Nuclear Midnight (29 page)

‘Besides you have no experience of planning or executing such a raid,’ Marcus continued as an afterthought.

‘Neither has anyone else!’

‘That's true, but there are people a lot better qualified for the job than you, who will also carry out the orders I give them, without question.’

‘I have a good deal of support in the committee, you know,’ Terry said defiantly. ‘I will get them to vouch for me.’

‘You can do what you like,’ Marcus replied mildly.

Terry grunted, then turned away abruptly and stormed out of the office.

With a sigh, Marcus sat down and drained his tea to the dregs, then, reached for a notepad from under a pile of loose papers on his desk, he frowned, poised his pen and began to write steadily, filling the page.

Three hours later, at the committee meeting, things went pretty much how Marcus had anticipated. Terry had been busy lobbying for support and had several members arguing heatedly for his cause. He had also drawn up a very comprehensive plan for the assault, which he made a great show of explaining to the committee. Indeed, the plan was excellent. He had divided the assault party into two groups. Both groups would enter sector seventeen via several large ventilation shafts on the surface. While one would concentrate on reaching the armament stores and wiping out any military, the second group would mine the tunnels that connected that sector to the rest of the city.

The debate was long and arduous, but at its conclusion Marcus had succeeded in placing Jeff Barrett in command of the operation. He had been a police officer before the war and had extensive training in tactical response work and anti-terrorist activities. From all accounts he had strong leadership qualities and a cool head if the situation became difficult. Terry was placed second in command. The assault team would be composed of two hundred men. Jeff would lead the attack on sector seventeen, while Terry would be in charge of sealing off the sector. The strike would begin soon after the army had taken up position outside the city. At first, scouting parties would be sent out at night to verify the positions of the ventilation vents. All being well, the saboteurs would descend into the complex a few hours before dawn on the following day. Just as dawn was breaking, they would detonate all the explosives, effectively sealing off sector seventeen. On the surface, all entrances would be simultaneously closed. The army would then swarm over the whole area, picking off any military guards who attempted to escape. In this way, the military should be cut off from their tanks and armaments and marooned underground. Radio contact would then be made with the city and the demands of the survivors put forward. If the military still didn't agree to abort their plans, the ammunition dumps in sector seventeen would be blown up, probably taking the whole city with them.

After the meeting Marcus returned to his office, well satisfied. The task of organising and leading the community's army had fallen on him, as he knew it would. He had already completed most of the requisitioning of supplies. Contingency plans remained to be considered. If, for some reason, the battle turned into a long, drawn out siege, the supplying of the army would create enormous problems. Since the surface was still largely a wasteland, all food would have to be drawn from the Welsh community's stocks. By his calculations, based on current estimates, the war had to be decided one way or another in three weeks. At a pinch, the food stocks could be stretched to five weeks, but the physical condition of the army would suffer.

The kettle boiled and he made himself a fresh pot of tea. Tea, he always found, helped to clear his thoughts. It would be work for him, far into the night again.

CHAPTER 15

Dawn, and the land was in twilight, barely visible as a murky, red stained surface, rising through a soup of mist. To the east, purples, magentas and reds, the many auras of the sun, pushed upward through the thick atmosphere of the horizon. Then, like an incandescent fireball, the sun detached itself, climbed higher and shrunk through reds and oranges to its normal size. The warmth of its rays, laden with ultra violet, could be felt at once, dissipating the night dews and stirring up wind eddies. Within an hour strong winds had swept the last of the mist from the valleys. The land had been laid bare for another day, the cities ghastly in decay, and the lacework of motorways remaining as the only testament to man. In the savannah of dried grassland, the howls from packs of dogs and insect hazes rose to greet the sun.

Yet this morning there was an additional sound. Along one of the motorways an active line, like a monstrous column of ants, snaked its way slowly south. Its front roared, as walls of bulldozers cut a path through rusted cars and rag covered skeletons. Behind them came tanks, rocket launchers, mounted artillery and supply vehicles. To either side of them, stony faced men and women marched along. A vanguard over twenty five thousand strong had been armed with modern weapons. Another fifteen thousand carried spears fashioned from iron railings, axes, sharpened picks and an assortment of implements of home manufacture. An imposing force, but it represented the total strength in arms of the two communities. The decision had been made to throw everything into this assault. There would be no second wave. Victory or defeat would be decided at the city.

Riding in a large, armour plated van near the front of the column was Marcus. With him were Dimintri Antoni and Peter McCaffrey from the Scottish community. Since the meeting of the two armies several days previously, the three of them had been engaged in long discussions. Neither Dimintri nor Peter had raised any serious objections to the assault plans Marcus had proposed, and in the disposition of forces they deferred to him.

