by Hatchett
Jack welcomed the Major and led him to the Command Ring where they all took a seat.
The Major stared grim faced at the various monitors showing what was going on around the airport. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, he advised, “I need to contact my superiors. The information I have been given is wholly inadequate.
“How’s your Company getting here?” Jack enquired.
“By road, but looking at the traffic situation around the airport, they’re not going to get here, and even if they did manage to get close then they will end up in a traffic jam and just be sitting ducks. I’ll contact them and order them to divert to RAF Odiham where they can get three or four Chinook heli’s to bring them up here. The two Apache’s and the other Lynx should be here any time.”
“Ok, get them to land near your other Lynx, but make sure they don’t get out until ordered to do so.” With that, Jack escorted the Major to his office, so he would be able to make his calls in private.
Jack re-took his seat in the Command Ring, Bear on one side, Irish on the other. “This is a complete nightmare,” Jack noted, “and the powers-that-be aren’t listening.”
From the horseshoe, one of the surveillance operatives shouted, “Sir, it looks like the press are here and the footage is all over the news. I’ll put it on the main screen.”
Jack, Bear, and Irish looked to the main screen as the first aerial shots of the airport were broadcast by a Sky News helicopter hovering around the site of the plane crash.
“Didn’t take them long,” Bear noted. “Twenty-Four-hour news is the norm these days and something like this is a godsend for them. The other stations will soon catch up and the airspace will turn into a merry-go-round of news choppers.”
Across the bottom section of the screen were the constantly streaming words ‘Breaking News: Lufthansa plane crash at Heathrow, no survivors.’
“How do they know there’s no survivors?” Irish queried.
“They don’t,” replied Bear, “but it’s more dramatic if they can make these sorts of claims and, if necessary, they can retract them later. Although, I can’t really see anyone surviving the fire, and that’s without the zombies, which they obviously haven’t noticed yet.”
It didn’t take long. The news producer didn’t want a permanent picture of a blazing plane on the screen and instructed the cameraman to pan around the surrounding area. The cameraman picked up on the groups of workers milling around the fences and as he was about to zoom in he noticed the pile up on the Southern Perimeter Road. He zoomed in on this instead and it wasn’t long before he found the zombies feeding on members of the public who had left their cars in a bid to help the injured. This was pure TV gold and he was already thinking about the awards he was sure to receive, rather than the bigger picture.
Within seconds there was a ‘picture in picture’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen featuring a hastily put together sofa full of talking heads who were there to impart their expert knowledge on how the plane accident might have happened and why the usual Health & Safety protocols had obviously not been implemented.
“This is disgraceful,” commented one of the heads, “the plane has obviously been burning for some time now and there isn’t one emergency vehicle in sight.”
“Little do you know!” Bear commented, shaking his head in disgust. “They think they know it all. Wankers.”
“Ah, but they’re being paid to talk shite and regurgitate it on a regular basis unless something more interesting happens. It’s the same with any news event from a terrorist attack to a Royal wedding,” Irish added.
There was a knock-on Jack’s office door, so he walked across to let Major Fellows out and the pair then re-joined Bear and Irish in the Command Ring.
“I’ve spoken to my boys and they’re now en route to RAF Odiham. Luckily, I managed to catch them just before Junction 3 of the M3, so they were able to come off the motorway and go back the other way towards Junction 6. Odiham are preparing the birds in the meantime, but I doubt we’ll see them for an hour or so. I’ve also spoken to my boss and he’s spoken to his and so on. They’ve been watching the news and have agreed to send a Battalion from the 1st Battalion Irish Guards in Aldershot. They will be coming by road and I have no idea how long it will take.”
“How many are we talking about?” asked Jack.
“A Battalion is usually three to eight hundred strong. I don’t know how many Irish Guards there are in Aldershot currently, but it will be somewhere between those two figures.”
As he spoke, a surveillance operative switched the main screen from Sky News to BBC News. “Sir, you need to see the latest,” he shouted from his seat.
All eyes turned to the main screen in time to see a news correspondent speaking into the camera. The screen showed that this was a live update from Earls Court.
“Turn up the sound,” Jack ordered and the operative complied.
“This is Scott Adamson coming to you live from Earls Court. Around fifteen minutes ago, there was a serious attack at the underground station behind me. There have been a number of injuries and we understand that there have also been fatalities.” He put his finger to his ear, trying to hear what he was being told through his earpiece. “It’s just come in that there has been a similar situation at Paddington main line station. We don’t know at this stage if these are terrorist related incidents nor whether or not they’re connected. We’ll provide an update as soon we know more.”
As he concluded his speech, the camera was suddenly knocked sideways, the cameraman falling to the ground with a scream. The camera landed on its side pointing at the feet of the correspondent who had turned and could now be seen running away as fast as possible. After a few metres he was rugby-tackled and brought to the ground. As the camera showed the correspondent being attacked, the cameraman’s blood started pooling at the edge of the picture and began to run slowly downhill, away from the camera. This was followed by what looked like spurts of blood erupting from the correspondent as he lay on the ground with his attacker on top of him.
