The Edge of Madness (17 page)

Memories die slowly in the desert, and the Iranians had not forgotten. So was the
Reuben James
to be the
means of their revenge? As the day drew on and temperatures rose, fingers grew tighter on every trigger. And in the Persian Gulf, there were so many triggers.

Saturday, 2.22 p.m. Castle Lorne.

Harry headed up the stairs to his room, taking them two at a time, so swiftly that the old oak boards didn’t even have time to squeak. He was hurrying not simply to change his shoes–the gong had already been sounded to summon them all–but also to leave behind what the Prime Minister had said. He was seeing Mark D’Arby in a new and far less attractive light.

He had just reached the neck of the stairs when he came to an abrupt halt. Ahead of him, in the hallway, he saw Shunin. The Russian was coming out of Harry’s room, quietly closing the door behind him.

The Russian hadn’t seen him and Harry was about to retreat, not wanting to let the other man know he’d been spotted, when Shunin set off in the opposite direction towards the back staircase. As he passed his son-in-law’s room he paused. For a moment he seemed to be debating whether to go in. Then he stiffened and hurried on, disappearing from sight.

You get around, don’t you? Harry whispered to himself. What was the bastard up to? Harry scurried to his room, seeking answers, and his first impression was that nothing had changed–perhaps the Russian had simply lost his way, grown confused in a strange house,
wandered in innocently? But even as he offered up the excuse, he knew it was bollocks. Innocence and Sergei Illich Shunin were such improbable bedfellows. He scanned the room, everything seemed as he’d left it, except…Weren’t the pillows disturbed? Hadn’t the contents of his drawer been lifted and left rumpled, and those clothes hanging in the cupboard pushed just a little further along the rail? Harry was an orderly man, not anal but simply disciplined from the days when you either assembled the components of your assault rifle in the dark in precisely the right order or ran the risk of a bullet from the bad guys. And, damn it, his things had been moved, he was sure of it. Then in the bathroom he discovered his wash bag sitting on the wrong side of the sink–OK, so maybe he was a little anal, he admitted, but there were worse things. Worse things, too, than finding your wash bag had been tampered with, but what the hell was the Russian President up to? Nothing good, that was for sure.

Saturday, 2.30 p.m. Castle Lorne.

Someone had decided they should pick up their business in the library–perhaps it was Flora, to enable her to make preparations for the evening meal in the dining hall. As Harry walked in, it was as though he had been presented with a picture that would tell the whole story of what was to come. Washington was huddled with Shunin, seated in two of the deep arm
chairs. The American was animated, clutching the cracked leather arms and levering himself forward in his eagerness to draw closer to the Russian. Shunin sat back, listening with intent. They didn’t appear to notice Harry as he came in, or perhaps they simply didn’t bother. Meanwhile, D’Arby was checking the news channel once more, leaving Blythe to gaze out of the window, a little apart from the rest. She was fiddling with her wedding ring, twisting it, pulling it over the knuckle. When Harry crossed to join her, she shot him a look that might have cut a lesser man in two.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered in immediate apology. She took a deep restorative breath. ‘I spent lunchtime with a coat hanger pretending the pillow was Arnie. I beat the crap out of him. Feathers everywhere.’ She jammed the wedding ring back tight on her finger. ‘Mrs MacDougall will be as mad as hell.’

‘She’s a woman. And she’s a Scot. Her only complaint will be that you let him off lightly.’

She managed a guilty smile.

‘When Mel and I split, I almost ran out of coat hangers.’

‘Is that why you started leaving your coat slung across the backs of chairs all over town? Because you’d run out of coat hangers?’

Ouch. She was blazing away in all directions. It seemed she wasn’t in the mood to be friends with anyone at the moment–at least, not with anyone in trousers. ‘No,’ Harry responded, determined not to rise
to the bait, ‘I simply went out and bought more coat hangers. They’re the easy things to replace.’