By the evening, if all went according to plan, the army would be less than forty kilometres from the city. Somewhere in between, scouting parties were already fanning out, searching the land for any sign of the military. So far nothing had been seen and, as Alex had reported, the whole sector appeared devoid of human life, though the villages remained untouched. No intelligence was available within a ten-kilometre radius of the underground city. These areas would not be explored until darkness fell and the army had taken up its position.

Marcus, seated by one of the windows, stared out dejectedly at the passing countryside. They were traversing the once beautiful valley of the river Severn. He remembered many trips into this area in the back of his father's old Vauxhall. Mother and Father had sat up in front and his elder sister had teased him continually when their backs were turned. With the windows wound down, the scent of flowers in the spring had been intoxicating; in autumn the woods had flamed with colour. And years later, when he was posted to Birmingham, he had travelled the back roads and lanes through this region on his way to see his girlfriend in Cardiff. Along the banks of the Severn were some of their favourite picnic spots. Now that landscape, the creation of a thousand years, was gone. The river, even its most secluded reaches, was poisoned, the flowers no longer bloomed, the population was dead. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift back through the years. All the work, the excitement, the tardy reward of promotion, the endless drill, the passion for order which eventually consumed his whole life   that had been his world. There, insulated from reality, men had planned imaginary manoeuvres to counter imaginary threats. When war was talked about it was with a certain glint in the eye, as though this was what all their training had been preparing them for, the ultimate accolade. Somewhere in that kaleidoscope of fractured impressions he had become lost. Or, maybe, he had finally found himself. He had discovered the meaning of it all: that there was no meaning. The rot set in at that point. His realisation brought with it a restlessness and a horrible sense of waste. His whole life was a useless nightmare. Better not to think those thoughts. Better to bury oneself in the war games and the routine, reassuring the stumbling faith that you were preparing your country in case the unthinkable happened. But the unthinkable was not assessable to reason, that was the problem. Irrational weapons to fight an unthinkable war. That way madness lies. In the finish you end up staring down each other's cannon and the sequel was as inevitable as the dawning day.

Marcus opened his eyes again and continued watching the passing countryside. And now like the re run of an old, tacky movie they were back at the beginning. We would make the first strike to avoid being struck.

These past few weeks of tension had been a very difficult time for Alex. He and Elaine had not been getting on well. In fact they had been fighting like cats since their arrival back at the community. Both were now utterly polarised in their views. She had thrown up the threat to join one of the forward units. But it had failed to dissuade Alex from doing so; now she was flatly refusing to have anything to do with the fighting and had attached herself to a supply unit in the rear. If the army was defeated, she would be one of the first back into Wales. The combined fleets of the two communities waited at anchor off Holyhead, ready to ferry the survivors to Ireland if necessary. Elaine had wanted Alex to agree to flee with her if the military broke through, but he had refused. This was the fruitful cause of fresh arguments. She wanted him retreating safely with her; he wanted to fight till there was no chance of winning. He couldn’t help thinking of Tina after these arguments. She was not like Elaine in that sense. The battle with Tina would be to stop her fighting alongside him to the very end. Elaine’s choice was better in that sense. Knowing she would be safe was a great comfort, but he couldn't forget all that had happened, and he couldn't wash his hands of this last great struggle. He was constrained by too many painful memories. He would be fighting for the people who were already lost: for Martin, Debbie and their daughter, for all the people at ‘The Chronicle’, for Jason, Tina and Wayne. Thinking of them alone forced him into the front line for one final, terrible confrontation. Roy, Cliff and he would vent their rage together. He wanted his revenge.

The column didn't stop moving until well after midnight. Alex had left Roy and Cliff soon after dark and had worked his way to the rear, where a large proportion of the Welsh community's supply vehicles were camped. This would be his last chance to see Elaine. Once the army reached their positions outside the city, there would be no opportunities for leave taking. The attack could come at any time.

And yet, once he had found her, he had no idea what he was going to say. Really nothing had changed; he was still as determined as ever to fight. But he felt somehow, things had been left unfinished. He couldn't bear the thought of going to meet the enemy with the knowledge that the last words he had said to her had been angry ones. Their relationship deserved a better ending. No, he thought savagely, not ‘ending’; that was too negative. This was not the end; it was just a temporary lull, a passing phase. When the military was defeated he looked forward to a long and happy life with Elaine. For when all was said and done, their dispute basically boiled down to her concern for his safety. If more tranquil times were coming, they would never need to argue.

