Without Warning Part 36

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," Maccomb began. "I have a number of points from each of the theater commands to cover quickly before we discuss any particular issue in depth. Firstly, CENTCOM. Our latest best estimate puts half the population of the area dead, and it is likely that seventy-five percent of the remainder are going to die within six months to a year."

There was no evident reaction to the statement. Everyone had become inured to the horror story of the Middle East what felt like a long time ago.

"Major combat operations have ceased entirely, both between our forces, which have now left the region, and our former combatants, and between Israel and her former combatants. Israel remains under martial law but we expect the state of emergency to be lifted within the next forty-eight hours, as decontamination procedures progress far enough to allow some of the population to return to work."

Maccomb thumbed a control stick and powered up a large flat-panel display on the wall behind him. A very familiar map of the Middle East appeared, with each of the atomic strikes clearly marked. Shaded areas of fallout stretched behind them.

"A combined British, French, Russian, and Chinese task force has arrived in Saudi Arabia to replace our own withdrawn forces. Smaller deployments have been made to various Gulf states to secure the surviving oil infrastructure. The Russian federation's missile forces targeting Israel remain on the highest state of alert. British and French submarines also remain on station in the eastern Mediterranean as a continued deterrent against further strikes by Tel Aviv. The future status of the French nuclear submarine Le Triomphant remains uncertain, however, dependent on the outcome of the struggle within France."

Ritchie had some trouble containing a snort of surprise at Colonel Mac-comb's talent for understatement. The "struggle" he referred to had degenerated from incipient anarchy into civil war and from there into a confused and savage blood swarm. Tracking the movements of the country's nuclear submarines was consuming almost as much attention from the surviving great powers as speculating on the disposition of those a.s.sets should the French government finally succ.u.mb to the Intifada.

"The situation within EUCOM is fluid," said Maccomb, continuing with his penchant for understatement. "The British government continues to enforce a maritime exclusion zone and has secretly begun work to seal its end of the Channel Tunnel."

That was a surprise to Ritchie. Since Franks had returned from Qatar and replaced him as acting chairman, he was no longer briefed daily on developments in Europe. Last he'd seen, Tony Blair was still denying that the Brits intended doing any such thing.

"The state of emergency remains in place throughout Britain, but we are informed that it will be lifted in Northern Ireland as of 0600 tomorrow. Our best information to hand is that the Blair government will ignore the ultimatum from the EU to release all of the so-called emergency detainees and is in fact planning to deport significant numbers of them."

A murmur rippled around the table.

"With permission, General?" Ritchie asked Franks.

The chairman nodded. "Make it quick, Jim."

"Do you have any better information than just 'significant numbers,' Colonel?" asked Ritchie. "Are they talking about flying out a couple of crazy mullahs or are we looking at ma.s.s deportations?"

Ritchie's daughter was in England, having escaped the Disappearance by a matter of hours. She was in no immediate danger, but the news coming out of the UK was growing darker every day.

"My information is that the forced relocations will probably take place on a greater rather than lesser scale, Admiral. Much greater. They will probably involve a significant drain on the security forces. It will be a controversial policy."

Sitting next to Ritchie, General Franks grunted and leaned forward.

"Ha. You know how to sugarcoat a s.h.i.+t sandwich, don't you, Colonel? It'll be a bloodbath. They're talking about deporting hundreds of thousands of second-and third-generation citizens. It's a pogrom, pure and simple. But," he sighed, "it's only our problem if it affects us operationally. What's your latest on the money Blair promised us?"

Colonel Maccomb coughed uncomfortably, and sipped from a gla.s.s of water by the podium before continuing.

"General, the best information I have is that the special appropriations bill will pa.s.s with the help of the Conservative Party. There are a hundred and thirty-four members of Blair's government who have publicly confirmed that they will vote against it, but the Tory Party leader has pledged his support so it will go through."

"And this little ethnic-cleansing program of theirs, what's your reading of that? Is it likely to bring down the government? And if so, can we expect the same level of support in the future?"

