John Birmingham - Without warning

‘Okay. We still have business to do. I’ve just come from a meeting with some of our regional allies and partners, and we now have firmed-up commitments from them to absorb any refugee flows. Some firmer than others, of course, but we can proceed with Operation Uplift.’

Musso’s relief was palpable. He appeared to exhale a long, pent-up breath.

‘General Musso, I’ll send you a schedule of receiving ports in an hour. If you could get back to me soonest with a concept for getting any US nationals who want to go, out of the SOUTHCOM area, I’ll start organising transport assets for you.’

Musso thanked him and appeared to scratch out a note to himself.

‘General Franks, Uplift doesn’t concern you as much in the immediate future, but it will when you’ve disengaged from the current operation. With a mind to my precaution about communications security, you want to update me with your latest?’

The commander of the Coalition forces in the Gulf looked as though he was chewing on nettleweed. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, obviously choosing what he could say over a possibly compromised channel. ‘I have multiple situations evolving and deteriorating, Jim. Operation Katie is reaching the limits of its effectiveness. I have the Kuwaiti Government screaming at my liaison not to pull out of the theatre and citing line and verse of our treaty obligations. The Saudis and our other allies are doing the same.’

Marvellous, Ritchie thought. Just marvellous.

‘The Kuwaiti armed forces are presently engaged along their front in the Wadi al Batin region, to the west of our lines. The British and the Marines are heavily engaged against an Iranian armoured sweep through al Basra towards their lines.’ Franks ticked those items off a sheaf of paper. ‘We are heavily attriting any force sent against us, regardless of their origin or nationality.’

Tommy Franks hadn’t said anything that wasn’t being reported by various surviving news networks. He was sticking to the public and the knowable. Ritchie wasn’t surprised.

The general continued. ‘The Iranians have contested our air supremacy over the theatre. At present, I’ve limited myself to asset defence.’

Ritchie pursed his lips and grunted an acknowledgement of Franks’s vague allusions to the fact that the Iranian air force and navy were probably doing their best to try to sink every Coalition ship in the Persian Gulf.

Those Kilo subs of theirs will be a nightmare to find in the Gulf Ritchie thought. He had half a mind to hammer America’s so-called regional allies into sending their air and naval assets out to help hunt down the Iranians, citing the same treaties they were currently being hammered with.

‘General, execute Oplan Damocles,’ Ritchie said. No one listening should know what that was. If they watched their news feeds, they’d know soon enough. But had he stepped over the line? he wondered. Hell, where was the line now?

Franks paused for a mere second before saying, ‘Copy that, Admiral.’

See how the Iranians like that, Ritchie thought before he continued.

‘We’re in dangerous, unchartered waters here, gentlemen, if you’ll forgive me the maritime analogy. This isn’t just a military problem, it’s political. But we have no political authority to lead us, and frankly I don’t see that changing any time soon. The civilian leadership here is barely coping with local responsibilities. Just feeding the islands and maintaining order is keeping Governor Lingle busy twenty-five hours a day. She makes the point, quite reasonably, that she can do infinitely more in her current office. After all, her state government instrumentalities remain completely intact and functional, whereas almost everything at the federal level has disappeared. I get the same line from Alaska and Washington State. They might be bucketing out a sinking boat, but we’re asking them to give up the bucket and the boat just to help us out. I don’t think we should plan for a new executive to emerge any time soon. Certainly not soon enough to deal with your immediate concerns, General Franks.’

A brusque nod from Franks signalled his agreement. ‘So, what do I do, Jim?’ he asked.

The words seemed to come from outside Ritchie. ‘If there is no political solution, we will have to find a military one. And fast.’

Sleep finally claimed her, but only after hours of pain, dulled in the end by a dangerously large dose of Advil. The argument with Monique had been titanic and galvanising, and she feared that it had cost her more than just a few hours’ rest. Caitlin felt as though something vital had torn inside her head. She had lost her temper, and lashed out physically at one point, pushing Monique away from her, which only served to reinforce the French girl’s certainty that she held the moral high ground. After Monique’s initial shock at being pushed into the wall, Caitlin was sure she’d seen a smile and a small measure of triumph on her face.

‘So, in the end it is always the same, Caitlin, yes?’ she’d teased. ‘If you cannot win by reason you will do so with violence.’

Caitlin had been unable to reply. She’d staggered backwards, suddenly losing her balance to a strong surge of nausea and a blinding stab of pain behind one eye. She’d collapsed and vomited up all of her dinner. Monique was beside her immediately.

She had to hand it to the chick, she didn’t hold grudges. From a crazed harpy, screeching at Caitlin that she knew nothing about her boyfriend, she had switched without hesitation – propping her up, wiping the sick from Caitlin’s face with the sleeve of her shirt and helping her over to the tatty, uncomfortable couch, where she lay, shivering, for the next hour, sipping a glass of cloudy, brackish tap-water. Monique had even apologised repeatedly for upsetting her when she was so sick.

She was genuinely remorseful. Caitlin didn’t know whether to be aggravated or touched, and in the end it hadn’t mattered. She was too sick to care. Sleep had only been possible after taking the painkillers, and she’d only managed that after three attempts. Her stomach was rebellious and disinclined to keep anything down. Eventually, however, she had drifted into a feverish, unsatisfying and fitful doze, waking frequently, or thinking she had, but never gaining full consciousness. The couch was just a few inches too short for her to stretch out comfortably, and the cushions were old and hard. She was so tired and drained, though, that it didn’t matter. Her body needed to rest.

She found some peace by emptying her mind of all the troubles piling up around them, and imagining herself young again. Really young. Perhaps fifteen or sixteen, on a family beach holiday in Baja. Her dad was newly retired. Her older brother, Dom, was just about to leave home to take up a basketball scholarship all the way over in Vermont. Mom was still healthy. Caitlin lay shivering now in the darkness of the small, unheated apartment in a city tearing itself apart, and recalled an endless couple of weeks, surfing, swimming and hiking with her family. She managed a sad, lonesome smile at the memory of the surfing lessons she’d tried to give her parents. Her mother had wisely begged off after ten minutes, but Dad, he’d always been up for anything, and without the air force telling him what he could do with his life twenty-four,’ seven, Dave Monroe vowed that he would spend whatever was left of it living as a surf bum. He was probably joking. He already had a civilian job lined up with an air-freight company run by some buds who’d handed in their uniforms a couple of years before he did. But it was nice, Caitlin thought, to have him there to herself, with no prospect that he would ever again be called away to some third-world suckhole to get shot at by whackjobs and savages. It was nice to think of him living a life of ease, if only for a little while. And it was a pure delight when she finally taught him to stand up and dial into a little baby wave that carried him all of ten or twelve feet, whooping and hollering before he went A-over-T into the drink. She fell asleep with that happy memory as her last thought.