Tuesday, September 6, 2005

'Pirate Juice: the ultimate refreshment' [Whiteninja shirt]



Hmm..the [EXPENSIVE!] t-shirt dilemma continues. Wondering what I'm talking about? Right, well I'm caught between for my love of the dead Men in Hats comic's shirt "The knowledge you exist is a burden on my soul," and the white ninja shirt that lends itself to today's quote [www.whiteninjacomics.com/merchandise.shtml].

That pinecone one also looks appetising.

However, they're expensive and I can only choose one. I'm leaning more towards the pirate one [Arr! Need it for Talk like a pirate day!] but the MiH one holds many memories. What shall I do?

Also, I had some time to kill. Please find a lengthy continuation of SYF right here:

“…a highlight of today’s major breaking news will be repeated at the special time of eight pm, after the Prime Minister’s address. Currently there has been no official reports coming from parliament or any of Australia’s security and defence forces. It is as though the entire government is strangely quiet on the issue. Is this silence more damning evidence-

The sound stopped and the female reporter continued talking, mouthing out sensational statements while the same grainy video footage played in the background. The SYF had been slow to move on this one. They had been expecting damage from the documents Adam leaked for some time, but nothing so destructive. Someone had wanted the SYF and the entire Australian government in total disarray, and they had got it.

The Commander sighed and flipped the folder open on his desk for the hundredth time. It was the report that one of their sources had filed only an hour ago, detailing what was happening and what they needed to do. It told them they had five minutes, but the SYF needed ten. So many major breaches in security had resulted in sheer anarchy.

No cover story could patch this damage, the only option was for the government to admit to it and detail exactly what the SYF had done to save its country. That was the Commander’s order, and currently every technician and clerk was busily endeavouring to shred any hard document or digital file that could possibly make this worse. The UN had already contacted the Prime Minister and informed him that the country was now under embargoes and sanctions, pending further investigation. In six hours there would be a special investigation team sent that would rip the intelligence department to pieces and find out exactly how many ‘illegal’ soldiers they had been ‘indoctrinating’ over the years.

The British Prime minister had only recently announced that they had no idea of the actions taken by their Commonwealth country, and would initiate investigations. Secretly he had suggested, through his own special agents, that it would be wise for them to erase any damning history and ‘damn well shatter the hard-drives it was saved on.’ There was yet to be a peep from the White house, and the Commander doubted there would be. As yet, no evidence implicated American involvement and it would most probably stay that way.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes, come in.”

An agent of fifteen came into the office and saluted briskly. “Sir, emergency code Omega has been broadcasted to all 15’s currently in action. They will immediately discontinue any actions on behalf of the SYF, unless their lives are under immediate threat.”

The Commander allowed himself a wry smile. He seriously doubted that more than half of the active agents would obey that order, considering that they were following in the footsteps of Liam more and more each day. Why, even the teenager standing in front of him had been brought in for discipline issues recently, after disobeying a direct order. The mission had worked out better in the end, but it didn’t mean he should have gotten away with it.

“Thank you Agent Luke. That will be all.”

The shorn little soldier saluted briskly and left the room, closing the door behind himself.

“That’s the last of the active agents informed, sir.” Matt stepped forward with his clipboard, ticking a box. “A coded message has just been sent to our Alpha Paedagogus squad in Brunei. They will be the only team that has not been informed to stand down, unfortunately they are in a situation where they cannot be replaced and cannot be put on hold. If worse comes to worse, they can be explained away as ASIS agents on a field exercise.”

“What of Bradley?”

Matt handed over a file, “Bradley the nineteen year old, sir? He looks the age. It was only a matter of doctoring the documents a little.”

The Commander sighed. “From what I’ve heard on the news, they have indisputable copies of all of the original files. Anything you do now is just papering over the cracks.”

“Anything to help our legal team.” Matt sighed and sat down, “what are we going to do sir? Amnesty, Oxfam and other organisations have already started near-riots in the streets with their protesting, not to mention they have listed us as a country with third world policies. I mean, if you thought the common news was sensational, you should see some of the filth they’ve slapped together and called journalism!”

Matt’s voice had overtones of barely contained rage, but he managed to calm himself and continue. “Thus far, only one newspaper is telling it straight, impartially. And that’s only one article. Everything came out at the same time, and automatically started throwing it around!

“Can’t they see what we’ve done? What we had to do? Don’t they even remember Gryphon College?” Matt was shouting now, slamming his hand on the desk through sheer frustration.

The Commander coughed politely. “No, they can’t see. For the safety and integrity of hundreds of agents, we can only show a shadow of the truth. If the public takes it to the infinitely wrong, it means our major secrets are safe-

-SYF was the major secret! That’s what I’m trying to say-

The Commander held up his hand for silence, stopping another tirade. “I’m quite well aware of our situation, thank you very much. Now, if you found only one newspaper to be impartial and original, wouldn’t that be an indication to flag it under ‘important?’”

