Without warning

by John Birmingham

  ‘McCutcheon. Major McCutcheon,’ the man replied, smiling. If he’d taken Jed’s calculated affront to heart he gave no sign of it.

  ‘So you’re an army man, then, McCutcheon,’ said Jed, even though he knew full well that wasn’t the case. Precisely modulated buffoonery seemed to be the appropriate response to this gladhanding mountebank.

  ‘Nope. Air force,’ he replied as they continued towards the Municipal Tower, cutting across Marion into 5th Avenue.

  ‘Well, that’s all right too, I suppose. And what threat to national security are you dealing with down here, Major McCutcheon?’

  ‘Oh, I’m just a humble liaison officer, Jed… You are Jed Culver, right – one of Governor Lingle’s people? It is my job to know.’

  Culver’s smile was knowing, but he allowed just a small twinkle of admiration to light up his eyes too. This guy wasn’t half bad. He certainly wasn’t nearly as stupid as he pretended to be. It was telling that he’d referenced Culver’s official designation as a Hawaiian delegate, and not his more infamous profile as the prime mover behind the ‘No’ lobby, the makeshift alliance opposed to any radical change in the nation’s constitutional arrangements.

  They turned the corner into Fifth, where a line of trees leading up to the Municipal Tower had shed all their leaves and died. The exposed branches called up an image of witch’s hands, clawing at the poisoned sky.

  ‘I suppose the big pink calling card gives me away,’ he conceded, fingering the ID laminate for emphasis. Jed had wondered who’d picked the colours for the laminate cards when he’d received his a fortnight ago. It certainly wouldn’t have been his first choice, or Governor Lingle’s for that matter.

  Culver stopped and turned to face McCutcheon directly. ‘But what gives you away, Major, is your non-regulation haircut, which is just a bit too close to the collar. Your whole hail-fellow-well-met routine, which is a little too practised at being a little too hip. And the small, almost unnoticeable hole in your left ear lobe, which tells me that at some point you had something stuck in there, possibly to fit in with an underground cell of Resistance nitwits or anarchist troublemakers. It was a nice save on the name, but I’ve been dealing with military people for weeks now, and none of them ever call me anything but “Mr Culver” or “sir”. So why don’t you stop trying to jam ten pounds of horseshit into a five-pound bag and tell me what it is you want.’

  McCutcheon appeared to regard him with detached amusement. Staying in character then. Okay, thought Jed, one point for him.

  ‘You’re the guy that set this gig up, aren’t you, Jed?’ He smiled, with just a hint of steel in his voice.

  ‘The Constitutional Convention, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah. The clusterfuck down at the Municipal Tower of Babel.’

  ‘No, I’m not the one who set it up, Mac,’ Culver replied dryly. ‘I think you’ll find that the executive and legislative branches of the surviving states did that, in accordance with Article 5 of the Constitution. I’m just an observer for Governor Lingle’s office.’

  ‘Bullshit. Everyone knows what role you’re playing. It’s a dangerous game, Jed. Look at this place.’ McCutcheon waved a gloved hand at the dead city lying in state around them. ‘More’n half a million people bunkered down like rats, living on subsistence handouts. An active underground resistance, which is this close to flipping over into major violence, and the only goddamn thing keeping the lid on is martial law. And that’s just here. You know what it’s like back in Hawaii. You must have heard about the refugee camps down in Chile and Brazil. America isn’t a functioning nation anymore. It’s a fucking shambles, which is this close to going under. Do you honestly believe we can afford to indulge ourselves in partisan bullshit and self-seeking politics anymore – the whole fucking spin cycle, red state/blue state, inner/outer beltway psychosis? We are this close to going under.’ He held up two fingers, pinching them together.

  ‘No,’ sighed Jed. ‘You are this close to giving me a migraine. What are you, McCutcheon – Blackstone’s Lord Chief Assassin? His Witch Finder General? What is it exactly that you want from me?’

