World War Moo (29 page)

The moon had come out from a break in the clouds. It haloed Fanny's head, making her look like an angel. Lesley, her mind and body already pushed to breaking point, dug her fingers into the grass to reassure herself she was neither dreaming nor dead and being welcomed to Heaven by Fanny. “I believe I'm going mental.”

*   *   *

An hour later they sat around the fire, up to speed on each other's stories. Lesley clutched a cup of herbal tea, still scarcely able to credit that she'd been thrown back together with the remnants of the Peters family. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, the saying went. She hadn't forgotten the past, far from it, yet here she was anyway. One plus point was that Fanny was alive, although badly scarred, which meant Lesley could remove one death from the tally stacking up against her. Fanny looked remarkably calm regarding the bombshell Lesley had dropped about the real bombshells soon to be dropped. Geldof wasn't maintaining his composure as well.

“I can't believe they'd kill so many people just like that,” he said.

“Really?” Fanny said. “Let me give you a few examples. The Holocaust. Hiroshima. Cambodia. Nigeria. Rwanda. Bosnia. Iraq. Syria. If the human mind is capable of such atrocities, why do you think it can't be done now? You could argue this would be easier. Most of the people in all those countries were truly innocent. In Britain, many have killed. Many will kill again, given half the chance. They can justify it to themselves and others on those grounds. I told you before, people have to choose to be something better. The virus is giving us that pressure. What do they have?”

“Conscience? It's wrong.”

“Right and wrong is defined by those with the power to make decisions. We have to assume this is going to happen.” Fanny paused to rub her face. “I know you want to stay, and I know I said I would respect your wishes, but this changes everything. When your mercenaries figure out an escape route, and they'll be a lot more motivated when they hear what Lesley has to say, you need to go with them.”

“Only if you come with me,” he said, hugging himself.

“You know that's not going to happen,” Fanny said.

“Then I'm staying. There's no way out anyway, you know that. We can die together.”

“While that's a lovely sentiment, let's not get all fatalistic,” said a large man in tie-dye, who'd been roused from his bed along with all the other camp residents to hear what Lesley had to say. “If she writes the story about the attack and what we're doing, there's a chance public opinion could stop them.”

As Lesley looked at all of the infected calmly gathered around her, for the first time she began to believe it was possible. She'd been one of the most vociferous proponents of sinking the whole damned island into the sea, yet here she sat amongst a group who were most assuredly still people. If they could resist the virus, it stood to reason that everybody else could. If the world knew that and saw humanity still existed on the island, surely they would rise up against the barbarity of genocide. All of those lives saved would compensate for the deaths she'd caused and, with luck, end her jinx.

“You'd better get to work, then,” Fanny told her.

Even though she could barely keep her eyes open, Lesley nodded. “Maybe you can come with me, and we can talk while I write. I'll need some good quotes.”

Once they were in the hangar and the Internet was ready to go, Lesley opened up Gmail and started typing in her account details.

“What are you doing?” Fanny said.

“I want to get a message to Terry to tell him I'm okay.”

“Bad idea. They might be monitoring your and his accounts for activity.”

“But they think I'm dead.”

“Do you really want to take the chance? We can't give them any warning about this story. You can send him an e-mail after.”

Reluctantly, Lesley shut the window. “Can I use your e-mail to send it to my editor?”

“Same thing goes for your editor's account. The only way this story is going out is for it to go viral. We need to send it to every activist, blogger, campaigning group, and newspaper at once, and we need to do it from an e-mail account they won't be expecting. So we use mine.”

And so Lesley sat with Fanny until 4:00 a.m., bashing away on the keyboard until she was gritty-eyed and almost seeing double. The story itself was inelegant and awkwardly written thanks to her exhaustion, but it was also a raw and powerful cry for humanity. Fanny had also encouraged her to edit out any details that may give a hint to her location, pointing out that it would be very easy for the U.S. to take them out with a drone. Lesley did, however, make mention of the fact that there was at least one person who was immune. As far as she knew, the young girl Ruan was the only recorded case of somebody who was able to resist the virus. If they started frying everybody, then that person, whose blood may hold the key to a cure, would be lost. They only had one argument about the story, and that came when Lesley tried to withhold her own name. She focused the article on Jack: how he'd come forward with the story, been abducted, and then died. Her role was as an anonymous journalist.

