‘But, mother, wouldn't you be far better off just disappearing. You’ve got a new identity and more money than you’ll ever need. Why do you want to come with us? Why would you?’
Ann was unmoved.
‘Why shouldn’t I. You are my daughter and I want to be with you. Yes, I admit that I might have been slightly remiss in my parental duties in the past, but with this bloody mutant threat hanging over us all, I want to be near to you. You are all I've got.’
Brady was unrepentant.
‘How do we know that you won't betray us again? At the first bloody opportunity you will just hand me over to the authorities and disappear. You are not to be trusted. You are a clinical liar, Ann. A leopard never changes its spots.’
‘Dad, that's a bit harsh. I know that she can be a bitch, but she is my mother, after all.’
Ann gave Chloe a withering glance:
‘Charming, dahhling! I never knew you cared!’
‘Oh, come off it, Ann, you are consumed with self-interest. I can never trust you,’ added Brady, his patience at an end.
‘Yes, you both make valid points, I agree,’ countered Ann, ‘but I am asking for one last chance. All we have is each other and the bloody world is slipping into the abyss. Please, Andy, just give me an opportunity to prove myself.’
Brady was having none of it. He leapt out of his seat and departed the restaurant. He strode back to the motorhome and cracked open a bottle of brandy. He was apoplectic with rage at the gall of the woman. How dare she? There was no way that she was coming to Breton.
‘Over my dead body,’ he shouted at no-one in particular.
‘Over my dead bloody body!’
***
Twelve hours later Brady was driving past Nerja on the main A7 Autopista, which headed up the Spanish east coast all the way to the French border. The new Burstner was overflowing with supplies, cash, spares, booze, clothing and one extra passenger.
Chloe had followed Brady to the 'van parked on the Cabopino campsite and had spent almost all night persuading her father to relent and take her mother and his ex-wife on the journey north.
‘She is my mother after all – and I can't just desert her. I know full well what she is like – but what harm can she really do? All we need to do is keep her in check. You won't even have to speak to her – I'll deal with her on a day to day basis. If she plays up, then we dump her. In any case, if we leave her behind, what's to stop her grassing us up to the authorities? She has our registration number, descriptions and eventual destination. I don’t really see that we've got much of a choice.’
After two hours of arguing to and fro, and finishing the bottle of brandy, Brady finally surrendered.
‘Okay, okay, okay! Enough! We’ll take the bitch, but I swear, if she as much as looks at me in the wrong way or makes one inappropriate, sarcastic remark – I’ll kill her – and I mean it, Chloe, I mean it!’
Chloe didn’t believe this threat for one second, but realised that she must read her mother the full ‘riot act’. If this trip was to bring about any reconciliation and family harmony, her mother must be tightly controlled. So, she left the 'van and phoned her mother. Chloe spent half an hour warning Ann that she had used up any goodwill she might have had, and that one single snide remark or selfish action would result in disaster for all of them. Ann must pull together for once in her life, and think about someone else for a change.
Ann listened politely and assured Chloe that she would be the very model of angelic behaviour.
Chloe wasn’t entirely persuaded, but had no choice but to accept the uneasy peace treaty. She suspected that there would be breaches, but hoped that Ann would try to behave herself.
As for Ann, she smiled broadly to herself after Chloe hung up the phone.
‘That man is such a weak fool. I’ll bide my time and then……Brady will finally be history!’
Day 195 / Z-Day 160
Thursday 27 June
Europe
Headquarters European Defensive Command – in other words – NATO without the UK, had established itself within the old UKRA building in Brussels. Naturally the original NATO infrastructure was still based and operating at the Boulevard Leopold III in central Brussels, but the day to day senior political war planning and operational control was set up in the UKRA office block. This allowed the politicians to be separate from the military, and also allowed non-NATO elements such as Russia and China to deploy their planners and generals, without compromising security.
Both HQs were intensely busy. The bombing of the mutants in the UK continued apace during daylight hours. Additionally, night bombing took place using Terrain Following Radar employed by one squadron of British Tornados. This caught the mutants whilst on the open road. All European air forces were involved, as were the North American members of the NATO alliance. In addition, the Russians were contributing to the offensive, with their aircraft carrier Kiev based in the North Sea off Skegness monitoring their Air Force operations. Three of their fighter bomber squadrons were based in Holland and came under the control of the coordinating command.
It all seemed to be going well, with the fear of imminent mutant invasion overcoming and supressing any overriding political squabbling and point scoring.
Ground troops were being deployed to the French coast centred on Calais, as it was the closest point to the UK mainland. However, there were thousands more positioned up and down the European seaboard, from Biarritz in the south of France to Tromso in the north of Norway. The troops had requisitioned buildings on the shoreline and were digging in. They were armed to the teeth, with no effort spared to equip the defenders. Flame throwers, mortars and heavy machine guns were sited at all beaches and possible landing points in an attempt to destroy the threat if and when it waded ashore.
