by Chris James
Napier conceded: “Fair comment, I suppose, although since the war started, Chinese support has seemed the only route to stopping it… What about behind the scenes, David?”
Perkins spoke at once: “There’s never a shortage of gossip leaking out of the sieve that is the Chinese civil service, but all of it is the kind of tittle-tattle that amuses the average Chinese citizen. This week, as an example, a recording leaked of a regional head in the Agricultural Ministry having intimate relations with a certain type of wildfowl. Cheap entertainment for what we used to call the chattering classes, but not a great deal of use otherwise.”
“And our best contact?” Napier asked.
“Still active, but they consistently report a lack of material interest among either the general population or the Chinese government itself.”
The Home Secretary said to Perkins: “But surely, the Chinese government must be feeling some pressure, mustn’t it? All right, England and even all of the Home Countries might not pack much of a punch anymore, but we’re talking about every European country here, and the United States in addition. Don’t all of them combined count for something?”
Blackwood answered: “You are correct regarding the European countries, Aiden, but don’t forget that while the US supports us, it is not subject to attack. Even if we take the Euro countries in sum, their economies are dwarfed by those in Asia, Africa and South America. What is happening here now is like some lower-tier news story where people tut and say that something should be done while not knowing—and, if we’re brutally honest, not really caring—how it is done or who does it.”
Napier felt the mood in the room darken with fatalism. She let her gaze drift and caught Hicks’s eye. He seemed to take this a cue to speak.
“One positive,” he began in his nasal voice, “is that I have been in touch with my counterpart in the Coll administration, and he told me that emergency evacuation plans are almost in place for the Royal Family and the entire government.”
Napier’s eyebrows rose and she noted similar reactions from the others.
Hicks appeared to see this and stammered, “Well, that is, er, at least something… isn’t it?”
Blackwood scoffed and said: “You evacuate if you want to, dear man.”
Before Hicks could protest, Napier held a hand up and said: “We’ll see what happens when push comes to shove. In the meantime, I hope you conveyed our gratitude for their consideration, Aiden.”
“Of course, PM, goes without saying,” Hicks blustered, chins wobbling.
“Good.” Napier replied. She glanced around at her colleagues and then spoke to Monica: “Would you refill, please?”
“Of course,” Monica said.
Napier went on: “So, on the military side, I believe some progress has been made, is that right, Terry?”
“Yes, PM,” Terry replied, the overhead light reflected on his bald head as he nodded.
Napier knew that out of all of them, Terry least appreciated such an unorthodox briefing, but she’d convinced him earlier that the measure was not so very drastic.
Terry went on: “If some of this is a little technical for any of you, let me know. Firstly, our people have built on the laser coherence-length issue. You should all have been briefed how the Royal Navy fleet in the Mediterranean lasted some time longer than their US Navy counterparts when the captain of the Hyperion varied the coherence length on each laser shot.”
“Yes,” defence Minister Gough broke in, holding his glass out to Monica for a top-up, “and I still don’t understand why we put an R-Notice on it. Thank you, Monica.” He sipped his cognac and added: “I think we missed a huge PR coup with that.”
Napier saw Terry frown as the General answered, with a faint trace of derision: “Because it was a tactically sensitive development about which we did not want—”
“But as soon as we employed the tactic on land the enemy knew about it, so I don’t see what the—”
Napier broke in: “Phillip, there’s no need to discuss past decisions now. Please let Sir Terry continue.”
Gough shrugged and stuck his face back in his snifter.
Terry continued: “Our people at Porton Down have come up with a device to alter the coherence length on each and every shot. Unlike the confrontation with the navies, this randomisation will have much greater coherence range, and only a new generation of weapons will be able to defeat it. An inducer has been designed and is going through a range of tests now. If everything goes well, it should be fitted to all Pulsar lasers within a few days.”
“Can you say how much this will increase each laser’s effectiveness,” Blackwood asked with keen interest.
“Twenty to thirty percent. Until it’s used in battle, we can’t be certain, obviously.”
“And the Caliphate’s ACAs will not be able to counteract it?” Blackwood asked.
“No, they will not. The inducer is not the kind of development that will change the course of the war, but it will help.”
“Some good news from the army, finally,” Hicks muttered.
Napier threw him a reproachful look.
Terry spoke: “In addition, our scientists at Aldermaston have come up with a potential answer to the enemy’s jamming capabilities. Currently, the enemy can shut down all civilian comms and render military comms problematic in all areas where it successfully projects its force. Last week, the USAF mounted a low-orbit attack on the enemy’s satellite nest from which this jamming emanates. The attack failed completely. In response, Aldermaston has identified a potential way to burn through the interference to allow our forces to communicate. Again, on its own it will do little to change the course of the war, but it is another positive development.”
Napier glanced around the room and sensed expectancy that Terry had more to offer. She said: “Thank you, Terry.” With those words, she saw the others’ faces drop. “Would you mind showing us the current state of the four fronts?”
Terry nodded and said: “Squonk?” calling on the British Army’s super AI.
There was no response. Napier apologised and nodded to Webb, whose eye twitched.
Webb said to Terry: “You’re good now.”
