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Part II
10
Dakila
Bratislava, Northern Neutral Territories,
March 5th, 2042
"It's an honor to meet you in the flesh, Admiral Kotu, and I realize it's not my place to question your insights, but I feel obliged to express my concerns about the tactical dangers involved in attending these negotiations."
Dakila felt he might have made a big mistake appointing Lieutenant Colonel Matatu to lead the negotiations with the Ottomans. Matatu might have been an exceptional soldier and a war hero respected by the troops for his tactical insights on the battleground, but the fact that he just addressed him as Admiral Kotu in the fucking hotel foyer told Dakila that Matatu might not be up to the task.
"Advisor Castro at your service, sir. The Admiral asked me to relay the Lagos and Lima crime statistics and go over the most recent developments before the negotiations start."
Matatu looked at Dakila in confusion. This was Admiral Kotu, it had to be. What was this Advisor shit? The South Atlantic GNU Defence Alliance didn't employ any non-military advisors and no GNU officer would omit naming his rank when addressing a superior officer. Was this a PUPR spy? Did something happen to Kotu? Did agents kill the Admiral?
Then Matatu caught the reproachful expression on Dakila's face.
'Shit! Me and my big mouth.' Matatu thought.
Matatu's bodyguards had swept the hotel and found nothing, but he shouldn't have assumed he could speak freely to the extent of addressing the Admiral by his rank and handle. PUPR wouldn't risk a high profile political murder in the political center of what was left of the Northern Neutral Territories, but it would be hard for Kotu to get safely back to wherever someone like him managed to stay off the grid if a PUPR agent were to tag him as SAGDA founder Kotu.
Dakila noticed the effect Matatu's slow thought process had on his facial expressions and body posture. He could almost read his every thought. This is not good! NOFTA weren't fools and if there were any PUPR spies watching …..
"Lieutenant Colonel, sir, is there any chance for us to have your radio engineers arrange for some private soundproof talking space to go over the Lima crime numbers in private before the talks start. There are some important figures that I really must bring to your attention."
Matatu put his right index finger up, making a swirling sign, then made a fist with his hand and raised his pinkie twice quickly. Two dozen armed guards appeared as out of nothing, then a young woman approached Matatu looking anxious.
"Corporal Gonzales reporting, sir! Awaiting your orders."
'This is what I get for appointing soldiers as diplomats,' Dakila thought. 'Whoever thought this war would get to the point where we needed diplomats. Damn, this isn't going to work.'
"Corporal, me and my advisor need some level two privacy" Matatu spoke …. Dakila exchanged a skittish look with Matatu, "…err, make that level one privacy. Please arrange for all appropriate measures."
"Already covered Lieutenant Colonel, NNT really know how to facilitate events like these, sir.
If you follow me, sir, there is a small room right here, all swept and guarded every minute ever since, sir."
Matatu made another hand signal and the guards responded immediately, half of them taking a defensive formation, the other half in standard high-risk prisoner escort formation.
Dakila took care not to respond in an in any telling way to the over-the-top military maneuvers, but his internal response would be best described as a mental facepalm. 'I really need a plan B here' Dakila thought.
As Dakila and Matatu entered the soundproof and furniture free room, a dimly shining white sphere on a pedestal in the center of the room was all that was in the room. The windowless door closed behind them.
"Change of strategy Matatu! I understand your concerns, but I have some new concerns of my own right now. If this was a negotiation involving PUPR or even the more intelligent ones amongst the inner city warlords, we would be in real big trouble and I would probably be dead within just days. Fortunately, we are only negotiating with our former NOFTA allies.
New strategy: scale down the talks. That will be your one and only task. I'll take over after that. Understood?"
"Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"No! Shut up Matatu. Shut the fuck up and listen! You didn't ask permission for your body language to speak freely now did you Lieutenant Colonel? What the fuck dude? And then greeting me as Admiral Kotu! Are you out of your fucking mind Matatu ?! You don't call me Admiral in fucking public. And you sure as hell never call me Kotu or King Of The fucking Universe either! Are you fucking trying to get me fucking assassinated you stupid Grunt?
I will go through the new scenario with you once Matatu. You will go into the conference room acting a bit nervous. Hell, you have reason to be nervous, because if you fuck this up I'll have you back to three stripes, so let the idea of being demoted to Sergeant inspire you Matatu. Kind of like method acting, right?"
Matatu stood there saying nothing, but it was clear from the look in Matatu's eyes that it would be unwise for Dakila to push this any further. There was only so much humiliation Matatu could take, and Dakila was just inches from pushing Matatu into what could easily turn out to be an unstoppable rage, that much his body language revealed.
"Nah, make that Major. Point is, you need to show you are nervous about new developments. Here. Take these papers."
Matatu looked at the file and quickly looked at a few of the pages with per city street gang statistics. Some of the cities were showing massive increases in the crime numbers, but while alarming, this all wasn't exactly unexpected. Ever since the replication drone swarm DRM root key had been published, every crazy psychopath could just download battle drone print files from the internet, create his own private sub-CA to sign print-files with and give himself unlimited battle drone printing rights.
PUPR, NOFTA and some of the southern North American conurbations were bearing the brunt of the problems with psychotic warlords trying to carve out their private little countries. SAGDA and the NNT had their own mini warlord issues, but these were limited to the levels of ultra-armed street gangs viciously trying to exterminate each other while getting rich from extortion. The crime numbers that Kotu had given him were completely in line with expectations as far as Matatu could discern.
Dakila saw Matatu trying to make sense of it all.
"Don't bother with the actual data. It's bad but not that bad. Just hear me out first, Matatu. You will go into the conference room acting a bit nervous. You will look at the documents as if there is something in there that has you really worried. Then you sit down. When everyone is sitting down you will stand up and speak your concerns about possible information leaks in either our or the NOFTA organization. Take care not to give any hint of truly incriminating NOFTA in any way or we'll have a new war on our hands. Then you request the initial negotiations be conducted between you and the Kaymakam, suggesting only one advisor of choice remains. Once everybody but the Kaymakam and his closest advisor remains, you will reveal my rank as Admiral yet not my identity to the Kaymakam. I shall be conducting the negotiations with NOFTA. You believe you can handle this Lieutenant Colonel?"
Matatu looked at Dakila in total disbelief. Then a forced smile with a hint of comprehension.
"I believe I can, sir. But could you run it by me one more time? I think I've got it Admiral, but better to be safe than sorry in this case, so if we can go over it one more time I'm confident I will get us through this ordeal, sir."
Dakila sighed deeply and rolled over his eyes.
"Ok, Lieutenant Colonel, listen up …."
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