Without warning

by John Birmingham

  ‘Just hang on… I’ll call you back,’ he said.

  She had the radio on, listening to a news bulletin – which Kipper never put much stock in because of the army’s control of the airwaves. Yesterday’s shootings at Costco, for instance, had been reported as a ‘serious disturbance’, possibly ‘Resistance related’, that had halted food distribution for the day. Nothing more.

  Whatever Barb had just heard, though, had to be something more than the anodyne pap and propaganda that Blackstone’s people let out. She was pale-skinned by nature, but at that very moment she looked almost translucent, as though every drop of blood had rushed away from her face. Her hands shook visibly as she raised them to her mouth.

  ‘What is it, Mommy?’

  Suzie and Emma had appeared at the door, drawn by the cry of an adult. Both of them wore very grown-up frowns. Kip hustled them back into the lounge room with a promise of ‘emergency chocolate’ from the camping rations, before hurrying back to his wife.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked. Her eyes were wide with fear.

  ‘A war,’ she said. ‘A nuclear war has started.’

  Kipper’s stomach flipped over. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘It’s on the radio,’ she said in a quavering voice.

  He cast a quick look over his shoulder but the kids were back watching the movie. He stood next to Barb, who grabbed on and held him tightly. She seemed even more scared than she’d been after the Disappearance.

  ‘… of sixty million dead in the Nile Delta. Israel remains on the highest state of alert, and the Israeli Cabinet is meeting in secret. Full-scale fighting continues in the Gaza Strip, on the West Bank and in southern Lebanon, but hostilities elsewhere in the region have ceased…’

  The report was short, sourced from somewhere in England, to judge by the accent; and frustrating in the brief details it gave of American forces, which were reported to be unaffected, for the moment.

  ‘What if they bomb here, Kip? What will happen?’

  ‘Shh. That’s not gonna happen. This is a local thing, over there. It’s been coming for over a week now. It won’t affect us.’

  ‘But the Chinese or the Russians…’

  ‘Barb, we didn’t do it. They weren’t our bombs. It’s not our issue, and even if it was, all of the navy’s missile boats are still at sea. I think. Most of them, anyway. Nobody is going to bomb us.’

  She was shivering violently, and kept looking over his shoulder to the lounge room, where Kip could now hear Buzz Lightyear hamming it up. ‘To infinity… and beyond!’

  ‘You’re seeing Blackstone today, right?’ said Barbara, almost accusingly.

  ‘Right,’ he replied, with some care.

  ‘Well, if you get one thing out of that useless cocksucker today, make sure it’s a good idea about whether we’re on a target list. Because I mean it, Kip, we’re so gone. We are out of here if he even hints that Seattle might get hit.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, still holding her. ‘I can do that. It’s the sort of thing I would ask anyway. But you need to stay calm, all right? Don’t go losing it in front of the kids. Do you still have everyone coming around for the home-school thing today?’

  Barb shook her head, but didn’t look up. ‘I don’t know now.’

  Kip pushed her away gently. ‘You should. Suzie needs it. That rain’s cleared out and people will be looking for you. They’ll be looking to you. You need to hang tough, Bub,’ he said, invoking a pet name he used only in the rarest of circumstances. ‘I’m not going to sit here for the sake of it. If we had to leave, we would. Straight away. But if people panic, this place will unravel so quickly that nobody will get out. Do you understand?’

  His wife looked up and wiped away a few tears. Her eyes were swollen and red and she had to sniff to clear her nose. But she nodded. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just… on top of everything, you know?’

  ‘I know. Be strong, okay? I do have to go. I have to get to Fort Lewis this morning and pick up a bunch of guys coming up from Olympia.’

  ‘You’re not driving down there, are you?’ she asked, suddenly fearful again. ‘Olympia’s much closer to the Wave.’

  ‘No,’ he assured her. ‘They stayed in town overnight. They’re just coming out to coordinate the relief effort through the rest of the state. What there is of it, anyway.’

  Kipper kept his misgivings to himself, but he really didn’t know how much use they’d be. The state government had lost about a third of its people and was still reeling around in shock. He couldn’t blame them. The city would be exactly the same in their position. He just didn’t want to get sucked into their death spiral.

  ‘I’ll be late, but I will be back. Don’t worry. And don’t spend the day hovering over the radio while we have power. That stuff means nothing to us now. It’s somebody else’s problem.’

  He saw Barbara gather her forces and quell her fears. She was so much smaller than him, but stronger in many ways. He wished he could have taken her to sort out General Blackstone. One of Barb’s patented maulings and the old prick would run up the white flag for certain.

  He kissed her on both eyelids and went through to say goodbye to Suzie and Emma, knowing it would probably be the last pleasant moment of the day.

  * * * *

  FORT LEWIS, I CORPS HO, WASHINGTON STATE

  ‘Release them now!’

  ‘Now is not the right time.’

  ‘Now is completely the right fucking time, or I walk. My people walk. Every fucking city council employee walks and you can deal with the consequences,’ said Kipper, stabbing at the tabletop for emphasis.

