NOVPUBWhile Linda also made her way back to her office, now with that in mind that her plan that came out of nowhere didn’t work… at least she knew now that James would touch her… but she knew she couldn’t trust him. After all, a gangster’s words are shallow. But she had the hope that he was telling the truth.
As she stepped into her office, after all the torture and the chaos of the night, just more chaos came.
Thomas was writing reports, fabricating whatever lies he could manage, while Linda, too, tended to something as she sat down after all the torment, after all the stress she went through. But one thing they needed to be sure about was the news. So she pulled out her phone and searched up one of the most well-known news stations and as she feared, they were already broadcasting it.
After the shooting happened downtown, all the news stations picked it up as fast as they could. They literally sent everybody out, their helicopters, their reporters and all the news stations were broadcasting this event. Not just in the city, but across the whole country, TVs and online channels.
As Linda opened the broadcast, it was worse than the drone footage.
The picture was shaky, the camera struggling to stay focused as chaos surged behind the reporter.
She looked straight into the lens, her voice raised just enough to be heard over the sirens screaming in the background.
"We live here on 5th Street, and what you’re seeing behind me isn’t just a fire. That was Marco De Luca’s downtown restaurant. The whole place went up within minutes." She took a breath, stepping to the side as two paramedics rushed past her, wheeling a stretcher. Somewhere offscreen, someone screamed. "This isn’t an isolated event. This isn’t just one building burning. We’re getting reports now unconfirmed but consistent that several coffee shops across the city, all known to be connected to Marco De Luca’s business empire, have also been set on fire. This is happening all over the capital."
The camera turned for a brief moment, capturing the scene as the emergency responders were pulling out bodies.
"Authorities haven’t made an official statement yet." The reporter continued, "but from everything we’ve seen, the scale, the timing… this looks like the start of a war." She lowered her voice as she faced the camera again. "Some sources are telling us that Marco De Luca’s personal estate may have also been targeted earlier tonight."
The screen flickered again, cutting to aerial footage, more fire, more black smoke from all across the city, then suddenly it cut back to the reporter now stodd with a man on his side, who looked disoriented and shocked.
"We’re here with a witness, someone who was near the scene when the attacks started. Can you tell us what you saw?"
The man swallowed hard, struggling to catch his breath. His voice trembled as he spoke."I was just near a bar, close by and then… it just all started. The shots rang out, and I saw them, they were in what looked like military uniforms. They looked like soldiers, but I don’t really know. I ran away as fast as I could."
"Did you get a clear look at who they were? Was this a gang attack, or something else?"
The man shook his head. "No idea. It was chaos, but we all know whose restaurant it is…" He looked into the camera with unease. "This city isn’t safe anymore. It’s like the war everyone thought was over… it’s back."
The camera cut back to the reporter.
"Thank you for your time. We’ll bring you more as it comes in, but for now, the advice from local authorities is clear, avoid downtown."
"I hope we can really do something with the panic." Thomas said as he was writing some documents and papers.
"Military uniforms… they’re going to cut out that one sentence and it’s going to be all over the news…" Linda whispered it because it was the truth and that’s how the news worked.
All the news who did interviews just wanted words they could put out to cause more panic and outrage, and the interviewee who just said ’military uniform’ did exactly that. Said something that the news will cut out from the interview and put in all the headlines.
"Cartel." Thomas said again. "I mean, we will spread that lie, won’t we? We can add pictures of how they looked and operated and people will believe that’s it." He looked down again, writing something down, and then Benjamin arrived too, stepping into the office with a stack of documents in his hands.
"This is it." He said, putting it down on the table.
"What?" Linda asked, confused by it.
"The false and fabricated report on Isabella’s so-called raid, and it also includes the evidence from the past investigation, so I just connected them to this raid and it’s done. The perfect one."
