Without warning

by John Birmingham

  ‘Okay, so your Foreign Ministry was rub-fucking the Arabs. I have to say, this isn’t breaking news.’

  Rolland uncapped the brandy flask and took a swig for himself before offering it to Caitlin again. She joined him. The pills, whatever they were, had begun to smooth her rough edges and another drink seemed like a good idea. Sitting on this magnificent old sofa, drinking fine spirits and chatting with the handsome French officer, she finally began to get some distance on the horror of the previous weeks.

  ‘I believe similar tensions existed between your own State Department and the military,’ Rolland countered. ‘It is the usual way between peacemakers and war fighters. But here in France, there was a complicating factor, which grew more complicated with every year.’

  Caitlin nodded slowly. ‘Your own Muslim population.’

  ‘Quite so. Just as your country found that certain questionable policies and state activities initially carried out beyond your borders, say, in South-East Asia, tended to return home in one form or another…’

  ‘We called it “blow-back”.’

  ‘How brutally elegant. Well, we too have discovered that a contagion, acquired in Algiers, transmitted itself to the body politic right here.’

  ‘Rolland, this would be a fascinating discussion if we were Jean-Paul and Simone sucking down Gitanes and black coffee in a Montmartre cafe. But how about you ditch all the context and sell me your pitch.’

  The captain leaned back and blew twin streams of blue smoke out through his nostrils. ‘Betrayal, Caitlin,’ he replied. ‘I am talking about betrayal. The man who held you here, Lacan, did not do so on his own recognisance. Nor did he operate as part of a small, traitorous cell. I am afraid that Monsieur Lacan was part of a much larger, and very well organised network of state officials, the Algerian School, as we know them, who had determined that the only possible, rational option for dealing in the long term with the rise of Muslim power in the Middle East, and within France herself, was accommodation.’

  ‘Appeasement, you mean.’

  ‘Non, “appeasement” is not a strong enough word, Caitlin. To appease is simply to make morally compromised concessions in order to maintain one’s own tenuous status. That is not what the School’s philosophy now entertains. “Adaptation” is more apt. Although in your language it sounds rather bloodless, it is not. As practised by the Algerian School, it means to slowly adapt the French secular state to the brute realities of its future as an annexe to the dar-al-Islam, as a true Muslim power.’

  ‘To convert.’

  ‘Yes. To convert. And to that end they have allied themselves with the intifada, in which your target is a leading player.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ she said, impressed at last. ‘And the Action Division, how many of them were…?’

  Rolland shook his head. ‘Enough. Perhaps one-third. The others were quickly dealt with in the first days of fighting.’

  ‘But you’ve got a civil war out there. Surely you can’t have whole army divisions who’ve gone over…’

  Another headshake from the Frenchman. ‘No. There is fighting between many arms of the military and other organs of the state. But most of those involved see nothing beyond their gun-sights. An army regiment is ordered to put down a mutiny by the Foreign Legion, for example, and the individual soldiers do not understand they are fighting an engagement to suit the ends of the conspiracy. To them, it is just a civil war, and now it is so far advanced that chaos reigns. Accusations, counter-claims, propaganda – all is confusion.’

  He leaned forward and stubbed the butt of his cigarette.

  ‘But this I do know, Caitlin. You can help stop it. Your target, Baumer, he is not the key, but he leads to the key – to the masters of the Algerian School. Take them down, and the intifada is leaderless, nothing more than a rabble. A huge rabble, yes – but not one that can match an army that is not divided against itself.’

  ‘You want me to kill your own people?’ she asked, still having some difficulty taking it all in.

  A new voice spoke up from the doorway behind Rolland, startling her. An American voice. ‘That was always going to be your next mission. That’s why you were targeted.’

  * * * *

  ‘Wales? Goddamn, Wales!’

  As sick in body and soul as she was, Caitlin pushed herself up off the couch and ran over to hug Wales Larrison, almost knocking him off his feet as she threw her arms around his neck.

  ‘Goddamn, Wales, it’s been… it’s just…’ A small burning lump in her throat grew and grew, until it merged with the ache in her chest and for the first time since she had been captured, Caitlin Monroe let herself go and poured out a torrent of tears.

  The rangy, silver-haired Nebraskan enfolded her within a generous bear hug and made no attempt to calm her down, as wretched, pitiful sobs and shudders racked her body.

  ‘I’m s-s-sorry, Wales. I failed… and…’

  He shushed her and stroked her head, patting down masses of thick dark hair still wet from the shower and smelling of cheap shampoo. ‘It’s all right, Cait, it’s all right,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve been sick. I know. They told me. You shouldn’t have been out in the field, let alone trussed up in this shithole… if you’ll excuse my, er, French, Captain Rolland.’

  ‘But of course, it is a shithole,’ the Frenchman agreed.

  Caitlin could feel Larrison’s strong heartbeat through his suit jacket, and that strength flowed through his arms and into her. She slowly regained her composure and pushed herself away.