“Mother of God,” muttered Major Fellows from a couple of seats away.
“Sir!” shouted another surveillance officer. “We’re starting to see traffic on social media. There are several videos of zombie attacks starting to appear and the number of tweets has increased tenfold. Some of the videos appear to be coming from the United States.”
“OK, there’s nothing we can do about them,” Jack replied, “but keep me posted on anything interesting.”
Jack flicked the switch on his chair, so he could address everyone in the room. “Listen up, you can all see what is happening and at this stage we don’t really know where this is going or what can be done about it. If you want to contact your families, then do so. I would suggest they find somewhere safe and lock themselves in until we get a handle on the situation.” Several of the operatives immediately reached for their mobile phones.
Jack reached for his own mobile to call his sons; he thought they would be safe in Hendon, but he wanted to make sure they knew what was going on and didn’t do anything stupid.
50
Day 1
10:45 GMT
Watford, Woking, Reading
The National Express coach carrying four infected passengers pulled into the car park at the Woking train station. As the passengers disembarked, those who had been sitting in the waiting room started to assemble outside the coach’s doors, ready to get on for their journey to Heathrow. The disembarking passengers fanned out in different directions; some walked up to the taxi rank for a short drive home, some went into the train station for the next stage of their journey home and the rest went into the station, crossed the footbridge to the other side and exited towards the town centre.
At the Watford Junction train station, five injured passengers left the coach; in Reading just two left the coach.
At all destinations, the infected passengers all had stomach cramps and felt sick at separate times. It wa
sn’t long before they ‘turned’ and ran amok, spreading the disease like wildfire.
51
Day 1
10:45 GMT
10 Downing Street
The Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Charles Barrington sat at his desk in his office in 10 Downing Street, his television tuned to the News Channel.
He had received various reports over the past hour, most from his good friend Sir James Curtis-Smyth, the Commissioner of the Met. The reports had been extraordinary and extremely worrying. He was struggling to take everything in but what he had seen on the TV had confirmed the reports. He had no idea how he would tackle the situation, so he had called for a COBRA meeting at 11:00. He always thought that COBRA sounded very dramatic, far grander than the ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room A’ that it stood for. It was effectively a civil contingencies committee and it was only ever convened in response to a national crisis. Although he didn’t think this was currently the case, he had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that it would become one. The meeting name was no longer strictly correct in any case; COBRA meetings were held in various secret locations around the Whitehall area of London, ever since the Provisional IRA launched home-made mortar shells at the rear of 10 Downing Street in 1991 in an attempt to assassinate the then Prime Minister John Major, and his cabinet. Thank God for bomb-proof windows thought the current PM, looking at the glass in his office window. As it happened, this particular meeting would take place in the bowels of 10 Downing Street, some twenty metres below the surface. The reasons were simple; the meeting had been hastily arranged and, due to the nature of the problem, it needed a large room as it would involve a large group of people, all of whom had been contacted by the various secretaries in the building. Some would simply not be able to attend in person due to the short notice, but they should still be able to join via secure video conference.
The PM walked to his large safe and withdrew a file named ‘Invasion Protocol – Top Secret.’ He closed the safe, put on his jacket and made his way to the lift that would take him down to the lower levels. He was closely followed by two members of SO14, his protection detail, and a couple of secretaries.
52
Day 1
11:00 GMT
10 Downing Street
The meeting room was packed, standing room only for many. Those that could not attend in person had joined by video conference and their faces could be seen on a large monitor on the wall opposite the PM.
The PM sat in the centre of the table, surrounded on either side by most of his cabinet colleagues and other key members of the establishment, including of course, Sir James Curtis-Smyth. In front of him on the table was the file he had retrieved from his safe.
The PM started the meeting by thanking everyone for attending at such short notice and highlighting that everything said during the meeting was Top Secret and could not be divulged to other parties. This was an unusual statement, but the participants shrugged it off despite noting that there was no secretary present to take minutes of the meeting.
The PM briefly outlined what was currently known, although most of the people there had already seen TV footage for their own eyes, especially as all major broadcasters were now doing nothing but covering the various incidents in and around the London area. What the news outlets hadn’t yet put together was the fact that all the incidents were related. Very few around the table were aware of this fact, nor the contents of the file sitting in front of the PM.
The PM paused and looked around the table. He had started to sweat despite the air conditioning. He took a quick drink of water and a deep breath before tapping the file in front of him and continued.
“The incidents you have seen and heard are all connected,” he started.
“How can you know this?” interjected the Foreign Secretary, the Right Honourable Julian Chalmers.
“If you could all hold any questions for the time being, I will explain,” responded the PM. He looked at the file again and took another deep breath. “I believe that this is a deadly virus which has come to our shores this morning on a flight from America.”
