The Greatcoat
Description: a Soviet Army greatcoat, circa 1990. It is worn but in good condition, with one notable exception: the muddy imprints of two booted feet can be seen on its back. The imprints cannot be removed by any sort of cleaning. Powers: Anyone who wears the Greatcoat is automatically perceived as being a sincere adherent of Communism, as long as he or she isn’t seen doing anything that obviously suggests otherwise.
This coat was last worn by an extremely determined and actively reckless defecting Soviet colonel (the defector brought his family, his battalion adjutant, the adjutant’s girlfriend/regimental code clerk, and a SA-19 fourteen-foot anti-aircraft missile with him) in November of 1990. The defector wore the coat until he was over the technical border, then ceremoniously stripped the coat representing his old allegiances and symbolically spurned it with his boots before everybody all went off to have a purifying meal at McDonald’s, which was and is of course an iconic representation of capitalism and the West. And, of course, the defector’s former Soviet masters later ritually sacrificed four generals’ careers over this incident, including the local petty-king in charge of Soviet forces in East Germany.
Yeah. When the old-school CIA did an arcane working, they didn’t mess around (although the ritual symbolic sacrifices were a lucky break). Anyway, the Greatcoat really boosted itself up in power once the Soviet Union fell apart, in accordance with the laws of irony. It’s hardly useless, given that there are still a few backward places where being a public Communist isn’t at least socially awkward, but it’s rare that a foreign espionage mission is worth risking the Greatcoat over. Currently, the Greatcoat is kept in long-term storage, and it would be perfectly reasonable for the security for that storage to be not quite as rigorous as it could be.
Particularly if a rogue agent might need it to help him perform a personally understandable, yet highly politically undesirable public assassination. Everyone knows how dedicated and unreasonable rogue agents can be about that sort of thing. Indeed, one would think that more shadowy super-spy organizations might have better mental health protocols in place to minimize the damage that such fellows can do.