Without warning

by John Birmingham

  ‘Remaining?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They have a special forces group, a squadron of Hornets and a naval task force in the Gulf with us, for Iraq.’

  Ritchie nodded.

  ‘All of the other regional powers have gone to varying states of high alert,’ Maccomb continued. ‘Taiwan has been placed under martial law and the armed forces there have put Plan Orange into effect. South Korea has declared that a curfew will come into effect as of 2200 hours tonight. Their forces and ours are ready, watching the DMZ, but Pyongyang is sitting very, very still. There’s been nothing on their media at all.’

  ‘And China?’

  Maccomb gnawed at the inside of his mouth like a man with a lifelong chaw habit, before replying. ‘They’ve put a lot of troops onto the streets, sir, and our satellite cover shows a lot of activity around the Taiwan Strait batteries, but the force projection capabilities they do have remain dormant for the moment. They’re as spooked as anyone, and they know we still have the forces in theatre to check them if necessary.’

  Ritchie nodded, feeling a headache building behind his eyeballs. ‘That’s a dreadfully dangerous amount of hardware and armed men moving around.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Maccomb. ‘It is.’

  * * * *

  ‘It just reached out and took him,’ said Kwan, a little breathlessly. ‘Like, I dunno, like a sort of liquid metal blob or something. Faster than anything I’ve ever seen.’

  Musso nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak just yet. His heart was still going like a rat in a trap, and he recognised the hollow, shaky feeling of having dodged a bullet, or something just as nasty. Musso had been a Marine for longer than he had been anything else in his life. He knew war from the inside, the way an addict knows their poison. He knew what it was like to make a ball of himself, tight and small, like a clenched fist, as death zipped like a swarm of bees through the air all around him. He knew too well the fragility of the human body, the way that war respects not age, not courage, gender, righteousness, intelligence or any of the limitless personal touchstones that everyone thinks will get them through, just before everyone starts dying. He had held in his arms grown men, reduced to bloodied rags and cooling meat by a few dumb grams of flying metal. He had carried a little Somalian girl in his hands, no more than two she would have been, her poor tiny body burnt and disintegrating as he ran for a medic. He knew the filth and horror of war as a contagion buried just beneath the surface of his own skin. He knew fear.

  But he had never known it as he had in the few seconds after Eladio Nuсez was consumed. Fear like a rancid, suppurating pustule that suddenly burst all sweet and bilious in his guts, flooding his mouth and throat and stomach with a distillation of terror in its primal state. He was going to take a few moments to get over it.

  The Cubans, he saw, had freaked the hell out, but were holding it together under the lash of Nuсez’s deputy, Captain someone-or-other. Musso couldn’t recall his name. His own people were no less upset, although they were hiding it a little better. Everyone had withdrawn back up the road towards Guantanamo, pulling over to the side about five hundred metres from their original position. The energy wave hadn’t altered in the slightest.

  Musso released a ragged breath. ‘Okay. As of now, nobody gets within five hundred metres of that thing, okay? I can’t tell the Cubans what to do, of course, but I’m guessing they won’t argue.’

  Kwan nodded and looked around for the nameless captain. ‘I don’t even know if he speaks English, sir.’

  ‘Me neither, Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘Get someone to translate. Your sergeant, Gutteres, he’s sharp. Put him on liaison if you can spare him.’

  ‘Guilio’s specialty is binary nerve agents. I don’t think I’ll be needing him,’ she replied flatly.

  Kwan saluted and turned away to find their new translator. Musso took a sip of chilled sports drink from an insulated bottle. They had withdrawn to a spot on a slight rise where a small clearing allowed all of the vehicles to pull off onto the shoulder. The Americans still tended to their equipment, attempting to take readings from something that their equipment told them wasn’t there. The Cubans had gathered into a loose line under the watchful, if anxious, gaze of their latest commanding officer. They were sure getting through them at a fair clip.

  Musso calmed his breathing. His heart rate had dropped back to something a little more reasonable and the unpleasant low-grade voltage that had been buzzing away just under his skin had finally died down. He couldn’t help but wonder where Nuсez had gone. If anywhere. That thought led naturally to thoughts of his wife and kids and what had happened to them. His stomach turned over again. Another slug from the drink bottle and he put it away, pushing himself off the side of the Humvee and walking over to his radio man, determinedly trying to ignore his personal anxieties.

  ‘Corporal, can you hook me up with Pearl, via Gitmo?’

  ‘No problems, General. Just give me a moment.’

  Musso left him to it, taking a minute to go off and talk to the Cubans’ new CO. Jenny Kwan and Sergeant Gutteres were deep in a three-way conference with the scared-looking officer, who snapped rigidly to attention when he saw Musso approaching. The marine gave him a tired smile and a nod in reply.

  ‘How’re we doing, Lieutenant?’ he asked Kwan.

  ‘Pretty good, sir. Captain Бlvarez here speaks pretty good English. A hell of a lot better than my Spanish, at any rate. Sergeant Gutteres is filling in the blanks.’

  Musso addressed the Cuban directly. ‘I’m sorry about Major Nuсez. He seemed a good man and an excellent officer.’

