The Longest Day (Ark Royal X)

by Christopher Nuttall

Dave leered at her. “And why should we not?”

  “We haven’t had any pussy for months,” Blair put in. “You think we get to fuck on the chain gang?”

  Molly took a breath. “Do you really want to add rape to your list of offences?”

  Dave laughed. “Do you really think they’ll let us off with a slap on the wrist?”

  No, Molly thought. She had no idea what they’d done to get themselves assigned to the chain gang, but it hardly mattered. Dave and his friends had escaped custody and murdered an innocent man. That was a hanging offence, whatever else they did. It wasn't as if they could be hanged twice, either. They have nothing to lose.

  Her blood ran cold. They could do anything to her ...

  “We could hide the body,” she offered. She didn’t know if they’d go for it, but it was worth a try. “Fran and I will keep our mouths shut ...”

  Dave lunged forward and slapped her, right across the face. Molly reeled back, tasting blood in her mouth. The pain was overwhelming, but the humiliation was worse. She was utterly helpless, unable to say or do anything that might change their minds. They could gang-rape Molly and Fran until both women were bleeding, then kill them ... they could do anything they liked. Society was breaking down.

  “Women always lie,” Dave snapped. He tugged at his striped uniform. “Do you know how I got sent to prison? Some bitch lied about me! She came on to me, but when I kissed her back she screamed rape! Why the fuck should we believe a pair of bitches like you?”

  Molly lowered her eyes as he glared at her. Her cheek hurt, the throbbing pain making it hard to concentrate. One of her teeth felt loose ... the taste of blood was getting stronger. She could feel it dripping out of her mouth. She was a prisoner ...

  She looked up. “Don’t touch her,” she said. It was desperate, but she saw no choice. At least Fran would be spared, for a while. “Take me instead.”

  Dave snorted. “We can take both of you,” he said. His hand grabbed Fran’s breast and squeezed, hard. “What do you have to offer?”

  “I’m an experienced woman,” Molly said. It was all she had to offer. “I won’t just lie there while you have your fun. Leave her alone and I’ll ... I’ll do anything.”

  “Very well,” Dave said. He shoved Fran back in the backroom and closed the door, then started to unbuckle his pants. “But you’d better be very good.”

  Molly tried, as he advanced on her, to pretend he was Kurt. Or even Garrison ... someone he’d chosen. She couldn't afford to have him think she wasn’t living up to her side of the bargain. She had to pretend she wanted him and his friends ...

  It didn't work.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  London, United Kingdom

  Ten Downing Street was a mess.

  Andrew walked slowly through the building, ignoring the increasingly anxious looks from his close-protection detail. Ten Downing Street had been designed to stand up to anything short of a nuke or a KEW strike, but the floodwaters had still managed to smash down the doors and cascaded through the lower levels. The library was soaked - a number of books donated by various Prime Ministers were probably beyond recovery - and the civil servant offices were ruined. Water still dripped from the ceiling as he made his way to the entrance hall and peered up the stairwell, wondering if he wanted to see what had happened to the master bedroom. Or the handful of other rooms he’d been allowed to personalise ...

  “The building is not safe,” Sergeant Howe told him. The burly SAS sergeant gave Andrew a sharp look. “I wouldn't care to swear to anything right now.”

  Andrew nodded, mutely. He’d seen the building plans, when he’d moved in. Ten Downing Street - the new Ten Downing Street - was meant to be tough, but no one had predicted a massive flood. Or alien attack, for that matter. The Troubles had been bad, yet ... they hadn't been that bad.

  “There were people working in the building,” he said. He could have kicked himself. He should have thought to ask earlier. “What happened to them?”

  “I believe most of them were moved to the emergency evacuation point, then taken out of London to the Alternate Government Post,” Howe said. “The building has been searched twice, since the bombardment. No bodies were discovered within the governmental centre.”

  Andrew nodded, then stepped through the open door and onto Downing Street. A cold air blew through the street as he looked up and down, sending shivers running down his spine. The policemen who should have been on duty outside the building were gone, but a number of policemen in bright yellow jackets could be seen at the gates. Andrew wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. It was hard to imagine anyone actually trying to rob Downing Street, while the policemen could have been of use elsewhere.

  He tasted salt water in the air as the wind blew harder, mocking him. He’d seen report after report of anarchy in the UK, everything from looters robbing food stories to countless reports of rapes and murders. Society was breaking down, it seemed. People were falling back on their own resources, sometimes even lashing out at the police. There was even a vague report of the owners of a food shop shooting at the police when they came to requisition food. It wouldn't be long before the rumours got out of control, even though large chunks of the datanet were still down. Thankfully, most of the population had too many other things to worry about ...

  It only takes a handful of people to cause a riot, he thought. And stopping them means diverting police and soldiers from other places.

