2) Red Alert
RED ROCK/KRASNY KAMENIEV
STATION ADMINISTRATORS OFFICE SUITE
POST-CRISIS CONFERENCE
E-DATE EQUIVALENT JUNE 5/6
Each of the heads of division had arrived and settled down; an initial murmur towards the rear faded out as Station Administrator Bhatacharjee stood to gain attention. People shuffled, pulling their chairs around to face forward, towards the podium and its three speakers - Bhatacharjee, Prue and Griskiewicz. The first of these three stood to speak after a nudge from Prue. As Administrator the traumata of Red Rock fell upon his trimly tailored shoulders, which he expected - he didn't like, but he expected. After all, he was a scientist, an astrophysicist by profession and had been promoted to the rank of Station Administrator almost by default as one of the few people acceptable to all the factions within the establishment. Today was a day to worry about: it transcended the normal bounds of duty. Suicide, murder, sabotage and more and worse. He took a deep breath, focussing his attention upon jitters suddenly come to life in the region of his stomach, then began, by banging the less-than-impressive gavel (also known as the "gravel-gavel", it was actually only a humble geologists hammer, Mars being the distance from Earth it was and transport costs being what they were).
'This extraordinary session is now convened. For the record, we are now in the first quarter of June six, and it is eighteen-eighteen. The panel here represented consists of myself, Administrator Bhatacharjee, Deputy Administrator Prue and Comptroller Griskiewicz.'
Flat silence prevailed for several seconds. Bhatacharjee continued.
'I don't know quite what rumours have been circulating about the accidents that took place on the fourth, but we're here to inform you about them.'
Beginning when the word "accidents" was spoken, a low murmur ran round the room.
'Alright. Thirty-five people were killed in the explosions. Not three, not eight, not one hundred and fifty. Thirty five. Of those, thirty two were killed in Chamber Six, three in the plant room ante-chamber. Needless to say, those responsible for these attacks were killed by their own bombs. One of the reactors was slightly damaged and currently is operating on half-power, which is the minimum safe output. Until it gets repaired we will be running on five-sixths normal power rating. Make sure your staff note that. Five-sixths. Chamber Six, I'm afraid, is quite beyond repair. It has been permanently sealed from inside, also externally, so there is no way to get in or out that way. Again, make sure your staff are well aware of that. Now, those are the basic facts. Does anyone have a question? I'm sure at least some of you do.'
He scanned those assembled, carefully. Eventually one person stood to make a query. Emmenthal.
'Yes?' It had been a vain gamble, hoping that not mentioning details of the bombing would discourage enquiries.
'Why did they do it and who were they?'
The simplest query. Also the worst one.
'Why, I have no idea. Those responsible were Ranger Calvino and Technical Officer Price. As I said, neither survived. They left no notes or letters or ultimata.'
Left unsaid was the fact that there weren't any pieces left of the two guilty men, to determine anything about their state of mind.
'Suicide, maybe?'
'Not according to their last Taunas test results. With no note or reason apparent and knowing them as we do - er, that is, did know them - it isn't very likely.'
As Emmenthal sat down another person stood up. Bhatacharjee recognised him; Fujitake, the Japanese exo-physicist, polite but very insistent and unofficial head of the Asian faction within Red Rock.
'May I ask where these two men acquired material for their bombs?'
There was no answer yet to that question. The Administrator revealed that, as far as anyone was aware, neither man could have gained access to explosives. After all, Red Rock was a civilian complex, not a military one, and the only weapons allowed there were five handguns for the security guards.
'Could they have perhaps been seismic charges?'
'No. All audited correctly and accounted for.'
'What about a home-made weapon?'
'Not possible. Neither had access to the requisite materials, nor is there any forensic evidence of any such construction.'
Fujitake have a slight bow and sat down again, taking Bhatacharjee by surprise since he'd expected a much more persistent line of questioning.
A confused babble broke out amongst the division heads.
'Will we have to inform FedCon and the System Command?' asked an anonymous voice from the rear of the audience.
That was the question Bhatacharjee and his compatriots liked least of all, because of the answer, which was "yes". FedCon would of course press for an investigation; System Command would send out an unwanted and unliked investigator, to poke around. There would be a review of politics, policies and finances - and personnel. Every time a major, or just a moderate sized mishap occurred, there was always an investigation. One thing Bhatacharjee kept to himself; UNION would be poking it's ubiquitous tentacles into the mess, though they would have had an interest anyway; what would make them even more curious than usual was a fact known only to three people on Mars (those being Bhatacharjee, Prue and Griskiewicz) - that Price and Calvino had been seconded to the intelligence organisation's "Mars section" during their tour of duty here.
The whole dreadful, messy affair meant there would be hell to pay. The usual factors of politics, policies, personnel and purse-strings. He might possibly have to resign. That certainly wouldn't look good on a curriculum vitae, would it? although the removal of executive responsibility would be actually welcome. Still, this business seemed set to finish a promising career abruptly - and by what? More aptly, why?
