John Birmingham - Without warning

Indeed, neither Franks nor the junior Coalition partners were anywhere to be seen as a USAF colonel took the podium. Melton, a former Ranger, was a nine-year veteran of the Army Times foreign desk and knew most of the US military’s Qatar-based flak handlers by their first names. He had never seen this air force bird before. He keyed on his dictaphone as soon as the officer appeared, ensuring that the first twenty seconds of his recording were taken up with the jabbering crescendo of 200-plus colleagues all shouting individual questions at the front of the room. He had no trouble resisting the urge to join in the raucous assault on the dignity of the briefer – what would be the point? Melton waited for the chaos to die down.

The colonel did nothing to calm the room. He merely placed a sheaf of papers on the podium and stood at ease, examining the unruly mob with cool detachment. Nearly a minute and a half after he had first entered the room, the reporters slowly, gradually, quietened down and resumed their seats like shamefaced school children. As if to make the point about who precisely was in charge, the colonel’s eyes traversed his audience with a cold, mechanical detachment.

Melton readied his pen to take notes. His Sony recorder was working perfectly but that was exactly when you couldn’t trust the damn things.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Colonel Yost, and I will be taking your briefing tonight in place of generals Franks and Wall and Brigadier McNairn. They have been indisposed by developments but will make themselves available for questioning as soon as possible.’

An Italian TV producer sitting directly in front of Melton leapt to his feet and called out, ‘When?’

Yost fixed him with a killing stare and waited a full three seconds before answering. ‘As. Soon. As. Possible.’

A further glare delivered as a broadside to most of the room cut off any more interruptions.

‘As you know, communications links to North America have been severed – not just from CENTCOM, but more generally, across both the civilian and military spectrum,’ said Yost. ‘Answering speculation as to why, how and by whom is not my responsibility today. It may be yours, but you won’t get your answers here. CENTCOM is endeavouring to re-establish contact as quickly as possible. We have already confirmed links with the Pacific, European and – I emphasise – with some elements of the Northern Command. For those of you who do not know, NORTHCOM is the unified military command responsible for operations in the US, Mexico, Canada and the northern Caribbean.’

Melton didn’t bother to jot down the explanation. He was familiar with all the US commands, having worked in each of them at some time, but he did note that Yost didn’t claim to be in contact with NORTHCOM proper, just ‘elements’ of it. That could mean a big ass-kicking set-up like Fort Lewis, outside of Seattle, or it might mean he’d phoned a guard post somewhere on the outskirts of Anchorage or Guantanamo.

‘Have you seen the photos, Colonel? The French satellite photos of your cities? Can you tell us what has happened to them?’

Melton recognised the voice of Sayad al Mirsaad, the Al Jazeera correspondent who was forever in danger of being thrown off the base. Yost levelled the same robotic stare at him as he’d used to silence the Italian provocateur, but Melton knew his Jordanian colleague wouldn’t be so easily cowed. Mirsaad remained on his feet, hands on hips, almost inviting him to reach over and take a swing.

‘They are gone, Colonel. It is all gone. An act of God, no less. How could it be otherwise?’

Yost jumped in before a flood tide of voices could drown him out. ‘It could very easily be anything but, Mr Mirsaad. You are not there. You haven’t seen anything for yourself. All you know is that you can’t get a phone call through, and somebody is selling very expensive pictures of what looks to me like computer-generated video-game imagery. If I were you I’d go read your H.G. Wells before I pushed the panic button, sir.’

Melton smirked quietly as he filled his notepad with shorthand. He had to score that one to Yost, although the classical sci-fi reference seemed lost on the Jordanian as it was on most of the other foreign journalists in the room. Or at least those from non-English-speaking countries. For himself, he didn’t mind a bit of trashy reading when he was stretched out in business class, thirty thousand feet up. He even admired Iain M. Banks’s high-tone Culture novels as an unlikely blend of literature and SF. But he lived and worked in the real world, just like the men and women he wrote about, and while the Army Times correspondent couldn’t possibly imagine what sort of technical clusterfuck or psy-war hoax they were dealing with, he had no doubt that the explanation was more prosaic than alien space bats or the hand of God.

He hadn’t had time to view the still shots on BBC World. He’d been too busy trying (and failing) to get through to head office back in Virginia. If he had to make a bet, however, he’d lay his money on some kind of killer virus, probably written up by guerrilla hackers in Russia or Malaysia as a protest against the imminent war, not to mention as a personal shot at glory in the bizarro underground. A hit like this, just days before the start of the war, would instantly transform some spotty college drop-out into a hyper-celebrity super-hacker. A pity for them they’d never be able to cash in with Nike endorsements or a Coke ad. Best they could hope for was a virtual hand job on some mal-ware chat site. Fuckwits. Just a few months ago he’d freelanced a 3000-word feature on digital security for Statfor.com that the Times didn’t want. He’d come away with mixed feelings; utter contempt for the social misfits and losers who were the creators of so many of the most destructive programs, and an unshakable certainty that some day one of them was going to pull a stunt that did real-world damage to real-world lives. Perhaps this was it.

Somebody from Agence France-Presse jumped to his feet demanding to know – all the French reporters sounded like they were always demanding this or that – how the Coalition expected to maintain the integrity of their communications in any conflict with Iraq, given the ‘total collapse’ of their network this morning. It was a good question, one Melton had wondered about, and he was surprised to see that Colonel Yost looked almost relieved to get it.

‘Our theatre-level networks remain fully functional, intact and secure,’ he said. ‘General Franks is in complete control of all Coalition forces in situ. That is simply not an issue. The US and her allies are ready and willing to carry out any order from their national command authorities. Whatever the mission, we will accomplish it… Thank you. This briefing is at an end. You will be kept informed of any developments via the media centre.’

Yost nodded curtly, gathered up his papers and walked away from the rostrum as hundreds of seated reporters suddenly leapt to their feet to hurl questions at him. Melton stood with them. In the sudden outburst, all he’d heard was a single question shouted by Sayad al Mirsaad before anyone else.

‘What national command authority? They’re gone…’

It’s an intensely frustrating experience for a newsman to find himself cut off from the biggest story of the day, and Bret Melton soon felt as though he was cut off from the biggest story of all time. That’s not to say there was nothing to report from Qatar. The presser had broken up in chaos and the headquarters of the Coalition forces was seething with all the mad energy of a giant ants’ nest that had been rudely kicked open. But in spite of all the activity as the military spooled up their response to whatever had happened on the other side of the globe, Melton knew that a more immediate story was available a short plane ride away: the inevitable eruption of the Arab world when it realised that America was gone.