“By definition, intelligence deals with the unclear, the unknown, the deliberately hidden. What the enemies of the United States hope to deny we work to reveal.”
-George Tenet
The men were finally finished in the crowded room, dispersing from around the map table to return to their various commands, pick up on the latest reports, and dispatch their orders. Graph held back as they exited, knowing that a few issues remained, ones which only he and the Colonel could discuss. As always, there would be the additional questions, concerns and queries that only intel could answer. Or be trusted to hear.
And of course, Bracho was also staying behind. As the chief crow in the murder, the leader of the spec ops team charged with apprehending the HVIs the Colonel was meant to process, he too needed to be on hand for this portion of the briefing. Before getting into it though, Montag circled back around to the far side of large table and laid his hands down on the map. He then descended to his elbows to get even closer to it, like a surveyor or a man trying to line up a perfect corner shot on a pool table. There were things there he longed to see, problems that he had to be at eye-level with to full appreciate.
A common quirk of the field commander, Graph knew.
“Colonel, where do we stand on the Doctor?” he asked finally.
“You mean Ross,” Graph said, not a question. “He’s prepared to turn his cloak, though his staff are not so willing. I allowed him to speak with them but… the conversation left him highly agitated. It’s safe to say he’s alone in accepting things as I presented them to him.”
“So he’s in but they’re out?” Montag replied with a nod. “Well that’s unfortunate. But then again, it was a bit much to hope for.”
Graph shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“What about operational intel? They know anything that could be considered of use?”
Graph raised his hands to the side. “I questioned each of the research staff. The surviving ones, at least.” He tried not to make too fine a point of looking at Bracho at this point. But of course, the Sergeant knew he was really addressing him when he said this. Dead assets were of no use to anyone, and every member of the staff had been assigned HVI status in the extreme.
“And they could tell you nothing about this Mage character or his long term plans?”
“Nothing we didn’t know already,” Graph replied. Montag waited for him to say more, even looked up at him expectantly from the table. But of course, Graph could not speak on the subject, and as far as procedure was concerned, he was under no obligation to. His job was merely to apprise him of anything pertaining to his operation, and divulge nothing of any other plans.
Quickly, Montag got the message. “Fine, then. I guess you’ll be taking the doctor and leaving soon?”
Graph smiled. Was he that eager to be rid of him? As much as he would like to oblige Montag and his men, that was not something he was prepared to do either. Not until they had covered all their bases…
“I still need some time with his staff. There are things we need to know if we’re going to… replicate his work down the road.”
“But you’ve got the head honcho, why bother with the rest?”
Graph folded his arms over his chest, his tone becoming noticeably pedantic. It was a bother to explain things in detail, especially when doing so ventured dangerously close to divulging things he was under orders not to divulge.
“Each of the doctor’s staff were assigned specific duties in their roles as his research assistants. Though he has a working knowledge of all aspects of the project they were working on, he might be somewhat grey on certain details. I need to fill those areas in so we know that nothing will be left to chance later.”
Montag looked back at his map and shook his head. “Fine then. You do what you got to do and then please feel free to fly your friend on out of here. The sooner you’re birds done cluttering up our landing field the better. I don’t know if you noticed, but we still have a situation to resolve here.”
“I noticed,” Graph said with a smile. He paused at the point of leaving, his eyes looking to one spot on the map that had been of particular interest during the briefing with the other officers. A tiny red circle that lay at an intersection on the east bank of the Rio Grande, next to the only remaining bridge in that sector.
A recent addition to the mess of red ink, it was a position which had gone from being secured to contested while the briefing was in progress. There were others nearby, positions in the west side of town that still were not secured and had been marked down as such. But this one seemed to be of particular concern, and for obvious reasons.
Graph didn’t need to be aware of all the details to know that this had to be the element Montag’s men still hadn’t neutralized. Having hit his armored units hard close to their current position, it now seemed that they were determined to break his hold on the only major bridge that passed between the east and west sectors of the town.
He remembered how quickly the tone of the briefing had changed when a courier came in to deliver that bit of news. Montag had ordered choppers dispatched there, but also asked that more armored units pour in to make sure that anyone not wearing the friendly insignia be killed. He was quite insistent on that last point, Graph recalled.
“Was there something else, sir?” Montag asked, noticing how he seemed to be standing in limbo. Graph quickly snapped to and shook his head.
“No. Carry on,” he replied, then snapped out two quick salutes. “Colonel. Sergeant.”
Giving the map one last glance, he stepped gingerly out of the room and made for the comm section’s main doors. He had little doubt that some unkind words would be spoken on his account once he was out of earshot. But of course, very few kind of flowery things would be uttered on anyone’s account until the day was done and a whole lot more people killed. Such was the way of military types, always hoping to resolve situations of their own making with just a few more deaths.
The thought made him smile as he stepped trough the main room and eyed all the officers who were busy contacting their units from field radios. With the system of comms that the previous occupants had been using scrambled and disabled, they were all forced to issue their directives on the old fashioned squawk boxes. Standard protocol for when one was overrun and didn’t want their comms falling into the wrong hands. And the display made him feel happy for them, albeit in an entirely ironic way.
Let them fight their little battles and attain their small victories, he thought as he cleared the double doors that marked the room’s entrance. Meanwhile, the real work towards the final victory would be carried out as it always had… in secret.