As gloomy scenarios spun through his mind, the assembled division heads dispersed, mumbling and scraping chairs.
'Come on, Babu. Time for a cup of something hot and sweet,' said Prue. Griskiewicz sat glumly in his seat, arms folded forehead creased, legs stuck out straight in front of him, an archetypal picture of Slavic melancholia.
'Come on,' huffed Prue. 'I can't cheer you both up at once. I'll see you in Canteen One.'
3) The Busman
GREECE
THRACE
EKOPIAN ORACLE OF ZEUS
JULY 7
Alex flicked another apricot stone at the hollowed rock ten metres from his vantage point, hitting it squarely. The apricot stone bounced back and lay just in front of the rock, baking slowly under a fierce Hellenic sun. If he stayed still and was quiet enough for long enough then that little lizard would again emerge from its lair within the rock to collect the pit - just as it had previously all that day and yesterday and the day before. That lizard must be fond of apricots and their stones. Alex ate another apricot and waited.
Aha! There was the lizard - and also an airborne seagull, a rare sight here. Hovering carefully, beady eyes threaded tight upon the unsuspecting reptile, the gull began slowly sinking groundward without any noise.
Alex looked slyly from side to side. Gulls, any kind of gull, were protected under law; abusing them was a criminal offence and he didn't want any witnesses.
No-one near. The gull was closer, about to stoop.
With a deft overhand flick, Alex bounced his latest fruit core off the intent bird's head. It screeched balefully before winging hastily away, leaving its incipient lunch to scurry meekly beneath the overhead cover of home. The tourist remained where he was, sitting with his back against a boulder, rucksack on his knees, paper bag half-full of apricots by his right thigh. This was "his" spot and had been so for a week; conveniently located (his inn being near the oracle), it was a convenient place, picturesque, shaded and tourist-free (although there weren't many of that species to be found in Greece nowadays). A sound spot, therefore, for a mid-day rest for the tired traveller. Tired, because in the interests of posterity, Alex had walked up and down rocky hills and valleys, smelling pine and olive, feeling hot, nodding amicably to friendly locals, taking dozens and dozens of pictures. He had also illegally picked up pebbles from each site and secreted them in his rucksack; once home he would carefully label them, treat them with a surface preservative and put them on display - or give them away as souvenir presents. They had a considerable cachet, since Greece was so rarely visited by British tourists.
Home. Odd, really, thinking of Britain as home. Home, real home, where he had been born and raised, lay to the north-west of this country, near Beogradska, Belgrade to the British. Of course he would be thinking of Serbia, having just visited for several days. He probably still had a kilo of Mama's cooking deposited around his waist. She had bossed him cordially, matriarchal head of the clan - of whom several brothers and sisters were assembled - scolding his funny, foreign-accented talk, proudly telling visitors of her son "the important man", cooking huge meals, taking them all to visit Papa's plaque in the cinerarium. Returning to Britain would be a partial dislocation.
It had taken him several years to adapt to the rather insular island folk (claimed to have a national psyche similar to that of those other post-imperial islanders, the Japanese - polite, diligent and convinced of an innate superiority), but the culture clash had been lessened by stints of duty in Holland and Mexico. Well, time enough to think of home when he reached it, there were days left before that became a necessity.
'Time. Time. Time,' shrilled his wrist chrono. Set to remind him after a rest of one hour and, really, the best thing about a call like that was being able to ignore it. Perhaps he would make a move in ten minutes or so. There was an interesting looking route to the north-east that remained unexplored as yet but which held promise; if he remembered properly then Herodotus had mentioned a similar area in The History, when the remnants of Xerxes army had suffered cruelly in their retreat. And throughout his explorations he kept remembering the thought of a dinner with Mister Kazaklis. He liked the Greek innkeeper; when one of the Government Revenue Inspectorate appeared for a routine inquisition Kazaklis served him ouzo from the red-labelled bottle; two assistants had afterwards to remove their superior in a taxi, since he was incapable of moving under his own power. Typically Kazaklis - hospitable to the extreme.
Now that the sun had passed its peak it was time to bestir himself and move. There were no more apricots left, either. He hurled the last stone upwards with all his force and left before the pit came to rest.
For the tail-end of that afternoon Alex contentedly strolled beneath a broiling sun, taking alternate pictures of scenery and greenery. He had hundreds of frames in the magazine already and would stop, he decided, when the stock ran out. Greek Customs would have a delightful time if they decided to vet their visitors stock: five hundred differing shots of antiquities to wade through.
By afternoon's end the sun's heat had faded a little, sufficient to act as a reminder to any wandering tourist that their touring activities ought to cease and gastronomic ones commence. Alex knew that he would also take long enough to work up an appetite. Not that he needed reasons or excuses.
