- Discord
- kyle.kyle
OOC Note: This is a scene from an Interflix series from Saintonge called Toile des Mensonges ("Web of Lies").
Toile des Mensonges, S1E9 (episode dropped 24 March 2025)
Headquarters, Service de Renseignement de Sécurité
Somewhere in Saintes
Col. Pierre-Simon Hulin saluted his superior, Lt.-Gen. Gérard-Marc Bressant, as he entered the room. Lt.-Gen. Bressant weakly returned the salute and did not bother standing up. Something was quite odd. The head of the Service de renseignement de sécurité (SRS), Saintonge’s military intelligence service, looked weary and tired. The Bethanian separatists had been wreaking havoc in the country and seemed unstoppable.
Col. Hulin had at least some good news to bring. They had some sort of success against the Talbenn broadel bethoneg (TBB), the foreign-funded Bethanian separatist organisation that is spreading terror throughout Saintonge’s northwestern Bethanian-speaking provinces. They knew TBB had minuscule support among the Bethanian populace, but the people are afraid because TBB had managed to infiltrate the critical sectors of Santonian society. Including the Royal Santonian Armed Forces.
The SRS knew that they had at least one mole within the Santonian military that was passing information to TBB. It seems that finally, they had caught one. Just too late.
Col. Hulin closed the door behind him and laid down a dossier on his boss’ table. Col. Hulin was Lt.-Gen. Bressant’s aide-de-camp and was part of the spymaster’s small circle of trusted advisers. In spycraft, one cannot trust too many and too much.
“I have great news.” Col. Hulin said as he opened the dossier. “One of the TBB’s spies within the Santonian military had been neutralised.” He took out a picture of the bloodied corpse of a dead soldier thrown into a pit at a construction site in Redon.
Lt.-Gen. Bressant glanced at the picture and stared at Col. Hulin. “We have already reported to you who he is. Lt. Hoël Kersaint, from the Cyber Force. We believe he had been passing information from the military to TBB.”
“Unfortunately, TBB managed to neutralise him first,” Col. Hulin continued. “We believe that TBB had killed Kersaint before we can capture him and spill info about the TBB.” Col. Hulin smiled, evidently waiting for a celebratory comment or triumphal cheer from his boss for a job well done by the SRS.
Instead, Lt.-Gen. Bressant sighed as he looked down on his hands on the table. He had been twiddling his thumbs the entire time that Col. Hulin was talking. It took a while before Saintonge’s spymaster spoke.
After a minute of awkward silence, Lt.-Gen. Bressant muttered, “Was his family informed?”
Col. Hulin’s brows furrowed. Was his family informed? That was a weird reply to a report that a traitor to the country had been killed. Was he missing something?
Col. Hulin ignored that nagging suspicion and instead continued talking about future plans. “Because information is still getting to TBB even after Kersaint had died, we believe there must be at least one more mole. Also, they must’ve known from that other source that we have already uncovered Kersaint and that he’s already compromised – hence his disposal.”
Disposal. Lt.-Gen. Bressant replayed the word in his mind. Disposal. Such is the gruesome reality for a spy.
Lt.-Gen. Bressant pushed the other thoughts off his mind and asked his adjutant: “Do you have any other leads?”
“Coming up short at the moment, to be quite honest,” Col. Hulin said. “Kersaint could’ve been a gold mine of information if we managed to capture and interrogate him.”
“He would’ve said nothing new that I didn’t know,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant whispered obtusely. Now Col. Hulin was genuinely confused.
“Sir, is there something that I’m not privy to?” Col. Hulin blurted out.
After some uncomfortable silence, Lt.-Gen. Bressant finally spilled the information.
“Lt. Hoël Kersaint was not a TBB mole in the Santonian military. He was our infiltrator into TBB.”
Col. Hulin’s jaw dropped. They had been following the wrong lead all along!?
“Lt. Kersaint is one of ours,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant admitted, with sadness creeping into his usually stoic character. “His loyalty is to Saintonge. I recruited him from the Cyber Force. It was a very secret operation.
“I arranged for fake compromising material on Lt. Kersaint to fall into the hands of the TBB. TBB took the bait and recruited Hoël. I funnelled some relatively harmless info through Lt. Kersaint to the TBB, but I already know there’s another mole because there were info that TBB acquired that I did not feed through Lt. Kersaint. Lt. Kersaint also confirmed that TBB had a high-ranking mole within the Santonian military, and that he was close to determining who he was… but he was killed.”
