The Fall of Night

Chapter Fifty-Two: The Fall of Night

United Kingdom

The Russian Army entered London two days after the Battle of Dorking.

Inspector David Briggs, created Lord Mayor of London — the previous Lord Mayor having vanished somewhere on the first terrible day — by Langford, waited for them outside Buckingham Palace. He hadn’t been able to decide if Langford had appointed him Mayor as a perverted joke, an attempt to give him the authority clawed back by several lord mayors since Ken Livingstone had won the role in clear defiance of the then Prime Minister, or if it had been an attempt to give him some form of protection. The Russians were arresting and detaining police officers all over Europe, but some politicians were being left in place; it was just possible that they would leave him alone, or at least in Britain. Maybe…

He wasn’t sure why he had stayed. The once-proud Metropolitan Police force had been reduced sharply to just over a thousand men in the last fortnight, as officers strove to vanish into the teeming mass of the civilian population, or attempted to get on one of the evacuation ships as the remains of the British Army embarked for Canada and the British dominions in the Caribbean. They were terrified of their fate under Russian rule; Briggs himself could have fled with them, but he had stayed. He had written a final letter to his wife, if he didn’t return home within the week; he wished, now, that he had spent more time with her before the war. It all seemed like a dream now…

The city had been on the verge of panic as the remains of the military pulled out. Briggs — as Langford and he had already discussed — had declared London an open city, in the hopes that it would preserve what remained of the city from a house-to-house fight to rival Stalingrad. The Russians, oddly enough, had honoured the declaration; it had been two days before their forces had finally begun to probe into London, a city that hadn’t been attacked for hundreds of years. Londoners had had to relearn much their grandfathers had forgotten; they had faced air raids, terrorist attacks… and now a Russian occupation. They had tried hard to calm the city, but Briggs feared for the future; who knew what would happen once the Russians had the entire city in their power?

They appeared as they marched towards the city, hundreds — no, thousands — of infantry, marching in an eerie silence. Briggs was only delighted to see that they hadn’t brought shackled prisoners as part of the march, as they had done in Berlin and Paris; it would only have inflamed passion on both sides. The irony was killing him; he had spent time enforcing ever-harsher bans on guns, and the net result was that now the Army had been destroyed, or at least soundly beaten, there would be no one to resist the Russians. There were still plenty of criminal guns on the streets, some of which had been used in the riots, but what good would they do against an organised army? The Russians had played it smart; before they had indulged in the victory parade, they had secured everywhere of vital importance, from power plants to the water supplies. They could cause the entire population to die of thirst if they felt like it; what could anyone do to stop them?

The Russians halted, just outside the gates; cameras were flashing, recording the historic moment, as a Russian stepped forward. He was tall and very pale, with jet-black hair; his cold blue eyes seemed to flicker power and responsibility. Briggs understood, finally, why some people couldn’t face a soldier; here was a man who had killed others, many of whom had been trying to kill him. The Russian stood in front of him, looked the Lord Mayor’s outfit up and down, and saluted.

“I am General Aleksandr Borisovich Shalenko,” he said. His English was perfect, without the hint of an accent, or even a tinge of Russian words. “I understand that I have the honour of addressing Lord Mayor Inspector David Briggs?”

Briggs winced inwardly. “I resigned my position in the police when I accepted the role of Lord Mayor,” he said, wondering who the Russian spy had been. They knew who he was, and about his role; they had to have had someone on the inside, somewhere. “I am the Lord Mayor of London.”

“Good,” Shalenko said, very slowly. “I must formally ask for the submission of London to my control.”

Briggs wanted to defy him, he wanted to spit in his face, but there was no choice. There were millions of civilians still caught within the city; a fight would be disastrous. They would all be killed when London burned like Dover had burned; the citizens had all seen the signs of battle from the hills. They knew what could happen…

“I surrender the city,” Briggs said finally. He saw a flicker of respect in Shalenko’s eyes as the Russians formally took possession of Buckingham Palace. “What now?”

“I need you to answer a question,” Shalenko said. “Where is the command post?”

Briggs shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said, honestly. Langford had never shared that information with him. “I was never told that.”

Shalenko looked down at him sadly. “That’s not good enough,” he said. He nodded to two burly-looking Russians, who seized Briggs, handcuffed him, and marched him off towards a large truck. “It would be much easier on all concerned if you just told us what you know.”