The route back to the Kazaklis taverna took him past olive groves and pine trees, arborea typical of Greece, then past a stream that fed a large pond - where there were said to be fish but where Alex and local anglers failed to catch anything, ever. A flight of jets overhead momentarily distracted his attention as he went downhill to Kavos, three tiny black deltas arrowing towards the South. Not a common sight in Greece. Perhaps, even probably, they were American.
Two peasant women walked by as he entered the village; after he gave them a cheerful "kalinicta" they stopped to stare, muttering about the stranger with a foreign accent, maybe one of those Serbian spies the Americans warned everybody about. They continued to watch his back as he walked down the street of small white houses. Unusually he had to step aside in order to avoid being run over by a car: in fact "the car" because there existed only one in the whole village, that belonging to Panos the taxi-cum-general-light-haulage driver. When Alex returned to Xanthi it would be Panos and his elderly, creaking motor carriage who would carry him. Panos sounded his horn twice as he left the village and the two peasant women waved back at him.
Alex continued, turning left to go uphill; the taverna sat almost on the brow of the hill so he had a full minutes exertion to reach it. His bag of pebbles weighed heavy as he climbed and silently he wondered why the locals endured such … uneven thoroughfares. Actually it was because the construction of an easily-ascended road with hairpin bends, mooted already by the provincial government, would cause too much chaos and inconvenience to the local villagers of Kavos. When Alex eventually reached his destination the owner and two villagers greeted him from their table; Yianni Kazaklis invited him to sit down and drink a cup or two of coffee. An offer not to be refused - the real thing, real coffee ground from real coffee beans, cost almost ten pounds per cup back in Britain. Also sitting on the table were little green stringy things set upon a small plastic plate - which were to be avoided at all costs, they were chillies and ferociously hot ones, too. On his first visit Alex had tried one out of curiosity when he saw locals nibbling away while drinking. He had regretted such a rash action almost immediately, when his mouth lit up like a glowing coal, his eyes filled, his nose ran and a bright red flush suffused his face. Then he suffered hiccups for fifteen minutes.
Now, a polite hush settled as each person sipped their American-subsided coffee. One of Mister Kazaklis' friends offered a chilli but ate it himself when Alex refused.
The Serb turned on his seat to look back over the valley below, seeing small white-rendered houses falling away in jumbled rows to the olive grove and stream bordering Kavos. Turning round made him wince when a splinter from the bench worked its way through his trousers.
'You have been taking pictures, yes?' asked Yianni, puffing at a pipe. They got by in English, Yianni being old enough to recall it from the heady days of the tourist boom, last century.
'Oh yes, lots of them.'
'Good. Culture is good.'
Alex nodded, noticing the tips of Mister Kazaklis' moustache, damp with coffee, unlike his own. They must have been drinking for a long time.
'Will you be joining us for dinner?' asked the taverna owner.
'Certainly. Allow me to get changed, perhaps a quick shower.'
'Ah,' said Yianni, in an ambiguous tone. His brother, Aristotle, nodded and smiled knowingly; they appeared to share private knowledge, or an in-joke. Yianni Kazaklis shrugged and made an apologetic face.
'Ah, Mister Petrovic, I am sorry. Again the electricity has failed us and we have no hot water.' The old solar panels atop the Kazaklis taverna were ancient relics that no longer worked and thanks to the Hellenic isolation from the FedCon dominated world, no replacements were ever installed.
Alex smiled briefly. After his day-long exertions, perspiring under a hot sun, the prospect of a cold shower was quite exhilarating. To ensure he didn't miss the evening meal he left the drinkers and their coffee, with their conversation.
Once inside the taverna his eyes were slow adjusting to such comparative gloom; it was even darker and stuffier than usual due to a lack of lighting and ventilation. Mrs. Kazaklis had put out oil lamps from an emergency hoard and their warm, buttery light made the dining room seem smaller and more intimate. One table, reserved for his use, had a red tablecloth set: cutlery, candles and glasses set upon the cloth.
Alex ate everything the Kazaklis had made for him, including hummus, tsastiki, stuffed pitta, stuffed artichoke, dolmades, baklava and coffee. Then he went outside to sit on the veranda to watch night arrive whilst talking to his hosts. Whilst Eleni sat with them then all three would drink coffee but once she had gone inside Alex and Yianni would share retsina. The older man was intensely interested in everything to do with the world outside Greek borders; he knew about current affairs in America, Burma, Korea and Mongolia, of course, but what went on out there in the "Wide World" was a matter of wonder to him. As an example, the integration of Tibet within FedCon, an event six months old, was entirely new to the Greek. So was the short (four days) border war between Katanga and Zaire; nor had he heard of Fast FireTorch. Everything old or indeed forgotten to Alex was new and interesting to Yianni. Contrariwise, what the Greek saw as parochial or old-fashioned seemed unaffected and ingenuous to Alex. By the time they were able to upend their retsina bottle in order to extract a final drop, night was fully upon them and a new moon rose over the sea, though clouds had made an appearance.
