Cmdr. Clifton / Coterie / Drastic Measures

[Steve Bruin]

   *** Ornate office : Unnamed planet ***

   Seated at a desk in a very well furnished office, one of the grey-haired men who was part of the ultra secretive group unofficially known as " The Coterie", attended to his duties pertaining to his legitimate interests across the galaxy.  A sudden chirp from one of the monitors on his desk let him know that a classified message was coming in for him, not just any message but one from an associate in the cabal.  Once he had taken a few very necessary security precautions, he switched on the screen.  The person calling was of course one of his partners, a well manicured and well dressed man in his sixties.

Well Manicured Man: Mister Oldham, I'm afraid we have more of a problem than we thought.

Oldham: Sir, you know better than to use my real name over any communique.

Well Manicured Man: Don't worry, we are completely secure.  Our problem is one of the men whom were looking into Senator Silva's activities.  We didn't know who they were, as it turns out one is an Ambassador at large named MacLaren.

Oldham: Pausing for a moment at the gravity of the news : Yes, I've heard of him.  This complicates matters somewhat, have we any idea what alerted them to Silva in the first place?

Well Manicured Man: No, not really.  The woman was never very intelligent in the first place, trusting her was a mistake and now it could the plan in jeopardy.

Oldham: We can't allow that to happen, but at the same time killing him could bring more scrutiny to that base and our people than we'd like.

Well Manicured Man: We have one of our people there now.  What shall I order her to do?

   Oldham rubbed his chin thoughtfully, considering the best way to eliminate the threat of Gavin MacLaren without killing him outright.  After a moment he returned his gaze to the image of his compatriot on the screen.

Oldham: Destroy his mind.

Well Manicured Man: Looking confused :  What?

Oldham: Use whatever means necessary to destroy his conscious mind, it may well look like something arising from natural causes, but I want his entire conscious mind wiped out.  When our people get done with him, I don't even want him to know his own name.

Well Manicured Man: I'm sure our operative in the room can make that happen in short order.  I have not heard from the person we hired, I assume MacLaren's friend is already dead.

Oldham: He had better be, and this whole matter had best be taken care of within a day.  We've come too far already to allow anything to interfere with the plan.

   With that Sir Oldham switched off the channel.

Well Manicured Man

Sir Oldham

Coterie members

simmed by Steve