They began to settle themselves in an informal group, sitting by the library’s vast window, as outside the gulls plunged and soared in the air currents rushing past the face of the castle. As Harry crossed the room to join the group, he began to realise what a bizarre bunch they made. He wondered whether any of them were fit for the decisions they were about to take. Not that summits had ever been the orderly occasions people might expect. In Harry’s experience such gatherings were often carried out in varying states of exhaustion or inebriation, or both. George Bush Sr. had been plain unlucky when he’d thrown up in the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister, that had been a genuine case of food poisoning, but Brezhnev had been drugged up to the eyeballs while Yeltsin had been so drunk in Ireland he couldn’t even get off his plane. At least, fast asleep, he couldn’t do too much harm.

‘No Lavrenti?’ Harry asked.

‘He is not well,’ Shunin replied gruffly. ‘He had an accident. Slipped in the bathroom. He–’ Shunin waved his hand across his face–‘has a headache.’

‘I bet he has,’ Harry whispered, to no one but himself.

They were interrupted by Mrs MacDougall, who had come to ensure that all their needs were satisfied. Her face was still clouded by the damage that had been done to her carefully planned lunch. ‘Are there any
requirements?’ she asked in the manner of a seaside landlady kept up by rowdy guests.

‘I wouldn’t mind a vodka, if you have one,’ the Russian replied.

‘This is a family home, not a distillery, Mr Shunin,’ she replied tartly. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else you require…’ She glared at them. They lowered their eyes, like guilty schoolchildren, even Shunin. ‘Then dinner will be served at seven o’clock–sharp!’ And with that, she bustled away.

‘She reminds me of my mother,’ Shunin said in quiet appreciation as the door closed on them.

‘Now you understand why Hadrian built his wall,’ D’Arby added.

They enjoyed their joke, even Shunin. It was a small but welcome distraction from what lay ahead, a way to relieve the tension as they settled back and began to prepare for war.

But war had already overtaken them.

Saturday, 2.37 p.m. The Sizewell B reactor, Suffolk.

The duty physicist was still several minutes away, clinging to the back of a commandeered police motorcycle, already too late to prevent catastrophe. The pressure in the reactor core was continuing to rise, and now the instruments that recorded the rate of flow of the coolant were beginning to act up. The engineers still couldn’t work it out, but at the heart of the reactor core, beyond
the limits of their understanding, the melting fuel rods were beginning to create blockages inside the cooling system. The reactor was out of control. The slow, localized, almost imperceptible meander towards disaster was about to turn into a sprint.

Yet the instrumentation in the control room still suggested that everything was in order, almost. The engineers were puzzled more than panicked, right up to the point when monitors positioned near the pipes that carried the coolant began to go haywire, blasting out a warning. Radiation was finding its way
outside
the reactor core, and the levels were rising. It was a sign that the fuel was failing–melting. And as it did so it threatened to spew radiation over the surrounding countryside, not by blowing its lid as Chernobyl had done but through a creeping, invisible tide of nuclear pollution on a scale Britain had never known.

The desk engineer gasped, his thoughts overwhelmed by the sudden outpouring of alarms. He cast a bewildered look at his screens, then turned to his supervisor. As their eyes met, the moment seemed endless as their unspoken fears tripped over each other, although the report of the Royal Commission of Enquiry later revealed that they had hesitated for no longer than a couple of seconds.

The minds of the men in the control room were racing. They knew the potential consequences. Sizewell stood on the coast. Any leak of radiation would find its way straight to the sea. Millions of residents along the
east coast of England would have to be evacuated. The swirling currents and tides would disperse the radioactivity over a huge area, throughout the fishing grounds of the North Sea, right up to the oil and gas fields that kept the British economy afloat. The tides would even push this atomic storm into the Thames Estuary until it had reached the heart of London itself.

Catastrophe.

Then they began to think about the consequences for themselves, and for their families, of standing in the middle of the greatest radioactive puddle in history. It was at that point that the supervisor screamed, and the desk engineer thumped the large red button in front of him. It tripped the reactor, which immediately began to shut itself down. It flooded the core with coolant, yet the neat geometry that should have allowed the coolant to pour freely between the fuel rods had long since disappeared. A large number of rods were no longer in place but slopping around in a radioactive sludge at the bottom of the reactor. That sludge was still heating up and eating its way through the steel casing, towards the world outside.

