The Fall of Night

by Christopher Nuttall

  Ossetia checked out Hazel’s part of the building quickly. If she’d had friends staying, if they had fled the building as soon as they heard the struggle, they would have had to assume that their base was compromised. Ustinov allowed himself a moment of pure relief when his partner reported that everything seemed fine; Edinburgh was a strange mixture of chaos and stillness, as if a storm was about to break. They’d seen thousands of people trying to get out of the city; only a handful of people had been trying to come into the area. Anyone would think that they thought that there was something to be scared about.

  “It’s clear,” he reported. He looked down at Hazel; it didn’t take a mind reader to know what he was thinking. FSB soldiers got some special perks that ordinary soldiers didn’t get, starting with first access to the brothels that the rear units would set up in their path. “Sir…”

  Ustinov shook his head. “No,” he said, in Russian. Plenty of English men and women would know that ‘nyet’ was Russian for ‘no’ – perhaps Hazel would recognise that he had spared her from a fate worse than death. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear; he hadn’t even answered her question. She was probably wondering what they were going to do to her.

  He switched back to Hazel and spoke in English. “Are you all right?”

  Ossetia spoke before she could answer, in Russian. “Sir, we do not have time to spend coddling her,” he snapped. “Use her and eliminate her, or just…”

  “Silence,” Ustinov said. He turned to Hazel. “Are you all right?”

  “I'm pregnant,” Hazel said. Her voice was broken, sore; he’d pressed at her throat to prevent her from screaming and it had now damaged her throat. It would recover, eventually, but for the next few hours it would be hard for her to talk. It took a second for the impact of her statement to crash down on him; pregnant! “I missed my period and I wondered and I went to the nurse and she told me and…oh god, what are you going to do to me?”

  Her voice broke off somewhere between a sniff and a sob. Ustinov stared down at her, his mind churning; his own conception was the product of a rape. His mother, who had raised him despite the disapproval of almost all of her family, had been caught up in the middle of a terrorist action – the occupation of a building in Moscow. She had been blonde herself, and beautiful then; one of the terrorists had raped her several times and then saved her life when the Spetsnaz launched their attack to liberate the building. She had named him after her father, who had been shot in the head several times by the man who would later marry her; the Spetsnaz Captain who had brought the young Ustinov up as his own. His stepfather, who had gone on to be one of the planners for the occupation, had told him that if he went into the occupation corps, he would be doing the same as had happened to his mother…and Ustinov had been determined to avoid such a fate.

  Ossetia looked up at him. “Sir, with all due respect, she is a security risk,” he said. “One scream at the wrong moment and we will be caught before we can carry out any more attacks.”

  Ustinov winced. The plan had been for them to lie low for a week, get a handle on the situation, and then either carry out further attacks designed to incite chaos or find a way out of the city and then the country. He knew, now, that Control had launched more attacks than even he had guessed…and the hints from his stepfather of something really big being about to happen came back into his mind. What had happened…and what would happen?

  Ossetia was waiting for him to make a decision. Ustinov cursed under his breath; the British would be quite within their rights to shoot the pair of them if they caught them, and while Ustinov didn’t fear death, he did want it to mean something if – when – they died. He was right…and yet, he didn’t want to kill Hazel if it could be avoided. If he could keep her alive without compromising the mission, he would do so, even if Ossetia disagreed.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said, to Hazel. “We don’t want to kill you, but we will if we have to, so we need you to listen.”

  He paused. How much did he dare tell her? “We’re Russian soldiers,” he said, shortly. “We were sent here by our superiors to fight a guerrilla war against your people. We don’t intend to remain here – in this building - much longer, but while we do, you present a serious risk to us, understand?”

  She nodded fearfully. Ustinov felt for her. Feelings were dangerous on a mission, his trainers had warned him, but he could no more abandon them without obvious danger than he could cut off his own penis. She was a pretty woman, and she was pregnant; it was that, more than anything else, that drove his decision.

  “We’re going to have to keep you secure here for a week,” he said. Her eyes went wide. “We can’t risk having you running around unsecured, so we will put you in the basement, but we will take care of you. In exchange, we want you to remain quiet and not draw attention to yourself; once that is done, we’ll free you before we leave. Do you understand?”

  Hazel had new tears in her eyes. She was about to start an ordeal…but she would survive it, unlike either of the two Russians if they were caught. They’d managed one strike because the British hadn’t expected it; now, they’d be lucky if every place that was worth hitting didn’t have an armed guard. They would pick their targets carefully, but it would be difficult and dangerous.

  She nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Please…do what you like to me, but please don’t hurt my baby!”

  “I don’t see how we can hurt her without hurting her baby,” Ossetia muttered, in Russian. “Sir, are you sure…”

  “Yes,” Ustinov said shortly. “I want you to check the radio again; I want to know what the party line is on all that’s happened.”