“Squonk?” Terry repeated.
“Yes, Sir Terry,” the gender-neutral voice responded, audible to the whole room.
“Please show today’s situation report at my location.”
“Your location shows you are in the company of persons not authorised to view NATO situation reports.”
“Override that restriction. Authorisation Tidbury, Sir Terry, General. Confirm.”
“Confirmed.”
The side wall lit up with a map of southern Europe. Napier watched the members of her cabinet and Perkins adjust their positions to view the image more comfortably.
Squonk said: “Sir Terry, do you wish to describe the situation or would you prefer narration?”
“Narration,” Terry said. “Only keep it brief; I’ll stop you if I have any questions. Begin with the Western Theatre.”
The map on the wall zoomed into the Iberian Peninsula, with Madrid at the centre. Squonk spoke: “As at nineteen hundred hours today, advance enemy units were reported on the outskirts of Malaga and fifty kilometres from Cordoba. In the last six hours, force-projection attacks have taken place in Seville, which has suffered an estimated sixty percent destruction of its metropolitan area. To the north, reports place advance enemy units one-hundred-and-twenty kilometres south of Madrid. Force projection attacks have taken place in Zamora, Soria, Zaragoza and Barcelona.”
On the map, a pool of red appeared and spread up to the mentioned places to show the territory the Caliphate was known to have captured, and then continued in a lighter shade to show the further areas at immediate risk. To Napier, it looked like a pool of blood spreading irresistibly over the land. She wondered if the artificial intelligence had chosen the colour intentionally.
Squonk went on: “All NATO units maintain a full fighting retreat.” Blue circles an
d squares appeared on the map with the designations of corps and regiments. “The forecast remains unchanged: total defeat is so highly probable it should be considered a certainty.”
Napier heard muted gasps and muttered curses around the room, which afforded her a modicum of grim satisfaction.
The map withdrew to show more of Europe, then moved left and zoomed in on Italy. Squonk said: “In the Central Theatre, enemy advance units have been reported seventy kilometres south of Florence. In the last six hours, force-projection attacks have taken place in Pisa, Bologna and Ravenna. It is worth noting that this is the fourth consecutive day of force-projection attacks on Bologna, and eighty-five percent of its metropolitan area is now destroyed. In addition, all comms with the country south of the Rome-Pescara line have been lost and that landmass is now cut off.”
“Christ Jesus,” Napier heard one of the men mutter. She sipped her wine.
Similar blue circles and squares appeared dotted around northern Italy. Squonk said: “All NATO units maintain a full fighting retreat. The forecast remains unchanged: total defeat is so highly probable it should be considered a certainty.”
The view withdrew once again and shifted left. By now, Napier felt sure, everyone knew what was coming. Squonk repeated its mantra, first for the Eastern Theatre where the Balkan countries suffered, and then the Turkish Front, where enemy forces were laying waste to Romania. Finally, on her instruction, Squonk told them the estimated numbers of killed and wounded since the invasion had begun. The numbers were already in the hundreds of thousands killed and millions wounded, and were certain to continue to rise.
When the British Army’s super AI had finished, Charles Blackwood mused aloud: “So, it is true.”
“What is?” Napier asked.
“Oh, about Italy,” he answered, accepting a refill of red wine from Monica. “Obviously, I am in almost constant touch with our European colleagues, but I have to admit I did not quite believe their insistence that the southern half of the country had been turned into one vast concentration camp.”
“And not only,” Gough said over the rim of his cognac. “With Blackswans and Lapwings free to roam and kill at will, it will be a massacre there.”
“Much the same as the rest of Europe,” Hicks noted sardonically.
“PM,” Blackwood said, “in my position as Foreign Secretary, sooner or later I am going to have to respond to Italian demands for assistance for the southern half of the country.”
Napier looked at Terry and asked: “Is there anything we could do?”
“Highly unlikely, PM,” Terry replied with a shake of his head, and Napier caught the look on his face which meant he thought that was a vast understatement.
“For now, stall them, tell them we’re looking into it.”
Blackwood said: “Very well, but the subject will be on the agenda of the next NATO country-heads meeting, PM.”
Napier nodded. She glanced around the room and asked: “Any questions?”
“Just one,” Defence Minister Gough said. “What about the overall predictions? If we include these new ‘developments’ that Sir Terry told us about, do they actually change anything?”
Terry instructed: “Squonk, display current projections of enemy activity and the progress of the conflict, factoring all of the latest advancements.”
On the wall, the map of Europe withdrew to display the landmass of the entire continent, with the areas the Caliphate already controlled coloured red. As Squonk spoke, the redness expanded to cover greater and greater area: “The most likely course of events suggests that enemy forces will overwhelm the main European landmass sometime between mid-April and mid-May. Thus far, the enemy has deployed almost unlimited volumes of munitions, while NATO remains materially outgunned in all theatres. Outlying European territories such as the British Isles can expect to be subdued within a maximum of two weeks thereafter.”
Napier sipped at the last few drops of her white wine and took a long look around the room. Except for Terry, who dealt with these issues on an hourly basis, the others’ faces were suitably ashen. Monica gulped down a large mouthful of wine and blinked eyes that glistened when she swallowed it.
