by Glynn James
“Where are you all planning to go, anyway? Weren’t you waiting to be relocated?”
Hackworth shook his head as he jogged. Even though he was overweight, he had built up a lot of stamina during his time in the tunnel. Three years before, when he had weighed close to twenty stone, he would never have been able to keep up this pace. As he jogged alongside her, he decided he liked this woman. She’s observant, he thought.
“Anywhere away from the dead, not to mention survivors who pull the kind of shit like what just happened,” he said. “I think that means we have to leave London.”
Rebecca stopped, looking concerned. “You know you can’t leave now, right?”
Hackworth frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t leave London. They put the outer wall on lockdown, just yesterday. It was all over the news – I presume you haven’t been able to watch.”
“Locked down? What does locked down mean?”
“You can only come in, and that’s only until midnight tonight. After that, all the gates are closed both ways, apart from the north gate on the M1.” Rebecca starting moving again, cursing herself for wasting seconds. “By this time tomorrow London will be sealed up entirely. You can’t leave.”
“Why not?” said Hackworth, his voice rising with anger. But then he saw Rebecca flinch, and he calmed. “Sorry,” he said.
“I presume because it’s no longer safe out there. And it won’t be safe to let anyone in, either.”
“So it’s like… martial law, then?” Colley asked.
“You’ve missed a lot while you were down in the tunnel. Britain’s been under martial law for two years.”
They moved on, turning down the last street into the lane that ended at the school – just in time to see the soldiers who had previously been guarding it jump into trucks and drive toward them.
At least I won’t have any trouble getting in to get my kids, Rebecca thought.
Where to Now?
London
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said the soldier, shifting the weight of his rifle. “I can’t provide transport at this time. We’ve got riots kicking off all over the city, not to mention looting. Everything is going to hell, and I just don’t have a spare driver or vehicle to allocate to you.”
Rebecca was standing in front of a desk inside the dirty brown tent that was the small patrol base, fifty yards from the school. She’d said goodbye to Hackworth and his group a few minutes before, and watched them head to the nearby checkpoint, looking one last time for a line on housing or food.
Then she had fetched her sons from the school. Although the staff had been instructed to stay put and not let anyone out, there had been no resistance as she strolled in and walked her boys out, with only a nod to the teachers. Two years before, this would have gotten her a sharp letter regarding attendance, but everyone had much bigger problems now.
Like getting across London safely.
Rebecca tried smiling at the soldier and said, “Yes, but everything going to hell is exactly why I can’t cross London on foot. My husband is an officer in the military. He gave me this ID card – and told me I could go to any CentCom facility or checkpoint and show it, and we would be taken to safety.”
Behind her, both boys stood quietly, fighting the urge to cling to her. The distant sound of gunfire erupted every few seconds and they flinched with each report. Rebecca was sure the terrifying sounds were coming from multiple directions, and not just the relocation center they’d fled from.
The soldier nodded in sympathy. “And under normal circumstances, that’s what would happen. But every unit in this area, maybe in all of central London, is currently engaged or en route to an incident. I literally don’t have a single vehicle to allocate to you.”
“Then how long before you will have one?”
Rebecca felt sorry for the man, and understood his situation, but she also knew that if she backed down, or gave in too easily, she would be ushered out with her needs unmet. The guy simply didn’t want an extra problem to deal with. Rebecca could understand that, but she was damned if she was going to walk her two sons across half of London, amidst the rising chaos, just because some private was overtasked. Connor had taught her that much.
Never back down. Never show weakness.
“I can’t give you a time,” said the soldier.
“Then I’ll just wait here until one is available, shall I?”
She wasn’t at all comfortable with the haughtiness creeping into her voice. It wasn’t really her talking, but some entitled bitch with no manners – and she could tell the man was quickly growing to dislike her.
That doesn’t matter, she thought. I have to get my boys to safety.
“Rebecca,” came a voice from behind her. She turned to see Hackworth, looking red in the face and not at all pleased. But as she smiled, his expression changed.
“Did you make any progress?”
Hackworth shook his head. “No. They’re all too busy to figure out what to do with us. To be honest, they were pretty damned rude. Though we are getting food, which is something.”
“I think everyone is wound up too tight.” Rebecca felt relieved just to be herself for a moment and step out of bitch mode.
Hackworth nodded, then peered at the card she held in her hand. “What is that? Some sort of access card? Looks like a security badge.”
Rebecca stepped away from the tent now, taking her two boys with her, much to the relief of the soldier there. Hackworth followed, sensing she would prefer to talk out of earshot of the strangers milling around. She seemed hesitant, and in fact wasn’t sure if she should even give away the fact that she possessed such a thing – what was in effect a Get Out of Hell Free card.
Admission to the inner sanctum.
But as she looked over Hackworth’s shoulder at the other Tunnelers milling around, she saw the woman with the little girl – the pair who had been most prominent on the TV broadcasts, and who were just heartbreaking to look at. And Rebecca felt she ought to give them some kind of a chance to get to safety, even if she couldn’t guarantee them anything. She could at least take them to the door. After that, it was out of her hands whether they would be let in.
