“Where do your family live?” Croft asked.
“Peckham.”
“They should be fine for now,” Croft said. Savage nodded her agreement, and the police office fell back behind them. Croft hated to lie, but he also knew what would happen if he didn’t. If panic set in amongst those defending the city, then all was lost. The men with guns were their only chance.
10.22AM, 16th September 2015, Downing Street, London
Word of the shooting inside Whitehall had reached the whole security detail guarding the hallowed seat of British Government. Some were still in shock to hear that the prime minister had authorised the shooting of anyone even attempting to breach the security perimeter. That a civilised country like the UK could suddenly feel lethal force was needed as a first line of defence in such a short space of time was not what any of them expected to see in their lifetime. After all, this wasn’t bloody America; these things just didn’t happen here.
Smith stood looking out of the gate, his machine gun ready, safety off and finger on the trigger guard. He watched a skinny man wander drunkenly across the first half of the road, only for him to collapse in the street. In the middle of the road on the traffic island, the man just fell into himself. People were running, and no one stopped to help the fallen civilian. Smith resisted the natural temptation that came with the job, the temptation to help a member of the public in need. That wasn’t his job, not today. Smith’s concentration was broken as someone stopped at the pavement barrier and tried to push his way past.
“Sir, you need to stop that and step back,” one of Smith’s fellow officers said loudly. The officer raised his machine gun a fraction.
“You’ve got to help me. I’ve seen them. I’ve seen their eyes,” the man pleaded. He sounded Scandinavian. An army truck drove past towards Westminster, briefly obscuring the fallen man. When the truck moved, the man was sat upright, looking around. Vomit was leaking from his mouth. The Scandinavian was trying to get past the barrier, gripping it, his knuckles turning white. He let go his grip, realising the futility of his efforts, and fled up the road, soon going out of sight. Smith ignored him, instead concentrating on the now not so well dressed man who was slowly pulling himself to his feet. The man vomited all down himself as if it was the most natural thing for him to do. Dressed in what was most likely a now severely soiled Saville Row suit, the slender man stood to his full height, sniffed the air and then his eyes seemed to lock onto Smith’s. Smith felt a shiver run up his spine.
“Heads up. Back away from the gate!” Smith shouted, and raised his weapon. The skinny man charged their position, crossing the road and vaulting over the pedestrian barriers. He flung himself at the gate full on as the officers there stepped back, avoiding the clawing hand that thrust its way through the gaps in the bars. Smith watched as the attacker struggled for several seconds and, realising his prey were out of reach, the infected man howled in frustration, looked up and began to climb the black-painted metal that acted as the, up until now, effective barrier to Downing Street.
Smith didn’t hesitate. He followed his orders and put two rounds in the skinny man’s heart with a precision that would have delighted his now deceased shooting instructor. No warning, no attempt to take the man alive. The two bullets entered the man’s flesh within a centimetre of each other, one perforating the right ventricle, the other punching a hole straight through the aorta.
The orders were clear, and the reason for the orders, although sounding insane, was even clearer. The machine gun round’s impact flung the climber from the railings, and he fell to the street outside, thrashing on the ground for several seconds before falling still. Smith stepped forward and aimed up for a further shot, but one of his fellow officers put a restraining hand on his arm.
“Wait, Sarge. I need to see it. I need to see it with my own eyes.” Smith looked at him, looked at the hand on his arm and then nodded to the man. He did not let his aim drop, however, but turned his attention back to the man he had just killed. The seconds passed by, and then after Smith had counted to five in his head, the body twitched and jerked. The head lifted itself off the ground, bringing the upper torso with it. They all saw the impossible, and they all saw the black eyes and look of pure evil in the now undead’s face.
“Fucking zombies,” someone said. Smith ignored the voice, and as the zombie began to rise from the ground, he followed the other order they had been given. Head shots were needed to stop them turning. The bullet went in above the right eye, and blew out the back of the creature’s skull, sending brain and bone matter spraying into the street. The creature didn’t get back up from that one. Smith had been the one to tell his men the new truth of the world, after being told said truth by a white-faced and almost panic-stricken inspector. Smith knew most of the men he told didn’t believe him when he told them about the infected, about the zombies. They believed him now.
Smith put a finger up to his earpiece, apparently listening to something being said to him. “I’m being relocated over to Horse Guards Parade,” he said. With a last disgusted glance at the corpse he had created outside the gate, Smith turned and walked away. He didn’t look back at the men he was abandoning, many of whom he had known for over a decade. He had a job to do, a job more important than any he had ever been given in his entire life.
10.26AM, 16th September 2015, PINDAR, Military of Defence, London
The conference room had been abandoned for a more secure facility: PINDAR, the crisis management and communication centre deep below the Ministry of Defence. Joined to Downing Street by secure tunnels, the trip there had been mercifully uneventful. Croft found himself being ushered along with the rest of those who mattered, and now he sat in a room feeling like a spectator whilst those in the facility outside went about the unenviable task of trying to save the country. A task that Croft realised was not achievable.
