177982.fb2 Without warning - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 46

Without warning - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 46

29PACOM HQ, PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

He was an operator, possibly a crook, and definitely not to be left alone with the small-change jar. But Admiral James Ritchie couldn’t help but warm to Culver the more time he spent with him. There was no reason they should get on, a patrician New Englander from old money with a long family history of noblesse oblige, and a scheming carpetbagger from the bad end of the bayou. Certainly, naпvetй didn’t come into it. Thanks to Colonel Maccomb of the 500th Military Intelligence Brigade, Ritchie was well aware of what kind of a creature Jed Culver was. A fixer.

He was the operator your troubled multi-billion-dollar company called in to quickly and quietly clean up the mess left behind by your recently departed and grotesquely incompetent CEO. He was the man who procured the difficult export licence in the hopelessly corrupt, but fabulously oil-rich, third-world shithole. Or the development approval for your six-star resort on the ecologically fragile tropical island. Or the seemingly impossible negotiated truce between the warring Stone Age tribes that was interfering with the profit margins of your hardwood logging operations in the New Guinea highlands. If that didn’t work, he hired the heavy hitters who protected your oil-drilling operations in Africa without cutting too deep into your budget.

Jed Culver was a rolled-gold son of a bitch.

That said, Ritchie had a gut feeling that when the big questions were asked, this gladhanding sack of shit would actually give you a straight answer, especially if that answer was something you didn’t want to hear. Perhaps he was a bit like old Joe Kennedy in that way. Ritchie, an avid reader of historical biographies, thought he recognised something in Culver that FDR might have seen in the old bootlegger when appointing him to head up the SEC way back in the Depression – a thief you could trust.

The admiral kept all these thoughts to himself, of course, as Culver walked around his office speaking from notes, with his expensive jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled up and tie raffishly askew. Was the ruffled, big-doofus thing just part of his routine? Probably. With a guy like Culver you had to figure that everything was part of the routine. But still, he seemed blessed, if that was the right word, with a frightening appreciation for the worst aspects of human nature, and how they might still be turned to everyone’s advantage.

‘The only intact chain of command we have left,’ the lawyer said, in his soft Southern brogue, ‘is, of course, your own. But by constitutional tradition, your entire chain remains subordinate to civilian rule and, let me just check-back you, ladies and gentlemen…’ Culver looked up from his notes and smiled at the small group of military officers in the room. ‘Y’all ain’t planning a coup d’йtat, are you?’

From anyone else, it would have been a dangerous gamble, an insult to people who had pledged their lives to defending the Constitution. But Jed Culver had a way of smiling and somehow twinkling his eyes that added an unspoken Naw, of course you ain’t - you’re good ol’ boys and gals. The best.

Ritchie even noticed a smile attempting to creep around the corners of the deeply fissured face of Lieutenant General Murphy, Commander, US Army Pacific, and the senior army officer on the islands. But, for professional reasons, Murphy had long ago banned any semblance of a sunny disposition from his person, and he managed now to crush the small grin stone dead. It had no discernible effect on Culver, who carried on.

‘Fact is though, folks, given the scale of disaster we face, precise legality will have to give way almost immediately to practicality. As the esteemed Justice Jackson pointed out in Terminiello v. Chicago, the Constitution is not a goddamn suicide pact. If we are going to survive, we need good government, and quick. And given that nobody is much interested in fashioning a military dictatorship out of the ashes of the old Republic, I would suggest that for practical purposes it will initially resemble a patchwork of small-and big-town mayors, the surviving political and administrative leadership, law enforcement, and perhaps-no, definitely - some religious and community leaders with a large following. Whatever government comes into being out of this nightmare has to arise from the ground up, rather than be imposed from above.’

‘Fine words, Mr Culver,’ rumbled Murphy. ‘Brings a tear to the eye. But we’re in deep shit and we need to dig ourselves out of it, muy pronto. Adapt, overcome and drive on.’

There were nine military officers in the room. The commander of the army’s 25th Infantry Division and the senior Marine nodded in agreement with Murphy’s brusque comment. Again, however, Ritchie watched with sneaking admiration as the lawyer let the rebuke wash over him, even turning it around.