Ritchie thought Maccomb looked even more uncomfortable, being asked to read the storm clouds of British politics, but it was a fair question. For the moment at least most of the day-to-day cost of running the U.S. military was being met by alliance partners such as Britain and j.a.pan. NATO was split on the issue, with some countries like Poland stumping up support in cash and kind, while others, like France, were so busy falling apart that they were worse than useless, as Ritchie knew all too well.

"The policy is supported by a clear majority of the British electorate," said Maccomb. "But the significant minority who oppose it can be expected to do so by all the means at their disposal. There will be bloodshed. From our point of view, however, both the government and opposition are committed to the supplementary appropriations process. So any change in government will not affect that. However, whether the UK can actually afford to maintain such outlays even in the short term is another matter entirely. And not one I am really qualified to discuss."

Franks smiled grimly.

"Nice buck pa.s.s, Colonel. d.a.m.n, I never thought I'd see out my days as a gun for hire. Okay. We'll put that on the back burner. Continue."

The intelligence officer returned to his notes and brought up a slide show of images culled from European news media.

"Fighting in France has intensified over the last two weeks. Elements of the state are in open conflict with each other, while large-scale street-level clashes that began as food and race riots have developed into open, disorganized tribal warfare, largely based on ethnic lines, but exacerbated by the involvement of some criminal syndicates in Ma.r.s.eilles and Lyons, and by the arrival of outside agitators from throughout the EU. Most official border crossing points have been closed, but that means nothing. The borders aren't simply porous. They largely do not exist and haven't for years. Additionally, we have very strong indications of government-level a.s.sistance for some of this cross-border movement, especially of skinhead gangs from the eastern regions of Germany into the main metropolitan areas of France. The numbers involved are nontrivial. We tracked three trainloads of neo-n.a.z.is from Berlin and Dresden all the way to Paris. In total, they numbered more than four thousand strong."

"Good Lord," muttered Ritchie. "You mentioned that these were government-sanctioned movements. Which government?"

Maccomb pressed his lips together as though chewing over something unpleasant.

"It is inaccurate to speak of a unitary state authority in France right now, but one bureau of the Direction Centrale des Renseignements Generaux, the general information service, has been in close and constant contact with the BND, the German government's foreign intelligence service, and the Rus sian FSB, which maintains extensive networks in the former East German provinces. It's significant because the GIS, as we call it, is the intelligence arm of the French police, which answers directly to the interior minister, Mr. Sarkozy. And of course, his Emergency Committee has a.s.sumed, or some would say usurped, responsibility for state security from the elysee Palace since President Chirac was wounded in the suicide bombing of March 18."

Ritchie, who had privileged access to information about the situation in France that n.o.body in the room other than Franks enjoyed, still found Mac-comb's line of explanation difficult to follow.

"I don't see how this all hangs together, Colonel. What is the point?"

Maccomb shrugged before bringing up video footage copied from a French news service, a hugely violent confrontation between thousands of rioters in Clichy-sous-Bois, a poor commune in the east of Paris. Hundreds of black-clad French riot police stood by as a wave of shaven-headed thugs appeared from a maze of side streets in a coordinated a.s.sault on a ma.s.s of dark-skinned rioters. Armed with clubs and even-edged weapons they cut a swath through their densely packed, and less-well-armed, opponents.

"The death toll from that one encounter was over two hundred," said Maccomb. "It didn't rate as a news story for more than a day because there were bigger and more violent riots elsewhere in the city, and the following day the first of the radioactive plumes from reactor meltdowns in CONUS crossed the French coast. The CRS, the French riot police, not only did not intervene, but actually facilitated the attack and later the safe withdrawal of the neo-n.a.z.i street fighters."

Maccomb brought up footage of two police officers calmly chatting with a small number of fascist organizers, apparently giving them directions, while a murderous brawl took place a literal stone's throw away. The skinheads appeared to take a good deal of advice from the officers before running off to marshal their own forces.

"At no point in any of the clashes of the past weeks has the CRS decisively intervened to stop any major incidents of violence, except on those occasions where ultranationalist forces looked to be in trouble. I have a separate briefing note on this subject, and will cover it at length in due course, but for now I think it is reasonable to categorize the situation in France as a race war within the general population, and a civil war between some elements of the state security apparatus."

Franks and Ritchie exchanged a quick, wordless glance. They had their own angle on the French troubles, but it was not something they could discuss, even in this forum.