  General Blackstone, half hidden in shadow under the shaded light, folded his arms and leaned back, disappearing further into the darkness. ‘The consequences will be that you go down in history as the man who destroyed America,’ he replied, just as implacably.

  Kipper snorted. There were at least twice as many military personnel as there were civilians in the underground conference room at Fort Lewis. Blackstone had obviously insisted on scheduling the meeting here to keep them off balance, but Kip was determined it wasn’t going to work. He wished he had Barney with him, though. Two axe handles across the shoulders, and dangerously impatient with bullshitters and idiots, he’d have made a great shotgun rider for this mission.

  ‘America is more than just a name on a map or a bunch of business interests,’ said Kipper. ‘It’s not the military. It’s not the President. In fact, it’s none of those things anymore. It hasn’t been since they disappeared. I’m not destroying America, you are, General. America is an idea – of the people, by the people. You do the math on the rest of it. Because locking up the people’s representatives, no matter how useless and fucked up they might be, that is destroying the idea of America. And I’m here to tell you that we won’t stand for it. Release the councillors now.’

  Blackstone, who had been sitting back, absorbing Kipper’s attack, suddenly exploded forward into the light and slammed both open palms down on the table. ‘How dare you! You march in here, under the pretence of amity, and lay down a subversive agenda…’

  ‘Oh please – what are you, channelling McCarthy? The only subversives here, my friend, are toting guns and pretending the fucking Constitution doesn’t exist. Well, it does, and if you won’t defend it, we will.’

  Blackstone gaped as though struck and Kip wondered if he might have gone too far. But no, damn it, he would be heard. Even if it meant he ended up in the cells too. He didn’t dare take his eyes off Blackstone, lest it be interpreted as weakness, but he could sense the presence of Dave Chugg and Marv Basco on either side of him, and of the state government people beyond them. They weren’t exactly supporting him yet, but they weren’t backing Blackstone either.

  ‘Haven’t you seen the news, son?’ asked the General. ‘Are you a complete imbecile?’

  Kipper smiled, but without warmth. ‘The news? Is that what you call it? I’ve seen the censored bulletins your media people let out.’

&nbs
p; ‘Uh-huh. And did you happen to notice anything about a nuclear war starting overnight? You think that might affect how you see things? Do you really want to turn the city over to a bunch of headless fucking chickens who couldn’t even decide what cookies to eat the last time the world was ending? What’ll it be this time, Kipper, as the fallout cloud closes in? Deadlock over flavoured milk or Kool-Aid?’

  ‘I don’t know, General. That’ll be up to them. And they’ll be judged on their performance or lack of it the next time they go to the polls…’

  ‘Oh my god, man! There won’t be a next time!’

  ‘Why, you getting rid of the vote while you’re at it?’ countered the engineer.

  ‘Don’t be obtuse.’

  Kipper closed the manila folder in front of him and scanned the ranks of military personnel arrayed around and behind the general. The only one he recognised was Ty McCutcheon, on Blackstone’s right. What could they all be thinking? he wondered. They had to take off those uniforms sometime – surely they didn’t want to live in a prison camp at the end of the day.

  At least Blackstone hadn’t ordered him thrown in irons yet. He let his eyes wander around the room, playing for time. It was an unremarkable breeze-block structure, somewhere deep underground. Maps of Seattle and the local area covered all the walls. Some others had been obscured by hastily hung drop cloths. He had no idea why. Perhaps it was time to roll a hard six.

  ‘How about we ask Admiral Ritchie?’ Kip suggested, turning back to let Blackstone get the full wattage of his stare.

  The general wouldn’t have made much of a poker player. His lips curved downwards, his shoulder rolled, a vein stood out on his neck. He did everything but run a finger around the inside of his collar and make an exaggerated cartoon gulp. A few of his uniformed offsiders shifted noticeably in their seats too. Major McCutcheon, Kip noted, was as still and quiet as a stone dog.

  ‘Holy crap!’ The engineer smiled, chancing his hand again. ‘You haven’t told Ritchie, have you?’

  ‘I have full authority for line management of the tactical situation here and I…’

  The blustering tone nailed it. ‘Oh, General,’ said Kipper. ‘Oh, dear me… We are in trouble, aren’t we? My apologies – I mean it. I came in here all ready to beat you down. But now I see what I need to do is give you an exit plan, right?’

  A long, uncomfortable silence greeted that, broken in the end by McCutcheon.

  ‘Keep talking.’

  ‘An offer?’ said Kip. ‘Truth be known, I don’t have one. This has sort of caught me by surprise, but if my colleagues agree to let me take this on the fly…’ He glanced sideways at Dave and Marv, who nodded, and at the state government people, who were now more obviously behind him. ‘Look, I guess, if you let the councillors go, and apologise for the inconvenience, I could do my very best to make sure that they don’t make a meal of it. Unless you’ve tortured them or something – you haven’t done that, have you?’

  He was joking but Blackstone took genuine umbrage. ‘They’ve been quartered more comfortably than any of my people, I’ll tell you that.’

