I can believe you and can buy that they were convinced about their narrative. Unfortunately, we have to assume that even this class of individuals just received a well tailored narrative partly false with crucial omissions - another layer of deception. We could observe the same principle when we read the accounts of CDC level insiders that got already the narrative of a Wuhan BSL-4 lab Bioweapon in January. Still, they never got the bigger picture or the plan that was presented to your friends.