Without warning

by John Birmingham

  The problem, as always, was the passengers – the rich, skiving dilettantes she had taken on board to fund the trip and provide her with a fig leaf of respectability when she arrived in Hawaii or Sydney, or wherever they were headed. While some of them had proved themselves not completely odious, and one or two, such as Marc Unwin, the oil broker, had even brought some of their arcane skills to bear for the benefit of all, as a group they were a bunch of fucking oxygen thieves. The trust-fund brats, Phoebe and Jason, had alienated all of the crew by treating them like staff. Indeed, Jason still sported a black eye from one of the engineers. Moorhouse, the merchant banker, had become a virtual recluse as he’d come to realise that the old world, and his fortune within it, was never coming back. As for the others, they simply made pains of themselves at every opportunity, for want of anything better to do. Well, she had a job of work for them to do now.

  ‘Okay,’ she said simply. ‘Pirates. Looks like we have two shiploads of them bearing down on us from the north.’

  A murmur surged through the adults, while some of the youngest began a chant of ‘Piratas! Piratas!’, before Grandma Ana whacked one of them behind the ears and they all shut up quickly. Even the whackee held in his tears.

  ‘We had our problems with these guys before we got to Crusoe, and it looks like we’ve got them again.’

  ‘How?’ asked the banker. ‘How’d they find us out here?’

  Fifi shrugged. ‘Somebody on the island probably dropped a dime on us. Five’ll get you ten, one of the lobster boats chugged out of port and went looking for someone who’d be interested. They couldn’t take us themselves…’

  ‘But they sold us out to someone who could,’ Jules finished for her.

  More audible concern and a good deal of anxious muttering from the A-list passengers greeted that. Jules held up her hands to forestall any panic.

  ‘They could take us, if they caught us sleeping on the job. But they won’t. You have all seen these sorts of characters before. We chased them off then, we’ll do it again now. I’ve only called everyone together because this time it looks like there’s more of them, and they have a bigger, faster ship than before. It makes sense,’ she explained. ‘Things have turned to custard on the mainland. People are killing each other for a handful of beans in the big cities. In a situation like that, you will always get bandits who group together to prey on the weak… But we are not the weak.’

  Fifi hoisted her large, ugly-looking Russian machine-gun to emphasise Julianne’s point. Sergeant Shah folded his massive arms and allowed his solid granite head to dip once in a nod of agreement.

  ‘We will try to outrun these guys,’ Jules continued. ‘One of their boats is already falling behind and the weather is closing in. That will help. They’ll have to fight a storm instead of us. But they have a second vessel that could catch ours if we have any problems, and so we need to be ready. Everyone, and I mean everyone,’ she repeated, eyeing off her American passengers, ‘will be armed and ready to repel any boarders.’

  She expected objections but the statement simply dropped into a fearful silence.

  ‘I do not expect you to get into machete fights. You’ll lose. But we have enough small arms and ammunition to distribute among you and you will defend the boat with them. That means you will have to shoot people. Dead. This is not something you can leave to Sergeant Shah and his men – there will be too many for them to handle on their own. No offence, Mr Shah…’

  Shah smiled. None taken.

  ‘Now, I need you to divide yourselves up into two groups: those who are familiar with firearms and those who are not. Sergeant Shah and Corporal Birendra will give the latter a quick tutorial in how to pull a trigger. That’s all we ask of you. The others will go with Fifi down to the gun lockers and arm yourselves appropriately. Do not panic. Whatever may happen, will not happen for many hours yet, possibly even a day or two. Familiarise yourself with your weapons and whatever firing station you are assigned. Learn its blind spots and weaknesses. Identify a fall-back route. And then get some rest. Watch a movie, hit the gym – whatever does it for you. If you have to fight, it’s best you’re not shagged out from running around like headless bloody chickens for half a day beforehand.’

  At least some of them laughed. Nervously.

  Jules took a few steps towards the group. ‘It may not come to anything,’ she said. ‘We may outrun them. We have enough fuel for six thousand miles of cruising. Enough food stocks now for a month, with some rationing. We may lose them in the storm that’s brewing up out there. But we may not.’ She paused, very briefly, taking in the effect she was having.

  The faces of the older Mexican men were unreadable, their eyes like black polished stones in a dark night. The women looked much more defiant, but also fearful for the children. Some of the younger men, boys really, looked excited. Her A-listers, on the other hand, were quietly freaking out.

  ‘You need to understand this, most of all,’ Julianne concluded. ‘Anyone who steps onto this boat with hostile intentions will be cut down. They will be killed. And there will be no mercy shown them. Because we will receive none in return.’

  * * * *

  39

  GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA

  ‘We could let ‘em loose about seventy-five miles north of here,’ Stavros deadpanned.

  Brigadier General Tusk Musso snorted softly. Yep, it would solve a few problems if he could just throw all of his prisoners into the Wave. But then what would the New York Times say? Nothing. Not now.

  Goddamn, but he needed a rest.

  Musso pushed the tips of his fingers under his sunglasses and rubbed at his sore, bloodshot eyes. He could feel bristle growing on his cheeks. The camp had run out of razor blades. He’d have to do something about that. They had to maintain standards.