There was one exception to this huge military operation.
Breton.
Lord Irvine had temporarily withdrawn his new nation state from NATO and was deploying instead the remnants of the British RAF, RN and Army throughout the land. He had assured the NATO commanders that the mutant threat would be dealt with in Brittany and that there would be no possibility of an ‘outflanking manoeuvre’ from that direction. It was a mutually agreeable and viable option, and suited both NATO and Breton alike. It also meant that the Royal Air Force would not be required to intensively bomb its own homeland (notwithstanding the Tornado Squadron).
By late on that Thursday evening, the vast majority of the European defence forces were in place.
All they could do now was to wait.
***
Pascal de Bruin, his wife Gabrielle and their twin sons Marc and Paul, had been living happily on the outskirts of Calais when the awful news finally broke.
Pascal was a successful computer engineer and owned a small shop which serviced local companies and private citizens. He made a good living selling computers, printers and accessories to the local populace, and was astounded as he watched the dreadful and life-shattering broadcast from New York.
His wife was a head teacher at a local primary school, and his sons were happily completing their education before moving off to university. They had been affected by the snow, as had most of the French population along the coast, but had survived reasonably well. Not many refugees or British ex-pats had reached Calais as it had soon become cut off by the weather. Ferries had stopped sailing and the roads into the port were gridlocked. Hardly anybody could reach the area and when they did, they found a ghost town. A lot of the local population had fled east to relatives or friends, but the de Bruin family had remained at home, and when the thaw set in had resumed their lifestyle as the snow melted away. They storm in France had not been one quarter as severe as on the British mainland, so survival was not a serious or life-threatening issue.
As the populace flowed back to Calais they discovered that all modes of transport into the UK had ceased forever, and those previously working in the docks were finding life quite difficult. There was little or no work to be done as f
erries and trains had been cancelled indefinitely. Nevertheless, people still needed computers, so Pascal’s business thrived – for a while.
Then the bombshell dropped. The family could hardly believe that these mutants were massing just a few miles to the west and were potentially planning to invade France. It was all too surreal, but they finally decided that caution was the better part of valour, had packed up their estate car and headed east to Gabrielle’s family in Alsace. They reasoned that it was far enough away to preclude contact with these mutants, and that they should be safe with the in-laws.
They drove out of Calais on the main A26, but didn’t even reach Arras, which lay less than two hours’ drive to the south east before they hit the traffic jams. The roads were not surprisingly gridlocked with families who had had the same idea. Escape was the order of the day and unfortunately everybody seemed to have the same sense of self-preservation. After all, who in their right mind wanted to face certain death when and if confronted by these creatures from hell?
What they also didn’t know was, that at the junction of the A1 which lay at right angles to the A26, the French Army had deployed half a dozen AMX Le Clerc tanks and several hundred heavily armed soldiers in an effort to stem the tide eastwards. The French Army was turning cars back towards Calais and the atmosphere at the road block was riotous. Not unnaturally, the French civilian population was terrified and appalled that they were not allowed to proceed eastwards to relative safety. There was desperate confrontation as drivers challenged the army. Shots were fired and several civilians had been killed or injured.
It was only after a full day of waiting in the queue did the de Bruins start to move east, only to discover that when they reached the main Autoroute junction, they were turned back.
By this time, they were tired, hungry, thirsty, frightened and terribly disoriented. They had been advised – ordered – by armed troops to go home, and it seemed to them that there was little alternative. It was less that one hundred kilometres back to their house in Calais, so at just gone midnight they crossed over the motorway and headed back west.
It was a short journey.
After only twenty minutes, Pascal, tired and dehydrated dropped off to sleep at the wheel and consequently didn’t pick up on the slowing traffic ahead. His family were of no help as they were all sound asleep in their seats. Their little Citroen rammed into the back of the queue on the inside lane at around sixty miles per hour.
None of the passengers in either car survived the impact, and as a result of the crash, several vehicles shunted into each other and a fire broke out which engulfed another dozen or so returning motorists and their passengers.
This was not an isolated incident. Hundreds of such fatal and tragic accidents occurred all over France and Belgium.
Fear was doing the job for 'The Rook'. The humans were wracked with terror. Her job would be an easy one.
But first of all, she had to land the horde ashore.
***
The formal transfer of power from Brussels to Quimper was signed off by 0001 hours on Friday 28 June. Lord Irvine had moved into his office by 0900 that morning as the vast majority of his administrative staffs were unpacking their office equipment, alongside their Breton counterparts, using Franglais to communicate in the early days. It had been decided that the controlling bureaucracy should be assisted by French clerical officers who would provide support during the bedding in period – and beyond.
