DRAUMRS - Dreamweavers - Book Two

27- Traitors

Armand and Jake had flown immediately to London after both sides gave orders to disperse the teams in Shenzhen. Reluctantly, Gloria also left the dacha, as concern for her daughter now outweighed continuing her close relationship with Cherry, for the time being. Her partner, Lord Black, had pledged complete support and the best of medical care in London to help Lulu through an expected lengthy recovery. Water was invited over, but he now deferred to Jack, who would become the Green Clan Elder at the next convening of the First Circle in the dreamscape Halls.

Although not all attenders understood the reasons for co-location, a physical meeting of the Elders and able fighters was quickly scheduled at Lord Black's bank headquarters in Canary Wharf. The executive board room was secure from any sort of electronic monitoring. Participants arrived via different entry points to the building and at different times. To the young Draumrs, who had been provided with business attire for the meeting, it all seemed like needless cloak and dagger, given that they knew their enemy and he knew all about them.

The boardroom eventually filled with Armand, Jake, Gloria, Emma and designate Jack Green, making up the majority of the First Circle of Elders. Philip Grey was back to his more formal role of supporting Armand, while Sasha White and Will Green were welcomed and consoled by all on Lulu's absence. Sasha was still sporting a swollen jaw from Xana's blow, but otherwise looked fine. Will, bruised and patched, visibly showed the lasting effects of his fight like a next-day boxer after a 15-round decision.

Tom Brown was a surprise addition and brought some cheer to the group as he was entirely recovered from his near-death attack in Hong Kong days before the others arrived. Each person had the opportunity to personally thank or be thanked by their family members and sponsors. The entire visible greeting process was appropriately open and considerate to all.

Armand waited until the serving staff had left and the doors were securely closed before asking everyone to be seated for what was previewed as the formal debriefing of the G20 encounter. As they had not prevented the confirmed death of the first and likely death of a second world leader, Will and Snow were expecting a highly-critical postmortem.

No-one had voiced: "How could this have happened?" The fighters had asked the question of themselves all the way back to London as they had taken turns with Philip at Lulu's side. Now, she was getting 24-hour care in a private hospital, alive but badly injured. No-one knew how her dreamscape injuries would heal and if she would ever recover her full capabilities. So, in addition to the task failures, they had probably lost a member of their team in the fiasco.

Once all were seated, Armand took the lead in summing up the events of the last 72 hours.

"As you all will know by now, the G20 conference has been cancelled and the world leaders have fled home after the untimely death of the president of Turkey and near-mortal wounding of the prime minister of Russia, as viewed on live television around the world."

He paused as heads nodded in the room. "You will also know that Turkey itself is in a state of turmoil following a series of bomb attacks linked by the press to Syria-based fundamentalists. The death of the president and the attacks have led to the fall of the government. An interim government has declared martial law, but left most Turkish troops on their bases for now. The new government has invited Russia to bring as many as 50,000 troops into Turkey, supposedly to aid with recovery, but also to travel across the country to form an invasion force into Syria. Most of these troops entered the country last night. Suffice to say, they also now provide the new government with the means to sweep out any resistance to the change."

He continued, "These developments and the movement of non-aligned country troops into a NATO country have put that entire organization on high alert, but, for some reason, not prompted any response. As I indicated, Russia has been officially 'invited' into Turkey and is now expected to provide the majority of forces in the ground war to dispatch the remaining caliphate forces from Syria. When all this is completed, Russia will be the dominant world power presence across the northern Persian Gulf territory. We expect a rapid new alliance with Iran to consolidate this control."