Without warning

by John Birmingham

  ‘Damn,’ muttered Pileggi. ‘Is that the good dope you’re smoking? Straight from Pearl?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Musso. ‘There have been talks, apparently. Very quiet talks. This consular guy confirmed as much. We may be in business as a transit point in the future – assuming Sarkozy wins, of course.’

  ‘That’s quite an assumption from what I’ve read, General.’ A new worry now etched itself into the deep lines of Pileggi’s face, shadows pooled under her eyes. ‘I’ve got a lot of my refugees bunking down in the French colonies. What’s going to happen to them?’

  ‘No idea. I guess there’ll be more talks. Things are already pretty crowded in French Polynesia. For now, our problems are all here. We’ve got nigh on a hundred vessels to get out of the harbour and through the Panama Canal – are they going to be finished provisioning? You were having some trouble with supplies, as I recall.’

  Pileggi tapped the clipboard with her pen. ‘Those two big container ships that came in early this morning from Port-au-Spain declared a lot of stuff we could use. So I requisitioned their cargo. My guys are going to check them out in the morning and begin redistribution.’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ grunted Musso. ‘How were the captains about that?’

  She waved the question off with a hand gesture. ‘Relaxed. They even sent over a complete cargo manifest to help out. They’re Panamanian-flagged, with mostly Russian and Indian crews. The shipping line’s gone out of business. They say they’ll need some fuel and an escort to Australia, so I’d guess they’re going to sell what they can in Sydney. The Indians will want to go home from there, the Russians will probably jump ship and try to disappear into the crowd.’

  ‘Well, the crowd would be big enough, I imagine. Must be nearly two million displaced down there now.’

  ‘Passed that last week,’ the colonel replied, shaking her head. ‘They’re up to two point two, as of close of business yesterday. Two and a half if you count New Zealand. Mostly ours, but a fair number of Europeans too. Clean-shaven and fair-skinned, of course,’ she added dryly. ‘Don’t bother knocking if your name is Mohammed.’

  Musso felt instinctive disapproval stirring in his gut, just as he disapproved of the British Government’s mass internment and deportation policies. It was ethnic cleansing by another name, or ethnic filtering perhaps Down Under. Racism cloaked as necessity, when you got right down to it. But it was hardly the worst thing happening in the world today. And the Aussies had taken anyone with an American passport, regardless of background. While their motives were almost entirely selfish – just look at how much remnant US military power had been redeployed down there to protect America’s most precious asset, its remaining people – you couldn’t argue with the result. Refugee allocations to southern-hemisphere locations were among the most precious things in the world at the moment, the ecological catastrophe of the Disappearance being mostly confined to the northern latitudes. Nobody in their right mind wanted to go into the tribal slaughterhouse that was Africa. And with so many South American countries succumbing to the contagion of anarchy or military takeover, slots in the Australia and New Zealand programs were the most avidly sought. Fortunes in trade goods were being made smuggling people in there.

  The Marine Corps lawyer was about to ask Pileggi for a rundown on the civilian flights out of Soto Cano in Honduras, the other leg of her role in Operation Uplift, when he suddenly blinked in shock. A freighter, moored near the old fuelling station down in the bay, exploded. There was no warning. It simply lifted a few feet out of the water – a small dense blossom of white light cracking it amidships before flowering into a dark, oily orange ball of flame that lit up the entire harbour. The sundered bow and stern thumped back down, throwing up huge fantails of water, before the vessel keeled over and started to sink.

  ‘Motherfuck!’ cried Musso.

  Pileggi spun around in her chair, half raising herself as she did so.

  Musso didn’t bother with the formalities of ending the meeting. They were both already heading for the door when a navy lieutenant appeared, blocking their exit. She was holding a sheaf of paper and appeared goggle-eyed with surprise.

  ‘General Musso, there’s a message for you, sir. From President Chavez.’

  ‘What?’ He was tired, worn slick, and not firing on all cylinders.

  She handed the message across as more explosions ripped through the night, muted by distance. A crackle of small-arms fire resolved itself from the rolling thunder.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Musso cursed as he snatched the piece of paper and skimmed through the text.

  ‘What is it, General?’ asked Susie Pileggi.

  ‘That commie wingnut down in Venezuela is demanding we leave Cuba,’ fumed Musso as he finished re-reading the transmission. ‘Says the Special Circumstances Committee of the Cuban Politburo in Caracas has requested the assistance of Venezuela in removing “all imperialist chancres” from the body of Cuba.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s a whackjob – what do I know what he means?’

  Pileggi’s eyes suddenly flew wide open, just as Musso’s had done a few seconds earlier. ‘Those container ships,’ she said. ‘We haven’t been able to inspect them yet, but one of them’s a conro vessel.’

  Musso shook his head, trying to clear the mud out and not having a lot of luck.

  ‘A container ship with a roll-on/roll-off facility,’ she explained quickly. ‘Just like an LHD. You could use it for putting troops ashore.’

  ‘Shit!’

  Another officer appeared at the door. A Signals Corps captain. ‘Excuse me, General, you need to see this, sir. It’s a distress call from the French ship, the Montcalm. She says she’s been torpedoed. Three hits and she’s going down, requesting immediate SAR to this location.’ The captain handed over another piece of paper containing the grid coordinates.