"Thank you, Colonel," said Franks. "It's fascinating, even a little satisfying, but we need to move on. You have a quick rundown on the Russian situation."

Maccomb nodded.

"Russian military forces either remain at the highest level of alert, or, in some cases such as Georgia and Chechnya, have been deployed on active duty. None of the deployments raise any threat to American forces or interests, however, and the Russian Defense Ministry has been a.s.siduous in keeping us informed of any developments that might impact upon our interests. They are treading very carefully around us, and trying hard not to generate too much friction along the Chinese border ..."

Maccomb glanced up at Ritchie before continuing.

"Which brings us to the Pacific Command."

There was a noticeable s.h.i.+fting of postures around the table. PACOM was home. At least half of the officers in the conference belonged to Ritchie's theater command.

"There are two serious flash points within PACOM," said Maccomb. "I would have said three until recently, but the Korean peninsula is one of the few areas where tensions seem to have decreased in the last month, most likely due to the volume of aid s.h.i.+pments heading north from Seoul. For now the bribes are working. For now, as well, there have been no calls from the north for the withdrawal of U.S. forces; however, there will be an emergency session of the National a.s.sembly in two days, to discuss an urgent motion requiring the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the Republic."

Ritchie had known it was coming but most people in the room did not and, as much as a tightly controlled group of professional officers could descend instantly into uproar, they did, which is to say, an air force general swore under his breath and a Marine Corps colonel banged his water down a little bit too loudly.

"Get over it, people," barked Franks. "If they don't want us we can't stay. They're already picking up our drink tab and they can't afford it. Their economy has imploded. Vote or no vote, we'd be leaving. Go on, Colonel. Give us some bad news for a change."

Maccomb essayed a slight twitch of the mouth that might have been the ghost of a mirthless grin.

"India and Pakistan," he said. "The probability that one or the other will attempt a preemptive strike is approaching certainty. Their conventional forces have already clashed seriously on three occasions in the last month, all cooperation with Islamabad over the Afghan situation has effectively ceased, both sides have carried out proxy terror attacks approaching ma.s.s casualty levels, and satellite cover indicates that each has stepped up the readiness of its nuclear forces."

"Jesus wept, did they learn nothing?" exclaimed the same Marine Corps officer.

"You can skip the details of any likely exchange, Colonel," said Franks. "We know what one of these wars looks like now, and how it affects the rest of the globe. Admiral Ritchie, what's our Uplift status for the subcontinental region?"

Ritchie didn't need to consult his notes or an aide. He'd been living with Uplift for nearly a month.

"Ninety percent complete, General," he answered. "TRANSCOM has moved eighty-three thousand U.S. citizens from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh to reception facilities in Australia and New Zealand. We're still s.h.i.+fting up to a thousand a week, but the flow has really tapered off."

"Anybody who's not out soon is going to get turned into an X-ray," said Franks. "We've done what we can. I don't want our people there in large numbers when one of those fools presses the b.u.t.ton. I think we might put a deadline of this Friday local time for Uplift. After that, anyone dumb enough to hang around will be on their own. That timing sound right to you, Mac-comb?"

"It's tight," said the briefer. "The Indians have begun to prepare their launch sites. A lot of emba.s.sies are already shutting up and getting out. The Brits and Aussies have upgraded their travel advisories to the highest level, warning of immediate interstate conflict."

"Okay. Wednesday. Midnight. That's the end of it for us. Go on."

"China," said Maccomb, pausing as if that was all that was needed. "While the People's Republic does not suffer from some of the ethnic division present in France, on our reading of the current situation its future is just as bleak. The economy hasn't imploded. It has just ceased to be. There were already imbalances and rigidities building up before the Disappearance. Thousands of state-run enterprises being propped just to keep the rural poor fed and housed. Now, hundreds of millions of people have no income and, in the cities, no means of supporting even a subsistence level of existence. China was a net food importer at the time of the Disappearance. It cannot feed itself now. The PLA, which had begun to move some force projection a.s.sets around the Taiwan Strait, is now fully engaged within the country's borders. The government has imposed a media blackout and expelled all but a handful of foreign journalists, and their movements are tightly controlled. Most of our in-country a.s.sets were managed from CONUS and are of little use now. But we do have access to British and some Russian intel, and they are convinced that a schism has opened both between the army and the Party and within those inst.i.tutions. At 0230, the FSB's Beijing station was reporting that major combat had broken out within the city between elements of the People's Armed Police and at least two divisions of Army Group Six, including armored and artillery units. Admiral Ritchie will have more, in a few minutes."