“I don’t fucking know,” Briggs protested. The two Russians could have given the worst policeman lessons in brutality. The pain in his arms was utterly beyond comprehension. “They didn’t tell me…”

“Take him to Maliuta Vladimirovich,” Shalenko ordered tiredly. He still spoke in English. “Tell him to get what he can out of him.”

They marched Briggs away to an unknown fate.

In the end, it took nearly a fortnight to locate it, despite the British command post being right under their nose. Shalenko hadn’t wasted the time; occupation authorities had reached as far north as Newcastle and would reach the lowlands of Scotland before too long, while Wales and Cornwall had felt the touch of Russian power. There had been an entire series of skirmishes with the remainder of British forces, but most of the surviving soldiers had either been captured, or had gone underground to await the chance to either escape, or launch a war against the Russians. Other elements of the Russian program had been launched almost at once; prisoners had been divided up as they had been in Europe, and the entire male Muslim population of southeast England had been conscripted to help repair the damage caused by the invasion.

There had been a brief, very brutal fight, before the Classified Joint Headquarters had been penetrated, a last ditch attempt to trigger a self-destruct system thwarted in the very nick of time. Shalenko entered the complex and examined it, pausing in passing to salute the body of a short blonde woman who had commanded the defence, her resistance finally ended by four bullet wounds to the chest. Others lay strewn around the complex, including a young Indian girl who had been shot down by a nervous commander, and a helicopter pilot who had used the helicopter’s guns to mow down soldiers before he had been killed. A few more moments, Shalenko reflected, and he might have made it out and escaped.

“Impressive,” he said finally. The CJHQ had only been discovered by chance. There might well be others out there somewhere in the English countryside, or somewhere far to the north in Scotland; time alone would tell. The Russians had put all of the civil servants, those who had survived, back to work; they had been interrogated, repeatedly, to see what they knew. None of them had known about the CJHQ; without that little bit of foresight, how long would it have been before the British pulled themselves back together. “I think we can make use of this compound, Anna; it could come in useful.”

He sat back as the helicopter headed back to Buckingham Palace. The President had been delighted with his work and his success, even though there were still so many urgent requirements to handle before Britain could be termed truly pacified, but then… who knew what would happen in the future? Perhaps he would have the honour of the invasion of Spain, once the conflicts there had burned out, or…

For General Shalenko, the future looked bright and full of promise.

For Khadijah, the future had become a nightmare, one that was reaching out to embrace them all in its claws. She had never been superstitious, as opposed to religious, and she knew that parts of Islam’s holy writings were parables, rather than direct orders — a point that many extremists missed — but she had the sense that something unpleasant was about to happen. She could feel it, right at the back of her head, even while she had been kept in Manchester General Hospital; something was going to happen.

She had been treated for smoke inhalation once the ambulance had finally arrived, her survival more a matter of luck — or Allah’s blessing — than judgement. Khadijah had become an ideal patient at the hospital, helping out as best as she could with the thousands of other wounded, but finally it was time for her to be discharged. The nurse had told her, in whispers, what had happened to London… and implored the young Muslim girl to hide and sneak west to hopefully find a ship to Ireland or somewhere else that was free. Bad Things were happening to Muslims…

Khadijah had had no choice, but to go home. As a hospital patient, she had had no choice, but to be left out of the first wave of registration, but as soon as she was on her feet, she had to go register. Manchester looked, in places, as if it had been turned into a war zone; the Russian authorities had very strong ideas on what should happen to people who revolted against their rule. She saw, hanging from a lamppost, a young English boy… one of her tormentors from the burning mosque. He hadn’t died well…

The Russians had taken her details, cross-checked them with other details in their vast database, and then asked her dozens of questions. Still terrified because of the body, she answered as many of them as she could, before the Russians gave her an ID card and told her the rules. Stay in your homes after curfew, unless there is a medical emergency; ideally, stay in your homes unless you have work. Report yourself for duty if summoned; do not attempt to leave the city without written permission.

Khadijah cried, afterwards; her world had shrunk, once again, to the four corners of her room…

…And bad things were coming.

Hazel had held out hope that she would hear something for weeks, but as the Russians entered Edinburgh and tightened their grip on the city, she started to wonder if she should fear the worst. She was four months pregnant and her chest was starting to swell, but there was no word from her husband. The Russians had posted lists of prisoners who had been executed — including the infamous Edinburgh child molester, who had raped twelve children and had been remanded in custody for a mere twenty years — but her Stuart’s name wasn't on the lists anywhere. She had searched them all, time and time again, wondering if she dared ask the Russians directly… but fear held her back.