  ‘How did you get here?’ she asked shakily, wiping her nose on a shirt cuff. T thought they’d grabbed you, Wales. I thought they’d rolled up the whole network.’

  Larrison put one finger on her lip and bade her to be quiet. He then led her back to the couch and eased her down, before sitting himself at the other end.

  ‘I was in London when everything happened,’ he said. ‘I had to sit on my ass and watch it from there. I’m sorry, Caitlin. I tried to get an overwatch team to you, twice, but the DGSE had a legitimate counter-intel responsibility for shadowing us. We did spy on them, after all. They never penetrated a cell, but their Intelligence Division was aware of us. That’s how they grabbed you the first time you were here. And they blocked both teams I sent in – wiped out the first, grabbed up the other one.’

  Caitlin pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders. ‘What’s left of us, Wales? Of Echelon, I mean.’

  He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Every op we had running in France was taken down. Every one. With extreme prejudice. The Brits lost their people too. Would have caused a quiet, dirty little war if we hadn’t known about the Algerian School. So now, in France, I’m afraid you’re it. You’re Echelon. Our last designated hitter.’

  He indicated the fort around them with a wave of his hand. Somewhere many miles away, more bombs exploded.

  ‘Lacan had people here, all over,’ Wales went on. ‘This Algerian School, it’s like Captain Rolland told you, they were everywhere. When we sent you after Baumer, they stepped in. He was protected as part of the… accommodation. They were always going to try to keep you off him.’

  Rolland put one muddy boot on the coffee table, leaned forward and retrieved his packet of pills. ‘Normally you would have been detained, interrogated, the usual inconveniences,’ he explained. ‘But, the Disappearance, it changed everything. A massive, world-changing shock.’

  ‘They had contingencies,’ added Larrison. ‘In the event of some foreseeable catastrophe that would cripple the US, or financial collapse, or a nuclear strike – whatever. The Disappearance wasn’t foreseeable, but it was also a hell of a lot more than a simple catastrophe. It wiped us out.’

  ‘And the contingency?’ said Caitlin.

  ‘To finish the work of Allah,’ answered Rolland. ‘As soon as it was confirmed what had happened in America, Lacan purged the Action Division and sent his trusted people out to roll up your network. It was not just you, of course. The British also maintained Echelon
cadre in France, as Monsieur Larrison explained. They too were targeted. Even your junior partners, the Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, all of them were smothered.’

  ‘So, all the street fighting, the ethnic clashes – they were engineered by the School? That seems a bit far-fetched.’

  Larrison, who looked so much older than the last time they had spoken, just two months ago, shook his head sadly. ‘Not all of them, Cait. A lot of violence arose naturally. Once the capstone was off, the geyser blew. But yes, some incidents were engineered to bring on a wider confrontation. An uprising. Even then it may not have worked. Conspiracies often don’t, as you would know. But Israel nuking half of the Arab world – that was a deal breaker. Race war, holy war, civil war, whatever you want to call it. It was inevitable after that. And people have been killing each other ever since.’

  She moved her head carefully to look out of the windows again. The rain had turned the suburbs outside into a bleary, grey netherworld, but some elements did resolve themselves. There was no traffic, vehicular or pedestrian. The only aircraft aloft were military, and of course she had already noted that they were attacking targets within the city. There seemed to be fewer fires burning than she remembered, but the rain was heavy, and on looking more closely she could see that whole districts had already been burnt out.

  Caitlin snuggled deeper into the sofa. It was strangely comforting. ‘You said something about my next mission?’

  Wales clicked his tongue. ‘Yup. I did. We didn’t tell you, because you didn’t need to know, not at that point. But the file on Baumer was a joint operation with the DST, the intelligence arm of Sarkozy’s Ministry of the Interior. Sarkozy had decided to move against the Algerian School and asked us to help. It was unprecedented. Echelon does not play outside of the family. But in this case, we did, because the strategic consequences could affect the family, generations down the line. The Brits were particularly gung-ho. Your mission was designed to shake out Baumer’s contacts. To expose Bernard Lacan and his people. They were being monitored by the DST without their knowledge.’

  ‘Or so we thought,’ added Rolland.

  ‘Or so we thought.’

  ‘There was a leak?’ asked Caitlin.

  Larrison grunted. ‘There was. We still don’t know where from. But Lacan found out, and that’s why he bet so much on grabbing you up. He needed you to start unravelling the op against him and the other School masters.’

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ muttered Caitlin.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cait, but you know the rules.’

  She waved away his apology. ‘I’m not pissed at you, Wales. I know my job, and I know it’s not always what it seems. I’m a pawn. I can be sacrificed. It’s just… I dunno. I’m sick, Wales, really sick. And it’s messing with my head, the way I think and see things.’ A weak breath escaped from her lips, and she deflated. ‘I made a friend. An asset. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I’m not well… And I got her killed because I wasn’t good enough to save her.’

  The room broke up into a jewelled kaleidoscope as more tears came. Larrison leaned over and patted her on the knee. Her dad had done the same thing a thousand times, and it only served to deepen her sadness. Wales’s voice was soft, like her father’s had once been, but still hard with it.