  ‘They had Xbox and satellite TV,’ offered McCutcheon.

  ‘Well then, I’m sure they’ll see the upside of their imprisonment,’ quipped the engineer. ‘Look, being serious, I can understand why you felt the need to take them out of the decision loop, but you just can’t do that. Let them go. Put them back on the Executive Committee…’ He held a hand up to stave off any objections. ‘But in the meantime we’ll set up an Operational Committee, with my heads of department, some guys from the state capital, and whoever you feel the need to have on it, and the OC can do the actual grunt work of ensuring the power stays on and people get fed. Okay? Executive can discuss… I dunno… the meaning of life… but at Operations we’ll actually get stuff done. Like assigning security to food distribution,’ he finished, pointedly.

  Blackstone let out a long breath and leaned across to consult in a lowered voice with Major McCutcheon. After a few moments of muttered discussion, he leaned forward and nodded. ‘All right. You square it with the councillors, or it doesn’t happen. Believe me, Admiral Ritchie is going to be a lot less interested in what’s happening here than the Middle East for the next little while.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope for your sake we don’t have to find out.’

  ‘Is that all, Mr Kipper?’ asked Blackstone. ‘Can we get on with the meeting now?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘All this 1984 bullshit has to stop, too. Travel permits, monitoring people’s phone calls and shutting down the media. It’s convenient in the short term – God knows I understand that – but it is a road to hell, General. And it has to stop here and now.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ replied Blackstone. ‘Even in normal times, during natural disasters, the government reserved the right to temporarily restrict travel, to federalise services, ration supplies and limit communications. You surely can’t be serious about letting people run around as they please? Think how that scene at your food bank the other morning would’ve turned out if just anybody had been allowed to turn up. Some controls are necessary. Especially given that we have a fallout cloud from the Middle East making its way around the world.’

  Kipper leaned back and tapped his pen on the table. Some of what Blackstone said made sense, but he couldn’t help but feel they were paving a path to their own doom with good intentions.

  ‘The fallout, we’ll deal with,’ he said. ‘We have some experience of it now, thanks to the pollutant storms. They were a bit of a left-handed gift that way, I suppose. But I am serious, General – this police-state bullshit won’t stand. It weakens us in the long run. I’m going to suggest that one of the first things the Executive Committee could do – when it’s re-formed with its original, elected members, is look at exactly what restrictions are necessary.’

  Blackstone looked like he was going to choke.

  ‘Or we can take it up the line to Admiral Ritchie,’ Kip suggested helpfully.

  ‘Goddamn, this is why we need a proper chain of command,’ grumbled Blackstone. ‘These decisions should be no-brainers. Instead, I’ve got a bunch of no-brain pen-pushers telling me how to do my job.’

  Kip sensed Marv Basco stirring beside him. His sanitation chief was slow to anger, but he did hold grudges and he wasn’t one for ignoring a personal slight. There was no sense in letting this get out of hand, seeing as how things had gone so much better than they’d expected.

  ‘Listen, if an elected official tried on this KGB stuff, fine. There’s checks and balances to constrain them, and they can always get ass-whupped at the polls. But you’re not elected, General. You have force. But you have no power. Nobody consented to being ruled by you, and that’s what’s been happening. Rule by decree. It has to end. We have to get back to first principles, now more than ever.’

  Blackstone’s hands were clasped, thick fingers knitted together, but they barely moved. He had stilled himself again. ‘We will agree to disagree on the necessity of certain emergency measures, Mr Kipper,’ he said slowly. ‘For now, martial law will remain in place, as it remains in place throughout Alaska and Hawaii, without all of the amateur dramatics we’ve endured here. But I will release your councillors – on the proviso that they understand the extremity of our situation, and the absolute necessity of matching ends to means.’

  ‘I will do my best, General,’ replied Kipper, in as conciliatory a manner as he could. ‘I guess we can get on with business. And I guess that business has to be the Middle East and any fallout that might reach us.’ He felt Marv Basco nudge him with an elbow. ‘Oh… and on a sort of related topic, we really need to talk about the nuclear plants back behind the Wave. Marv here thinks some of them are going to melt down.’

  * * * *

  32

  ACAPULCO DIAMANTE, ACAPULCO

  Everything had been going so well. Pieraro had spoken very quietly to a deputy manager at the Fairmont (the manager being a complete wanker) and between them they had q
uietly drawn up a short list of potential passengers for Julianne. The deputy manager did not seek transport, merely a cut of the shakedown. A sum was agreed upon, discreet contacts were made, and a meeting was duly arranged in one of the resort’s more expensive bars. It had all taken about four hours but everything was going swimmingly. And then some fucker turned on the telly.

  Even Jules, who had an unnatural ability to maintain her focus under the worst of circumstances, was blind-sided by the reports coming out of the Middle East. If there’d been any upside to recent events, it was the sudden collapse of the media’s obsession with that benighted shithole. Even the Iraqi war news still ran a poor second to the Disappearance. But sixty, maybe seventy million dead in a nuclear strike… that did get your attention.