Chapter 42 - Taking some Control (5)

27 December, City K Military Base

Right at the time he indicated for the commencement of the meeting, Matthew started to speak again. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am Colonel Matthew Rong. I have been appointed as the head of special forces based here. Technically I do not commence my deployment here until Monday, but you should all know the circ.u.mstances that necessitate me being here in advance of the commencement of my deployment."

There was a collective "Yes Sir."

"I will over the next few weeks be making time to fully review all aspects of this command, and I have been specifically ordered by national command to consider options for reorganising and redeployment of personal within this command. There has been concerns that this command has become administratively heavy, rather than being focused on what it should be, a rapid deployable force that can think on its feet, and act to protect people and infrastructure."

"No specific decisions have been made, however in the interim all staff, regardless of whether they are presently designated as administrative or operational will be required to be fit for deployment, participate in daily PT, ensure that they are firearms proficient, and spend time undertaking intelligence analysis. That includes myself, and all other senior staff. No one is exempt from this unless they are injured or in the case of women if they are pregnant."

"All women in this command who is pregnant is to be considered non-operational, they are on restricted desk duty. Once they reach the six-month mark of their pregnancy, they will have two options, they can take maternity leave at that time, or have a temporary reassignment to an administrative position until they taken their maternity leave."

"They can return to the special forces at the end of their maternity leave, it they desire, or they will be assisted in obtaining another position within the military if they do not want to do so. Now before anyone reacts, given the nature of what special forces do, and he fact that all personal must be deployable this is not unreasonable."

Matthew had watched the room and noticed at his words about restructuring that Major Hung reacted as Sergeant Yi predicted and the few women in his officer pool where angry about the conditions that they remain involved when pregnant.

"Now that that unpleasant information is out there, what is the current threat board, Major Hung?"

"There are presently no current actionable threats. There are rumours of a potential kidnapping of a prominent individual, but there is nothing to indicate who, where or when this will occur. The only other threats are the usual from drug dealers and organised criminals that have been handed to the police for their actioning."

"Thank you, Major Hung. All officers need to be ready as of Monday for an individual meeting with me. I will give you no more than two hours' notice of that meeting."

"Finally, before you are dismissed, If I am on base I will either be in my office, involved in PT or organising my on base accommodations. I will be available here in my office, between 2pm and 6pm between now and Monday. When I leave the base each day, details of what I plan to do will be provided to all officers in case I am required. Once Monday comes around, my available hours will change, to the normal hours of the officer-in-charge of special forces. One more thing. If you cannot locate me, particularly during the times that I am to be available you must declare an emergency and report that I have disappeared to national command. Do you understand?"

"Yes Sir."

"Dismissed"

Sergeant Yi and Warrant Officer Wang followed Matthew as he returned to his office. He escorted them into his office and asked, "Well what did you observe."

Warrant Office Wang responded "Sir, Sergeant Yi was right Major Hung was, if I put it bluntly highly annoyed at your plans…"

"Sir he considers the intelligence department his own kingdom and hates and challenges to it. Major Hung is also deluding you as to the threats. As I said from what my husband tells me he ignores anything that does not suit what agenda he is pursuing at the time and I suspect that there is more threats or more information that he is not telling us about."