Less than sober, Alex pointed crescentwards.
'Just imagine. With a good pair of binoculars you could see the bases from here. All those people, hundreds and hundreds of them.'
Yianni looked sideways at Alex. Not having a pair of binoculars, nor being a member of a FedCon state, he had very little experience of and had never seen the lunar bases, not even the American one (the Americans didn't publicise their base very often now, since it was older and smaller than all the new FedCon bases). Consequently, the Greek could not be entirely sure that Alex was telling the truth. Still, tomorrow he would go down to the Captain to ask for a loan of his impressive Chinese binoculars, just to have a check. To Kazaklis matters such as living on the Moon or Mars or at the bottom of the ocean were all equally remote and bizarre, since each was so far beyond his experience. Rather more reflectively than either intended, both men went to bed.
ICE07
WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN GEOSTATIONARY PLOT
JULY 8
'Coffee? asked Nils.
The Duty Officer nodded absently, holding out an empty cup with cold ersatz dregs still swilling in the bottom. He had taken over from Bibor hours before. Now, at half-past three in the morning, his endurance and attention were beginning to wane. If he continued to wilt one of the communication assistants would - strictly against orders - have to deputise for a few minutes while he went for a quick shower. That wasn't the worst part, either; knowing his shift still had over half its length to run felt worse. Additionally, being in free-fall felt entirely too much like a dream-state for him to be comfortable about remaining awake.
Time to make a routine check. Keep the attention working. First, ICE07's internal status: all green for go so far, apart from one red light indicating a fault in a computer display on the observation deck - non-critical, that one, because it had been glowing red for days. Eventually a technician would see to it.
That was the easy one. Now, External status. Downside first. As it had been for months, September Station was coping with a rash of incidents; the DMZ along the Marmara zone was quiet; a cargo ship in severe difficulties west of Ireland was being attended to by rescue vessels; McMurdo reported a successful FFT run; a minor earthquake in Japan had caused several thousand casualties, fatalities in the dozens, DRA was currently in attendance. There was a low-level pollution alert in the Brazilian rain forest around Degasvilla; two small synthetic spillages in the Red Sea, another in the making near the Andaman SMEX site; there were problems with shoal dispersal in the Bay of Biscay - no-one seemed to know why they were losing so much of the harvest; Upside, then …
Oh, God, he was falling asleep again. For a bitter second the counter-posed images of popular impressions about his job - romance, glamour, excitement, machismo - jostled with how he felt at that precise moment, tired, grimy, sweaty and becoming bored to distraction with a panorama of displays and three technicians who seemed to be annoyingly fresh and chirpy. Work for UNION and see the world, eh. UNION was the only remnant of the old United Nations, being the acronym United Nations Intelligence OrganisatioN, the joke amongst its members being that it had no unity, no intelligence and no organisation so what could you expect of it's nationals? and at this moment the Duty Officer agreed completely. He turned off the power, unclipping the helmet, and tapped Nils gently. Nils was the senior Comm technician and being wise in the ways of the world you could depend upon him not to mention when the rules became slightly deformed under stress.
'I am dead on my feet here, Nils. I've got to go and have a cold shower, try to wake up. Could you dep while I'm gone, for about ten minutes?'
Nils nodded silent assent, if not quite approval. Olukaside moved toward the exit, scratching his scalp where the helmet had been digging in.
'Perhaps that' not such a good idea, sir,' said one of the other technicians. 'I've got an action developing here.'
The Duty Officer stopped dead in his long, weightless footsteps, turned and returned, sighing. What now? What was it now?
One of the display lights had turned red and flickered: the light labelled "FIDO". FIDO, Federal Interdiction and Detection Organ, the combination filter/alarm interface that existed between Internal and External Net Monitoring. FIDO operated in every known language and most dialects of those languages, in order to detect any one from a list of proscribed words or phrases, determining their origin.
'Oh Hell. What do we have here?'
Ettienne tried to do two jobs simultaneously, dealing with Downside and trying to cope with FIDO. Olukaside leaned over to watch in silence.
'Here's the problem. Trigger words, coded ones.'
'From where? Can you get a location?'
'Not precisely, no. Could someone else take over my Downside function while I do …'
Nils silently slid over to comply. Olukaside remembered to plug in his helmet and turn it on. A sudden storm of white noise burst between his ears. Ettiene fiddled on, pressing buttons, twisting dials. Finally she got a result she felt happy with.
'Ha! There you are - Greece!'
The Duty Officer raised one eyebrow. Was that it?
'Is that it?'
'Patience, patience, just let me track this line. Aha. Right. Here, write this number down. Zero zero three one two zero one nine five by one three three three four one six five three.'