Lt.-Gen. Bressant shifted in his chair, the unease in his body and emotions visible to Col. Hulin. Rarely had he seen his usually steely boss like this.
“What a waste,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant muttered as his gaze shifted to the photo that Col. Hulin had brought. Col. Hulin saw his boss’ eyes glisten with tears. “Hoël was a courageous, intelligent, patriotic kid.”
“It’s always tough losing an agent,” Col. Hulin sympathised.
“Even more if you are the one who personally recruited them,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant added. With shaking hands, Lt.-Gen. Bressant picked up the photo of Lt. Kersaint’s body dumped unceremoniously into a hole. The paper was quivering as Lt.-Gen. Bressant stared at it. “They must’ve discovered that he was an infiltrator and they had killed him…”
Col. Hulin then saw a glint in Lt.-Gen. Bressant’s steel blue eyes. Lt.-Gen. Bressant laid the photo down and his hands tightened to clenched fists.
Lt.-Gen. Bressant looked up at his adjutant. “The TBB will only know that Hoël was an infiltrator if…”
“… somebody tipped them off?” Col. Hulin completed, which was the same spark that hit Lt.-Gen. Bressant’s mind.
Lt.-Gen. Bressant leaned back on his chair and started barking orders. His demeanour had changed. Col. Hulin realised it was time to act. His boss had a realisation.
“Draft the order for the preventive detention of Ponsart and his entire staff and execute the order,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant commanded.
Col. Hulin was stunned. “Pardon, sir?”
“Detain Ponsart and his staff, ASAP!”
Col. Hulin could not believe his ears. “Sir, are we talking about General Victor-Robert Ponsart, the chief of the Royal Santonian Cyber Force – ”
“DID I STUTTER, HULIN?” Lt.-Gen. Bressant yelled.
“No sir. Will draft the order, sir,” Col. Hulin was the one stuttering, shocked at the order. “But… General Ponsart outranks you, sir…”
Lt.-Gen. Bressant stood up from his chair and leaned forward. He was giving Col. Hulin his trademark death stare. “I am the Spymaster of the Kingdom of Saintonge and I can order the arrest of ANYONE – I repeat, ANYONE – in this country!”
“Yessir.”
Lt.-Gen. Bressant pounded his fists on the table. “They are lucky I am not making them disappear into thin air!”
Col. Hulin started gathering the papers on the table in preparation for leaving and following his superior’s orders. Lt.-Gen. Bressant was not a fun guy to be around when he is mad.
“Or do they want me to involve the King of Saintonge on their detention order?” Lt.-Gen. Bressant huffed.
On that note, Col. Hulin inserted a relevant question. “Shall I have General Barraux countersign the – ”
“I’ll deal with Barraux!” Lt.-Gen. Bressant howled, referring to Gen. Martin-Adam Barraux, the Chief of the Defence Staff of the Royal Santonian Armed Forces.
“Yessir,” Col. Hulin said as he stood up from his seat and took the dossier. He wanted to go now and not deal with Lt.-Gen. Bressant any further but his curiosity was thoroughly piqued at the bizarre order.
“I’m sure it’s not my position to ask,” Col. Hulin began, “but is the upper echelon of the Cyber Force suspect now, that’s why we’re detaining all of them?”
Lt.-Gen. Bressant straightened back up. “There were only two people who knew about Lt. Kersaint,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant said softly. “Victor and I.”
Col. Hulin nodded. His mind immediately connected the dots.
“I never told anyone here in SRS about Lt. Kersaint. Not even you,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant said. “Which means the leaks are coming from the Cyber Force. Hopefully not Victor himself, but possibly his staff if he spilled it to them.”
“Sir, what if Kersaint was just careless and was discovered by TBB without any leaks from the Cyber Force?”
“Hoël is not careless. His last message to me was that he learned that a high-ranking official from the Santonian military betrayed his infiltrator status to the TBB."
“Merde,” Col. Hulin swore under his breath.
“Do not tell anybody about this. I will deal with Barraux and the King to explain why I am ordering the detention of the entire leadership of the Cyber Force.”
“Yessir.” Col. Hulin saluted his boss before turning to leave.
As Col. Hulin was reaching for the doorknob on his way out, he heard his superior call him back.
“Hulin,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant said, “after you draft and execute the detention order, please arrange for military honours at Lt. Kersaint’s funeral. That kid is a true Bethanian hero, a brave Santonian patriot. It’s the least we could do for his sacrifice.”
