Pollard to Everyone

Pollard seems a bit reluctant to say anything but finally sucks it up and says, "Project, I made some calls...Project Stepping Stone is up and running. Kind of..barely...and mostly off the books at the moment. But, there is command, the gadget is working, and a small contingency of soldiers and operatives assembled. They'll come get us if I call them. Colonel Austin...took charge. He's solid. We have a history. He can be trusted."
Pollard looks at Lucien, "your old boss, he's there...was..not sure. He's been providing, eh...material support."

“What… is… Project Stepping Stone?”

Pollard, "Stepping stone...or...it's an old name. You said something about having witnessed it, probably the darpa collaboration version. It's the project for...well like your little trick of teleporting. I don't know too much about it, Austin said they have the facility and it's repaired."

“Ahh the people that tried to kidnap me. Yeah. Not sure I wanna work with folks that nearly killed me by fusing me to a chair. They’re teleportation…” he makes air quotes when saying teleportation, “…doesn’t work very well. Pretty certain that’s who sent those half dozen or so soldiers after Lucien, though killed them all by fusing them into the walls of his old home.”

Pollard, "It might have been...or another department working on something similar."

"Which old boss?"

Do you just mean money or do you mean how to pull the teleportation trick off?

"Which old boss?" Lucien's original first boss that essentially sold out a chunk of the organization to protect his own hide.

"Do you just mean money or do you mean how to pull the teleportation trick off?"
Not sure what you are referring to. If you mean what has been the material support he's been providing Pollard's best guess is procuring arms and equipment unofficially or off the books. He has been for apparently some time.
Pollard doesn't know a whole lot about it but he says it is not unusual for the government to use, "ambiguous" budgets to go through 3rd or 4th parties to get ahold of things that would normally be subject bans/embargos/trade restrictions, etc.

Pollard's guess is he traded one organization a bit for another. He probably cut a deal to avoid federal prison, and is using old foreign contacts to procure things for the government.

“Right… so what are you suggesting Pollard?”