  They had run out of Kiwi boot polish as well, hard as that was to believe. Most combat boots looked as if they’d been polished with a Hershey bar, if at all. The general wore a pair of the new, now rare, suede tan Marine Corps boots. At least he didn’t have to worry about spit and polish every night.

  The afternoon sun was warm, but not uncomfortably so. Nonetheless, it glinted off the steel and wire of Camp 4 with a fierceness that made the sunglasses necessary. It was quiet today. The next call to prayer was still an hour away and the prisoners’ initial excitement after the Disappearance had long since evaporated. The Israelis had made sure of that. Most of these humps were now as alone in the world as the Americans who still guarded them.

  ‘I don’t know what to do, George,’ he admitted to his aide.

  ‘Pearl wants this expedited. And that’s the extent of their instructions. Except for Susan Pileggi’s Uplift requirements, we really don’t rate as a priority anymore, and the refugee flow has slowed up anyway. God knows, some of these losers really don’t need to be here,’ he said, waving a dismissive hand back towards the imprisoned jihadis. ‘But, on the other hand, nobody’s going to thank me for releasing a couple of hundred more lunatics onto the job market. So what do we do?’

  ‘Don’t know, General,’ replied Stavros. ‘That’s why you make the big bucks.’

  That really was a joke. Neither of them had been paid in weeks. Even if they had been, what use would they have for a dead, worthless currency?

  ‘Okay, decision time. Let’s set up a small review team. We’ll do a quick and dirty study of each case. The really bad motherfuckers, like Khalid, we’re going to try according to the laws of war. If convicted, they can be dealt with summarily.’

  Lieutenant Colonel Stavros looked wary. ‘But General, most of the personnel involved in the commission process were back home. Prosecutors, defence. And most of their files are gone too. What do we charge them with? How can we -’

  Musso cut him off with a chopping hand gesture. ‘I didn’t say it’d be pretty, George. Just fast. Some of these guys need their necks stretched. Some of them don’t belong here. Let’s shake the box and see who falls out of which hole. I want i
t sorted in a month.’

  ‘A month…’ Stavros stammered. ‘But General, we’ve got hundreds of cases… And where are we going to send them?’

  ‘A lot of them can be repatriated to their homelands, assuming the Israelis didn’t turn them into a slagheap. We got a lot of Pakistanis here – let Musharraf have them. We might even get lucky. India might nuke him as soon as they touch down. Most of the rest are Saudis, Jordanians, Afghanis – let’s send ‘em home. What happens then is up to their governments. Frankly, I don’t think many of them will survive, but that’s not my problem. A month, Colonel. This is one issue I don’t need to think about anymore. There’s plenty more that I do. Including this waste of space…’

  Stavros turned to look over his shoulder where Musso had glowered at two approaching civilians. Professor Griffiths and his assistant Tibor, universally known as Igor. The pair were stomping up the road in front of Camp 4, sweating profusely.

  Griffiths began carping as soon as he was in pistol-shot range. ‘Found you at last, General. I must protest yet again about the lack of cooperation from your staff with my research. Do I have to remind you that my team and I were sent here by your superiors? I am supposed to be studying the phenomenon, instead I spend most of my time getting jerked around by you or your minions.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Professor. Always lovely to see you,’ said Musso. ‘And no, you don’t have to remind me. I’ve heard that particular song so many times now, it has its own neural pathway that lights up every time I see you. If this is about your field trip, my staff aren’t thwarting you, Professor. They’re simply following orders. They cannot go into the exclusion zone along the line of the Wave, because they have been ordered not to. The Wave is dangerous, sir. It eats people. It ate one of yours the first week you were here. Left a little pile of goo in a white coat, as I recall. It’s not getting any more of mine.’

  Musso’s voice was rising and he could feel his anger slipping the leash. He pushed past the civilians and stomped over to where his driver and Humvee stood waiting on the small loop road in front of the camp. Brown, dried-out grass grew to knee length on the waste ground here and Musso made a note to himself to have that seen to. It was getting to be a fire hazard. He was aware of Stavros crunching up behind him, but his thoughts were elsewhere, sailing out across the blue waters he could just glimpse between the prison camp buildings as he attempted to calm down. Increasingly he found the fuse on his incendiary temper was burning way too quickly. He had once fancied himself the world’s most patient man. Really, he was known for it. That’s what made him a good lawyer. But he did have a temper, a foul one, and it had been running wild for weeks. Ever since the first shock had ebbed and he’d had time to really take in the enormity of the loss. Of his loss, personally.

  He lay awake in his cot most nights, unable to sleep properly, tortured by the loss of his family. It was wrong, he knew, to feel their deaths so much more keenly than the hundreds of millions of lives snuffed out on that day and since. But that was just how people were. As each day went past, he found it more difficult to deal with their absence, not less. He often caught himself thinking irrationally of calling one of his boys or his wife. And then he’d remember… and his mood would implode.

  ‘Well, let the Cubans escort me, General,’ continued Griffiths, who was entirely oblivious to the needs of anyone but himself. ‘They don’t have to follow your orders, do they? I’m sure some of them would love a chance to travel back into their own country.’