“Yessir.”
Toile des Mensonges, S1E9 (episode dropped 24 March 2025)
Headquarters, Service de Renseignement de Sécurité
Somewhere in Saintes
Col. Pierre-Simon Hulin saluted his superior, Lt.-Gen. Gérard-Marc Bressant, as he entered the room. Lt.-Gen. Bressant weakly returned the salute and did not bother standing up. Something was quite odd. The head of the Service de renseignement de sécurité (SRS), Saintonge’s military intelligence service, looked weary and tired. The Bethanian separatists had been wreaking havoc in the country and seemed unstoppable.
Col. Hulin had at least some good news to bring. They had some sort of success against the Talbenn broadel bethoneg (TBB), the foreign-funded Bethanian separatist organisation that is spreading terror throughout Saintonge’s northwestern Bethanian-speaking provinces. They knew TBB had minuscule support among the Bethanian populace, but the people are afraid because TBB had managed to infiltrate the critical sectors of Santonian society. Including the Royal Santonian Armed Forces.
The SRS knew that they had at least one mole within the Santonian military that was passing information to TBB. It seems that finally, they had caught one. Just too late.
Col. Hulin closed the door behind him and laid down a dossier on his boss’ table. Col. Hulin was Lt.-Gen. Bressant’s aide-de-camp and was part of the spymaster’s small circle of trusted advisers. In spycraft, one cannot trust too many and too much.
“I have great news.” Col. Hulin said as he opened the dossier. “One of the TBB’s spies within the Santonian military had been neutralised.” He took out a picture of the bloodied corpse of a dead soldier thrown into a pit at a construction site in Redon.
Lt.-Gen. Bressant glanced at the picture and stared at Col. Hulin. “We have already reported to you who he is. Lt. Hoël Kersaint, from the Cyber Force. We believe he had been passing information from the military to TBB.”
“Unfortunately, TBB managed to neutralise him first,” Col. Hulin continued. “We believe that TBB had killed Kersaint before we can capture him and spill info about the TBB.” Col. Hulin smiled, evidently waiting for a celebratory comment or triumphal cheer from his boss for a job well done by the SRS.
Instead, Lt.-Gen. Bressant sighed as he looked down on his hands on the table. He had been twiddling his thumbs the entire time that Col. Hulin was talking. It took a while before Saintonge’s spymaster spoke.
After a minute of awkward silence, Lt.-Gen. Bressant muttered, “Was his family informed?”
Col. Hulin’s brows furrowed. Was his family informed? That was a weird reply to a report that a traitor to the country had been killed. Was he missing something?
Col. Hulin ignored that nagging suspicion and instead continued talking about future plans. “Because information is still getting to TBB even after Kersaint had died, we believe there must be at least one more mole. Also, they must’ve known from that other source that we have already uncovered Kersaint and that he’s already compromised – hence his disposal.”
Disposal. Lt.-Gen. Bressant replayed the word in his mind. Disposal. Such is the gruesome reality for a spy.
Lt.-Gen. Bressant pushed the other thoughts off his mind and asked his adjutant: “Do you have any other leads?”
“Coming up short at the moment, to be quite honest,” Col. Hulin said. “Kersaint could’ve been a gold mine of information if we managed to capture and interrogate him.”
“He would’ve said nothing new that I didn’t know,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant whispered obtusely. Now Col. Hulin was genuinely confused.
“Sir, is there something that I’m not privy to?” Col. Hulin blurted out.
After some uncomfortable silence, Lt.-Gen. Bressant finally spilled the information.
“Lt. Hoël Kersaint was not a TBB mole in the Santonian military. He was our infiltrator into TBB.”
Col. Hulin’s jaw dropped. They had been following the wrong lead all along!?
“Lt. Kersaint is one of ours,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant admitted, with sadness creeping into his usually stoic character. “His loyalty is to Saintonge. I recruited him from the Cyber Force. It was a very secret operation.
“I arranged for fake compromising material on Lt. Kersaint to fall into the hands of the TBB. TBB took the bait and recruited Hoël. I funnelled some relatively harmless info through Lt. Kersaint to the TBB, but I already know there’s another mole because there were info that TBB acquired that I did not feed through Lt. Kersaint. Lt. Kersaint also confirmed that TBB had a high-ranking mole within the Santonian military, and that he was close to determining who he was… but he was killed.”
