The Fall of Night

Chapter Seventeen: State of Play

London, England

They reconvened two hours afterwards.

He had argued, of course; Langford had never seen himself as having a political career, not when a military background was the kiss of death in many parts of the country. He also had a deep respect for democracy, the same democracy that he had tried to export to Iraq and several places in Africa… and a military dictator was anything, but democratic. He had been briefed, years ago, on some of the older war plans that the British Government had drawn up when it had had to come to terms with the possibility of nuclear war, but so many of them had been… hopeless. Victory was never an option.

Major Erica Yuppie had been determined… and it was easy to admire her determination to ensure that she carried out her duty, whatever it took. He had looked into her service record — the computers in the CJHQ might have been a closed system, but they had been detailed and read-only — and he could see the signs of an officer with rare promise. She had been an infantrywoman before transferring to higher office, showing skills that would have taken her far, perhaps even to the post he held. Instead, she had been asked to spend her days on a lonely vigil, waiting for the day that Britain was under such threat that the Emergency Protocols had to be activated.

It still stunned him that he had known nothing about it; of the sixty-odd people who knew, fifty of them worked in the CJHQ and had the highest security clearance in Britain. Twenty-three of them had actually been on duty when the missiles started to fall; they had handled themselves very well under their first real test. Erica had recalled the remainder of her staff at once, but as she herself admitted, it wasn't exactly certain that all of them would get the message in time. The communications network was in total disarray… and they dared not risk a security leak.

Erica’s concerns had made sense once he had examined the details of the CJHQ itself. If Briggs was to be believed, the Russian missiles had made short work of the bunker and tunnel complex under Ten Downing Street, shattering a network that had been designed to defeat a nuclear attack. The CJHQ was flimsy by comparison, its survival assured more by secrecy than any actual protection; an enemy force that stumbled across it would have little difficulty actually taking the place, although he suspected that Erica would blow the compound up rather than let an enemy take it.

He stood up and paced, glaring down at the briefcase on his desk. There were no more than five copies of the complete Emergency Protocols in existence… and he was looking at one of them, the others would have burned with Whitehall and the Prime Minister. He had read them, seeing the mindset of a different era in the cold dispassionate words of a defence planner, a man who had grappled with the complexities of nuclear war. He had said, clearly, that nuclear war would destroy the government… and the senior officer who survived — or was in direct contact with British forces — held authority. He hadn’t planned for a precision strike, like the Russians had carried out, but otherwise the situation fitted, at least until new elections were held. Langford privately resolved to ensure that they were carried out as soon as possible.

There was a knock at the door. “General, please will you come into the briefing room,” a young Indian girl said. She wore civilian clothes, but Erica had explained that she handled almost all of the personal facilities at the CJHQ, the only non-career military person cleared to know about its existence. “They’re ready for you now.”

Langford laughed silently at himself as he stood up. He had wanted to be out there, giving orders and working to bring the country back together again, but Erica had convinced him that he had to be thinking about the overall problem, at least until they found a surviving politician in the line of succession. Langford wasn't hopeful; the Houses of Parliament had been blown apart and there had been no time for an evacuation. His only order, so far, had been simple; he was not to be addressed as Prime Minister.

“Thank you,” he said, to the girl. Her nametag read SARA. “Please lead the way.”

It was a very short walk; the CJHQ was a tiny complex, certainly compared to some of the vast American complexes that had been built for a global war against terrorists. The main briefing room made no concessions to public opinion; it was both comfortable and functional, if a little shabby. Langford had inspected it briefly and realised that it was almost ideal for a press-free base. There were only three people in the room; Major Erica Yuppie, Aaron Sargon and a man Langford didn’t recognise.

They saluted him as he sat down. “Major-General, this is Michael Casey, our expert on EUROFOR and other militaries around the world,” Erica said. Langford liked him on sight; he had an air of reassuring competence that he appreciated in people who were telling him vital information. “We have spent the last hour gathering as much information as we can from all of our sources — all of our surviving sources, I should say. The damage has really been quite remarkable.”

Sara passed them all cups of tea, checked that they didn’t want refreshments, and slipped out of the room. “It doesn’t look good,” Erica said, as soon as the door clicked closed and locked behind her. “There is little doubt that we have been attacked on a major basis by the Russians, although I admit that there is a marginal — very marginal — room for doubt. The assault plan is not something as… deniable as the execution of Alexander Litvinenko, sir; there seems no reason to believe that this is nothing less than a major grab for power in Europe. The attack caught us completely by surprise and was asymmetric; the reports make that clear.”