  He pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he walked down towards the gates. The rain had stopped, for the moment, but water droplets lingered in the air. Giant puddles of murky water lay everywhere, a grim reminder that London’s sewage network was flooded out. London got plenty of rainfall, but it had never been so bad before. Some of the grimmer reports warned of disease outbreaks, even if the dead bodies were rapidly removed from the city and incinerated.

  A car was waiting for him, as he’d ordered. He felt a twang of guilt as he climbed into the back, his escorts mounting motorbikes so they could respond to any threats before they turned into a real problem. The car was warm, waterproof as well as bulletproof ... he was protected, just because he was Prime Minister. And he was drawing men and equipment away from the public, just because he wanted to visit a refugee centre.

  I have to see, he told himself. It had only been a day - less than a day - but he felt as if he’d spent years in the bunker. Years of briefings, years of endless prattle, years of knowing that nothing he said or did would actually matter. He was Prime Minister, but his title was practically meaningless. The briefings meant nothing. I have to know what’s going on.

  He pressed his face to the window as the car began to move, the outriders fanning out around the vehicle. Normally, London would be jam-packed with traffic, despite endless government attempts to convince people to take the tube or use taxis. Now, the streets were almost eerily deserted. A handful of work gangs could be seen picking up bodies and carting them off to the disposal sites, but little else. London seemed to have collapsed into a handful of safe zones, surrounded by chaos. Andrew couldn't help feeling another flicker of bitter guilt. He’d given the orders himself.

  The damage was immense, he realised as the car headed south. The floods had broken into hundreds of buildings, smashing windows and drenching floors. Hotels, corporate offices, shops and tourist traps ... the damage was almost beyond his comprehension. He’d thought himself hardened to horror, after all the reports had started to blur together, but now ... now he knew he had never really grasped what horror was.

  He gritted his teeth as the car moved past a large pile of bodies. A handful of men in MOPP suits were picking them up, one by one, and tossing them into a refuse lorry. Andrew wanted to order them to stop, to order them to treat the bodies with respect, but he knew there was no point. The bodies were already rotting, the damp air speeding up the process. They had to be burnt before they started to turn London into a disease-riddled hellhole. And yet ...

  You wan
ted to be Prime Minister, his thoughts mocked him. Did you ever really understand what the job actually meant?

  It wasn't a pleasant thought, but it had to be faced. He’d assumed leadership of the Conservative-Unionist Party after his predecessor had managed to lose the trust of the Tory backbenchers. The poor man had been too willing to please, too willing to dicker with the other parties ... he hadn't shown himself possessed of the strong character the Tory Party wanted from its leaders. Andrew had put his name forward, when the party had started looking for a new leader. He had led them to victory, but now ...

  I’ll be lucky if I last long enough to see the next election, he thought. The Tory Party was historically unwilling to unseat Prime Ministers, but no Prime Minister had presided over such a disaster. The bastards will need to find a scapegoat fast enough to save their own asses.

  It was a bitter thought. There had been no way to predict that humanity would encounter aliens, let alone that the aliens would be hostile. God knew there were no alien bodies in the MOD basement, no alien flying saucers in RAF bases that weren't on any civilian maps. The conspiracy theorists could talk all they liked, but no one in authority had known about the Tadpoles before Vera Cruz. They would have taken more precautions if they had, Andrew knew. He sure as hell would have fortified all the approaches to Vera Cruz and New Russia before the Tadpoles showed their hand.

  But he hadn't known. And he would be made to pay for his ignorance.

  He sat back in his chair as the car picked up speed, fighting the urge to brood. Prime Ministers had been sacked before, after they lost the confidence of their MPs; Prime Ministers had lost votes of confidence or frantic bids for re-election ... but none of them had ever been blamed for a disaster that hadn't been their fault. Andrew would be the first Prime Minister to be kicked out of office for a disaster he hadn’t seen coming, a disaster that would have been very hard to handle even if he had seen it coming ...

  The car came to a halt. Andrew looked outside and froze. The stadium was full of people, mainly women and children. They looked miserable, drenched to the skin despite hastily-erected shelters. Many of them were injured, sitting on the ground while a handful of medics walked from patient to patient, trying to decide who could be saved with the limited resources imaginable. They were suffering ...

  Andrew swallowed, hard, as the door opened. The stench of blood and piss and shit and stuff he didn't want to identify reached his nostrils. It was a refugee camp ... he’d seen others, camps established near the handful of Great Power military bases in the Middle East, but this was in the heart of London. Yesterday, everyone in the camp had been living in apartments near the heart of the city; today, they were struggling to survive. A handful of policemen stood guard, their weapons clearly visible ...

  It was all he could do to force himself to climb out of the car. He’d been to rallies and protest marches where the protesters had hated him and everything he stood for, but this was far worse. A despondency infested the air, draining the energy from everyone ... a handful of kids were kicking a ball around, listlessly, but even they looked tired. Andrew met the eyes of a young woman - a young professional woman, he was sure - who barely seemed capable of meeting his eyes. Her blonde hair was a horrific mess, but she didn't seem to care. She’d lost the ability to take care of herself.