To some degree the move to Breton had been frenzied. The short-notice mass evacuation from Brussels had taken many by surprise, but the desire to move out of the mutant firing line overcame any objections. A great deal of the groundwork had been in progress for some weeks already, so it was not a complete culture shock as the new Brit/Bretons touched down in Brittany. Indeed, many were simply relieved to escape to Breton and detach themselves from the coming mutant conflict. Many imagined that they would be safe in the isolation of their new homeland.
Many had made a fatal error of judgement.
***
The political command remaining behind in Brussels was in some disarray. Communication, co-operation and final agreement between the ‘allies’ was at first hesitant and sometimes fractious. English, ironically, was adopted as the language of interaction and after several heated meetings, the ruling council nervously settled down to fighting their mutual enemy and not each other.
The Chinese were helpful and non-contentious – possibly because of the perceived distance of the current threat from far off Chinese soil. However, the Russians were a wild card, and spent much of the time issuing not-so veiled threats – usually concerning the use of nuclear weapons sooner rather than later.
However, the bombing of the UK mainland continued and increased in magnitude, US military reconnaissance satellites providing photographic evidence of the progress of the war. New targets were selected each day as the horde continued to move south, but decisive success was elusive. The mutants took cover in woodland wherever possible and even when aircraft identified and bombed a specific group only a few were permanently injured. The separation of head from body was proving a difficult objective to achieve, so many merely got back up onto their suppurating feet and continued to march. Detached arms and flesh hanging loose did not deter or halt the relentless surge towards Dover.
Small boats sailing down the east coast holding mutants were attacked, but in many cases the passengers merely sank to the sea floor just offshore, and waded towards the beach and continued on foot, their lifeless lungs unaffected by the salt water.
Over a million of these creatures were on the move.
Over a million individual targets to destroy.
Over a million driven by one inexorable aim.
To feed.
***
'The Rook' was herself moving amongst the horde.
She had realised just in time that the huge assembly areas were easy pickings for the military might of her enemy, so she had spread her assets thinly – and so far, it was working well.
Her five senior commanders were marshalling their own groups as she had directed, and a sophisticated chain of command was being devised and instigated. She instructed the leaders to keep her army well-dispersed, and travelling for twenty-four hours in every day gave them the cover of darkness in which to conceal their progress and location.
'The Rook' maintained her plan to cross the water at the next new moon, the following Monday – now only two days away. Her army would surge across the small watery barrier in darkness, and in their hundreds of thousands bring terror and havoc to the human enclave now cowering before them.
The feeding frenzy was nigh.
Day 197 / Z-Day 162
Saturday 29th June
Western France
The journey in the motorhome through Spain, via Madrid, had progressed remarkably well. Brady and his two passengers travelled on the excellent Spanish dual carriageway system to maintain a reasonable average speed and drove via Granada, up the E4 towards Madrid, where they spent their first night at Camping Aranjuez, adjacent to the old royal palace.
Ann was behaving herself and Chloe attempted to keep the peace. Brady was totally unconvinced by Ann’s new personality transplant, and was determined not to be betrayed by this woman ever again. In turn, Ann was secretly plotting his imminent downfall.
Nevertheless, for the time being, the fragile ceasefire held, and the group enjoyed a typically Spanish evening meal in a local Bodega, watching events to the north unfold on television. The news was monotonously morbid. The press, as usual, took the most depressing view of events – and for once who could blame them? Pictures showed the build-up of defences in western France, the traffic chaos caused by civilian panic, and film released from military aircraft cockpits displayed the vicious bombing of mutants on the UK mainland. It was all very frightening.
Almost as an afterthought, there was a report from Quimper in Breton, with Lord Irvine expressing his regret at having to desert the alli
ance, but explaining that the British people had been through enough. They needed a base from which to re-establish themselves and he assured the world’s media that his armed forces would join the fray in due course.
To Brady’s surprise he also glimpsed John Stubbins as he gave a ten-second soundbite standing in front of his new hospital in Quimper. And guess who was standing in the background of the shot?
‘Isn’t that Bryan Wester?’ shouted Chloe.
‘I’ll be buggered if it isn’t,’ replied a startled Brady,’ what the hell is that old devil doing in Brittany. My God, that man falls on his feet!’
Chloe had an idea.
‘Look; if we make it to Brittany, why don’t we head for Quimper and look them up. Maybe they can bring us up to date?’
Brady found it hard to disagree, but Ann was not so eager.
‘That's all well and good, meeting up with your old cronies, but I suggest we make sure that none of Irvine’s people spot us. Remember that we all have prices on our heads and that Irvine would relish our capture and incarceration. Caution should be our strict watchword.’
Snow! The Series [Books 1-4] Page 135
