It was a sunny and peaceful day at Laguna Beach, Planet Los Angeles. Perry got up bright and early and sat down next to the terrace to enjoy the wind and the sight of waves landing on the sand. It was the perfect ambience for tedious work.
The Gallic War was over; and she had spent the past year tending to her family’s needs. There was no reason for her to return to her old life, she could relax, enjoy her rekindled relationship with her husband in semi-retirement. The Federal Witness Protection Program ensured their security which was important because of her politically sensitive work these past few years. Her career could just shut down right now by virtue of her age. But she was addicted to her work; it didn’t take much for anyone to figure out it was clinically unhealthy. She couldn’t live without building a new secret.
Earlier in the year, she had met with disillusioned civil servants. They weren’t really disillusioned; they just wanted Liberty to be taken in a different direction. Oh, and they didn’t want to deal with the bureaucracy. It was an entrepreneurial team.
(04-06-2020, 10:19 AM)Stolt. Wrote:
Opening File
UPDATE: 06/04/827 A.S.
The Control Group
The Control Group is a nationalist subversive pro-Liberty government paramilitary/intelligence organization. It exists to advance the national interests of Liberty both within and outside of its borders without the constraints of the law, rules of engagement, government bureaucracy, top-down micromanagement or diplomatic consequences. Many of its members disagree with the strategic direction of Liberty’s foreign and security policy. They believe Liberty should be more interventionist in its approach to the other Houses.
To achieve this goal, several former Liberty government officials, military and intelligence officers developed the Geostrategic Convergence Doctrine. The idea behind this doctrine is based on a book authored by Peter Zeihan titled The Accidental Superpower. Zeihan argues that the Republic of Liberty has the potential to become a superpower by controlling access to trade throughout Sirius. In addition to expanding the Liberty Navy’s size, strength and technological superiority, a network of military bases would have to be established in the independent worlds and border worlds. This would allow the Liberty Navy access to these distant regions as the bases would create a logistical supply chain to allow the Navy ships to resupply, re-arm and refuel outside of Liberty’s immediate borders. This is turn, would allow Liberty to project military force on a sector-wide scale.
During wartime, this doctrine would ensure Liberty’s national security by keeping any war as far from Liberty’s border’s as possible hence preventing an invasion of Liberty’s space by a foreign power, the way Gallia did in California (Source). During peacetime, the navy could be used to protect trade routes and civilian shipping between the houses from piracy and terrorism hence making the other houses dependent on Liberty for access to interstellar trade. Without trade, the other houses would fall behind economically.
This would create a geopolitical shift in favour of Liberty. But Perry was worried. Was she doing this because she loved the Republic of Liberty? Or was she unable to live, or breathe, without running a Black Operation?
Signed,
Adrienne Perry
Closing File
Their goal was to create a long term strategy to turn Liberty into a Superpower; because the whole of Sirius would be better for it. The balance of power only caused instability. The past 15 years had only brought total wars or low intensity conflicts getting in the way of trade and prosperity. At the end of it, there was no change to the balance of power. Sirius had a middle class, but not everybody could be a part of it. The balance of power had to be broken, in Liberty’s favour.
She was 44, still young but the past ten years of stressful intelligence collection meant she felt like she aged 10 years faster, as if she had just stretched too much and didn’t want to move for a while.
But her team needed funding. So it was time for her to be re-activated. She had a lead.
Rhianne Wardwell picked a corporate swivel chair to take a seat at Pinkerton's branch office at downtown Manhattan. The exterior of the consultancy's building was made of reinforced windows and glass. It was quite an aesthetic to watch the rain droplets race each other down the glass windows; it was raining and there were billions of droplets racing each other.
Pinkerton was a renowned detective agency. She hired to them to find out what happened to a friend who tried to kill her. He had suddenly gone AWOL for the past year. But the investigations firm couldn't find out anything about him. She kept pushing them for more, but she knew they were tired and ready to drop the case and offer her a full refund. It was a better business decision to redirect private detectives to cases they could actually solve.
She was looking for Mattis because she was torn over wanting to kill him, and not giving up what humanity she had left. A part of her wanted to know if he was alright, and still alive.
