“I’m sure you’re right in that, Sarge,” Dave said. Somehow, the informality of the group had not revealed Sergeant Jackson’s first name, and he seemed to prefer to be addressed by rank.
The sergeant looked up at Dave but checked before replying. His attention had been snagged by the three squaddies, who sat together in one corner. They all wore a discreet wings emblem on their jackets, which they never took off, no matter how hot and sticky the closed environment of the bunker became at times. They hadn’t given their names, so the civilians had dubbed them Tom, Dick and Harry. Dave didn’t need a sixth sense to tell him their identities were classified. However, he assumed it was standard operating procedure for all serving members of the SAS and let it slide. If it became important later, they would no doubt choose to reveal their real names.
They were embroiled in a lively, private conversation that involved more hand gestures than words. In fact, the few sounds Dave could hear resembled grunts and animal noises rather than distinct words. As Sergeant Jackson stood to approach them, the group split. Harry remained where he was on an ancient leather settee, while Tom murmured a few words in the sergeant’s ear, and Dick headed for the airlock-style locked door which gave onto the corridor. Tom’s whisper produced a short, decisive nod from Sergeant Jackson, which was apparently the response he’d expected. Tom straightened up and stood to attention, then turned on his heel and marched across the room to join Dick at the door. Sergeant Jackson waited until the door slammed hollowly behind them before enlightening the civilian element of the group about the sudden development.
“There may be a way we can obtain the uncensored ‘word on the street’ you’re asking for, Doc.”
“I can hear a ‘but’ coming, Sarge. Something’s bothering you?”
“The buck stops with me on security, and the brig has opted to disable our outgoing calls facility for reasons he considers valid. I have to follow the orders I’m given, but without up-to-date information about what’s happening around us, there’s little I can do to deal with a local emergency situation. However, the disabled landline was installed within the past decade, an update on an older system. The bunker itself is much older—you should see the dates printed on some of the tinned food in the storeroom.”
Jackson allowed himself the ghost of a grin before continuing. “Those two—” he nodded towards the door “—have some special skills, especially Tom. He’s forgotten more about telecoms than most people ever learn. There’s a good chance he can trace the wiring from the earlier system, which he reckons is still buried out there. Disconnected and inactive but serviceable.
“If the wiring’s still there, they’ll find it. And once they’ve checked it through, we’ll be able to make outgoing calls without Groth or anyone else being any the wiser.”
Joey nodded. “I understand why you have reservations about flouting Groth’s security orders, but surely you’ve got some leeway? Things can happen.”
“He’d expect me to wait for him to contact me. As far as he’s concerned, we’re completely out of touch. Officially, we have no idea what’s happening locally or nationally.”
“Wait a moment,” Brenda interrupted with a puzzled look on her face. “If this phone line’s been updated, surely everyone else has also been too?” She paused a moment and added sarcastically, “So who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters?”
Brenda’s tongue-in-cheek tagline provoked a few silent grins. Laughter had been in short supply recently. Despite the flippant tone of the delivery, Brenda wasn’t jesting. She stared defiantly at everyone, demanding an answer.
Sergeant Jackson held up his hands in a token of sincere surrender. “Okay, I could have phrased that better. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’, as they say. I’ve stuck my neck out this far. I suppose Groth can only have me shot at dawn once.”
He crossed the room and rooted briefly in the document case he treated as a mobile office. It had never been out of his sight and rarely more than an arm’s length away. He kept it securely locked.
When he found what he wanted, Dave thought it was an early model of a mobile phone: an enormous Starsky & Hutch number which truly deserved to be a museum piece.
As if reading Dave’s mind, Jackson said, “It’s older than you think. It’s not a mobile—it isn’t even a phone. But I can assure you it still works as well as the day it was made.”
“Which was?” Errol inquired.
Jackson reversed the solid brick he was holding and allowed Errol to read the manufacturer’s stamp on the base.
