The group fronted by Abdullah seems to have reached a point where it needed to develop a media presence. Dissatisfied with their continuing portrayal in Western media as a threat, often with terrorist overtones, they sought to offer Christine Gardiner oversight of a project to create and market a changed, non-threatening image for the group. They made her a substantial offer to carry out this task. Our reports suggest a figure that is not quite credible, so it will not be quoted here. Christine Gardiner, however, certainly accepted the challenge, and as a consequence she defected to our adversary, and did so mid-assignment. Under the circumstances, you will appreciate that this left us with only one course of action.
The couple’s lodging of their itinerary from Sandakan gave us the opportunity we needed. We had a unit of our special forces in place within twenty-four hours, and they soon located Laut Emas in the Sulu Sea. Once they had the boat under surveillance, our people could choose their moment. I can confirm that their assigned task was completed early yesterday morning, local time. I refer you to the preceding press reports, whose placement must begin later this week, giving us forty-eight hours to finalise a plan of action in relation to One-On-One.
The story will develop as follows. First we create the circumstances for the discovery of Green’s body, and then we immediately publish the first press release. The timetable for subsequent follow-up has been indicated earlier, at the head of each new proposed press statement. No accurate timing can be ascribed to Ms Gardiner’s demise, of course, since no body will be discovered, merely enough organic material to facilitate genetic analysis. Selected debris from the boat will be placed by our operatives, who are still on site. A small payment to a local fisherman will secure his report that he discovered the material in his nets. The continued loyalty of the individual is guaranteed, but also immaterial, since, as a local, barely literate fisherman, any future change in his position could be easily dismissed as opportunism.
The boat, of course, has already been disposed of, apart from those few items we must distribute in order to have it positively identified. It will not, and indeed can not be found. Abdullah has also been dealt with, but we see profit in his identity not being confirmed. This means that his status may always be referred to as ‘missing’ or ‘disappeared’, so his presence may be resurrected at any time in the future, whenever a story might need an input of conspiracy or threat.
I must stress the need for us to decide as soon as possible, certainly within the next two days, on our plan of action in relation to the One-On-One material, some of which is already in the public domain, and so cannot be simply ignored. There appear to be three options.
One, we could simply bury it. Respect for Ms Gardiner’s memory would be our justification. The perceived problem is that some of her professional colleagues know the programmes are all recorded and some material has already been viewed by them. A public request that the material be broadcast would then render Option One untenable.
Option Two is to publicise Ms Gardiner’s demise, but not her defection. The programmes may then be broadcast as planned as a tribute to her work and memory. An edit will be needed to stress the threat posed by Abdullah. The non-identification of his body after the accident allows the further possibility that we emphasise his desire to silence Ms Gardiner and suppress the interviews, thus providing adequate motive for the subsequent actions that we can report as his.
Option Three is the riskiest, but also perhaps the most convincing, the hardest to implement, but potentially the most durable. This route involves beginning the series as planned by the broadcasting of the first episode of One-On-One as planned. The fate of Colonel Green can then be organised to fit the timetable, and news of Ms Gardiner’s disappearance can then break. As the story progresses, we can judge public opinion, and then either we continue as in Option Two, or we reveal Ms Gardiner’s defection and complicity, and then edit the episodes two and three to suggest the conspiracy. Then, when the human remains are discovered, we also leak the intelligence we have suggesting that Abdullah’s backers wanted rid of him. The story is already written for us, since the interviews clearly indicated just how far he had migrated from his original concerns with purely financial systems. We then can place the blame for the disappearances of Ms Gardiner and Abdullah either on the group of backers, or alternatively on the weather or opportunist pirates, if our on-going approaches to the group in the meantime were to fail.
Your conclusions on the above, or indeed other options, are important.
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