Excerpt
Now is the winter of our discontent, Rick quoted while daydreaming, hoping the madness before him would stop. Our world is doused in gasoline, and while we vote on whether we should call it gas or petrol, a dark stranger lights a match and approaches. As they tally the ballots, the match drops and fire fills the sky. The people raged in disbelief that good men could fail so completely.
The room smelled of emotionally charged sweat. Men, arguing about the way ahead. The catalyst? A single sheet of paper with a single paragraph. The cover sheet marked TOP SECRET//COMINT-GAMMA //ORCON/NOFORN, was cast aside, long since forgotten. Very few people in the country were allowed access to it. Even fewer actually read it.
Rick sat along the wall, a mid-level analyst without a seat at the big table.
He read the message before the meeting. One terrorist talking to another, translated, analyzed, condensed, re-analyzed, and reported. The analysis was odd, so he dug into the system and pulled the original analysis before it was reduced to one alarming paragraph. Then he pulled the first translation of the original conversation and finally he pulled up the conversation itself, in its native Arabic.
He didn't speak Arabic, but he had friends who did. He ran it by them. Their translation was different. The report with the analysis of the analysis of the translation was wrong. And the men in the meeting haggled over their interpretations as if they held the Holy Grail in their hands.
Rick fidgeted, waiting for the opportunity to take the stage, deliver his conclusion and how he arrived at it. But would they listen? He waited until his boss, Colonel Tom Alexander, US Army Retired leaned back.
Rick whispered in his ear, "Sir, they have it all wrong. I pulled the original material and got another translation. It's different. I think we need to stop the madness and start with a new look." The Colonel nodded, excusing himself from the meeting, motioning Rick to follow as he worked his way toward the door.