“Nineteen sixty-five. This, my friend, is a short-wave radio. Standard US and British Army issue before technology developed mobile phones. The older style phone line Dick is searching for will be compatible with this dinosaur, and I can use it to send a message that will remain under the radar to anyone using the current digital wiring.”
“Just one problem I can see, Sarge,” Eddie cut in. “You’ll need someone on the outside with another short-wave radio—”
“Who will need to be listening for a transmission from me,” Sergeant Jackson completed the sentence. “And I believe I have a way around that.”
***
“We have to be clear about this.”
Jackson was on his feet and pacing nervously around the comfort area of the ops room. Every time he turned, he studiously avoided glancing towards the work area, as if it bothered his conscience to be reminded of the official reason for their presence in the secure Cheshire bunker.
He cleared his throat and continued.
“What I’m planning to do is most definitely off-limits however you care to read the regs defining security levels. The last information we received stated we were on Condition Red, which is never used in exercises, only in active warfare. The buck stops with me on this one, but if anyone feels uncomfortable about it, this is the last-chance saloon. I can’t—and won’t—do it without full commitment from all of you.
“You need to know what I have in mind, and you have to understand what could happen if things don’t go as planned. My short-wave radio is the key. And, as Eddie rightly pointed out, it’s only useful if there’s someone out there, expecting a call. I have an older brother, retired from active service. He has the partner to this, and they’re tied to a very tight waveband some distance from the standard range of military wavelengths.
“Believe it or not, tomorrow’s Friday. We’ve been isolated here for almost a full week—four full days since detonation. But more important is the fact that I always call him on a Friday. No excuses, no exceptions. It’s a military thing, I suppose, but he’s what you’d call an ‘old school’ soldier. Even if there’s a general embargo in place on private phone calls—which, for all we know, is quite possible if the situation has deteriorated—he will still expect me to find a way around it.”
“Dick and Harry have unearthed a line and identified it as the disused analogue phone connection. When my brother doesn’t get a call from me, his first reaction will be to try my landline, and when he can’t get through, he’ll know there’s a problem. I’ll use the short-wave to alert him. Once I know he’s listening, we’ll cobble a connection on the old line. As this is officially redundant, it’ll be untraceable, or at least, nobody will be monitoring it, which amounts to the same difference.”
“Wait a minute, Sarge,” Eddie interjected. “Are we depending on your brother’s reactions to a missed phone call?”
“You mean him expecting me to find another way of contacting him? Eddie, I know my brother. He’s the type who polishes his boots ’til they don’t just shine, they sparkle. He’s also a creature of habit and still spends Friday evenings servicing his kit. That includes checking the battery on his CB radio, and by early evening, he’ll be impatient for my weekly call.”
He looked at his watch.
“It’s almost one o’clock. Dick and I have a couple of hours to Gerry-rig some sort of link via the old cable. There’s guaranteed an ancient handset forgotten somewhere in a supply r
oom or broom cupboard. I suggest everyone else get some R and R—Joey, I only hope the scuttlebutt you’re asking for doesn’t prove to be a combination of wild exaggeration and total bullshit.”
***
Di-dah-dah-dah. Di-dah-dah-dah.
At just after 1800 hours, Sergeant Jackson sent his prearranged signal—two letter Js, tapped out using the Morse key on the side of his short-wave radio. Within seconds, the signal was answered.
Di-di-di-dah. Di-di-di-dah.
“Letter V, twice. That’s the correct response. It’s safe to assume it’s from my brother and that he can talk freely. I expect him to send a test question—something nobody other than me could answer. It’ll come in Morse, of course. He’ll want to prove he’s still that little bit faster than me tapping out a message.”
The handset began spitting long and short beeps. Jackson’s lips moved silently as he grabbed pen and pad, memorising the pattern of the first few letters while his fingers played catch-up with the opening line. Within thirty seconds, he’d filled a full A4 page with groups of dots and dashes which only an experienced telegraphist could have translated as quickly as Jackson did.
