DICE: Pacific

Overview

The Pacific division of the Department of Intelligence and Counter-Espionage, generally referred to as "West Coast DICE", was the largest of the three DICE divisions in terms of geographical area covered and in number of agents. Based in California, the division's remit covered the western United States, Central and South America, and operations across the entire Pacific rim.

History

A high-level NATO meeting in 1980 laid down the organizational foundation of the Department of Intelligence and Counter-Espionage, mandating three separate command centres each led by a currently serving military officer. In looking for a suitable candidate to head DICE Pacific region, the DICE Council settled on Major Harry Eastwood, a US Army officer with extensive combat as well as military intelligence experience. Eastwood was approached and accepted the role in 1982.

Eastwood found himself in charge of a brand-new group of a dozen intelligence agents, all experienced men and women but with no structure, operating procedures, or clear mission statement in place. DICE was a new concept, and Eastwood had no precedent for how to perform his role, and very little guidance from above. Consequently, working with the other regional commanders Colonel Tempest and Major Dawson, Eastwood himself was responsible for creating much of the standard procedure his command would operate under. His personnel came from a number of branches of the American intelligence community, but very few had military backgrounds, so although he drew on the military procedures he was familiar with, he knew he could not build a purely military unit. He deliberately abandoned any notions of military command structures and rank (though his staff continued to call him "Major" as a mark of respect) and ran a much more lax organisation than would be tolerated in the military, encouraging his people to question and challenge his orders and judgement in areas they had experience in.

For the first six months of operation, DICE Pacific had a purely intelligence gathering and analysis function. Eastwood became frustrated at the division's inability to act directly, however, feeling that if all they were doing was pass intelligence to the FBI or CIA for action then DICE was an essentially redundant organization. Therefore, he unilaterally decided to reform DICE into a unit capable of acting directly against the threats their intelligence was identifying. Taking advantage of his mandate to approach qualified potential recruits from theoretically any government organization, he poached a six-man Delta Force team from the US Army and used this group as the nucleus of a new, combat-ready organization.

Though DICE initially fought against conventional terrorists, they soon being called on to deal with many of the super-human villains that were beginning to appear around the world, and even the occasional alien invasion. The organization quickly adapted their equipment and tactics to these powerful and unpredictable threats, and proved to be highly capable of dealing with them.

Base of Operations

The division's initial base of operations was a small airfield south of Bakersfield, California. As well as an airstrip and hangars, the base included operations rooms, secure holding facilities, training facilities including a firing range, and accommodation for the DICE personnel.

Eastwood was aware, however, that the majority of his staff were from backgrounds that made them unused to being confined to a relatively isolated military-style base. In mid-1983 he began scouting for a secondary headquarters within a major city, which would provide better working conditions for his intelligence staff and also make it easier to liaise with key civilian authorities. The location eventually chosen was in central Los Angeles, in the extensive basement levels of an old film storage vault. The above-ground portion of the building was occupied by a film museum, which provided an innocuous front to conceal the hidden facility below.

Later, smaller bases were opened in San Francisco and San Diego, but the Los Angeles base remained the main hub of operations until DICE took over The Hill, an old military bunker on the outskirts of Los Angeles, in 1988.

Equipment

Initially, the equipment available to DICE agents was limited to standard military issue.

For ground transport, they had a number of innocuous civilian vehicles of different types.

Air transport was initially limited to one C-12 Huron light jet and one Bell UH-1 helicopter. One C-12 was destroyed by an Anarchist attack and subsequently replaced. The replacement was soon crashed by Don Newman. In mid-1983 they took delivery of a prototype GX-01 lifting body from Green Industries, and after field testing had suggested some design improvements this became a mainstay of operations for the next decade. In 1988 they began using a small number of one-man Skycycles. West Coast DICE was the only division to employ Skycycles, and they were confined to a small elite group called the Flying Squad.

A variety of small arms were initially employed by different agents. In 1983, they field-tested a carbine-sized plasma energy weapon developed by Green Industries. Feedback from the tests was that the weapon offered few advantages over conventional weapons, but a pistol-sized version of equivalent power would have several operational advantages. This was subsequently developed and widely adopted across all DICE divisions.

Briefly, the organization employed a number of armoured battlesuits liberated from Anarchists, but these did not remain in regular use.

Notable Members

Listed in order of recruitment.

Copyright © 2023 by David Meadows. All rights reserved.