Ritchie felt the weight of everyone's attention fall upon him.

"Very quickly, Jim. You think they're going to turn this inward, or out on the rest of us?"

"Inward," he said without hesitation. "At least in the short term. Command and control of the Chinese state is failing. Has failed. This is about reestablis.h.i.+ng that control, but it won't be simple or easy or something that happens very quickly. Like the colonel said, they have hundreds of millions of people who might well starve to death in the next few weeks. Jumping across the strait will not change that. It will simply make dealing with it all the more difficult, and at any rate, the chain of command is broken. They can only fight among themselves, for now."

"Okay," said Franks. "That'll do for the wrap-up. Let's start grinding our way through the to-do list, shall we?"

They met privately during a break in the all-day conference.

Franks joined Ritchie in his office, where they shared a cup of powdered coffee. There wasn't a drop of the real stuff to be had on the islands.

"This French business, we're gonna have to do something about it," said Franks. "I wouldn't have believed it when you first told me, but this latest intelligence from the Brits nails it. We have to get that girl out."

Ritchie drained the last of his lukewarm java and pondered the view out of his window. Another beautiful Hawaiian day. It seemed perverse, given the state of the world, but he knew that even out there, things were going badly. Most of the island's nonresidential population had already been moved on to resettlement facilities elsewhere in the Pacific. Almost none had volunteered to return to the mainland.

"Well, it explains a lot," said Ritchie. "Especially about what Blair has done, I suppose. How are we going to get her? She's dropped off the grid."

Franks shook his head.

"We've found her again. Sarkozy's people grabbed her up an hour ago."

Seattle, Was.h.i.+ngton

Jed had scored himself three adjoining rooms at the Hotel Monaco, and standing in the center suite, trying to listen to a CNN report out of the const.i.tutional convention, he wondered if he should have grabbed a couple of spares for the overflow. There had to be more than a hundred people in here. The roar of such a crowd so closely confined was loud enough to bury the sound of the television unless you knelt down in front of the set and jacked up the volume. He'd done that a couple of times, but within a few minutes the background noise had simply grown in response.

Dozens of people pressed in close around him, trying to listen to the report, but their own cries of outrage drowned out the TV just as effectively as the background roar. On the screen a doughy-faced man with an unfortunate comb-over banged his fist on a podium and yelled, "It would only be temporary ... a three-year sunset clause, with ... extension only if the emergency requires it. But we need ... measure now. We face annihilation without..."

A small band of type flashed up identifying him as Reggie Guertson, whom Jed now knew as a GOP mayor from some p.i.s.sant burg out holding its breath right up against the edge of the Wave.

"The military got us through the worst of this," yelled an increasingly redfaced Guertson, "and they'll get us through the worst that is to come. But only if we give them what they need to get the job done."

"He's a poet and don't know it," cried out one of the hecklers behind Jed.

Onscreen, the camera panned around and the auditorium erupted with fierce catcalling and jeers, but Jed estimated that at least half of the howls of protest were directed against anyone who'd objected to Guertson's proposal to reserve a third of the new congressional seats for the armed forces. As an emergency measure.

The reaction behind him, in the hotel room, was uniformly negative. Deafeningly so. n.o.body here was backing the idea. Jed frowned and tried to get some more volume out of the television, but it seemed to have been programmed by the hotel to prevent inconsiderate or hard-of-hearing guests from annoying their neighbors. He could just make out a rising cacophony as Guertson attempted to shout down a sizable chorus that was chanting over and over again, "Sieg Heill Sieg Heill." The image cut to a shot of the convention chairman, the newly elected Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, banging his gavel and calling for order, entirely without effect.

Culver shook his head and pushed himself up to his feet. His knees hurt, and he felt a little giddy, probably from all the smoke in the room.