  He picked Hazel up, ignoring the fear in her eyes and the feel of her body pressed against his, and gently placed her on the sofa. The radio they’d bought had a battery and an automatic scanning system; they had already picked up broadcasts calling every policeman, fireman, medical worker and soldier back to duty, the latter told to report to police stations if they couldn’t report to their barracks. The transmissions had been low-powered; he had wondered if that meant something to the British, or if some transmitters had just been destroyed.

  “I have something,” Ossetia said, exploring the civilian bands. Ustinov had spent nearly ten minutes ensuring that he had everything worked out, while Hazel’s fearful eyes had watched him as if he was about to rip her jeans off and take her on the couch. “It’s a transmission on the emergency frequency.”

  He saw Hazel’s eyes flicker with interest. “Let’s hear it,” he said. “I want to know what the British have to say about what’s happened.”

  “Citizens of Britain, this is an emergency announcement,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Please stand-by for a message from Charles Langford, the current head of government. Please listen to the message and inform others of its contents. Please listen on this frequency, every hour on the hour, for updates.”

  There was a pause. “Citizens of Britain, my name is Major-General Charles Langford, the Chief of Joint Operations,” a new voice said. It sounded dreadfully tired. “It is with a heavy heart that I must confirm to you that Great Britain is once again at war. Many of you will have seen chaos on the streets, many of you will have watched in panic as missiles and aircraft came down, many of you will have been injured in the first strikes of a war launched by Russia against the western world. These strikes have killed many, including the Prime Minister and the Members of Parliament.”

  Ossetia chuckled darkly. “Russian forces have invaded Poland, Denmark, Germany and Norway,” the voice – Langford – continued. “We are under no direct threat from Russian forces, but the chaos on the streets must be stopped. Under the Emergency Protocols, I am declaring martial law over the entire land area of Great Britain; the chaos will be stopped. We are working as hard as we can to restore power and water supplies to large parts of the country; I must warn you that there may well be further shortages of what we consider to be essential to our lives. Please do not panic; w
e are working as hard as we can to save your lives.

  “I am also recalling anyone who has served in the military, the police, the fire service and the medical services,” Langford said. “Please report to your nearest police station where you will be given instructions on what to do. For anyone not caught up in the chaos, please remain in your homes; if you have wounded, please tend to them as best as you can. We are working to restore services as quickly as possible.”

  There was a pause. “Seventy-five years ago, our country was at war with Nazi Germany,” Langford concluded. “the war was long and bitter and there were times when we wondered if we would ever see the end of war, but finally the long night was lifted. If we work together, now, we can walk through the darkness and know, once again, a world at peace.”

  The radio seemed to pause again. “That was an emergency announcement,” the first voice said. “Please listen again, every hour on the hour, for further updates…”

  Chapter Thirty: Back on the Streets

  When the news reporter said; "Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea" I just smiled. It's like yes. That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything. You're a bit cold? Tea. Your boyfriend has just left you? Tea. You've just been told you've got cancer? Tea. Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt? TEA DAMMIT! And if it's really serious, they may bring out the coffee. The Americans have their alert raised to red, we break out the coffee. That's for situations more serious than this of course. Like another England penalty shoot-out.

  "Jslayeruk," on LiveJournal

  London, England

  “Are you really the Prime Minister now?”

  “Something like that,” Langford said. “What about you?”

  Inspector David Briggs ignored the sally. “Because I want you to know that I’m not exactly comfortable with it,” he said, as he studied the tired General. Langford hadn’t said where he had based his new government, if government it was, and Briggs hadn’t wanted to ask. The General looked as if he needed sleep, not more problems. “I don’t think that the military should be running the country.”

  Langford looked too tired to argue properly. “I don’t think I should be running the country either,” he said, through a yawn. “If my leave had been a week later, I would have died at PJHQ, instead of…finding some remnants of authority and using them. Inspector, I would love to hand the damn job of Prime Minister over to some damn politician and get back to doing what I was trained to do, like defending the country, but…”

  Briggs caught him almost before he fell. “I think that we should both sit down,” he said. It had been two days since the missiles had fallen and he’d been barely able to snatch some sleep in the back of the mobile command unit. “Is it really as bad as it seems?”

  “It’s pretty bad, yeah,” Langford said. A policewoman brought him a cup of strong coffee; he sipped it with some pleasure. Briggs eyed the sight with some concern; Flora’s coffee was not for the faint of heart. Langford was drinking it as if it were water. “Between you and me, we may not be able to extract many troops from Europe before it falls to the Russians. If we manage to pull together our infrastructure, we might just have a chance, but…it’s not exactly easy to repair the results of years of work in a few weeks.”

