Call of Chicago: Big Iron, Big Deals

“Everybody likes a fireworks show.”

— Samuel Cummings, president of the International Armament Corporation

If, as the Beatles assured us, happiness is a warm gun, the happiest place on Earth between 1953 and 1968 is the Alexandria, Virginia warehouse complex of Interarms, the International Armament Corporation. In 1968 it holds between 650,000 and 800,000 military-surplus small-arms — more guns than the army of any NATO country except America — up to and very much including dozens of 20mm Lahti rifled anti-tank cannon from Finland. Samuel Cummings (b. 1927), the president of Interarms, worked for the CIA officially in 1950-1953 as a weapons analyst, and some say continues to work for the Company as a source for weapons the Company would rather nobody be able to trace to the CIA. Born in Philadelphia Main Line society, he affects a Virginia drawl but otherwise keeps things professional and never flashy. Interarms clears about $20 million per year, from gun sales in America as well as from international arms brokerage. When Cummings buys the entire Spanish national arsenal in 1965, he converts much of it into sporting guns and sells it by mail-order; but he also brokers gently used fighter jets, submarines, and tanks.

Cummings’ deep pockets, myriad of subsidiaries and shell corporations, and vast network of stringers and clients in the world’s military and intelligence services keep him ahead of all his private-sector rivals; Interarms controls about 80% of the non-governmental traffic in arms. Smaller companies, often thinly-disguised agents for Bonn or Paris, nip at his heels or sink into the shadows, going after deals that Cummings can’t afford to touch without angering his patrons in the CIA and State Department. The Piccadilly firm of Cogswell & Harrison still brokers sales that the British Foreign Office couldn’t possibly countenance. “Munitions manipulators” proliferate on the next level down, selling arms to rebel movements without great-power backing or conniving to rig the bidding in Greece or Thailand for a bigger corporate client.

The big money is in Africa (Algeria 1954-62, Congo 1960-65, Biafra 1967-70; ongoing bush wars in Ethiopia and Rhodesia; plus running the blockades of South Africa and Angola) and to a lesser extent the Caribbean, even after Castro crushes the Bay of Pigs invasion. Iran and Saudi Arabia hire arms dealers to equip their police and to supply their proxies in their neighbors. Hill tribes from Sudan to Yemen to Burma always want rifles, and can perhaps pay in drugs or even archaeological treasures. Countries like Egypt, Vietnam, and others supplied by the Soviets often unload their weapons on the Western market to make hard currency, and the Czech national weapons company Omnipol seemingly connives at such capitalism. Rakeoffs and bribery also provide incentives for Third World generals and deputy ministers to make unnecessary arms deals just to collect their percentage. But the First World isn’t immune, although the currency is string-pulling as much as bribery: some port officer or air-traffic controller keeps authorizing freighter-loads of assault rifles to depart from Belgium (along with Holland, the major “free port” in arms dealing) or allows cargo planes to “divert” to Spain or Malta and refuel for Africa.

Big old-school weapons companies such as Krupp, Mauser, and Schneider have diversified into general industry; Oerlikon, Hotchkiss, FN, SAAB, and Hispano-Suiza still aggressively market weapons overseas. (The new-school weapons companies like GE, Lockheed, and Vickers just slurp up fat defense contracts, hiring lobbyists instead of salesmen.) The Argentine Ballester-Molina dynasty of gun-makers writes its own foreign policy in Latin America. Skoda is now the engine of the Czech communist arms trade, supplying fine weapons to foul terrorists. But all of these companies still use cut-outs and keep up with the old field: for example, the Quandts of Mauser have friendly (and oh so informal) ties to the West German shell company Merex, which sells weapons to Israel and the Arabs alike. For more Interarms, more anecdotes, and wild NPCs (such as former fruit-planter Mitchell Livingston WerBell III who sells guns in Latin America; exiled Hungarian master smuggler Dominick de Fekete von Altbach und Nagyratoth who sells guns from Latin America to rebels and the governments fighting them) I recommend George Thayer’s The War Business (1969).

“Morgan uncased the big-game rifle on which he relied despite his colleague’s warnings that no material weapon would be of help.”

— H.P. Lovecraft, “The Dunwich Horror”

So where and how can your Fall of DELTA GREEN Agents cross paths with the modern-day merchants of death? Obviously the Interarms private intelligence network makes a great source for story hooks or even for DELTA GREEN friendlies. The program might task agents to find the source of weapons flowing to Mauti- or Angka- worshipping rebels, or to supply weapons to local militias getting riled up to massacre the local Dagon cult. Or, of course, being DELTA GREEN Agents, they might just want to know a guy who can hook them up with not-quite-yet-sporterized Tommy guns or entirely-sporting heavy game rifles or half-a-dozen Spanish Super-Star 9mm pistols apiece, all without inconvenient serial numbers.

In a slightly James Bond-ed version of the setting, perhaps some Australian munitions manipulator has stumbled on a cache of Yithian weapons and gone through enough subordinates to figure out (mostly) how they work. He’s getting ready to offer weak-nuclear-force-disintegrators, Tenet-style reverse-entropy pistols, and full-auto lightning-throwers to any and all interested parties — and your team has to stop MAJESTIC from putting in a very generous bid.

Arms Dealer

You might be a drummer for Interarms sniffing out wars and deals, a private broker or “munitions manipulator,” or (with Pilot and Conceal) a slightly glorified gun-runner. Ever since you met these particular Company men, you’ve been doing a lot of business in very special ammunition loads and high-caliber hunting rifles — it’s only a matter of time before you see what’s at the other end of the barrels you sell. You don’t need Cop Talk, because between Negotiation and Network you’ve already bribed the commander who arrested you.

Points: 11 Investigative, 21 General

Foreign Language 2, Law 1, Military Science 1, Negotiation 2, Streetwise 1

Demolitions 2, Firearms 3, Heavy Weapons 2, Network 4, Sense Trouble 2

Pick two Investigative: Accounting 1, Chemistry 1, Foreign Language 1, History 1, Military Science 1, Traffic Analysis 1

Pick one Interpersonal: Flattery 2, HUMINT 2

Pick two General: Bureaucracy 4, Conceal 4, Demolitions 4*, Drive 4, Firearms 4*, Heavy Weapons 4*, Mechanics 4, Network 4*, Pilot 4, Preparedness 4, Sense Trouble 4*

Lahti L-39 20mm “Elephant Gun” Anti-Tank Rifled Cannon

You’ve all been very patient, so here’s what you came here for. The Lahti weighs 109 lbs. and fires its very expensive ($1 each) and hard-to-source Swiss ammunition [L2, also available in phosphorus] up to a mile downrange. Each magazine holds ten 5.4-inch-long shells and weighs 2.5 pounds. It takes a round of cranking the bolt back (Diff 6 Athletics test to do it in half a round) before you can fire the first shot; after that, each shot re-cocks the bolt. In a string of jobs in 1965, robbers in Canada and New York use them to blow open bank vaults from the rear. Interarms sells them for $99 apiece to licensed collectors.

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The Fall of DELTA GREEN adapts DELTA GREEN: THE ROLE-PLAYING GAME to the GUMSHOE investigative roleplaying system, opening the files on a lost decade of anti-Mythos operations: the 1960s. Players take on the role of DELTA GREEN operatives, assets, and friendlies. Hunt Deep Ones beneath the Atlantic, shut down dangerous artists in San Francisco, and delve into the heart of Vietnam’s darkness. Purchase The Fall of DELTA GREEN in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.