Her father had taken her in; she had registered under her maiden name, rather than as Hazel Robinson, terror of Russian spies and terrorists. She cursed that decision, afterwards; if they had found a body, who would they have known to tell? The penalties for lying to the Russians were grim; a shopkeeper who had lied about something had been assigned to one of the work crews, fading further and further every day through his month-long sentence of hard labour. Others had not been so lucky; Princes’ Street Gardens had been full of bodies hanging from poles, people who had tried to resist the force of Russian might.

Like everyone else, she had grown to dread the knock on the door. When it came, she almost lost control completely before walking towards the door, noticing a single man standing there, and opening the door in hope… only to come face to face with Rashid Ustinov. The Russian looked taller, somehow, than he had been when he had held her prisoner; there was a new scar on his cheek.

“You!”

“Me,” Ustinov said mildly. Her father appeared and stared at him. “May I come in?”

“I don’t think that we can stop you,” Hazel observed bitterly, as he followed them into the lounge. She had thought that she was free of the two Russians forever. “What do you want?”

“They wanted to arrest you for interfering with an FSB operation,” Ustinov said shortly. “I talked them out of it.”

There was a pause. “Why?” It was her father who had spoken. “Why…?”

“Because in Russia, rank, power, responsibility and authority don’t always go together,” Ustinov said. “We have Captains who give orders to Generals under certain circumstances. There are Admirals whose only job is to look good, while their staffs do all the work; I once had two colonels and a lieutenant-general reporting to me. I am one of the FSB’s heroes following” — he made a sweeping hand gesture — “and they will give me a great deal of latitude, within reason.”

Hazel had only one thought in her mind. “And what about Stuart?” She asked, almost pleading. Tears were falling down her face; her father gently placed a hand around her shoulders. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know what happened to him,” Ustinov said. There was a grim tone in his voice. “There’s no record of finding his body, nor was he captured, but there were a lot of bodies that even DNA checks would have been hard-pressed to identify. I checked; the bodies of several men known to have served under him were recovered, but there was no sign of him personally.”

He paused. “One possibility, the people involved with tracing the remaining soldiers thought, was that he was with you,” he said. “Of course… they wanted to arrest you, but I blocked them…”

Hazel shrugged off her father’s hand and leaned forward. “Why?”

Ustinov looked down. “Because… because you reminded me a lot of my mother,” he said. “Because… you handled yourself well back when… well, that’s in the past now. Because… you were kind to us when you thought we needed help. Because… you have suffered enough and… there was never anything personal, you know; none of us who went into Britain hated you, even Sergey. Hurting you would be spite.”

He reached inside his pocket and brought out two passes. “There are some flights leaving Edinburgh airport over the next two months, convoying Americans and other foreigners who were caught in Britain when the war started,” he said. “These two passes will get you out of the country; the Americans and Canadians are taking in refugees, so I expect that you two will find refugee there.” He dropped a third pass into her hand. “If he should happen to turn up…”

“Thank you,” Hazel said. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You could come…”

Ustinov laughed. “I don’t think that that would be a good idea,” he said. “Goodbye, Hazel.”

He left, not looking back.

They were at the very edge of the range of Russian aircraft.

Admiral Geoffrey Bradford Wilkinson watched as the final helicopter came in to land, the fleet turning slowly and heading out towards America. They would meet up with elements of the American Navy — HMCS Lethbridge from Canada had already joined the force — soon enough, but he had wanted to remain as close to Britain as possible, if only for a few more days. The ships they were escorting carried thousands of refugees; they had to be protected, even if the Russians seemed to be ignoring them. One way or the other, they would be leaving soon; the Russians had already begun to take over bases on Ireland and Britain itself. The loss of the CJHQ meant that there would be no centre of organised resistance left on British soil.

There was no time left at all.

He gave the order.

The remains of the Royal Navy — and a handful of surviving European ships — turned and sailed away from Britain. Few words were spoken as the fleet headed towards America, the crews lost in their own private thoughts; what would happen to them in the future. Historical precedent was not good; French ships that had escaped the fall of France in 1940 had had friends and allies, they had… few friends and no allies if they were to fight to regain their homeland. A few hundred sailors had demanded to be put ashore as the fleet neared Britain, too late to be useful; they had been granted their wish. Wilkinson could only hope that they would have time to see their families before the Russians rounded them all up; the Russians had already placed a motion before the United Nations to declare the remaining ships pirates.

He turned his back on the distant hills of his homeland.

He wondered if he would ever see them again.