John Birmingham - Without warning

Admiral Ritchie thanked the Australian Ambassador – the new ambassador, of course. The previous one had disappeared in Washington. His colleague from New Zealand added that her government would likewise accommodate as many ‘displaced US citizens’ as possible. New Zealand’s diplomat preferred not to use the term ‘refugee’ and had twisted herself into linguistic knots once or twice trying to avoid it.

Ritchie placed a tick in a small hand-drawn box next to the letters ‘A/NZ’. He looked over to the Japanese Consul-General, seated near the window giving onto a pleasant view of the small garden outside his office. A riot of colour framed the small, dark-suited man, a pink and orange spray of flowering bougainvillea.

‘Mr Ude?’

‘My government is more than happy for you to initially house as many of your countrymen and women as you can within your military facilities on our soil. And with the suspension of the academic year, there are a number of temporary rooms available on some college campuses

Ritchie couldn’t help but notice the heavy qualifications in that statement, and he could feel the ‘but’ coming somewhere in the next few seconds.

‘However,’ Mr Ude continued, ‘you will appreciate that accommodation is severely limited on the home islands, and cultural factors mean that resettling many of your citizens within our borders is likely to be so difficult as to be… unfeasible.’

Ritchie stamped down on his annoyance and cut to the point. ‘But you’ll take them in, for now, if we bring them?’

Ude nodded, seemingly thankful for having something to offer. ‘Yes. Within such limits as are to be confirmed by my government.’

Ritchie placed a tick in the box next to ‘Japan’ but then placed a small question mark after it and wrote Limits. A similar notation sat next to ‘France’, which maintained a number of colonial outposts in the Pacific, all of them well served by tourist infrastructure. In fact, a small forest of question marks surrounded the tick he’d placed next to France. His direct negotiations with the authorities in Noumea and the decolonised French territory of Vanuatu had initially gone well, but they had since referred all of his enquiries to Paris, and getting any kind of timely or useful response from Chirac or de Villepin was becoming nigh on impossible. Still, with firm commitments to help from Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Chile, in addition to all of the larger independent island states such as Fiji, Ritchie could begin to stitch together a patchwork of temporary refuge for most of the five million souls in the American diaspora. He had about a quarter-of-a-million berths he could call on throughout the rest of the region, but Ude was right: countries like Japan and Korea weren’t swimming in spare room, and many Westerners simply would not cope with the culture shock of being dropped in there even under the best of circumstances.

Ritchie twice tapped the ballpoint of his pen on the notepaper, as if sealing the deal, and leaned back from the conference table around which sat a dozen civilians, most of them foreigners. The only American not wearing a uniform was the lawyer, Jed Culver, sitting in for Governor Lingle’s office. His blue pinstriped suit was every bit as crisp as the day they’d met at the state capitol, and Ritchie could only wonder where the man was getting it cleaned. He surely couldn’t have brought more than one suit on vacation, could he?

Culver’s presence, although much appreciated for the way he could smoothly negotiate a passage through the most impenetrable thicket of bullshit, only served to remind Ritchie that very little had been done to settle the issue of executive authority. Indeed, given the mess in Seattle, it was only getting worse. General Blackstone was cracking heads there, but Ritchie was beginning to wonder whether he was stomping down a little too hard. He’d virtually cut the state off from the outside world, save for aid shipments and chartered flights for foreign nationals. And under any other circumstances you’d have to describe some of his measures as a touch excessive. But Ritchie had no time to go meddling in Blackstone’s command. Stopping that nuthatch city from imploding was probably beyond the abilities of any normal man. Mad Jack was welcome to the job.

Ritchie turned to the lawyer now, formally introducing him to the meeting. ‘Mr Culver, who’s here as a representative of the Governor, the highest civilian authority we have at the moment, has a number of issues he needs to work through with you, ladies and gentlemen, regarding humanitarian aid and any possible resettlement scheduling.’

‘Thank you, Admiral,’ said Culver, smiling at the group.

‘But if you’ll excuse me,’ Ritchie added, ‘I’m not needed for the next part of this meeting, and I do have an important video-conference. Please, stay seated…’ He waved the Japanese Consul-General back down into his chair and withdrew as Culver thanked the diplomats for their countries’ help so far.

An aide was waiting for him at the door and ushered Ritchie down the hallway to a temporary communications room he’d ordered set up a few days earlier. Running hither and yon across the scattered PACOM campus was a frustrating timewaster and he had moved quickly to consolidate his most important functions right here in the old white stone colonial building where he’d been quartered before the Disappearance.

‘Generals Musso and Franks are on line, Admiral. But I’m afraid the secure link to Brussels is out, so we can’t get General Jones in conference,’ explained his aide, a navy commander called Oakshott. ‘Also, I’m still having trouble getting Fort Lewis on line.’

‘Well, keep on it. I know we’ve got links dropping out everywhere but this system was supposed to survive a first strike. So I don’t see why it should be so goddamn flaky now.’

‘No, sir. We’re on it, but it’s not just the links, Admiral.’ Oakshott handed him a sealed envelope with a red stamp and marked, Top Secret - Echelon. Your Eyes Only.

‘What the hell now?’ grumbled Ritchie as they turned into the comms facility, which had quickly been christened ‘the Radio Shack’ by the lower ranks. ‘Just excuse me for one moment, Commander. If you’ll apologise to the generals for the delay.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Ritchie took himself off into a small alcove attached to the main communications office, shutting a soundproof door behind him. The space was cramped, not much bigger than a closet, which indeed it had once been. He tore open the brown envelope and read the few lines of text, cursing under his breath as the import of the message became clear. ‘That’s all we fucking need.’

He crumpled the communiquй before regaining control of his temper, smoothing out the paper, and placing it back in the envelope. Then he hurried out of the alcove and over to the bank of monitors where he could see video images of Musso and Franks.

‘Commander, safe-hand this back to my office, would you, and wait for me there. I’ll reply when I’m done with the conference.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Ritchie settled himself into a chair in front of the big flat screen, nodding at Musso and Franks. There were only four sysops in the small room, all of them cleared to the level of Top Secret Absolute. One of them handed him a headset, which he fitted himself before speaking.

‘Please excuse the delay, gentlemen. Unavoidable, I’m afraid.’

On screen, both men nodded. They were all dealing with the unavoidable on a daily basis.

Ritchie continued. ‘First point. This secure channel may not be secure. I’ll explain by encrypted path later, but assume it’s been compromised for now.’

He noted the immediate reaction of the two officers. They didn’t go into a flap, but there was a noticeable stiffening of the sinews.