"What do you mean there's a traitor among us!?" Orlindo asked, he wasn't the only one as everyone else asked the same thing.
Even Remlin, though his question seemed to be more of confusion more than anything, and Orlindo had half a mind to agree. They all had reasons to benefit from this, so why would anyone betray them?
"Sorry, I just needed to get all of your attention," Lady Madam Sir said with a smile.
"Then what thing do you actually wish to tell us!?" Orlando said with a yell, his fist smashing into the table with a great thud.
"Well, my sources say that a document has washed up on the Isles, said document seems to have information that about all our spies, we took the document as soon as we heard of it. Thankfully one of my agents was near to its location and managed to snag it before any info could leak about it."
"So a leak must've happened, not of us but of our servants. I'd say that our last meeting wasn't as secure as I'd like it to have been," Remlin said.
"That's just it though, none of the info we found on the document seems to match up. The info is all wrong, or it knows things any of us should know about some of the agents."
Lady Madam Sir deposited several pieces of paper on the table. Orlindo looked at his paper carefully, dozens of names were on it, each with a description and what command they were supposed to be doing.
Most were completely ludicrous. While there were no big leaps for who was a spy, everyone from Antonio Bolivian to Sigrid Seth was an accomplice for the grand spy plot. If any of this was true then a massive portion of political party representatives and key members of the current Roman political spectrum were spies. Invalidating an entire half of the political factions in an instant.
There were some actual spies as well, with enough evidence arrayed against them for it to be a hundred percent certain.
"This should be a good thing! Hundreds of people of the Roman government would be 'exposed' and with the array of evidence they have racked up. The political opponents would either have to expose scandals or be tried as spies! This seems like a great thing to leak out." Orlando said with a grin.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, if even a fraction of this is believed, it'll be shown that we have violated the Treaty of Paris and have significant control of the Roman government. And don't forget that the people left after this 'exposing' would be the Lupi," Lady Madam Sir said.
The entire mood of the meeting hit a bottom then, with the recent deals with the Red Cross and now this? It looked like just years after the war had ended. A new one was already brewing.
"But we stopped this document from getting out, right?" Francis asked hopefully.
"Unfortunately not, we still haven't caught who made such documents, so new ones are likely on their way as we speak," Lady Madam Sir said somberly.
"But that doesn't mean we give up," Lady said with a grin. "We just need to speed things up, hit a few terrorist attacks up, and leak the documents from our side. Then when we reveal all this, and craft up a narrative of the spies being traitors to us, create an act not of us being the wrongdoers, but of us being the betrayed."
"And do you really think that'll work?" Remlin asked.
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"It won't for everybody, some will still think we had a willing hand in this. But this is our best plan to get the Isles," Lady Madam Sir sighed. No plan survives contact with the enemy, but this was more troublesome than that. They didn't know their enemy. Truly this had Red Cross markings all over it.
But they didn't know that for sure, and the Red Cross was known for being all flash and explosion like savages, craving the sadistic pleasure of flaming Birthed rather than quiet intrigue that could topple a government.
The fact that it had Vat-Born political leaders on it also added some more doubt to the group as well, while all Vat-Born couldn't be trusted this was weird for the Red Cross. The move could've been to cover their tracks by throwing in some Vat-Born leaders, but these leaders were very popular.
Lady Madam Sir felt queasy. She didn't like this, it was dancing to another's tune rather than her own, but they would correct this, no doubt about it.
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"Are you sure about this Mallory?" Jove asked the Spiare Maestro Mallory August. Jove was a small and pudgy man, with black near balding hair and a dozen pounds of fat on his neck. He was the classic example of a bureaucrat.
Mallory was not much better, with a belly that only Santa could match, and a small white beard on his chin. He really did look like Santa if Santa was decked out in around ten pounds of body armor and weapons. His frame was unhealthy to the extreme. So this shouldn't have been possible had it not been for the numerous government Augments that the man had been implanted within his youth.
As one of the few surviving members of the Great War who had seen it start to finish. Mallory was by all accounts the definition of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Though his appearance didn't often show it.
"As sure as I can be, I couldn't get all of the papers but the ones I do have are damning enough."
"Yes, it is."
What both men were referring to was the paper in front of them, the document looked half ripped, but several pages were still intact. Each talked about Italian spies that had or were infiltrating the country, while most were old. A few were new faces.
Mallory was excited about this. Both he and Jove were, this was the blade they needed to strike down the Italians. Should such information that the Italians had sent spies into the country and had left the old ones in their place. It would rock Europe, and plenty of nations would quickly turn against them.
It was a quick and easy win, they release this now. And be done with it, but Jove had other ideas.
"I want all the papers, send teams to scour the empire for the source of this document. We need to find all the spies in this government and strike at them!"
"This seems unnecessary Jove, we could easily strike now and cause the same damage as we could if we wait and collect all the papers."
"That's where you're wrong! The spies we miss could easily try to hit important targets in the empire when the secret is exposed! We need to hit all the spies and their support groups to make sure nothing happens."
Mallory sighed, while Jove sounded like he wanted what was best for the empire he actually just wanted to advance. Jove had been the governor of a state of the Second Roman Empire and had failed to rise farther in the SRE for the last decade. Finally was his chance to not only prove himself but to take out any political opponent in the crossfire.
It was a good plan, though he doubted Jove had the intelligence to make it work.
There was a reason he hadn't made it past his current position for the last decade. Hell, he had only gotten this position because of his blood rather than competence.
It made one think about the failures of the government when it came to situations like these.
Though he doubted he had to think such things much longer. Either Jove succeeds or he failed and died. Either way he had forces ready just in case things went south.
Which reminded him, he was supposed to meet his Granddaughter soon. Wasn't she down south for her first mission?
The Treaty of Paris was the formal end of the Great War. It was signed after the Paris front-lines collapsed, leading to a massive advance of German forces right near the city. The advance only stopping when the Russians made a push deep into Austrian-Hungarian territory. The treaty was signed on April 1st, 1969, but the fighting only ended on the second of April. When the news of the signing of the treaty made it to the Eastern Front. The Treaty largely made the territory of all the participating nations back to before the war. Though some countries got slight increases. Like Germany and their part annexation of Belgium, a year before they annexed it totally due to the government's inability to handle the debt of the nation.
- The Treaty of Paris, Article about the End of the Great war