Project Apogee

apogee [ap-uh-jee] – noun
1. the point in the orbit of a heavenly body, such as the sun, at which it is farthest from the earth.
2. the highest or most distant point; climax.

Project Apogee is a secret task force comprised of "gifted" individuals, typically categorized into "Superhuman," for those who are fundamentally human with special powers, "Nonhuman," for those that are sentient but inhuman, and "Posthuman," for those with apparent human tendencies or formerly human individuals with powers.

History

Origins

As the charter under which Interpol acted limited its ability to perform its duties in member countries reluctant to comply with certain policies they find controversial (or where the police were complacent in criminal activities), Project Apogee was given jurisdiction over such "delicate" operations and provided a joint task force to take on the growing need for plausible deniability in the International Police. Project Apogee is responsible for missions where the nature of activities might damage Interpol's reputation, as well as those operations that would require Interpol to overstep its obvious jurisdiction.

The new agency, adopted in 1968 by the former director of Interpol John Simpson, was dubbed Project Apogee for its purpose as being the "farthest, brightest point of light." The agency was initially run entirely on overflow, discretionary and other undocumented funds (including a suspiciously large "coffee/recreation fund" in 1987). Placed under the direction of Antonio Espinoza, a Portuguese intelligence agent who served with the resistance during the Spanish Civil War, individual task forces of the agency could be dissolved in an instant and used as a scapegoat for any unfortunate circumstances. Its vilification, and liquidation of its agents, could be accomplished swiftly, and would be simple and harmless to the function of both the international police and the wider international community.

Most of Project Apogee's activities focused on such troubled locales as Cambodia, North Korea, Palestine, Israel, Ireland, China and former Soviet bloc countries, although their activities occasionally required them to work within North America (where taking action could embarrass or compromise other agents in the field or officials within the country) as well as Africa and Oceania.

First Supernatural Acquisitions

It was not until 1979, though, that Project began to expand its role from mere clandestine activities to becoming the international police force's secret weapon. In 1976, a number of illegal detainees within the United States were liberated by Project Apogee as part of what was believed to be a bust against a militant group preparing hostages for a terrorist attack. What they actually accomplished was liberating a vampire named Jacque DuPointe and a magician named Cloud Nine from an enterprising group of organ harvesters working for the Cheiron Group who were intent on using them as guinea pigs for bizarre experiments.

DuPointe and Nine were, however, both linked to serious criminal activity that, while outside the bounds of what Interpol was willing to prosecute, would not simply blow over. The Project was hesitant to turn over the individuals in question to the authorities (both for fear of their escape and fear that they would provide damning evidence of the Project); they could not, however, in good faith release them. Project Apogee found a new purpose in taking these individuals into custody. Subtly, the focus of Project Apogee had shifted.

Focus on Supernatural Crime

As they became more capable of locating and categorizing these individuals, Apogee transferred their acquisitions to their Supermax facilities where they would be contained using specific procedures and custom cells meant to negate their specific supernatural powers. Initially located in Portugal, the facility soon proved insufficient for the growing number of supernatural detainees and their diversified needs. Alternate facilities were constructed across the globe in Hong Kong, Greece and Afghanistan. The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, however, destroyed the Afghani Supermax facility and almost exposed the organization. DuPointe and Cloud Nine successfully thwarted Soviet intelligence agents and preserved the sanctity and secrecy of the organization.

Apogee Under Rudolph Kuhn

It was this sort of scenario that convinced Rolf Kuhn, the acting director at the time (and to the present day), that the organization should alter its focus to the employment of supernatural agents in what he referred to as the Global War on Crime (more recently referred to as the Global War on Doomsday, for the eschatological implications of the sort of supernatural crime upon which they were focused). The incarcerated entities were, therefore, offered amnesty for their sundry crimes in return for their services (and, in some cases, eventually retired to remote locations to live in relative peace).

Initially, this policy was disastrous. Advanced weapons and training fell into the hands of known criminal elements, the majority of whom then turned on the organization, sparking new global incidents that, increasingly, only Project Apogee was properly equipped to address. To this day, many of those initial elements remain at large - a Pandora's box with no lid.

