[IC] [TWI ONLY]The Thuzbek Crisis

[Thuzbekistan]

Prime Minister's Office
Grand Palace
Ashluv, Thuzbekistan

Back arched, hands straight on the lap, smile wide, eyes up.

Yonca Nuray repeated these simple commands over and over as men in suits filed past her into the room. Though none of them spoke or even acknowledged her existence, she could still see the worry etched into their faces. The deep wrinkles furrowed into permanent frowns on the older ones while younger men simply seemed to be made of stone. Each carried large files and bowed slightly to the Prime Minister as they took their seats in the office. Only one ever even looked at Yonca and it was not kind. Still, Yonca smiled up at him as she had been trained to do. As the men took their seats and made their quick small talk, Yonca readied both the recorder and her typewriter, specially made to record these verbal meetings. She wiped her keys off and positioned everything perfectly. An aide drew the curtains in the room, cloaking the men from the noise of the protests outside. Finally, the soft murmuring ceased as the Prime Minister stood.

"Let this meeting now be in session."

Click

The Prime Minister sat back down and looked around the men seated before him. "I know each of you have much to say, but let's try to keep this organized. This session is regarding the protesters and the delicate situation we now have to deal with. There will be no talk of what led us here. Only how to proceed. Is that understood?" The men nodded in the affirmative, though some seemed red under the collar. "That being said, we need an update. Let's start with the FWC. Mr. Arzul, please give us your summary. How bad is the strike?"

Azul Barshlan opened his file and placed it on the table. "It's affecting every industry across the board. Workers have not shown up for shifts, we have several prominent sit-ins in both the Baslovian Shipyards and the factories in Bashlon. Basically, our entire system is being held hostage. Every day we don't produce and export is a day we are losing."

"How long can we go on like this?"

"Without deep and long term consequences? We are looking at two to three weeks."

"Alright," the Prime Minister said slowly. "Mr. Abdullah, why hasn't the National Police ended the sit-ins and stopped these protests? What is your situation."

"My situation is a lack of resources, willpower and manpower to carry out the necessary police operations that would end this. We simply do not have enough men, nor can we get enough men, to force people to work. This strike is also not a violent one- they simply refuse to work. We arrest where we can, but this act of civil disobedience is beyond the ability of law enforcement to end. Without-"

"Without what?" a man at the end of the table demanded. "Without more men? Armored cars? Rubber bullets? You have all of those and more with my units in the streets."

Abdullah's face fell into an expressionless glare as the man spoke. "General Murat, I was not implying that the Army is not enough, only that the situation is not easily contained and is growing worse by the day." He looked down to the Prime Minister. "Mr. Prime Minister, force alone is not going to solve this and soon the protests will have grown and spread so much that we won't be able to contain it any longer. We need more men, but we also need a solution that doesn't just beat them into submission. Either way, the Army can only provide so much help."

"There can't possibly be enough help in the world to calm the situation while the Police are in charge, Mr. Prime Minister!" General Murat glared at his younger counter-part as he said it. "We need to be in charge of this, not the Police. Putting more men under their control is a mistake."

"General, that will be enough." The Prime Minister's tone was cold and unwavering. "The Army will not have control of this situation. That is the end of that. Do you have anything more to add to this meeting other than the finger pointing that I explicitly forbade at the beginning of this?" The General was silent. "OK, then you and the Director may leave." Both men stared back in shock, their eyes widening. They both quickly composed themselves, then started to grab their files. "You'll be leaving those. Thank you."

The men shared a look of disbelief, then marched out of the door. As they passed Yonca, she could practically smell the anger from the sweat of their balled up fists. She simply smiled and continued typing.

"Alright," The Prime Minister said as he relaxed. "Commander Hikmet, I read your proposal before the meeting. Do you think your troops could handle it?"

"We could be deployed in the streets within 48 hours and have all affected work sites operating normally within a week."