  Musso turned to the first messenger. ‘Venezuelan navy, Lieutenant – do they even have submarines?’ he asked the wide-eyed naval officer.

  She seemed to stumble over the answer before composing herself. ‘Two that I recall, General. A couple of Type 209 diesel-electric attack boats. German design. Not a bad ship killer if you can’t afford a top-shelf product.’

  Tusk Musso squeezed out a silent curse as the sound of gunfire escalated behind him. He hurried back to the window for a quick look-see. The previously calm moonlit setting had changed into a maelstrom of moving craft, all illuminated by the guttering of the burning freighter. By pressing his face against the glass, he could see right up the main branch of the bay.

  A big cargo vessel appeared to have beached itself. An armoured vehicle rolled down off the ramp, spewing tracer fire into the camp.

  * * * *

  40

  NOISY-LE-SEC, PARIS

  The soup was a simple broth, a thin brown liquid in which floated a few chunks of carrot, some onion and a little shredded meat, possibly beef, but to Caitlin it was heaven in a bowl. She sipped at the rim. Her hands shook too much to use the spoon they had given her, and she had already finished the small piece of bread that came with the meal.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘I’m afraid this place doesn’t really deserve its Michelin star.’

  Captain Rolland smiled kindly and effected a very Gallic lift of the shoulders. ‘Standards are slipping everywhere, mademoiselle.’

  Caitlin returned the smile. ‘I dunno. My last stay here wasn’t much better.’

  She finished the bowl and placed it on the table in front of the old leather couch on which she sat, wrapped in a clean blanket and dressed for the first time in weeks. Rolland snapped his fingers and a young soldier appeared from outside the office to clear away the dish and plate. They did not speak while he was in the room.

  Caitlin stood up and peered out of the window, over a rain-slicked parking lot below. A bus burned in one corner, and a couple of bodies lay nearby in pools of blood, which became lighter and pinker as the rain diluted them. She appeared to be about three storeys up
, high enough to see over the red tiled roofs of the surrounding buildings to the eastern suburbs of Paris. A few fires burned in a desultory fashion here and there, dwarfed by a huge tower of smoke about five miles away. She couldn’t see any movement in the streets, but she could hear gunfire. A lot of it.

  ‘Sounds like Beirut. Or maybe the Mog,’ she said.

  Rolland, a handsome thirty-something man with a full head of black hair that was swept back and oiled in a very old-fashioned style, lit a cigarette and then stopped himself. ‘Excuse me, do you mind?’

  The pain in her head was wretched, but it was no worse than any of her other manifold agonies. ‘Knock yourself out, mon Capitaine,’ Caitlin replied as she returned to the couch, ‘I doubt those things will kill me. They’re at the back of a very long line.’

  The Frenchman sat down across the coffee table from her and drew deeply on the unfiltered cigarette with evident pleasure. His army uniform was filthy and his boots caked with mud. He hadn’t shaven in a few days.

  ‘This is my first one all week,’ he said, waving the cigarette around. ‘And I had to take it from one of the jihadi pigs. It’s Turkish. Not my blend. But what can one do?’

  ‘Yeah, those jihadi pigs – you want to tell me what my target was doing in your dungeons? You know, besides raping me.’

  Rolland shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘It was a disgraceful thing. But, I am afraid, all too common these days. Monsieur Baumer, your target – and mine, as it transpires – he unfortunately escaped our net. We were hoping you might be able to help us find him. After all, you are the expert on “al Banna”?’

  She laughed, a short, joyless sound. ‘I’m the world expert on getting my ass kicked by him,’ she replied. ‘And I have to tell you, Rolland, the shape I’m in, I’d get it kicked all over again if we met. But you’re not answering my question – what was he doing here? What were any of them doing here? And what the hell’s been going on out there? Reynard told me you guys had things under control.’ She nodded towards the city centre. ‘But that’s not under control. This place is dying.’

  Momentary confusion passed over the soldier’s face as he shook his head. ‘Reynard?… Oh, you mean Lacan. No, it is not under control, mademoiselle. It has not been for weeks. Half of the city’s population have fled into the countryside, but things are worse out there. All the cities have emptied out. You can imagine what that means. Some of them took tents and provisions for a few days’ camping. Most just fled when the intifada and the Resistance began in earnest. Farms and villages have barricaded themselves off from the world, fought off everyone who seeks shelter or aid. It is a Dark Age again. There are bodies piling up in fields – possibly a million of them by now. With thousands more dying every day. Many, many are dead.’

  Caitlin was already dizzy with exhaustion and moral collapse, but Rolland was making her head spin. She imagined a host of totally unprepared urbanites swarming over the French countryside expecting to live off stolen eggs and wild berries. They’d have stripped the fields bare in days. She began shaking again, the same deep body tremors that had seized her after being raped by al Banna. ‘S-sorry,’ she stuttered.

  Rolland reached into his blood-smeared tunic and removed a silver flask. ‘Here, drink some,’ he said. ‘It is brandy. Good brandy, not like the hospital disinfectant you are familiar with. And my battalion surgeon, he said these may help too.’

