Without warning

by John Birmingham

  * * * *

  ‘Shoot them down!’ said Pieraro, without any urgency or, he hoped, trace of fear in his voice as he spoke the words in Spanish. It was difficult to contain his marauding emotions, however. He was not leading some band of old seadogs or hardened mercenaries. His little fire team was composed entirely of men and boys from the village, and now they were fighting for their lives.

  ‘As they climb across, shoot them down,’ he repeated. ‘Do not linger. Stand up, shoot and drop down again.’

  His small group of fighters, six in all, did as they were told and had been taught, popping up and firing short bursts at the Peruvians, before scuttling like bugs to another hiding place. Miguel himself snapped up his M16 and squeezed off short bursts whenever a slow-moving Peruvian exposed himself. Well, he assumed they were peruanos … It was possible they might have been from anywhere.

  All that mattered now, however, was that a small army of them appeared to be boiling up from the innards of their ship and attempting to board the ship where his family sheltered. Some threw grappling hooks and thick lines across. Others darted from cover as the two vessels banged together and they attempted to leap from one to the other. He flinched as one man missed his jump and fell between the converging vessels. The crunch of steel plate on aluminium was slightly muffled as his body was pulped by the collision. Pieraro could not help but see the flattened remains peel away from the flanks of the trawler and fall into the sea.

  ‘They are getting on board!’ cried Adolfo, one of the older men.

  ‘Stay where you are. Keep firing. The others will take care of them,’ yelled Miguel.

  * * * *

  ‘The boat deck!’

  Jules hurried up behind the racing forms of two Gurkhas as they headed aft to repel the first of the intruders. Doubled over to remain below the line of the gunwale, she moved as quickly as she could but had trouble keeping up with them. The uproar of the battle was enormous, much worse than anything she’d experienced before. Bullets whined and pinged around her, chewing huge pieces out of the yacht’s superstructure. She kept her head down. And all the time, the vessel lurched up and down, dancing drunkenly on the huge waves.

  A grappling hook clanged down in front of her and bit deeply into the fibreglass walls of the gunnel. She didn’t stop to look, instead whipping out her machete and slamming the weapon down on the line as she passed. An ululating scream fell away into the churning maelstrom and Jules moved on to where she could hear the bark of automatic weapons starting up.

  She found the two Gurkhas, Sharma and Thapa, taking cover behind a couple of jet skis and engaging at least three boarders who’d leapt across and hidden themselves behind one of the smaller runabouts. ‘Coming up behind,’ she cried out over the savage din.

  ‘Please cover us from behind,’ Thapa yelled, and Jules dropped low, aiming her shotgun back up the exposed passageway along which she had just run.

  Less than two seconds later a man swung over the rail and dropped to the deck. She registered him as young, dark and rake-thin; he was wearing cut-off (or possibly rotted) denim shorts and his naked torso was covered in swirling, amateurish tattoos. Jules cut him down with one blast from the shotgun, tearing a football-sized chunk of meat from his stomach and rib cage.

  Behind her, she heard the Gurkhas scream something, but could not turn – as another man dropped to the deck beside his fallen mate. The Rules pitched over, and before she could shoot him, he tumbled back into the sea with a terrified scream.

  A quick look over her shoulder, and she saw a chromatic, disordered flicker of scenes. Thapa and Sharma leaping at the intruders with kukri daggers drawn. A flash of silver blade. Gouts of blood. A shot, and Thapa flying backwards and slamming into the side of the sport fisher.

  Then movement in front of her again – two of them this time. The yacht plunged and her shot went high and wild. Their guns cracked and spat at her.

  She racked another round into the shotty and squeezed the trigger again. The first man flew backwards as she fired twice without success. The dead man’s body shielded his mate. She was going to run out of ammunition before she finished him.

  A thunderclap and a spray of wet, organic matter.

  Both pirates dropped to the deck.

  Jules blinked and saw Denby Moorhouse, the banker, stick his head out of a hatchway and look her way. His grin was feral and he pumped his fist twice. ‘Yessss!’

  She flinched as bullets stitched up the hatchway and Moorhouse disappeared.

  * * * *

  Fifi had lost two of her crew already. Dietmar was gone, shot in the throat. One of the engineers, Rohan or Urvan – she could never remember which was which – had died as soon as he’d stepped outside. She had two men left: a wounded Rhino, who had joined her from the bridge, and the surviving half of Rohan and Urvan. She was also out of ammunition.

  No more boarders were pouring out of the Viarsa 1, but from the sounds of the struggle on the lower decks, there had to be more than enough of them on the Rules already.

  ‘Rhino, your arm’s fucked – gimme that 16, would you?’ she yelled over the noise.

  The old Coast Guard man readily handed over the weapon. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side, dripping blood through a makeshift tourniquet, and his normally ruddy complexion was grey. Fifi led them aft again, hunkered over, shuffling forward until they could pour fire down on the boat deck.

