victim was amateur painter Bernadette Laforet, who was last seen a mile from the Caillet homestead. The most recent disappearance occurred just six months ago. Parcel messenger Farid Bencherif went missing two and a half kilometers from the Chaillets, his truck still idling outside an abandoned farmhouse.
The Caillets appear to interbreed, rendering exact family relationships muddy at best. Sometimes unknown individuals are seen on the property for a while, and then disappear. They might be living literally underground on the estate, or heading off to join other enemy groups. One Frenchman bearing the distinctive slope-browed look of the Caillets was found dead after a raid on an Esoterror compound in Guatemala in 1993. By order of approximate age, the names of known Caillets are: Eugene (in his 80s), Jean-Pierre (50s), Emilie (50s), Bernadette (50s), Bernadette-Louise (40s), Patrice (40s), Claude (40s), Julien (30s), Estelle (30s), Jacques (30s), Jerome (30s), Pilate (30s), Gorgon (30s; may be a nickname), Camion (20s), Botte (20s), Fosse (20s), Chiffon (20s), Larve (late teens), Britney (early teens), Lindsay (early teens), Eugene-Julien (early teens), and an indeterminate number of minor children.
supply raids on mountain villages throughout the fall and winter. Captured members of the group proved not to be foreign jihadis, but outcast Kurds. They claimed to have forsworn Islam to worship an incarnate goddess they called the Night Queen. A top-priority raid on the group’s encampment mopped up nearly a hundred local cultists but yielded no sign of Wallace, Rice, or the others. An operational post-mortem confirmed our fears—someone within the conventional intelligence complex send a coded warning to their location hours before the raid. The Circle still has allies within the US intel community. A counterespionage operation to root them out has so far been unsuccessful.
In the years following, members of the Circle have been spotted or briefly detained in Glasgow, Scotland; Palm Beach, Florida; Hokkaido, Japan; Overjissel, Netherlands; and Bryne, Norway. Meanwhile, violent guerrilla cults propitiating a deity known in local languages as the Night Queen have sprouted up in the backwoods of Peru, Romania, Bhutan,Tajikistan, Angola, and Burma. Interrogation of captured members reveal similar doctrinal keywords indicating a common origin for all of these cults. The speed of their growth, and their ability to turn previously ordinary and rational individuals into slack-jawed fanatics suggests a psycho-viral component to the cult’s ideology which cannot be entirely mundane in nature.
In each case cult members are instructed to engage in brutal and apparently motiveless acts of rapacity against small population centers. They occasionally take supplies or kidnap young potential recruits. Their primary objective appears to be psychological destabilization. As such they fit the Esoterror modus operandi of weakening the membrane. Aside from these tactical similarities, we have yet to find evidence of contact with other cells. For that matter, the Circle may be unaware that their scheme serves the cause of the Outer Dark. Whatever Ereshkigal really is, we must assume that it is an extremely powerful being of unremitting horror. Its capacity to use a small group of humans to promote its worship worldwide indicates an enemy of fearsome calculation and intellect.
were ambushed by the surviving Circle members. Video footage taken by the guard unit shows one of the women—most likely Joanne Waller—rising phoenix-like from the structure. If the tape is to be accepted as real, she then reduces the guardsmen to ash with a sweep of her arms.
On April 14, we arranged for the underground complex to be bombarded with bunker buster bombs, bringing about what we hope is its permanent destruction. Later forensic exploration found the twisted remnants of a bloodied ritual dagger. The blood provided a DNA match to Sgt. Neal Gingerich, who has not been observed alive since. Although it is tempting to speculate that his erstwhile allies sacrificed him to “Ereshkigal”, we cannot prove that the bloodletting was fatal. International secret warrants sworn out for the six yielded no results. A special forces unit operating in the Iraq’s Kurdish hinterland spotted persons matching the descriptions of Lower and Rice fighting alongside a group of guerrilla “foreign fighters” in the fall of 2003. This group conducted
moved there full-time. It was during these early visits that he first became involved in sex tourism. The local government turned a blind eye to pedophilic sex tourism until 1995. As it announced its subsequent crackdown, Shiles was forced to take his proclivities underground. It is at this time that he linked up with a coterie of fellow pedophiles. Although Shiles prefers boys, other associates frequent underage female prostitutes. Known associates of Shiles, and presumed fellow Esoterrorist initiates, include:
Philipp Polenz, 48, Austrian citizen, minor heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, briefly imprisoned in Germany for pandering and possession of child pornography. Both Polenz and his now deceased father, Florian, have longstanding ties to Esoterror and are thought to have been participants at the deadly Europa ritual near Bruges, 1991. Polenz is presumed to be the cell’s chief ritualist.
Julian Ho, 32, joint British and Malaysian citizenship. Funds group operations by creating and distributing child pornography. Believed responsible for the murders of up to four recalcitrant subjects of his video projects. Ho can be recognized via his penchant for white suits, panama hats, and his habit of fidgeting with a gold, diamond-encrusted cigarette lighter. He should be considered armed and dangerous. Keith Hegarty, 29, Irish citizen, former member Irish Defense Forces, ex-employee of various mercenary companies. Tours of duty for latter include Afghanistan and Iraq. Hegarty serves as the group’s anti-surveillance and tradecraft expert, as well as its enforcer. Draws on pool of thuggish contacts from Colombo underworld. Sources refer to a gift for mimicry as well as a native talent for languages. Known to passably speak local languages of Sinhala and Tamil, in addition to English, Manx Gaelic, Arabic, and Pashto. Social services files from his hometown of Mallow, Ireland, reveal Hegarty’s background as the victim of child sexual abuse from multiple adults in his household. Following classic abuse pattern, Hegarty violently repeats cycle with child prostitutes under his control. Carries multiple weapons; treat as extremely dangerous.
Anura, surname and age unknown, Sri Lankan