Lt.-Gen. Bressant shifted in his chair, the unease in his body and emotions visible to Col. Hulin. Rarely had he seen his usually steely boss like this.
“What a waste,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant muttered as his gaze shifted to the photo that Col. Hulin had brought. Col. Hulin saw his boss’ eyes glisten with tears. “Hoël was a courageous, intelligent, patriotic kid.”
“It’s always tough losing an agent,” Col. Hulin sympathised.
“Even more if you are the one who personally recruited them,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant added. With shaking hands, Lt.-Gen. Bressant picked up the photo of Lt. Kersaint’s body dumped unceremoniously into a hole. The paper was quivering as Lt.-Gen. Bressant stared at it. “They must’ve discovered that he was an infiltrator and they had killed him…”
Col. Hulin then saw a glint in Lt.-Gen. Bressant’s steel blue eyes. Lt.-Gen. Bressant laid the photo down and his hands tightened to clenched fists.
Lt.-Gen. Bressant looked up at his adjutant. “The TBB will only know that Hoël was an infiltrator if…”
“… somebody tipped them off?” Col. Hulin completed, which was the same spark that hit Lt.-Gen. Bressant’s mind.
Lt.-Gen. Bressant leaned back on his chair and started barking orders. His demeanour had changed. Col. Hulin realised it was time to act. His boss had a realisation.
“Draft the order for the preventive detention of Ponsart and his entire staff and execute the order,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant commanded.
Col. Hulin was stunned. “Pardon, sir?”
“Detain Ponsart and his staff, ASAP!”
Col. Hulin could not believe his ears. “Sir, are we talking about General Victor-Robert Ponsart, the chief of the Royal Santonian Cyber Force – ”
“DID I STUTTER, HULIN?” Lt.-Gen. Bressant yelled.
“No sir. Will draft the order, sir,” Col. Hulin was the one stuttering, shocked at the order. “But… General Ponsart outranks you, sir…”
Lt.-Gen. Bressant stood up from his chair and leaned forward. He was giving Col. Hulin his trademark death stare. “I am the Spymaster of the Kingdom of Saintonge and I can order the arrest of ANYONE – I repeat, ANYONE – in this country!”
“Yessir.”
Lt.-Gen. Bressant pounded his fists on the table. “They are lucky I am not making them disappear into thin air!”
Col. Hulin started gathering the papers on the table in preparation for leaving and following his superior’s orders. Lt.-Gen. Bressant was not a fun guy to be around when he is mad.
“Or do they want me to involve the King of Saintonge on their detention order?” Lt.-Gen. Bressant huffed.
On that note, Col. Hulin inserted a relevant question. “Shall I have General Barraux countersign the – ”
“I’ll deal with Barraux!” Lt.-Gen. Bressant howled, referring to Gen. Martin-Adam Barraux, the Chief of the Defence Staff of the Royal Santonian Armed Forces.
“Yessir,” Col. Hulin said as he stood up from his seat and took the dossier. He wanted to go now and not deal with Lt.-Gen. Bressant any further but his curiosity was thoroughly piqued at the bizarre order.
“I’m sure it’s not my position to ask,” Col. Hulin began, “but is the upper echelon of the Cyber Force suspect now, that’s why we’re detaining all of them?”
Lt.-Gen. Bressant straightened back up. “There were only two people who knew about Lt. Kersaint,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant said softly. “Victor and I.”
Col. Hulin nodded. His mind immediately connected the dots.
“I never told anyone here in SRS about Lt. Kersaint. Not even you,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant said. “Which means the leaks are coming from the Cyber Force. Hopefully not Victor himself, but possibly his staff if he spilled it to them.”
“Sir, what if Kersaint was just careless and was discovered by TBB without any leaks from the Cyber Force?”
“Hoël is not careless. His last message to me was that he learned that a high-ranking official from the Santonian military betrayed his infiltrator status to the TBB."
“Merde,” Col. Hulin swore under his breath.
“Do not tell anybody about this. I will deal with Barraux and the King to explain why I am ordering the detention of the entire leadership of the Cyber Force.”
“Yessir.” Col. Hulin saluted his boss before turning to leave.
As Col. Hulin was reaching for the doorknob on his way out, he heard his superior call him back.
“Hulin,” Lt.-Gen. Bressant said, “after you draft and execute the detention order, please arrange for military honours at Lt. Kersaint’s funeral. That kid is a true Bethanian hero, a brave Santonian patriot. It’s the least we could do for his sacrifice.”
“Yessir.”
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