The last time he’d visited London, he’d used a French private aircraft and the trip had only taken a short period of time. Now, the drive up from Dover to London took nearly three hours, most of it spent avoiding damage caused by alien bombardment. The aliens had picked off bridges, intersections and even a handful of transport convoys from orbit, something that had battered the motorway network into a handful of broken sections, requiring careful navigation to surmount. It was the same story in France, Germany and the rest of Europe; he was unsurprised to see British soldiers patrolling the streets, just as other soldiers were in Paris. The aliens had caused enough devastation to ensure that civil unrest remained a very real possibility.
“That was Ten Downing Street,” the driver said, as they drove through London. There were fewer places for the British population to go than in America or France, but without petrol, they had to walk all over London. The underground links were no longer working. Philippe had been to the centre of British government before, but now… there was only a pile of rubble. It was the same story at the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, although in the case of the latter he found it hard to understand why the aliens had bothered. The British Royal Family didn’t actually run the country these days. “They just bombed it from orbit, but missed anyone important.”
“Good,” Philippe said. They’d improved their targeting, he saw; logically, they’d picked up plenty of intelligence from Texas. He would have blamed the Americans if anyone had seriously considered the dangers of a copy of some encyclopaedia falling into alien hands. The human race hadn’t even known that there were aliens three months ago. The fighting in the Middle East had probably provided them with more intelligence… and one hell of an economic club to beat the Europeans with. “Where are we going then?”
“Round here,” the driver said, and drove back down the river. Philippe watched in amusement as a line of demonstrators passed them, their placards calling for military support to free Mecca from the aliens. The irony almost made him laugh; years ago, they would have been complaining about western military forces in the Middle East… and now they wanted them to get back in. There had been similar protests in France, but they’d been banned there, mainly because of the prospects for violence. He was rather surprised that the British hadn’t done the same. “Simon wanted you to see the remains of Ten Downing Street first.”
“Oh,” Philippe said. The aliens didn’t make a habit of bombing individual cars, but if there were so few in London these days, would they try to pick him off just to see if they got someone important? Their targeting, as far as Europe was concerned, was almost random… apart from Rome. The destruction of the city had concentrated more than a few minds. “Next time, I’ll show him the ruins of the Eiffel Tower.”
The car slid into an underground parking lot and came to a halt. Two men dressed in simple black suits, but moving in a style that suggested that they were actually very dangerous men, came up to it and opened the door, inviting Philippe out into the open air. They checked his face against a file, ran his ID card through a scanner, and then beckoned him to follow them through a heavy door and into a elevator lobby. There was no music as the elevator slowly descended; no one spoke until it reached the bottom, where the doors opened, revealing a single man dressed in a suit.
“Welcome to the Vault,” he said, shaking Philippe’s hand. “If you’ll come with me, they’re just getting ready for you.”
The Vault was functional, but surprisingly cosy for a glorified fallout shelter, one that the general British public probably didn’t even know existed. Philippe had read classified briefing papers that warned that London was honey-combed with Cold War bunkers, classified research labs and other surprises, but he’d never been invited into a functional installation before. The cold air helped to sharpen his mind as the civil servant showed him into a simple meeting room. He looked around and smiled in sudden recognition; Ambassador Francis Prachthauser, his former comrade onboard the alien starship, was standing there waiting for him.
“Francis,” he said, in delight. The former Ambassador looked older than he remembered; his country had been torn apart by alien forces. France’s problems had been relatively minor compared to that. “How have you been?”
“I survive, Mr Ambassador,” Francis said, returning the handshake. “I assume that you know Prime Minister Thompson?”
The British Prime Minister had something of the same air as the French President, the sense that no matter what happened, or what orders he gave, the country was going to go through a very bad patch. He was shorter than Philippe remembered, dignified enough to pass for an aristocrat, and yet there was more white in his hair than there had been a year before, when they’d last met.
“Charmed,” Philippe said, as they shook hands. “By the by, it’s Special Representative of the President these days.”
“The same with me,” Francis returned. “The President has had me going around the world and trying to drum up support for the war. It’s not easy, I fear; I wish that Li had survived. The Chinese are in two minds about everything and desperately short of oil. If the aliens offer to help them to recover Taiwan, they might seriously consider joining their side… and I don’t know what the Russians are planning. They’re a riddle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a mystery.”
”I think that’s a misquote,” Philippe said, more to conceal his own concern than anything else. He’d visited most of the European countries in the past month, trying to keep some semblance of the alliance apart, but the Russians had been completely non-committal. “I’m surprised to see you here, but… damn, it’s good to see you again.”
“We were asked to keep that detail to ourselves,” Thompson said, as he took his own seat. “The Ambassador has a request for us.”
Philippe lifted an eyebrow. “A request?”
“A request,” Francis confirmed. “We are formally requesting your support under the NATO treaty.”
