2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) by Robert Storey Read Free Book Online

lower level. He picked up a crystal glass and poured some iced spring water into it from a plain glass jug that had sat off to one side. As he sipped his drink the screens above spooled up information on the schedule of the soon-to-commence summit.
    Joiner used the brief lapse before the endless talk began to take in his immediate surroundings and the people populating it. The Global Meteor Response Council consisted of many departments, some vastly more powerful and influential than others, but all operating, to varying degrees, under the following criteria:
     
    PUBLIC:Activities disclosed to society
     
    COVERT:Activities not disclosed to society
     
    CLASSIFIED:Existence not disclosed to society
     
    The departmental powerhouses, the main players that drove the GMRC’s policies and actions the world over, were as follows:
     
• Subterranean Programme:
Covert & Classified
     
• Space Programme:
Public & Covert
     
• R&D Division:
Covert & Classified
     
• Intelligence Division:
Covert
     
• Population Education:
Public & Covert
     
• Population Control:
Covert & Classified
     
• Economic Control:
Public & Covert
     
• Conservation:
Public & Covert
     
• Resource Control:
Public & Covert
     
• Operations & Military:
Public & Covert
     
• U.N. Integration:
Public
     
• GMRC Oversight:
Public & Covert
     
    At the head of each one of these departments was an elected director, each of whom took their rightful place on the most powerful body of them all, the pre-eminent GMRC Directorate. People not in the know wrongly assumed that the highly classified Subterranean Programme wielded the most clout within the GMRC. This had been the case for the last two decades, but since the underground bases around the world were all but completed the balance had shifted slightly, and Joiner had been quick to exert his authority over the power vacuum that had resulted during this transitionary time. Through his dark lenses he looked over at the chair which held the Subterranean Programme’s Acting Director General, Shen Zh ǔ Rèn, the now controversial Chinese replacement for Professor Steiner, who had been taken ill while on assignment at USSB Steadfast.
    Professor Steiner’s illness was, of course, a fabrication of Joiner’s own making and a deception he had sold to the rest of the GMRC Directorate in a perfectly choreographed display of misinformation, and video and audio manipulation. It was amazing what one could do with video editing software and the political power to push it through. There were mutterings about Steiner’s sudden disappearance in certain circles, but that was inevitable and one imperfection of his plan to get rid of the insufferable professor he could live with. The fact the Subterranean Director General’s stress-induced illness just happened to coincide with USSB Steadfast going into lockdown procedure for the impact of the asteroid AG5 and an inopportune breakdown in the underground base’s communication system was perhaps more difficult to explain away; and yet as the intelligence director he could manoeuvre and subvert those who complained the loudest regardless of their position in the GMRC or otherwise. Joiner not only had an extensive reach, he had allies around the world whose cunning, power and resolve all but matched his own.
    Now that Steiner was out of the picture and the Chinese had caused political and military headaches for the West by attacking Japan and South Korea, Joiner was able to better pursue his more secretive agendas, agendas outside of his GMRC remit and in some cases directly opposed to what the GMRC was trying to achieve. Flicking up his sunshades to reveal the clear lenses beneath, he caught the eye of the R&D director and gave him an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment. The R&D director, Dagmar Sørenson, a sallow, grim-faced individual always seemingly on the edge of a life threatening illness, lifted his hand in reply. Dagmar had proved a key ally to