As he ran by the verge he bent over and picked up a stone. With all the force he could manage he thrust it into the driver side window. It took four blows before shattered glass scattered over the driver’s chest and lap.
“Put your hands on the wheel!” Jaz yelled
He was looking at a young woman, 18 years old perhaps, dressed in a tight, low cut top that showed her cleavage and with sparkly makeup on her face. Her eyes were filled with, first, surprise and, then, fear.
“On the wheel!”
She did as she was told.
“Take one hand off and open the other door!”
As she leant over Jaz rolled over the bonnet of the car daring her to run him over. But she just opened the door and moved her hands back to the top of the steering wheel.
As he shuffled into the passenger seat he raised his arms and smashed his wrists down on her fingers. Too shocked to scream, she sobbed. Jaz held up his hands threatening to do it again.
“Drive,” he shrieked. “Now!”
Jaz leant toward the dashboard as she drove and tried to switch on the heater. Cold air was rushing through the smashed window and with his wet clothes stuck tight to his skin, he could feel the heat leaching out of his body.
“Give me your phone,” he said.
“Oh please, no.” She was unsure what he had in mind.
He held out his hand and, resigned, she handed it over.
Jaz separated the battery from the rest of the phone and threw them out of the car window.
*****
“Good Christmas?” It was Julian James, one of Fergus Pearson’s fellow griddies, as they called themselves, walking around the desks to stretch his legs.
“Not bad. In the circumstances. You North or South?”
“North.”
“Just had a call from Manchester complaining about a power cut but it all looks fine.”
Noticing a flicker the two men looked up at the light. As it came back on they could hear the low drone of the building’s generator.
United in incomprehension they looked at each other. As Pearson looked at his screen, James rushed back to his desk.
Pearson concentrated on the yellow jagged vertical line, like a heart rate monitor, that showed the frequency of the power in the National Grid. His job was to keep the yellow line as straight as possible at 50 hertz. As demand went up and down the line moved left and right and although there was a bit of tolerance in the system, problems would begin when it went below 49 or above 51. He looked above the yellow line at a digital display. 50.3 hertz. A shade high. But nothing to worry about. He sent a message to a power station to reduce the amount it was generating and putting into the system.
But with Ravi’s diverts now operational, the message never arrived.
The generators were still running. “What the hell ...? Julian! Anything on that Manchester problem?”
Julian, sitting one row down, kept his eyes on his screens and raised his voice. “All looks good.”
It was as he spoke that the power coursing round the UK burst through the settings Ravi had put into the grid’s computer system.
“Christ!” Transfixed, Fergus Pearson saw the yellow line turn 90 degrees and in a flat line shoot past 51 hertz, through 52 and 53 until it reached the top of the scale of 54 hertz and stopped.
“Close it down!” He yelled to no one in particular.
Used to a silent, tranquil atmosphere, the griddies watched open mouthed as he hit his keypad ordering all the suppliers of electricity currently in operation to stop providing any more power.
“Get me the French!” He started sending all the power he could down to Sellindge on the south coast where it would flow though an undersea cable into France and the continent beyond. But they wouldn’t be expecting such an immense surge of power and he wanted to tell them what was about to hit them. But no one responded to his request. He looked up and saw why.
Many of the griddies were standing, looking up at the giant screen which was now filled with red lightning bolts, the symbol of an overload. Their own computers were beeping. Normally, they might hear one audio warning on an entire night shift. Now the whole room was filled with them.
But the problems inside the control room were dwarfed by what was happening across the UK. A wave of darkness crashed over the country.
Had Fergus Pearson had more warning of what was happening he would have been able to isolate at least parts of the network. Blinded by Ravi’s hack, he had been rendered useless as the National Grid went into melt down. Looking at the screen he tried to understand what had gone wrong and the scale of the disaster.
*****
Andrew Sandell, permanent secretary at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, wiped a speck of mud off his highly polished black leather shoe.
“I fear there are just the two of us,” he said.
A resident of Bloomsbury, the permanent secretary had walked through the once opulent, but now somewhat dowdy, squares of London University into the department’s designated emergency office in 1 Victoria Street within an hour of the power going down. In front of him was a bound document, two inches thick, entitled ‘National Emergency Plan’. He was troubled by a number of issues. First and foremost, while the plan clearly provided for a Joint Response Team, even stating its membership, there was nothing about how the body was formally initiated. The idea that a government committee could suddenly spring into life of its own accord troubled him. Would it have authority? Does it exist already, he wondered, simply because there are power cuts everywhere. Had it always existed in abstract form? Or do I, or more likely the minister, have to do something to formally constitute it?
His minister, Mark Joynes, was at his rural constituency home in Yorkshire. The permanent secretary had told him that, according to the plan, any member of the Joint Response Team unable to attend in person was permitted to participate by video link. But since no one awake seemed to know the location of the nearest feed point to the minister’s house, Mark Joynes came up on a speakerphone instead. Even that had been a problem. The landline in his constituency home had a phone combined with a fax machine. Without power it didn’t work so he moved to the only room that had a clear signal - his 16-year-old daughter’s bedroom – and used his mobile instead.