  ‘It’s not what I want from you, Jed. It’s what you can do for your -’

  ‘Oh please, don’t.’

  Culver turned and resumed his steady stride down towards the convention. He half expected McCutcheon to grab him by the elbow and muscle him into a black van or down an alleyway. But the air force man – if that’s what he really was – didn’t even bother to follow. He simply called out after the lawyer, ‘Room 1209.’

  It took half a second for the significance to sink in, but when it did, Culver froze, almost comically, nearly pitching forward under his own momentum.

  ‘That’s where your family can be found, can’t they? Room 1209 of the Embassy Suites.’

  Jed had to summon all of his willpower not to spin around and fly back at McCutcheon. He was still a powerful man, in spite of years of fine living. His wrestler’s physique had not run too badly to fat, and at that moment every nerve in his body was singing a high sweet song of madness. He wanted to tear one of McCutcheon’s arms out of its socket and beat him down with it. Instead, he fixed a small vulpine smile on his face and walked back slowly.

  ‘I don’t know who you are, McCutcheon. Who you really are,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you really want. I’m going to do you the courtesy of presuming your intentions are honourable and that your means, like so much of what is happening in this city, are driven by the devils of necessity. But if you know about me, what I am and what I’ve done, you’ll know I neither make nor accept threats idly. Our business here today is done. But you and I, my friend – we are not.’

  And with that Jed Culver turned and walked away, wondering if he should continue with his planned meeting. Could he be under surveillance?

  He wondered about McCutcheon’s agenda. It seemed a hell of a risk, the major fronting him like that. What would happen if the lawyer walked up to a news crew at the convention now and started bleating about being monstered by a military officer, who had threatened his family?

  And then he smiled. He knew what would happen. McCutcheon would produce a handful of impeccable witnesses, probably backed up with electronic evidence – say, date-stamped video coverage – ‘proving’ that he had been nowhere near the city at the time Culver alleged. Jed would be ridiculed as a fabulist and possibly as a fellow traveller with the subversives in the Resistance. His effectiveness as a backroom operator would be at an end.

  He nodded in appreciation of the gambit, stopping and turning around. McCutcheon, of course, was gone.

  ‘You sly son of a bitch,’ muttered Jed. ‘You’re not half the fool you pretend to be, are you, boy?’ He snorted with wry amusement and resumed his progress towards the Municipal Tower.

  His back muscles, clenched against a bullet, only relaxed a block later.

  * * * *

  His stash of freeze-dried rations at home was beginning to look mighty good as James Kipper surveyed the buffet in the main convention hall. The military had stocked trestle tables with light tan, plastic-wrapped MREs while a couple of ancient urns, dug out of the city council dungeons, hissed and steamed, providing hot water for powdered coffee. First cup free, then you had to supply your own makings. Kipper ripped open a sachet of army coffee, wondering if the navy’s would’ve tasted any better. He’d heard that once. Too bad if it did, because the US Army had a lock on the coffee market in Seattle now.

  The air in the hall was hot and cloying. That was his doing. Power restrictions meant that the air-conditioning had to be dialled right back and the lighting had been dimmed too. Kipper had taken a lot of grief for that decision, but every time some angry state congressman with three-day body odour harassed him about it, he just shrugged and pointed out that the citizens of Seattle were restricted to eight hours of power a day for the foreseeable future. The city engineer made up his one sachet of free powdered coffee and grabbed an army chocolate bar for his daughter to have later
. The soldiers called them ‘track pads’, and after sampling one, he could understand why. They were as hard as bricks, but they seemed to mollify Suzie. Kip looked at the MREs and tried to figure out which one had either Skittles or M amp;M’s in it. He’d learned that you could never tell.

  He was getting ready to make a clean getaway when a Mack Truck in an expensive-looking three-piece suit suddenly blocked his way.

  ‘Mr Kipper, the city engineer?’