Kuhn was not swayed, however. The benefits, in his mind – an army of super-soldiers, fit to do the bidding of an emerging world government – outweighed the risks. Gradually new methods of control were developed, ranging from long-term rewards, psychosurgery, drug dependency, brainwashing, tracking devices to memetic manipulation techniques. These, coupled with simple social pressures, made the second generation of Apogee agents far more compliant. The third, and current, generation has all but perfected these methods and, thus far, had no known defectors.

Apogee Today

Today, Project Apogee boasts an astounding success rate, a remarkably small budget (considering its accomplishments) and a diverse focus on global crime, both supernatural crimes and those that are beyond the scope of Interpol. Apogee's current focus, however, is the prevention of World War III (or a new Soviet-NATO Cold War), the liberation of mortal governments from supernatural influence and, above all, the approhension of known rogue agents.

Organization

"To protect the global community from international criminal exploitation and supernatural threats to worldwide prosperity by any means necessary, ensuring the prosperity and sanctity of international police forces; to accomplish these goals with minimum collateral damages to the efforts of local, national and international police agencies and pre-empting the need for military and paramilitary intervention."
- Project Apogee Mission Statement
(Underlined portions added as of 1979)

Project Apogee is organized into alphabetized sub-divisions from P to U, each of which focuses on a different aspect of their mission. Individual agents may be freely exchanged between unit designations, but the leadership of the units typically remains static, constituting the governing body of Project Apogee.

P - the Propaganda Bureau

This unit of P:A influences the news media, social networks and other communication channels, ensuring their activities (and in many cases the activities of other groups both opposed to and aligned with P:A) remain safely out of public attention. Their most important goal is to reduce the overall global impact of Project activities and keep the general public skeptical of paranormal events, but they are also the funding wing of the organization, responsible for creating front organizations.

Q - Quartermaster Division

This unit ensures that agents are equipped, that supply chains remain unbroken and that resources are employed in the most efficient way possible. There is some overlap between the Quartermaster and Propaganda units in regard to fund raising, but the two tend to cooperate more often than not, even when their interests clash. Quartermaster is strongly in favor of retaining renewable resources for missions, ensuring that, where possible, equipment, both deployed and captured, is returned in as close to working condition as possible.

R - Reconnaissance Squadron

This unit is responsible for researching global events, working in deep cover organizations and advising leadership on their assessment of such situations. It is divided into Forward Recon and Clandestine Operations units, the former responsible for in-the-field hotzone support of agents, the latter for infiltration of organizations and cells, extraction of information and placement and activation of sleeper agents.

S - Support Operations

This unit is responsible for providing in-field material and logistics solutions to active agents. Their responsibilities range from providing insertion and extraction services, remote fire support, supply drops, remote monitoring and cleanup. The Support Operations unit holds the unenviable solution of being the single least well-defined entity within Project Apogee, often responsible for in-field organization and coordination of P, Q, R and T units. While the Uniform Branch officially acts as the leadership and guiding force of Project Apogee, it is the Support Operations unit that provides active realtime in-field leadership and direction to agents. While they are, technically, not superior in the chain of command, other units have long understood that Support has the most complete picture and knows how best to bring their resources to bear.

T - Tactical Deployment

This unit represents the force-on-force response division of Project Apogee. They engage in direct assaults, captures, physical infiltration and terminations. Typically, Tactical Deployment responses are proactive rather than reactive, with the use of force being an intentional and direct result of day, weeks, months or even years of observation and planning, but with the increasingly chaotic global landscape, the use of Tactical Deployment squadrons to address immediate concerns is becoming increasingly, even startlingly, common.

U - Uniform Branch

The Uniform Branch is comprised of the leadership of Project Apogee, responsible for ensuring the survival of the organization and making final executive decisions regarding disputes between divisions. They also act as the judicial branch, determining appropriate punishments and containment procedures for both rogue agents and external prisoners, as well as negotiating the extradition of prisoners to other agencies and police forces when ruled necessary (typically to ease the extraction of agents).

Most importantly, the Uniform Branch is the only branch with and direct connection to Interpol or any other police organization. Those outside U seldom have any inkling of the degree to which U has their finger on the pulse of world politics, and that is as it should be. Most of the membership of U is kept secret from the majority of the Project, and, in general, agents deal with only a single member of the Uniform Branch who provides briefings and further information. These members with direct access to agents are kept deliberately in the dark about anything further than what is necessary to do their in an effort to prevent information leaks.

