Ian Slater - WW III

BBC and ITN were instructed, under threat of D notice, to report the minister’s death as heart attack. Superintendent Favisham pointed out, however, that this might be a little “thin” as the minister was known as a “physical jerks man — jogging and all that. I suggest a stroke. Burst blood vessel. Can happen to any of us. Anytime.”

“Thank you, Superintendent,” said the minister’s secretary. “A stroke will do nicely. Man under enormous pressure.” He flashed a smile. “But aren’t we all?”

The superintendent didn’t like him — thought he was fruit.

“Tread carefully, Superintendent,” said the secretary, “with ballistics and all that. You know what these reporters are like. There’s enough anxiety already.” He paused. “Any idea who it might be?”

“No, sir,” said the super. “Interpol has a long list of potential head cases. Ready to pop any member.”

“Indeed. Then I need hardly tell you, Superintendent, that this will chill every member of Cabinet. Despite the present security, they’ll want to know whether we’ve taken all the appropriate precautions. They’ll certainly be asking how it is that a minister of the Crown can be assassinated in broad daylight from government offices on the other side of the street.”

The superintendent shook his head, unconsciously dropping his top denture at the same time, a habit the under secretary found as irritating as it was vulgar.

“I don’t think so, sir. From across the street, I mean. Acute angle, top of his head, you see, blown right out. More like it came up from the street, I expect.”

“In any case, I’ll need a full report by—” The telephone light was blinking. PM’s office.

“Yes, Prime Minister? Yes, sir. Of course.” The secretary put the phone down slowly, trying to put on as brave a face as possible. “We’re withdrawing along the Danube. New defense line is from Regensburg south to the Black Forest.”

The Superintendent’s geography was a little rusty. He hadn’t made it to Redbrick, let alone Oxford or Cambridge. The best he had was criminology at the Polytechnic.

The secretary explained. “A withdrawal of some eighty miles. We’re trying to ‘consolidate’—I think that’s what we’re calling it. From Regensburg down to Switzerland. Russians have some huge bloody guns up against us apparently. Trouble is, it’s as far as we can go, I’m afraid. With the French right behind us but not behind us — if you follow my meaning.”

The superintendent was trying to follow it on the map of Europe above the carpet stained where the minister had fallen.

It was foggy and nearing dawn in the Sea of Japan.

“I’ve told the troops,” Captain Al Banks informed the general.

“How’d they take it?” asked Freeman, who was sitting at his desk surrounded by maps of the operation Washington had called off.

“Tell you the truth, General,” said Banks, “I think some of them were pretty relieved.”

Freeman nodded. “Natural. But it takes the edge off of ‘em, Al. We’ve got to keep them wound up. Stop them moping about home, girlfriends, wives. Rome burns and we wait,” said Freeman disgustedly.

“We could show them movies, sir. Got lots of them. Or go over the rehearsals again.”

“No, not the rehearsals. Hell, we don’t know yet whether we’ve got anything to attack. No, they’ve been over it enough times. Any more, they start thinking they know it all, get stale. That’s dangerous. No, your idea about movies is a good one, Al. Keep morale up.” The general sat down, pulled out his bifocals, as discreetly as possible, and peered up at the map toward Pyongyang, several “Firebird” high-altitude photographs showing there’d been no substantive changes in the AA positions around the North Korean capital in the last twenty-four hours. “Ah, I don’t know, Al. Maybe they’re just sending us this stuff to keep us quiet while they squash the whole idea in Washington. Goddamn it, the plan’s right — all we need is the weather to hold and we could give ‘em such a kick in the ass—” He took off the glasses and dropped them on the desk map. “I ever tell you about that airplane in Canada?”

“No, General.”

The general rubbed his forehead and sat back. “Left Montreal for a place on the prairies. Ran out of gas halfway there at forty thousand feet. Air Canada it was — one of the best safety records in the world—”

“Then how—”

“ Metric!” explained Freeman, smiling sardonically up at the captain. “Took off in Montreal, checked the goddamn tanks twice. Converted liters to gallons. Multiplied by the wrong conversion factor. Did it twice, once when it left Montreal, second time after it landed in Ottawa. Then bang — no gas.”

“Jesus, what happened?”

“Started to fall like a goddamn rock, that’s what happened,” said Freeman. “Only thing they had in their favor was the pilot—”and here the general was pointing at Al to drive home the point—”one in a million — had been trained in gliders. Was able to manhandle that brute and slide it toward an abandoned airstrip. Only problem is, he was headed for the wrong airstrip until his copilot, who happened to have lived in the area years before, knew where the right strip was. They brought it down. Undercarriage had no power, so failed to lock. That saved them — otherwise they’d have mowed down about fifty people who used the airstrip as a Sunday runaround. Only casualties occurred when they started going down the escape chutes — two rear ones were too high off the ground. Lot of people got hurt. No fatalities. And all because of metric, Al. Metric. I’ve been triple-checking all of these figures for the attack. Less gasoline we have to carry, more men and ammunition.”

“There a problem?”

Freeman handed him a Xerox of a logistics and supply sheet. “Some ass in Washington did a metric on us. Here — look at this. NATO liaison, you see. Liters instead of gallons. Would have put all the Chinooks into Crap City on empty. How do you like them apples?”

“For cry in’ out loud—”

“I’m going to stay here until all these figures are checked, just in case Washington deigns to let us know what the hell they’re doing. Are they fighting a war or are we going dancing with these bastards?”

“I think you could do with a movie yourself, General.”

“No, but you go ahead, Al. And Al—”

“Yes, General?”

“We have any movies with that Fonda dame in ‘em?”

“I — think so, sir.”

“Throw ‘em overboard.”

“Sir, I—”

“I mean it, goddamn it,” said Freeman, using his folded bifocals as a pointer, his frustration at waiting for word from Washington bubbling to the surface. “I won’t have that female on my ship in any shape or form whatsoever. That understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Al Banks didn’t think it prudent to remind the general that though he was in command of the possible invasion force, it was not his ship to dispose of ship’s property, movies or otherwise. But it did occur to Banks that perhaps he should advise the general of something else: that females, three, in fact, had been in the audience last night as he’d delivered his salty and somewhat profane speech to the troops.

Freeman was appalled. “My God — that’s terrible. Women! In the audience?”

“Yes, sir.”

Freeman’s right hand ran through the graying hair, his left hand with the folded bifocals spreading out in a gesture of utter surprise. “I’d no more swear in front of ladies than—” His head shot up at Al Banks. “What the hell were they doing there?”

“Combat roles, General. Navy choppers. MGUs.”