Philippe frowned, inwardly. The NATO treaty had, before the invasion, either been alive or a dead duck, depending on whom you asked. The disputes over Iraq and the War on Terror had hampered French willingness to send forces to join American wars — even though most French politicians had known that they were French wars as well — and, politically, selling any sort of aid to America to the people would be tricky. There were also practical problems as well…
“I understand your request,” he said, finally. He did understand, but how could they help? “You do know that we can’t send an army to America?”
Francis nodded. Even if a fully-prepared and deployable force was ready, even if the Americans would welcome a French force on their soil, even if the shipping and transport capability existed, even if the French Army wasn’t required at home… the aliens would still simply sink the transport fleet from orbit. The French Navy was in tatters these days, with almost every major unit sunk from orbit, and there was no way that the remaining combined European forces could provide cover. The aliens would simply wait until the transports were in the mid-Atlantic, sink every one of them, and in doing so, win a free victory. Thousands of soldiers would die without even a hope of taking an enemy soldier with them.
“That’s not what we need,” he said. “I assume that you’ve been following the events in America?”
“Yes,” Philippe said, flatly.
“We have been having some success with shipping in Special Forces and other units into the Red Zone — alien-occupied territory — and using them to harass the aliens,” Francis said. “That’s hardly a secret, but you must understand that almost all of our capability for doing that — mounting strikes against isolated alien units, destroying infrastructure, contaminating electronic systems and so on — is tied up in that war. We had several thousand troops left in Iraq, but most of them were scattered or slaughtered by the aliens when they invaded.”
“A handful did manage to get out,” Thompson injected. “They got to Europe and were shipped to one of the ba
ses here.”
“We need to set the Middle East ablaze, to tie them down,” Francis said. “We’re asking you to concentrate on doing just that.”
“You want us to send supplies to the Middle East?” Philippe asked. “If we do that, most of the supplies will end up being pointed at us instead.”
“We don’t just need supplies, but actual Special Forces units,” Francis said. “We’re cutting loose what we can, but we need most of our special forces at home. The problem is that if the aliens gain undisputed control over the Middle East, either by converting or killing the entire population, they can expand. We have some reason to believe, in fact, that the aliens actually intend to settle there themselves. If they do…”
“They’ll end up ruling the world,” Philippe said. His mind raced. He’d thought about proposing something similar, but the French Government, which was in a shaky state, would have rejected it. If it was an official American request, from the American government, then it could be discussed openly among the movers and shakers, without any actual need to disparage it. “What happens if they end up retaliating against us?”
Francis smiled. “If you try to stay out of the fight, that will just put you last on their target list,” he said. “If you fight now, you might end up helping to force them to accept less favourable terms.”
His smile deepened. “And I am bringing some gifts,” he added. “We have been designing ground-based laser and beam weapons that can be used to attack the alien ships in orbit. If they are used properly, all at once, we would be able to hurt them badly enough to force them to come to terms.”
“There’s no guarantee of that,” Philippe pointed out. “The destruction of Rome scared the piss out of the civilians. If we hadn’t slapped movement controls on the population, the cities would be nearly deserted… God help us if a rumour starts that Paris or Berlin is going to get bombed.”
He glanced over at Thompson. “What is the British Government’s position on this?”
“We lost seven hundred men when the aliens hit Iraq,” Thompson said. Philippe scowled; the British troops who had been backing up the Iraqis had been regarded as tough professional troops. The aliens had hit their barracks from orbit and almost wiped them out. “We also have nearly a million dead in Britain alone. If we can tie them down in the Middle East…”
“We might be able to delay their invasion of Europe,” Philippe agreed. He paused. “You do know that the Council for Islamic Understanding has declared Jihad against the aliens?”
Francis snorted rudely. “I’m sure they’re shaking in their shoes,” he sneered. “They’re not PC-thugs who can be terrified by a few threats and maybe a burning car or two.”
“They’re trying to recruit young Muslims from Europe to go and fight in the Middle East,” Philippe said, remembering the meeting in Paris where it had been discussed. Very few people knew that similar groups had been quietly shut down during the Iraqi insurgency. Now, perhaps, it would work in their favour. “We could encourage this, maybe slip in a few of our own people amongst them, and even provide transport…”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Thompson said. “They might have thousands of recruits from North Africa and India heading east, but anything large in the Mediterranean gets sunk.” He paused. “Most of them are going to get killed anyway.”
“If they can tie down the aliens long enough for us to prepare for their invasion of Europe, then it’s worthwhile,” Philippe said. He looked over at Francis. “I’ll have to take the issue up with my government, of course, but I believe that the President will look kindly on it.”
“That’s as much as I expected,” Francis said, gravely. “Thank you for your help.”