Saturday, 3.12 p.m. Castle Lorne.

The wind had freshened, it seemed a storm might be brewing. ‘So, run something past me. How would this attack of yours work?’ Blythe Edwards asked.

It was a question that, like the blustery currents outside, seemed to imply a new course. It indicated she was at least willing to consider the idea of an attack, but they also noticed her use of the conditional. She was still sitting on the fence, but pulses raced faster.

Washington took up the challenge, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand as though attempting to polish it still further. ‘This is what we do,’ he began, indicating that there were no qualms on his part. ‘We act on this thing together. Everything together. Attack and Explain, our two guiding rules.’ He cast around, making sure they were paying attention. ‘So, we all have some idea where the Chinese cyber facilities are located–no, I know it’s not a comprehensive inventory, Madam President,’ he added quickly, warding off
Blythe’s half-formed question, ‘but if we pool our information we’re going to be able to build a pretty accurate picture. Join up a large number of the dots. Now, as I’ve already said, these will be mostly soft targets, not buried underground or burrowed into mountains but located on university campuses and in research institutes and the like. We know how it is in our own countries. Most of these facilities have been built with kids, by kids, for kids. In military terms it’s no more of a challenge than kicking over a playpen.’

In Russia, Shunin reflected, they’d begun to go quite a lot further than that, and he suspected the Americans had, too, as the world started to catch on to the lurid potential of cyber-struggle, but the point was fair enough. By comparison with the rest of the military game, cyber remained something of a cottage industry.

‘OK. So if we pool this information, we know what to target. And if we also pool our strike capabilities, we’re in business. We use nothing too big–certainly nothing they might mistake as nuclear. First thing, we hit them with every bit of kit in our cyber armoury, try to blind them in the headlights, but we’ve got to expect that they’re going to be ready for that. We can’t rely on a cyber attack working all by itself. So simultaneously we hit them physically, too. We use precision-guided munitions, JDAM bombs, that sort of thing, but since many of the Chinese facilities will be a considerable way inland we’ll have to rely extensively on cruise missiles. These attacks will also
have to be at night to lessen the extent of any collateral damage.’

‘You mean casualties,’ Blythe said.

‘Correct. Make sure the university campuses and office complexes aren’t flooded with people.’

He made himself sound almost like a humanitarian, Harry thought.

‘And these attacks will be launched from where?’ Blythe pressed.

‘Good question. We’d have trouble with the natives if we used our bases in Taiwan and South Korea without warning, and we can’t afford to consult them because they’d only go and squawk to their cousins in China. Mainly, I think, we’ll rely on the navy, use missiles based on carriers and submarines. Tomahawks. And it would be a great opportunity to try out our newest bit of kit, the Joint Strike Fighter, we have some in our Pacific Fleet. Coordinate everything with our Russian friends, of course, share out the targets. Try and get the job done in a first strike. The Chinese air defences aren’t up to much, but we wouldn’t want to go back in after they’d been alerted.’

Shunin nodded thoughtfully and in agreement.

‘No warning,’ Washington continued. ‘Total surprise.’

‘Surely we have to give them at least a chance to back down,’ Blythe interrupted. ‘An ultimatum. Twelve hours, even. Something to cover our backs with neutrals.’

Washington turned to the Russian. ‘How long did it take for Sosnovy Bor to go critical, Mr President?’

‘Not even twelve minutes,’ Shunin replied dully.

‘Give them any sort of warning and we hand the Chinese an opportunity to scramble all our satellite-guidance systems, maybe even the warheads,’ Washington continued. ‘The missiles might not even get there.’

‘But we have no idea whether the Chinese have that capability,’ Blythe persisted.

‘Precisely, Madam President. We don’t know. So we don’t take that chance.’

And now, thought Harry, we are planning a war based on fear–fear of the unknown. Something like that had started World War One. But now D’Arby was intent on having his say.

‘I want to make it clear that the British will be part of this, and right behind you. We may not have much left in terms of military capability in the Far East, but whatever we can do, it will be done.’

