This wasn’t a Shop reference, it was the code to tell operatives in other countries to release “blue” to the populace there, so that (in the Catch-22 mentality of the military) America doesn’t get blamed as the source of Captain Trips. Billy (in the book) very clearly bases his decisions about that, and the killing of the reporters (Flowerpot in the book), on his long experience in the military and his indoctrination of the whole CYA mentality of the military.
The Shop, particularly as Stephan King stories go, is the agency primarily responsible for researching unexplained things such as ESP. Project Blue was strictly mainstream military and the Shop wasn’t ever even hinted at, instead it was made very clear that weapons applications for a superflu germ were the basis for Project Blue. Redman wasn’t being held in any sort of Shop facility, it was merely a CDC facility (in the movie they just used the Vermont center, but they actually were first flown to Atlanta and then when that was breached by the flu, they moved the surviving Arnette residents and staff to Vermont).
As I mentioned in the OP, I was sure there was a reference to the Shop in the expanded version of The Stand. Having checked at the library today, I find my memory did not deceive me. In the hardcover edition of The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition (Doubleday 1990), in the last large paragraph of Chapter 4, p. 32, you will find:
“…by the time someone decided the Shop ought to handle it, this happy asshole [Campion, the guard who escaped from the lab, infected his family and started the plague]… had gotten to Texas, and when they finally caught him he wasn’t running anymore…”
The Wiki mentions the film of The Langoliers, but it appears in the story, as well. Bob Jenkins says, “…a government agency, called The Shop…”
Or something along those lines. It’s when he’s talking to Albert about the odds of having a pilot qualified to fly the plane they’re on. I don’t remember the page number.
Damn Elendil! Sharp eye! I swear, I’ve read that book (extended and original) too many times to count (don’t know why it’s such a favorite of mine, I just really like the characters and the cool apocalyptic feel), and I’d missed (and probably Alzheimered) it altogether.
In Ur (King’s Kindle novella), the gov’t types who show up at the end are described as “low men in yellow coats.” I came in this thread to float the same LMIYC/Shop idea.
I think it’s more overt in the Extended Edition. And even then, Captain Trips was already making it’s way around the world, deliberately releasing it only pushed the timetable of total infection up.