“Q, what colour Max’s eyes? See, told you he’d send a test for me.”
Jackson smirked in amusement as he tapped a response. His fingers seemed to function automatically. When he was done, he looked up and explained, “Max was a dog we had as kids. He came to us from a rescue shelter, and he’d lost one of his eyes in an accident before we took him in. I’ve sent him a suitable response.”
“While telling us the backstory at the same time?” Brenda said, notably impressed. “How d’you manage that?”
Sergeant Jackson shrugged. “Morse is like riding a bike, I guess. It becomes automatic as breathing after a while…’scuse a moment, I’m getting big bro’s answer.”
His pencil flew across the page once more. Looking over the sergeant’s shoulder, Dave could see that he was writing words, not dots and dashes, transcribing the message as he heard it with no doubt, no hesitation.
He stopped writing and looked at the rest of the group.
“Propose continue to use radio for contact. My phone line updated within two years, includes broadband. Digital cable, not possible to receive calls from analogue line. Over.
“These radios have a range which will make it possible for me to contact my brother at his home address for at least twenty-four hours between charges. That should be more than adequate. I can rely on him to keep his handset in full working order. I remind you all, as the ranking officer—the only officer present—this counts as an executive decision, and the buck stops with me.
“In the circumstances, I’m going to use the radio, and because I don’t expect anyone to be listening for radio transmissions, I’ll speak to him rather than use Morse—it’s quicker. Plus, since we won’t be using a landline, we’ve a very good chance of getting the info Doctor Hart is asking for without alerting Groth or anybody else to this breach of security. Dick, Harry—sorry your little sortie looking for a phone line seems to have been a waste of time. Questions?”
“Sortie. Does that mean you went outside? Can you give us a local weather report?” Dave wanted to know. The two squaddies hadn’t yet had time to wash since their return, and their combats were damp and muddy.
“We disabled the alarm and had a swift look a few feet either side of the entrance, checking which direction the cable we located runs. It was heaving down, visibility no more than fifty foot in any direction, and there’s a thick fog low on the Mersey.” Harry spoke slowly, as if a sadistic dentist was extracting each word with pliers of cartoon proportions and without anaesthetic.
Dick nodded agreement. He seemed more willing to contribute, adding, “No wind to speak of, and the fog’s got that ’orrible sulphur stink to it I remember when we was growin’ up. All the fac’tree chimlees belched stuff out all day an’ all night, proper pea-souper fogs we useter call ’em.”
Dick’s rapid-fire Scouse accent was as sharp a contrast as could be imagined, especially set against Harry’s slow, thoughtful West Country burr. Joey’s eyes gleamed at these first-hand, non-technical and uncensored assessments of local weather conditions and demanded more details. Sergeant Jackson briefly withdrew to the far end of the work area so he could discuss the information he wanted from his brother. Dave and Eddie drained their coffees. Brenda appeared from nowhere in particular with a fresh pot and refilled everyone’s mugs.
Within ten minutes, Joey and Sergeant Jackson had both extracted as much information as they could about the weather conditions in the immediate environment and from somewhat further afield.
“I could kick myself for not checking the barometer for local readings,” Joey muttered, furious at what he regarded as a highly unprofessional error. “This was built first and foremost as a weather station.”
“No harm done, Doc. We’ve all been under duress for several days, and we couldn’t have used this info before we had something to set against it, to compare weather conditions, look for patterns and other hints at what changes—if any—last week’s detonation might have caused.”
“And while we’re at it,” Errol added, “let’s remember this is all theory, anyway. We’ll need a lot more hard evidence that there really is a connection.” He looked around and turned on one of his most persuasive grins. “Hey, if the door alarm’s been disabled, can I please, please step outside and puff on a cigarillo? I haven’t had a smoke in four days.”