And on top of that, there was the terrible prospect she faced of having to cross half of central London alone. She didn’t relish that at all. And it seemed likely that she and her boys would be safer with this group than on their own.
And anyway, she thought, maybe their celebrity status will get them in.
“It’s a military access ID,” said Rebecca. “My husband gave it to me after the first outbreaks.”
Hackworth’s expression changed from mild curiosity to open interest. “Access to what?”
“Connor said if ever things got really bad – if an uncontrolled outbreak reached London, or government control of the city fell, I was to take this and go to CentCom. And we would be taken somewhere safe.”
“And where is that then? This safe place.”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “All I know is to present this. But I can’t get to CentCom HQ if these men won’t take me there.” She indicated the soldier at his post. “I can’t walk my boys through London with what’s going on now.”
Her mind returned to the gun in her bag. She could get across London if she had to. She would.
Hackworth stood thinking for a moment. “Give me a moment to talk to my group. Maybe we can help.”
He turned and walked over to the rest of them, who were now tucking into what looked like a meager meal of stale bread and cheese, plus a few bottles of water.
“Mum, are we going to see Dad?”
Rebecca turned around to face her oldest son. She could see he was frightened. They were both brave kids, taking after their father, but today was testing their limits. She was terrified herself, but knew she had to keep a level head, and not show that fear to her two boys.
“Not today, sweetie. Maybe soon. We’re just going somewhere safe
today.”
“Away from the fighting?”
“Yes. Away from the fighting.”
Rebecca exhaled. She knew that, wherever her husband was, he would be heading straight toward any fighting there was, following the sound of the guns. And it would almost certainly be in circumstances far more dangerous than anything happening in London. She knew she had to be strong, too – for him. She had to hold their family together. And she would.
She watched as Hackworth gathered the rest of his group and addressed them. From where she stood, she could just make out gestures, muttered questions, and confused glances – but then finally nods. She desperately wanted to go and listen in, or even plead their case, because her family’s fate might hang in the balance. But she steeled herself and let them hash it out in private. Finally Hackworth came back over.
“It’s CentCom headquarters you’re trying to get to?”
“Yes,” said Rebecca, nodding.
“And if you go there and show that card, you get let in – or you get taken somewhere safe?”
She nodded again.
“Okay. We’ll take you there. On the condition that you try and get us in. Or, if that isn’t possible, at least try to get word to us where this safe place is.”
Rebecca frowned. This felt too much like assigning spots in lifeboats on the Titanic. She neither wanted to lead these people on, nor hurt her chances of getting her own family in – by showing up with twenty-plus extra dependents. But this was an offer she didn’t have the luxury of refusing.
“Deal,” she said.
Hackworth smiled.
“Good. Then let’s go.”
And All This Might Even Work
JFK - MARSOC Team Room
“Juice, this here is Sergeant Lovell and Corporal Raible.”
Juice shook the two Marines’ hands. He’d seen them around, not least in the immediate aftermath of the lethal chaos of the flight deck battle. These two had been the only Marine survivors of the reserve forces that had held the giant gash in the hull.
Now these three, plus Handon and Fick, stood at the edge of the MARSOC team room, near the hatch.
“The bad news,” Fick said, “is this mission is being dropped right on your head. And you have to get up to speed fast – then jump your ass in the fire.”
Juice just nodded, looking serious and observant.
“The good news,” Handon said, evidently tag-teaming with Fick again, “is that we’ve burned too much daylight – providing a floating target platform for the Russian battlecruiser, and fighting the resultant deck fires. So we can’t launch this thing until tomorrow, BMNT.” This stood for beginning of morning nautical twilight. A huge military acronym for, basically, dawn.
Looking back and forth from one to the other, it occurred to Juice that Handon and Fick were now the ones becoming like the old married couple. A match made in hard-ass special-ops NCO heaven…
“But can we afford to wait?” Juice asked. He knew the score as well as they did. Britain was being overrun, and the clock was ticking loudly – for all humanity.
Handon shook his head. “Not really. But it’s also another case of not having enough time to fuck it up. If this op goes sideways on us – if the base is overrun by the dead in the nearby town, for instance… we’re not likely to find another source of supplies. Not in time. First shot, only shot.”
“Plus,” said Fick, “this way you get a few hours to get less stupid on the mission profile and parameters.”
Sergeant Lovell now stepped over to a metal bookcase, pulled out a thick binder, and came back and dumped it in Juice’s arms – which also revealed that it was fantastically heavy. “Here’s your bed-table reading,” he said. “Have fun.”
Raible said, “You got questions, we’re here all night.”
Juice nodded.
Finally, Fick summed up: “Commander’s briefback at oh-four-hundred.”
Juice nodded. That ever-popular time of day otherwise known as oh-dark-thirty… stupid o’clock… or good old ass’o’clock….
* * *
Drake and Abrams had only been back on the bridge for ten minutes, and settling into some kind of work rhythm, when LT Campbell came back up there in person.