‘Your most important form of support, Prime Minister, comes in the next phase, I think,’ Washington replied. ‘The propaganda war. The information offensive. I’ve already drawn up a few chapter headings.’ He spread sheets of hand-written notes across the low table in front of them.

‘There’s also the little matter of explaining it to ourselves, to our own people,’ a voice added quietly. It was Harry. Blythe nodded in agreement.

‘Together!’ D’Arby burst in. ‘That’s what makes it all work, Harry. I go to the Cabinet and say that the United
States and Russia are in this with us, that we’re as one, a band of brothers, and not one of them will dare stand against such a tide. It’s the tide of history, Harry. Hell, which side are they gonna take? Western civilization or the Oriental plague?’

‘Seize the moment!’ Washington applauded enthusiastically. The tide was already flowing.

Yet immediately it swept up against Blythe Edwards. She was unwilling to be moved so easily. ‘If we hit them without warning, we give them every reason for striking back.’

‘So what would you have us do, Madam President,’ Shunin said, ‘wait until St Petersburg has melted into a radioactive haze?’

‘It’ll work,’ Washington insisted. ‘These cyber facilities–they’re a little like a jigsaw puzzle. Lots of small, independent pieces that mean nothing until they’re brought together. We kick the jigsaw to bits, scatter the pieces, take half of them away, and it’ll take time for them to be put back in shape. Time that we must use. To boost our cyber defence. Embargo their markets. Kick out their students. Cut off their contacts. Sure, we make soothing noises, too, offer them the hand of peace, but until they take it we blow every single one of their goddamned satellites out of the sky. Have them looking at stardust for the next twenty years, if that’s what it takes.’

‘It’s feasible. If we do it together,’ Shunin said.

‘You’d agree to that, Sergei? Pool your cyber resources with ours?’ Blythe asked.

His eyes stared at her across the rim of his glass, but they were no longer little chunks of permafrost. They had grown animated, had caught some new light and now sparkled. ‘You scratch my back, Madam President, and I’ll be more than happy to scratch yours.’

Christ, thought Harry. Here they were plotting World War Three and the Russian was hitting on the President of the United States. He felt sure Franklin Roosevelt had never had that effect on Joe Stalin.

Saturday, 3.43 p.m. Balmoral Castle.

The shafts of responsibility for the disastrous situation of the
Reuben James
were flying around the world. As soon as he had become aware of the magnitude of the situation, the commander of the US 5th Fleet had alerted the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He in turn had summoned his colleagues on the JCS and alerted the Secretary of Defense. Members of the National Security Council had also been informed, although not instructed to gather. It was an August weekend, many were out of town, and the decisions that were required to salvage the situation weren’t going to hang around for their holiday plans.

It was also a great pity, given the fraught circumstances, that both the President and her National Security Advisor were abroad. Still, it was always possible to keep them in the loop through the White House, no matter where they were. Several large fortunes had been spent
over the years on the most sophisticated communications systems in the world to make sure that was so.

The crisis had caught up with Warren Holt shortly after lunch. Since then, his telephone had scarcely stopped ringing, and with every call his mood had grown more desperate. He now knew it had been madness on his part to let the President disappear, and the consequences for indulging her folly would be terrible. He had lied, to everyone, said she was unwell and in bed yet he had assured them that she was following every detail. It had started with a small deceit that with every successive conversation had turned into a far greater lie. God, it was like Watergate.

He had to stop it. Perhaps there was still time. She’d said she wasn’t to be contacted for anything short of war, but this mess in the Persian Gulf might yet be as good as. She had also said he would have to decide. And so he did. He took her envelope from his breast pocket where it had stayed since the moment she had given it to him. His hands were trembling. The paper was thick, heavily woven, with a royal crest on it. He opened the envelope and extracted its single sheet of paper.

Then he dialled.

Dialled again.

And again.

Nothing. Just a recorded message to tell him the number was temporarily out of service, and that he should try again later.