There were seven people in the room in total. Croft, Savage, and General Marston made up the military side. The PM, the chancellor of the exchequer, the home secretary and Sir Peter Milnes made up the civilian side.
“So what do we need to do right now to contain this?” the prime minister asked.
“I’ve ordered the Grenadier Guards to deploy, and we are bringing in attack helicopter support. Unfortunately, we have very few military assets in the capital, although the SAS are en route, and we are trying to liaise with the other affected cities.” General Marston did not look well. His skin was pale and clammy, and he massaged his chest. He saw Croft looking at him, and the sixty year old shrugged and withdrew something from his pocket. “Angina Major. I survived three wars only for my own body to give up the ghost.” He placed the GTN spray in his mouth and took a hit. “It’s why I was due to bloody retire shortly.” Croft looked at Savage.
“You’re the expert in biological agents, Captain. What do you think?”
“There’s no containing this,” Savage said. She hesitated slightly, aware of the fact that she was the lowest rank in the room, and one of only two women. Would her opinion even matter? Fuck it, she thought, it was past the point where ego mattered anymore. “The only way we have any chance of stopping this is with nukes.”
“You can’t seriously be suggesting we should use our own nuclear weapons on our own people,” the home secretary responded, visibly appalled. “There would be no recovering from that. There would be no country left.”
“Plus, there’s no guarantee that would stop the infection. If this is a coordinated attack, we don’t know what other cities might be next.” Milnes sat back in his chair, removing a piece of fluff from his almost flawless police uniform. “I still think we can contain this,” he said absently. The home secretary looked over at him and did well to hide her disgust. She wished he’d stayed at New Scotland Yard instead of rushing over here.
“You can’t, it’s too late for that,” Savage persisted. “This is unstoppable, probably even if you use nukes if I’m honest.” She didn’t finish what she really wanted to say. That she
knew the PM would never authorise nukes because he was a weak and feeble man. He was not a true leader; he was a man who happened to fall into a position of leadership out of pure luck. If Thatcher had been here, the nukes would probably already be flying … and she knew that the Iron Lady would have probably stepped out into the streets of her beloved capital so as to go down with the sinking ship along with the people she had led. But the present incumbent wasn’t a patch on Thatcher. He was a fine example of that old British army saying, Lions led by Donkeys.
“Croft, what’s your analysis?” the PM asked, turning to him. Croft paused, looked at Savage, seeing the almost pitying look she gave the prime minister. Croft looked at the general, who nodded approvingly.
“I don’t have access to fancy computer graphics, Prime Minister. And I don’t know enough about the virus to make a judgement on how fast it will spread. From what we’ve seen, though, it spreads quickly, and even when you kill those infected, they just come back. Savage, how many do you think are infected now?”
“Based on the initial sites that we think were the centres of infection, I would say around two hundred thousand are already infected in London alone. That’s more than our entire front line armed forces. And spread across the country as it is, there’s just no stopping it.”
“Christ, this is madness,” the PM said, exasperated. He was glad his family were at Chequers and not here to see him fail. “Is there even a protocol to deal with this?”
“No,” General Marston said. “Nobody could ever envisage a zombie apocalypse. We need to inform NATO of the situation, and we need to contact the Royal Navy, get every ship in port to sea. I can phone the NATO Secretary General, personally. And now might be a good time to speak to the US ambassador.”
“That dick head, Christ that’s the last thing I need,” the PM said. Croft looked at the man and could see he was close to losing it. Croft had never liked the man who the country had elected to lead them. He was a man of dubious character, and in his mind, not fit for office. He was not the kind of man the country needed in its present crisis.
“Prime Minister, let me tell you what’s going to happen,” Croft said. “I’ll tell you what I know, because I have seen versions of it happen with my own eyes in several of the delightful countries I have been sent to in the name of Queen and Country. You will start off thinking you can stop this. You will think that martial law, that curfews and bullets and troops and tanks will keep the infected at bay. But they won’t, because there are millions of people out there who are starting to panic. And many of those will be the people you are relying on to stop this. The police, the Army, most of them have families, and they will start dropping away in greater numbers to protect the people they love. If you don’t cut off social media, the news will spread like wildfire, and people will panic. If you do shut off social media, people will panic even more as the rumours run rampant. Within a day, every corner shop and every supermarket will be picked clean. And the streets in every single city will be ripped apart. You will be fighting on two fronts. You will be fighting an ever-growing army of infected, and you will be fighting the very people you are trying to protect. I regret to tell you that you will just become overwhelmed. You don’t have enough men, you don’t have enough guns, and you probably don’t have enough bullets. But more importantly, you don’t have enough time. Forget the ambassador; someone needs to talk to the US president.”
“We can’t just give up,” Claire Miles said, disgust dripping from her voice.
“I’m suggesting nothing of the sort, Home Secretary. I am merely stating the fact that we need to inject a dose of realism into this. We need a controlled retreat away from the infected zones, setting up areas of resistance where we can. I was employed by your predecessor for the task of making the difficult decisions in impossible situations. You all know what has to be done.”