As a final note, it is rumored that the Uniform Division contains exactly one representative from every major supernatural community, but absolutely no other members that are not pure humans. Project Apogee is and remains unapologetically a major power by humanity, for humanity.

Defunct Units

Additionally, transitory positions have been created in the Mercantile Facilitation (1986-1988; for the sale of "surplus equipment," primarily to regions of Africa and East Asia with admittedly disastrous consequences), the Naval Affairs Group (1983-1985, 1989; for maritime operations, determined to be a serious conflict with the missions of other Units) and Oversight Committees (1979, 1991, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008; for internal affairs investigations, each time being created and dissolved to investigate specific issues). There is currently discussion regarding the possibility of restoring all three as permanent fixtures, though only the Mercantile Facilitation unit has received positive support in this respect (with unanimous agreement that drastic changes in policy are in order).

Chain of Command

The different sections of Project Apogee act, more or less, independently, providing maximum aid to one another within the boundaries and limitations of their resources. Between the branches there is sometimes some friction. Uniform (and Mercantile or Oversight if applicable) usually handles the budget, assigning their finite resources to the units as suits the current needs of the project, with the units then taking responsibility for fulfilling their mission within the constraints of these resources, answering only to the Oversight Committee (either submitting reports to a currently standing O unit, or delivering this material for review after the fact).

In general the chain of command is explicit, with X answering to Y who answers to Z. Because of the secretive nature of the organization, broken chains of command can leave units on their own to practice only their best discretion. Tracking methods are employed, however, to prevent agents from going rogue and, more importantly, agents are given materials that allow them to identify their affiliation to a unit in need of restoration to the chain of command. Each agent is given a list of code words, visual signals or gestures that allow them to identify a recovery agent, and this information is distributed on a strictly "need to know" basis.

The highest executive within the organization is designated Director General (or simply the Director or General - both are considered appropriate). The Director General has theoretically infinite authority to control the organization as he sees fit, but this power is kept in check by his disconnect from the direct hierarchy of the organization. The Director can give orders to the Uniform Branch's leadership, who are, in turn, expected to fulfill their duty in ensuring that his orders are carried out. The unspoken nuclear option for dealing with rogue Director is to simply refuse to cascade the order, force a vote of no confidence and replace the director, but this method has never been employed, even when, historically, Kuhn (the current director) used Project Resources in what essentially amounted to revenge for the death of his granddaughter in a failed hostage extraction mission in 2009.

Resources

Project Apogee is in constant danger of falling behind a technological curve, given the exponential growth of war-related technology and supernatural pseudo-technology. T & R field agents are, by default, issued some combination of the following on a per-mission basis:

one appropriate primary firearm (by default a carbine, although assault rifles, submachine-guns, heavy squad weapons and combat shotguns are common as well, and bows, crossbow and other silent kinetic missile weapons are not unheard of)
one appropriate sidearm (typically a handgun, although miniature breaching shotguns are not unheard of)
one appropriate melee weapon (a collapsible baton, KA-BAR, lead-lined impact glove or tonfa are most commonly issued, although some agents favor swords, sledgehammers or even primitive or historic weapons)
a tactical vest with flexible armor with or without helmet (typically a bulletproof Kevlar jacket with vital plates, although certain forms of specialized armor are also used when appropriate)
appropriate rations (protein pills, MRE’s or, in rare cases, supernatural nourishment)
medical supplies (typically bandages and other simple essentials as well as some form of painkiller, sleep aid and awareness aid; antitoxins or prophylactic or chelating agents are issued as required; some agents are given narcotics or other "recreational" medicine, frequently as a method of control or performance enhancement)
money (even in vastly uninhabited regions, field agents are given a minimum of USD $100 in appropriate paper currency for which they must account)
some form of communication device (typically a cellular or satellite phone, a distress or landing beacon, a shortwave radio or any of a number of supernatural options)
appropriate support equipment (two smoke or flare beacons typically one green and one red, two to four nonlethal and/or lethal grenades, a Geiger counter, scent master or infrared scope as applicable, and/or designated survival equipment)

Although budget-conscious Uniform Branch officers are known to try to cut corners with agent loadouts, typically the largest limiting factors are agent carrying capacity and preservation of equipment. Agents are allowed and even encouraged to maintain personal armories and equipment lockers, although space is typically limited to one standard sized locker for such elective personal equipment. Leaking equipment back to the black markets, even if it was acquired through personal funds, is a punishable offence with potentially serious repercussions. The loss of any identifiable equipment is considered a serious threat to the Project, and pains may be taken to recover such losses, even at the risk of agents.

