Treasure Hunt

## Handler Information

Delta Green doesn’t pay for psychotherapy, but this operation is the closest the agents are likely to get. Delta Green has organised funding and official cover for a trip to Puerto Rico, all they need to do is grab something from a nearby island. How hard could it be?

Try to convince the players to bring any prior Agents who are starting to lose their grip on sanity. Delta Green honestly believes that this is an easy mission, and for the most part it should be.

This is the classic ‘Hardy Boys’ gambit. Played straight, no Mythos is at play let them jump at shadows until they have to deal with the Cartel.

## Briefing

Delta Green has organised them a ‘holiday’ in the Caribbean. Two weeks of fun and sun, but while they’re there there’s a teeny, tiny job to do.

Recently a DEA report was ‘misplaced’ following some serious shit that went down in a botched cartel raid, the handler reassures them that Agent ERICA is expected to make a full recovery. As a result, the organisation’s got a lead on a cache of drugs and bullion located in the Caribbean. Needless to say, they want it.

The goods should be on a ‘Narco-Sub’ run aground off the coast of Cayo Norte, Puerto Rico. Find the sub, grab the smack and get off the island. You’ve got two weeks.

## Home Scenes

Understandably, the Agent’s co-workers are a bit pissed that:

A) They’re leaving their co-workers high and dry, perhaps in the middle of a (mundane) investigation.

B) This important “conference” is clearly some sort of fucking holiday. Brown-nosing piece of shit, what makes you so goddamn special?

Agents can try to smooth things over with a CHA roll, failure lowers any workplace bonds by one.

Perhaps spouses and loved ones are a little more accommodating except in exceptional circumstances (such as a pregnant wife). Agents roll CHA but only damage the bond on a fumble.

## Cover

Delta Green has done their level best to provide a plausible excuse for the trip. Depending on the Agent’s career this could be an academic conference, a ‘knowledge exchange’ program or inter-agency training with Coast Guard and DEA.

As part of this cover, Delta Green has set up a number of fake websites that support this story, however the cover isn’t deep. If anyone starts to dig, they’ve got a decent chance of figuring out what’s going on. If they did, this could easily damage bonds and/or lead to blackmail “Tell me what the hell you were doing, or it’s your job!”

Consequences are left to the handler on a case by case basis.

## Arriving in Puerto Rico

The Agents have plane tickets to Puerto Rico supplied by Delta Green, for once there’s no need to explain away those charges on the personal credit card. Their intended destination is the island Cayo Norte (“North Key”), which is itself off the coast of Isle De Culebra (“Isle of Snakes”).

It’s up to the Agents to figure out how to best get there. Isle De Culebra is about 50 miles east of San Juan (the capital of Puerto Rico). Leasing a boat is an option, as are charter flights. Intrepid Agents might even attempt to beg, borrow or steal boats from the local Coast Guard. With the right bureaucracy rolls and flashes of badges, it’s not too difficult.

## Cayo Norte and Isla De Culebra

Even cursory research on Cayo Norte shows that it’s uninhabited, strictly it’s held in private hands. Who owns it? This is an opportunity to start getting the Agent’s paranoid.

If they’re already disconcerted by “The Island of Snakes” perhaps the island is owned by “Quetzalcoatl Holdings Limited”. Did you know, Isla De Culebra had an odd lizard species (Anolis Roosevelti), that’s now extinct? Alternatively if the investigators have other concerns (e.g. Voodoo) do your best to play them up.

Unless another option would be more fun, the island itself is perfectly mundane, without any Mythos element and the holding company is benign. The only real threat is the cartel, so keep enough Mythos-related red herrings in play so that the Agents don’t dwell on this concern.

## Finding the Narco-Sub

Once the investigators have made it onto Cayo Norte, which isn’t too difficult, it’s left to them to try and find the Narco-sub and its cargo. What’s the plan? Maybe a Special Operator is trained as a Navy clearance diver? Or perhaps they hired a boat with SONAR.