  Popping up quickly, she spied Jules and one of Shah’s men guarding a fallen Gurkha with about half-a-dozen boarders closing in on them. The conditions were so rough there was no point attempting to pick them off with single shots. She pointed to a couple of the boarders and indicated to Rohan, or Urvan, that he should draw a bead on them. Only then did she cry out: ‘Julesy. Heads down, babe!’

  She bobbed up and fired.

  Dropped.

  Moved, popped up and fired again.

  She’d cleaned four of them up when a single bullet from the wheelhouse of the Viarsa 1 blew out her brains.

  * * * *

  Jules was out of ammo, curled up in a ball, under one of the boats with Sharma. The Gurkha was edging forward with his kukri dagger. A small lake of blood, thinned only slightly by salt water, sloshed about the deck. She gripped her machete and followed him as he advanced on a pair of bare, filthy feet a couple of metres away.

  They were within an arm’s length, close enough to see all of the open sores on the man’s deep brown, stringy calves, when the shooting seemed to reach a crescendo. The feet lifted off the deck and a body, riddled with bullets, crashed down on top of a coil of rope. A few isolated, individual shots followed, and then silence.

  She had no idea who had carried the day until she heard Pieraro’s voice.

  ‘Miss Julianne?’

  * * * *

  48

  GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA

  Dawn rose over Guantanamo Bay, a blood-red shroud for the silent battlefield. Ships still burned in the water and wrecked aircraft smouldered on the airfield over which the flag of Venezuela now flew. Few civilians remained on the craft in the bay. Over four thousand had been rounded up and herded out onto the salt flats beyond the base perimeter, where they sat in the sun, surrounded by soldiers and marines of the Venezuelan armed forces.

  In the base commandant’s office, never truly his to begin with, Brigadier General Tusk Musso stared at his opposite number, who was seated behind a desk that wobbled precariously. It had been damaged in the fighting, and every time General Alano Salas leaned on it, the entire surface tilted. It made for a slightly ridiculous pantomime, but Salas seemed to think it important that he should be able to sit behind Musso’s desk.

  Lieutenant Colonel Stavros sat to Tusk’s left, sporting a bandage over one eye, while two aides to the Venezuelan commander stood behind the desk, flanking Salas at each shoulder. They were armed. The Americans were not. Next to the shattered window, a Venezuelan soldier was recording the meeting with a large shoulder-mounted camera.


  Musso tried to remember who, exactly, had been the last American general to surrender on a battlefield. General Lee was the most notable example, but hardly the last. If memory served correctly, he was reasonably certain that General Jonathan Wainwright was the last man to surrender. He had an untenable situation as well, at Corregidor, after old Dugout Doug slipped away for Australia.

  General Salas scribbled something onto a pad, signed it and looked up. ‘My terms for the cessation of hostilities are explicit, General Musso. Unconditional surrender of all forces in Guantanamo Bay.’

  Salas presented the piece of paper with a flourish. Musso wondered why he’d bothered to write down such a simple thing. For the National Museum in Caracas, perhaps. Hugo Chavez had cracked down hard on his country, but it was one of the few nations in South America still functioning, which made the Venezuelan president a major power in the hemisphere now. Perhaps the major power, for the foreseeable future. He would want this piece of paper for the archives. The marine officer ignored it.

  ‘And what about safe passage for my civilian population?’

  ‘Unconditional surrender, sir,’ Salas insisted. ‘I shall accept nothing less.’

  Musso shook his head. ‘That is unacceptable.’ He then leaned forward, and the two men on either side of Salas shifted their stance perceptibly. ‘Allow me to explain what will happen if you do not agree to negotiate,’ Musso continued. ‘While my tactical situation is untenable and deteriorating, my ability to resist is not. I extended an offer of a ceasefire entirely out of concern for my refugee population, whom you have deliberately targeted in violation of the laws of war…’

  Salas glanced over his shoulder and appeared to consider saying something to the cameraman, but turned back to the American instead. ‘That is a despicable lie,’ he countered.

  Musso sat back and shrugged. ‘You’re not the only one with a camera, General Salas. Returning to the matter at hand, however, I have dispersed my remaining forces throughout the base and surrounding area. The better part of a Marine brigade – three thousand armed men, including a component of special operations – capable personnel. You have not had much luck locating the majority of them as of yet.’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘I seriously doubt that. You will provide a guarantee of safe passage for the civilian population out of Guantanamo Bay. Furthermore, you will provide -’

  Salas slammed his hand down on the desk, causing it to tip over again and spill a couple of pens onto the floor in front of the American officers. ‘Surrender is to be unconditional, General Musso!’ he shouted.

  Musso raised his voice and continued. ‘You will provide safe passage for our military personnel. In return, we will surrender our remaining holdings in Cuba.’

  ‘We already hold your remaining holdings in Cuba.’

  Musso jerked his thumb at the shattered window behind him. ‘Three thousand of my Marines say you don’t. And if they do not hear from me within the next twelve hours, this marvellous silence we have enjoyed will come to an end. More to the point, the United States will not rest until the civilian population of this facility is evacuated to safe harbour. Those three thousand will be joined by other forces within days.’