"Or," Adil Maksym spoke before the Prime Minister, "you start a real revolution and force the marines to use lethal force against the protesters which escalates the revolution to a civil war. It's the path nearly every Thuzbek revolution has started on including the Red Revolution." He turned to the Prime Minister. "TSN doesn't just produce propaganda. We analyse every bit of public polling data we can get our hands on. You have the information and no doubt your intelligence services have already told you this, but we are walking a very thin line. We react with more force, we may fail to prevent the preventable. We can't just beat this strike into submission. We have to discredit it."

"Is that not your job?" Hikmet slumped back in his chair, already tired of this. "Isn't TSN supposed to discredit them?"

"We can't just make shit up, Commander. We need something to work with. A single event can change the course of a crisis, but we can't do anything until something changes." He looked around the room. "To be quite honest, we all look like shit in this. If you guys don't change something, it will be changed for you. Give us something to work with."

The Prime Minister waved them both aside. "Thank you, gentlemen." He looked to Adil. "I understand the situation perfectly. We will give you something to work with soon. As always, your complete cooperation is greatly appreciated." The Prime Minister looked across the table to the last man. "Atilla, have you figured out who is actually in charge of this new coalition? How did you lose our majority?"

Atilla let out a deep sigh. "I didn't lose it, Allaatin. It was taken from me."

Commander Hikmet rolled his eyes heavily. "You're the Vanguard chairman, Lutfi. How the fuck did they take it from you?"

"I don't know. I don't. We did everything we could to stop it, but the conservatives, without a leader, have united the opposition and are working with the Islamic Socialists." He leaned forward and looked the Prime Minister in the eye, tapping the table with his finger as he spoke. "I put all the feelers out politically. I used every available resource. But I do not know who is in charge of this new coalition. My worst fear, Mr. Prime Minister, is that there is no leader. This may be individual members of parliament actually voting against us, waging a war of personal interest."

Director Zeki spoke finally. "I can confirm this. We've monitored all the communications in Parliament to the best of our abilities. There is no central person in parliament who is receiving an unusual amount of inter-party calls or communications. The data alone is not revealing a central actor in the coalition. At this point, Emin Vedat and the opposition chairman are simply formalizing by action what is essentially a gentlemen's agreement. We can't get rid of them except by simply arresting them or allowing for an election, which would most likely empower them if we cannot discredit these protesters."

"And to that end, Director, do you have anything to add? I noticed in your report you had new information." Prime Minister Cihangir leaned into the table. "Please tell me we have something on these 'organizers'."

Zeki nodded. "As you know, we have been monitoring several Union leaders since before the strikes began and doubled down on that when strikes started getting organized in the chatter. We have especially focused on what we consider national security threats. Fire Unions, Police units, opposition politicians, you name it. One of these threats is the Air Traffic Controller Union. These guys could cripple our infrastructure in a single day. And now, we know that the union director has been reaching out to a group he refers to as the 'People's Cabal Against Tyranny', or PCAT. These must be the organizers we keep hearing from."

"Damn." Arzul leaned back. "If they strike it would just cripple us. There's not enough trained controllers to replace them either."

"And they know that," Zeki continued. "It's obviously a dangerous situation."

"Ok," Cihangir said slowly. "What do we do about it?"

"I propose we let it happen."

A laugh burst from Adil. "You can't be serious! We need to discredit them, not enable them!"

Zeki simply smiled. "So far, we haven't been able to pinpoint how this PCAT is communicating. We know auto-generated TWItter accounts are their method of mass communication, but we don't know who they are, we don't know how they talk, and we don't know who they are connected to. If we let this union director, a-" Zeki looked at his file as he stammered. "A Mr. Furkan get in contact with them, we have everything we need to be able to bust this 'cabal'. We could end this now."

The room fell silent as the Prime Minister leaned back. "So, we could find them and end their organization."

"Yes, sir. Absolutely."