The Nigerian scribbled at top speed to take down the figures correctly. It was a map reference and needed to be processed through a locator. Right, he thought, let's see just what's going on down there in Greece.
As her superior typed the number sequence in, Ettienne realised the encrypted trigger words had been de-crypted and displayed on a screen. Oh dear, she said to herself: trouble.
1103DECRYPT TRANSCRIPTION DISPLAY
ITEMDECRYPT
PENGUINMILITARY POLICE COMPANY
FLASHLIGHTALERT STATUS
OSCARSTRAGEGIC SERVICES BATTALION
SHERMANSENIOR OFFICER IN CHARGE, MAC HELLENIC REPUBLIC
SEARCHLIGHTEMERGENCY STATUS
When the Duty Officer saw the screen he agreed with Ettienne. Trouble of an as yet undetermined nature. Minutes meandered by.
'Do we yet have a point of origin yet?' asked Olukaside. 'Who's sending?'
There was still a problem, apparently.
'Blessed Jesus, we know who's getting it - look at this -' called Nils
After ingesting the numbered co-ordinates, analysing and locating them, the electronic brain had printed out a location:
217 LATAKIA STREET; RHODOS DISTRICT; ATHENS; HELLENIC REPUBLIC: CURRENT LOCATION OF AMERICAN MILITARY MISSION H.R. HEADQUARTERS
Olukaside raised his eyebrows. Interesting news, indeed, and not a little worrying. So; they knew who had received the message although the sender remained anonymous. But then, if there was an emergency Downside, why weren't the Americans being tighter with their transmission security? To overlook that they would need to be severely rattled, very severely rattled.
Another message had been intercepted, decrypted and displayed:
1104DECRYPT TRANSCRIPTION DISPLAY
ITEMDECRYPT
OSCARQV
SHERMANQV
SEARCHLIGHTQV
ARCLIGHTCRISIS STATUS
PENSACOLA NO DECRYPT AVAILABLE
HANDSOFFU.L.F.A.
WILSONRESIDENT AMERICAN AMBASSADOR
HARRISTOWN213 INFANTRY REGT
COLDHARBOR52 INFANTRY REGT
'How come we got this information?'
'Ah. Possibly, if there's a flap on Downside, then because of the hurry they may be using an unshielded screen until a shielded one is available. The link to the Mission is secure, I don't see how we can change that. Whoops, there we go! Lost it. They must have got a shielded unit on line.'
The Duty Officer nodded. Thank the Lord Ettienne was on duty, he felt confounded himself, only aware that a dimly-seen danger was percolating Downside. Better find out more facts, then, hadn't he? He studied both messages carefully until able to make sense, however partial, of them.
Putting things in order: an agency was calling the American Military Mission at half past four in the morning, moreover in such a hurry that they used an unshielded line; subject matter of this precipitate call involved a Strategic Services Battalion, whatever that might be; military police were involved in the emergency at crisis or emergency status. Hub of the matter: what was a "Strategic Services Battalion" and why all the fuss about it? Such a formation sounded like a ditch-digging or bridge-building outfit, nothing to worry about. Returning to duty matters: Olukaside went to check on Ettienne and her progress, but after a long delay they still had no luck in tracing the call's origin; not an easy task, certainly, taking several hours even if unsuccessful. Cloud cover over Greece prevented any pictures from coming through. Olukaside swam across the room to a shelf of directories and carefully selected one, labelled "American Military Codes Ver 7.21". After two minutes of flipping backwards and forwards he found the relevant entry:
"Strategic Services (Batt., Regt.)
Special combat engineer unit; wartime mission is to destroy strategic targets utilising Atomic Demolition Munitions for which see cross reference entry heading ACORN also Mil. Ref. Dir; basic ordnance level currently 10 x 0.15 kt, 3 x 0.5 kt, 1 x 1.5 kt devices; personnel 950; equipment 45 x MGP Transports, 5 combat bulldozers, 5 AA carriers, HMV HQ section, 5 ARV."
Not good news. Not a simple ditch-digging, bridge-building unit at all.
Other screens were flashing news at him. Olukaside glanced from one to another, becoming more worried with each glance. Finally he reached a decision.
'Nils, see if you'll sanction this. As Dee Oh I want to raise our rating from Standby to Ready.' If they altered ICE07's rating upward to the new level, another assistant Duty Officer and two more technicians would come on duty to help support the workload. Nils nodded in agreement, imagining three unfortunates being roused out of their bunks by a squealing alarm at five a.m. with no forewarning; he gave a verbal assent to Olukaside, who reached up to the ceiling with one lanky arm and pressed one of the condition panels positioned there.
Within minutes three extra staff arrived, tousle-headed, red-eyed, yawning and grumpy; Streicher, fat, forty and much put out; Marvin, stubbly and scratchy and scratching his hair; Le Moignan, stubbly, scratching his chin and being snappy. All three stood around muttering until the Duty Officer rounded on them angrily and chased each off to a console telling them to move like the wind.
