by Andy Farman
A brief glimpse of any of the vehicles from a passing low level aircraft would cause alarm bells to sound in the West for they were the specialist sixteen wheelers for the transportation and launching of Russia’s family of theatre ballistic missiles.
As the vehicles reached pre surveyed launch sites close by the hiding places hydraulic stabilising feet extended, raising the massive vehicles chassis as they levelled the vehicles perfectly.
Thus far nothing differed from the normal launch procedures for a short-range ballistic missile. What was different were the heat reflective plates put in place to protect the road wheels, drivers and crew compartment and vital parts of the Maz 543s….and that the bulky transport/launch canisters carried along the axis cradles were not raised to the vertical, just to thirty degrees above the horizon.
With local conditions prevailing it took some crews longer than others to signal readiness to launch. It left the first to complete the set up procedures feeling somewhat exposed, sat out in the open and vulnerable.
At 0847hrs 93rd MRR, supported by the remainder of 61st Russian Motor Rifle Division, began its assault river crossing with heavy close air support. JSTARS was fully involved with cutting the 93rd off from their artillery and follow-on forces whilst AWACS dealt with the demands of defeating the Red Airforce regiments efforts.
At 0959hrs all sixteen weapons were launched, rocket boosters and the missiles turbofan powering the KH-55 Granat cruise missiles from the canisters on ‘sledges’ where there stubby wings deployed.
Designed as an air launched weapon the army rocket artillery engineers had devised a system of launching the big missiles from a standing start at ground level. The rockets required to propel them along to flight speed were attached to the ‘sledges’ that fell away as the additional boosters spent themselves.
At an economic 420mph the large missiles, more than 8 feet longer than a US Tomahawk, with their terrain following radars pulsing three times a second they flew westwards at an average 100 feet above the ground.
Some of the missiles flew toward terminus points only programmed into the memories within the last hour. Some had shared targets but none flew identical courses. The courses were designed to give NATO the least possible time to prepare a defence, should they be able to track all or some of the missiles. The long missiles followed meandering tracks that had in cases sometimes almost backtracked on themselves, but on reaching the coast all further subterfuge was pointless and they accelerated to 570mph, 20 feet above the waves, toward the distant English coastline.
London. 1120hrs, same day.
Staying awake in a warm office after a bad night was not a problem for Janet because concerns over fuel shortages had brought about energy saving measures nationwide. She had on a thick cardigan, a present from Colin one Christmas, without which she would have felt the chill in the air. She did have several others, some more stylish and expensive, but she felt the need to feel close to him this day. She paused what she was doing, updating her bosses electronic appointments, and picked up a silver framed photograph off of her desk. It had been taken on their last holiday together, camping in the South of France. Colin looked so relaxed, tanned and healthy in shorts and tee shirt. She wondered how he looked now and then swiftly dismissed the thought as an image of a line of combat booted feet, protruding from beneath grey army blankets that covered the rest of their prostrate owners filled her mind.
She started as the telephone rang.
“Stellen, Barrett and McAlexander, Mr Coltaines office?”
“Hello Janet, its Annabelle Reed.”
Although there was little chance that she would not have received a call today, Janet still felt her stomach sink.
“Janet, is it all right for you to finish work early today as discussed?”
Mr Coltaine was a good and understanding man. He had agreed weeks ago to his PAs absences when required by the rota and she had already spoken with him today. By prior arrangement one of the other PAs would cover for her whilst she was out of the office.
“Yes, I can leave in about five minutes.”
“Do you know the coffee shop on the High Road near Junes?”
Janet did know it, one of a well-known American chain. “Yes?”
“I will be there with the Padre and Captain Deacon in one hour; we will have a staff car.”
“Why don’t we just meet at June’s.” she asked. “She is still on the rota for today isn’t she?”
There was a slight pause, not quite long enough for Janet to pick up on.
“I am afraid June’s Quarter will be our first stop…RSM Stone was killed in action this morning.”
She almost dropped the ‘phone.
Barry Stone, a giant of a man with the physique of a 6’ 6” Prop Forward was dead? The RSMs place was to the rear of the rifle companies in battalion headquarters, so if he was not safe there then…
Janet shook herself to dismiss the thought.
“I will meet you there then, bye.”
Replacing the receiver she gathered her things she knocked on her bosses door and opened it. He was on the telephone and on looking up and seeing her with coat over her arm he smiled kindly, placing a hand over the mouthpiece.
“I take it you have had a call, Janet?”
“Celia is covering for me, Mr Coltaine.” She liked this man who was one of the nicest and most genuine people you could hope to meet. “I really am grateful for your indulgence.”
“I imagine it must be quite harrowing dealing with all that grief? You look tired Janet and as we are rather quiet at the moment I will not expect to see you tomorrow.” He waved her away and resumed his conversation. She gave a faint smile of gratitude and closed the door, walking toward the reception desk for the company offices.
