John Robb - Zone Zero

“I may not agree—but I will understand. Continue.”

“I was only going to say that freedom was born in Greece. But you can’t know what freedom means!”

Gallast sniffed. It was almost an obscene sound.

“But I do know! Freedom is the privilege of serving the state with blind loyalty, for the state gives all and to the state we owe all. But… but as a soldier I respect you. I would be prepared to let you live…”

He paused and there was an eager hopeful stir among the legionnaires. It was frozen still as Gallast continued: “…but I never rescind an order such as this. It would be an unforgivable weakness. March away from us… Greek!”

Paffal took a half step forward, then stopped. He looked confused.

“My cap,” he said. “I’ve lost it. It would not look well if I died without wearing my cap. May I have it, please?”

The kepi was near Keith’s feet. He picked it up and handed it to Paffal. He could not meet Paffal’s eyes.

Carefully, Paffal adjusted it over his hairless head. But he was typical at the last. He failed to notice that at one side the chin strap had fallen away from the button. He had a length of thin black leather trailing past his left ear.

He walked away from them—a little unsteadily, but with no slackening of pace.

The legionnaires turned away as a couple of Luger shots rang out.

At Sidi Bel Abbes…

A cooling fan whirred discreetly over General Jonot’s head. The sound blended with the hum of traffic in the street outside. The hot air was tainted with petrol fumes and the indefinite odour of the nearby Arab market.

The general was glancing at the reports on Zone Zero.

It was a leisurely process.

He would pick up a signal sheet from a small pile on the right of his desk. After a brief pause, he would initial it. Then he would transfer it to a growing pile at his left elbow. Occasionally the general would put a casual question to his deputy chief of staff, who sat opposite.

As, for example, when he came to the sheet headed Fort Ney Area Command .

General Jonot was about to initial it when he paused, pen in contact with the paper. His brow became furrowed. He said: “I see that we received a message from Fort Ney at 15.07 hours yesterday.”

His deputy nodded. “I believe we did.”

“But only the last word could be identified!”

“That is so. The wireless room requested a repeat. It was received some twenty minutes later.”

General Jonot concentrated heavily upon the report sheet. Then he said: “And when it arrived it was quite a trivial query. But it might have been important—and there was all this delay in making contact. It’s not good enough… I have come to a decision…” Jonot paused weightily. His deputy waited without much interest.

Then Jonot added: “As soon as things are back to normal after the explosion we will have new wireless equipment installed in Fort Ney. Even a wretched little place like that must possess good communications.”

At the Sanna Oasis…

For centuries it had been a place of blistering desolation. Then the desolation gave way to seeming chaos. Men arrived. They came in massive transport planes and in huge track laying lorries. They brought with them a weird conglomeration of materials. The Arab labourers among them built temporary huts which served as offices and living quarters. The soldiers circled the place with wire and minefields. And in the midst of it all a mast-like steel structure went up. Armoured electric cables— which had been fed from a point fifty miles due south— were installed at the top of the mast.

And now the evacuation was starting.

The Arabs went first, packed in the lorries.

The less senior technicians were following by plane.

For only seven days were left. And before six of them had passed Sanna would be deserted again.

Except for the protecting ring of minefields. The wire. The flimsy huts.

And except for that stark steel mast which would become molten and vaporise when the thermo-nuclear bomb exploded on top of it.

At Tala Baku.

The colonel flipped through the Standing Orders Diary and said to the adjutant: “I see the mess funds are due for audit at any time now. Let me see… who’s in charge?”

“It was that fellow D’Aran.”

“D’Aran? Ah, oui ! You posted him to Fort Ney, didn’t you?”

“Yes. And for the time being I’m holding the safe key, man colonel. “I’ll hand it to the auditor when he arrives.”

“Quite… you know, now I come to think of it, D’Aran seemed unusually depressed when he set off for Fort Ney. I happened to notice him on the parade ground. Still, I suppose the prospect of three months in that place would distress anybody.”

“He’ll have plenty to occupy his mind, what with that infernal bomb going off. It’ll do him a lot of good, mon colonel.”

“A lot of good? I don’t understand.”

“Well… he was heading for trouble, you know.”

“Trouble! He always seemed to me to be a reliable young man. No money, not much background, but efficient.”

“He’d been seen about with a woman. That Lucinne Ranoir creature. Beautiful— oui . But dangerous for one so young.”

The colonel removed his reading glasses and chuckled.

“Such women are only safe in mature and experienced arms—such as our own! Eh?”

“Certainly, mon colonel. I did not want to see him make a fool of himself—that’s why I selected him for Fort Ney. He’ll be well away from her. He’ll be able to forget…”

At Fort Ney…

Keith strained instinctively against the ropes which had been newly tied for that night. He glared from his bunk at the similarly trussed figures around him.

“Why didn’t we rush them?” he shouted.

Someone said: “You talk like a fool. We would have been killed.”

“We’re going to be killed anyway, aren’t we? We’re going to be melted alive by that blasted explosion! Then we’re going to be dissected by that fiend Daak, just so he’ll know exactly what happened to us!”

D’Aran had found a spare bunk near Keith’s. He twisted on it and said: “Our duty is to remain alive as long as possible. While we live there is always a chance that we might be able to get a message out, so…”

“It’s a slim chance,” Keith interrupted. “The radio is the only way and Gallast and Daak have taken over that room. So what remains? I’ll tell you—nothing!”

“Nothing would have remained for us if we had rushed the guards this afternoon,” D’Aran said logically.

The Dutch inflections of Sergeant Vogel boomed through the gathering gloom.

“ Mon officier , I do not think they would have killed all of us. Some of us would have been overpowered—but allowed to live.”

“Indeed! Why?”

“Because the professor wants some of us to die from the effects of the bomb, mon officier .”

There was a brief silence while the sensible but macabre point was digested. It was broken by a nervous neighing from one of the horses which had been tethered in the compound.

A Czech, who could blaspheme fluently in six languages besides his own, demonstrated his verbal skill. Then he added: “Those animals are getting tired of being kept out there. They’ll make a lot of noise tonight. We’ll get no sleep.”

There was a general groan at the reminder.

Then a legionnaire said: “They’ll be using those horses to get away before the bomb…”

“…And to get back to look at the remains.”

“…Then the plane comes again to collect them.”