The British Ambassador smiled. He had been as surprised as his American hosts to receive abstracts of the same survey reports and damage assessments recently compiled for the Unity Administration at home only days, in some cases, hours, after they had been submitted to his sponsors in England.
“When Mrs Thatcher makes a promise she keeps it, Bill,” he rejoined, pursing his lips for a moment. “I confess,” he smiled, “the lady is something of a revelation to us all.”
Joanne Brenckmann cleared her throat.
“Is it really true that she’s cheered everywhere she goes, Oliver?”
“Apparently. I think she’s struck a chord with our people in the United Kingdom. She’s like a real breath of fresh air.”
“Is she really a blond?”
Lord Franks chuckled.
“No, dear lady,” he shook his head. “Although, in a certain light…”
Walter Brenckmann entered the fray.
“Actually, she’s very new to all this. Which means she’s got none of the pre-war baggage, and hardly any of the guilt of many of her closest senior advisers. She was just a Parliamentary Secretary, an unpaid very junior member of the Government before the war. This ‘Angry Widow’ thing plays incredibly well with her people in England because it chimes with the common experience of, well, everybody over there in a way that even now, I don’t think a lot of Americans understand.” He looked to Lord Franks.
The Englishman nodded sagely.
“I think you’re right, Walter. Although, obviously, you’d be a better judge of the mood of the American people than I.”
The Secretary of State listened to the brief interchange.
“Our two countries have signed up to a lot of good intentions,” he said to the British Ambassador. “In good faith. Between ourselves we can agree on that much, I hope.” Nobody demurred. “Moreover, the President has issued Executive Orders, realistically, to the limit of his powers to make good on several of his promises.”
Grain ships and tankers had already set sail from Gulf and east Coast ports bound for the United Kingdom. Badly needed pharmaceuticals including stockpiled antibiotics had been flown across the North Atlantic but it was only a start and they all knew it.
“We’ve got problems of our own that we need to address before we can talk about re-integrating our militaries, for example.” This was an understatement of monumental proportions. As they spoke a root and branch purge — there was no other word for it than ‘purge’ — was being jointly conducted by the FBI, the National Security Council, and the Secret Service of the senior command of the US Atlantic Fleet, what remained of the Air Force Department, and of at least eight State National Guard Divisions. The Department of Defence was not, and would not be for some time, in a position to categorically declare that the nation’s military was actually under the command and control of the President of the United States of America. The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Curtis LeMay — the man who more than any other responsible for putting down the insurgency and winning the Battle of Washington — was roaring around the North American continent ruthlessly restoring a particularly rough and ready form of absolute ‘command and control’. Without LeMay nobody knew what would have become of the country in recent weeks. The man was a genuine all-American hero. “Which means,” Fulbright apologised to the British Ambassador, “in the event of a crisis in the United Kingdom’s sphere of influence,” essentially Western Europe and the Mediterranean, “at this time I cannot foresee the United States being in any position to offer more than symbolic assistance in the foreseeable future.”
“I think that is understood in England,” Oliver Franks said sombrely. “I think most of the uncertainties in this area revolve around the, er, elephant in the room.”
“Which elephant would that be?” Joanne Brenckmann queried, raising her coffee cup to her lips.
“Red Dawn,” he husband murmured.
“I understood Red Dawn had shot its bolt?” The wife queried.
“In America, for the moment.”
“There are many areas of the World which are complete blind spots to both the CIA and to British Intelligence,” the Secretary of State explained. A part of him was questioning why he was about to divulge his country’s most secret intelligence to a housewife from Cambridge, Massachusetts who had never even held a Government job; the other part of him reflected that in this new World so brutally burned out of the old, such oddities constituted the ‘new normal’ of business as usual. “There are indications that Red Dawn may have subverted what before the October War was Turkey and areas of neighbouring countries. It is unclear whether Red Dawn will target the Balkans and perhaps, Italy, or strike south into the Middle East. Frankly, we have no idea what military clout Red Dawn may have accumulated, how many people have been persuaded to side with it or even if the populations of the areas in which it may — and I emphasise the clause ‘the areas in which it may’ — be operating have been assimilated into its foul movement. Our British ‘allies’ have informed us that they are doing what they can to reinforce their existing forces in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean. Currently, a relatively small combined air, sea and land force has secured strategic control of the island of Cyprus. This will be crucial if Red Dawn strikes into the Levant, Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq because a base in Cyprus will allow us to fly in supplies and to operate aircraft in support of Israel and Jordan, the only two inherently sympathetic coherent military powers in that region.” Realising he was extemporising more than he had intended, the Secretary of State paused to draw breath and collect his thoughts.
“Oh,” Joanne Brenckmann murmured. “You really think war is inevitable?”
Her husband sighed.
“Light munitions and other military stores are being sent on every aircraft and ship bound for the United Kingdom. Normally, there would be an Airborne Division of a Marine Expeditionary Force ready for mobilisation and transportation abroad at two to four weeks; presently, those forces are deployed on policing duties at home. Most of Strategic Air Command is locked down. The Atlantic Fleet is either mothballed or effectively unemployable. The Government can’t risk a new general mobilization of forces until the internal security situation has been resolved. We don’t know if there will be another war. If it doesn’t happen for six months or a year we might be in a good place to fight it. If it happens before then,” he shrugged, quirked an apologetic grimace in Oliver Franks’s direction, “I’m afraid our British friends are on their own.”
Chapter 10
The Prime Minister had been at her desk since six o’clock that morning and now, nearly five hours later, she showed no signs of flagging. Sir Henry Tomlinson, the head of the Home Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet knocked lightly at his mistress’s open door.
Margaret Thatcher looked up for a moment.
“Come in, Sir Henry,” she said in that friendly soprano she seemed capable of finding no matter what the time of day, or how tired she was feeling. She finished reading the paper on her desk, initialled the bottom of the page and looked up, again.
“The Cabinet awaits, Prime Minister,” the eminence grise of the Unity Administration reminded her with a half-smile. “Forgive me, but you really do need a private secretary.”
The Angry Widow viewed him with the briefest flicker of exasperation.