‘A month…’ Stavros stammered. ‘But General, we’ve got hundreds of cases… And where are we going to send them?’
‘A lot of them can be repatriated to their homelands, assuming the Israelis didn’t turn them into a slagheap. We got a lot of Pakistanis here – let Musharraf have them. We might even get lucky. India might nuke him as soon as they touch down. Most of the rest are Saudis, Jordanians, Afghanis – let’s send ‘em home. What happens then is up to their governments. Frankly, I don’t think many of them will survive, but that’s not my problem. A month, Colonel. This is one issue I don’t need to think about anymore. There’s plenty more that I do. Including this waste of space…’
Stavros turned to look over his shoulder where Musso had glowered at two approaching civilians. Professor Griffiths and his assistant Tibor, universally known as Igor. The pair were stomping up the road in front of Camp 4, sweating profusely.
Griffiths began carping as soon as he was in pistol-shot range. ‘Found you at last, General. I must protest yet again about the lack of cooperation from your staff with my research. Do I have to remind you that my team and I were sent here by your superiors? I am supposed to be studying the phenomenon, instead I spend most of my time getting jerked around by you or your minions.’
‘Good afternoon, Professor. Always lovely to see you,’ said Musso. ‘And no, you don’t have to remind me. I’ve heard that particular song so many times now, it has its own neural pathway that lights up every time I see you. If this is about your field trip, my staff aren’t thwarting you, Professor. They’re simply following orders. They cannot go into the exclusion zone along the line of the Wave, because they have been ordered not to. The Wave is dangerous, sir. It eats people. It ate one of yours the first week you were here. Left a little pile of goo in a white coat, as I recall. It’s not getting any more of mine.’
Musso’s voice was rising and he could feel his anger slipping the leash. He pushed past the civilians and stomped over to where his driver and Humvee stood waiting on the small loop road in front of the camp. Brown, dried-out grass grew to knee length on the waste ground here and Musso made a note to himself to have that seen to. It was getting to be a fire hazard. He was aware of Stavros crunching up behind him, but his thoughts were elsewhere, sailing out across the blue waters he could just glimpse between the prison camp buildings as he attempted to calm down. Increasingly he found the fuse on his incendiary temper was burning way too quickly. He had once fancied himself the world’s most patient man. Really, he was known for it. That’s what made him a good lawyer. But he did have a temper, a foul one, and it had been running wild for weeks. Ever since the first shock had ebbed and he’d had time to really take in the enormity of the loss. Of his loss, personally.
He lay awake in his cot most nights, unable to sleep properly, tortured by the loss of his family. It was wrong, he knew, to feel their deaths so much more keenly than the hundreds of millions of lives snuffed out on that day and since. But that was just how people were. As each day went past, he found it more difficult to deal with their absence, not less. He often caught himself thinking irrationally of calling one of his boys or his wife. And then he’d remember… and his mood would implode.
‘Well, let the Cubans escort me, General,’ continued Griffiths, who was entirely oblivious to the needs of anyone but himself. ‘They don’t have to follow your orders, do they? I’m sure some of them would love a chance to travel back into their own country.’
Musso spun on him. ‘Go ask them yourself, Professor, but first, tell me what the fuck have you actually learned while you’ve been here? Tell me what anyone has learned, here or anywhere else, about that thing.’
Griffiths staggered back one step and opened his mouth, but no words came out, because there was nothing to say. The Wave did not exist, at least not according to any instruments or sensor arrays currently available. The only evidence that it still sat there, squatting over the North American continent, was available by looking north. There it soared, miles into the sky. Mute, terrible and utterly impenetrable.
‘Nobody is stopping you, Professor. Off you go, if you wish. But do not bother my people about it. I have lost half-a-dozen of them to that thing, not to mention the Cubans it’s grabbed up. It’s random. There is no safe distance within two thousand metres of it. People have been snatched from twenty feet away, and two klicks. You were told all of this, on arrival. Nothing has changed.’
Griffiths, a small man afflicted with receding red hair, appeared likely to blow a gasket. But unlike Musso he still had control of his temper. ‘I am sorry for the loss of your men, General…’
‘And women. Two of my Marines were women – Corporal Crist and Lieutenant Kwan.’
‘Okay. I am sorry. But those casualties all predated my arrival. I do not need anyone to follow me into the exclusion zone. Entering is a risk I am willing to take. But I cannot get out there without an escort. There are simply too many bandits now. It is too dangerous.’
Musso made another conscious effort not to explode. He tried to climb down from the heights of his rage. Perhaps Griffiths was right. Nobody had ever been taken beyond two thousand metres. The survey stations in the Pacific Northwest and Canada confirmed that too. If the scientist had the nuts to take himself inside that safe, established perimeter on his own, who was he to argue? After all, if the Wave gobbled him up, it’d be one less headache for Musso to deal with.
‘Okay,’ the general replied, ‘you can have an escort to within three thousand metres. After that, you’re on your own. Even if you get nailed by bandits within clear sight of my people, if you are in the zone, you’re on your own. See if you can remember that little rhyme. It’ll help with your confusion when we don’t come running to drag your ass out of trouble.’
Stavros stepped forward at that point. ‘General, your meeting with the French consul, sir. You’re going to be late.’
‘Thanks, George,’ he grunted. It wasn’t even a set-up. He really did have a meeting, for which he was truly grateful. ‘Dr Griffiths, if you don’t mind, I have to sign off on the last of the refugee convoys today. Perhaps when they are gone, there will be time for dealing with your issues.’
That seemed to surprise and even mollify the scientist somewhat, and Musso climbed into the Humvee without delay. He didn’t offer the civilians a ride anywhere.
‘These won’t be the last refugees we get, you know, General.’
‘I know, Susie, but it will be the last big convoy the navy escorts anywhere. The word from Pearl is finito. It’s been a month. From now on, people will have to make their own arrangements. We’re losing more of our power-projection capability with each passing day.’