The Primal War : First Elements Saga Book 1

Chapter 7: A is for Anarchy

As each of the three were introduced, they nodded, making Kennedy the one with the condescending comment.

"Coordinator Jackson, if you could start, please," Rose then said.

"Thank you, director," Jackson, a middle-aged woman of African descent, said, her tone now coolly professional. She then turned to the team as the display wall above their heads came to life and showed the burning Trade Center towers.

"First, a little background: after 9-11, President Bush asked the CIA to form a special division to track non-nation affiliated terror groups internationally. While the Central Intelligence Agency was originally formed to counter threats to our country from enemy states, 9-11 taught us that international terrorism groups not tied to any one country like Al Qaeda now had the resources and the willpower to strike directly at the United States."

Jackson paused there as a world map appeared on the display, pushing aside the dying buildings.

"Without giving a full history lesson, our anti-terror division and the intelligence it gathered from all sources since then have contributed to joint operations with JSOC elements, DEVGRU, and our own Operations branch in several countries including Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, eliminating dozens of high profile, high value targets and dealing serious damage to several terror networks. But these were all against 'traditional' terror groups that were pursuing a political agenda, like Al Qaeda's destruction of America, Daesh wanting to create an Islamic caliphate, and Hamas working towards the destruction of Israel, just to name three."

Jackson looked at Rose as the named countries and operations were highlighted on the map.

"And there’s our first disconnect. Null Faction, formed by hardline elements from those organizations creating partnerships with radical supremacist groups in Europe and North America and several large crime syndicates sometime in the mid 2010's is not a traditional terror group. Instead of focusing on one nation, they declared all nations were corrupt and needed purging in what they called 'the Cull', with the purpose of creating chaos and anarchy, from which a superior human race would arise darwin-like from the ruins.” The CIA officer frowned at that point, folding her arms.

“Which is basically where we lost them. We know they have a presence in every Western country, but beyond that, we know little if anything of their operations, strength, assets, and current objectives.”

Rose nodded then looked at Temple, the NSA rep.

“You said you’ve been catching increased traffic on the dark web indicating a possible Null Faction presence there, Mr. Temple,” he said. Temple nodded before fishing a tablet out of a jacket pocket. Bringing some information up on it quickly, he gave it a scan before he began to talk.

“As Coordinator Jackson indicated, after 9-11, POTUS directed the intelligence community to create and maintain anti-terror divisions within each organization’s umbrella. The NSA, already tasked with monitoring SIGINT, IMINT, and other methods of communication between groups of interest to the United States, dedicated a division to gather counter-intelligence on identified and suspected terror groups moving forward.”

Temple paused there to quickly glance back at his pad.

“Combined with the HUMINT gathered by our sister agency, the CIA, Homeland Security, and the FBI, our counterintel division has identified not Null Faction directly, but a number of criminal enterprises it does business with, purchasing weapons, supplies, and equipment via the dark web,” the officious NSA official indicated.

As Temple spoke, Marcus was quick to note he was a lean, pale fellow that looked more at home with a pair of headphones on, listening to a wiretap, than giving an intelligence briefing. And what was with the acronym driveby?? Like, damn, son! Then his attention was drawn to the efficient looking Burnham, a grim white woman with sharp blue eyes as she began to speak.