27 - Interlude 1
**Vampire Patriarch POV**
Malim had arrived early for his meeting on purpose. As angry as he was at not being able to locate his missing daughter, he had not reached his age without learning to control his emotions or learning patience.
“Greetings, I am from the Daud Mining Consortium for my meeting.” He Introduced himself. “I am an executive, tasked with attending to get further details of the offer.”
“Greeting Sir, unfortunately, you are very early.” said the receptionist. “We are happy to set you up with a spa or gym pass so you don’t have to spend the time here waiting. Alternatively, we can arrange any food or drink that you would like. Of course if you would like to return closer to your meeting time, that would also be fine.”
He responded, “I am happy to wait, please arrange some refreshments.”
“What would you like sir?” asked the receptionist.
“Anything is fine,” he responded.
He took a seat that gave him a good view of the comings and goings. The receptionist came over with a menu, a top shelf whiskey and a folder for him.
He took a quick look at the menu and asked the receptionist to order a few items for him. She retreated to do just that.
He took a look through the folder. It was a little generic blurb on the company, and an offer for the mining business. The offer valued the business fairly, if all the intricate details were known. Normally that would require thorough due diligence to achieve that kind of understanding of his business.
He sent a message to his own head of security to start looking for security breaches in both people and systems. This was once too far. It beggared belief that they just guessed at the number and happened to hit a fair valuation based on luck.
He sat back and assessed the comings and goings of the other executives, He recognised all of them as senior executives from other families with mining concerns. The ones that were either over leveraged, or hiding other things. At least it looked like their desire to purchase into the Malaysian mining business was genuine.
His hearing was excellent, and he heard the majority agree to the deals, generally after reviewing a report that was presented to them during the meeting. This again raised his suspicions. Why would they choose to provide a report in the meeting itself? Normally the reports were provided in advance, to allow the executives to review it. He could only think it was a pressure tactic. Had this company orchestrated a similar attack against all these families to force them to capitulate?
He had no way to look at any of the reports, and did not want anyone to recognise him in any case, so he kept himself to himself and watched the people come and go. He also noticed that the majority agreed to the contracts, but not all. Did that mean they had not managed to find leverage on everyone? And just what were they planning. The combined mining business would be one of the largest in Malaysia and allow them to dominate the sector for decades.
He had asked his own intelligence teams to look into this company. What they found was confusing. The company had been a successful intelligence business until the owner's family had been killed in an accident in this very region. The owner had spent her fortune trying to get answers, but had apparently not made any headway. He had asked his own team to investigate the events surrounding the accident using syndicate resources. He was hoping they would have something for him soon.
In any case the owner Tasha Andersen, had apparently burnt through everything, from money, property, favours and was supposed to have been close to bankruptcy. Then suddenly she had managed to become the sole representative of a venture capital fund, with access to insane levels of wealth.
This had led her to go on a shopping spree, and while his wife would have gone out shopping for luxuries, this woman had decided to start buying up businesses. Now she was here buying up a significant percentage of the Malaysian mining industry.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
There were too many red flags, too many things that had no answers that made any sense. Mostly of all he trusted his danger sense, and it was blaring a warning at him. He would not underestimate this woman.
As he watched the only other person left, a CEO for one of the smaller families, enter the office for his meeting, his phone rang. He took it out, a little annoyed, he had instructed everyone not to bother him, and only send him messages.
“Yes, this better be important.” he stated, “I clearly left instruction not to be disturbed.”
“We may have a problem.” replied a voice he recognised. “Where are you?”
“Ancestor?” he asked tentatively. “How may I serve? I am currently waiting for a meeting with the company who want to buy our mining division. I have a feeling that it is connected to my missing daughter.”
“You asked the intelligence division to look into this Tasha Andersen’s family accident?” asked the Ancestor. “I take it this is also related?”
“She is the owner of the company I am here to meet, ancestor.” replied Malim. ”It looked strange to me, so I wanted further details.”
“It may all be related, though I am not sure how.” replied the Ancestor. “I have ordered the council to provide me with a report. How long before you are due to meet these representatives.”
“The last person just went in.” answered Malim. “Based on the length of previous meetings, perhaps 30 minutes.”
“Wait for my call before you enter that meeting.” replied the Ancestor and hung up.
Just what was going on? Malim was alarmed. The ancestor rarely intruded on any matters in the family. He had not even been in the country yesterday.
Malim had informed him of his missing daughter as a matter of course. He had not anticipated the ancestor getting involved. And what was that about demanding a report from the council? Even Malim would not dare to demand anything from the council, even though he was the head one of the most powerful of the vampire clans. In reality, even he did not know how old or how powerful the ancestor really was.
He had no choice but to wait and obey. He was not full enough to challenge the will of the ancestor. Yet he could not stop himself from asking questions. Questions to which he could gain no satisfactory answers.
The minutes ticked by, he busied himself with taking note of everyone in the immediate area. Nearly everyone in the room seemed to be local. Was this company TA consulting outsourcing all its work to a local firm. Thinking back to what he had learned from him report, it was more likely they had purchased a local company, most likely a legal firm to handle local affairs. Did that mean that the meeting was with a local representative, or had someone flown in?
It was nearly 30 minutes later when his phone rang again. This time he was a lot more polite in answering the call.
“Greetings ancestor.” he said. “What have you learned?”
“Something is very wrong.” stated the ancestor. ”The woman Tasha Andersen, her background is more complicated than we knew. She was in the special forces, and then worked in intelligence. She has landed her own intelligence division in Kuala Lumpur. They have been busy scrubbing all records of her activities. This may be standard practice for her or it may be targeted at us. Even the council can find no detail of the organisation funding her, apart from the name. Myriad Dragon Enterprises.”
“That is all very concerning,” replied Malam. “Still it does not provide any link between our clan and this woman.”
“I was getting to that.” replied the Ancestor. “The council has looked into the accident in which her family was killed. The reason she could not make any headway in her search was because the syndicate had removed all traces of evidence. Her family was killed by a rouge child of our clan. Can you guess who that rouge child was?”
“My daughter?” breathed out Malim.
“Yes, and you will take no action.” responded the Ancestor.
“Why, Ancestor?” asked a now enraged Malim.
“You are too young to know the true history,” replied the Ancestor. “And now is not the time to give you a history lesson. So I shall be brief, listen and listen well. The Syndicate was not formed at the time magic left the world. It is countless aeons older than that. The Syndicate was formed to control the magical community and to allow the humans to thrive. This was done at the behest of the dragons. We thought the dragons left earth long ago. But if they have returned, or worse they stayed hidden all these years, and are now backing this woman. It would mean the whole of the Syndicate could be in danger.”
“How is that possible?” asked a shocked Malim. “I thought dragons were a myth.”
“If they have returned, you will learn how wrong you are.” replied the Ancestor. “Even a juvenile could wipe out all life on the planet by accident. You are to take extreme care in your interactions, and control your behaviour. There is too much we don’t know. Our very existence could be at stake.”
“As the Ancestor wills” responded Malim through gritted teeth.