Chapter 488 - Another attack (12)

25 May, Military Base, City K 

When they reached the base, Matthew made sure Lexi and Dominic were settled in his on-base accommodation before heading back to his office. He had carefully located the intelligence that he had been slipped and needed to decode it as soon as he could. It could be critical to dealing with the incident in City Q and what was to come.

Opening his office door, Bronwyn was sitting on the couch and Ben and David were waiting at his desk. Matthew said "Gentleman, what is it?"

"You trust her with this…," said Ben.

"You know whose daughter she is, and you want to say we cannot trust her? Be realistic you two. I need you out ready in case there is a call, so spit it out?"

"You trust Major Hung to move if there is a call?"

Matthew closed his eyes. These idiots knew they situation, but after the revelations about his parents and their choices Head Honcho and Legend were as certain as they could be that they could trust Major Hung within reason. And, if he were realistic, he could not find a legitimate reason to sideline his most senior Major from action.

"You forget I give you latitude because you have earnt me trust time and time again. But do not forget, after the three of you, he is the most senior of officers under my direct command. What reason would I have not to give that next senior officer the role I have assigned him?"

"Other than he is an idiot? Can he be trusted?" came Ben's quick response. "The three of us talked as we made the decision who would head to City Q, and we do not trust him to do what will be required should a deployment be necessary."

Matthew shook his head and said "This is a role for the most senior of officers under my command, because they have to be able to act if deployed given my confinement to base. He fits that role presently, but whether he stays here is not a question for now, that will come through the reorganisation that has commenced. Now get out of here, I would suspect one of you is meant to be on your rest and the other is the go team. Or do I have to make that an order?"

Both Ben and David shook their heads before saying "No, we just wanted the concerns noted."

"They are, now get out of here." Ben and David turned and exited Matthew's office, before he moved over and secured it, turning the anti-surveillance devices on.

After receiving a nod from Matthew, Bronwyn said "I was lucky they were noisy enough when they came in, otherwise they would have seen the raw intelligence I was reading from Officer N."

Matthew closed his eyes briefly and said, "You are certain they saw nothing?"

"I am not stupid Boss, but I suspect they made the noise because I am a female and they did not want to come in when I may have been in a somewhat compromising position." Bronwyn paused and said, "I found something in all the intelligence that is interesting though."

"What is it?"

"Officer N talks about plans to use legitimate business activities as part of the plans. Given what I know about David Hwang's business activities he started out in IT systems. I know how to use technology, but I do not know the ins and outs of programming, but could there be something embedded in systems that requires a trigger?"

"Possibly, but no one who is cleared for this has the skills, and if we start digging too far the risks is, we tip off the Devil and risk Officer N. Have you come up with anything legally?"

"Not that I can use, but if my suspicions are correct about IT systems, corporate responsibility would fall on David Hwang because he failed in his obligations as the company CEO to ensure systems where in place to prevent the issues. That would not depend on Officer N's intelligence if we could prove his actions, either in allowing it to happen or disregarding its possibility."

"Noted," responded Matthew. "Your boyfriend is at my on-base accommodation so how about you go and spend time with him. Saying that he is angry about today is an understatement so you…"

"Need to go and settle his ruffled feathers. That is at least something I can do, but I need you to do talk to my father. He did not need to do what did today?"

"No way am I going to get into the middle of that family argument. Call him yourself, but remember this you would not have been deployed to special forces if you were not supremely qualified legally, and there was the belief that you could cope with the training that you would need to do. Now go, and I do not want to see you to the morning."

"Yes Boss," Bronwyn responded, and headed to the door. After letting her out Matthew re-secured the door, before sitting down for the laborious process of starting to de-code the intelligence he was slipped.

After a couple of hours of work, Matthew on the few pages he had decoded realised the significance of what he had. The picture it was painting about the attack in City Q demonstrated the ruthlessness that had always associated with the Devil, but even more concerning gave indications of not only at least one attack that to the public would appear as a lone wolf attack [1], but was part of a coordinate course of action, before the major attacks in late June. He knew that there was at least another thirty pages to be decoded. As he knew his currently limitations on de-coding the intelligence Matthew made the decision this needed to get this to the capital for Head Honcho, Legend and the others cleared to de-code and then return to him.

[1] Lone wolf attacks, in terrorism refer to people acting alone.

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