“Noah,” Savage said softly, so softly that hardly anyone heard her.
“What was that, Captain?” asked General Marston.
“Noah, sir. Operation Noah.”
“Has it come to that?” said a shocked prime minister.
“Yes, sir.” She looked at Croft, who nodded his approval.
Operation Noah. Croft hadn’t written it, but he had read it. Written twenty-five years previously as a theory document, it outlined a plan to save the brightest and the best of the country in the event of a national emergency. It was originally written with the scenario of an invasion, pandemic or bio-weapon attack in mind, but this present scenario seemed to fit the document rather well. Save what could be saved, sacrifice the rest. The document actually went into significant detail, outlining who could and should be saved, what resources would need to be allocated and where.
Events since then had seen the theory document made real, and as secrets go, it was one of the best held. Money had actually been allocated, and a network had been established to allow the top-secret plan to be implemented. It was the reason Croft had the job he had, he and those like him. Part of Noah was stopping the unthinkable before they became reality. The question was, would those in the room instigate the plan?
“What do you think, General?” the prime minister asked Marston. Marston removed his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked at Croft, then at Savage, and then let his eyes rest on the TV screen. Shit, he was supposed to be retiring soon. He didn’t want to be here; he wanted to be with his wife far away in their country retreat in the South of France. She was there now, visiting relatives, and he thanked whatever gods there were for small mercies. Marston put his glasses back on and looked the prime minister dead in the eyes.
“Prime Minister, if we can’t get this under control in the next hour, I think it’s the only real choice we will have.”
Croft almost smiled. He knew Marston’s reputation. The man was a competent leader, a military genius, and a living contradiction to the often heard saying that the British Army was made up of Lions led by Donkeys. But the military didn’t run the country, civilians did, and it hadn’t been since Thatcher that the military had really held any regard for those who ran the country. Croft prayed the present incumbent of Number 10 would for once do the right thing. Just as that thought left his mind, there was a faint tremor that hit the room
10.29AM, 16th September 2015, New Scotland Yard, Broadway, London
Geoff felt a mixture of elation and fear as he reached his destination. His stomach churned with nervous acid, and he had an almost insatiable need to pee. The dirty black Ford Transit van came to a halt in the middle of the street outside New Scotland Yard, the heart of the Metropolitan Police. Inside, the overweight middle-aged man turned off the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition. His left hand shook with a noticeable tremor, a side effect of the inoperable brain tumour that was slowly growing within his skull. He remembered sitting in the consultant’s office, remembered being informed that the experimental treatment available in other countries wasn’t available to him because the NHS didn’t have the funds. Red tape and bureaucracy had signed his death warrant, and a slow and degrading death it was likely to be. He wasn’t willing to accept that.
A red sedan drove up behind the parked van, and the occupant began agitatedly beeping her horn at the obstruction that blocked her path. Already late for an expensive Pilates class, she was unaware that she presently had twenty seconds left to live. Geoff sat for a moment, for there was nothing really left for him to do. Part of him was scared, but that was buried deep down under the overriding knowledge that this was truly God’s work. Had Abraham not said as much? And was Abraham not God’s messenger on this fetid and corrupted planet?
In the corner of his eye, he noticed two armed police officers exit the front of the police headquarters and head towards him. He ignored them, and ignored the horn behind him as it blared again. Even if they realised what his intentions were, they were too late to stop him. Sat beside him on the passenger seat, the red LED countdown stood at nineteen seconds. The counter was connect
ed to the two thousand kilograms of C-4 plastic explosive that resided in the back of the van. Geoff had activated the device just as he was turning onto Broadway, and now he sat with the inevitability of his fate, a weight removed from his shoulders. Fifteen seconds. Geoff began to pray, letting his hands fall into his lap
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…”
The basic concept behind any explosive is very simple. It’s just something that creates a lot of heat and a lot of gas in a very short space of time. The gas expands outwards along with the heat, creating an explosive blast wave that does structural damage. The heat just goes along for the ride, incinerating whatever can be incinerated. Geoff didn’t feel the blast that killed him in a microsecond. One moment he was a thinking, breathing human being, the next he was reduced to ash. The truck itself, the casing for the bomb, simply disintegrated and turned into red hot shrapnel as the C-4 inside exploded. The blast wave spread out, slamming into the structures around where only a crater now stood. The red car behind the van was hurled into the air, its entire structure and contents incinerated. The iconic rotating sign outside New Scotland Yard vanished as it became part of the expanding shrapnel, and the two police officers who had come to investigate were ripped apart as their bodies were flung into the air. A micro-second later, the blast hit the Scotland Yard building itself. Although hardened against bomb attacks, no structure could withstand such an impact unscathed, and the whole front of the building was cratered inwards, the dozens of glass windows creating millions of tiny spears. In every direction, the blast wave hit buildings and people and pulverised them, decimating the built-up area for a hundred square metres. Within two seconds, over a thousand people were dead or injured.
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