The Fall of Night

Chapter Thirty: Back on the Streets

London, England

“Are you really the Prime Minister now?”

“Something like that,” Langford said. “What about you?”

Inspector David Briggs ignored the sally. “Because I want you to know that I’m not exactly comfortable with it,” he said, as he studied the tired General. Langford hadn’t said where he had based his new government, if government it was, and Briggs hadn’t wanted to ask. The General looked as if he needed sleep, not more problems. “I don’t think that the military should be running the country.”

Langford looked too tired to argue properly. “I don’t think I should be running the country either,” he said, through a yawn. “If my leave had been a week later, I would have died at PJHQ, instead of… finding some remnants of authority and using them. Inspector, I would love to hand the damn job of Prime Minister over to some damn politician and get back to doing what I was trained to do, like defending the country, but…”

Briggs caught him almost before he fell. “I think that we should both sit down,” he said. It had been two days since the missiles had fallen and he’d been barely able to snatch some sleep in the back of the mobile command unit. “Is it really as bad as it seems?”

“It’s pretty bad, yeah,” Langford said. A policewoman brought him a cup of strong coffee; he sipped it with some pleasure. Briggs eyed the sight with some concern; Flora’s coffee was not for the faint of heart. Langford was drinking it as if it were water. “Between you and me, we may not be able to extract many troops from Europe before it falls to the Russians. If we manage to pull together our infrastructure, we might just have a chance, but… it’s not exactly easy to repair the results of years of work in a few weeks.”

His lips twitched. “I didn’t come here to drink coffee, good as it is,” he said. “I need to know; just how bad is it in London?”

Briggs laughed bitterly. “Where would you like me to begin?”

“The civil population and the police,” Langford said. “I have to know.”

Briggs sighed. “The Metropolitan Police, last week, had around thirty thousand officers and other personal, from parking wardens to close-protection experts,” he said. “Numbers have been falling for years ever since… ever since policemen started to die on the streets and the politicos did nothing. The merger with the City of London Police did it for many policemen and they went elsewhere; the massive rise in surveillance technology didn’t make up for the lack of policemen on the streets. There are some places, sir, where I wouldn’t have wanted to go without armed back-up; there are gangs, ethnic groups, religious nutters…”

The frustration spilled out as he spoke. He spoke about endless political compromises, endless attempts to appease this and that minority interest, all the while seeing good policemen driven off the streets, charged with racism and sexism and something-ism, while watching people losing respect for the police. The most popular movie in Britain had been one about a rogue policeman who killed criminals; it might have been banned, but anyone could have downloaded it from a internet server. It said something about the state of Britain that that had been what people wanted…

And no one had made a stand. If they had made a stand, it could have been prevented, or even handled before hundreds of people got hurt, but instead… right-wing groups had attacked left-wing groups, or ethnic groups, and they had struck back; despite several bans, the number of guns on the streets was higher than ever… and they were used. The Police couldn’t even prevent some crimes; honour killing was on the rise, and the girls no longer dared escape to the Police. What good would it have done?

“Many people are cowering indoors, while others are out on the streets, looting and having fun,” Briggs concluded. “I have around twenty thousand people left after the bombings and the riots and the policemen leaving their posts and seeing to the safety of their families. None of them expected to be caught up in a war zone, sir; in some places, it is a bloody war zone.”

“That will have to stop,” Langford said, coldly. “These riots; I’m convinced that they were intended to prevent us from acting quickly to aid anyone in Europe. The TA has been called out and I intend to use it to prevent the riots from getting worse.”

Briggs shook his head helplessly. “And then what?” He said. “Are you going to have them all mown down in the streets? The problems are not going to go away just because we have smashed one riot; are you even going to use live ammunition?”

“They’re using live ammunition,” Langford snapped. “Inspector, what’s morale like with your boys?”

“Terrible,” Briggs said. “I told you; none of them expected to be caught up in a war zone.”

“We have two options,” Langford reminded him. “The first is to let the riots burn themselves out, devastating parts of our country and draining our manpower, the second is to squash them as quickly as we can. There are people we need in London, people cowering in their homes because of the chaos. What choice do you make?”

Briggs looked down at the floor. “That’s not fair,” he said. It was almost a child’s cry; he had no patience for lawbreakers, but to turn the military loose on them…? “These are not the days of Judge Dredd, sir…”

“No,” Langford agreed. He nodded towards the country-wide display; they hadn’t been able to take over a police station as a general headquarters yet, not with all the chaos surrounding the city. “What choice is there?”

“Deal with the riots, then,” Briggs said. He scowled. “Are you married?”

