| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Matters of National Security |
| Date: | Mon, 27 Apr 1998 19:57:04 +0100 |
>>>>>[TO: 1Lt L R W Lynch, 2Lt S E Rodriguez, LCdr Z Turner
I really am not quite sure how to react to this. Our situation has
changed, dramatically.
+++++begin transcript
L: Dr Anne Lettway, National Security Advisor
C: D J H Coppinger, Director, SIGA
C: Mrs Lettway, good morning.
L: And to you, Director. Your appraisal of the situation interested me.
C: In what way?
L: Your personal contact with Abbadon, and your general closeness to the
situation. Your perspective on the affair is very different to the
FBI's, for instance.
C: We have different views and different opinions.
L: Given that it cost you a senior - nigh irreplaceable - agent, I'm
surprised you dismiss Abbadon's demand for Lynch's head as irrelevant
to the situation.
C: It's entirely irrelevant, except perhaps as a matter of pique and a
convenient excuse. Are you serious in believing that any organisation
would expend the resources just used by CoT - seeking, preparing,
arming and releasing hundreds of killers, setting up such murderously
dense viral traps on their accounts, attracting so much attention -
when by far the easiest method of eliminating Lynch would have been
that which actually killed him? Cheaper, simpler, and done quietly
its chances improve since there is much less warning.
And, observe, the violence continues despite Lynch's death: in fact
they've intensified it. They attempted to release their second
Thunda, we're not sure what prevented that but it's damn lucky it was
stopped early. They could have simply switched it off at source:
instead they have continued to escalate, to the point of claiming to
have set nearly thirty chemical weapons across Seattle. No, Advisor
Lettway, Lynch was merely a convenient target to use as excuse. Their
real purpose is deeper.
L: What do you believe that purpose to be?
C: We're still unsure. Our primary estimate is a throwback to SIGA's old
days. Conditioned and trained soldiers, training on a chip, devoid of
any free will that might interfere with their mission. The elements
are there: simsense conditioning, implanted control circuits, even
the delusional architectures are similar. If we ever catch one of
these creations before they are destroyed, I'd be interested to test
their blood for tricylobin morphate.
L: 'Ladder'? You're serious?
C: Speculative, but the technologies point at Tir Taingire or Aztlan.
Or, more likely, rogue factions within. Naturally, it could be anyone
with the resources, the principles are neither new nor exclusive, but
our one lead to date points to Aztlan involvement.
L: Doctor Narmohach, perhaps?
C: It's so obvious we've been rejecting that conclusion. But, also, he's
a patient and subtle man, he would be repelled by such crude violence
and the attention it entails. There's also corporate sponsorship to
consider, and the possibility that this group may merely be
independently funded extremists, centred around some lottery winner
or heir to a fortune. What's not open to debate is that this group
have spent an almost obscene amount of money and influence to create
this situation. They have a sponsor of some sort, somewhere. There's
no evidence of the Doctor having those resources.
The alternative explanation, more hawkish, is that this is the
opening shot of a campaign of insurgency intended to either disable
the UCAS, or weaken us sufficient for insurrection or direct
invasion. As to who's behind that... you know the usual suspects as
well as I.
L: You're not alone in that hawkish view. That, too, requires outside
sponsors, who you're seeking. What would you do when you found them?
I ask, David, what would _you_ do?
C: Personally? I support fully the conclusions in our report - which, by
the way, predates Lynch's death, in fact he was a co-author. Once the
sponsors of CoT are identified, I would demonstrate the Ryan Doctrine
upon them.
With this attempted chemical strike - which may yet come to pass if
we cannot find and disable all the devices Abbadon claims to have
planted - they have used weapons of mass destruction against the
UCAS. I would use similar weapons in return. If it were Aztlan, for
instance, then perhaps half-a-dozen airbases, dockyards, logistics
depots... Airburst fusion weapons by choice, to minimise fallout, and
we'd need to choose relatively blast-sensitive targets as a result,
but I would certainly consider that the most sensible retaliation.
L: You are serious?
C: Utterly, Advisor. It is a matter of overwhelming importance to the
security of the UCAS that this organisation be exterminated, its
sponsors taught a lesson in blood and fire that we will not tolerate
such belligerence, and that the use of WOMADs against the UCAS be
shown to all to have devastating consequences. You know my feelings
concerning nuclear weapons, and yet I would gladly order the release
myself once the evidence was sufficient.
L: You may well have to, Director Coppinger. Here. I'm sure you know how
to use this, and its importance. NCA agree with your assessment: you
now have secondary release authority for strategic weapons.
<long pause>
C: My God.
<long pause>
L: You understand the desperation that drove this? From a political
viewpoint, we have utter disaster. Law enforcement is barely managing
to clean up the cells. Our citizens are being slaughtered in the
streets, mown down by hundreds, and are turning on each other, and we
cannot prevent it. Seattle is ablaze with racial hatred, and a dozen
other cities are teetering on the brink even without CoT's
intervention.
Militarily, it's just as bad. We've yet to find any single lead to
the central structure of CoT. Our troops are stretched frighteningly
thin, still recovering from the Presidential assassination and the
losses we took holding the Zone. We have no conventional solution to
this situation, Director, and that terrifies many people.
Only SIGA have managed to come close, Thunda and your work in Miami,
and the enforcers responsible - D'Arkan and Lynch - have been hunted
down and killed for their success. Your agency has done the most
damage to CoT. Rightly or wrongly, there is now a rush to reinforce
that success, and as Abbadon escalates so must we.
C: I want the temporary nature of such reinforcement formally enshrined-
L: If I didn't believe you'd say that, David, I'd have opposed the move.
You have a blank cheque. What do you need?
C: More Matrix talent. I want to burn Abbadon out of cyberspace. That's
an urgent priority -
L: You'll have another two platoons by the end of today. What else?
Anything financial, spend it, don't bother asking, if you succeed
nobody will care and if you fail it'll be the least of your woes.
C: Faster access to Fort Meade's decrypts. SIGINT might get us
something, especially once the Matrix troops begin tearing up their
Shadowland comms.
L: Needle in a haystack...
C: That's why we give the NSA boys so much money to buy supercomputers
and the HITCHIKER satellites and employ so many worker bees. Time
they showed us what they can do.
L: You're being a little harsh, David.
C: The technical-intelligence boys preach about the obsolescence of
HUMINT. Fine, they have a chance to prove it. We haven't been able to
crack this, let's see what they can do.
L: That's fairer, I suppose.
C: I also need good troops on standby, and a few other things... here's
the wish list.
L: This isn't your handwriting.
C: No. We anticipated this situation, if not the details of it.
L: ...Approved. All of it. Nothing that can't be justified in the
circumstances. And, David... our condolences to your agent's family.
We all know who he was, what he did. Are they...
C: Amply provisioned for, never fear. If they need help, I'll make sure
you hear.
+++++end transcript
I am quite afraid.]<<<<<
-- D J H Coppinger <19:53:43/04-27-59>
Director
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
*****INTERNAL: SIGANet
>>>>>[TO: D J H Coppinger, Director
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them, David.
We have been given tools to destroy our enemies. Let us carry out the
task at hand, then return those tools to their proper place.]<<<<<
-- 1Lt L R W Lynch <19:55:43/04-27-59>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
