Ukraine had become a tinderbox of bitter resentment and fermenting unrest ever since the Russian government had backed the cause of Ukraine separatist rebels and then annexed Crimea in 2014. The Russian incursion helped foment spotfires of rebellion in the east and came shortly after the February disappearance and eventual toppling of Ukraine’s Prime Minister. In the months that followed, several revolutionary groups emerged across Ukraine, and power struggles between rival factions turned violent as they fought for political ascendancy. For his activism, Yuriy Lyachko had become a wanted man.
The waitress brought two bowls of blood-red borscht and handed out menus written on stiff pieces of cardboard. Yuriy ordered food for both of them. The waitress spun on her heel and disappeared into the kitchen.
From the far side of the room an overweight bearded man suddenly stood. He dabbed at his lips with a napkin, screwed it into a ball, and came weaving his way between the tables. Yuriy saw the man approaching. He flicked cold black eyes at the woman seated across from him.
“Fuck off, Lyudmyla. Go and powder your nose – and don’t come back to the table until I send for you.”
The young woman blinked, her face expressionless. Without another word she stood, unhooked her handbag from the back of the chair, and disappeared.
The overweight man took her seat.
“Welcome Yuriy Lyachko. You have arrived not a moment too soon.”
Yuriy nodded. “This plague sweeping into Russia makes revolution even more critical, brother Kyrylo. Is everyone ready to rise up against the government? Are they willing to die to save Ukraine?”
The bearded man smiled, cunning and confident. “Yes,” Kyrylo Hütz said. “They grow impatient. They have waited in the shadows for too long. They want new leadership. They want Ukraine restored to her former greatness.”
He was about to say more when the young waitress reappeared carrying two plates of kovbasa sausage, eggs and vareniki dumplings that were filled with cabbages, beef and mushrooms. She set them on the table then put a cane basket of crunchy bread loaf and a bowl of sour cream between the two men.
“Will there be anything else?”
“Vodka,” the bearded man said, undressing the waitress with appreciative eyes as he spoke. She smiled, a little intimidated by the wolfish lust in the man’s eyes.
“Of course.”
“How many will turn up for the march tomorrow?” Yuriy asked after the waitress had returned with a bottle of vodka.
“As many as ten thousand,” Kyrylo boasted. He was wearing a faded and worn black leather jacket. He reached into a pocket and produced a small tattered notepad. “The word is spreading on social media, although that is proving unreliable. The eastern fringes of the country are suffering power outages and the internet connections are intermittent. Mostly we have been spreading the word through gatherings of small groups. Ten thousand at least, Yuriy Lyachko. Maybe fifteen thousand once they know you will be leading them on the march through the streets to Maidan Nezalezhnosti.”
“I will not be there,” Yuriy said.
“What?”
“I will not lead the march to Independence Square. The government have an SBU hit team hunting me.”
“The Security Service knows you are in Kiev?” Kyrylo hissed. A flicker of alarm flashed across his face.
“Maybe,” Yuriy grunted without looking up from his plate of food. He broke a piece of bread off the loaf and used it to mop up runny egg. He stuffed the slab of bread into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of vodka. He had been driving since the early hours of the morning, travelling on back roads from his hideout in the west of the country. He was tired, his nerves frayed by long hours of hunted tension.
“But you are the Liberated Front for Freedom’s leader,” the big bearded man became distressed. “You are the one who can galvanise the factions and bring them together into a voice loud enough to force change. Without you, who can lead the march?”
“You,” Yuriy looked up at last. His eyes were suddenly fierce.
“Me?”
“Yes. You will lead the protest while I watch from a vantage point overlooking the Square. We will stay connected by cell phones.”
Kyrylo thought for a moment. Leading the protest march would make him a target for any snipers who lined the route, putting him directly in the firing line of a government that had a reputation for brutal oppression to opposition. The thought made him quail.
Was it a challenge? Was Yuriy testing his loyalty to the revolution?
“Very well,” he agreed at last. “But at least speak tonight. Talk to these people who have gathered to see you. Inspire them, Yuriy Lyachko.”
For long silent moments the two men locked eyes across the table as if engaged in a battle of wills. Finally Yuriy gave a curt nod of his head.
Without another word he pushed back his chair and climbed up onto the table. Heads turned with hushed whispers of anticipation. He waited until he had everyone in the restaurant’s attention, his chin thrust out imperiously, holding himself with the poise of a seasoned stage actor.
“Brothers and sisters, my name is Yuriy Lyachko and I am the leader of the Liberated Front for Freedom,” he declared with a loud clear voice. People clapped and stomped their feet. Yuriy let the sound swell around him until it reached its enthusiastic crescendo, then held his arms out as if to embrace them all.
“The Motherland is under attack from three deadly threats. Our government has betrayed us. The filthy Russians invade our border… and now the darkest danger of all hangs over Ukraine like a black cloud – the NK Plague threatens our survival as a nation, our survival as mankind… and our government does nothing to protect us!”