Ettienne piped through a fuzzy conversation being overheard by PolSat, the electronic eavesdropper, shown on an overhead display.
' … hello … hello … hello … foxhound two do you read do you read … foxhound two foxhound two … for the love of Christ respond … respond if you can …'
Not a hunt; down there a source was going frantic trying to raise "foxhound two", whoever or whatever that might be. Nils told Streicher to operate around a clutch of frequencies but the first to lock on, refine and resolve the scuttering airwaves was Ettienne. She stuck up a hand to show success.
'Ha! Got it. Triangulation, I've located the point of origin for the transmission on display. Putting in co-ords now.'
They were all working flat out now, trying to locate the units involved on the ground in addition to identifying them. Olukaside knew that if matters continued apace they would have Weiss breathing down their necks for ten times more information than they had amassed. Then he'd ask them what they intended to do with it and ("Good God!") they had better give the right answer. The Duty Officer started to write information down on his greenscreen, mistyped and began again, putting down times and events in chronological order. By this time his team of staff had been tracking the errant American unit through the circuitous method of eavesdropping on other units encountering it. The information derived from this was all very negative, consisting of fragmentary panic calls, coded passwords compromised by being broadcast en claire , confused interjections from higher authority.
Despite their efforts, the Americans weren't stopping the renegades.
'They've crossed the Maritsa.'
'Given their current route, that will take them towards the Turkish border, to Enez. Possibly they intend to cross the border.'
Turkey! Olukaside's stomach did a back-flip in fright; an American (America, a nation state notable for its hostility towards the Federated Concordat and its constituent units) unit from Greece (the Hellenic Republic, stalwart client state of America since the Greek withdrawal from the FedCon and traditionally hostile to Turkey), running wild on Turkish (Turkey, member of the FedCon for many decades, traditionally hostile to Greece) soil - possibly carrying around fourteen nuclear warheads. Not for the first time, last time or any other time, Olukaside wished a Mighty Being had taken every nuclear weapon and thrown them into space. The direction of NGC11415 would do fine. Reflexively he reached overhead and pressed a third panel in a long-short-long pattern, sending red lights on all through ICE07, simultaneously sending out other signals to FedCon units across the world via satellite and almost incidentally rousing Weiss from his slumbers. To do this you had to be very, very certain. Having just managed to transcribe all the details so far onto his greenscreen, the Duty Officer passed it to Streicher with instructions to transmit the information Downside immediately. When this data had been received and re-routed through PolSat it would bring FedCon personnel up to date. Now, he ought to check progress; would the demented American engineers try to fight their way across the heavily defended and fortified Turkish frontier, or would they stop before then?
He had to inform the Turkish government that a regimental-sized firefight was rolling its way towards them at fifty kilometres an hour, with its core an apparently unstoppable rogue battalion mounting weapons that split atoms. He couldn't remember how to get in touch from memory alone so it was time to check the Main Index Headings; quickly, too.
A familiar voice whispered out of a speaker before he could get anywhere. Weiss.
'Duty Officer? Just what the hell is going on? Why are we on Emergency standing?'
Olukaside explained.
'I see. Do the Turks know about this?'
'You interrupted my call, sir.'
'You mean no, don't you. Well get on with it then you moron - and be fast about it too!'
Amid an escalating cacophony, the Duty team discerned a change in the American engineers movements, from south-east to south-west, taking them away from the Turkish border and towards the Greek coastline. Olukaside had a sudden, stomach-dropping, acidly unpleasant thought: were the Special Service Battalion's vehicles amphibious; that is, could they "swim" past the Turkish border on the coast and come ashore further inland, away from any interference?
'Streicher, find out if those engineer's transports can swim.'
'They can.' For once, Streicher sounded almost apologetic.
'They can? Excrement! How do you know?'
'I know. BMGP-25 twenty tonners. They can swim.'
'O Lord! They can come ashore anywhere once they reach the sea, in other words. Just fine. What next!' Olukaside thumped a fist into a palm.
There was slight consolation, added Streicher, as the engineers headed for shore: their vehicles would be much slower in water than they were on land, slower and clumsier, easy targets for an air strike. And providentially the Turks had woken up on receipt of the information from ICE07. They were readying their 127th Strike Wing, arming the aircraft that made up this formation, arming and fuelling them Frantic activity ensued on their airfield as technicians ran hither and yon with tubing and instruments, missile racks and coolant flasks.
But how long would it take them? Would the Turkish planes attack whilst their targets remained within Greek coastal waters? Olukaside thought this an absolute certainty (he was correct; it was later discovered that engagement instructions for the Turkish pilots had been altered, ordering them to stop the nuclear-armed engineers by any and all means possible - up to and including suicide attacks by diving aircraft).