  A small blister pack of tablets dropped onto the tabletop. Half of them had already been popped.

  ‘They will calm your nerves,’ he explained. ‘But should not dull your senses.’

  Caitlin briefly wondered whether she might react to them, given her medical condition. Then she thought, What the hell, and downed two with a swig from Rolland’s flask. The liquor burned softly and warmed her upper body. As she handed back the brandy, a jet suddenly screamed through the air nearby, the noise arcing up from a distant whine to a deafening shriek in mere seconds. A very short time later she heard the unmistakable crump of air-dropped munitions detonating within a few miles.

  ‘So, things haven’t gone as well as I was led to believe?’

  The captain took a long draw on the harsh-smelling cigarette. ‘I am afraid not,’ he admitted. ‘The situation remains… confused.’

  ‘Not as confused as me. Why don’t you try explaining – you could start with Baumer. He was one of yours, right, so is that why I was targeted?’

  ‘A double agent? No, I am afraid not.’

  Caitlin’s head felt as though it had been wrapped in old towels soaked in chloroform. She had trouble concentrating and holding her thoughts. ‘But, what was he doing here at the fort?’ she asked, trying again. ‘Are you saying that Reynard… sorry, what did you call him?’

  ‘Lacan. Bernard Lacan, second-in-charge of the Action Division.’

  ‘Okay. Lacan then-you’re saying he’d sold out to the intifada?’

  Rolland waved his hands in a frustrated manner, as if trying to shoo a fly. ‘It is not so simple, no,’ he replied. ‘You have been out of contact for a long time, Caitlin. Do you mind if I call you Caitlin?’

  ‘It’s not the worst liberty that’s been taken with me recently. Go on.’

  ‘Lacan was working with Baumer’s network, yes. But not just Lacan. And not just with one jihadi cell. It is difficult, Caitlin, this situation I must explain. Please bear with me. You will be aware of some of the history of the DGSE, your rival service, non?’

  She leaned back against the arm of the leather sofa and pulled the blanket around to a more comfortable position. Outside, the rain began to pick up, strongly enough to wash much of the blood from the courtyard, she imagined. The pills hadn’t kicked in yet, but the brandy was having a soothing effect. Rolland used the opportunity to light up another cigarette as he continued.

  ‘Unlike your CIA, and despite its name, the Action Division does not maintain a standing section of paramilitary covert operatives. When such skills are required, it draws on what we call a “tank” of operators from the army, mostly the special forces and commandos.’

  She nodded. The information wasn’t new to her.

  ‘Do you know the original battalion on which the Action Division relied, Caitlin?’

  She searched her battered memory and came up with some fragment. ‘Some paratroop regiment?’

  ‘Very good,’ said Rolland, with a nod of his own. ‘Almost right. Le 11-iиme Bataillon Parachutiste de Choc- “the Shock Parachutist Battalion”, as you would say. It was first raised in 1946, then disbanded in 1963 because its officers were collaborators, supporters of French Algeria.’

  ‘Okay. That means they backed whitey, right? The pieds-noirs. Ancient history, but go on.’

  ‘Ancient for you, young lady, not for France. The Algerian war nearly destroyed us. It collapsed the Fourth Republic, brought back the Gaullists, and forever changed our view of France as une puissance musulmane. Do you know the phrase?’

  ‘A Muslim power,’ she replied. ‘Again, so what? A hundred years ago you wanted to lord it over the Arabs, because the Brits scarfed up all the good colonies for themselves.’

  He favoured her with a lopsided smile. ‘I had been told you are a difficult woman.’

  ‘I prefer to think of myself as challenging,’ she quipped back.

  ‘Your American psychology betrays you, Caitlin. Une puissance musulmane does not just mean to wield power over the House of Peace. It means to hold that power in… how would you phrase it?… In agreement, in accordance – a sort of entente cordiale with the Islamic world itself. You and the British often described your filial bond as a special relationship. Indeed, that relationship extended across all of the English-speaking world. Your employer, Echelon, it was a perfect expression of that dysfunctional anglophone family, non? An alliance, a secret one, between the English-speaking powers, directed against everyone else. That is quite special, when you think about it. Well, our special relationship, our particular delusion, if you
wish, was with the dar-al-Islam. Or so some thought.’

  ‘Captain,’ she said, as toxic rain began to patter against the windowpanes and the room became even gloomier, ‘you’re going to have to help me out here. I have a brain tumour and I’m having trouble putting two and two together.’

  Rolland stood up and flicked on a light. He called out to one of his men stationed in the corridor and they spoke in murmurs for a moment before he returned.

  ‘Excuse me, Caitlin. I am expecting someone… Yes, I am sorry – it is the continental way of narrative. Much more elliptical than your own. Let me “bottom-line” it for you, to borrow from your own vernacular. Since the accommodation in Algeria, there has been a school of thought, a quiet but powerful clique within the state, which has believed that accommodation with Islam is the only way forward. At first this group was centred on the Quai d’Orsay, here in Paris, and they applied their doctrine within their own sphere, often in conflict with other actors in the state realm.’