1972 Cedar Sinai Hospital Massacre

> "*I was terrified! I was so sure I was going to be next! I remember huddling in a corner with Ophelia, thinking, 'This can't be real.' But it was! At times even I thought it was too hard to believe but it was. It was!*"
> ― Daisy John, a witness and survivor of the massacre, recounting the incident to the police.
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> "*Iron Wolf operatives are usually very dedicated during a mission, never stopping regardless of who or what stands in their way. For an Iron Wolf agent to suddenly go off-mission and attack a civilian hospital for no discernible reason is not only strange, but completely unheard of.*"
> ― Tatiana Makarova, a Soviet defector, to the Los Angeles Police Department during an interview
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## 1972 Cedar Sinai Hospital Massacre

The only known photograph of the incident

## General information

### Place

Cedar Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles, California

### Attack type

Homicide (Initially)Terrorism (Officially)

### Outcome

Existence of Operation Iron Wolf comes to the American public

## Combatants

### Defenders

Cedar Sinai Hospital staffLos Angeles Police Department

## Commanders

### Allies

Arnold Barnes (Deceased)Charlotte Dean (Deceased)

Daisy John

Martha Alexander

Megan Green

Ophelia Jane

Albert Stone

Ross McDowell (Deceased)

### Enemies

Anatoly GromovLev Bratchenko

Dietrich Sterner

Vladimira Petrova/The Expressionless/Asset X

## Strength

### Friendly forces

Los Angeles Police Department officersCedar Sinai Hospital Staff

Cedar Sinai Hospital Security

## Casualties

### Total casualties

Seven

The **1972 Cedar Sinai Hospital Massacre** was a brutal act of terrorism committed by the Soviet Union on American soil. Considered the second deadliest attack since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the incident was initially regarded by local police to be the work of a serial killer. However, thanks to revelations uncovered by both local police and the Los Angeles Examiner, it was found to be the work of a supersoldier project gone wrong. Thus, the United States government reclassified the incident as a terrorist attack.

## Background

### Disaster in Vietnam

During the Vietnam War, Soviet intelligence recovered by the Central Intelligence Agency in Vietnam led to the discovery of Oepration Iron Wolf, a Soviet supersoldier program dedicated to sabotaging the United States and other NATO member nations by deploying superhuman sleeper agents to American soil and assassinating various different diplomats, military generals, and politicians living in the United States and her allies.

However, after a disastrous mission executed by the CIA to extract a Soviet defector with knowledge of Iron Wolf from Vietnam, the intel was given to United States President Richard Nixon, who immediately classified Operation Iron Wolf as a possible espionage program against the United States.

### Task Force Olympia

After the Tet Offensive, the United States government created a new task force, codenamed Olympia, to combat the threat. Task Force Olympia was a collaboration between local police and the military to hunt down and apprehend possible Soviet sleeper agents hiding on American soil.

### Soviet Deployment to America

Years later, in 1970, the head of Iron Wolf, Anatoly Gromov, deployed a female super-soldier known as Asset X the United States, with orders to obtain intelligence concerning General Owen Garfield, a high-ranking general and close friend of then-US President Richard Nixon, whom she was then tasked with assassinating.

However, the mission went horribly wrong during the assassination stage of the mission; Asset X, operating under the name *Sheila Monroe*, fell victim to a car wreck while covertly tailing Garfield to an unknown location, where she planned to assassinate him. She escaped the scene before the police could arrive and ended up at Cedar Sinai Hospital, where she would later embark on a vicious killing spree.

## The massacre

At about 5:00 AM on the morning of June 10, 1972, an injured Asset X stumbled through the doors of Sinai Cedar Hospital in Los Angeles, California, wearing a bloody gown. Due to the fact that her face resembled a mannequin (thanks to a wardrobe malfunction during plastic surgery prior to deployment to the United States), her appearance terrified the patrons; her mannequin-like face struck horror in those who looked at her and her deadpan stare sent chills through witnesses' bones. After displaying herself at the front desk, she collapsed, alarming fellow patients and staff members alike.

Oddly, she did not protest when the staff decided to restrain her and sedate her until the authorities arrived. However, once the staff tried sedating her, Asset X broke into violence. She soon began convulsing as the needle was inserted into her arm. According to staff nurse and witness Ophelia Jane, she stared directly into the eyes of colleague Arnold Barnes as some of Jane's colleagues called police, then creepily smiled as Barnes questioned who she was.

Suddenly, Asset X killed Barnes by tearing open his jugular in one bite,  whispering in his ear, "I am God," as Barnes lay dying.

Police arrived to subdue the assailant, but even they were no match for Asset X, who brutally killed five of the officers and began cannibalizing their corpses. According to the police reports and the eyewtiness testimony of Ophelia Jane and fellow nurse Daisy John, the sight was so gruesome that nurse Charlotte Dean died of shock afterwards.

After killing the officers, Asset X fled the hospital premises and was never seen again until sometime in 2019, long after the Cold War had ended.

## Police investigation

### Lack of leads

Police immediately began investigating, with LAPD interviewing witnesses about the incident. Using the eyewitness reports, police were able to construct a sketch of the perpetrator. A police manhunt ensued, which turned up no leads. The case went cold, until about two years later, in 1974, when two Soviet defectors named Tatiana Makarova and Oleg Malenkov, both of whom fled to the United States from the USSR, came forward and revealed the existence of Operation Iron Wolf, a Soviet supersoldier project dedicated to sabotaging the United States' efforts in Vietnam. However, during an interview with the LAPD, both of them expressed surprise that a superhuman soldier would suddenly break off mission and attack a civilian hospital for no reason whatsoever. Tatiana Makarova reportedly said the following in a police interview:

> "*Iron Wolf operatives are usually very dedicated during mission, never stopping regardless of who or what stands in their way. For Iron Wolf agent to suddenly go off-mission and attack civilian hospital for no discernible reason is not only strange, but completely unheard of.*"
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When survivors Ophelia Jane and Daisy John heard of Iron Wolf, even they found it hard to swallow, with Daisy John arguing during a separate police interview that she behaved more like a "serial killer" than a spy.

## Reactions

### International reactions

The Soviet Union immediately denied any knowledge of a superhuman soldier attacking an American hospital and immediately attacked US news broadcasts as "Capitalist Propaganda" while attempting to downplay the incident to the Soviet population. The United Kingdom issued a harsh condemnation of the attack, threatening to declare war if the Soviets did not come forward with the truth. Other nations responded similarly, with France's government considering whether to launch an investigation to determine whether similar supersoldiers had infiltrated France and were living on French soil.

## Response

### National Day of Mourning

In the weeks following the attack, June 10 became a national day of mourning. It became a tradition for the whole country to have at least ten minutes of silence to honor the people who died that day.

### Going on the offensive

Following the massacre, President Richard Nixon gave the go-ahead for Task Force HYDRA to perform kill/capture missions against other possible Soviet sleeper agents hiding on American soil. Similar orders were given in the nations of other US-allied nations, fearing similar infiltrations.
The US government wasn't the only one; various news outlets, particularly the *LA Examiner* and *The Los Angeles Times* pursued the story, with one particular journalist using the incident as a springboard for a retaliatory strike against Operation Iron Wolf.

## Trivia

* The incident contains many references to the short horror creepypasta *The Expressionless*. For one thing, Vladimira's plastic surgery led to her resembling a human mannequin, similar to how the woman in the original horror story looked. In fact, one of her aliases happens to be *The Expressionless.*The overall massacre at the hospital is yet another reference to *The Expressionless*.