“Well, yes.”

“Who was the author?”

Matt fumbled with the clipboard and pulled out a newspaper clipping. “Arthur and David Brook, sir.”

A ripple of understanding washed through the two.

“Permission to send an advance security team to take in Mr Brook and Brook, sir?”

“Granted, but prepare them for a fire fight. We won’t be the only two in the world who put two and two together so quickly.” The Commander sighed and added darkly, “and I dare say that they may just find out exactly why the President has been so quiet.”

Matt nodded and stood, giving a sharp salute, something he had not done in a while. As he made for the door, the Commander called out to him.

“Matt?”

“Sir?”

“Make sure Colonel Pine is the head of that security team.”
“Yessir.”


Arthur and David were still sitting in the conference room, eyes glued expectantly to the television. The rest of the office had joined them, however, and were talking amongst themselves. Those that did not fully understand the gravity of the situation were talking excitedly, gleams of hope and words of “the big one” were shining from them. Others merely stood and watched, faces ashen while their minds ticked over exactly how much of this dirty news bomb had hit the fan.

Sarah was looking down at them from her position in the news room, looking calm and collected for someone who could feel her insides trying to escape from their position in her throat.

“Authorities have not yet been able to identify the names of the agents in the video footage, but the Prime Minister may yet reveal the names of these young soldiers in his address-”

“ -not bloody likely.” David said, eyes not straying from the screen. “We wiped all of the names. The last thing we want is to completely f-…sorry, completely screw over the lives of these guys. Hell, they know where we live, and if they don’t, they can find us!”

Arthur had lowered the warning finger. “Yeah, but the bloody news room only just blurred out the faces. After an hour of beaming them non-stop to Australian news rooms, it’s too late. The damage is already done. It’s like that bloody Janet Jackson breast all over again.”

The door to the room opened, Arthur ignored it. It had been opening and slamming shut ever since they sent the article to the printers. The sudden silence made him turn around, however.

“I’m looking for a Mr Arthur Brooks, is he here?”

Arthur let his eyes turn casually at the gentleman. He was dressed sharply in a black suit, and was far to casual in his attitude for his liking. Something wasn’t right.

“He is needed for questioning on how he came across this damning information.”

There was a red spot on his collar. Just a small one, on his collar. As he watched, Arthur could feel dread chilling his spine. There was blood on this man’s collar.

“Excuse me, but who are you?” One of the security guards that had wandered in to watch, was now approaching the man, switching on his radio.

“A federal agent, interested in escorting Mr Brooks to the station for some questioning, mate.”

It happened so quickly that Arthur almost missed it.

The man in the suit muttered quietly, “there’s no-one left to
hear you…”

And then the guard was dead, before he even had the question out of his mouth. There was a silenced pistol in his hand now, roving through the throng of shocked reporters and other staff.

“I could kill all of you, but I didn’t bring enough ammunition to do it quickly. I will proceed to snap each one of your necks until you surrender Mr Brooks to me.”

Someone was sobbing quietly now, the others were overcoming their shock and starting to regain their senses. Arthur, in his dream-like state, could hear the testosterone fuelling up several of the more stocky, rugby loving journalists. Some knuckles cracked somewhere and the man suddenly looked very small.

His confidence wasn’t shaken, but his gun was focused on the closest gentleman as he said, “I’m going to count to ten, unless Mr Brooks owns up, I will personally-UGH!’

And then he was gone. Arthur had watched, fascinated, as a large burly arm slowly reached out from behind the shooter’s head, and suddenly jerked him from sight. There was a sound of breaking bones and muffled punches. Then, a mountain of a man stepped into the room, adjusting his tie carefully.

“Sorry about that. I’m Colonel Pine of ASIO, I believe Arthur and David Brooks are in this room and requiring protection as of this instant.” He held his identification out for all to see, looking around the room. His eyes locked with Arthur’s, “Mr Brooks I presume. Please inform the others to quickly and quietly vacate the premises before any more attempts are made on their life. They should know that they are required to keep utter and total secrecy of this event and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law as traitors if so much as one word is uttered from their lips about this incident. Understood?” His last words came out gruffly, harsh and memorised.

The rest of the news room filed out quickly, passing the rest of the ASIO security team with nary a word of protest. It was clear to them that the good guys had taken over.

“Mr Brooks, I would appreciate it if you and your brother would walk this way. We are on a tight schedule and I would really hate to leave here without you.”

Arthur looked at him blankly, but David beat him to it.

“Hell no!” He shouted. “Who the hell are you? I mean, what the-…damn! Who the-ng!’ Words failed David and he shouted something indiscernible, letting out a final, ‘damn!’