  ‘He was,’ Бlvarez replied. ‘We liked him. All the men like him very much.’

  ‘Well, Captain, I’m about to seek guidance from my superiors, but for myself, I’d like us to keep talking, to help each other out if and when we can. I’d suggest you try and find someone further up your chain of command to report to, but son, you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that you are it.’

  Sergeant Gutteres had begun translating quietly as soon as he’d seen Бlvarez struggling to keep up with Musso. He finished a few seconds after the general.

  Captain Бlvarez grimaced a little at the thought that he might well be the sole surviving authority figure in his country, but, to his credit, he sucked it up and gave the Americano his sternest warrior’s face. ‘Cooperation, yes, General,’ he answered. ‘Perhaps, in this emergency, we might discuss a joint command, no – a combination command?’

  At the look of incomprehension on Musso’s face, he launched into a burst of Spanish. Gutteres waited, taking it all in, before passing on the gist of what he’d said.

  ‘Long story short, General, Captain Бlvarez is offering to temporarily place his men under your command. He emphasises the temporary nature of the arrangement, sir.’

  Musso nodded. He understood the Cuban was covering himself against the unlikely eventuality that they might all click their heels three times and find everything had returned to normal. In which case he’d probably need to seek immediate asylum.

  ‘You do me an honour, Captain,’ said Musso, nodding to Gutteres to make sure he translated the phrase literally. ‘Your men have comported themselves with great bravery and forbearance today. They are a credit to your country and it would be a privilege to serve with them, however temporary the arrangement might be.’

  Бlvarez, who seemed more than happy with that, asked if he might borrow the sergeant to speak to his men. Musso agreed, laying a light hand on Gutteres’s shoulder before he left them. ‘Take it easy, son. A light touch is called for. Let Бlvarez do any yelling and butt-kicking that’s required.’

  ‘Got it, General.’

  His radio operator indicated from the command Humvee that he’d established the link to Pearl and Musso exchanged a salute and, less formally, a handshake with his newest subordinate before hurrying back.

  ‘Admiral Ritchie on the line, sir.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Musso, as he took the
handset. ‘Admiral, it’s General Musso, sir. I’m afraid I have some more bad news.’

  * * * *

  Ritchie hung up when he was done with Musso. He didn’t know what was more disturbing, the way the energy barrier had reached out and snatched Major Nuсez when he strayed too close, or the fact that the surviving Cubans had been so neutered by the events of the day that they’d effectively surrendered control of their territory, or what was left of it, to the United States – or what was left of her.

  A terrible melancholy had settled upon his spirit in the last hour or so. He hadn’t noticed it stealing up on him, but having received Musso’s report he found himself in such a bleak frame of mind as he couldn’t recall ever having known before. He could hear an increasing hubbub outside his office as more and more people poured into PACOM headquarters. Hundreds of phones appeared to be ringing, and so many voices competed with one another to get their message through, to have their tiny part of this unfolding nightmare recognised as important, that the normally hushed environs of the command centre reminded him of the stock exchange in New York. He’d visited there with his wife and daughter a few months before 9/11.

  ‘Admiral?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, a little roughly, pretending he’d been lost in thought about something more than his own personal tragedy. His PA was at the door.

  ‘It’s General Franks, sir. On a secure line from Qatar. He says elements of the Iraqi Army are leaving their entrenched positions and appear to be heading towards the border with Kuwait.’

  Just for a second Ritchie thought his heart might have stopped. Then he realised it had simply jumped. It felt as though it had gathered itself up and tried to leap right out of his chest. He felt momentarily dizzy and covered it by nodding as he leaned back in his chair. ‘Patch him through, Andrew, if you would,’ he said quickly. ‘Any other good news?’

  ‘The Israelis have moved extra units into the Gaza Strip,’ Captain McKinney reported. ‘A street party there got out of hand and turned into a riot. One of their guys got shot trying to close it down.’

  ‘A street party?’ Ritchie couldn’t keep the dismay out of his voice.

  ‘They’re breaking out all over, sir. All over. Plenty in the Mid East, of course. But plenty more in Europe, even Britain, in some of the northern areas, with big… er… migrant populations.’

  ‘You mean, big Muslim populations.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Patch General Franks through to me here.’

  Ritchie had a few seconds alone before Tommy Franks came on the line. My God, he thought, silently. This is going to turn bad even quicker than I thought.

  * * * *

  12

  MV AUSSIE RULES, PACIFIC OCEAN, WEST OF ACAPULCO

  ‘Shoeless fuckin’ Dan,’ spat Pete, with no joy in his voice at the arrival of such an old, esteemed colleague.

  ‘And all of his little toes,’ said Mr Lee, shooting a wide, gap-toothed grin at Pete. To add to the effect, he raised one eyebrow and winked. A most disconcerting sight. ‘Flippant humour, Mr Pete? To ease tensions before confrontation.’