  His lips twitched. “I didn’t come here to drink coffee, good as it is,” he said. “I need to know; just how bad is it in London?”

  Briggs laughed bitterly. “Where would you like me to begin?”

  “The civil population and the police,” Langford said. “I have to know.”

  Briggs sighed. “The Metropolitan Police, last week, had around thirty thousand officers and other personal, from parking wardens to close-protection experts,” he said. “Numbers have been falling for years ever since…ever since policemen started to die on the streets and the politicos did nothing. The merger with the City of London Police did it for many policemen and they went elsewhere; the massive rise in surveillance technology didn’t make up for the lack of policemen on the streets. There are some places, sir, where I wouldn’t have wanted to go without armed back-up; there are gangs, ethnic groups, religious nutters…”

  The frustration spilled out as he spoke. He spoke about endless political compromises, endless attempts to appease this and that minority interest, all the while seeing good policemen driven off the streets, charged with racism and sexism and something-ism, while watching people losing respect for the police. The most popular movie in Britain had been one about a rogue policeman who killed criminals; it might have been banned, but anyone could have downloaded it from a internet server. It said something about the state of Britain that that had been what people wanted…

  And no one had made a stand. If they had made a stand, it could have been prevented, or even handled before hundreds of people got hurt, but instead…right-wing groups had attacked left-wing groups, or ethnic groups, and they had struck back; despite several bans, the number of guns on the streets was higher than ever…and they were used. The Police couldn’t even prevent some crimes; honour killing was on the rise, and the girls no longer dared escape to the Police. What good would it have done?

  “Many people are cowering indoors, while others are out on the streets, looting and having fun,” Briggs concluded. “I have around twenty thousand people left after the bombings and the riots and the policemen leaving their posts and seeing to the safety of their families. None of them expected to be caught up in a war zone, sir; in some places, it is a bloody war zone.”

  “That will have to stop,” Langford said, coldly. “These riots; I’m convinced that they were intended to prevent us from acting quickly to aid anyone in Europe. The TA has been called out and I intend to use it to prevent the riots from getting worse.”

  Briggs shook his head helplessly. “And then what?” He said. “Are you going to have them all mown down in the streets? The problems are not going to go away just because we have smashed one riot; are you even going to use live ammunition?”

  “They’re using live ammunition,” Langford snapped. “Inspector, what’s morale like with your boys?”

  “Terrible,” Briggs said. “I told you; none of them expected to be caught up in a war zone.”

  “We have two options,” Langford reminded him. “The first is to let the riots burn themselves out, devastating parts of our country and draining our manpower, the second is to squash them as quickly as we can. There are people we need in London, people cowering in their homes because of the chaos. What choice do you make?”

  Briggs looked down at the floor. “That’s not fair,” he said. It was almost a child’s cry; he had no patience for lawbreakers, but to turn the military loose on them…? “These are not the days of Judge Dredd, sir…”

  “No,” Langford agreed. He nodded towards the country-wide display; they hadn’t been able to take over a police station as a general headquarters yet, not with all the chaos surrounding the city. “What choice is there?”

  “Deal with the riots, then,” Briggs said. He scowled. “Are you married?”

  Langford shook his head. “I am,” Briggs said. “It was a long and happy marriage, and we rarely argued, even if we had some quarrels over money. We were talking about quitting, you know; we were talking about leaving and heading out into the country somewhere, because the cities were no longer safe. Since the missiles fell, I have been unable to talk to her and…God, I don’t know what’s happened to her…”

  Langford winced. “I never found the right woman,” he said. Briggs had to smile. “Use the secure communications net; give her a quick call, once everything is set in motion here. Another reason to put an end to the chaos as soon as possible; once we end the violence, we will be able to reunite thousands of families.”

  Briggs nodded.

  ***

  Sergeant Christopher Roach had no sympathy for the rioters at all, not after losing several of his people to snipers on the first day. Roac
h, who had found himself commanding a scratch company considering of seventy soldiers who had been scattered and separated from their units, had spent two days securing the Houses of Parliament – or what was left of them – before being issued new orders. They were to join the force sealing off Brixton, and then end the rioting, whatever it took.

  His orders, he was pleased to see as his men deployed, along with armed policemen and riot control squads, had been written by someone who actually understood the tactical realities of combat. Only a politician could come up with orders that included the contradiction of an armed advance and no casualties on either side, but the orders from the new government were refreshingly clear. He was to use limited force unless his men faced deadly force, in which case he was to return fire and crush the insurgents. Roach, like many other infantrymen, had found himself facing the possibility that one day a new government might order them to put an end to the lawlessness on the streets; he had welcomed the thought after yobs had killed his granny instead of finding something useful to do with their lives.