  Kip kept his face neutral, wondering if he was going to get in trouble for stealing the chocolate. As one of the city’s senior administrators, he had unrestricted access to the conference floor – in case he had to speak urgently to any of the now-released city councillors – but he probably shouldn’t have been grazing at the buffet. It had been laid out for delegates. He palmed the chocolate bar, or attempted to anyway.

  ‘Oh, don’t sweat it, son. I have a sweet tooth myself,’ the suit said with a grin. ‘Culver is the name. Jed Culver, with the Hawaiian delegation. And you’re James Kipper, aren’t you?’

  ‘City engineer, yeah,’ replied Kipper, who felt the need to explain himself. ‘This, uh, this is for my daughter. She’s six and…’

  Culver held up his hand and shook his head. ‘Say no more, I have two of my own. Although, they’ve moved on a bit in years now-terrible teens. Back in Honolulu, thank God. Listen, Mr Kipper, I wonder if I might bother you for a few moments of your time.’

  Feeling as guilty as hell over the confectionery, Kip didn’t feel he could say no. ‘Is there something I can help you with, Mr Culver? I mean, I’m not a delegate. Not elected either – I’m just the city engineer. I’m trying to keep things running.’

  Culver nodded. ‘I know. That’s why I wanted to talk, briefly. But not here. Do you have an office? Or, even better, somewhere we could talk that isn’t likely to be bugged.’

  Culver spoke in such a matter-of-fact way that the meaning of his question took a second to register with the engineer. Kip blinked and shook his head in surprise. ‘I, uh… well.’

  ‘I have good reason for caution, sir. Doesn’t need to be anywhere special – indeed, the less special the better. Somewhere you wouldn’t normally transact business. Somewhere your elected officials would be unlikely to frequent.’

  ‘Somewhere not worth bugging?’ said Kip.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Culver, nodding gently.

  Kipper shrugged. ‘Okay, I suppose so, if you want to follow me.’

  ‘Tell you what, I understand it may be an inconvenience for a busy man, but could you meet me in half an hour? Wherever you think best.’

  Kipper wasn’t sure whether to be pissed off, intrigued or worried. A little of each perhaps. He gave Culver directions to an empty office on the twenty-ninth floor. An auditor had been working in there all last year, causing untold angst for the various department heads. But he was gone now, and the office had not been reallocated. It was a bare space full of paper files awaiting the shredder.

  The chief engineer had enough time to squeeze in a quick meeting with his own section heads, detailing their priorities for the day – sanitation and sewerage were the new headaches – before excusing himself for ten minutes to call Barb. To his surprise, he found Culver waiting for him there, in his office. He wasn’t entirely happy with that.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask how you made it up here, Mr Culver? I mean, you’re not really supposed to be on this floor.’

  ‘Nope,’ the big man admitted. ‘But in my experience just looking like you should be somewhere is ninety per cent of the battle won. And you don’t have any armed soldiers up on these floors, do you?’

  Kipper released a deep breath out of his nostrils. ‘No, we don’t. Not since they released the councillors. Military’s handling security downstairs, but the city looks after its own up here now.’

  Culver seemed to chew this over. ‘I hear tell you were the one who dragged this town through the worst of the aftermath. Heard you were the de facto mayor and governor.’

  ‘City employs a lot of people, Mr Culver,’ Kip replied, shrugging off the attempt at flattery. ‘They all worked long days after the Disappearance hit. I wasn’t unique. There are thousands of city and state-government workers, thousands more in private firms, tens of thousands of individuals citizens, all of whom pitched in to help. Most of my people wouldn’t have seen their families awake in a month.’

  ‘And the military,’ said Culver. ‘Do you mind if I ask how they… fitted in?’

  Kipper snorted. ‘Fitted in? More like stormed in. Was a time there I was seriously thinking about following one of my guys out the door. He quit after Blackstone arrested the councillors. Said it was fascism, no less.’