  ‘You’re not a pawn, Caitlin,’ he said. ‘You’re a knight. And you’re still in play.’

  * * * *

  41

  18TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS

  The BBC offices in Paris were an armed compound, with every window covered in steel plating. It did nothing to dull the arrhythmic tom-tom beat of heavy machine-gun fire or the dense, percussive thud of high-explosive ordnance pounding the rubble in the 16th Arrondissement just a few minutes’ drive away. A sandbagged gunpit and razor wire guarded the main entrance, secured by a rotating team of gunned-up heavies from Sandline, a British-based ‘private military company’. Dave, one of the operators, was American, and Melton had initially attempted to forge some kind of relationship with him, but entirely without luck. All he ever received in return for his stream of ‘howdy’s, ‘hi there’s and ‘how ya doin’?’s were grunts and the blank, dead stare of deep disinterest.

  ‘He’s not really a people person, is he?’ said Monty Pearson, the chief of staff. ‘Still, better than having every man and his mad dog wandering in, eh?’

  Monty was a thirty-year veteran of war reporting, having cut his teeth on the Golan Heights all the way back in 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. Like most of the bureau staff, he was a new arrival, a volunteer, in his case from Kabul. Paris was considered a war posting, which was how Melton had moved from freelancer to staffer almost as soon as he’d put his foot in the door with his collection of Iraq War interviews. Very few people had the desire, experience and unique mix of skills that he brought to the table.

  Even among the grizzled veterans of the Beeb’s first-rank war correspondents, he stood out because of his own combat experience.

  ‘Tea?’ asked Monty, as they gathered in the second-floor conference room, a windowless box in the centre of the building. Along with the production studios down in the basement, it was one of the most secure areas in the building, but even so, every now and then a larger explosion nearby would shake flakes of plaster from the ceilings. Melton could feel the detonation through the soles of his shoes.

  There was no coffee to be had, unfortunately, and Bret had noticed that the Brits really did seem to function a lot more effectively with just a cup or two of their weak, milky brew inside them. He had no idea where Barry, the office manager, sourced their supplies, but in a starving city riven by ethnic and civil warfare, he somehow kept the larder stocked and the teapots full. When Melton had complimented him on his scrounging chops, Barry had grinned back and said, ‘If I can keep Jim Muir’s fuckin’ beer fridge full of fuckin’ Boddingtons in Beirut, a cup of fuckin’ char in Paris in’t going to bovver me, is it, guvnor!’

  ‘But a decent cup of Java’s impossible?’ Melton asked.

  ‘All but,’ said Barry, in an apologetic tone. ‘Frogs is killing each other over mouldy croissants and fuckin’ Nescafe. So no, Mr Melton, no fuckin’ coffee. Learn to drink somefin civilised, why doncha?’

  The small team of correspondents and editors took their places around the conference table, most of them juggling papers and folders in one hand, and bone-china cups and saucers in the other. A packet of ‘biscuits’, as they insisted on calling all forms of cookie life, sat in the centre of the table, and Monty doled out one to each tea drinker, before carefully twisting the packet closed again and clamping it with a wooden clothes peg. The provenance of the peg was never explained. It was a peculiar ritual, one that Melton had rather come to look forward to each day. He was offered one of the McVitie’s wholemeal ‘bickies’ to have with his glass of water, but again he turned it down.

  ‘Couldn’t get any Oreos, Barry?’ he teased, only half in jest.

  ‘Oh, I know where there’s a whole warehouse of ‘em, Mr Melton. Just couldn’t be fucked dickerin’ for ‘em. Why, do you want some?’

  ‘Oh no, don’t put yourself out on my behalf,’ Bret replied, smiling.

  ‘Wasn’t planning to, sir.’

  Other exchanges rolled back and forth across and around the table as everyone settled in. The morning news conference was about something more than simply assigning new stories and monitoring those already in progress. It was the only time each day when the entire team was in one place, and it served as an opportunity for everyone to touch base, for the tribe to hunker down and count its blessings that once again their numbers had not been thinned out. The BBC had lost seventeen journalists killed or simply disappeared in the last month, not counting those who’d been vaporised in the Middle East. The Paris bureau, however, was charmed, having lost nobody since Jon Sopel was killed in the first week of fighting. The bureau had grown like topsy since then, and had taken the buildings on either side as they’d become abandoned, but only seasoned warcos and freelan
cers like Melton worked here now. He’d been hired on a twelve-month contract. It paid a fraction of his Army Times job, which hadn’t been a great earner anyway, but because of the hazardous posting status, the former Ranger was guaranteed ‘room and board’ at the Paris compound. It seemed perverse, but he ate better and slept more securely than many people in England.

  ‘Right then,’ Monty called out in his down-to-business voice. ‘What enchanting fripperies and puff pieces will we be filing from the City of Light today, then? Caroline, darlin’, any chance of that interview with the blessed Sarko yet?’