intelligence services of nations around the world supported Clocktower, despite knowing almost nothing about it. No one knew when it had started, who directed it, how it was funded, or where it was headquartered. When Josh had joined Clocktower three years ago, he had assumed he would get answers to those questions as a Clocktower insider. He had been wrong. He had risen through the ranks quickly, becoming Chief of Intelligence Analysis for Jakarta Station, but he still knew no more about Clocktower than the day he’d been recruited from the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis. And they seemed to want it that way.
Within Clocktower, information was strictly compartmentalized within the independent cells. Everyone shared intel with Central, everyone got intel from Central, but no cell had the big picture or insight into the larger operation. And for that reason, Josh had been shocked to receive an invitation three days ago to a sort of “Summit Meeting” for the chief analysts of every Clocktower cell. He had confronted David Vale, the Jakarta station director, asking him if this was a joke. He’d said that it wasn’t and that all the directors had been made aware of the meeting.
Josh’s shock at the invitation was quickly trumped by the revelations at the conference. The first surprise was the number of attendees: 238. Josh had assumed Clocktower was relatively small, with maybe 50 or so cells in the world’s hot spots, but instead, the entire globe was represented. Assuming each cell was the size of Jakarta Station, about 50 agents, there could be over 10,000 people working in the cells, plus the central organization, which had to be at least a thousand people just to correlate and analyze the intel, not to mention coordinate the cells.
The organization’s scale was shocking — it could be almost the size of the CIA, which had had around 20,000 total employees when Josh had worked there. And many of those 20,000 worked in analysis in Langley, Virginia, not in the field. Clocktower was lean — it had none of the CIA’s bureaucracies and organization fat.
Clocktower’s specials ops capabilities likely dwarfed that of any government on Earth. Each Clocktower cell had three groups. One third of the staff were case officers, similar to the CIA’s National Clandestine service; they worked undercover in actual terror organizations, cartels, and other bad-guy-run groups or in places where they could develop sources: local government, banks, and police departments. Their goal was Human Intelligence, or HUMINT, first-hand intel.
Another third of each cell worked as analysts. The analysts spent the vast majority of their time on two activities: hacking and guessing. They hacked everyone and everything: phone calls, emails, and texts. They combined that Signals Intelligence, or SIGINT, with the HUMINT and any other local intel and transmitted it to Central. Josh’s chief responsibility was to make sure Jakarta Station maximized its intelligence gathering and to draw conclusions about the intel. Drawing conclusion sounded better than guessing, but his job essentially came down to guessing and making recommendations to the Station Chief. The Station Chief, with council from Central, then authorized local operations, which were conducted by the cell’s covert operations group — the last third of the staff.
Jakarta’s covert ops group had developed a reputation as one of Clocktower’s leading strike teams. That status had afforded Josh something of a celebrity status at the conference. Josh’s cell was the de facto leader of the Asia-Pacific region and everyone wanted to know what their tricks of the trade were.
But not everyone was star-struck with Josh — he was glad to see many of his old friends at the conference. People he had worked with at the CIA or liaised with from other governments. It was incredible, he had been communicating with people he had known for years. Clocktower had a strict policy: every
Within Clocktower, information was strictly compartmentalized within the independent cells. Everyone shared intel with Central, everyone got intel from Central, but no cell had the big picture or insight into the larger operation. And for that reason, Josh had been shocked to receive an invitation three days ago to a sort of “Summit Meeting” for the chief analysts of every Clocktower cell. He had confronted David Vale, the Jakarta station director, asking him if this was a joke. He’d said that it wasn’t and that all the directors had been made aware of the meeting.
Josh’s shock at the invitation was quickly trumped by the revelations at the conference. The first surprise was the number of attendees: 238. Josh had assumed Clocktower was relatively small, with maybe 50 or so cells in the world’s hot spots, but instead, the entire globe was represented. Assuming each cell was the size of Jakarta Station, about 50 agents, there could be over 10,000 people working in the cells, plus the central organization, which had to be at least a thousand people just to correlate and analyze the intel, not to mention coordinate the cells.
The organization’s scale was shocking — it could be almost the size of the CIA, which had had around 20,000 total employees when Josh had worked there. And many of those 20,000 worked in analysis in Langley, Virginia, not in the field. Clocktower was lean — it had none of the CIA’s bureaucracies and organization fat.
Clocktower’s specials ops capabilities likely dwarfed that of any government on Earth. Each Clocktower cell had three groups. One third of the staff were case officers, similar to the CIA’s National Clandestine service; they worked undercover in actual terror organizations, cartels, and other bad-guy-run groups or in places where they could develop sources: local government, banks, and police departments. Their goal was Human Intelligence, or HUMINT, first-hand intel.
Another third of each cell worked as analysts. The analysts spent the vast majority of their time on two activities: hacking and guessing. They hacked everyone and everything: phone calls, emails, and texts. They combined that Signals Intelligence, or SIGINT, with the HUMINT and any other local intel and transmitted it to Central. Josh’s chief responsibility was to make sure Jakarta Station maximized its intelligence gathering and to draw conclusions about the intel. Drawing conclusion sounded better than guessing, but his job essentially came down to guessing and making recommendations to the Station Chief. The Station Chief, with council from Central, then authorized local operations, which were conducted by the cell’s covert operations group — the last third of the staff.
Jakarta’s covert ops group had developed a reputation as one of Clocktower’s leading strike teams. That status had afforded Josh something of a celebrity status at the conference. Josh’s cell was the de facto leader of the Asia-Pacific region and everyone wanted to know what their tricks of the trade were.
But not everyone was star-struck with Josh — he was glad to see many of his old friends at the conference. People he had worked with at the CIA or liaised with from other governments. It was incredible, he had been communicating with people he had known for years. Clocktower had a strict policy: every
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