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“What the fuck are you Brits playing at?”

Tom Harding-Grayson had resolved to remain calm and statesmanlike in the manner of his predecessor the Earl of Home, whom for all his old world mannerisms and occasional disconnection from reality, he’d actually rather admired and moreover, personally liked and respected as a man.

The Englishman met the blazing stare without flinching.

He waved to a chair in front of his desk.

“Please take a seat, Ambassador.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgement he moved behind his desk and sat down, waiting for his visitor to get used to the idea that throwing his weight around like a small child in the throes of a temper tantrum wasn’t going to cut any ice.

Loudon Baines Westheimer II fumed, his fists balled.

He leaned forward, unwrapping his fists so he could rest the palms of his hands on the edge of the desk. He loomed over the Foreign Secretary.

“I don’t give a shit about what you did to those Spanish civilians!” He spat breathlessly. “But when you kill Americans…”

To Harding-Grayson remained impassive.

“You hit three NATO bases…”

“Ambassador!” The man seated behind the desk rasped softly with the threat of Cobra flashing its hood at its next target.

The big man pushed himself away from the table.

“Ambassador,” Tom Harding-Grayson repeated, coolly. “There is no such thing as NATO. You stood by while the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was destroyed. You decided to make war at a time and under circumstances of your own choosing with no reference to or thought of the survival of your NATO allies. There is no NATO. There are only friends and enemies in the world that you have remade.”

Loudon Baines Westheimer II turned away, took a pace to his left and wheeled around to renew his attack.

Tom Harding-Grayson held up his right hand, palm forward.

“We would have cratered the runways of Torrejón, Zaragoza and Morón Air Bases,” he explained coldly, didactically, “regardless of the intelligence emerging from GCHQ and the RAF’s ongoing investigations into radio intercept and radar plot triangulation analysis of the missions flown by the four fighter aircraft which attacked the Balmoral Estate earlier this week.”

The American Ambassador opened his mouth to speak but said nothing. He stood there for a moment gaping at the slight figure of the newly appointed Foreign Secretary. He hadn’t noticed the icy resolve in the smaller man’s dark eyes until then and it gave him pause. He grunted, shut his mouth and began to form a fresh complaint…

“We believe,” Tom Harding-Grayson continued evenly, “that the attack on Balmoral was co-ordinated, controlled and directed from a facility located in the Irish Republic or by a vessel in the Irish Sea or the North Channel. It is my duty to inform you that at such time as we conclude our ongoing analyses of the available technical and operational data associated with the Balmoral atrocity we reserve the right of retaliation at a place and a time of our choosing.” His voice was a flat, bland monotone that reflected none of his inner outrage. “Please sit down before I get a crick in my neck, Ambassador.”

Reluctantly Loudon Baines Westheimer II dumped his bulk into the nearest high-backed chair. His girth flapped unsupported on each side of the averagely proportioned seat.

He opened his mouth to speak but was again forestalled by the British Foreign Secretary’s raised hand.

“You requested this meeting, Ambassador. I acquiesced to it only because my Government wishes me to communicate verbally to you the contents of a note that our man in Washington will shortly be delivering to your State Department. We’ve found in the course of our routine communications with that somewhat sclerotic organ of your Government, that it invariable ignores such notes for a week or so and then claims to have lost them ‘in the post’ when we follow up.” He smiled ruefully. “When one’s friends befriend one’s enemies — General Franco among others — and base several Wings of A-bomb capable B-47s on their territory a little over ninety minutes flying time from where we presently sit, it is bad enough. When one’s friends set up a telecommunications and spying facility and start building airfields and military docks on the territory of an avowedly neutral neighbour — the Irish Republic — whose leaders have been tacitly fomenting civil war in the six northern counties of that troubled land, ‘bad enough’ becomes pretty well intolerable. I could complain about the United States Navy’s posturing in the Western Approaches to these islands. I could complain about all the broken promises to provide aid and fuel. I won’t recite the full list of our grievances at this interview, but rest assured that our many grievances are fully detailed in the note which will soon be in the hands of your State Department. Furthermore, I could complain about the quality and the competence of the person our erstwhile allies sent to England to represent their interests. However, over on this side of ‘the pond’ my colleagues and I assumed that you owed your appointment to your current post to some bizarre aberration in your system of government. No matter. The United States of America has succeeded — in a little over a year — in turning its staunchest friend in the world into a former ally. Personally, even after the October War, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible. But you chaps have managed it, so hat’s off to you all!”

Loudon Baines Westheimer II’s brow was furrowed so deeply that he could have stowed half-a-dozen of the Lucky Strikes he normally chain smoked in the folds of pale flesh and nobody would have noticed.

“You’ve made your play,” he growled. “What do you want?”

“What do we want?” Now Tom Harding-Grayson’s brow furrowed.

“You’ve had you grouch. What do you want from me? From us?”

The Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration was tempted to demand the surrender of General Curtis le May to a tribunal authorised to try him for crimes against humanity and genocide. Unfortunately, that was no more likely to happen than John Fitzgerald Kennedy surrendering himself to the same tribunal charged with conspiracy to wage aggressive war and war against peace.

“What we want is one thing,” Tom Harding-Grayson retorted. “What we are doing is to take immediate steps to alter the basis upon which the United Kingdom, its allies, Dominions and friends in the Commonwealth will do business with the United States of America in future.”

“Business?” Loudon Baines Westheimer II couldn’t conceive of a context in which the word ‘business’ meant something broader than commerce, industry or graft. He began to smile, his thoughts — such as they were — turning to writing off the Brits’ bad attitude to some kind of passing phase they were going through. A storm in a tea cup. “The sooner we get back to business as usual the better,” he declared, mistakenly imagining that he was being in some way emollient.

“The particulars of the note our man in Washington will deliver to your State Department make that impossible in the foreseeable future,” the small man seated behind the big desk said grimly.

Suddenly the gravity of his misunderstanding hit Loudon Baines Westheimer II like a baseball between the eyes.

“What are we talking about?”

“Firstly, there will be a unilateral cessation of all military co-operation.”

Shit! That doesn’t sound good!

Tom Harding-Grayson didn’t need to be a mind reader to realise that Loudon Baines Westheimer II had finally got the message.

“Secondly,” he went on, “as of midnight tonight any American military assets in, around or above United Kingdom or Dominion territory or airspace will be liable to seizure.”