Outside the snow still fell, not as heavily, but the wind still whipped the flakes about like speckled dervishes. The glass and steel of the skyscraper had shrugged off the squally assaults of the weather with barely a rattle but as she reached reception a dull boom sounded throughout as the glass panes along the east side recoiled like the skin of a drum from some monster gust. Conversations ceased in mid flow and Janet halted, looking over her shoulder toward that side of the building but there was no recurrence and both work and talk resumed. With words of encouragement and good wishes following her steps from other co-workers, Janet left the office.
The journey down to the ground floor was swift in the high-speed elevators. Leaving the lift she smiled and gave the security guards at the main door a friendly nod as she exited the building. The cold hit her immediately, cutting through the newly donned coat, scarf and gloves.
The fifty floors of glass, concrete and steel at 1 Canada Square towered over seven hundred and seventy feet above her as she hurried away through the snow toward Heron Quay DLR station.
She trembled with the cold as she emerged from the limited protection provided from the wind by the buildings and onto the bridge leading to the Docklands Light Railway. Teeth clamped shut and eyes slitted in reaction to minute icy specks that pebbled dashed her face.
She was alone on the bridge, squinting ahead and hurrying on toward the shelter of the station and aware only of the sound of the wind drowning out all else.
She was midway along when the dull howl was eclipsed by the mournful undulating moan of the wharf air raid siren. It had been put in place weeks ago and sounded only in practice, and during a half dozen false alarms since that time. Janet froze as the memory of the shaken windows of minutes before came back to her, hairs on the back of neck raised as a sixth sense told her this was no false alarm. The sirens wail was joined by others and her mouth went dry as she realised her position, stuck on a bridge and far from cover.
The high pitch shriek of a jet engine designed without heed to noise pollution legislation, passed overhead. It hurt her ears and instinct borne of self-preservation made her drop to her knees, gloved hands pressed to her ears. The jet engine was followed by another, and another, and yet se
veral more. She glanced up fearfully to see not Backfire bombers but what appeared to be small, fast moving mini aircraft streaking past, barely fifty feet above her head.
Sixty-five years before, the German Luftwaffe had used the river Thames as a guide to navigation for its Air Fleets. Today the cruise missiles employed it as a route to approach the British capitol so low as to become one with the radar ground clutter.
The first warning had come from the newly commissioned Type 45 Destroyer, HMS Exeter, in the English Channel enroute to working up exercises. She briefly picked up one of the missiles at extreme range and believing it to be part of an anti-shipping strike put out a ‘Vampire’ alert. The warships air defence system was un-calibrated and therefore she did not launch on the missile. RAF Hawks based at RNAS Yeovilton on air defence picket scrambled, but they went looking for an airborne shooter off the French coast, not cruise missiles approaching the English one.
The first pair of Granat missiles entered the Thames Estuary and hugged the banks of the Essex side of the river until reaching a point two miles from their targets. Popping up to a thousand feet they released submunitions before looping and diving into the largest metallic object in the target area that they detected.
The Thames Haven fuel refinery was seriously damaged with major fires in a dozen areas, but that was dwarfed by the results of the second missiles attack two miles away at Canvey Island.
Quite by chance the 80,000 tonne tanker, Scandinavia, had docked during the night at the jetty near Dead Man’s Point. Fully laden, she was low in the water, discharging refined Avgas, diesel and petrol to the Canvey Island tank farm. After releasing its submunitions the Granat dived into the Scandinavia, rupturing several tanks and releasing a highly inflammable cloud of vapour that the inshore breeze carried landward. The absence of oxygen in the tanks prevented an explosion despite the Granats still running engine in its bowels, and starved of oxygen the engine cut out after seconds.
The second missiles submunitions exploded two fuel storage tanks on land, scattering burning fuel onto surrounding tanks. The tank farms pumping system was also breached in three places by submunitions holing pipes and releasing their contents.
The Essex Fire and Rescue Service were alerted by automatic alarms and the call was passed to the Canvey Island Fire Station in Long Road, where Blue Watch were already running for the appliances having heard the explosions at the tank farm two miles distant.
The first appliance, with sirens sounding, was pulling out onto the icy main road when the escaping vapour from the Scandinavia reached the conflagration in the tank farm. The fire flashed back to the damaged tanker and the resulting explosion increased as it swept across the tank farm, adding each of the swollen tanks contents as it reached, and overwhelmed them. The Essex Fire and Rescue vehicles were swatted from the roadway by a blast wave that levelled half of the town of Canvey Island, including the Fire Station.
As mixed blessings go the colossal detonation of the Scandinavia’s cargo and the tank farm was classic. The Granats intended for the tank farm and refinery twelve miles upstream at Purfleet were passing just a half mile distant from the Scandinavia when she blew, sending one into the muddy water of the Thames and the second crashing into fields on the Kent side of the river.
The sound of the explosion outran the remaining Granats, being heard as far away as Birmingham in the Midlands. The shockwave reached London before the missiles did.
The Thames takes on a twisting and turning course upriver from Greenwich and as the Granats reached the Royal Victoria Docks they ceased to hug the rivers surface, cutting across the Millennium Dome, Isle of Dogs and the Rotherhithe loop at rooftop height.
