Once Dick had finished scribbling down details of the next expected convoy packets he replaced the telephone, donned helmet and webbing before picking up his weapon.
“I’m off to wake the next lot,” he informed his radio op and ducked through the two flaps that ensured the light from the Tilly lamp within did not show outside. On radio ‘stag’ in the CP was a twenty-one year old lance corporal whose civvy job was working in the control room of the London Ambulance Service at Waterloo. She was decoding a message that had been received from the company CP when the field telephone beside her rang.
“Yes Simon, they’re being woken now… no, no, yes… no I’m not sharing your sleeping bag… no, yes, no… and no I won’t go out with you when we get back to London either.”
At the other end of the phone Simon Green replaced the handset on the field telephone sat on the grass verge.
“Well what did she say then?” An equally young soldier of 352 Provost Coy, performing the role of roving sentry asked him.
“Yeah… she’s gagging for it!”
The distinctive humming sound of cross-country tyres on a road surface reached them and the sentry stepped back into cover whilst Simon stepped a few feet out onto the autobahn, switching on a hand-held lamp and displaying a red light for the oncoming vehicle.
Simon heard the vehicle engine sounds alter, there was more than one vehicle approaching them and they had seen his signal to stop.
The dark outlines of two Landrovers came to a stop beside the autobahn's grass verge, Simon saw both had posts attached to the sides with the old style hessian wrapped around the tops, concealing the blue rotating lamps that sat there.
He had forgotten to inform his CP by field telephone that vehicles were approaching, but he was tired and he was looking forward to climbing into his ‘maggot’ for a few hours. The occupants of the ‘rovers were obviously RMP too, and if it was officers coming to check up on them then Sgt Bolding would be grabbing him by the throat the moment they departed.
The occupants of the vehicles climbed stiffly from them, as if they had driven a long way, so Simon hoped they were nothing to do with them, just another unit passing through but then their drivers switched the engines off.
“Er… seven!” he stammered at the passenger of the lead vehicle, as that person opened the door and stepped out.
“Eight,” replied a female voice. Two hours before she had been laid down just at the other side of the hedge in the potato field beyond, listening to the loudly shouted challenge, and the reply from vehicle drivers, revving their engines to wind up the young military policeman. She had observed the pantomime performed twice, just to be sure that the pass-number of the day was ‘Fifteen’.
Dick stopped before he reached the other ‘rovers and their sleeping occupants when he heard the two new vehicles draw up and switch off their engines.
Dick’s ‘real job’ was that of a specialist firearms officer in the Met, and he was one of a fair number of serving policemen in his unit. He began to walk back to the CP and heard the dull double ‘phutt’ from within as his young radio operator was dispatched with two rounds in the side of her head. It was the tinkle of the spent cases bouncing off items inside the CP that alerted him to the fact that they were under attack.
Keeping low, and as quietly as possible Dick went back the way he had come and arriving at the first ‘rover he ducked under the camouflage netting and lifted the rear flap, reaching in to put his hand over the mouth of the first sleeping soldier, so as to awaken him quietly. A sixth sense told him that someone was behind him, and he began to turn when a hand clamped across his face, pulling his head back for the blade that drove into his throat and upwards into his brain stem.
For three hours Team Five and other groups took over the TP and three others like it, changing signs and diverting traffic along roads that went nowhere. At opportune moments they slapped delay charges under some vehicles on the convoys. It was an hour before dawn before NATO got wise, but by that time the Spetznaz teams had vanished
General Shaw accompanied Scott Tafler along the tunnel from the helipad where Marines challenged them five times before they gained entry to the President’s inner sanctum. It was the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s first journey out of his own hardened shelter since the day before the DC bomb
Sitting in the nearest thing to a comfortable armchair that the facility had, the President waved a hand at them without turning from the screen before him
Seeing that he was talking with the First Lady, Henry Shaw led Scott to another room where members of the secret service detail were watching a video. Sat with them was the President’s chief scientific advisor, who came over to join them as they helped themselves to coffee.
General Shaw shook his hand warmly.
“Hello Joe, have you met Scott Tafler?”
“Ah, the author of operation Guillotine, has Henry here relayed my worries about it?” the CSA asked him.
Scott nodded.
“I knew nothing about Grease Spot, scary as hell… the General only mentioned that the after effects of that, combined with this new operation… and what the reds have been doing, is going to stay with us for a while.”
“I… knew nothing about Grease Spot either, until after the convoys were at sea. Using nuclear weapons in our environment is insanity, using them in the Atlantic… in the Gulf Stream at that… we may be left with a world where our grandchildren will believe that it was better had we surrendered.” The CSA was shaking his head from side to side as he spoke, it was clear to Scott that he was deeply perturbed.
Scott wanted to know more.
“Could it have a lasting impact, do you think?”
“There is no could about it young man, the next winter will arrive early and overstay its welcome. Take a look at a satellite photo of the Atlantic since the weapons detonated that is if the cloud cover clears… which may not be for weeks or months. There will probably be no summer worth speaking of this year. Millions of gallons of water were evaporated and flung into the stratosphere; millions of tons of silt were churned up. If you saw the Atlantic, it would be more brown than blue from space. I have no idea what that will do to the Gulf Stream… if, God forbidden, it has stopped its flow, then we will see a return of the glaciers, a new ice age.” He poured a coffee for himself before continuing. “Harvests all over the world are going to be affected by all these bombs going off, the dust is going to block sunlight and lower temperatures. It could be good news for the disappearing ice caps, but that is all!”
It was very overcast outside, as it had been in Scotland the day after Grease Spot. And as Scott thought about it, he got a sick feeling in his stomach because he was about to add to whatever lasting damage had been done.
His plan to take out the Russian leader had been put on hold until a workable plan came along to either eliminate the Chinese politburo, and their ICBMs.
The door opened and a secret service agent called them through, but the President was no longer in the war room. General Shaw and Scott followed the agent down another corridor and into what had probably once been a dining room for senior air force officers. It was large enough for a dozen people to sit in more comfort than any of the other rooms, and was now occupied by the President and six men with darkly handsome Asian looks; two were obviously from Southeast Asia.
All were in civilian clothes but two had military bearing and the President stood to make the introductions, but he introduced Scott as being an ‘aide’. Henry Shaw had met both of the soldiers at some time in the past, Lt Gen Rajendra Singh of the Indian Army and Lt Gen Jehangir Khan of the Pakistan Army. Henry knew also which branches of the military they represented, rocket artillery, but what surprised him was that they were both in the same room together, both countries were quite bitter enemies.