Philippe eyed him curiously. “There’s a billion of them, if they are to be believed,” he said. “They have the Red Zone in Texas pretty much impregnable. They hold most of the Middle East and the only holdout is Israel. The Generals think that Israel won’t last more than a week. We might be kicking and scratching against the inevitable… or do you and your people have some kind of endgame in mind?”
“You know I can’t talk about that,” Francis said. “No offence, but we don’t know who might be listening.”
“This complex is completely secure,” Thompson said. “If they knew where it was, they would have bombed it by now, just like they bombed Colorado Springs.”
“At the moment, it looks like we’re going to lose the war,” Philippe snapped. “If that happens, my government would sooner sell out for the best terms they can get than have the country torn apart by an alien invasion and civil war. We’re barely hanging onto the country as it is. The next round of redundancies will probably trigger revolution and war. I don’t want details, I don’t want information that we dare not let the aliens have, but I need to know if there’s any hope!”
Francis held his eyes. “Yes,” he said, simply. “There is hope.”
“I hope you’re right,” Philippe said, as he sat back. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Europe is a powder keg these days… and there are plenty of idiots out there who might light a match.”
* * *
Ambassador Francis Prachthauser understood the French point better, he suspected, than Philippe expected. It was true enough that America and France had had their disagreements, along with mutual incomprehension of the other’s point of view, but they were both allies against the aliens. Neither of them really had a choice; Philippe might raise the spectre of the French, or everyone else in Europe, selling out to the aliens, but they both knew that that meant complete submission. The aliens would insist that the French change their culture and religion to suit them. In the end, it would mean nothing, but an absence of an invasion.
He would have liked to share more of what he knew — but he knew how dangerous that could be. Philippe might be trustworthy, but what about the remainder of the French Government? He wouldn’t have offered odds against there being a few people in France who would have been willing to deal with the aliens… and telling the aliens about the American plan to strike back at them would have been one way to win their friendship. The lasers and maser weapons were only one part of the plan, but if they were seen, it would be easy to convince someone that they were the only part of the plan. The President had told him, in no uncertain terms, that the remainder of what he knew was not to be discussed, even in confidence. God alone knew where the information might end up.
But they needed the Europeans. The remaining Americans forces in the Middle East were scattered, little more than insurgents themselves, ones where the natives weren’t always friendly. If the aliens got an easy victory and started landing their population, they would be in a position to dictate terms to the rest of the world. It was ironic, given his loudly-expressed opinion of them, but he almost missed the Saudis. At least then they could have snatched the oil wells if the terms had been too onerous. The aliens wouldn’t be beaten that easily…
He changed the subject firmly. “What do you think about the Japanese?”
“They didn’t have a choice,” Philippe said. He’d understood the real question. “The aliens were controlling everything they needed to survive as a nation. Without it, they end up on the verge of starvation… and collapse. If the price for getting those resources is submission…”
Francis nodded. Japan’s geopolitical trap had led it into conflict with the United States once… and several of the more perceptive thinkers had pointed out that the war had actually changed nothing. A second war might have broken out in the future, but instead, the aliens had arrived… and the Japanese had no way of striking back at them.
Thompson shrugged. “But how can they enforce the alien religion on their own people?” He asked. “If they go around knocking down their own shrines, their people won’t be happy…”
“Judging by their response to what they call heresy in Texas, the aliens would react harshly,” Francis said. “It won’t be pretty.”
Philippe shrugged. “Neit
her will the war we will ignite across the Middle East,” he said. “Let’s see how the aliens cope with that, eh?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Who dares wins.
— SAS Motto
Anything less like a small group of soldiers would be hard to imagine. The four men rode on a set of six camels, using two of them to carry their baggage as they travelled across the desert, navigating by the stars. They wore Bedouin outfits, concealing most of their faces from the handful of others they encountered as they travelled east, ignored or sneered at by the inhabitants of the small villages they visited. A handful of villages were blackened ruins, the sight of a brief struggle against the alien infidels who had violated the Holy Land, but they passed on without pause. Their target was further to the east.
Sergeant Sean Gartlan peered into the heat haze as they kept moving. His face was tanned and slightly tinted, but he couldn’t have passed for an Arab for long, even though he spoke Arabic like a native. The three Corporals with him were even less Arabic, but as long as they kept their faces hidden, they should be fine. The locals tended to treat the wandering Bedouin with a mixture of awe — they travelled the desert, like their ancestors had once done — and contempt. The townspeople often disliked the wanderers, which actually provided the small SAS squad with a surprisingly effective cover. Once button-holed, it was easy for observers to miss important and yet vital details, such as the fact they were a tiny party. Sean had been careful to assure anyone who asked too many questions that they were merely on a wandering pilgrimage, but a quick check of their saddlebags would have revealed the weapons and ammunition. Openly, they carried AK-47s, enough to prevent robbery — particularly when they had nothing, not even women, with them — but the saddlebags contained more advanced weapons than simple tribesmen should possess.
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