He asked continually as he went along where supply unit twelve, the unit Elaine had joined, could be located. Eventually, his searching brought him to a small circle of campfires surrounded by over a dozen supply trucks. A group of about forty people were gathered there. In the light of the fires, Alex could see that most of them were either women or older men, some with physical disabilities that would have prevented them from fighting. They had just finished dinner and several pots of water were gurgling away among the flames. As with nearly all the camp sites he had visited so far, the survivors were talking amongst themselves happily, no doubt excited at meeting members of the Scottish community and at the same time being given a chance to escape the tedium of hard work. He doubted the rank and file had any idea of the seriousness of the situation. Not even the officers could guess what they would be up against. This had been done deliberately by Marcus and his Scottish counterparts in case the military agreed to a climb down. To tell the truth about them would be to risk the possibility of a bloodbath. So the army had simply been told that an underground city had been found full of food and sophisticated technology. This show of force was intended to let its occupants know that the survivors meant to have their share of its wealth.

Elaine was not among the group at the fires. But further off he spotted her, a tall, slim figure standing slightly apart from the others. He drew a deep breath as he remembered their last torrid meeting.

As he approached she moved towards the fires to warm her hands. Alex paused for a moment and watched. Like everyone else, she was wearing a grey shirt and pants. Her clothes, however, were too large for her, giving her body no definite shape, except where the black belt clung tightly around her waist. From what he could see of her face the bruising had gone, although several curls of her hair were draped across it, obscuring his full view. He came forward into the light and waited for her to look up. At first she didn't notice him, but kept her head bowed staring distantly into the flames. Then, as though conscious of being watched, she raised her head and looked straight at him. For a moment longer her eyes remained hazy, unfocused. Then she realised and her face lit up.

‘Alex!’ she squealed with delight.

She danced round the fire and threw herself into his arms. There they clung tightly, she to him and he to her, neither wanting to let go. For long moments they continued their embrace. When they finally released each other he noticed that her eyes were moist. She was smiling at him with the kind of warmth that made his resolve to fight wither within him. He kissed her gently on the lips and she responded with unexpected feeling. Her arms slid up his back to his head and pressed his face into hers, burying him in a mass of blonde curls. Then, as suddenly as she had started, she stopped and drew away. Alex felt as if a door had been opened, then slammed in his face. A harsh, resentful expression had appeared on her face.

‘I just wanted you to know,’ she said, ‘what you are missing and that you mean more to me than any of this.’ She flung her arms open wide to indicate the scatter of armoured trucks and troop carriers around them. ‘I only want a chance for us both to start again.’

‘I know, I know,’ he said soothingly. ‘When this is all over…’

‘What will you do if they break through your lines at the city?’ she interrupted. ‘How can you hope to get back in time to catch the boats to Ireland? You'll be on foot and they'll have troop carriers and tanks. They'll cut off your escape route, then hunt you down like animals.’ She was glaring at him now, her jaw rigid and her lips drawn in a tight, determined line. ‘If you were further back at least you'd have a chance. We could even use these trucks to get away.’

They faced each other without speaking. Alex could sense the faint spark of hope in her eyes.

He lowered his head.

‘SHIT! ALEX.’ She drew a deep breath and averted her head suddenly. ‘Why do you have to fight at the front? One less person, what difference would that make? Who would know?’

‘I would know,’ Alex replied sternly. ‘I would have to live with it.’ They had been over the same ground so many times.

‘But there can be many ways of fighting. You don't need to be at the front to fight.’

‘That's my place…that's where I'm going.’

‘I don't believe you're really fighting for the defence of the survivors at all,’ she said after a pause. ‘I think the real reason is that you want revenge.’

He shrugged. ‘Revenge is part of the reason.’

‘More than part.’

Alex thought for a moment. ‘I'm fighting for all the people the military have killed,’ he said. ‘I'm fighting to stop them from doing the same thing again.’

‘You're fighting for yourself, Alex,’ she corrected. ‘You want to kill. You love it. You want to see them die. You don't care how many. Can't you ever think about life, about me, about the future?’

‘Don't be ridiculous!’ He turned away suddenly and walked over to the fire, feeling angry and not knowing how to reply.

‘Well I'm not going to watch you die,’ she called after him bitterly. ‘If we lose the battle, I'll return to the Welsh community and catch one of the boats for Ireland.’

He nodded without looking around.

‘If you change your mind about the fighting, I'll be here,’ she added, striding off.

He saw no more of her that night.

The next day, at dawn, the column shunted forward on the last forty kilometre hop to the city. Alex was riding on the back of one of the Lorries, next to Cliff and Roy. Cliff had guessed from Alex’s face that the night before things had not gone well with Elaine. Roy, however, lacking Cliff’s perception, had asked bluntly what had happened. With equal bluntness Alex had filled in the main points of their disagreement.

For Roy it had never occurred to him not to fight. The subtlety of Elaine's argument was therefore lost on him. ‘They want to wipe us out; we've got to stop 'em,’ was his verdict. As far as he was concerned that was the end of the matter.