Cihangir frowned as he thought about it. "What if we let them not only contact the PCAT, but let them strike?"

"But that would cripple us!" Arzul shook his head. "We can't let essential personnel strike. It damages the national security, as Zeki has said."

"What are you proposing, Mr. Prime Minister?" Zeki asked.

"I propose that we kill two birds with one stone." He leaned forward. "We let them strike. Completely. Encourage it if we have to. Then, we bring in some scabs. People from smaller airports. Kids off the street. I don't care. But put them in the towers and plant a couple of our guys. One or two incidents in the air and even a few fires burning if the Firemen's union joins. We can auto-generate an account just like them. Then we can discredit the protests, provide an excuse for the marines to take over, and take out this 'cabal' all in one fell swoop."

"That's risky as can be," Commander Hikmet said slowly. "But I love it."

"Of course you do," Adil said. "But if it works, I'll be able to run with it. And no worries about the Baslovian house, they'll be in line."

Cihangir ignored them. "Can it be done, Zeki?"

"Absolutely."

"Then make it happen. Hikmet, I want your marines ready to deploy at all times. Adil, you know how to run it. Once it starts, keep the pressure on. Especially out of the publishing houses. Arzul, this may take a while, so start getting a plan together on keeping the nation running."

"It'll be on your desk tomorrow," Arzul said.

"What about Parliament," Atilla asked softly.

"We will just have to deal with that later."

Atilla nodded.

"Then this meeting is adjourned. You gentlemen know what to do."

Yonca finished typing, then closed her computer and reached over to the microphone and turned it off. As she was packing her things up, the men began filing out. Before he left, Zeki stopped in front of her desk.

"Ms. Yonca, please delete that recording. Whoever allowed it to be made was mistaken."

Yonca looked up at him, surprised. "But the Prime Minister-"

"The Prime Minister will appreciate what you will have done for him. Do it."

She paused, her mouth hanging open, then collected herself and smiled. "Of course, sir."

"Thank you, darling."

[Thuzbekistan]

TIS Headquarters
Grand Palace
Ashluv, Thuzbekistan

Below the grandeur of the Palace and all its marble and paintings, there is a door. The door was coded, guarded, and strictly limited to TIS personnel. If you made it through that door, then you would walk down a large hallway that gently sloped further and further down. Before long, the sloping roof and floor flatten out and you approach a sort of lobby, if it could be called that. Screens surrounded a row of desks with news stations around the world playing at all times. Here, in the open, the experts of various fields kept tabs on the Isle's news while others stared into screens filtering results of algorithms that searched forums and social media for anything of interest. Today, they all focused on the protests outside and monitored open sources for reactions by other nations, especially Ostehaar.

But this room was not meant for Sadi. Instead, he made his way through the maze of desks and into a smaller hallway lined with coded doors and watched carefully by security personnel via the cameras at every angle. It was darker and cooler in this hallway as servers hummed throughout it, their sound just barely making it through the thick walls. As Sadi finally came to the end of the hallway, he punched in his code and entered the room that was his and his alone. The hum of the servers was louder here and the smell of coffee bombarded him. The others had been up most of the night watching these screens.

"Morning Sadi," one of them said as he stood.

"Morning." Sadi looked over a note attached to his desk. "No activity on the controller?"

"No, sir. We've been monitoring everything from his cell phone to his computer. We are in his home wifi and can see him as well. He hasn't stepped out or acted suspiciously. However, we have found traces on his computer of what looks like a secure chat program."

"Good." Sadi put the note down and walked with the man to the coffee station. "Has he activated it in the last 24 hours?"

"No,but from what we can tell, he has downloaded it at regular intervals. Almost weekly. In fact," the man checked his watch. "We should be seeing him download it again in about an hour. We should be able to not only log his every keystroke, but see everything he does."

Sadi continued stirring his coffee as he spoke, then took a long sip. "Good, Aslan. Good. And if the program has any anti-spyware stuff?"

