“Shall I call a general alert, sir?”
“No, stand down.”
“But, sir, there are five missiles heading straight for the motherland. We have to retaliate,” insisted Lieutenant Azarov, a slight panic in his voice.
“They’ve gone,” jumped in Captain Bezrukov. “They’ve just disappeared off the screen.”
Perov peered over his shoulder. The five blinking lights of potential intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles heading towards the Soviet Union had gone. The screen was blank, with only a little atmospheric noise remaining.
Chapter 7
The Prime Minister’s chauffeured car, an armour-plated Jaguar, followed by a Range Rover containing her close protection team, drove at a fairly leisurely speed down the A4, Bath Road, in between the village of Corsham and Lower Rudloe. They passed a triangular- shaped copse on their right; hidden within it, one of the many concealed sections of the secret complex they were heading for.
A hundred or so yards further on, the driver turned left onto leafy lane, making their way towards Westwells Road. They passed a large grassed mound on their right; Personnel-Lift-1 concealed within, its two entrances disappearing inside; alongside it, the guardhouse controlling who would be admitted and who could leave by this route. Continuing east, and after only a short drive, the driver swung left into Old Shaft Road, being waved through at the checkpoint by a Ministry of Defence police officer as the Prime Minister’s party was expected. Parking up next to the Personnel-Lift-2, the PM’s close protection officer slid out of the passenger seat of the Jaguar, scanning the area quickly, even though they were in a secure area. The Range Rover pulled up a few yards away, disgorging the rest of the close protection team; the armed, plain-clothes policemen securing the area to ensure their charge, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harriet Willis, was protected.
A second Ministry of Defence policeman escorted them to the upper landing of Lift 2. Two lifts were available for them to use. Heaving back one of the blue-green, heavy concertina lift doors, followed by the inner secure cage door which rattled back until it was flush against the right-hand wall, the lift was now accessible. The policeman, the Prime Minister and a close protection officer entered the spacious, wood-panelled lift, a row of half a dozen wooden, collapsible chairs lined each side. The policeman slid the door shut with a clang as it locked into the latch, followed by the cage; then he manipulated the brass rotary controller and the lift car, installed in 1941, descended the one hundred feet to the lower level.
The Prime Minister made small talk with the security officer, a long-serving member of the MOD police force who had met the PM on a previous occasion. The lift lurched to a halt and the officer excused himself as he pulled back the internal lift gate on the opposite end, followed by the heavy concertina door. A slightly dank, musty smell, filled the air and the PM’s nose wrinkled slightly. The Prime Minister, met by an aide, exited the lift, followed by her tall, suited protection officer, and stepped out onto the lower lift landing. She was offered a ride on one of the battery-powered vehicles used to move around the underground site, but she refused, preferring to walk.
The PM, the aide and her CP officer, headed for their destination: the map room in Area 14. Their footsteps reverberated in the large concrete and sometimes brick-lined area of the bunker complex. The fluorescent lights cast an eery, unnatural glow over their route. Crossing the main road was a broad underground roadway, a kilometre long, that stretched from west to east, linking Personnel-Lift-1 to Personnel-Lift-2, the one they had just exited. Above them, some four metres in height, the concrete ceiling looked cold and damp, lined with pipes, ducting and cables, feeding the entire complex.
The Government Emergency War Headquarters, GEWHQ, was situated amongst a 260-acre network of government buildings below which lay, half a kilometre long and 600 metres wide, an underground blast and radiation-proof bunker. Construction of the bunker had begun in the late 1950s, requiring a fairly substantial upgrade at the onset of the intercontinental ballistic missile era. As well as blast-proofed, it was self-sufficient and could sustain the intended 4,000 occupants, in the event of a Cold War nuclear attack, in isolation from the rest of the country, for up to three months. It was, in effect, an underground city, equipped with a hospital, canteen, kitchen, laundry facilities, dormitories, storerooms and even an underground lake, along with a water treatment plant, that would provide them with all the water they would need.
The party entered a corridor between Area 12 on the left, the kitchens and dining area, and Area 13 on the right that housed the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Agriculture. As the country was not at war, both areas were currently empty. They soon arrived at Area 14, the zone designated as the Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Offices, Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet. Other areas within the labyrinth housed a general post office, a GPO telephone exchange, plant, such as generators, government communications centre, the War Office, Air Ministry, a BBC studio and more.
The map room in Area 14 was a bleak space in comparison with the cabinet rooms back at number 10 Downing Street, twenty metres by twenty metres, with concrete walls, floor and ceiling lit by fluorescent tubes. A group of tables had been pushed together to form one long conference table in the centre; a dozen wooden chairs, with red padded seats, were placed around it. To the left of the room, three large floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the Cabinet Office conference room; to the right, a large three-metre by two-metre-wide map of the world was on display.
Chairs scraped back as six men stood up, two wearing suits, four in the military uniforms of their respective services. Lawrence Holmes, the Secretary of State for Defence, his thick shock of greying hair brushed back at the top and sides, strode forward to greet her. “Prime Minister, welcome to our salubrious map room.” He smiled, his prominent eyebrows raised slightly as they shook hands. The Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister were often at odds with each other, but today they were on neutral ground.
“Thank you, Lawrence.” She walked to the end of the conference table. Jeremy Chapman, her Home Secretary, two small, dark curls prominent on his forehead, his hair starting to recede at the sides, also came forward to greet her. “Prime Minister.”
The PM shook his hand then turned to the four men lined up on the other side of the table. “Thank you for attending today, gentlemen. We shall try not to keep you away from your duties for too long.” She walked around and shook the hand of each one in turn: the First Sea Lord Alistair Palmer; Air Marshal Edward Walker; Thomas Fletcher, Chief of the Defence Staff; and Dominic Hamilton, resplendent in his full general’s uniform, Chief of the General Staff.
“Well, gentlemen, let’s get to it, shall we?” She walked back to the head of the table and sat down, an aide in the process of pouring her a glass of water. “It’s not from the underground lake, I hope?”
The attendees of the meeting laughed and, with a scraping of chairs, sat down to make a start on the meeting. The PM was offered a cup of tea, which she refused. She placed her dark blue, patent leather handbag, on the table in front of her Its the colour matching her woollen dress an even darker blue, large buttons securing it along its length, With her bouffant hair and red lipstick, a circular brooch on the left of her outfit and a pearl necklace, she looked every bit the sophisticated, confident leader she was. An aide placed some papers in front of her, similar documents to those already set before the others.