The targets in the city of London were for the most part iconic, and the purpose was to demoralise the British and serve as an unspoken threat to all other European members of NATO.
The weapons that struck The Tower of London, Downing Street and St Paul’s Cathedral carried 410kgs of high explosive whereas napalm set a blaze that destroyed the West Gallery, Ballroom and the principle staterooms of Buckingham Palace.
The Houses of Parliament were spared by the same quirk of fate that caused the second highest death toll in London.
The blueprint for the missile attack had been drawn up in the early 1980’s; Cold War years, and on recent revision had used city plans purchased legitimately from the Greater London Authority before the war. The plans did not include ‘Temporary Structures’ such as the London Eye.
The Granat targeting Britain’s symbol of democracy struck the wheel two hundred feet above the ground. The left wing was sheared from the missiles body and the Granat tumbled from the sky to strike and detonate on a large building on the opposite bank to Parliament, St Thomas’s Hospital.
Janet gawped in horror as the missiles passed overhead and first crawled, then ran back toward the imagined safety of the tall buildings.
The next missile however did not pass overhead, it popped up and she saw it dive down in front of her, out of the low cloud and into the cluster of towering office blocks.
The bridge beneath her feet bucked, sending her tumbling, grazing knees and the palms of her hands. Smoke and debris blossomed from behind the lower buildings between herself and the one she had left such a short time before. The smoke continued to bellow out but the debris began to fall earthwards, much of it catching the light as it did so, twinkling as they tumbled down and Janet realised it was glass, shattered glass.
Regaining her feet she ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction, heedless of the dangers of slipping on the icy surface.
A lump of concrete struck the side of the bridge in front of her, carrying ten feet of guardrail into the water with a huge splash that drenched her, but she ran on regardless, ran as the glass landed like hail, shattering into smaller pieces that tore at her clothes or landed in the water with a plunking sound.
Another missile dived from the clouds into Canary Wharf as Janet reached the DLR station, which hardly qualified as an air raid sheltered but did have a roof to protect her from the rain of glass.
She was panting, partly from exertion and partly from shock. She turned back to look at Canary Wharf, her hand flying to her mouth as she could now see people moving around on almost all of the floors of the buildings. So much of the splendid glass was gone now that the buildings were open to the elements. Office workers, some obviously in panic, ran to and fro between the lift shafts and stairwells, all of which were choked with others trying to get out.
A third and fourth missile dived down to penetrate the lower floors of 1 Canada Square, the building most people associated with Canary Wharf, and exploded. A fifth missed, striking the flat roof of the HSBC building, travelling down five floors before detonating with a flash of orange light and black palls of smoke, propelling debris out into the void.
Janet could hear screams, snatches of cries on the wind. A body fell from the upper floors of her building, man or woman she could not tell.
Flames, fuelled by the wind, quickly took hold of the upper reaches of the HSBC building, the smoke rose up to curl around its taller neighbour.
She had been amongst the millions who had watched with a feeling of disbelief when the World Trade Centre towers had collapsed on live TV, and she now felt the onset on deja vu. Without realising it Janet began praying, a repetitive chant, a mantra for the safety of her friends and colleagues in the stricken building.
She heard a shriek; a tortured rending of steel and concrete, and her building began to shrink in height, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. Like a collapsing pack of cards the once proud building disappeared from view to be replaced by dust and smoke.
The younger Probert’s rushed to their Mother at the school gates. She had telephoned the school to tell them she was safe but there was something about her that made them stop, stilled the relief in their voices. She was as a waxwork, her face and eyes lacking expression and a coldness seemed to emanate. The journey home was made i
n absolute silence, Karen and Tommy looking at one another worriedly, not daring to speak.
There was a car outside the married quarter as they pulled onto the drive; the occupants alighted on seeing them. Relief written upon the faces of Annabelle Reed and Sarah Osgood but they too hesitated, and then hailed their friend.
Janet gestured the kids out of the car but there was no hint that she heard or was even aware of the other women but the firm manner in which she closed the door on the world said, “Stay away.”
Inside the house Karen and Tommy sat in silence, listening to their mother moving around in the kitchen. The sound of pots and cutlery continued for twenty minutes and for the entire they remained sat together on the sofa, still in coats and hats with their schoolbags at their feet.
It took a few moments before either child noticed it had gone quiet. The silence was palpable. By unspoken agreement they got up and went together, tiptoeing to the kitchen door before peering in.
Janet was sat upon the floor, arms hugging herself and rocking back and forth. Tears streamed unchecked down cheeks as pale as a shades whilst her mouth was open in a silent, unending scream. They ran to her then, knelt and hugged her without any clear idea how to make their mothers pain go away.
RAF Kinloss, Scotland: 1243hrs, same day.
‘India Nine Nine’, a Squirrel helicopter bearing the livery of the Metropolitan Police, touched down on the tarmac of the air force station. The Commissioner and Arnie Petrucci, the CIAs London head of station alighted from it, and shook hands with the Chief Constable. The Commissioner had no authority and no special legal powers here in Scotland, where the legal system owed more to the French than the British systems of justice.