When Fanny read the draft, she poked Lesley in the arm. “Why are you leaving yourself out?”

Lesley didn't have the energy to explain the thoughts that had been swirling around her brain for the last few months. “I just don't think it should be about me.”

“That's nonsense. You're a name. You have credibility. You used to be all for incinerating us. Your name has to be on it and your story central to it. That way people will be more likely to listen.”

Lesley knew she was right and went back to write herself in, feeling sick as she knew her fame would now only grow. When it was done, they pasted it into the e-mail Fanny had prepared addressing thousands of people and urging them to pass it on, and hit send. Then they sat back to wait, which Lesley did face down on the table until a blank sleep of exhaustion claimed her.

 

24

The generals sat in the Operation Excision command and control center set up in the bowels of the Pentagon, upturned soda cups filched from McDonald's on the table in front of each of them, beneath a canopy of cigar and cigarette smoke. They'd stayed behind in the otherwise deserted room—not because they had work to do but because it was General Zhang's turn to present his culture through the lens of gambling large sums of money.

They'd kicked off the second leg of the cultural exchange two hours earlier with mah-jongg, which Zhang introduced as a game of skill, strategy, and calculation. To General Carter, as he tried to make sense of the bewildering set of Chinese characters on green and white tiles, it had seemed only like a game guaranteed to fill Zhang's pockets. He didn't make a fuss, though: he won the round of golf and would come out even when the inevitable loss happened. General Kuzkin, who'd finished his round with a score well into three figures and a bank account lighter by four figures, wasn't so relaxed. When Zhang started talking about pungs and chows and big melded kongs—which sounded to Carter like the unhappy aftermath of a fierce electrical fire on the set of a hardcore porn film—Kuzkin had swept his forearm through the tiles and refused to play. Zhang had graciously downgraded to the Chinese variant of Liar's Dice, not that it served either Kuzkin or Carter well. The contents of their wallets gravitated to the Chinese general's corner of the table just as swiftly as they would have done had they stuck to mah-jongg.

“Seven sixes,” Zhang said, blowing a stream of wispy vapor up to tickle the smoke detector, which had been disabled with the strategic application of a piece of tape.

The Russian locked gazes with his opponent, seemingly attempting to plumb the depths of his soul to establish whether he was full of shit. Carter had already accepted he would never retrieve his money and was busy cleaning out his fingernails with the edge of his security pass.

When Zhang blinked, Kuzkin slapped the table. “Ha! I knew your inscrutable mask would slip. You are bluffing.”

All three men turned over their cups. While Kuzkin and Carter had one six apiece, all five of the dice that had been concealed under Zhang's cup displayed six dots.

Zhang smiled as Kuzkin's face fell. “Sometimes a man blinks when he has smoke in his eyes.”

“Or when he is deliberately misleading his opponents,” Carter muttered.

The Russian pursed his lips. “What are the odds of all five of your dice coming up the same?”

“One in 1,296. I am very lucky tonight.”

“Or you are very cheaty tonight.”

“You have already accused me of cheating, and we swapped our dice. Perhaps you think we Chinese have supernatural powers to add to our famous inscrutability.”

“I think perhaps you have very fast hands.”

“Now you mistake me for Jackie Chan.”

“And you mistake me for a gullible fool. I do not know how you did it, but I want my money back.”

“Do you really want to know how I won? It is because you are so very scrutable.”

“That is not even an English word,” Kuzkin said. “If you are going to insult me at least do it in proper English.”

“Must I point out that ‘cheaty' is not a word either?”