A blonde woman entered the office with just the right amount of gravitas. She did not walk in with a command presence, nor did she try to hide her steps. She wore a modest blazer and outfit and carried herself with humility. Rhianne could immediately tell she was about to speak with someone every banker hates: a civil servant.
The blonde woman gently extended her hand: “Hello Mrs. Wardwell, my name is Perry, how are you doing today?”
A banker like Rhianne Wardwell was not dissimilar to Perry. Every successful banker participated insider trading: the illegal act of knowing privileged information before anyone other banker did. This gave the bankers with the most information, an unfair advantage. If they knew a company was going to have a scandal, they’d sell their shares a week in advance and then buy the same shares back at a fraction of the price once the scandal hits and the stock prices dropped. They too, were intelligence operators.
“I know where Hoegenakker is and I know what he did to you.” Perry, like most of Sirius, didn’t really like wasting time. She had spent the better part of the last year thoroughly interrogating him, so she knew what she needed to know about Rhianne Wardwell and the vast access to funding she had via the now defunct Bank of New York.
“Finally, results. Where can I find him?” Wardwell was eager. An entire year of waiting and finally she would get her answers soon.
“It’s not going to be that easy Mrs. Wardwell.”
Perry explained that she was not a part of the detective agency she had hired. She was tracking the agency to make sure they didn’t find out anything about Hoegenakker. She spent the past year hiding him at a private prison in an undisclosed location where he received much-needed counselling assistance.
Wardwell knew what she could bring to the table. She had decades of experience as a banker. She had worked in all four houses and she could raise investments like than a war economy could produce ships.
“You are after my money, how much will this information cost?” – Wardwell asked with a dry throat.
“Not your money Mrs. Wardwell.” Perry got up from the boardroom seat and prepared a small cups of coffee and water for the both of them. The rain outside was faltering and the clouds were making way just in time for a sunset to bathe the glass room. It shimmered in her blonde hair offering an aesthetic distraction.
“I’d like your services indefinitely.” Perry stated.
“No, what you want is my loyalty. But Hogenakker is not worth that much to me.” That was a lie. He was worth much more than that because deciding what to do with him could bring her the peace she was looking for this past year. But anyone after loyalty, is worth extensive suspicion.
Perry took out a small folder from her coat and presented photographs of an imprisoned Hoegenakker. “I can get him on the line if you’d like. There isn’t much of a way to fake this. I’ve been keeping him alive.”
As much as Perry wanted to treat this woman is replaceable and walk away, it was a banker’s discretion that she needed and this was the best leverage she had.
“I’m well aware people buy loyalty with trust Mrs. Wardwell. So I’m not going to hide this from you. I’m establishing an organization that you may not want any part in. But it will be good for this country. And it will be good for every generation afterwards if our long term plans succeed. I know you would view this kind of dogmatism as dangerous, and I wouldn’t blame you. In the coming months, maybe years, I will ask you to do what Hoegenakker forced you to. I need someone who can move money, without anybody noticing.”
“Frankly that’s not transparent enough for me.”
Perry took a small notepad and wrote down a number.
“There will be a time in your life where you have no one to turn to, and nothing left for yourself. It will be a dark time when you are full of desperation and out of options. You have had these moments in your life before, but you know the possibility of something worse can never be written off.
When that happens, call this number.”
Where Wardwell could mobilise money, Perry could establish power. And she did that within the context on an equal partnership.
“All right then” Wardwell whispered. “Give me his location.”
In the coming days, Rhianne Wardwell visited the secret facility wherein the worst moment of her life was being kept imprisoned. She saw a sorry, confused man who had lost the ability to tell memories apart. Hoegenakker had developed into a late stage of dementia. He was no longer useful to Perry, so she let Wardwell takeover the keys to the facility.
Wardwell was in disbelief over the man who caused her so much fear. All his potential had eroded away. He could not recognize the woman he once drugged and tortured. He got what he deserved, but the man who committed those crimes against her had already died.
She set him up in an apartment in a quiet neighbourhood in rural Manhattan and hired a nurse to take care of him in his final days. There was no need for her to lose anymore of herself by butchering him. This closure was enough.