Analysis

2 January, Military Base, City K.

Hanging up from the call with Lexi, Joseph, Ben, and David looked at each other knowing that the each had the same thought. Matthew was in so much trouble with his wife, potentially as much trouble as they were with their own wives. Unlike Matthew, they each knew that their trouble was linked to the fact that their move here to City K was now at short notice, rather than the planned move that they had been planning on.

Joseph deciding to brave the situation said, "Trouble on the home front Boss?"

Trying not to laugh, as before Lexi's call Ben, Joseph and David had all been complaining about the complaints from their wives about their quick move here, Matthew responded "Stow it Joseph. You forget that your wives, over the last couple of days since your redeployment was announced, have been on the phone complaining to me about messing with your lives, on a whim. None of them are happy."

Matthew saw three heads slightly dip, before David lifted his and responded "But they are looking forward in the long term settling in here, boss. In the end, home is here for all of us."

"True, but just remember..."

"You hold our careers in your hand. How many times have you threatened us with that boss? You forget national command have been at each of us to take separate postings, but we have always been able to convince them, together we are so much better than if they separate us."

David's comment drew a round of laughter from each of them. Matthew knew despite all his complaining as Ben, David and Joseph had earned his trust he would never do anything that would mess with their careers. Plus, David was right, as a group their skills and insight complemented each other ensuring that they were better together than apart hence the decisions of national command.

Matthew looked around and pulled out the jamming device and switching it on. "Now we need to get down to business. Ben, I want you to move straight into the intelligence team, and re-shape it."

"That will not go down well with Major Hung."

"Easily solvable. Your promotion is going to be announced tomorrow, along with your redeployment here."

"In other words, I will be pulling rank." That drew laughter from David and Joseph, as they both already had the impression that Major Hung would not like anything unless it was what he wanted.

"Absolutely, Major Hung is already working against the reorganisation of this clunky special forces base."

Joseph piped in "My quick observations are that it is too much organised on traditional military lines rather than the flexible integrated force it is meant to be."

"True," responded Matthew. "I have already announced my plans for the restructure. The problem is in tackling the intelligence group Major Hung has seniority based on appointment, so resorting to seniority based on rank is needed. As to you Joseph, you will oversee the active teams and David you will start as my assistant. I have confirmed that your promotion will be announced in three weeks Joseph, and David your promotion will be a month after that. But before you all complain, there is no seniority based on promotion as your promotions were all signed off last week. It will be a façade presently and later the truth will be confirmed."

"You are not unleashing us totally?" queried David.

"No, the restructure here has been warranted for a period of time and the focus on base I want is on that."

That drew a round of nods. "The other thing, as what we are pulling from the kidnapping and your raid. I am assuming you have all been looking at the victims' statement and the HUMIT and ELINT we secured before the base was destroyed? We need to add what we can to the knowledge we have about the Devil but work it to determine where the leak is on base. What he knew about me was not easily found out, but he had it. That means that he has a source here on base, the question who is the source? That is the important thing to determine as we need to turn that source to bring down the Devil."

"There has been that suspicion of him having an inside source but are you sure it is military?" asked David.

"David, the only member of the police that even knew I was back in town was John Nang. I grew up with John and personally trust him. Even leaving that aside he is also a friend of my wife and is my stepson Dominic's godfather. If he wanted to target me, I suspect given what has happened in the past with Dominic he would not targeted Lexi. More importantly, along with his team they determined the Devil's involvement and gave the general location to find us, whereas the team here could not even figure out what happened. Now, let us look at all of this and find out what we can, from everything."

There was a knock on the door, and John Nang was shown in, carrying a laptop and folder with him. Once the door was closed, Matthew introduced everyone, before saying "What do you have John?"

"Impatient as always Matthew. If you are not careful Lexi will ditch you."

Matthew rolled his eyes, aware that John was teasing him. "We do not have the time to waste. What do you have for us?"

The five of them over the next couple of hours started to look through the material and perform some additional analysis on it, but despite that they could tease out from the material, they could not find anything that would point them in the direction of the Devil's military source.

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