***
“Seems I haven’t lost the basic skills of logging weather details from the simple tools we have on hand. Wind speed gauges, a barometer, even the humble thermometer for air temperature readings.” Joey laid aside his pencil and tidied the stack of notes he’d made. He shuffled through them, rearranging a few sheets, then spread them out again in a specific order.
“I’m looking for some sort of pattern,” he said, pre-empting the question that was on everyone’s mind in one form or another. “I’d have to compare these figures with records for July and August over the last few years, and the info is all there on the internet, which, of course, is useless right now. However, I can tell you straight away, the wind speed’s way off the scale. Force nine, gusting to ten isn’t normal for this time of year.”
He picked up a phial of liquid and held it against an overhead strip light to study it. It wasn’t completely clear, and it contained some sediment.
“This concerns me, though. The Mersey’s been getting cleaner and healthier year on year for a long time, but the pH of this sample is dangerously acidic. I daren’t think about what’s settling out at the bottom of the tube. I hope whoever collected it scrubbed up afterwards?”
Dick nodded but glanced anxiously at his hands, palms and backs.
“I wore gloves, and tossed ’em straight into a bin, but there’s no harm in an extra trip to the ’eads,” he said, catapulting himself from his seat and heading for the bathroom.
“Doc, I think you should hear this.”
Eddie had been sitting closest to the radio tuned to the World Service.
“…an estimated four hundred tonnes of cliff fell on a popular campsite in Dorset. At least one person is known to have died, crushed inside a caravan which took a direct hit. There was no warning, and it is thought that the cliff may have been loosened by non-stop heavy rain over the past two weeks. Rescue teams are still searching for other possible casualties.”
Joey’s pencil flew over the page, leaving a trail of hieroglyphics that meant nothing to anyone but him.
“The timescale’s about right, and the heavy rain will certainly be a factor, but if they don’t include the likelihood of aftershocks in their calculations, we could be in serious trouble. Damn you, Groth. This is exactly why we need to be able to make calls. We can see the news as it happens.”
Right on cue, the phone interrupted his rant.
“Brigadier, I must insist you restore our outgoing calls facil—”
“Insist,
Doctor? May I remind you that under Condition Red, the whole country is effectively in lockdown and subject to Military Law?”
“I appreciate that, Sir, but I’ve just heard the breaking news, and—”
“Doctor Hart, the BBC are also operating under licence. The news they’re reporting—I assume you’re referring to the incident in Dorset?—occurred five hours ago. I rang you as soon as it went public in case the time difference is a significant factor in your calculations.”
“Thank you, Brigadier. My apologies if I seem a little abrupt. However, I hope you’ll trust us enough to allow us an outside line—even a single direct line to your location would be enough if we chance upon something which might not seem important to…” he hesitated, seeking a diplomatic word or phrase.
“Non-scientists?” Groth suggested. In those few syllables, he conveyed a degree of sympathy for Doctor Hart’s plea. “That was the other reason for this call, Doctor. I never thought of your team as a security risk, but there are protocols which must be observed. The British Army is still reluctant to think on its feet without putting everything under a spotlight and hauling it before a panel of officers—I’m as guilty of that as any of my superiors. That said, I am authorised to reinstate your phone line, and I’m happy to do that. As soon as we finish this call, you’ll find it’s already live.”
“Brigadier, we’ve also collected some local data, which we’ve had a chance to analyse. Some of it gives me serious cause for concern.”
“How did you obtain this data?”
“We had cause to inspect the area immediately outside the bunker. We used full HazMat suits and incinerated them at once on re-entry. Monitoring gauges indicate no change to our environment inside the base.”
“Thank you, Doctor. What concerns you about the new data you collected?”
Joey praised all the gods that Brigadier Groth was cutting them some slack. He’d been expecting a reprimand for acting without obtaining permission, but it seemed as if they’d escaped censure. He was on solid ground now. In simple, non-technical terms, he described the alarmingly high acidity readings in the water sample taken from the Mersey and the abnormal wind strength on the anemometer.
Taking the Heat Page 19