The permanent secretary read from the plan as he tried to explain to the minister what should happen. “Our department has responsibility for the National Emergency Plan,” he said, “and we have to develop, review, update and test the arrangements to maintain their effectiveness.”
“That sounds like the bit we should have done already. What about now?” the minister asked.
The permanent secretary continued reading: “To facilitate these objectives the Energy Emergencies Executive has been established with representation from us, other government departments, Ofgem and industry.” He skimmed the document. “It’s all been agreed in a memorandum of understanding. So to cut a long story short there’s an Incident Response Plan which we in the Joint Response Team should implement subject to the oversight and approval of the Energy Emergencies Executive which in turn reports to the Energy Emergencies Committee.”
“Andrew?”
“Yes Minister?”
“How bad is it?”
“I have to say it looks complicated.”
“Andrew.”
“Yes Minister.”
“How bad are the power cuts?”
“Oh! Not good. Everywhere is down except Newcastle for some reason. That’s in England and Wales. We don’t have any reliable information out of Scotland yet.”
“So are you in candlelight?”
The permanent secretary gazed up at the office light. “Gosh. No I’m not. We must have a generator I suppose.”
“And this phone call?”
“Minister ...?”
“Aren’t the exchanges down?”
“More backup systems I suppose. Good to see something works for once.”
The minister
sighed. “Could you arrange a helicopter? I think in the circumstances…”
The permanent secretary looked at the document in front of him. “Good idea. It’ll give me a chance to get up to speed while you are travelling.”
*****
Still underwater, Natasha closed her teeth on the forearm around her throat and bit as hard as she could. Even with the river water washing around her mouth she tasted the tang of blood. As the arm relaxed its grip she headed for the surface.
Her eyes darted left and right as she waited for the next assault but when a head appeared a few feet away she saw it was not Jasir Khan but Monty.
“What the fuck?” he shouted.
He was swimming on his back holding his forearm, trying to staunch the flow of blood. She could still see pale, red stains on his white shirt and his face contorted with pain. Re-energised, she swam towards him and putting her arms under his shoulders flipped round on to her back. With his body now on top of hers, she paddled backwards towards the bank.
Looking up river she saw the policeman who had arrested Jaz, still up on the dam, waving his arms, directing people to where they were. Not bothering to lift either herself or Monty out of the water she sat on the riverbed, her torso out of the water, cradling him in her arms and waited for them to come.
“Let me see,” she said.
Unclamping his hand off the wound she ripped back his shirt and saw two perfect curved lines of dark red teeth marks deep in his flesh. They were still oozing blood and ripping off the sleeve completely, she wrapped it around tightly, securing it with a knot.
She could hear people on the bank, fighting through some trees and bushes as they tried to reach the river.
“Did he get away?” she asked Monty.
“Guess so,” he said, “I didn’t see. Actually come to think of it I was trying to rescue you when some mad woman started eating me.”
She hung her head and held onto the dressing she had made on his arm pressing gently on his flesh.
“You’ll be fine,” she whispered into his ear. “I’m ...”
“Don’t be.”
She gently touched his wounds and her wet hair spreading over his chest kissed the skin around them.
She looked up. “Better?”
He smiled. “Better.” As then as the water washed around him his teeth started to chatter.
“Come on. Let’s be out of here. Anyway what did he do to you?”
Natasha felt all over her head with both hands, from time to time putting them in front of her eyes to see if they had any blood on them. “He kicked like a bloody mule.”
Their rescuers were close. She could hear their voices just a few feet away. She took hold of his chin and moved his face so it was just a few inches from hers.
“I want that helicopter back here and I want to go home to Rosie. We’ve done what we can.”
He nodded.
“Anyway, don’t you have any medical cousins to add to your collection?”
His expression brightened; “Good idea, young Giles has just been made a houseman. Technically he is an in-law. But we’ll get him round.”
All at once Natasha moaned and smiled, shaking her head. “So what are you waiting for? Get that bloody chopper.”
*****
It was six o’clock on Boxing Day morning and COBRA was meeting for the third time. Technically there were now to be meetings every two hours, but in reality it was in a constant, rolling session. And the prime minister had expanded the list of attendees to include anyone from the cabinet who could make it in. The room was not designed for such a large group and they sat two-deep from the table making it difficult to move.
“We’ll take this in three parts,” the prime minister said. “Saving lives, keeping order and restoring the power. So, what’s happening? Home secretary.”
Both men knew the next 48 hours would determine their respective political fates. If the prime minister was seen to control the crisis then his position would be unassailable. If he tripped up, the home secretary would be waiting to strike.
