CHAPTER 10
Crash Day + 1 11 a.m.
Suffolk
Adam looked out of the open canopy of their truck as it rumbled south along the A11’s slow lane, towards London. The rest of the squadron’s gunners, inside, were trying to listen to a small radio attempting to compete with the deafening snarl of the RAF transport truck’s diesel engine.
Today, the second day of the crisis. The situation seemed not to show any sign of abating. On the contrary, the news seemed to be getting worse by the hour. The last soundbite Adam had managed to catch from the radio was that the American military forces in the region had begun redeploying en masse in Saudi Arabia. Although no one from the US Defense Department had made a public statement on this large scale rapid movement of muscle, it was obvious that the troops were being sent to defend critical installations in the Ghawar oil fields, an area that had yet to be wholly incapacitated by the widespread rioting.
The Middle East was sounding like one big battlefield, the fighting now not just between Sunnis and Shi’as, but between rival tribes, between neighbouring streets, seemingly in every city and town in many of the Arab nations; a chance in the spreading entropy to settle age-old dishonours and more recent disputes.
Then, of course, there was the bottomless plummet on the markets.
Adam, with ten thousand pounds of savings in a Nationwide Share-tracker account, had listened with increasing desperation as the FTSE had plummeted this morning to somewhere close to two thousand, losing just over fifty per cent of its value, the government apparently doing or saying nothing to halt the slide until half an hour ago when it announced, out of the blue, that the London stock exchange was being suspended for the day. Shrewdly, before Wall Street was about due to come online.
A voice on the radio reminded listeners that the Prime Minister was scheduled to make an important announcement at midday. Adam checked his watch.
An hour or so to go.
All ears in the truck would be cocked for that one.
He stared back out of the truck at the road filled with unhurried vehicles going about a normal day’s business and wondered why he wasn’t seeing any signs of panic yet. Why there were so many cars out there making routine journeys.
But then, of course, none of them had been there at the briefing yesterday. It had been little more than a hasty exchange over Squadron Leader Cameron’s desk; enough to leave Adam with a cold, churning sensation in the pit of his stomach.
‘Unofficially, Brooks, we’re getting orders to redeploy the regiment. There’s a lot of rear-echelon chatter buzzing around this morning. The word is we’ll probably be pulling the rest of the regiment back from Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor and Belize immediately. They want as many boots back on the ground in Britain, as soon as is possible.’
‘In response to this oil thing?’
Cameron nodded. ‘Yes. I’d say someone upstairs is anticipating laying down some degree of martial law in this country; guarding critical fuel depots.’
‘It’s going to get that bad, sir?’
‘What do you think? We nearly had bloody riots over the duty being paid on petrol a few years back. I can only imagine what sort of fun and games we’re going to have on our hands when petrol pumps start running dry.’ Cameron, agitated, tapped his pen on a desk pad thick with scribbled notes. ‘Our poor bastards, 15 Squadron, guarding Kandahar will no doubt be the last fellas out of the country. That is if we still have enough fuel to keep our planes flying.’
Jesus.
Being the last company-strength unit left on the ground in that hell-hole, even on a good day, was going to be hairy. He wondered, when the dust settled in the aftermath of this crisis, what sort of news stories would get top billing in the tabloids: A-list celebrities stranded on holiday islands, X Factor auditions postponed by the oil shock, or the massacre of an entire company of left-behind British soldiers.
Stranded celebrities, obviously.
Cameron looked at him. ‘You know this has caught everyone on the hop. Everyone. I can’t believe there wasn’t a prepared contingency plan for something like this. You’d think the Russians buggering about turning off gas supplies in recent winters would have alerted someone to the possibility of an oil switch off.’ He shook his head. ‘I get the impression that everyone up the chain of command is simply winging it. It’s a f*cking shambles.’
Adam nodded at the pad on his desk. ‘So, where are we redeploying?’
‘I’ve got a list of places just come in, places the government want troops stationed round. Since we’re perimeter defence specialists we’ve been handed a lot off the top of the list. Oil distribution nodes, government command and control centres.’ He looked down at the list. ‘I’m splitting 2 squadron between you, Dempsey and Carver. You’re taking Rifle Flight one and two down to London. The O2 Dome, of all places.’
‘The Millennium Dome?’
Cameron shrugged. ‘Most probably be a regional emergency coordination centre. It’s not listed as such, but that’s probably why they want guards on the gates there.’
‘Right.’
‘Get your boys ready to go. As soon as I’ve got a confirmation order on these deployments I’ll let you know.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Adam turned to go.
‘Oh . . . Brooks?’
‘Sir?’
‘Good luck.’ The two words came out in a way he’d probably not intended. They sounded unsettling.
‘You think it’s really going to get that bad, sir?’
Cameron tried a reassuring smile, but produced little more than a queasy grimace. ‘Just, good luck, Brooks. All right?’
He dismissed Adam with a busy flicker of his hand. As Adam pulled open the door Cameron called out for him to send in Flight Lieutenant Dempsey.
Adam watched the vehicle a dozen yards behind; a couple of scruffy teenage kids in a beaten-up white van, yapping merrily like they hadn’t a care in the world. Beyond them, a Carpet World truck was rolling placidly along, the driver on his mobile. Overtaking in the fast lane a young lad with gel-spiked hair driving a bakery van like it was a performance racing car.
And life goes merrily on for some.
He shook his head at the surreal ordinariness of the scene beyond the back of their truck. People going about their business as if today was just another day.
‘Surely they realise?’ he muttered.
‘What’s that, sir?’ asked Corporal Davies, sitting on the bench opposite.
Adam looked up at Bushey. He wasn’t the brightest lad in the unit, but even in his bullish features Adam could recognise a growing unease that world events were beginning to out-pace the increasingly frantic news headlines.
‘Nothing, Bush. Just singing.’
The big fool grinned; a stupid oafish Shrek-like grin that was probably never going to end up on a calendar. He turned to look back out of the truck at the white van behind them and leered at the teenage girl in the passenger seat in a manner he most likely considered rakish and charming.
She returned his unattractive leer with a cocked eyebrow and a middle finger.