The island is pretty small and there’s only so many places the sub could be. Finding it isn’t particularly difficult, just time consuming.

Describe 1D6+3 days of Island Living (see below) as they search. If they push themselves it only takes 1D4+1 days, but they don’t get to relax. Remember that they only have 14 days this trip, so they might need to pick up the pace!

## Island Living

Soaking up the rays listening to the steady beep of a fish-tracking radar repurposed to find a cartel narco-sub can be pretty relaxing. Agents get the benefit of the “Back to Nature” home scene (DG Agent’s Handbook page 78). However do NOT reduce any bonds as the Agents have a decent excuse “Honey it’s with work! I have to go…”

If the Agents take the opportunity to describe social activities in downtime (fishing, sharing war-stories) increase the bond between the Agents by 1.

## Submarine Access

Having found the sub, how do they plan to extract the cargo?

The sub itself isn’t that big, around 40ft long, but it’s currently wedged into a reef such that the hatch is blocked shut. A strong swimmer could easily free dive down to it, SCUBA gear is even easier.

Take the opportunity to hint at more Mythos. Whoever’s in there is likely long dead, right? Everything needs air, right? Nothing can breathe underwater, right?

A strength or Swim roll is sufficient to free up the hatch for access, but opening it now would flood the submarine. Is that what they want to do? Alternately a second Strength or Swim roll in (conjunction with a towline from the boat) might be able to free the sub from the reef. A single demolitions roll could probably accomplish both steps in one go. The consequences of fumbles are left to the keeper (crushed between the towed sub and the reef might be a good start).

## The Cache

Taking inventory of the cache the Agent’s find the following:

* 2 dead smugglers
* 500 x 2 kilogram sacks of heroine (1000kg total, ~2200lb)
* 30 x 10oz bars of gold bullion

Allow Accounting or Chemistry rolls to establish the value of the haul. A DEA agent with at least 40% of either knows an accurate price. Each bar of bullion is worth about $10k, each sack of Heroine is worth $40k (to the right buyer). The total haul is somewhere in the order of 20 million (but the agents might think more or less).

It’s entirely possible that the Agents decide to ‘lose’ a few sacks, after all “they deserve it”. In this case see Agent’s Handbook page 91 for “Squandering Illicit Cash”. Remember that Delta Green is probably keeping an eye on them, so unless they’re very careful or wait a few months they’re likely to be caught. How much Delta Green cares is up to the Handler, maybe a bit is permissible as long as they don’t get greedy.

If “Using Illicit Cash” (also page 91) each sack counts as 25 standard purchases (1 Major) and the bullion as 10 standard purchases (2 Unusual).

If the agents decide to cover for each other “We all agree we only found 480 sacks”, increase their bond with each other by 1. If they lie to each other and it eventually comes out “You bastard, we said we wouldn’t take any!” decrease the relevant bonds by 1D4.

## Getting it Home

Now all the agents need to do is ship more than a ton of illegal drugs back into the United States. What’s the plan? If they salvaged the Narco-Sub, is it seaworthy? Do they plan to hand the drugs over to the Coast Guard only for Delta Green to ‘lose’ it again stateside? Maybe they could hand it back over to the cartel and hope for a finder’s fee?

For the purposes of our story, it doesn’t really matter if Delta Green eventually get the money, what matters is how much (if any) the players keep for themselves.

## The Cartel

The cartel knows that sub went missing, and roughly where. Unless the Agents are smart, they could easily run afoul of the wrong sort of people.

If the cartel intercepts them before the find the sub, they’re shadowed or threats are made. Perhaps they could take an Agent hostage to ensure co-operation. Otherwise if the cartel finds the agents with the cache once it’s uncovered, well they wouldn’t need the Agents anymore would they?

## References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayo\_Norte

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=566i3rpolg8

## Credits

Treasure Hunt was written by Tristan Gross for the 2016  shotgun scenario contest.

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this document are © Tristan Gross, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Treasure Hunt is not available here under CC-BY-SA.