  Pete forced a wan smile in spite of himself. Shoeless Dan was no laughing matter. The dude dealt in some high-octane villainy. Word was, he’d once filled the hold of a Liberian freighter with a couple of hundred orphans for the Chechen maf. Unspoilt children paid off at the same dollar-per-kilo rate as good heroin, if you could get them into the right wholesale chain. Dan denied it, of course, but not all that strenuously. It added to his mystique – which he needed, given the incurable fungal infection that had turned his feet into putrescent, oozing slabs of meat. The things were grotesque, as big as footballs when they really swelled up, and never smelling any sweeter than a rancid wheel of Spanish cheese. He knew his boats, though. And he knew the smuggling biz.

  ‘Flippant humour, Mr Lee,’ Pete echoed with a nod, while watching the trio of go-fast boats split up and peel off to come at the yacht from opposite sides. ‘Does Chinese culture even do flippancy?’

  ‘Mr John Woo, yes. Central Committee of Communist Party, not so much.’

  ‘Who is the more Confucian, then?’ asked Pete, following Dan’s boat through a pair of binoculars.

  ‘Not Confucian,’ Lee replied, raising both eyebrows and positively beaming at his skipper with all of his remaining teeth on show, ‘just confusing.’

  His punchline delivered, the old Chinaman held up a hand in triumph. Pete allowed himself a genuine smile that crinkled the net of lines at the corner of his eyes as he smacked out a high five. It might well be the last smile of his life.

  ‘Mr Lee, John Woo doesn’t know shit about Chinese action heroes if he doesn’t know you… Now, let’s deal with this shoeless fuckwit, shall we? I won’t have his stinky fucking plates of meat oozing and peeling all over my new boat. Take her up to thirteen knots, if you will. We’ll leave a little bit of tiger in the tank for later, if needed.’

  Lee fitted a set of headphones over his ears, plugged them into a digital radio clipped onto his sun-faded canvas pants, and then opened the throttles on the big boat’s massive Caterpillar engines, unleashing a stampede from the 1492 horsepower contained in each one. Acceleration was smooth and instantaneous. Pete felt himself rocking back on his heels as they leapt forward and Mr Lee began a series of sharp tacking manoeuvres, to make any boarding operations as difficult as possible.

  The radio in Pete’s hand crackled into life. It was Jules. ‘We’re in position, Pete.’

  ‘Good work, Julesy. Keep your finger on the trigger. Big boys’ rules today.’

  He signed off and moved over to the port side of the bridge, where he could see one cigarette boat slowing down and looping in and out, attempting to match its course and speed to the yacht. There were six men crammed into the small cockpit, all of them toting weapons. Shoeless Dan was standing by the wheel, one hand on the windscreen, the other waving madly at the bridge of the Aussie Rules. He’d have known Pete was on board. The Diamantina was roped to the stern, bumping along in their wake.

  Dan stood about six foot two in his perennially bare feet, but he added another nine or ten inches to his height with the largest afro Pete had ever seen on a white man. The fact that Dan was afflicted with red hair made him stand out even more dramatically from his brown-skinned crew. He was yelling, to no effect, and grinning like a hyena on crystal meth.

  Pete glanced at Mr Lee, an unspoken question passing between them. Lee nodded brusquely to say that, yes, he had the helm under control. The Chinaman suddenly spun the wheel hard a-port in response to a radio call from one of the girls. Pete plucked a handset from the console a few feet down from Lee and powered up the yacht’s loudspeakers. He was going to tell Dan to back off or get blown away. Unfortunately he hit the wrong switch, instead punching through an audio feed from the media room, where BBC World was running a trailer for an upcoming repeat of Pride and Prejudice on UKTV.

  ‘… it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy,’ boomed the giant luxury yacht. ‘May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?’

  The effect upon the Mexicans was salutary. They began shooting.

  * * * *

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ cursed Jules.

  She didn’t know whether Pete had done that on purpose or not-he had a pretty inappropriate sense of humour-but the result was the same. Whatever small chance they had of talking Dan down suddenly disappeared and they were now committed to a shoot-out in which they were outnumbered plenty to one. Hunkered down on the pool deck, where she’d been quietly watching the boat in which Shoeless Dan was travelling, she popped up from cover, and squeezed off a couple of bursts from the M16 as the go-fast made an abrupt turn and ran in towards the docking bay. Both vessels were moving erratically at speed and most of her clip missed, but at least one of the men flew back in his seat as his head suddenly appeared to lose its structural integr
ity. A red mist painted the other passengers in the boat as it came around violently and laid on speed for the bow, to get out of Jules’s line of fire.

  She performed a quick and dirty bit of maths, swung the 16 around and angled the barrel upwards at about sixty degrees. The grenade launcher triggered with a hollow thump, sending a single 40 mm high-explosive round down-range. Jules was running forward, crouched low and swapping out her spent mag, well before it hit. She tensed up, waiting for the detonation, but it never came. The round had dropped into the sea without exploding.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

  Yes, she tended to repeat herself under pressure.

  ‘Lee!’ she yelled into the radio. ‘Target One is heading forward.’

  ‘I see him, Miss Julianne,’ Mr Lee replied, his voice calm in her headphones, like a parent soothing a distressed child.