All three suites were choked with cigarette smoke, despite all the nonsmoking signs, and the whole s.p.a.ce reeked of wet clothes, body odor, rebreathed air, and stale farts. The carpets had disappeared under an inch-thick mat of crushed potato chips and pizza crust, and every flat surface was full of empty bottles and paper cups. Clear plastic bottles of spring water stood next to crushed cans of Canadian beer. He wondered sometimes how many people were here simply because he had a proven supply of snack foods and free beverages.

Well, not free.

There was nothing so gauche as a cover charge to get into Jed Culver's lair, but everyone in these rooms would pay a price for being here. Sometime, somewhere.

"Hey, Culver. Been looking for you."

He turned, looking for the owner of the harsh Brooklyn accent. Or Brooklyn by way of Warsaw, to Jed's well-traveled hearing.

"Mr. Cesky," he called back, over the din. "I've been looking for you, too. Wanted to thank you for your help yesterday."

Cesky, a short, thick-shouldered man with the hardened hands and beaten-down features of somebody who'd worked construction all his life, waved him off with one hairy, bandaged paw.

"Nah. Fuggedaboudit," he said. "What's money for if you can't f.u.c.kin' spend it to get what you want?"

Jed smiled but said nothing. For all of Cesky's two-fisted roughneck routine, he'd found him to be quite a shrewd operator. A hard nut, his old man would have called him. Not likely to crack under the hammer. The businessman was covered in suture marks and bandages from whatever misadventures he'd endured getting himself and his family out of southern Mexico. Cesky had said nothing to Jed, but the lawyer had done his background work before taking the man's favors, and he knew that after a couple of failed attempts, Henry Cesky had pulled off a remarkable escape from Acapulco, right in the middle of the city melting down. He had to have some kind of smarts, and he was obviously tough enough to have come through intact if not unharmed.

Like all men, however, he was cursed with his own particular weaknesses.

That crack about the money, for instance. That wasn't just for Jed's benefit, reminding him how much credit he'd poured into the lawyer's "discretionary account," his black-bag fund, for want of a gentler euphemism. It also let everyone within hearing distance know that Henry Cesky was no f.u.c.king chump. Henry Cesky had somehow managed to salvage a good deal of his personal fortune and what was left of his business, and Henry f.u.c.king Cesky was still a f.u.c.king player. Especially by the much-reduced standards of the American politics, as it was now being played out in the surviving seat of power, the Pacific Northwest.

He slipped one of his heavy arms around Jed's shoulder. With Cesky's s.h.i.+rtsleeves rolled up, Jed could feel the thick mat of gorilla fur on the man's forearm tickling the back of his neck. He ignored it. Getting inside your personal s.p.a.ce was a favored ploy of Cesky's, and as Jed had about four inches and a good number of pounds on him, he let it slide.

"What I wanted to talk to you about was them f.u.c.king army engineers," said Cesky. "They're doing a lot of work for the city at the moment and I can't help thinking that it could be done a lot f.u.c.king quicker and cheaper by the private sector, you know. By people who don't need to cross every f.u.c.king 'i' and dot every f.u.c.king 't' if you know what I mean."

Jed didn't correct him. He knew what the construction magnate meant.

"I hear you, Henry," he bellowed back. "I'm a hundred percent behind you on that. But for now, at least, the army's a law unto themselves here. You've seen that. They're still running this place, really."

And Jed had to wonder at that, given what he'd been hearing about relations between the city and Fort Lewis over the last month.

Cesky took his arm away. He'd had to reach up a ways, and it couldn't have been comfortable for him.

"Well, they need to get back in their f.u.c.king box," he said. "Or someone needs to put them there. I heard about what they did with the council guys. Playing the f.u.c.king heavy like that. No f.u.c.king wonder they got the contracts locked up for this joint, eh?"

Jed wanted to shake his head in amazement. Another Henry Cesky weakness was a complete inability to see the world in terms other than his own. He honestly regarded the army as little more than a rival firm, undercutting him on his bids for city work. In their position, it's what he would have done, so obviously that's what they'd been doing when they "sequestered" the local councillors during the worst of the immediate crisis following the Disappearance. They were simply looking to do Cesky out of a buck.

Un-f.u.c.king-believable.

Jed held up both palms.