  ‘But you didn’t quit.’

  ‘How could I? The army are good at some things but not others. You want something destroyed, they’re your guys. You want something saved, preserved, built, whatever – not so much. Believe me, Mr Culver, I had my doubts. But this place would’ve fallen apart if enough of us had just thrown up our hands on a point of politics. And it did get sorted out in the end.’

  * * * *

  Jed Culver waited to see if Kipper claimed any credit for that. His sources told him the engineer was responsible for sorting out the ‘misunderstanding’ between the city and Fort Lewis, and for ensuring that everybody moved on from it as quickly as possible. A remarkable piece of hog trading, in Jed’s considered opinion.

  But the engineer said nothing. He didn’t even raise it. Culver decided to nudge him.

  ‘I have to say, Mr Kipper,’ he began, ‘I am surprised it got sorted, as you put it. People must have been a tad upset with General Blackstone, no? I would’ve thought a lot of folks might have wanted him arrested and court-martialled. Or at least relieved of duty.’

  Kipper shrugged. ‘Look, it’s a tough call. Blackstone is an asshole. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but he gets as much credit for pulling this place through the last month as anyone. More than most, really. I guess unusual times call for unusual methods.’ The engineer checked his watch before going on. ‘Look, I don’t want to be rude, Mr Culver, but is there some reason we had to arrange such a cloak-and-dagger meeting for a conversation you could have a hundred times over down on the conference floor?’

  Culver smiled. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Kipper, I know you’re very busy. There was one thing. Have you ever dealt with a Major Ty McCutcheon?’

  * * * *

  43

  GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA

  The screaming howl of turbines prompted Tusk Musso to dive for the floor, badly jarring his elbow and bruising a few ribs. Thunder struck the headquarters building. Windows shattered and the floor seemed to jump beneath him as a computer screen crashed down off the desk. Smoke poured into the office from down the hallway and dozens of phones rang as the base-alert siren trumpeted the end of the world. The shouts of Marines, sailors and soldiers in and out of the building reached Musso dully through the ringing in his ears.

  ‘Corpsman! Man down!’

  ‘What the fuck, what the fuck…’

  ‘The armoury - now, Gutteres …’

  Colonel Pileggi picked herself up, checked for any injuries while dusting off, and reached for one of the two ringing telephones. She began shouting into the mouthpiece just as Musso grabbed the other phone.

  ‘Commanding officer,’ Musso yelled, finger to his ears. He heard an unfamiliar voice, gruff and powerful, as someone attempted to make himself heard over the crash of rockets and gunfire.

  ‘Gunnery Sergeant Miles Price, base security, sir. Orders?’

  ‘What’s our status, Gunny?’ coughed Musso as he caught a lungful of dust and smoke.

  The room glowed bright orange from the flames in the bay, bright enough to blot out the stars and illuminate the panic of the civilians on the vessels crammed together down there. Their cries and screams registered faintly in the small spaces between the crash and roar of battle.

  ‘Got a battalion-sized landing force in
the bay, sir,’ the gunner shouted back. ‘They’ve split into two groups. One headed for the airfield, the other for your position. My Marines are scattered all over the base. It’ll take at least fifteen minutes to get everyone up.’

  Musso carried the phone with him over to the window, taking care not to present an easy target. He could see a column of six-wheeled armoured vehicles and amtracs rolling out of the bow of the beached container ship. Muzzle flashes twinkled from their gun mounts as long ropey arcs of tracer fire reached out for targets unseen in the night.

  ‘Try to set up an anti-tank team and hit that column headed for headquarters,’ he called down the phone. ‘Colonel Pileggi’s organising a security force to handle the airfield. Give every swinging dick a weapon – I don’t care what branch they are or what their MOS is, I want everyone armed. Grab any willing civilians, too. Anyone who can and will pull a trigger. We’re in the shit deep, Gunny. You read me?’