Only went immediately from nowhere to being a high priority security matter. The various domestic intelligence agencies, with only the most superficial and diversionary co-operation, set about making their seperate plans to uncover the operations in Only and identify the perpetrators, each determined to get the credit for being first, even at the expense of accuracy and efficiency. The crack commandos sent by Army Special Operations to cordon off the surrounding counties were mistaken as foreign troops by the NSA team of covert agents, and embarrassment was only narrowly averted by the failure of the new ultra advanced electronic equipment on both sides. The CIA sent in some black helicopters without thinking. The way one thing does lead to another, the Government had to send in the ATF for a protracted stand-off that occupied the attention of most of the media and all the law enforcement resources in that part of the state.
Spies stick out like a sore thumb in little backwaters in the secluded areas of the Great Midwest.
Strangers always attract attention, and strangers who look like guys in black suits even when they're costumed in the regional garb, can't help but attract lots of attention. They spent so much time and energy trying not to look like spies, that they got very little spying in. Then the jurisdictional disputes began. Naturally the intelligence agencies all insisted it was their baby, and everyone else should bug out. The branches of the Military all had good reasons why it should be up to them, although the Navy was the most creative with its plan to drop a mini submarine equipped with nuclear missiles into a nearby lake .