Agents without the wherewithal or resources necessary to maintain an armory often have to look to Q for additional supplies. Typically, requisitioning anything not on the official mission equipment list requires some effort, ranging from filling out a form for additional ammunition or other limited standard supplies to obtaining signed letters of recommendation for supernatural equipment. Short of executive order, though, there’s never a guarantee that equipment will be issued. Q is credited for successful use of their equipment, but they’re also credited for minimizing cost. As such, savvy agents have realized that the best equipment to requisition is anything reusable, although such equipment is prized and Q is reluctant to loan it out.

The S & P branches are most likely to be given the equipment they require without fuss or muss. Allegedly, this is because of the specialized work functions they perform. Most T & R agents suspect that this is the result of nepotism, however, as S & P agents have the opportunity to spend considerably more of their time hobnobbing with Q agents. This view has never been supported by the findings of the Oversight Committees, however, who maintain that the only inequity detected by audits was the amount of paperwork field agents were filling out when compared to similar requests made by Support or Propaganda agents.

Role in World Events

The purpose of Project Apogee is to pursue international criminals, as well as those who harbor them, within and without the jurisdiction of Interpol and related agencies. This role was expanded to include, and focus on, those criminals that possess abilities and knowledge that would make them difficult for existing agencies to handle.

Agents must make every effort to follow mission parameters. Informants are to survive whenever possible, high profile targets should be captured alive when possible, extreme prejudice targets should be eliminated and those who would compromise the integrity of the Project or those under its protection should be silenced. A utilitarian approach is typically taken to collateral damage.

Agents must not knowingly violate (without good cause) international law regarding the rights of citizens outside of the target list. A civilian should not needlessly be eliminated for convenience’s sake, although in extreme circumstances agents are expected to do what is necessary.

Encounters with law enforcement are to be minimized. Most of the cover identities issued to agents are international terrorists (the better to subsequently extradite to secret facilities where they can quietly disappear). Agents cannot, however, expect sympathy or civil treatment from law enforcement, and have historically been subject to "enhanced interrogation" or "extrajudicial rendition" before they can be extracted. Project Apogee calls this an "occupational hazard."

Encounters with militaries are considered anathema, and missions should be aborted rather than risk direct exposure to recognized military units. As illegal combatants in hot zones, their very presence on the field of battle in militarized or demilitarized zones is typically a war crime, even in absentia any other illegal activity. It should go without saying that capture by military or paramilitary organizations should be anticipated to result in summary execution.

Most importantly, though, it is critical for agents to avoid triggering international incidents. While agents may need to kill civilians, execute untried criminals or kidnap citizens of sovereign nations, these acts must never be tied to any antagonistic power in any meaningful way that could result in the escalation of conflict or the denormalizing of relations. This is priority #1, as new conflicts generate more targets than they can possibly remove. It is for this reason that Project Members are virtually never disguised in a manner that aligns them with an internationally recognized political entity.

The hierarchy of priority for elimination is as follows (with supernatural targets taking priority over mundane targets):

Project Apogee defectors*
High ranking military defectors (with or without supporting units)
False-Flag Operators
Terrorist Leaders
Terrorists or illegal paramilitary organizations actively engaged in conflict
Officials obstruction international treaties by force
Officials harboring high profile fugitives
Human traffickers
Arms smugglers
Illegal arms dealers
Low ranking military defectors (especially with support or numbers)
Terrorists or illegal paramilitary organizations not actively engaged in conflict
Drug suppliers
Money launderers in support of any of the above

* Project defectors are considered the highest possible priority, even (and especially) if another agency is actively pursuing them within a legal jurisdiction. Defectors are always considered Extreme Prejudice cases, and live capture is typically considered a liability, short of a clean surrender. As their unique knowledge of the project can complicate extradition, it is typically recommended that they be terminated with extreme prejudice before law enforcement custody can be solidly established.