The phone slipped from his sweat-streaked fingers and started swinging giddily from the end of its wire. It reminded him of a body on a gibbet. Stiffly he bent to retrieve it. It wasn’t just his hands, his knees were unsteady, too. It took two attempts before he was able to replace the phone in its cradle. Warren Holt felt ashamed. He knew he was about to panic.

Saturday, 4.10 p.m. British Summer Time; 11.10 p.m. in the Room of Many Miracles, Shanjing.

‘We have finished our first task, Minister.’

Fu Zhang leaned back in his chair and let forth an almost post-coital sigh. Then he remained silent, staring at the screens he did not understand, wrapped in this moment of triumph. It was some while before he was able to rouse himself. ‘What is next?’

Li Changchun tapped a few keys and a different set of views began dancing on the screens in front of them. ‘The London Flood Barrier,’ he announced. ‘It protects their capital. We will cripple the barrier, but this will not be discovered until a high tide coincides with a storm surge. At that point the control systems will go haywire. The barrier will stay down, even as the Thames starts rising.’

‘Do they not have an override? A manual system? Surely they cannot be so foolish.’

‘Oh, yes, but that requires power. And when the next hide tide meets up with a storm surge…’ Li shrugged
his shoulders. ‘They will discover a major electrical malfunction. Their emergency generators will begin to vibrate until they disintegrate in a cloud of smoke and metal splinters.’

‘You can do that?’

‘
You
will do it, Minister. Once again you will have the privilege of taking the final step!’

Fu Zhang’s lips were working as hard as a whore’s. ‘And what will be the consequence?’

‘Very simple, Minister. London will drown.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Most of the important parts of the capital lie on a flood plain. Hundreds of years ago, when the river flooded, they rowed boats through their Parliament building at Westminster. And fifty years ago, before the barrier was built, the tide rose nearly forty feet and hundreds perished. Yet they have learned nothing. They have continued building more and more of their vital facilities in the same area, thinking they are safe. The barrier for them is their Great Wall, the only thing that lies between the City of London and complete disaster.’

‘But–will they know the cause? Will they be able to tell it was us?’

Li smiled. ‘We have taken temporary ownership of the computer system that runs the tax affairs of the government of Nigeria. That, in turn, has routed instructions through the command and control facilities of the Plesetsk space centre.’

‘Russia?’

‘And that is what the British will find when they climb out of the mud and start looking. The British will suspect the Russians, the Russians will blame the Africans, and they will all grow dizzy. It will be like looking for grains of sugar in a bowl of porridge. They may have their suspicions but they will never find their proof.’

‘They have grown old, addled, accustomed only to fighting battles on television. They will not fight with wet socks!’ Fu Zhang chortled. ‘Li Changchun, I will not forget what you have done.’

‘But, Minister, we have only just begun.’

‘More? There is more?’

Li indicated a group of his colleagues who were gathered before a series of screens on the far side of the room. ‘The largest computer system in Britain is the one which controls their health service. The medical records of every person in the country have been captured on one central system. The expense and effort have been vast. All their most intimate details have been gathered together.’ Li’s face lit with pleasure. ‘They have built us the finest playground in the world.’

Fu Zhang started applauding.

‘The system contains private, painful details they would not share with their closest friends, and certainly not their families, Minister. Did you know, for instance, that the British Foreign Secretary’s wife is being treated for a sexually transmitted disease? And that she is
unable to identify for certain the lover who gave it to her?’

‘No, I did not!’

‘And neither, we suspect, does the Foreign Secretary. Not yet, at least.’

Fu Zhang’s enthusiasm left him short of breath. ‘Think of it–sixty million secrets, scattered to the wind,’ he panted. ‘Sixty million people with every reason to resent and mistrust their government. Sixty million revolutionaries!’

‘As Sun Tzu said, Minister, it is not always necessary to drop bombs in order to win wars.’

Saturday, 4.28 p.m. Castle Lorne.

‘People will die. I want to know how many?’ the American President said.

‘Very few. An infinitesimally small part of the Chinese population,’ her security advisor replied. He was standing, looking out of the window. Dark clouds were writhing on the horizon; a storm was brewing to the west and headed their way.