“I am Colonel Pine of the ASIO advance squad. I have been sent courtesy of the Australian government to relocate you to a more secure environment.” The Colonel remained impassive as he spoke, gesturing to the dead security guard, “unless you feel that your current security is quite adequate?”

“We’re not going anywhere.” Arthur said in a hollow voice. He was on the other side now. “Until I know you’re not just bluffing you way in here to kill us quietly somewhere else. You can stay and guard us here if you want, we aren’t going anywhere.”

Colonel Pine frowned and said, “I thought as much.” He reached into his pocket-David flinched-and pulled out a phone. “Speed dial. From the way you wrote your article Mr Brooks, he’ll be the only one you’ll believe right now.”



“Right, okay. So we’re clear now?” Liam said, playing with the new ring on his finger.

“Yes dear.” Rae said, smiling at him while playing with the one on hers.

Liam had just detailed to Rae and the others the conversation he had just had with Natasha, and had promptly ignored Zharra and Bradley’s triumphant looks. Zharra had given Rae her gold dress ring and Bradley had given Liam his, allowing them to have matching rings.

Now the farce was almost complete. There was one problem though.

“I still can’t do this.” No one was more surprised than Liam to find those words coming out of his mouth.

“What?” Rae hissed, pulling him away from the others. “It’s a perfect cover, we need this Liam!”

“’S still not right…” Liam said, almost like a sulky child.

Rae looked at him carefully, “remember when you told me off for leaping out of the Blackhawk?”

“Yes.”

“This is going to be your Blackhawk, and I’ll make sure of that unless you play along.”

Liam sighed, and let his old self smirk at her, “you’re just itching for that moment, aren’t you?”

Rae laughed, “yes, I’d love to have something to pin you with…finally.”

Liam took her hand in his and walked back to the others, whispering into her ear, “are you rough like that with Callum?”

Rae replied with a swift elbow to his side, and continued to smile sweetly at him.

“Liam, I’m only supposed to be your happy and protective fiancé for the next two hours, try to think what will happen to you after that.”

Liam smiled weakly and didn’t reply. Then Bradley’s phone started ringing, loudly. He coloured bright red as the people looked in his direction, but it soon drained away when he checked his phone. As Liam and Rae arrived, Bradley looked very sober. Eve and Ryan’s features hadn’t changed, and they continued chatting, but gave a polite interest in what was happening.

Bradley threw Rae and Liam his phone, saying, “check out the news back home.”

Thanks to quasi internet capabilities of the phones they were supplied, Liam was now looking at an article on the BBC World News website. An article that quoted and sourced another by Arthur and David Brooks. Liam remained calm and skimmed through it, giving it to Rae.

He turned carefully to Bradley and said, in a consoling voice just loud enough to be heard by others and yet just quiet enough to be unobtrusive, “I’m very sorry for you Bradley. Will you be going home straight away to see your father before the surgery?”

Bradley smiled weakly. “Did you read the message? He’s critical. There’s no way I can get back in time. He’s practically on the table right now. Mum wants me to focus on my work…”

Zharra put an arm around Bradley’s shoulders as though to comfort him, and whispered into his ear.

“Hey,” Rae said, nudging Liam with the phone. “Read the message.”

Liam took the phone from Rae and read the SMS, the note just before the hyperlink that took them to the BBC website.

“Omega-All hands. Active-Alpha”

Liam breathed in slowly, mind ticking over what he had just read. If he understood it correctly, every active unit, bar theirs, was now officially disbanded. From the article, he understood that everything about SYF had now been dragged out of the shadows and thrown naked into the limelight. His home country was in uproar, their mission could be even more critical now, even impossible. All because of one reporter he met in Singapore.

“I should have snapped his neck then and there.”

“Who’s?” Rae asked, confused.

Liam started to speak, but his phone started ringing. Callum was on the other end.

“Liam? Arthur Brooks to speak to you. We need to get him under protection ASAP, but he refuses to go until he speaks to you.”

Liam almost exploded.

“…Fine. Put him on.”



“Arthur? Liam’s connecting. Hold please.” Callum finished talking and the phone began ringing.

Arthur swallowed and stammered out a, “h-hello?”

The sudden burst of threats and profanity caused him to move the phone slightly away from his ear. He ended the call mid-insult and handed the phone back to the Colonel.

“Yes, that’s him all right. Exactly how I’d expect him to react.” He put out his hand for the Colonel to shake, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you Colonel, but I read somewhere you had died, but you appear to be promoted.”

Colonel Pine smiled and said with a twinkle in his eye, “don’t believe everything you read. In our world, dying and getting promoted pretty much go hand in hand.”

Read it? Please comment. I long to sip from the frosted cup of your criticisms. [And possibly spit them out all over the place fo' rizzle.]

;p

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