War Within Wars Extract

Book 1 Chapter 4 Extract

An hour passed and Ben was walking around with a coffee, rounding people up as he saw them, for a team meeting. He then happily pushed the door open and got himself sorted at the end of the long boardroom style table, sitting on the comfortable office chair he watched on as others kept walking in. The meeting room was quite basic, however down one wall there were digital screens that made it look like there was a forest outside. In the centre of the huge table was a mounted projector, facing up so it projected the image of the Earth above. All the other walls were white with chairs placed all around the outside. John and Ethan sat down on some of the outer seats with Lance and Mo, while Michael and Charles sat at the main table near Ben.

As the room filled, Ben stood up and started looking around. “Okay, are we all here? Looks like everyone.” He took a second as people settled.

Then Ben continued, “So yesterday you all know what happened. This meeting isn’t to talk about that but I would like to thank everyone that helped. Everyone behind the scenes, information gathering and the people by my side.

Do we have the data off the phones yet and information on the people at the hospital?”

One of the women to his side slid a tablet across to him and said. “It’s all on there. We’ve added some video clips and images covering what we can find about the individuals.”

“Great, thanks.” Ben moved the tablet by his side and then continued talking to the group.

”If you don’t know this is my brother Ethan, and my dad John, and I need to give them a brief run through to help them catch up. So around the room are team leaders, we have various branches to the business and teams out in the field. Each is managed from this site, which we call Warehouse 4. I would say most of the leaders have around 20-25 projects that are going on each day that need managing with information, ICT support and additional staff, basically anything they need to be successful. If you look at the globe in front of me you can see in real time each project, where it is and how it is performing by colour.”

Ben reached forward and touched a bright green dot, which then expanded out. “This is a project in Cameroon where we have provided security services for a company experiencing issues. The local community does not agree with what they are doing. We do not take sides. Whoever pays us gets the job. As you can see it is green and everything is going okay.” Ben touched a part of the expanded data, which expanded again to show a live feed from a drone as it circles around the site. Then Ben swiped and it all reduced back down to a green dot again.

“You will also see blue squares. These are media and information risks. For example known misinformation, or media to affect financial markets, or media to incite riots. We try to either shut them down or promote, or maybe try to shut the company down that is sending the information or media.

You will also see black dots, these are what we call Ronin. They are operatives that sit without management and are given orders in secret.

Lastly, there are pink dots. These are unexplainable instances and more likely going to be outside intervention.”

John interrupted. “Why are you adding that on there?”

Ben looked up at John and with a serious face replied. “John, you have spent a lot of time out there, in the secret world. I spent many years out there and was left with many questions. Why do all this, if they are that powerful, why play with us in this way. I trust some but not all of them. I saw things that maybe you didn’t. So for now we are planning for all risks, all subversion and propaganda leading to national or international unrest.”

John replied, also rubbing his head with stress, “And you don’t think they will know?”

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