Chapter 166 - Propaganda (2/2)
”I expected the Blyths to be here as it was possibly started by them, but I see that even the Khans have better access to information in the council than us,” muttered Anas as he moved towards Anwar along with Aquib and Zubair.
”Ah! Anas, I was just looking for you,” said Anwar as he saw coming towards him. ”He is my brother Anas,” he introduced Anas to the four standing behind him. ”We can resume our discussion right now, if you are willing to do so,” said Anwar looking at one man who nodded in agreement.
”I will convene an official meeting with the family members once we are done with our deliberations. It wouldn't take much time. So, I request all of you to get back to you rooms. A simple online conference from your rooms will suffice,” said Anwar sending off the people.
”Anas, get in. You two can come and observe, but no talk,” continued Anwar as he led Anas, Aquib and Zubair along with the other four back inside his quarters.
Anwar's quarters were quite spacious with a couple of sofa and chairs having more than enough space for all eight of them. He had the habit of receiving most guests in his quarters and even regularly held meetings there. So, it was no different from a VIP reception hall with drinks and other refreshments readily available. It could also isolate all communications with the world outside for similar reasons.
”This is my brother Anas and those two are our children, Zubair and Aquib,” introduced Anwar.
”Mr. Bismail and Mr. Sumail are representatives of the Khan family,” said Anwar introducing two of the men who nodded in response. ”Lady Elaine Blyth and Mr. Marcus Price represent the Blyth and Price families. They also carry information from the alliance armed forces about the attack. They have been informing us about how they managed to track and bring down the Nirbaadh pirates.”
”As we need to discuss further cooperation between our forces, we decided to call for you so that we have all relevant personnel before we begin,” said Marcus Price.
”At the end of the attack, the survivors split into three different groups with Asarugana ShouryaPrasad and his two nephews leading them, individually,” started Elaine.
”For obvious reasons, we focused our attack on ShouryaPrasad and managed to kill him. We have his body. After him, we went after their current captain, Asuragana RanaPratap and our men are still tracking him. He made his way towards the border while his brother in another direction with the majority of the men in a large ship about a tenth of the size of the UNHINDERED,” said Elaine.
”A tenth of its size? How could there be such a large vessel in the ship?” asked Bismail shocked by her words.
”The ship could actually be separated into five different parts. Apart from that there were three other vessels which separated from the UNHINDERED, but we blasted them to rubble. Rana Pratap ran away in a smaller vessel to lead us away from the others. Quite a valiant effort and it did yield results. We were after him and failed to pursue the others,” explained Marcus.
”That brings us to our present predicament. We have the general direction of their escape and would like you to take charge of it,” said Elaine.
”Why us? Why don't you do it yourselves?” asked Bismail. He was very confused by the request. They clearly have enough personnel to pursue the remnants however deep they try to escape into alliance underworld.
”It is like this. We have released information of the attack to the entire alliance as an act of the armed forces. Most of the tracking and planning was done by Walter Blyth and Evelyn price. You know their usual clandestine operations. They don't want trails, but this became a big issue due to their escape and quite a number of people would be in danger from these pirates. These ones are just the grunts and wouldn't have in reliable information about the knights. We also don't want to give them the chance to resurface and kill them as quickly as possible,” explained Marcus.
”The Price family and my own have fought them in the shadows for quite a few decades, but he public are unaware of that or any losses we had during these tussles. We would like it to remain as such. It would provide a fast and complete conclusion if we could inspire others in the underworld to serve our purpose,” said Elaine.
”For putting on a bounty or to pursue them openly, you need a reasonable cause, especially the Price family,” said Anas looking from Elaine to Marcus who nodded.
”You are the best option for that. We are willing to let you take the remains of the UNHINDERED and ShouryaPrasad. If Rana Pratap is found, his body would also be given to your families. Your patriarchs have already agreed to this offer,” said Marcus.
”After the entire attack, our families would hunt the remains of the pirates, even if you didn't ask for it. But you are offering us their bodies to let us use it as a trophy and give the world the impression that we actually were involved in the attack and finally won our battle against them. What's the catch? What do you actually want?” asked Anas.
The same doubts were also in the minds of the other men in the room. It felt extremely illogical for the Price and Blyth families to push their achievements to others. The Price family would be considered to be responsible too because of the involvement of the alliance armed forces, but they couldn't understand the reasoning behind the actions of the Blyth family.
”We just want you to look for few details in return. Dharma Pratap, Rana's brother might have some information that we would like to extract,” added Elaine. ”Another person is Dave. We don't know much of him, but any person with that name has been known to be in contact with the Nirbaadh Pirates and probably even the knights. We just want you to help us search for him openly and if you find either of them, we would like to take hold of them first.”