Chapter 504 - Make the deal

28 May, Military Headquarters, the Capital

Matthew was quickly shown into a secure meeting room were Head Honcho and Legend where along with seven other generals. He quickly sat down, and heard the door being secured behind him.

"General Rong, what is so important to have you force the ending of the restriction order?"

"You all know about the permission I had been granted to break that order to meet with Warren Gong?"

"Yes, what about it?" came the question from the same general.

"General Fang, I thought the meeting was simply about the antics we all know his sister is subjecting my wife and I to. That was his reason to get me to the meeting, but he changed the conversation and handed me this pile of handwritten notes. I was sceptical, but as I skimmed information he provided me and he has a lot of things in the about the incidents in the last few weeks. Much of it is true, but information that has not been made public. The intelligence, in my view is worth striking a deal with him. While I detest the idea of making a deal with criminal gangs, like the Gong Cartel, as they are organisations we want gone from this country, what he offers us deals with a greater threat to national security that they ever have posed. The Devil and his Minions."

"You and your mythical terrorist general. We have never seen anything conclusive to say he exists. It is just a series of connections without concrete evidence that you have made."

Head Honcho said "General Fang, I disagree. Yes, when the special forces were established it was to be an elite military unit to take on certain tasks, others were not capable of. Part of that required developing an intelligence capability. Those capabilities like any intelligence organisation require our intelligence analysts, like those in the general military intelligence unit and the civilian agencies to review information and make connections that are not blatantly obvious for threats to national security, both locally and internationally. Unlike the other agencies our remit requires us to act, where appropriate to neutralise threats to national security."

After a pause to see a series of nods, acknowledging the truth in his statement Head Honcho continued "Legend and I, when General Rong first put forward his brief on the Devil and his Minions, were sceptical. He was on secondment to military intelligence to hone his analytical skills, and I remember you General Bi, and you General Fang," with that he looked directly at the two men, "were as sceptical as I was. We had no belief in the intelligence brief. There was a nagging feeling for me, and so I passed it on to Legend, and after discussions we decided to allow General Rong to run with it for a while. With the elapse of time and the gathering of more data, there is no doubt to us the Devil and his minions exist. We have seen several groups, without any explanation quickly rise and then dramatically fall, all in similar ways. That does not happen within someone behind the scenes manipulating the situation. That is the Devil. He has used each group to close in on his endgame and anything we can get to put us closer to taking him down before he executes his ultimate plan, the better."

"Just what I would expect General Li. Backing up your subordinate."

"General Fang, that is not the case. The analysis has not only been reviewed by Legend and myself, but other superior intelligence analysts in Special Forces, which General Bi trained and selected highly ranking people from the civilian intelligence agencies. We all agree on the fact that the Devil and his Minions exist. You want to dispute that, go ahead."

Matthew sensing the frustration said "I am just here to present the situation. I have been given the material on strict circ.u.mstances, and if what Warren Gong says is true, I can understand his paranoia, He is worried that systems have sniffer programs to detect any electronic traces of this material, which would expose him, those around him, and potentially his family to retribution."

"Who cares about retribution for criminals?" spat out General Fang.

"General, I am not dumb. I know you hate me and opposed my promotion only to be overridden by the president. My recommendation is that we agree to his terms but limit the immunity deal to anything to deal with the Devil, his Minions, and their actions, putting the onus on them to prove that is the case. No blanket immunity because that will be contrary to national interests. But in doing that we agree to his terms regarding the data and the deal. Everything handwritten, no electronic copies anywhere and no copying of the material using copiers or the like. Painful, but worth it."

Head Honcho added "We are not looking for a consensus, but a majority decision on what to do, before we speak to the President to authorise the deal. Opinions?"

Over the next 30 or so minutes, debate raged around the room as to what to do. Eventually, the matter came to a head and a vote occurred as to the ultimate decision. As he was unsuccessful in preventing the narrow recommendation to accept the deal Matthew proposed, General Fang stormed out of the room, with the parting words "You will fail in this."

Matthew looked around, before saying "Gentleman, all I can say is thank you for listening. You knew I would accept the decision of this group…"

General Bi said "No need, all any of us did was listen to your recommendation and made our own decisions."

A series of nods followed his words, before another voice, this time Matthew was uncertain who was speaking added "And we could accept the decision of the majority. While I disagree with the decision and can see failure in the future all of us around this table know the imperfect world the intelligence game can be, and that we can only make the right decisions based on what we know."

Someone else added "We will deal with General Fang, now go and make the recommendation to the president, before heading back to City K. Those of us who are down for the ceremony later in the week will see you then."

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