“Okay,” she said – not pulling the two commanders aside to talk in private, but then again not raising her voice very much either. “Here’s my bottom line on ISR. Right now, we’ve got continued satellite coverage of this chunk of the south Atlantic, and will keep it for the next forty-five minutes. The Admiral Nakhimov has continued steaming south, though she’s reduced her speed.”
“What to?” Drake asked.
“Sixteen knots.”
“Half her max,” Abrams said.
Campbell nodded. “So we remain outside the range of her Shipwrecks. And the battlecruiser shows no signs of reducing that distance. For now.”
Drake said, “Great. So what happens in forty-five minutes?”
Campbell straightened up and pointed out the front screens. Drake stood and looked out. Even then, he could see one of their old Predator drones, looking like a dinged-up blind bat, rising up on the fore aircraft elevator on the starboard side. Ordinarily, he approved any and all air ops, but this one was a surprise to him. He turned back to Campbell and raised an eyebrow.
She held his stare, her face a mask of warrior queen coolness. “Which part of ‘empowered to do whatever needs doing’ was total bullshit?”
“Okay,” Drake said. “But why that and not the UCAV?”
During the Battle of the JFK, they had relied on their jet-powered X-47 stealth Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) to overfly the battle and be their eye in the sky. It was state-of-the-art – last and best of its breed.
“Or at least the Reaper?” Abrams asked.
The Reaper was the second-generation Predator – bigger, meaner, farther-flying, and with a much bigger weapons payload. But the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, first flown over Afghanistan in 2001, was now almost a museum piece. Drake wouldn’t have even sworn they still had a flyable one on board, before this moment.
“The UCAV,” Campbell said, “drinks jet fuel like it’s singlehandedly trying to keep the Saudis in business. We simply can’t afford it – we’re very likely to need the fuel for the F-35s. The Reaper’s more efficient, but currently down for maintenance.”
“What sort of maintenance?” Drake asked.
“The sort where the wrench jockeys had to scavenge a part from it for something more critical. Which then got blown up.”
Drake ground his teeth.
Campbell lightened her expression. “But the Predator is powered by what’s basically a big snowmobile engine, and our avgas situation is a little less dire. Plus it’s got the longest linger time of any of the drones – twenty-four hours, versus sixteen for the Reaper, and barely six for the UCAV. So it’s perfect, really.” Under her breath, she added, “If it stays in the air…”
“We get it,” Abrams said. “Kicking it old school.”
Campbell shrugged. “At this point, we use what we’ve got, and we do what works.”
Drake took his seat. “Okay. What’s the flight plan? You’re not actually going to overfly the Nakhimov?”
“Hell, no,” Campbell said. “We might get a close-up look at her. But it would last five seconds, at which time we’d be blown out of the air. The Nakhimov has three different surface-to-air missile systems – and doesn’t even need them. They could probably take an MQ-1 down with small arms. There may come a time when we have to spend the aircraft that way. But that time isn’t now.”
Both Drake and Abrams realized she was right.
“Anyway,” Campbell went on, “we’ve got bigger problems at the moment. And defending or losing the drone doesn’t have to be one of them. I’m putting her up in a tight orbit at fifteen thousand feet, and no more than 50km from us. At that position and altitude, she can easily keep eyes on the battlecruiser with her onboard radar and video – without the risk of being
shot down.”
“Smart,” Drake echoed. “Basically a big, high-altitude radar dish.”
“Exactly,” Campbell said. “And when the Russians move, we move.”
Drake said, “She keeps eyes on, we hightail it if we have to.”
Abrams nodded. “The one advantage we’ve got over them. With a top speed of 32 knots, there’s no way the Nakhimov can match our 40. We can always steam out of range. Just as long as we don’t let Ivan catch us napping.”
“Which we will not.” Campbell glanced out the screens at the Predator, which was actually being pulled into position by guys with their bare hands. “As long as that stays up.”
Abrams wrinkled his brow. “I hate to ask, but what do we do in twenty-four hours, when the Pred runs out of gas?”
“Pit stop to refuel,” Campbell said. “But do we even want to be here in twenty-four hours? With any luck at all, we’ll have hit the naval depot, transhipped the supplies, and gotten the fuck out of Dodge.”
“Okay,” Drake said. Campbell seemed to have thought of everything. Only one thing was tickling at his brain, and it took him a few seconds to put his finger on it. Everything seemed to require a Herculean mental effort lately…
Abrams got to it before he could.
“Wait. The Air Boss said we’re not in great avgas shape, either. Can we even afford to keep that thing flying around up there all day?”
Campbell shrugged. “Not really. But can we afford not to?” They all knew the answer to that one. “All I can tell you is: you better find some goddamned fuel at Saldanha. And you’d better do it fast, before all ours is gone. Because when we can no longer put up air cover…”
She didn’t finish her thought. And no one else there wanted to, either. A carrier without its air wing, and without supporting ships, was basically a giant floating piñata.
Drake exhaled heavily. “Updates on the Russians’ position every ten minutes.”
Campbell shook her head. “I’ve already had the radar and video feeds from the Pred piped directly up here. Make someone sit and stare at it, and you’ve got updates every, I don’t know, whatever the refresh rate of the monitor is.”