There were looks of confusion around the table. ‘How could the PM possibly know this?’ they were all thinking to themselves.
“Let me go back a few years to the 1980’s and the Cold War,” continued the PM. “The US was convinced at the time that a war with the USSR was imminent; World War III they called it. They believed it would have to be a conventional war because no one would ever use their nuclear arsenal; there could be no winner and any survivors would be left in their bunkers until supplies ran out. The land above them would be unusable, the air unbreathable, so it would effectively mean the end of the human race. With a conventional war, there would still be significant losses on both sides, but someone would win, and the planet would survive. The US was concerned that their development of new conventional weapons was too slow, and even when something new came along, it wouldn’t be long until the other side had something similar. It was effectively a case of stalemate. So, the US decided to look at options ‘outside the box’ to gain an advantage.” The PM paused and took another drink of water, the faces around the table dreading what might be coming.
“You may recall that one of their ideas during the Reagan era was the ‘Star Wars’ programme,” continued the PM, “where they hoped to put laser guided weaponry into space and effectively zap the Russians with pinpoint accuracy. This got leaked to the press by some of the President’s inner circle because of the potential cost to the US economy, and the rest is history. It was dropped, but it didn’t stop them looking at other alternatives. For example, they had seen how new strains of viruses like Ebola continued to surface and kill people yet left the land and habitat untouched. A lot of work had already been done on chemical weapons, so it wasn’t such a stretch to think they could come up with something which combined both. I won’t bore you with the rest of the details and we don’t have the time in any case. Suffice to say that they got in touch with their special friends – us – and we both worked on what was known as ‘Project Reanimate’. Some bright spark over the pond thought that whilst killing the Russians was great, wouldn’t it be even better if no US or allied soldiers were killed in the process.
I can see some confusion in your faces, but the answer lies in the codename, ‘reanimate’. The best scientific minds got together and tried to develop a serum or pathogen which would bring back allied soldiers to life after they had effectively been killed. As you have no doubt already realised, it was only partially successful.”
The room erupted into shouts and questions and the PM held up a hand to quieten everyone down.
“Now I will take some questions, but time is short as we need to make some preparations.”
“How do you know this is the same thing?” enquired the Right Honourable Tess Lovell, Secretary of State for Health.
“I know because I have already received a call from the President of the United States. He has confirmed that the serum carrying the virus, which was supposed to be the most secure item on the planet, is missing. The virus has somehow escaped from the CSC in Atlanta. He can’t get much more information because the CSC has already been wiped out, as has most of Atlanta, and it’s spreading too fast to contain. The US has considered bombing its own people but that is simply not going to happen, so they are now on complete shutdown. It seems that the virus was inadvertently delivered to us during an Atlantic Airlines flight from Atlanta which arrived at Heathrow earlier this morning.”
There was stunned silence around the room as everyone let the information sink in and started thinking about the ramifications.
“How do we deal with the virus?” asked the Right Honourable Jason Spencer, Secretary of State for Defence.
“We don’t,” replied the PM calmly.
“What do you mean ‘we don’t’?” retorted the Minister.
“Perhaps I should have said ‘we can’t’” the PM advised. “Anyone who comes into physical cont
act with a virus carrier contracts the virus themselves. It’s airborne. So, that means every single person from that plane is a carrier and everyone they’ve come into contact with is also now a carrier. That effectively means the thousands of people at Heathrow are affected, and as we have seen, it has already spread to parts of the capital and other towns and cities in the South-East.”
“So, we’re all going to turn into zombies?” the Minister asked.
“Yes and no. Those people with the virus will only turn into a zombie upon their death. Until then, they will be fine and will be able to lead a normal life.”
“So, how come we have zombies running around Heathrow and elsewhere?”
“I don’t know exactly, but either someone on that plane carrying the virus died during the flight or was already infected and was ‘turning’ without realising it. Once turned, a zombie effectively has no thought other than to attack and eat whatever is nearest to it. If a zombie bites you, saliva gets into your system and you will also turn. The time it takes to turn varies from a few minutes to a few hours. During trials, it seemed the younger and fitter you are, the faster you will turn.”
“So, how do we kill the zombies and rid ourselves of the virus?”
“Firstly, there is no known antidote to the virus, despite scientists trying to develop one for the past two decades. The only way to kill zombies is to kill their brain function.”
“You mean decapitate them?”
“No, decapitating them will still leave the head ‘alive’ but obviously it wouldn’t be able to get very far without the legs.” That drew some dark humoured laughs from around the table. “To kill the brain, you need to smash the head, one way or another.”
“You still haven’t explained how you know all this.”
“The scientists developed a serum which carried the virus. It was then tested, and you have now seen the results for yourselves on the news. It turned people into zombies instead of reanimating them as they once were. Ultimately it was a failure and should have been destroyed but the US still believed they could change it so that it worked in the way they had envisaged.”