"Well… we knew so of the cartel mbers were working with governnt officials." Stephen said as he sighed.
"Not just that, but it's actually an ace card we can use, doesn't it?" Thomas asked, looking at Linda, who was still a bit disoriented, though she already knew what to say.
"Yeah… we don't even need to lie about it or make anything up. It's just going to work on our side." She looked at Thomas. "One of the governnt officials with a cartel mber, the public is going to cheer us, and the whole operation will have aning to them, not just a senseless murder. At least this one." She paused, realizing that even if it worked in their favor… a child and a wife, and who knows how many already died during this operation… they had only seen one body cara.
"Well, we can fra this to everybody else." Thomas already thought about it as he spoke. "Like we can say the Sinatra cartel infiltrated the governnt officials, and with that they could get their hands on secret information or sothing like this… and people will not ask more about it, they will just want every one of them dead or behind bars."
"That's not good though." Stephen spoke again. "What picture does it paint to the civilians, to the public, even to other countries?" he asked as he shook his head. "Is our governnt so fragile that a cartel could so easily infect it, break it apart, and so on?"
Silence followed as they all thought about it and it was pretty true. It just put them in a bad position. All the relations with other countries, the trade position, everything would be shaken by this, that a governnt official made a deal with the cartel. Though there was one thing about it… everybody already knew it.
"It works for us too." Linda said as she finally sat down, still a bit disoriented. "Everybody, all of our allies, trade partners, political partners, they all knew for a long ti that our governnt is a pile of shit. It was actually a joke. But now, with this…" she looked up, her tone more serious, "everybody will get a new understanding, that we're stepping up. And with that, we put ourselves in a new position… opening new doors, new opportunities."
Stephen looked at her for a mont, then sighed. "You think that's how they'll see it? That we're cleaning things up, not falling apart?"
Linda nodded slowly. "It depends on how we move next. If we show strength and continue with it, if we act like this was part of a bigger plan, people will believe it."
"Or they'll think we're desperate." Thomas joined in. " That we finally realized the rot's gone too deep and now we're just cutting off the infected parts before it spreads."
"That's not far from the truth either." Stephen said. "But the thing is… it has already spread through decades. The corruption, the deals, the silence, it's been here longer than any of us have served. And with this operation, with the National Ergency, we're finally showing will. That was our plan from the beginning, to show our will to change, to stop the rot from spreading any further. And second." he paused for a mont, looking around the table, "everything we're doing now, all the sacrifices, all the risks… they're going to reward one person."
"Our President." Linda whispered.
Everyone in the room knew it. Even if they were the face of the National Ergency, even if they were the ones carrying the burden, the blood, and the bla, the one person who declared it, who had the power to make it official, was the President himself. And no matter how many thousands of n worked behind the scenes, no matter how many operations succeeded or failed, the glory would still go to him. No one else.
But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, maybe it was exactly what they needed. The success would strengthen political power both nationally and internationally, it would make their governnt look firm, decisive, sothing people could believe in again. It would give new opportunities for rebuilding what had been lost in the chaos.
"Though we didn't think about one important thing." Stephen mumbled a bit as he looked at Linda. "There are a lot of politicians on the list and a lot of them have already died… but who's going to step into their positions?"
Yeah, well… that was sothing they really didn't think about. All of their focus and concentration went into planning the operations, making sure everything worked perfectly. They didn't even stop to think for a mont about what kind of power vacuum it would create… killing this many governnt officials.
In short, it could collapse the whole system. Sure, losing one or two ministers doesn't really change much, but ten, fifteen, twenty… that's sothing else entirely. That can create real chaos because it's not just about the people themselves, it's about the roles they hold, the ministries they run, and the influence tied to them. Each one wasn't just a person, they were part of an entire network, a structure that kept the system balanced, corrupt or not.
It was clear that none of them worked alone. Every minister had people behind them assistants, advisors, secretaries all part of the sa rotten machinery. When one fell, the whole ministry trembled with him.
That's why the Anti-Corruption Agency, which was basically a mix of NSBI, ISB, and IF agents, was raiding the ministries, breaking through offices, and getting their hands on every docunt, every assistant, every secretary, to interrogate them and find out who else was involved.
This whole operation was truly on another level, sothing they had never seen before.
"It's not our job to appoint new ministers." Linda said as she closed her eyes for a bit, trying to relax in the middle of the bullshit. "It's a National Ergency, and the President can appoint people without any vote or confirmation from anybody else… so we just hunt while the political moves are being done in the office."
"True, we just hunt them down if it's necessary." Thomas said as he looked back at the screen where the raid was still ongoing and for a second he saw sothing very… interesting. "Was that… Benjamin?" He asked kinda shocked and confused why the fuck is he on the screen.
As Linda heard it she imdiately jumped from her seat, looking at the screen and when the technician switched to that body cara, yeah, it was him.
Smiling with a cigar in his mouth.
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