Chapter 248 - A little bit of analysis

7 April, Military Base, City K

Having received a telephone call from General Jang, Joseph, Ben and David, much to the frustration of their wives headed into Matthew's office to await the delivery via trusted secure courier from the capital of an intelligence packet.

As soon as they entered, David switching on the jamming device to protect their discussions, and Joseph telephoned General Jang and received permission to telephone John Nang, given the trust Matthew had in him.

On being shown into Matthew's office John looked at the three men awaiting him, before saying "Gentleman, does your boss know that you have called me here."

"No. Mr World Traveller is in Australia…" stated Joseph.

Interrupting, John said "Accompanying Lexi to a christening, while taking a short break with her and Dominic. They are due back in a couple of days. I thought we all knew that."

Continuing Joseph said "We did. But despite the Boss being a world traveller now, we have had an investigative operation going on here."

"What?" came John's surprised reply.

"The only reason you are here is that the boss trusts you. It is for that reason that the national head of special forces, General Jang, has authorised us to bring you in, as a fresh, non-prejudiced set of eyes. The General or as we all call him the Head Honcho has had suspicions for a while that there is a leak of information to certain terrorist or other illegal groups. The information flow is not constant, nor does it always protect any one group, but the head Honcho and the Boss believe that it is coming from here. Who, we do not know," explained Joseph.

Continuing Ben added "The Head Honcho has sent via trusted courier, who should arrive any minute, intelligence gathered in the last few days for us to look at. The Head Honcho, given the quick reaction, was concerned that in the absence of the boss we would allow our prejudices to seep into the analysis, so based on the Boss's trust in you we were authorised to bring you in to assist. The plan saw information disseminated within the special forces here about an upcoming raid, but nowhere else to test those within the special forces here. All the Head Honcho would tell us is that there has bee some movement."

John, quickly responded "So what was the plan?"

Before anyone could respond, there was a knock on the door and as he was the closest David stood up and opened the door and was handed a briefcase. After shutting the door behind him, David opened the secure bag, and took out some paper and a USB stick. Nodding, Ben pulled out a laptop before plugging the USB in, and saying without looking directly at John "Do not worry, the only two keys to unlock the bag are in our possession and with the Head Honcho. The Head Honcho and the Boss are fanatical about protecting the air gapped computers, which will mean that the data on the USB would have been checked by multiple people for any risks contained in the doc.u.ments on it."

"Plus," added Joseph, "Ben and David over the years have developed into IT specialists, and internally developed for air gapped computers we use, specialist software that provides added security for us."

"True. You are just the mussel and the boss is great at organisation," came David's immediate response, drawing a laugh from all three, David continued looking directly at John, "Seriously we all have our own specialities, and we know in part your strength comes at data analysis."

"So, in other words you want to use me?"

"We do," responded David.

John noticed that there was confusion on the faces of the three men, and he realised that they were struggling with how to address him. Shaking his head, he said "Let us get it clear, my name is John. When it is not a formal situation, call me that. And before you say it is inappropriate, Matthew is my friend, so if I need to, I will have him make it an order."

"Damn it, John that is below the belt," came Ben's prompt response.

"True, but did you not have a reason for calling me here? I have better things to do, and I would suspect that you have things to do as well."

"Correct. But, when the boss is back, you are going to have a meeting with the four of us…" quipped David.

"Threatening me with Matthew, I know all his childhood secrets so he will not spill on me…"

"Come on," interrupted Joseph, "We need to be serious for a little while, as I do not want to be the one who disturbs the boss too late."

"Time differences can be a pain in the neck," added Ben.

With that they settled down and started to look at the material that had been sent from the capital.

After fifteen minutes of silence, John having read the material said "Gentleman, I have skimmed all that information, but I have some preliminary conclusions, for what it is worth. Along with the senior members of my team, we have had concerns about potential disclosure from someone within the special forces group given the failure at the last minute of the occasional operation."

"Nothing concrete that we could prove, but our suspicions were there as over ninety percent of the recent failed raids had information shared with or received from the local special forces intelligence group that there had to be some issue. This confirms that there is an issue but provides no evidence that whether it is a single person, a small group or a much wider problem. You need to resolve it, as we had a confidential informant late on Friday give us intelligence about a targeting of business IT systems, but we will not pass that on other than to you or Matthew, as who knows where the leak is."

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