"What?" Thomas asked as he threw down his pen and picked up one of the document folders, and it was true, like a detailed description about the operation, the evidence from the past they got. He was in disbelief, as much as Linda, because there was no way he did it that fast, it was impossible to do it alone, this much… yeah, alone…
"Who helped you?" Linda asked as she too ran through one of the folders.
Benjamin smiled. "Well, when I came back from Isabella’s house, my genius people already started working without a rest."
"What?!" Linda suddenly got up from her seat. "You did what?!"
"Whoa, don’t scream at me." Benjamin said. "I have people I trust, so I put them on it and they did all of it, the official report on Isabella… and don’t come at me with bullshit. I trust them, they trust me, and moreover, they trust James too. So yeah, I did my job."
Well, yeah, Benjamin did it, or more over, the people who worked since Isabella died, without even a rest… but at least he was done with his part. But it also just worried Linda more.
They or at least she wanted to keep it very secretive and those people who actually knew about it were ones who weren’t connected to the government, like the military personnel they wanted to give to James, the outsourced ones. But now Benjamin just did exactly the opposite and gave the work on a false report into his agency’s hands.
"How many people worked on it?" She asked as she eyed him.
"Like 60 or maybe a bit less." Benjamin answered, and it just caused more pain to Linda. Her stomach hurt from the vomit, her mouth, her throat, all of it, and she still smelled the scent of the blood and everything and on top of it, now Benjamin just caused even more pain with his dumb decisions… or it wasn’t dumb at all, because then she remembered something.
Benjamin made headlines on his own when he became a director. He was all over the news, firing hundreds of agents for bribery, corruption, leakings, basically, he was building an agency that was intact and he could use how he wanted. And not just that, he also built his own team with people he trusted and knew he could grab with something.
That something was the sheer disgust against the government.
Agents are people too, they have emotions, and their view on the government, on politics… but of course agencies and agents shouldn’t participate in political discussions because they aren’t serving political figures but the country and its people.
But how should they look past the political point of it when the country, a big chunk of it is in despair thanks to the corruption?
So Benjamin exactly looked for those agents who had the same feeling like him, who he could trust, get on the same point and in the end, he did it.
He made his own agency… a branch of the NSBI, that sole purpose is to help cover up and help future operations on the side of James Bellini.
"You know what, I don’t fucking care." She said as she threw back the folder. "If you have time, then at least help us." She said as she picked up another one and started writing down shit… shit that would be the official report, or at least the beginning of it.
It was clear that they couldn’t finish the report on it overnight, well, Benjamin did, but for them, Thomas, Stephen, and Linda, they just needed to write a couple of pages with some details, and with that they can control the narrative and spread misinformation. Because these reports wouldn’t become public for everybody, no, the official report would only go up to the cabinet, to the president, and other law enforcement and ministries.
So, to make it somewhat believable, they just write the beginning of it with enough information that will chain down everybody, enough information to only get a taste of it and keep them interested, but not enough to actually dig in. At least, they hope. Well, Benjamin’s report was done, even though with help, it was good for them too.
The hundreds of pages that Benjamin’s people wrote gave them enough time to finish theirs, because it will go to the High Court and to everybody else in the chain of command, but they will just put it to the side.
Why? Because there’s one more thing that helped him.
The death of Carter.
That would get all the spotlight, in the chain of command, in the government, in the public, they will care about that more than a shootout or the death of a gangster.
"So, which agency is going to blame which?" Thomas asked as he looked up.
"The same old ones. NSBI, the ISB, and the IF all of them." Linda muttered as she speed-wrote everything so fast that she couldn’t read it herself.
"What about the Secret Service?" Benjamin said as he too was writing down something.
"They will be the most blamed ones. But forget about Carter, because that would be the President’s job." Linda said, and they all looked up at her.
"The President?"
Yes, it was the President’s duty to ensure that, through his speech, he would spread misinformation, lies, and most importantly try to control the public and shape the narrative.
Operation Countdown has started.