‘Damn straight,’ said Culver. ‘We need this done yesterday. Hell, we needed it as soon as that energy thing crashed down on top of us. But we have to accept that as scared and fucked up as people are right now, especially those poor bastards who are close enough to the Wave to be able to see it, they will adapt. There will come a day when it’s not the first thing they think of when they wake up in the morning. And they will go back to the old ways of doing things, of each against the other and damn anyone in between. It’s just our nature. So whatever we set up now has to have the elegance of our first constitutional principles. It has to allow for the better angels of our nature to sing, because, Lord knows, the demons are going to be a massed fucking choir over the next little while.’

‘What exactly are you suggesting, Mr Culver? Could you take us through your proposal, step by step?’

‘Of course, Admiral,’ the lawyer replied. ‘Basically, some laws are going to get bruised, if not broken, but even Jefferson would have been cool with that. You know, his purchase of my home state, Louisiana, was, to put it bluntly, completely illegal – and he knew it. But he also knew that the strict observance of the written law, while one of the high duties of a good citizen, is not the highest.’

Culver stood up straight and appeared to stare off into space, obviously quoting from the third President of the United States. ‘The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.’

Having finished, he leaned forward and placed his hands on the edge of the conference table where they all sat. ‘What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that we’re gonna crack some heads together. And fast. And by “we” I mean the American people, what’s left of us.’

* * * *

‘I think it might be better if nobody showed up in uniform, flashing their medals and… what d’you call that stuff – fruit salad?’ Culver gestured towards the campaign ribbons on Ritchie’s uniform. He didn’t wait for the admiral to reply. ‘Fact is, we already got blood spilled in Seattle. People are skittish. Yeah, you guys are the only outfit with the chops to put boot to ass and get it all done, but I promise you that anything that looks even halfway like a military takeover will mean the end of everything.’

Ritchie clamped down on his surging frustration. Only he and Culver remained in the office, all of the other attendees having returned to their duties. He was hungry and tired and didn’t see himself being able to do anything about either any time soon. The austerity measures he’d ordered for every military establishment in Hawaii were not merely window dressing. Food shortages would become dangerous if strict rationing was not enforced. The islands’ airfields were running around the clock, shuttling aid in and people out, but a cascading series of economic crises ripping through global money markets was beginning to bite hard in the real world. In the last twenty-four hours, both the Chinese and Japanese governments had quietly ordered container ships loaded with food and medical aid bound for Hawaii to turn around and head home. Ritchie had savoured his cup of coffee at breakfast this morning with sad relish, because he wasn’t sure when he might get another one.

‘Yes, I understand, Mr Culver,’ he said, still refusing to give in to the lawyer’s insistence that he was just ‘plain ol’ Jed’. ‘But I am fighting an illegal war. Men and women are going to their deaths on my say-so and not much else. Why are they doing that? No reason. No good reason, anyway. We’re there because we’re there and we can’t get our sorry asses out in good order. Hell, we can’t even turn to the United Nations for guidance.’

‘I know you got pressures, Admiral. I know -’

‘Do you? Really?’ Admiral Ritchie stood up and walked over to the window. He stared out at the afternoon sunlight, took a deep breath and turned on Culver. ‘I have bagmen from every tin-pot, oil-drenched Dark Ages dictatorship in the Middle East, including the ones we’re fighting at this very minute, all banging on my door demanding to know what US government policy towards them and their vile little country is now. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell them I’m not the President, not the government – they don’t care. They won’t listen. To them, I am the man with my finger on the trigger of what is still a very big gun. Big enough to blow them to hell and back. And the worst of it is, I can’t just tell them to take a leap because some of them, at least, I need. I cannot get our people out of there without the help of the Saudis and Kuwaitis and Turks, and half-a-dozen others. But of course, none of them want us to go, because they know the whole place will melt down three minutes later. I need clarity, Jed…’

Damn it. You’re losing it, he thought. Get your bearing back.