Aboard ICE07 a sweating technician plotted the track of the intercepting aircraft and their targets; less than six minutes until they met. Greek military airfields near the Turkish border were beginning to stir, warming up aircraft, too. A flight of FAA jets had been alerted in the Marmara DMZ but they would take thirty minutes to reach the danger zone, when time was at a premium.
Suddenly, like an inverted thunderclap, there was silence in the Duty Room, startling in that claustrophobic den, a hush that seemed to leap from lip to lip as The Event occurred. Banks of red lights began flashing and for good measure a klaxon began hooting. By conditioned reflex adrenaline levels began to rocket. A babble of alarmed voices broke out simultaneously.
'Holy Jesus! Look at that!'
'Jesus Mary and Joseph! Oh My God!'
'Christ sir -' Olukaside in passing noticed that Nils always used the word "sir" when really there was no need for it at all ' - Red One! - we've got a bloody nuclear explosion here, sir, a Red One.'
'Help! There's a trace here …'
' … estimated five-hundred kay yield, ground zero at exact sea level …'
Olukaside picked - grabbed would be a better word - the Panic Phone from it's patented secure German cradle.
'Ave! Mayday! Colonel Weiss, we have a Red One here as of NOW!'
' … no trace or track of them, presumed destroyed …'
'Olukaside? What the hell, man, have - do you have the Tactical Control Officer in post?'
' … footprint analysis to follow. The one-two-seven Ess Wing report …'
'Yes, sir. We're moving to the Eastern Med plot. Uh, track those planes, Nils and get our own to patrol the border airspace. Yes, sir - will you convene a Tee Aye See immediately -'
'Can I have a timecheck?' asked a technie, avoiding thinking.
'Olukaside, forget the Committee, there isn't time. Carry on.'
' … Hello? Is that Marmara local? Yeah, so are we. Weiss is passing chocolate milkshake. Yes, we can definitely confirm a Red One …'
'Yes, sir, carrying on. Nils, will you track those godforsaken planes!'
As Concordat personnel everywhere knew by heart, by rote, by thorough training, "RedOne" denoted a nuclear warhead detonation, an event thankfully unknown to the world at large since the Last War. Aboard ICE07 the frantic duty team breathed a collective sigh of relief; to their profound gratitude the Turkish planes reversed course. Had they not, a Clamp might have been necessary. Presumably the detonation of a Red One had also removed the rogue engineers from the scene. Bulletproof or bullet-disregarding though they appeared to be they certainly couldn't resist the curdled crimson fireball that PolSat pictures showed rising from the sea. The second slice of luck dished out that day came when it was realised that the explosion took place outside the territorial waters of Turkey, depriving them of a potential casus belli.
Olukaside sat down, realising that it was half past eleven and his shift had officially ended three and a half hours ago. He felt drained, flushed-out, mentally and physically worn, sweaty and twitchy. His scalp itched, a sure sign that it needed washing. Remembering, he half-laughed, half-snorted: glamour, excitement, action, hey? Two out of three wasn't bad but glamour over the past six hours had been in short supply.
Tap tap, went a finger on his helmet. He looked up.
Colonel Weiss.
'Action's all over, I see. You did well, Olukaside. Sign off, have a shower and a quick nap.'
'I need it sir. A rest, I mean.'
'Sorry, you're not going to get much. The FedCon Extraordinary Caucus is convening. As Dee Oh you'll need to put in a full report, verbally and in writing, so you only get six hours off.'
The wrung-out Nigerian nodded sombrely, having realised already that he would inevitably have to report on the ramifications of what had happened during his watch.
The Extraordinary Caucus, all thirteen members, sat along a table thirty metres long and, depending on one's viewpoint from in front of the table, debriefed or interrogated people. Ben Jedid, of Algeria, held the chair. The Canadians insisted on looking at the Americans and their actions in a positive light. Opposing them were the Irish, who were as anti-pathetic as possible to be, detecting vile conspiracies in every perfidious Yankee step.
The Caucus sat in Luxembourg: while convened rapidly, the crisis was still over and hours gone by already; the media were carrying out inquests on Red One, not helping a fragile and glacial state now extant between Turkey and Greece. Weiss had browbeaten Jedid into agreeing that a much faster response would be needed in future: that a Threat Assessment Committee would be redundant under this resolution and that at least three extra permanent posts needed to be created aboard ICE07. Who would pay - that could be left to the money-jugglers and accountants.
Weiss, imperiously perched upon the interviewees chair, now recounted the train of events that led to Red One, the first use of a nuclear weapon in hostilities since the Last War. The Caucus relished the chance for a zealous debriefing: they rarely got the opportunity to treat the head of UNION in such a way.
'As we know, events unfolded thus: the Duty Team on ICE07 were alerted by FIDO when the American engineering battalion ran amok.'