Cheering erupted, savage and spontaneous. Yuriy knew his audience and knew what they wanted to hear. He stirred their patriotic pride into a fever pitch.
“The time for change is now – before it is too late. We must overthrow the government and take up arms to defend our rights. We must fight the Russians wherever we find them, and we must mobilize our army to protect our borders against the millions of infected that are massing to our east. Mark my words – Ukraine is next to suffer the deadly plague, unless we move now to defend ourselves.”
Again the crowd in the restaurant cheered themselves hoarse. The kitchen and wait staff came from their work stations to listen. People lined the staircase and stood on chairs, drinks in hand, raising their glasses in patriotic salutes.
“And while the Plague approaches our border and Russian boots march through Crimea, our government vacillates and does nothing! They betray us all! They betray the Motherland that is our home and our future! The government cares only for themselves. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet line their pockets with the wealth of your labours and they furnish their palaces and luxury dachas with decadent lavish trinkets that are denied to us common men. It’s unfair! It’s time for change!”
The crowd began to clap their hands to the beat of sudden chanting.
“Yuriy! Freedom. Yuriy! Freedom.”
“Tomorrow…” he had to shout to be heard now, so loud was the chorus of adulation. “Tomorrow we come together and march on Independence Square. We march as a display of solidarity and stubborn resistance. We march to demand a new leadership that will cherish Ukrainian values and defend the Motherland’s sons and daughters – against the filthy Russian invaders and the dire threat of plague-ridden hordes. We need you!” he thrust his pointed finger at random faces in the crowd. “And you! And you! We need your voice. We need your passion. We need every patriot to join the march!”
Yuriy was hoarse and shaking, lathered in sweat when he stepped down from the table top, his blood still fizzing with a thrill of euphoria. The crowd in the restaurant swarmed around him.
“Slava Ukraini. Glory to Ukraine.”
He found Kyrylo Hütz at the fringes of the crowd. The big burly man’s face was lit with pleasure. He embraced Yuriy in a suffocating bear hug.
“Twenty thousand
!” Kyrylo enthused. “After that speech, we will have twenty thousand at the protest march tomorrow.”
THE OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE
The President convened a meeting of the ‘Small Group’.
Walter Ford was the first to arrive. Jim Poe and General Knight entered the Oval Office together shortly afterwards. The four men sat informally on the two facing sofas.
“We need a solution to the China problem,” Patrick Austin sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together. He had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. “We have to know how we want this crisis to end. At the moment there are millions of Chinese aboard hundreds of freighters surrounded by hundreds of warships in the middle of the South China Sea. It’s a disaster – or a war – waiting to happen.”
SecDef and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were seated side-by-side directly opposite the president. But it was Walter Ford, sitting beside him, who spoke first.
“Do we have any idea of China’s intentions?” he asked the room.
No one spoke. For all of America’s sophisticated ELINT, GEOINT, MASINT, SIGINT and CYBINT they had nothing that could look inside a man’s mind and know his thoughts or motives.
“Sir, the Chinese President didn’t give you any clues to their intentions when you spoke over the phone?” General Knight asked.
“No,” Patrick Austin confessed. He had blundered. He should have pressed the Chinese on their plans, but at the time he had been too preoccupied with averting an all-out war. Now he regretted the oversight.
“Could we place another call to the Chinese and ask them directly?” Walter Ford offered.
“I would advise against that,” Jim Poe interjected. “What happens if the Chinese have a plan to do something that we don’t approve of, or don’t want to happen? Why would we give them the opportunity to tell us what they intend to do, when instead we can take advantage of the currently confused situation and steer them into a course of action that suits us.”
President Austin grunted. “There are no palatable solutions available, Jim,” he said reasonably. There was some irritation below the surface but he kept it in check.
“Then perhaps that should be the first conversation we need to have, sir,” Poe was attuned to the President’s mood. He could sense the grating frustration that put an edge in his voice.
The President sat back and sighed. “Okay. Let’s start there. What would be the best outcome for us in this situation?”
“As I see it,” General Knight said, “the Chinese only had a few possible alternatives when they launched their flotilla. First, they hoped to stay on the ocean, somewhere close to China, until the NK Plague burned itself out. Their plan would have been to return to the mainland and start over again once the land was free of infection. That’s the most likely scenario.”
The statement received a nod of agreement from the rest of the men in the room. General Knight went on.
“The second option might be to sail the flotilla to a nearby landmass that wasn’t overrun by the infection. If that’s the case, we’re talking about some kind of invasion.
“The third option might be to sail into the Pacific. There are a lot of small island nations, and China has invested heavily in the region over the past few years. Countries like Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa… they’ve stuck their financial fingers in a lot of South Pacific pies. It might just be that they plan on colonizing those island chains – which have all remained free and isolated from the plague.”
“Go back a step,” President Austin held up his hand like he was stopping traffic. “Option two called for an invasion of a nearby landmass. Given that we know the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia are all infected, I assume you mean an invasion of Australia.”
“Or New Zealand, sir.”