"Haven't found any trace of it, but it shouldn't be a problem if there is."

"Good, let's get to it then."

The men walked slowly to their desks each taking a seat behind the glow of their monitors. But even as they sat, another tech jumped up. "Hey! We've got him logging into his computer early. Everything is connected."

"Good. Keep a watch on it."

Sadi turned his monitor on and connected to the program. He watched as Furkan installed the program.

"No anti-virus," Aslan said. "Definitely an amateur."

No one responded as they watched him connect, typing in a 12 digit code.

Sadi smiled. "Did we get that logged?"

"Got it."

Within seconds, the chat appeared and Furkan began to type.

ATC: Sorry I'm late. Took a minute to get away from work.

PCAT1: No worries. Did you receive our offer?

ATC: Yes. I can do it.

"Aslan, you getting this recorded?"

"Yes, sir. Trying to trace the source now."

Sadi nodded.

PCAT1: When?

ATC: It can start Wednesday.
Is there a way I can meet with you guys? I'm not good with this tech stuff.

PCAT1: It's the most secure way we can do this. You never know who is in your computer.

A low snicker came across the room.

ATC: I suppose. Either way, we can do it.

PCAT1: Good. You won't be the only ones. Many other "essential personnel" have been contacted.

"Got it!" Alsan yelled out. "Got this guys IP. He's in Baslov."

"Probably the shipyard workers Union, then," Sadi said. "We aren't seeing the full picture."

ATC: For Allah and Thuzbekistan, Brother.

PCAT1: For Allah and Thuzbekistan.

The chat ended and they watched as Furkan uninstalled it, then closed out his computer. Through the webcam, they watched him pick up his cell phone and begin to text before the webcam was shut down.

"Do we have that?"

"We have his phone hacked, but we aren't getting those messages. It could easily be through a third party app. There's plenty of them out there."

Sadi cursed under his breath. "We need more. I'll have to talk to Zeki." He pointed to the younger Tech. "Get a report typed up and on my desk. We need to figure out how they are communicating, we need to get some eyes on this PCAT1, and we need to know more about who in these unions is starting this."

"Sadi," Aslan leaned back. "These guys have been coached in security. Despite that program not doing scans, it was heavily encrypted. If we hadn't been literally watching this guys screen, then we wouldn't have been able to get a single word of this conversation. It's some heavy duty stuff. Someone gave them this."

"Include it in the report, Aslan. That's all we can do."

Director's Zeki's Office

"So what are you telling me, Sadi?" Zeki said as he put the file down. "You were able to trace the source to one of the PCAT guys, they're going to start the strike on Wednesday, and you don't know how the offer was actually received by Furkan or how he is communicating with the rest of the ATC Union?"

"Pretty much, sir."

"Damn. I'll get some people on PCAT1, but you guys need to dive into this Union matter. What about the other unions? Essential personnel? Are we seeing the same with them?"

"Not as far as we can see. The Fire and EMS services are clean. The Local policeman's unions all scan their devices regularly. It would take a lot of luck to get what we have on Furkon." Sadi closed his laptop and put it in his bag. "The biggest thing is we still don't know how many Union leaders are in this 'PCAT'. We could be looking at only 4 or 5, but we could also be looking at up to 100. There's not much to go on."

"The affected industries only number 7 right now. We know the tech industry is heavily involved, as are the mining and shipyards. There's at least 8 as it stands, then. Very likely to be more." Zeki rubbed his beard as he said it. "We need eyes on all of them. I'm going to give you two more teams to focus on this as well."

"Even with that, I don't know how much it will help." Sadi thought for a moment. "I need ground teams, especially in Bashlon, Baslov, and Ashluv. We need to be tapping directly into these guys data lines. We can't do much through remote hacking with this kind of thing. We need to tap everyone."

"We will get it done, Sadi. Just keep your teams working."

"Yes sir."