Coughing as he prepared to speak the home secretary stood up. Raised eyebrows around the room suggested his colleagues saw it as a petty piece of political theatre; an attempt to upstage the leader. But, for once, it wasn’t. He just wanted to underline the gravity of what he was saying.
“The scale of this cannot be exaggerated. This is the worst thing we have faced in decades. I can’t tell you a tenth of the information we have coming into the Home Office now. I can only give you a sample.”
He reached down to the table picking up a piece of paper.
“The looting in Bradford slowed down in the small hours but the police there expect more and fear it will spread to other northern cities. But my biggest worry is food. Unless the power comes back the supermarkets won’t be able to resupply their stores because of lack of fuel and at some point they say their frozen food will rot. Those of you in this room during the fuel protests may remember we are only ever 72 hours away from people going hungry.”
The prime minister was leaning back looking at the ceiling: “Let’s stick to what’s already gone wrong. Not what might go wrong.” He looked up: “Minister of Transport, what have you got?” He regarded her with a sceptical air. She’d made her name because of her media savvy. He had no idea how she would cope in a crisis.
The minister referred to some notes: “The trains were not operating yesterday anyway because of Christmas and won’t restart until we have power again. The ports all have backup systems and the airports too. So planes are still landing. But the security scanners have gone down in Heathrow and Birmingham and we are still checking on other airports. It means that unless we relax the security rules, people cannot be processed to leave. So in fact those airports are effectively closed to outbound passengers. And of course the generators only have fuel for a limited period. We think between 12 and 24 hours.”
The prime minister: “How can we relax security procedures when we are under attack? Doesn’t make sense.”
The lieutenant general raised his arm and the prime minister nodded: “Doesn’t the underground have its own power station?”
“It used to. At Lots Road. But I am sorry to say we closed it down. Rationalisation.”
“What about the roads?” the prime minister asked.
“Actually I am told that’s quite good news,” she replied. “People are volunteering to direct traffic and drivers are apparently accepting their direction. At least for now.”
The cabinet secretary sat, head bowed and eyes closed, holding the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. By his own standards he looked positively agitated. He scribbled a note and slipped it to the prime minister who read it as the transport secretary was speaking and nodded.
“We need to focus,” the prime minister said. “The cabinet secretary suggests you each run through the two biggest problems you face? Chancellor.”
Unhappy at having the remarks he’d prepared curtailed, the chancellor glowered for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and said: “The city can’t function and the ATMs don’t work. So, we can’t move money in or out.” He shot a glance at the governor of the Bank of England who once again was sitting at the end of the table opposite the prime minister. With a magisterial inclination of the head, the governor indicated his agreement.
To encourage them to pick up the pace, the prime minister started making one word invitations to speak. “Environment?” he said.
“Sewage plants are stopped or stopping. There will be spills into rivers and sea.”
“Health?”
“The ambulances are overwhelmed with fire victims, many from house fires. We are looking at moving patients to Northern Ireland. And maybe Ireland and France too. ”
It was then the energy secretary bustled into the room, thick files under his arms. He was rapidly followed by the business secretary. They had just come from the meeting of the Joint Response Team in Victoria Street and as there were no cha
irs left they stood at the back of the room by the door. The prime minister looked at his watch.
The energy secretary, clearly thinking he had no need to apologise, made no expression in return.
“So tell us the worst,” the prime minister said.
Not bothering with notes he began with a line he had just heard in his last meeting: “The National Grid is the largest machine in UK. And it’s broken. Northern Ireland is unaffected but in England, Scotland and Wales the shutdown is almost total. There are a few places with power still. Much of the north east for some reason has remained working and apart from that there are a few pockets were people rely on local generation plants of some kind.”
“How can this have happened?” the prime minister asked.
“It’s early days but it appears there was an explosion at Dinorwig which led to what is known in the trade as a cascade. One part of the system overloads, trips and then the next one overloads, fuses and so on. The power cuts spread out like ripples on a lake. Most of the damage was done in under 10 minutes.”
“And couldn’t National Grid control it?”
“They appear to have had a software problem.”
The prime minister threw his pencil on the table.
“They think they may have been hacked. But that’s just speculation.”
A thickset politician with jowls flowing over his shirt collar stirred in his seat. It was the minister of defence.
“Just to be clear about this, it was a terrorist attack? Not an accident?”
The energy secretary glanced at the intelligence agency chiefs sitting in a row to see if they wanted to say anything. The MI5 DG looked at the defence secretary. “Yes, and one we nearly stopped. A terrorist attacked the pumped storage facility at Dinorwig which, it turns out, holds the key to the whole system. One of my officers and,” he turned to the MI6 chief, “one from SIS, received injuries trying to detain him. He is at large.”
“Did you say a terrorist? One? Are you telling me all this was done by one man?” the prime minister asked.
The DG looked down at the ground. “Too soon to say.”
TARGET BRITAIN: a political thriller Page 35