Napier told Webb: “Deactivate it now, Crispin, thank you.”
The view on the wall was replaced with the portcullis placeholder image of the English government. Blackwood said: “I find it incredible that they might continue across the entire continent without pause.”
Terry said: “The computers give us extrapolations from all of the available data, and then allow a certain weighting for unknown variables. What we have just seen is its most accurate forecast, but there is a chance it might not be right.”
Blackwood scoffed and said: “Let us hope that is indeed the case.”
Napier allowed a few seconds of silence to pervade the room before announcing: “Very well. Thank you, everyone, for coming along. If no one has any other questions, I’m sure we’d all like to spend some time with our families now, don’t you agree?”
There came a few murmurs of assent. Monica rose, walked to the door and opened it as an indication the unorthodox meeting was over. The men finished their drinks and filed out of the room. As they left, Napier allowed herself a small metaphorical pat on the back. None of them had fully realised the real reason for breaking quite so many conventions. She knew Perkins at MI5 and Terry had difficulties with each other; she knew that Blackwood thought he would make a better PM than she, as though a woman could not fight; she knew that Aiden Hicks resented Blackwood with a vast but petty jealousy; and she knew that Gough wanted to quit his ministerial role but worried it might be seen as a cowardly act.
However, this evening she had shown them the true extent of the unfolding disaster. Tens of thousands of people just like them were suffering death and the most brutal injuries every day, hour by hour. She heaved a sigh and said to the empty room: “Let’s hope these powerless men have the wit now to put their petty vanities aside.”
Chapter 35
06.33 Sunday 5 March 2062
TURKISH ENGINEERING STUDENT Berat Kartal awoke feeling the same way he felt every morning: as though this would be the last day of his life. The slats of the barn had gaps though which cold drafts blew. The straw in which he lay smelled of animal urine and rotting faeces, but he now regarded such accommodation as a luxury. Each day began with the same routine: he traced his fingers, numb with the cold, around the edge of his shrivelled abdomen. Berat had never been notably overweight but had always carried a few extra kilos. Now, he could feel each rib bone, he could push the skin up and under his ribcage, and he could prod almost all around each of his hips.
Once awake and with feeling having returned to his numb fingers and face, he got up and relieved himself in the corner of the barn, a pathetic trickle which emphasised how little fluid his body had and how reluctant it was to let it go. He collected his things and checked the seams on his boots as they became more frayed with each day’s walking. He left the abandoned farm. Despite the cold, swarms of flies buzzed and darted around the dead, rotting cattle carcasses. He passed the pile of rubble that a few days earlier must have been a farmhouse. The previous day, he’d managed to get some withered carrots from it, but the smell stopped him searching for more or better food. However, far from sating his hunger, the carrots had merely served to reawaken it. Today, he felt a new feeling of aggressive deprivation—for the first time, he absolutely had to eat more food.
He set off on the dirt track in a north-easterly direction. Fatalism pervaded his spirit, caused not only by thirst and hunger, but by the destruction and victims. He struggled to recall what had happened. Somehow, Caliphate forces seemed to have overtaken him. For at least ten days, he had avoided all main roads and towns, knowing from bitter experience that the Caliphate destroyed them first. But now, without slowing or varying direction, he came across more and more evidence of the Caliphate’s work. The farms he passed by were nearly always destroyed, he assumed by a Spider, while
in daylight palls of smoke dotted the horizon.
On this day the sun rose with a brightness that stung his eyes. After an hour, the farmland ended and he entered a forest. For a while, he was able to follow vehicle tracks, but those ended and he had to push on through dense trees and bushes. He came to a stream and collapsed in overwhelming relief. When he had filled his container and could fit no more water into his stomach, he pushed on through the energy-sapping greenery.
Two hours later, he broke through the forest to see a village down a slight incline and across two fields. He hurried towards it and saw it consisted of two rows of small houses and a church, surrounded by farms and fields. As he got closer, he noticed a barrier across the only road into the village. He hurried towards it as fast as he could in his dilapidated boots, legs aching with familiar pain. Two masculine figures stood and regarded him. Abruptly, they raised what appeared to be rifles and pointed them at him.
He slowed in caution and shouted in English: “Do not shoot!” He repeated this as he got closer, his fear of them tempered by his burning hunger. They were both male, one young and the other middle-aged, so Berat took them for father and son. To Berat’s relief, as he got closer they lowered their weapons.
The older man gestured and shouted words Berat did not recognise.
“Food,” Berat said when he reached the barrier across the road, constructed from old farming equipment. “Can I have some food, please? I am sorry but I cannot pay.”
The younger man murmured in the older one’s ear. The older one shook his head and said a negative that left Berat in no doubt that he was not welcome. Despite the vast, angry hunger gnawing inside him, he felt no animosity towards them for their rejection. Perhaps they guarded their village from other people whom they distrusted; perhaps they harboured an illusion that their pathetic old rifles would somehow protect them from the Caliphate’s machines. Whatever the reason, Berat said nothing and turned to leave. As he walked away, emotions clashed with common sense. Above all, he asked himself, would he not behave the same or a similar way if this were Turkey?