  “Prime Minister,” a sharp voice said. Andrew turned to see an older, grey-haired woman holding a terminal in one hand. “Why did you come?”

  Andrew had no good answer. “I had to see,” he said, finally. The wind shifted, blowing the stench of garbage into his face. “What is ...?”

  “This way,” the woman said. She led the way towards a set of tents, speaking in a curt monotone. “This stadium was designed to hold 10’000 people, all sitting on chairs. Right now, we have over 30’000 men, women and children registered here. The menfolk have largely been assigned to work gangs, save for the ones who are injured or too old to work effectively. Even with that, we’re pushing the limits. We need to move as many people out of London as possible before it's too late.”

  Andrew nodded. “I ...”

  “You’d better get the army moving fast,” the woman added, cutting him off. She opened one of the tents. “I don’t think we can feed everyone for more than a day or two. The police have been opening up food stores for us, but half the supplies they found were drenched and inedible.”

  She nodded as Andrew followed him into the tent. “As you can see, we have a serious public health problem.”

  Andrew followed her gaze, trying not to be sick. The tent was crammed with wounded men, women and children. They were lying everywhere - on makeshift beds, on blankets, even on the cold floor - gasping and moaning as they struggled to survive. Andrew swallowed, hard, as he saw a man with a broken arm. No one had even bothered to make him a splint, let alone try to repair the damage. Beside him, a girl scratched her eyes until blood flowed from under her nails. Andrew didn't even want to know what was wrong with her.

  “We’re already out of most kinds of medicine,” the woman informed him. It dawned on Andrew that she hadn’t even bothered to introduce herself. “The police dug up painkillers and other supplies from the stores, but most of them are of limited value. Some bastards looted the nearby hospital for drugs during the night, damn them. There are people here who would be a great deal better off if we could give them a shot of morphine, but all we can really do is make them comfortable as they wait to die.”

  She shook her head. “And that’s just the physical trauma,” she added. Her voice darkened as she led the way through the tent. “There are several hundred people - so far - who simply haven’t been able to cope with ... well, everything. They’ve completely zoned out, as far as we can tell. They just sit there and do nothing. We’ve not been able to do anything for them either, Prime Minister.”

  Andrew looked at her. “Is that normal?”

  “It depends,” the woman said. She peered down the tent. “The way people respond to disaster is inherently unpredictable. Some people don’t cope very well when they’re yanked from a world they understand and dumped into a disaster area. They struggle to cope, they try to bargain with the new rules, they ... sometimes, they just zone out. It would be better, I suspect, if people were more aware of how quickly things could change, but ...”

  “They’re not,” Andrew finished.

  He gritted his teeth. Britain was safe. No, Britain had been safe. The crime rate had been low, the threat of foreign invasion or civil war practically non-existent, the threat of natural disasters even less ... Britain had been safe. He - and the rest of the population - had grown up in a bubble, protected from even the prospect of massive upheaval. They’d thought themselves safe. They’d thought that disasters were things that happened to people in other countries. And they’d been wrong.

  The woman sighed. “The rapes are even worse,” she added. “We’ve had at least fifty reports since we opened the centre, Prime Minister, and we suspect a number have remained unreported. Normally, we'd take semen samples from the victims and try to match them against our records, but now ... we don’t even begin to have the resources. We certainly can’t give the women the support they need.”

  Andrew winced. “I’m sorry.”

  “So you should be,” the woman said, sharply. “I think a great many people are going to have to come to terms with their trauma on their own. And as for the people who zoned out ... we can't do much for them either.”

  She reached the end of the tent and pushed open the flap. Andrew hesitated, looking back. A young boy was sitting on a blanket, looking at nothing. His face was scarred, a crude bandage wrapped over one eye. Beside him, a girl who couldn't be more than a year or two older was crying silently. Andrew felt his heart go out to her as he forced himself to turn away. He couldn't bear to watch.

  A convoy of buses had arrived outside, the soldiers speaking rapidly to the policemen before starting to load the women and children into the buses. Andrew watched,
silently grateful for being ignored, as some of the women tried to argue, insisting that they should wait for their husbands or search for their missing children. The soldiers were polite, but firm. They needed to move as many people out of the city as possible before it was too late.

  “Too many people have filed missing persons reports,” the woman said. Her voice was very soft. “My husband is missing too ...”

  Andrew opened his mouth, but said nothing. What was there to say? What could he say? He had never been particularly good with words, not when he’d had speechwriters to turn his original concepts into something he could say with confidence. Now ... he found himself utterly lost for words. The woman’s husband was gone, yet she was still carrying on. The entire country needed to carry on.

  “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” he said, finally. “I think ...”

  “I don’t know,” the woman said. She waved a hand to the west. “They’re moving bodies out of the city, you know. My husband could be among them. So could the other missing people. And I will never know.”

  “I am sorry,” Andrew said. “But ...”