Without Warning (59 page)

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 assets should the French government finally succumb 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 mass 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 shit 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 glass of water by the podium before continuing.

“General, the best information I have is that the special appropriations bill will pass 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 Japan. 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 pass, Colonel. Damn, 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 Marseilles 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 assistance 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-Nazis 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 Généraux, 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 assumed, or some would say usurped, responsibility for state security from the Élysée 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 nobody 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 assault on a mass 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-Nazi 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 assiduous 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 shifting 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 shipments 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 Assembly 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 mass 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 shifting 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 button. 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 embassies 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 assets 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 assets 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 institutions. 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?”