A screen flickered into life, showing Britain; the number of red icons made Langford’s blood run cold. “This is the situation as we understand it,” Sargon said. The analyst sounded as if he didn’t quite believe his own words; Langford understood his shock and horror perfectly. How had they gotten into this mess? “At roughly 1100hrs, several things happened, starting with the loss of all of the European satellites in orbit and continuing with the launch of around three hundred missiles into the UKADGE. This data is still preliminary; some of the reports come from pilots flying wherever they saw a flash or a faint radar trace, some more may be blaming the actions of other operatives on the cruise missiles. Regardless, we have taken serious losses; all three of the major fighter bases took a pounding, although RAF Coningsby got lucky and took down three of the five missiles aimed at it with TMD systems operated by the RAF Regiment. Other bases weren’t so lucky; RAF Leuchars and RAF Leeming both got clobbered, while the tanker base at RAF Brize Norton got badly hit when a fuel tanker exploded. The death toll was pretty heavy; only a SAR base in Scotland avoided getting worked over.”

He took a breath. “We had one stroke of good luck,” he said. “A Sentry and three Eurofighter Typhoons — and one Eurofighter Tempest — was engaged in a practice run against the French Air Force. They saw most of the attack and are currently providing top cover over Britain — fortunate, as all of the military radar stations got hit. That includes RAF Fylingdales, along with its BMEWS solid-state phased-array radar, which was completely destroyed. As you may recall, successive defence chiefs had provided warning after warning about the vulnerability of the radar; large, immobile, and easy to hit.”

“I think the horse has bolted on that one,” Langford said. “And the remainder of the UKADGE?”

“There have been at least seven — there may well have been more — incidents of airliners being shot down with handheld SAM missiles,” Erica said. “Two came down in London itself; the others are scattered around major airports, such as Manchester, and Edinburgh. The explosions have only added to the civil unrest, sir; the situation is already growing out of control. We have several incidents of truck bombs being deployed against our remaining ground bases…”

Langford held up a hand. “Our remaining ground bases?”

Erica’s eyes showed real pain for the first time. “Every major barracks has been hit,” she said. “Some of the damage wasn't as bad as it seemed at first sight, but it was still pretty bad; there are thousands of casualties out there. We’ve been able to get lines out to most of the bases, and now the jamming has gone, we have been able to make radio contact with the surviving bases. According to the preliminary results, we’re looking at over three thousand dead…”

Langford just stared at her. “And the naval side is worst,” Erica said. “There were at least seven missiles, all designed to inflict major damage, targeted on Faslane Naval Base, which is part of HMNB Clyde. The destruction was vast, sir; two of our three SSBNs are wrecked. The third, HMS Vengeance, was on patrol; she may well have been sunk already. She was due to get back in touch with us in a week; she was ordered to run very silent and deep for a training exercise.”

Langford cursed the European Union under his breath. They had insisted on Britain decommissioning one nuclear submarine… and Prime Minister Nicholas Donavan had gone along with them, rather than face the fury of the peace protesters. The two wrecked submarines had cut Britain's deterrent down to one… and if the Russians had been willing to go so far, they might decide that it was worth the risk of engaging the final submarine directly.

Erica continued her damning recitation. “The other naval bases were badly hit as well,” she continued. “We have lost over seventeen ships outright and several more have been damaged to the point where they will be effectively useless for combat operations. A destroyer at HMS Portsmouth was successful in providing some cover for the port; the Captain took the risk of opening fire and saved the port from much worse damage.” She took a long breath. “We lost the Queen Elizabeth.”

“Billions of pounds, most of our defence fund for several years… just gone,” Langford said. The sheer scale of the damage seemed impossible to grasp. The Queen Elizabeth had been the pride and joy of the Royal Navy, one of two large carriers intended to finally regain the capability of serious operations after decades of messing about with small carriers that could barely mount a strike force. “What about the Falklands?”

“We have no contact with Admiral Wilkinson at the moment,” Erica said. “Almost all of our communications are down, either though physical destruction or through hacking attacks. Most of the civil communications network has been shattered and broken; all over the country, people are panicking. Even in the areas not touched by civil unrest, we have real problems…”

Langford stared at her. “Civil unrest?”

“We have major riots going on in at least six different cities,” Erica said. “Most of them appear to be violence either committed by Muslims or directed against Muslims… and the police. We have some radio contact with police stations across the country, but many of them have been specifically targeted by the mobs, others have been left almost completely alone.” She paused; Langford was starting to dread her pauses. “Many of the rioters are very well armed, sir; this is not a coincidence.”

“I am really starting to hate the Russians,” Langford said. He stared at the display, willing it to suddenly start making sense; how could anyone sort the entire mess out? France in 1940 had looked hopeless, but so had Russia in 1941; quick and decisive leadership had made the difference between disgraceful defeat and a final victory. The Russians were powerful, but they couldn’t be invading Britain at the moment, could they…?