Langford shook his head. “I am,” Briggs said. “It was a long and happy marriage, and we rarely argued, even if we had some quarrels over money. We were talking about quitting, you know; we were talking about leaving and heading out into the country somewhere, because the cities were no longer safe. Since the missiles fell, I have been unable to talk to her and… God, I don’t know what’s happened to her…”

Langford winced. “I never found the right woman,” he said. Briggs had to smile. “Use the secure communications net; give her a quick call, once everything is set in motion here. Another reason to put an end to the chaos as soon as possible; once we end the violence, we will be able to reunite thousands of families.”

Briggs nodded.

Sergeant Christopher Roach had no sympathy for the rioters at all, not after losing several of his people to snipers on the first day. Roach, who had found himself commanding a scratch company considering of seventy soldiers who had been scattered and separated from their units, had spent two days securing the Houses of Parliament — or what was left of them — before being issued new orders. They were to join the force sealing off Brixton, and then end the rioting, whatever it took.

His orders, he was pleased to see as his men deployed, along with armed policemen and riot control squads, had been written by someone who actually understood the tactical realities of combat. Only a politician could come up with orders that included the contradiction of an armed advance and no casualties on either side, but the orders from the new government were refreshingly clear. He was to use limited force unless his men faced deadly force, in which case he was to return fire and crush the insurgents. Roach, like many other infantrymen, had found himself facing the possibility that one day a new government might order them to put an end to the lawlessness on the streets; he had welcomed the thought after yobs had killed his granny instead of finding something useful to do with their lives.

“Sergeant Roach, reporting,” he said, to a harassed looking police officer. The other policemen seemed either pleased that the heavily-armed soldiers were there, or nervous around them, regarding them as more violent than the criminals they frequently had to arrest. “We’re ready to move in as soon as possible.”

“And not a moment too soon,” the officer said. Roach nodded; he could hear shooting from the distance, some of it seemingly aimed into the sky. The gangs were at war; some of them would have noticed the police cordon and laughed at it. What could the police do to them. “Those folks want to get back home…”

He cocked a finger at several dozen people, waiting and watching the soldiers with nervous eyes. They were mainly Indian or Africa; Brixton had been an African area before a careless government had also organised thousands of Indians to move in as well, perhaps in the unspoken hope that they would kill each other off. Roach had no doubt that the last government — which had died along with Downing Street — would have screwed the immigrants if it could have done; the British people had been growing less and less tolerant of immigration over the years. They wouldn’t be allowed to return yet, he had been told; everyone who came out alive would be held in a makeshift detention camp until their identities could be discovered and their future decided.

Three helicopters flew overhead, police helicopters; Roach admired their bravery. The police knew — they had to know — that some people on Britain’s streets had access to SAM missiles; they’d been used to shoot down at least a dozen airliners. The police pilots were risking their lives in aircraft Roach wouldn’t have taken into harm’s way if it could have been avoided, but they carried out their duty faithfully. They deserved better than the scorn of the population.

“THIS IS THE POLICE,” loudspeakers bellowed, the racket setting the birds to flight. The thunderous voice echoed across all of the area; everyone in Brixton would hear it. “MARTIAL LAW HAS BEEN DECLARED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS HELD HIGH OR RISK BEING SHOT. THIS AREA IS UNDER THE PATROL OF ARMED MEN! ANYONE CARRYING A WEAPON WILL BE SHOT! THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER WARNING!”

Roach turned to the officer. “Do you expect any response?”

“There are people in there who don’t dare to leave,” the officer said, bitterly. “The real hard men won’t surrender and won’t let anyone else from their groups leave; we might have some people coming out, but they won’t be serious hard cases.”

Roach waited. A handful of women, of all races and creeds, were inching their way out, keeping their hands firmly in the air. One of them crumpled as a shot rang out; Roach snapped an order to his sniper as the young man carrying a rifle took aim at a second woman. A shot rang out and the enemy sniper fell to the ground, dead.

“Nice shooting,” Roach commented. The surviving women fled towards them and the police met them, escorting them to one of the waiting pens where they would be held until they could be moved to the detention camp. More were coming now, women and a handful of men; they kept their hands in the air. One woman, completely naked, drew appreciative whistles from some of the soldiers; Roach asked and discovered that she had thought that she would be mistaken for a suicide bomber unless she approached naked. She was quickly loaned a coat and sent to the pens. “I think that…”

More shooting flickered out in the area. “That's the gangs about to start shooting, I think,” the officer said. He glared down at a terminal he held in his hands. “The bastards smashed all of the cameras as soon as mob rule appeared on the streets.”

Roach felt his teeth grind together. “Give them the final warning?”

The Police officer muttered into his radio. “THIS IS THE POLICE,” the helicopters bellowed again. “ARMED OFFICERS ARE ENTERING NOW. ANY RESISTANCE WILL BE CONSIDERED A CRIMINAL ACT AND PUNISHED UNDER MARTIAL LAW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!”