‘I need orders from a properly constituted executive. I need to get my people out of that septic mess in the Gulf. I need to know what role we’re going to play here, in CONUS, wherever we end up. I need to know what resources we’ll have. I need to get on the phone to Tommy Franks and give him and his people some hope.’

Culver absorbed the mini tirade with equanimity, waiting him out. When Ritchie was finished, he nodded, slowly. ‘Okay then. That’s what you need. Now this is what I need to get it for you.’

* * * *

Dealing with Culver’s Machiavellian schemes was enough to bring his headache roaring back from the dull middle distance, where he’d banished it with a couple of Advils. Ritchie was not at all comfortable being so closely involved in political manoeuvres, but the lawyer was right. The United States had been gutted and one of the very few working and half-intact institutions it had left was the military. He was also right that it would be an intolerable violation of the country’s founding principles if the Republic became a militarised autarchy in the mad rush of a catastrophe. And then, in mocking contrast to these high ideals, there was brute reality.

‘The Israeli envoy is here, Admiral.’

Ritchie popped another painkiller and washed it down with a mouthful of tap-water from his beloved old VF-84 coffee mug. ‘Send him in.’

The man who entered the room carrying a briefcase was relatively short and his grey, wiry hair had retreated at least halfway back over his head. Tel Aviv had dispatched him as their new ambassador, but Ritchie was adamant that he could not be addressed as such because he had not yet formally presented himself to the President. (The navy man had flat refused to stand in for the latter role himself.) Nonetheless, Asher Warat was the chosen representative of his government, and as such was deserving of good manners and what few diplomatic niceties Ritchie could extend to him.

‘Admiral, thank you for seeing me.’ The Israeli smiled, lighting up his wide brown eyes. ‘I understand the demands on your time must be horrendous.’

Ritchie gestured for him to take one of the two armchairs directly in front of his desk. Warat did so, placing the briefcase by his feet. Through the windows behind the envoy, the old sailor enjoyed a sweeping view from Halawa Heights down to the harbour, which looked magnificent under a high sun. A few wisps of cloud drifted across a hard blue sky and the waters of the base sparkled bright silver on dark blue. Stare at it long enough and you could almost believe nothing was wrong with the world. The long, drawn features of his visitor, sitting smack in the middle of that view, indicated otherwise.

‘Everyone has their own troubles, Mr Warat. I’m sure yours are as difficult as mine in their own way.’

Warat bobbed his head up and down, and his eyes seemed even more watery and forlorn than normal, which was saying something. ‘Life is trouble, Admiral,’ he replied. ‘Especially these days. And I am afraid I am about to make more for you. Much more – or less, maybe.’

Ritchie was instantly alert, the fatigue of the last ten days sluicing out of him. The small adrenalin surge didn’t help with his headache, however. That just grew worse. ‘How so, sir?’ he asked guardedly.

Warat consulted his watch and seemed to hesitate. He rubbed his fingers together and shifted nervously in his place, before checking the time again. ‘You will be aware, Admiral, that the strategic circumstances faced by my country have declined precipitously due to the cataclysm, the absolute cataclysm, that befell your own.’

‘Yes,’ said Ritchie slowly, as his heart seemed to slow down and grow to about twice its normal size, pressing painfully against the confines of his chest.

Warat hitched his shoulders and chewed at his lower lip. The man was a veritable Wal-Mart for nervous tics and tells.

‘Your own forces in the region have come under attack from Saddam, from the mullahs, and from a whore’s parlour full of opportunists and crazy men. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda…’

Ritchie nodded but said nothing. Just that morning they had lost the USS Hopper and two hundred men to a swarm of jihadi suicide attackers on jet skis. You don’t lose an Aegis cruiser every day, and he wasn’t certain when he’d get a replacement. Probably never. It was the sort of thing that would have made headlines all over the world before the Wave. Now it was a minor irrelevancy to most news agencies, obsessed as they were with the accelerating collapse of their own societies.