He looked up at her. “The forces in Poland?”

Erica looked at Casey. “No word,” he said. “We have a status report sent to PJHQ every hour upon the hour; the last one was at 1000hrs. If there was one at 1100hrs, we missed it in all the confusion, but the 1000hrs report stated that there were no major problems. The daily report to the European Defence Commission from General Konrad Trautman, which is copied to us as well, stated no problems apart from a small fight between a German soldier and a Polish civilian. Since then, we have lost all communications with both EUROFOR Poland and the EUROFOR Standing Force in the Mediterranean.”

He tapped the display again. “We maintained a regular listening watch through GCHQ of European communications,” he said, as close as anyone had ever come to admitting that the British spied on their allies. Langford had never doubted it; the French, Germans and Americans almost certainly did the exact same thing. “However, the Doughnut — GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham — was hit by the Russians; all functionality was apparently destroyed. Regardless, we have had radio crews attempting to read messages from the continent… and we believe that the Russians have not confined their attentions to just us. We have no direct contact with Brussels, Paris or Berlin, but we have been picking up thousands of garbled messages, and some hints that Russian jamming is operating in France and the Netherlands region. From what we have detected, we believe that there are major riots going on in France as well, and a call for jihad has been detected coming from Algeria.”

Langford closed his eyes. “Make finding out what is actually happening there your first priority,” he ordered. “Now… what about our military situation? What do we have to work with?”

“We have something around four thousand soldiers in units that we have contact with,” Erica said. “Many of those are TA reservists who have been trying to report in; in some places, the TA bases have been completely destroyed. We think that there are still more soldiers out there, but they haven’t been able to report in to their commanding officers, or have started to look after their families rather than report for duty. Under the circumstances, that’s understandable.”

“No it bloody isn’t,” Langford muttered. “Fine; what about the aerial situation? Can we expect air raids?”

“The entire CAA flight control network has been thoroughly screwed,” Sargon said. “The Sentry crew have been working hard to get the civilian aircraft in the air out of the air as fast as possible, but it’s not easy; we’ve had at least two crashes that happened because of pilot error under pressure, rather than SAM teams. Airport security agents at Birmingham shot two terrorists with a missile launcher; its all-too-possible that there are others crawling around somewhere, waiting for a target. We have some nightmarish possibilities here; the Russians have long planned to insert agents into hostile countries to launch acts of sabotage against the local government.”

Langford shook his head slowly. “The last time we seriously drilled for that was before I was even born,” he said. “What happens if…?”

He looked up at Sargon. “And?”

“We have twelve aircraft flying CAP in the air now; we were fortunate enough that the QRA aircraft were launched on the first signs of trouble,” Sargon said. “Two more were caught in blasts as the missiles exploded, wrecking runways and hangers alike; the loss rate was quite heavy. Our main problem is that our logistics chain has been shot to hell; we have lost supply bases and stocks without knowing quite what we have lost. Replacing it all is going to be a nightmare…

“We don’t see any conventional threat to Britain as yet,” he continued. “We have tracked some aircraft over France, but they didn’t seem to have any serious purpose and were totally unresponsive to radio hails. Some other aircraft were utterly confused; I think that elements in France have been shooting them down, just as they have here. Overall, sir… if the Russians sail the Admiral Sergey Gorshkov into the North Sea, we might have real problems countering the threat. In a couple of days, we should know just how bad the situation is; we should be able to call on some help from Europe, at least the French.”

“Dear God,” Langford breathed. “What have we come to?”

He stood up. “First order, then,” he said, trusting them to carry it out. “I want us to mobilise what remains of the Territorial Army, and then prepare to retake our cities, by whatever means necessary. Briggs was talking about problems in London, so I want whatever survived at the nearby garrisons formed up into scratch units and moved in. I want those problems stamped on fast.”

“Second; I want as much as possible of the navy at sea,” he continued. “I — we — need to secure the sea lanes as quickly as possible, before it occurs to the Russians that sinking a few dozen ships would complete the task of strangling us. Get back in touch with Admiral Wilkinson, whatever it takes. We’re going to have to recall his force and forget the Falklands. For now.”

Casey was moved to protest. “Sir…?”

Langford swung around on him. “What price the jewel in the crown, such as it is, if the crown itself is lost?” Casey said nothing. “Third… dear God, what do we tell the people…?”

Erica smiled. “You could always tell them the truth,” she said. “There are a lot of frightened people out there and they need to know that there is continuity of government and that it’s not the end of the world.”

“I know,” Langford said. “But Major… what if it is?”