  Musso spun on him. ‘Go ask them yourself, Professor, but first, tell me what the fuck have you actually learned while you’ve been here? Tell me what anyone has learned, here or anywhere else, about that thing.’

  Griffiths staggered back one step and opened his mouth, but no words came out, because there was nothing to say. The Wave did not exist, at least not according to any instruments or sensor arrays currently available. The only evidence that it still sat there, squatting over the North American continent, was available by looking north. There it soared, miles into the sky. Mute, terrible and utterly impenetrable.

  ‘Nobody is stopping you, Professor. Off you go, if you wish. But do not bother my people about it. I have lost half-a-dozen of them to that thing, not to mention the Cubans it’s grabbed up. It’s random. There is no safe distance within two thousand metres of it. People have been snatched from twenty feet away, and two klicks. You were told all of this, on arrival. Nothing has changed.’

  Griffiths, a small man afflicted with receding red hair, appeared likely to blow a gasket. But unlike Musso he still had control of his temper. ‘I am sorry for the loss of your men, General…’

  ‘And women. Two of my Marines were women – Corporal Crist and Lieutenant Kwan.’

  ‘Okay. I am sorry. But those casualties all predated my arrival. I do not need anyone to follow me into the exclusion zone. Entering is a risk I am willing to take. But I cannot get out there without an escort. There are simply too many bandits now. It is too dangerous.’

  Musso made another conscious effort not to explode. He tried to climb down from the heights of his rage. Perhaps Griffiths was right. Nobody had ever been taken beyond two thousand metres. The survey stations in the Pacific Northwest and Canada confirmed that too. If the scientist had the nuts to take himself inside that safe, established perimeter on his own, who was he to argue? After all, if the Wave gobbled him up, it’d be one less headache for Musso to deal with.

  ‘Okay,’ the general replied, ‘you can have an escort to within three thousand metres. After that, you’re on your own. Even if you get nailed by bandits within clear sight of my people, if you are in the zone, you’re on your own. See if you can remember that little rhyme. It’ll help with your confusion when we don’t come running to drag your ass out of trouble.’

  Stavros stepped forward at that point. ‘General, your meeting with the French consul, sir. You’re going to be late.’

  ‘Thanks, George,’ he grunted. It wasn’t even a set-up. He really did have a meeting, for which he was truly grateful. ‘Dr Griffiths, if you don’t mind, I have to sign off on the last of the refugee convoys today. Perhaps when they are gone, there will be time for dealing with your issues.’

  That seemed to surprise and even mollify the scientist somewhat, and Musso climbed into the Humvee without delay. He didn’t offer the civilians a ride anywhere.

  * * * *

  ‘These won’t be the last refugees we get, you know, General.’

  ‘I know, Susie, but it will be the last big convoy the navy escorts anywhere. The word from Pearl is finito. It’s been a month. From now on, people will have to make their own arrangements. We’re losing more of our power-projection capability with each passing day.’

  The midnight hour had long since passed and Musso was back in his office, enjoying the chill of the air-conditioning and the absence of pests. He nursed a precious cup of coffee. At least in this part of the world, it was still plentiful, if hard to get. Colonel Pileggi sat across from him, just outside the cone of light thrown down by his desk lamp, half hidden in the gloom, with an old-fashioned clipboard on her knee as she ticked off items on her checklist. Behind her, the waters of the bay twinkled under a bright moon and dozens of civilian craft of all sizes lay quietly at anchor, awaiting the departure of the final convoy for the Pacific.

  A few small lighters still plied a path between them, distributing stores, collecting passenger lists, and handing out information on convoy protocols. In contrast with the first few crazed days of his time at Gitmo, a skeleton crew was on deck at the headquarters building. The base slumbered out in the darkness.

  ‘So we can expect the escorts here tomorrow?’ she asked doubtfully. There had been problems recently transiting the Canal. With the Panamanian Government’s collapse, Pearl had finally put in a Brigade Combat Team to control the locks, but they were being pressed by an unknown number of criminal syndicates. Not a day went by without one or two casualties among the Americans. On the up
side, though, the rules of engagement for the Canal Zone were robust. Anybody approaching the American-controlled locks was immediately engaged and destroyed without warning.

  Musso nodded. ‘It should be cool. Principal escort’s French, coming up from Guyana. It’s an F-70-class frigate, although it’s big enough that we’d call it a destroyer. I spoke with their guy when he flew in late this afternoon from Cayenne. It won’t have to transit the Canal until the convoy gets there and it has enough firepower to muscle through any parts we can’t provide cover for. And a solid detachment of Marine infantry, for good measure. Our guys will pick them up on the other side. Then the French will split off with a smaller group for New Caledonia.’

  Pileggi raised one eyebrow but remained silent.

  Musso picked up on her reaction and shrugged to show his own. ‘I know, I know. Surprised me too. I thought the French were too busy tearing each other apart to bother with helping anyone else, but Sarkozy’s faction has been looking real hard at their Pacific territories. You want my opinion, there’s going to be a lot of Frenchies opting out of food riots and ethnic cleansing for grass skirts and Gilligan’s Island any day now.’