The Israeli envoy glanced quickly at his watch again. ‘Your plans to withdraw Coalition forces from Iraq and Kuwait, and US forces from the region in general, are understandable,’ he continued, ‘if short-sighted in the opinion of my government.’

‘Well, sir,’ said Ritchie, ‘I am afraid the withdrawal is an operational necessity at the moment. It is not US Government policy, as you would be aware. I would characterise it as a tactical withdrawal, not a strategic retreat.’

‘Or abandonment,’ prompted Warat.

‘No,’ agreed Ritchie. ‘I would not call it abandonment. But right now, our presence there is making things infinitely worse, and I shouldn’t have to explain to you, sir, that we cannot sustain our forces even in the short term. Our base is gone. Every missile we fire, every ship we lose, every soldier or sailor or airman who dies is a true loss. They cannot be replaced.’

The Israeli shrugged and sighed. ‘We understand, Admiral. We have lost too. America was our arsenal and we find ourselves in the same position. Unlike you, however, we can stage no tactical withdrawal. We are trapped within our borders, with nowhere to go, and the barbarians at the gate. You will be aware of that. We are already fighting them. It will be a war of annihilation for one or the other.’

Ritchie ceded the point with a wave of the hand, an almost preternatural dread creeping up on him. It was a physical sensation, something he could feel crawling through his body like ice water rising from his nuts. The diplomat checked his watch one last time. He squared his shoulders and looked Ritchie in the eyes without flinching. His voice firmed up, losing the quaver and uncertainty that had haunted it until now.

‘Twelve hours ago, we received a secure data package from our highest placed source within the Republican Guard. His information was so critical that it was cross-checked independently, even though doing so revealed the identity of other sources we have cultivated within the Hussein regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. I am afraid those sources have now been exposed and eliminated. Before losing them, however, they confirmed that a convoy of civilian vehicles crossed the border with Iran and travelled without a military escort, but still heavily guarded, arriving at a warehouse on the outskirts of Mosul at 0300 hours local time yesterday. If you will excuse me, Admiral…’ Warat leaned over and picked up his briefcase, popping the lid and pulling out a sheaf of papers which he handed across to Ritchie.

They were photographs mostly, with a few pages of printed material that appeared to be chemical analyses. The pictures were obviously close surveillance shots, the admiral noted, taken covertly by somebody at the warehouse.

‘The large vehicles you can see in these pictures are standard commercial trucks,’ Warat went on. ‘Two Scania transporters, a Volvo, a Mack Truck, and a Hino heavy diesel. The utility vehicles – SUVs, I believe you call them – provided the escort. The Hino truck carried a shipping container in which was stored an unknown quantity of uranium hexafluoride. I am afraid we have lost track of it. The other trucks, which we were able to continue tracking from Mosul and on to an Iraqi missile battery, contained weaponised anthrax and botulinum.’

Ritchie glanced briefly at the typewritten pages, but he was not a chemist and they meant nothing to him. He assumed they somehow attested to the contents of the trucks.

‘We have no sources within the Iraqi battery, and the exposure of our other assets will have caused Saddam to alter his plans anyway. But we must presume that we now face the mortal danger of a missile strike on Israel with biological agents. Our policy in the face of such threats has always been stated clearly. We will not just retaliate, we will strike preemptively.’

Ritchie placed the documents very carefully on his desk. His hand was shaking and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

‘So, my government hereby informs you, Admiral Ritchie, as the commander of friendly forces in the region, that as of one hour ago, the Israel Defense Forces have commenced Operation Megiddo. I am informed by my government that Israeli Air Force units are currently en route to twelve centres. I have here a list of the targets.’

The envoy passed across a single sheet of paper, which Ritchie took with a trembling hand. Warat, he noticed, seemed abnormally calm by comparison. The Israeli had apparently done all his sweating and shaking when he’d first come in.

The list was divided into two parts, labelled Counter Force and Counter Value. The former was a catalogue of military bases and suspected WMD sites such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard training facility at Hamadan, long suspected to also be the Guards’ principal WMD depository. ‘Counter Value’ comprised a short list of cities. The American officer found it hard to breathe. Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus in Syria were slated for destruction within hours.

