In Hampstead an unmarked car drove past an alleyway, saw an apparently unconscious black youth laying on the ground, high on crack. A handgun and spent cases were in view. Armed officers closed in and trussed his arms behind his back with nylon cuffs as a precaution. A bus pass identified the owner of the recently discharged firearm, a pocketful of ammunition, sixty-nine rocks of crack and £1285 cash as one Jubi Asejoke, whom police already wanted on warrant. The fact that he was found next to the home of the police officer who had last arrested him, with the officers name and home address written on a scrap of paper in one pocket would ensure Jubi would learn the hard way about the dangers of dropping the soap over the next ten years.
In Croydon, an extremely a somewhat alarmed bomb disposal officer would pack away his portable x-ray machine and order the evacuation of all homes and businesses within one mile. His next act would be to call out a team from the nuclear weapons facility at Aldermaston.
A third phone call, this time on the confidential ‘Crime Stoppers’ number gave the names of several men and a woman, an address in Essex and another in St Johns Wood. This call was passed to SO15 Counter Terrorist Command in addition to a police incident room, set up at Shooters Hill police station to investigate the murder of the officers earlier. Two hours’ later the Sir Richard Tennant, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, London’s top policeman, got off the phone’ with the Home Secretary. He next put through a call to the former RAF Credenhill which now housed 22 Special Air Service Regiment. The Home Secretary would be calling the Chief Constable of Essex instructing him to extend full co-operation.
The prime minister was stirred from sleep and informed that a possible nuclear device had been found in south London. All over the capital and surrounding counties, off duty police officers were being telephoned and ordered to their stations and departments. Geiger counters were brought out of special stores and an extensive street search plan formulated.
Leaving the DAC for counter terrorist matters to handle the Essex business the commissioner attended the major incident centre, which was slowly filling with staff called from their beds. It was going to be a long night for the Met.
Over the previous two days Anatolly Peridenko and Serge Alontov had briefed the Chinese Premier, Defence Minister Pong and Marshall Lo Chang of which terrorist groups would be delivering the devices. Premier Chiu was a man who had attained his office more through low cunning than by higher education. He had thought that the detonation of the devices would have been simultaneously at rush hour worldwide until reminded that the daily event varied considerably by hours’. A cynical Serge wondered if the man held the flat earth theory as being fact and all else as being foreign devil propaganda. At 0900hrs on the day, a delivery van would be hijacked enroute to the White House by Muslim extremists who had been briefed that the device would produce a similar effect as 300lbs of Semtex. The young fanatic driving the van would trigger the explosion as soon as he was compromised, but if he was prevented from doing so the internal timer would initiate the explosion at the same time as the remaining devices worldwide, 0900hrs Washington time, whether in position or not. This included the device being delivered to the Pentagon by the same group. This of course meant that NATO Headquarters in Brussels would be destroyed at 1500hrs, local time whilst all its offices were full but the Australian Parliament in Canberra would probably be virtually empty at 7pm their time. The odds that the worlds security forces could impose curfews once a pattern emerged was unlikely.
In countries of the former Soviet Union, those who yearned for the return to the old ways were ready to seize power and set their armed forces to join the armies of the Russian Federation as they rolled west. The combined forces would be a fraction of their old size yet more than a match for a headless NATO.
Marshal Lo Chang was stripping the fleet ships of some of their best seamen, not all, not enough to weaken their crews in order to man the carrier, Mao.
The armed forces of the People’s Republic of China were always at a higher state of readiness in peacetime than existed in the majority of countries elsewhere. It would be a relatively speedy business to bring them up to war readiness.
Despite western intelligence to the contrary, China had sufficient amphibious capability to move two infantry brigades and minimal light armour and artillery support in conventional amphibious assault craft. The numerous small roll-on roll-off ferries that served the coastal communities along her lengthy coastline would land heavy reinforcements. The first modern day amphibious invasion by China would be, predictably, Taiwan with landings simultaneously on both sides of the Cho-Shui river estuary that bisected the narrow strip of land between the coast and the mountains that dominated the island. The Chinese plan for Day 1 also called for mass airborne landings, not only on Taiwan but also to seize the Island State of Singapore. Privately, Serge suspected that could well become China’s Bien Dien Phu or the Arnhem of the East, at the least it could rob China of elite troops who would be sorely needed in the invasions of Japan, Australia and the Philippines later in the year. In contrast the soon to be reborn Soviet Union had a far easier task confronting it. The real fight would be in securing the Middle East oil fields. With the taps turned off the USA would wither and die on the vine.
As in the first two world wars, closing the Atlantic was a priority for the submarine fleet. China, with her tiny submarine fleet was being loaned the services of two flotillas for use in the Pacific. This left a bare margin of reserves from the currently under covert refurbishment diesel and nuclear boats.
The United Kingdom held no strategic value for the Russian forces and their allies. For America though the British Isles was potentially a giant aircraft carrier and staging post, as it had been during the cold war years and Second World War before that. ICBMs that had been aimed at China were now re-targeted. A large percentage of these weapons were now aimed at the British Isles.
The mothballed, partially completed carrier Varyag would not be ready on Day 1, the workforce that had completed the Admiral Gorshkov / Mao was working around the clock in order to double Russia’s carrier force.
There were many smaller operations, many vital and many merely designed to weaken their enemy. The small-scale operations could be rehearsed by those taking part, without compromising security. For some on the large-scale operations, it would be ‘on the job training’.
With their work in China completed Serge Alontov had retired to his room for an early night. Shrugging off Peridenko’s invitation to share a bottle of vodka and the seventeen-year-old twins Peridenko had acquired in order to celebrate. His job here was finished and he felt no further need to feign cordiality with the man. He had been promised an active role, again in uniform. Serge had intended to be rested before their return flight to Moscow.
Peridenko stretched and yawned. The wall clock told him he had five hours’ before he needed to depart for the airport. At the end of the massive bed he occupied lay the Chinese girls, still fast asleep and sprawled out naked in one another’s arms. The Chinese Minister for Education had assured him that the ‘ch'ing-kuan-jen’ girls were twins, yet what they had done to each other whilst he regained his strength, had been highly arousing rather than sisterly.
An inch of vodka remained in the bottle and taking it by the neck he drained it. He was considering stretching out his leg to nudge them in to wakefulness, but the telephone rang.