Christopher Nuttall - The Fall of Night

The interior of the briefing room had been renovated several times, currently designed to reassemble a corporate office, rather than the dignified centre of government that Whitehall aspired to be. The Prime Minister stood to greet Langford as he came to a halt and saluted; his bulk made it seem as if he was a beached whale. Prime Minister Nicholas Donavan actually believed half of the statements he made in public and in private; Langford gave him that much credit. Like John Major, no one really questioned his integrity; his grasp of political affairs was another matter. If Labour and the Conservatives, to say nothing of the Scottish Nationalists, hadn’t so thoroughly discredited themselves…

“Thank you for coming,” Donavan said. Everyone else in the room, with the exception of a dour-faced Police officer, was a political appointee or politician; Langford was uncomfortably aware that he was outnumbered. The ongoing budget crisis, seemingly impossible to solve, had left Donavan with a desperate need to cut costs, anywhere. The MOD’s budget got smaller every year. “I believe that we can begin now.”

Langford took his seat, noting the presence of the Chief of the Defence Staff, Jack Redding, and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Neddy Young. The Deputy Prime Minister was off pressing the flesh for a by-election in Scotland; his place had been taken by one of his trusted aides. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Bruce McClain, looked grim; he was the third person to hold that role since Donavan had become Prime Minister.

“You may have heard that there was an… unfortunate incident in France last week,” the Policeman said. His nametag read BRIGGS. “There have actually been some protests in several southern cities in Britain relating to it, all coordinated through the network of mosques that we have identified as being hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism. The protests have been carried out without violence, but there were some incidents of genuinely worrying behaviour and, I believe, signs that there is a real network coordinating their actions. This cannot be coincidence, Prime Minister; I believe that this represents a disturbing trend in Islamic behaviour.”

He tapped the display. “You will remember that the Americans killed seven British Muslims in what remains of Saudi Arabia last month,” Briggs continued. “All of them came from these four mosques” — the display changed again — “and all of those mosques held protest marches demanding that the Americans turn over the bodies for proper disposal. This was impossible, of course; the Americans simply destroyed the bodies once they had been identified. Less well known is the fact that the Americans took an eighth British Muslim alive… and forced him to talk. He was talking about an entire recruiting ring that gave him training before shipping him into Saudi.”

Donavan shuddered. “The Americans tortured him,” he said. There had been any number of articles on the practice when it had begun, before Oakland; afterwards, the American public would have been quite happy to bathe the entire Middle East in radioactive fire. Millions had died in Oakland. “He would say anything under torture.”

“The Americans gave us some of the information and we checked it out,” Briggs said. Langford felt a moment of sympathy for him; his superiors should have handled such matters, not dropped them in the lap of a relatively junior officer. “Sir, there is a network there and it represents a clear and present danger; we need to take it apart, quickly!”

He paused. “The growth of right-wing extremism is also becoming worrying, with reports of illegal arms and training flooding into inner cities,” he continued. “Incidents of racial hatred and even outright violence have been on the increase, some of it in response to the actions of the Islamic network. Something has to be done.”

“If we arrest the people behind the network, we’ll have a riot on our hands,” Neddy Young said. “We cannot afford that, not when we are making progress at last.”

“You mean when you are appeasing them,” Briggs snapped, too tired to continue. Langford silently applauded him. “This situation is too unstable to continue…”

“We will take it and think about it,” Donavan said. Briggs heard the note in his voice and sat down bitterly. “Major-General?”

Langford exchanged a long look with Briggs before taking control of the display. “The main item on the agenda is the deployment to the Falklands,” he said. “The fleet is currently one week away from the islands and the number of incidents has fallen sharply. ASW frigates reported some contacts with submarines — we know that the Argentineans have purchased several newer submarines from the Russians, including three nuke boats — and there have been some long-range aircraft flying out to take a look at us, but nothing of great importance. The Americans…”

“I told you so,” Bruce McClain snapped. “This little operation cost us billions of pounds, money we can ill afford to lose; I knew they were bluffing.”

“It had to be done,” Donavan said reluctantly. Langford could almost read his thoughts; to a man like him, the wishes of the islanders were paramount… and he assumed the same was true of the archetypical reasonable man. The problem was that nationalists were not given to being reasonable over some issues. The Argentinean Government, back in the economic dumps after the fallout from the American War on Terror had spread into Latin and South America, had been beating the nationalist drum again… and what better cause than the Falklands? “We could not afford a repeat of the Falklands War. General?”

Langford smiled. “The other matter of importance is the deployment to Poland,” he said. “Under the auspices of EUROFOR POLAND, we have dispatched several regiments to join the defence force, assuming that it is actually needed. There are some reasons to be concerned that the Russians might attempt to take over the Ukraine if the elections there don’t go their way. Sir, I must request that we force the European Defence Commission to revise the ROE, at least for units that might have to go into Ukraine and support the EUROFOR units already there.”

“Out of the question,” McClain snapped. The fury in his voice was almost a tangible thing. “The last thing we need is to get embroiled in a war with Russia.”

Donavan tapped the table. “Major-General, do you have any reason to be suspicious?”

Back to Major-General, I see , Langford thought dryly. “The Russians have been moving up forces into positions that they could use to jump into Ukraine and they have said, several times, that they would not tolerate an anti-Russian policy on the part of the Ukraine,” he said. “It was hard enough to convince them to accept the deployment of two European battalions into the Ukraine, and they have prevented us from any serious joint operations. The Irish and the Swedes might be tough, but they’re not ready to act if the Russians try something and don’t have the firepower to act in any case. We would have to react instantly if something happened… and we don’t even have a political line to fall back on.”

Donavan tented his fingers. “It has been discussed in the European Parliament,” he said. “The general consensus is that eventually the Ukraine will apply to join the European Union, and so patience is all that is required.”

Langford shook his head. “And what happens if the Russians refuse to go along with it?”

Afterwards, he took the helicopter back to PJHQ. He had some leave coming up, but he hated to go on leave when he had the sense that something bad was about to happen. Not for the first time, he thought about accepting the American offer of American citizenship to any European soldier and his or her family who was prepared to spend a few years in the American Army. At least the Americans were doing something… while Europe fiddled merrily away.