  Salas laughed. Partly it was forced, but not entirely. ‘The United States does not exist, you stupid man,’ he replied. ‘Where have you been this last month? You do not make threats anymore. The Muslims were chasing you out of their lands before your Jewish friends murdered them all. Just as we shall chase you out of our territory now. Your threats are empty and worthless.’

  Musso reacted with another shake of his head. ‘Really? General Salas, I’ll be the first to admit we’re down. However, we still have the bulk of our navy. We have our submarines and the majority of our armed forces were deployed overseas when the Disappearance took place. We are still strong, stronger than you will ever be. And we will not leave anyone behind, sir.’

  ‘It is an empty threat.’

  Musso decided to push his luck. ‘You have raised the issue of what the Israelis did recently,’ he began. ‘They had less than two hundred nuclear weapons. We, my friend, have far more than that, and more to the point, we really do not need your oil anymore.’

  Leaning forward again, Musso invested his voice with all of the growling threat he could muster. ‘How many ballistic-missile submarines does the Venezuelan navy have, General Salas?’

  Stavros looked as if he was holding his breath. Musso rolled on.

  ‘You tell that little cocksucker el presidente of yours that if we do not get acceptable terms, we will atomise every major population centre in Venezuela by the end of the day.’

  Salas turned pale. ‘I…I-I’ll need to consult my superiors,’ he stammered.

  ‘You do that.’

  * * * *

  PACOM HQ, PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

  With Tommy Franks back in the top job, Admiral Ritchie found that many of the political calls he’d recently had to make could be passed up the line to his superior – a situation for which he was entirely grateful. He had even managed to get home for more than four hours and have a meal with Amanda this week, after which they’d spoken on the phone with Nancy, their daughter, for a few short but precious minutes. She was staying with a couple of college friends in Edinburgh, sharing an apartment rather than braving one of the American refugee camps in the south of England. It was a blessed relief to hear her voice again. It meant that he could set aside personal worries and concentrate on his much greater professional ones.

  Ritchie had his hands full coordinating refugee flows throughout the Pacific, while standing watch over the strategic situation in Asia – a fancy way of saying he was holding his breath and watching the collapse of China and the north-east Asian economies, hoping it wouldn’t spill over into the wider world. His ability to do anything about it was disappearing fast. He simply couldn’t sustain the Pacific Fleet for much longer, even with the help of allies such as Japan, who were themselves teetering on the brink of collapse.

  But Tusk Musso’s gambit had dragged him right back into the centre of a purely political question. Would he be party to authorising a strategic interdiction? Damn the euphemisms, call it what it was: a nuclear attack.

  He stood opposite Franks in the Joint Operations Centre for the whole of the Pacific Command as they listened to the last of Musso’s briefing on speaker-phone. The room was a large space, but old-fashioned. It had been due to be replaced in a few months with a much larger, modern facility. Maybe it would happen, probably not though. For now, both men leaned forward to listen to their colleague as his disembodied voice crackled out of an old speaker-phone.

  ‘I really don’t think we can let them put ten thousand hostages in the bag,’ said the Marine. ‘They’ll turn the civilians into human shields, for certain. We either show them they can’t fuck with us, right now, or I promise you they will. After Gitmo, it’ll be the Canal. And they won’t even have to land there. They can just start executing hostages on the hour until we leave. You know they’ll do it.’

  Ritchie found himself agreeing, but he waited for Franks to speak. The soldier’s melancholy features seemed even more hangdog than usual, which was saying something. The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had returned from the Middle East with enormous dark pouches under his eyes, and cheeks hollowed out by the stress. A flap of skin hung loose beneath his chin where he had lost a lot of weight.

  ‘General, I do not know whether our submarines will even respond to an order to fire on Venezuela,’ Franks replied. ‘Only the President can authorise a launch. What d’you think, Jim?’ he asked, turning to Ritchie.

  The admiral shook his head. ‘Right back at the start of this, I had the devil’s own job getting my boomers to break protocol when I needed China boxed in. I didn’t know whether they’d have launched on my say-so even if I had ordered them. I still don’t. Only the President of the United States can authorise the use of nuclear weapons. The commanders in charge of those assets a
re trained not to respond to any other command authority’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Musso.

  * * * *

  He found Salas back in his office, arms folded, glaring out of the jagged hole where a window had been just yesterday. George Stavros had remained seated and was watching the Venezuelans with mute hostility. He relaxed only slightly when Musso returned from the radio shack.

  ‘I could just order my men to take this building, you know,’ said General Salas, keeping his back to them. ‘You could not hold it long, General Musso. I can see that from here. Perhaps that might be a better idea than allowing you to run off every few minutes to consult with your superiors, no?’ he finished, turning to face Tusk at last.

  It was very poor acting, thought Musso. He’d seen much better dramatics at law school during moot season. ‘No, General,’ he answered. ‘That would not be a very good idea. You’re here under a flag of truce, to negotiate a surrender on acceptable terms. Perhaps if you faced up to your responsibilities as an officer and started behaving like a professional warrior rather than a gang lord, we might get somewhere.’