There was a knock at the door. “General, please will you come into the briefing room,” a young Indian girl said. She wore civilian clothes, but Erica had explained that she handled almost all of the personal facilities at the CJHQ, the only non-career military person cleared to know about its existence. “They’re ready for you now.”
Langford laughed silently at himself as he stood up. He had wanted to be out there, giving orders and working to bring the country back together again, but Erica had convinced him that he had to be thinking about the overall problem, at least until they found a surviving politician in the line of succession. Langford wasn't hopeful; the Houses of Parliament had been blown apart and there had been no time for an evacuation. His only order, so far, had been simple; he was not to be addressed as Prime Minister.
“Thank you,” he said, to the girl. Her nametag read SARA. “Please lead the way.”
It was a very short walk; the CJHQ was a tiny complex, certainly compared to some of the vast American complexes that had been built for a global war against terrorists. The main briefing room made no concessions to public opinion; it was both comfortable and functional, if a little shabby. Langford had inspected it briefly and realised that it was almost ideal for a press-free base. There were only three people in the room; Major Erica Yuppie, Aaron Sargon and a man Langford didn’t recognise.
They saluted him as he sat down. “Major-General, this is Michael Casey, our expert on EUROFOR and other militaries around the world,” Erica said. Langford liked him on sight; he had an air of reassuring competence that he appreciated in people who were telling him vital information. “We have spent the last hour gathering as much information as we can from all of our sources — all of our surviving sources, I should say. The damage has really been quite remarkable.”
Sara passed them all cups of tea, checked that they didn’t want refreshments, and slipped out of the room. “It doesn’t look good,” Erica said, as soon as the door clicked closed and locked behind her. “There is little doubt that we have been attacked on a major basis by the Russians, although I admit that there is a marginal — very marginal — room for doubt. The assault plan is not something as… deniable as the execution of Alexander Litvinenko, sir; there seems no reason to believe that this is nothing less than a major grab for power in Europe. The attack caught us completely by surprise and was asymmetric; the reports make that clear.”
A screen flickered into life, showing Britain; the number of red icons made Langford’s blood run cold. “This is the situation as we understand it,” Sargon said. The analyst sounded as if he didn’t quite believe his own words; Langford understood his shock and horror perfectly. How had they gotten into this mess? “At roughly 1100hrs, several things happened, starting with the loss of all of the European satellites in orbit and continuing with the launch of around three hundred missiles into the UKADGE. This data is still preliminary; some of the reports come from pilots flying wherever they saw a flash or a faint radar trace, some more may be blaming the actions of other operatives on the cruise missiles. Regardless, we have taken serious losses; all three of the major fighter bases took a pounding, although RAF Coningsby got lucky and took down three of the five missiles aimed at it with TMD systems operated by the RAF Regiment. Other bases weren’t so lucky; RAF Leuchars and RAF Leeming both got clobbered, while the tanker base at RAF Brize Norton got badly hit when a fuel tanker exploded. The death toll was pretty heavy; only a SAR base in Scotland avoided getting worked over.”
He took a breath. “We had one stroke of good luck,” he said. “A Sentry and three Eurofighter Typhoons — and one Eurofighter Tempest — was engaged in a practice run against the French Air Force. They saw most of the attack and are currently providing top cover over Britain — fortunate, as all of the military radar stations got hit. That includes RAF Fylingdales, along with its BMEWS solid-state phased-array radar, which was completely destroyed. As you may recall, successive defence chiefs had provided warning after warning about the vulnerability of the radar; large, immobile, and easy to hit.”
“I think the horse has bolted on that one,” Langford said. “And the remainder of the UKADGE?”
“There have been at least seven — there may well have been more — incidents of airliners being shot down with handheld SAM missiles,” Erica said. “Two came down in London itself; the others are scattered around major airports, such as Manchester, and Edinburgh. The explosions have only added to the civil unrest, sir; the situation is already growing out of control. We have several incidents of truck bombs being deployed against our remaining ground bases…”
Langford held up a hand. “Our remaining ground bases?”
Erica’s eyes showed real pain for the first time. “Every major barracks has been hit,” she said. “Some of the damage wasn't as bad as it seemed at first sight, but it was still pretty bad; there are thousands of casualties out there. We’ve been able to get lines out to most of the bases, and now the jamming has gone, we have been able to make radio contact with the surviving bases. According to the preliminary results, we’re looking at over three thousand dead…”
Langford just stared at her. “And the naval side is worst,” Erica said. “There were at least seven missiles, all designed to inflict major damage, targeted on Faslane Naval Base, which is part of HMNB Clyde. The destruction was vast, sir; two of our three SSBNs are wrecked. The third, HMS Vengeance, was on patrol; she may well have been sunk already. She was due to get back in touch with us in a week; she was ordered to run very silent and deep for a training exercise.”
Langford cursed the European Union under his breath. They had insisted on Britain decommissioning one nuclear submarine… and Prime Minister Nicholas Donavan had gone along with them, rather than face the fury of the peace protesters. The two wrecked submarines had cut Britain's deterrent down to one… and if the Russians had been willing to go so far, they might decide that it was worth the risk of engaging the final submarine directly.
Erica continued her damning recitation. “The other naval bases were badly hit as well,” she continued. “We have lost over seventeen ships outright and several more have been damaged to the point where they will be effectively useless for combat operations. A destroyer at HMS Portsmouth was successful in providing some cover for the port; the Captain took the risk of opening fire and saved the port from much worse damage.” She took a long breath. “We lost the Queen Elizabeth.”
“Billions of pounds, most of our defence fund for several years… just gone,” Langford said. The sheer scale of the damage seemed impossible to grasp. The Queen Elizabeth had been the pride and joy of the Royal Navy, one of two large carriers intended to finally regain the capability of serious operations after decades of messing about with small carriers that could barely mount a strike force. “What about the Falklands?”
“We have no contact with Admiral Wilkinson at the moment,” Erica said. “Almost all of our communications are down, either though physical destruction or through hacking attacks. Most of the civil communications network has been shattered and broken; all over the country, people are panicking. Even in the areas not touched by civil unrest, we have real problems…”
Langford stared at her. “Civil unrest?”