Roach lifted an eyebrow. “You have no idea,” the officer said, “just how good it feels to be able to make clear statements like that.”

Roach nodded. “Put the engines in gear, lads,” he ordered. “It’s time to move.”

The Floid vehicles had been hastily retooled for the Sudan when it seemed likely that intervention was going to be required, but had never sent there as the famine and uprising had happened before they were ready to deploy. They had then considered white elephants by the Ministry of Defence, who had shoved all of the fifty production models into a warehouse near London and forgotten about them. A soldier who had driven one remembered them and mentioned it to his commander; a quick check had revealed that the warehouse had escaped harm and the Floids had been quickly recovered. They had been built for city-warfare; it would take a heavy RPG to damage them even slightly, while they were armed with non-lethal weapons as well as machine guns. If the… rebels, insurgents, criminals, whatever they were… had something that could damage them, Roach intended to call for a helicopter strike rather than risk his men.

He had been tempted to play music as they advanced, something to both warn the insurgent gangs and reassure his men, but had dismissed the thought. They needed to remain alert; this was unconventional warfare, but equally as dangerous as anything else the British army had ever done. They had plenty of experience; the only question was if they would have the resources to do it properly. One by one, buildings were checked, searched, and secured by the police; a handful of people who had been found hiding, terrified, had been cuffed and sent to the rear. He didn’t have time to play it gently; experience had taught him that people who looked harmless often weren’t when it came to the crunch.

A gunshot rang out, and then another; the bullets sparked off the armour of the lead Floid. Roach felt his lips twitch; it wasn't an unrealistic computer game, where enough hand-weapons could make a real difference to a tank, but real life. He would have loved to have brought a Challenger tank or even a Eurotank along; the insurgents would probably have taken one look and surrendered. It would have been a shame about the roads, but…

“Enough,” he snapped. The entire building seemed to be infested with armed men. He nodded to the driver of the lead Floid. “Bring it down!”

The vehicle inched forward, more and more bullets pinging off its armour, and pressed against the side of the market. It had a far more powerful engine than it really needed; all of that extra power was used in pushing against the weaker wall. It slowly buckled and twisted inwards, shattering as the driver hastily yanked the vehicle backwards to avoid being crushed under the rubble. The entire building was weakening rapidly; a handful of people fled out with their hands in the air. They were rapidly cuffed, marked as known insurgents, and sent to the rear. Others came out firing and were shot down before they could find their targets and hit a single soldier.

The hours ticked on. One by one, the strongholds of resistance were reduced mercilessly; those that refused the call to surrender were attacked until they either surrendered or ended up dead. Roach wasn't in a taking prisoners mood; some of the bodies they encountered hadn’t been killed by his men, but had taken some time to die at the hands of the insurgents. He had had to threaten one of his men with his gun to prevent him from shooting all the prisoners after they found a raped woman’s body; it didn’t help that he shared the man’s rage.

An explosion made him blink. He had been rotating his own people though the battlezone, inserting more soldiers as they arrived; somehow, he had ended up as local military commander. He wasn't sure if that meant that he was the senior officer — and that was worrying as he was only a sergeant — or if someone had decided that he was doing a good job and leaving him in place. The radio buzzed and he answered it absently; it felt as if they had been fighting for hours.

“Sarge, you have to come see this,” one of his soldiers said. “We just stumbled across it in this dump.”

Roach nodded and headed over to the half-wrecked building. The remaining insurgents had been trying to escape for hours, heading right into the teeth of the policed cordon, where they had been either forced to surrender or die. There was fighting in other parts of London, but this particular fire was well on the way to being put out.

“Here I am,” he said, as he entered the building. It had once been a gay bar and had been savagely destroyed on the first night of the war. Dead bodies were scattered everywhere; a handful of trained people were trying to find identification on them, identifying them for posterity. “What do you have to show me?”

“This,” the soldier said. He pointed to a pit in the floor; Roach looked into it, expecting to see bodies, and saw, instead, guns. Lots of guns, many of them of Russian design… and modern. Not AK-47s, but modern weapons, including a Yank missile launcher. If they had been used by trained people, Roach realised, they could have made the Battle for Brixton much more violent…

He scowled. There were enough weapons to take half of London.

“Now, that's curious,” he said. He assumed a detective pose. “If these weapons were here, why didn’t any of the gangs use them?”

“My name is not Watson, sir,” the soldier said. “Perhaps they didn’t dare use them…”

“I doubt it,” Roach said. “If they didn’t use them, then they didn’t know they were here to use, which means… someone else put them here.” He skimmed through the collection of weapons. “I wonder what’s missing from here… and who took it… and where it went; those are the questions we have to answer.”