‘You can’t do this,’ croaked Ritchie. ‘You’ll kill millions, tens of millions, of innocent people.’

Warat’s face was ashen and drawn, but firm. ‘Yes, Admiral. We will. It is either that or millions of our people will die.’

‘But…’ Ritchie found it hard to speak. Blood rushed through his ears and dark spots bloomed in front of his eyes.

The other man sensed his difficulty and pressed on. ‘We have drawn up the target list in such a way that it should not expose your forces to significant radiological effects, and it will not be necessary to fly through airspace controlled by the Coalition. This will not be like 1991, Admiral. We will not require IFF transponder codes; however, the range of some of the longer strikes means that without midair refuelling, our planes cannot return home. My government therefore requests the cooperation of the US Air Force in assigning such in-flight refuelling assets as we would require to successfully complete all of these missions without needlessly sacrificing our personnel. For many of them, it will be a one-way trip otherwise.’

‘Are you mad?’ Ritchie stared at the man, who had the good grace to look embarrassed.

‘My government did not expect to receive a positive response to this request, but instructed me to make it anyway.’

‘Mr Ambassador…’ Ritchie faltered, forgetting that Warat had not been formally received and confirmed as ambassador. ‘Mr Warat, I am afraid I cannot allow this plan to go ahead. Your government must call its planes back.’

‘I am afraid they will not do that, Admiral. Under any circumstances. My government is convinced that we face annihilation as a people if we do not act immediately.’

‘You will be annihilated if you do,’ protested Ritchie.

The Israeli nodded glumly. ‘Anything is possible these days, Admiral.’

Ritchie’s heart was still thundering in his chest, but his head was at last clearing of the shock and disorientation. He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.

‘Sir, I am afraid I must inform you that I will direct US forces in theatre to interdict this strike and stop it by any means possible. I will further contact our Coalition partners and request any and all cooperation they might provide. And, I will immediately inform the governments of the targeted nations that your strike is inbound and that I will assist them in whatever way possible to repel it.’

Warat received the rebuke with stoic reserve. Behind him, through the wide glass windows, life went on. Not normally. But it did go on. Some traffic moved through the streets. Children would be playing in suburban back yards as parents did their best to insulate them from the horror of a world collapsing in on itself. High above the idyllic panorama, Ritchie saw the sun glint on the wings of a commercial airliner, outbound. For where, he had no idea, but it was undoubtedly full. The Israeli envoy sighed and quickly recovered his composure.

‘My government expected you might react in this fashion, Admiral,’ he said. ‘It would be the honourable thing for you. However, I must point out that your own forces have degraded the air defence nets of Iran and Iraq to the point where they cannot deny our air force. And the IAF has done the same to the Syrian Air Force over the last week of fighting. By warning them, you will do no more than condemn millions to spend their last hours in abject fear.’

Ritchie slammed an open hand down on the desk with a thunderous crash. ‘Goddamn you, will you listen? You cannot do this and you must not. I am ordering my theatre commanders to interdict your sorties with deadly force. We will shoot you down!’

Warat’s chin moved up and down like a bobble-headed doll on a dashboard. His shoulders twitched and when he spoke he did not look Ritchie in the eye. ‘My government has prepared for such an eventuality, Admiral. The weapons packages will be delivered with an escort of IAF fighters. They will engage any hostile force that tries to prevent them from accomplishing their mission. Any. Hostile. Force.’

‘My God,’ breathed Ritchie. ‘You’ll kill us all. If you do this, how long do you imagine it will be before some maniac in New Delhi or Islamabad decides they need to get the drop on their nemesis? How long will it be before Russia and China decide things will be a lot simpler with us, here in Hawaii, out of the picture?’

‘I cannot answer these questions, Admiral, as you well know. But I can tell you that if we do not act, the Jewish people and their state will be wiped out in a second Holocaust. And you know that I speak the truth.’

Ritchie dropped his head into his hands and rubbed at eyes that burned with a lack of sleep. ‘Get out,’ he said quietly.

* * * *