President Austin sat back and stared at the ceiling. He had the distinct feeling of being utterly overwhelmed. Someone had told him years ago that if a man was faced with a hundred decisions and he got just fifty-one of them right, he was ahead of the game. At the time it had made some superficial sense. But the theory had never accounted for the importance of each decision. Some choices were simple and had insignificant consequences. Other decisions could alter the world. This was one of the big issues and the President knew he could not afford to be wrong.
“I don’t think the island states are a viable option,” Walter Ford offered. “The Chinese would be fragmented across thousands of miles of ocean. They’d feel vulnerable. They’d feel too exposed.”
“I think the Chinese expected the Plague to burn itself out within days, or maybe weeks,” Jim Poe voiced his opinion. “I imagine the Chinese thought they could ride out the apocalypse and eventually return to China to pick up the pieces.”
“And now?” Walter Ford pressed.
“And now I think they’re being forced to reassess,” Poe said. “The evidence suggests this plague will keep spreading until the entire world’s population has been infected. I think the Chinese have been caught between a rock and a hard place. They might get desperate.”
It was an ominous thought that gave all the men in the room serious pause.
“If they feel trapped,” Walter Ford picked up the thread of SecDef’s thought, “they might take aggressive measures that would be counter to our own interests, sir.”
“Such as?”
“They might try to invade Australia. They certainly have the warships to hammer the Aussie Navy. And if the people living in those shipboard containers are largely military troops, they have enough manpower to crush the Australian defense forces.”
“That can’t be allowed to happen,” General Knight said adamantly. “Australia has been one of our longest and most loyal allies. We’ve fought in every major engagement with them at our side. They house several American military bases, including the Pine Gap facilities, and several other covert electronic and satellite installations. To surrender Australia to the Chinese would put ourselves at risk.”
“I agree,” President Patrick Austin said. “Australia is rich in minerals and resources. We’re going to need her natural assets to rebuild when this plague has run its course.”
It was a full-stop to the discussion. For many moments the room remained awkwardly quiet. Finally, Jim Poe said what everyone else was thinking.
“What if we allowed the Chinese to invade New Zealand?”
There was no shocked outcry. The four men looked at each other, trying to read each other’s thoughts by the silent signals in their expressions.
Walter Ford said quietly, “The Kiwis are not the friends of America that the Australians are. They’re not. For years we had troubles with the New Zealand government – they refused to allow our nuclear-powered warships in their harbors.”
“Their Prime Minister also refused to send a warship to join the Seventh Fleet, sir,” General Knight said.
President Austin looked tortured and anguished. The option being considered would lead to the slaughter of millions and the armed invasion of a nation – all while America stood idly by, condoning the action. It grated against everything Patrick Austin morally believed in.
He got to his feet suddenly, and began pacing the floor. “The very notion violates every civilized ideal, and everything America stands for,” the President growled. “We’re the land of the free – the home of the brave. We don’t stand idly by, and through silent complicities, allow one sovereign state to be invaded by another. Morally it’s abhorrent.”
“Sir,” General Knight put steel into his voice, knowing how dangerous his next words would be. “That’s a fine speech, but it’s not the reality. It might be the ideals we seek to uphold, but it’s not the truth of the world we live in.”
“Oh, really, General?” the President turned hotly. “Then you give me an example – just one example – where America has stood by and did nothing while another nation was invaded.”
General Knight sighed. “Crimea, sir. Ukraine, sir. Taj
ikistan, sir. Georgia, sir. Syria, sir…”
Patrick Austin said nothing.
Having made his point, General Knight sought to take the edge off the tension that crackled in the room.
“A desperate China is a dangerous beast, Mr. President. We can try to block their breakout from the South China Sea with the Seventh Fleet, but it will come at the cost of all-out war between both nations. A lot of American men and women will die, and a lot of ships will be sunk. If we lose that battle – and it is possible – the Chinese will be free to invade Australia and there won’t be a damned thing we can do to stop them.
“The USS Hacksaw won an engagement against two Chinese destroyers. Hacksaw gave the Chinese President a moment of wary pause. We can use that, sir. Right now the Chinese are licking their wounds and wondering whether their fleet is really as good as they thought it was. It might be a bet they’re now unwilling to take. If that’s the case we can exert our influence by offering them a palatable face-saving alternative. Let them invade New Zealand. Tell them we will turn a blind eye. It’s better to have the Chinese in a cage of our choosing.”
Patrick Austin sighed. He looked to where Jim Poe and Walter Ford sat.
“Your thoughts?”
“Given the choice, sir, I’d rather see the Chinese invade New Zealand than Australia,” Walter Ford admitted.
Jim Poe nodded his head. “Sir, the Chinese can’t stay in the South China Sea forever. Sooner or later their ships will run out of fuel or food. Assuming the NK Plague continues to ravage the world, the Chinese will be forced to invade somewhere. In the long term, having them in New Zealand suits us strategically. Between our facilities on Guam and in Australia, we could keep them closely monitored.”
Dead Storm: The Global Zombie Apocalypse Page 48
