At least now with Parliament prorogued Brown would now only have to deal with his Cabinet and the three First Ministers, though they could be something of a pain. At least many of the government’s emergency powers overrode much of their authority. The Prime Minister realized that the Minister of Defence was speaking and tried to look like he had been listening all along.
“…And the news from Iraq certainly seems to be good. The baldrick attacks on Allied Forces have been totally defeated and their army is in headlong retreat towards the Hellmouth.” Admiral of the Fleet Lord West was saying. “Damn all good it will do them because the American 1st Armored Division and the Iranian armored division have cut off their line of retreat.”
Appointing Admiral West as the new Secretary of State for Defence had come as a development of the horse-trading that had taken place during the formation of the Coalition government. The Service Chiefs as well as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had made it very clear that they had no confidence in West’s predecessor, Des Browne, so he had to go. The Admiral was already the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Security, so he had experience of working in government, he had great experience of military matters and was highly respected by both the Services and politicians.
“The 4th Mechanized Brigade has performed very well against the baldrick army; I think our retention of rifled guns for the Challenger 2 has finally proven its worth.” The Admiral said, continuing his briefing. “They’ve demonstrated an ability to strike the enemy at a greater range than the smoothbore guns on the American tanks.”
“That’s certainly true.” General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, agreed. “Our HESH rounds have also proven to be somewhat more effective than the HEAT rounds used by the Abrams, though we do need something like the canister round they have. There was a canister round produced for the old Challenger 1, and if we have any left they may be compatible with the Challenger 2.”
“Talking of shells, ammunition is one thing that Major General Binns has expressed concern about.” Admiral West told the Prime Minister. “A great deal of ammunition was expended in stopping the baldrick attack and while the stockpile in theatre is in no danger of running out just yet he is beginning to run short.”
“I take it we are moving further supplies to Iraq?” The Prime Minister asked.
“Yes, Prime Minister.” West confirmed. “We are moving stocks of ammunition from the UK and Germany to Iraq. The remainder of the 1st Armoured Division is moving to ports of embarkation in Germany in case it is needed in Iraq, and we have alerted 3 Division to be ready for possible deployment, though we may need them at home.
“Immediate reinforcements for our forces in Iraq will come from Afghanistan, where the threat has disappeared overnight. In fact the senior surviving Taliban commander has sent a message to the commander of ISAF offering the support of his men in fighting the war. Iran has agreed to assist in the movement of our troops, and other contingents of ISAF from Afghanistan to the theatre of operations.”
The Prime Minister nodded, indicating that he understood.
“What progress is being made regarding the restarting of tank shell production?” Brown asked. “I don’t think that we can rely on supplies from South Africa, as memory serves they were somewhat shoddy anyway.”
“We have sent a Ministry team up to the site of ROF Bishopton, along with some chaps from BAE. It seems that the factory is still largely intact, so restarting production should not be too difficult, if a bit expensive.” West replied. “Fortunately the plans to build houses on the site were delayed, so no demolition has taken place and most of the equipment is either there, or was put into secure storage. The initial estimate given by my people is that the factory should be up and running within two months.”
“Good.” The PM replied. “I trust there will be no problems regarding finance, Alistair?” He asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
“Not at all, Prime Minister.” Alistair Darling replied. “Defence and industrial projects related to the Defence of the Realm will get all the money they need. The Bank of England is printing more money so that we can continue to pay our bills; that does, of course risk the most appalling economic downturn when the war is over.”
Gordon Brown laughed, the first time he had done so in a long time.
“Only if we win, Alistair. If we lose then I don’t think it will be a problem.” He turned back to Admiral West. “Admiral, if at any point BAE drag their heels, either over Bishopton, or increasing production of aircraft, tanks, rifles, or whatever, tell them that should they continue to bugger us around Her Majesties Government will nationalize the company and sack the management, thus making them eligible to be conscripted into the army.”
“Certainly, Prime Minister. I shall certainly look at sending them somewhere nasty if that happens.” West said.
“I’ll deploy them to Iraq.” Dannatt commented. “My soldiers need more equipment as soon as possible, so I’ll not have them putting their lives at risk any more than they are already. There is one thing that we do need to ask your permission to do, Prime Minister. The SA80, along with all rifles chambered for 5.56mm NATO rounds have proven to be less than effective at dealing with baldricks. They will kill them, but it takes a great deal of ammunition, and has resulted in soldiers being killed before the baldrick dies.
“We have found that the. 338 Lapua round used in our sniper rifles is far more effective, so we would like to start immediate and rapid development of a rifle chambered for this round to replace the SA80. My staff have identified the old SLR as a suitable basis for this weapon, so we would like to arrange for production facilities to be set up as soon as possible.”
“An Urgent Operational Requirement I take it, General?” Brown asked. “Then by all means do whatever is necessary to get this weapon into the hands of our soldiers.
“On another matter entirely I have heard that the Americans have managed to make contact with some of their soldiers in Hell and are in the process of starting an insurgency. Are we engaged in a similar undertaking?”
He saw the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, smile in very cat like way.
“We most certainly are, Prime Minister. Our Special Forces people are working very closely with the Americans on this. If possible we’d also like to try to contact any of our personnel who have ended up in Hell. We believe that if we can organize all of the ex-military personnel who have ended up in Hell, or even just a small proportion of them, then we may be able to get quite a rebellion going.”
(Thanks to Jan who wrote the beginning and end of this part)
Chapter Twenty Seven
Apartment in Queens, New York He carefully wrote out the name and address on the plain manila envelope with his black sharpie. It whispered across the surface as his elegant but simple strokes spelled out the name James Randi. He stopped for a moment, the quiet dulcet tones of the classical music in the background was swelling up now and he listened. He ignored the palsied shaking of his left hand. There was no time for fear.
His eyes drifted down to the small pile of photos stacked up next to the open envelope. The top photo was a wide angled shot of an African village, thatched huts and low hanging solitary trees with scrub brush everywhere. It was almost cliched as if he had taken a photo of an African village set in the back lot of Paramount. He only wished that were true. In the wide angled shot there were plumes of black smoke rising up in several locations throughout the center of the village. His thoughts, unbidden as always, drifted back to that moment in time. His eyes lost their focus on the photo and he was no longer in his quiet home in a non-descript neighborhood of Queens. He was stalking through the deep scrub brush of the African village.