Carter wiped the fingernail gunk from the pass onto the side of his chair and stood up to stretch. “Sometimes the gambling gods smile upon you from up on high. Sometimes they use that height to crap on your head. Just give the general his damn money.”

Kuzkin looked as though he was going to continue arguing and barfing up Chinese stereotypes. In the end, he crumpled up his last hundred-dollar bill and tossed it across the table. “Do not be so quick to spend it. We still have to play Tiger Has Come.”

“Not tonight, gentlemen,” Carter said. “My bed is calling me.”

Kuzkin resorted to mumbling in Russian as Zhang stuffed the handsome pile of bills into his pocket with some difficulty. Carter was on his way to the door, already imagining sliding between the sheets, when a harried-looking aide burst in.

“We have a major problem, sirs,” he said after a quick salute. “Intel has picked up an e-mail revealing every detail of the attack.”

Even though Carter was red-eyed from exhaustion and cigarette smoke, he snapped into professional mode. “Did they block it?”

“Only partially, sir. It's still gone to thousands of newspapers and bloggers. The first stories are just starting to pop up.”

“Any reaction from the zombies yet?”

“No, sir.”

“I take it the presidents have been alerted?”

“Yes, sir. A crisis call will commence shortly.”

Carter turned to his colleagues. “Thoughts, gentlemen, beyond, ‘This is a huge pain in the ass'?”

“Nothing has changed,” said Kuzkin, who'd put aside his petulance and, like Carter, was all business. “They will know, but what can they do? We go ahead as planned.”

“Not true,” Zhang said. “We can't use the nerve gas now. They will not go near any aid shipments.”

Kuzkin wrinkled his nose. “That is disappointing. We needed to use up our stockpile before the expiry date. I suppose we can drop it on Dagestan when everybody is looking at Britain.”

“It goes further than the nerve gas being a goner,” Carter said. “They're going to try to minimize the impact, bunker their leaders, move strategic assets. The first wave won't be as effective, which will mean more grunt work later.”

“Then we must move the attack forward so they have less time to prepare,” Zhang said.

“I agree,” Carter said. “The bombs are pretty much ready to rock, so it won't be too difficult to shuffle things forward.”

“Shouldn't we wait for the presidents to make a decision?” Kuzkin asked.

Carter shook his head. “They won't cancel, not when the fate of humanity's at stake. I guarantee you we'll soon get a call telling us to get our asses into gear. We need to be ready. I figure we can shave three days off the schedule with some rejigging. It might be a bit slapdash, but it's better than giving the zombies time to hide under every rock they can find.”

“There is one other issue,” Zhang said. “We have not been able to track their second nuclear submarine yet, and now we have less time to do so.”

“We always knew it would be a gamble,” Carter said. “Here's hoping the gods are smiling on us and unbuckling their trouser belts over Britain.”

“And what if they are not?” Kuzkin said.

“At most they should only be able to get off a few missiles, so our defense shields should take care of the warheads before they reach Washington, Beijing, or Moscow. Given the short distances involved, it's the Europeans who have to worry the most. Just don't plan on taking the kids to Disneyland Paris in the next few days and you should be fine.” Carter turned to his aide. “Get our people in here and scare up a pot of industrial strength coffee, more cigarettes for General Zhang, and a big box of Adderall.”

“Where would I get Adderall, sir? It's a prescription medicine.”

“Break into the pharmacy, and if anybody asks, tell them it's a matter of national security. If we don't wake ourselves up we'll end up bombing the UAE by mistake, and I think we can all agree we need their oil. Now let's get to work.”

 

TWO
DAYS TO EXCISION

 

25

When Tony walked in to the reception of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Tim was waiting for him with a smug upward tug to his lips. It was just after 7:00 a.m., the only slot Tony could find in another busy day trying to pull Britain back from the brink it seemed determined to topple over. Tony was a bit confused as to why they were in a hospital. He'd expected to be told to come to the zoo, although he supposed it may just have been a question of having the right facilities for delicate brain surgery.