'Ah - "amok"?' asked the Senegalese representative, unfamiliar with the idiom and Weiss's heavy accent.
'Berserk. Demented. Irrational. Yes? The engineers headed south from Metaxas barracks, eight truckloads of them. The engineers appear to have shot their way through at least three road-blocks, one a joint Greek-American inter-service blockade, downing a helicopter and causing over a hundred casualties en route. Their amphibious detour into the Aegean came to an abrupt halt when they realised Turkish interceptors were due to intercept them while they were still at sea.'
'Did we alert the Turks?' asked the Canadian. A changeable attitude! Weiss thought - "we" when it seemed creditable, "you" when it was not.
Weiss nodded. The Canadian wrote in her notepad. Clearly it seemed a Good Thing that FedCon alerted the Turkish Strike Wing.
'A question, Mister Weiss. Why? Why do this awful thing?' - the Irish representative.
Nor was it a rhetorical question. McIlwain expected an answer. The head of UNION sat nonplussed for a moment before answering - deciding eventually to tell the truth instead of lies or evasion.
'They were poisoned. That little we know already.' He left the sentence hanging.
'Poisoned. I see. By whom?' That McIlwain, fond of questions.
'We don't know. Yet.'
'Can you find out?' There. Another question.
'Not very easily. There is nothing left of the engineers. Their route is now sealed by both the Greek police and the Americans, the barracks are under a quarantine order, all surviving personnel are in a military hospital under heavy guard. We do have a sample of the water supply for Metaxas Barracks, obtained by one of our agents while things were still very confused, but the borders are sealed so collecting the sample is going to be very difficult. Our agent is local, so he can't get out, and therefore the water sample stays in Greece.'
Mutterings amongst the Caucus. Weiss felt a nasty, apprehensive tingle in his stomach. He knew what Ben Jedid would ask before the man spoke: could they get aforesaid sample from Greece to RSFG Munich as quickly as possible? If they could analyse then it ought to be possible to check for any poisons present, identify them if dissevered. Weiss (after consulting Rossi before leaving ICE07) concluded that the contaminant was probably a combination cocktail of a brainwashing agent and one of those aggression-inducing "combat pharmaceuticals" that the Americans were so fond of. Yes, indeed, Weiss would like to see the results of that sample himself, definitely.
In orbit above, Bibor, deputising for his superior, tapped his earlink monitor. Although he didn't need to, he listened earnestly to the Caucus proceedings. They were certainly quizzing Weiss, he decided, given that they seldom had the chance to debrief UNION personnel. Now, what was -
A Caucus rep Downside had asked if a sample could be taken from Greece to Munich. Weiss replied no; their man who had taken the sample was Greek and would never be let near a border; he had achieved a minor miracle to simply get hold of the water sample. As for trying to get an agent inside, forget it. No-one from FedCon would be allowed into Greece -
Ha! That was what he had tried to remember -
'Fenestre. Atria.' A scavenger microphone swivelled to pick up his keywords, putting him through to Weiss in seconds.
The Colonel savoured the unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling of futility. He had been forced to knock down all the Caucus' suggestions about retrieving "Sample A", incidentally pointing out that there was no certainty that the sample would actually prove to be contaminated if it ever got to RSFG Munich. Now the thirteen members were talking amongst themselves, deliberately ignoring Weiss while they discussed options. Simply judging from tone of voice, none of the representatives were happy with things. The probable subject of their discussion reclined in his seat and looked around the convention room in boredom. He counted the number of lights, the number of chairs, guessed which Caucus members composed which faction -
'COLONEL WEISS' boomed a voice. Weiss jumped upright in his chair, looked around and realised that the gain on his earlink had been set at maximum volume. A member of the Caucus looked at him enquiringly. Frantically, Weiss tapped at the monitor to reduce the volume.
' … have a man in Greece already, not too far from the incident zone. Sir, are you getting this?'
'Yes!' hissed Weiss. There were more glances directed at him now, some curious, some hostile.
'Ah - excuse me, gentlefolk … I'm getting an update from our Computer Command Facility … yes … yes … very well. Amen.' Weiss felt slightly smug about the phrase "Computer Command Facility" - it sounded impressive, better than an overworked, brevetted major from Szeged who (luckily!) was on the ball, telling that: a FedCon agent was inside the Greek borders even as they spoke.
Babble babble, went the Caucus. They were interested. All the situation needed was for McIlwain to -
'We want that sample at RSFG within twelve hours. Can you manage that Mister Weiss? Twelve hours.'
Feeling the need to finally say "yes" to a Caucus proposal, the head of UNION nodded. Rashly. After agreeing be belatedly thought again, in terms of timing; at least an hour to notify their Greek agent, then two for him to reach the man they had sight-seeing at Ekope, then five to six hours for their CI man to attain the border, leaving only three hours for travel from Greece to Munich. If there were any hitches en route then Sample A would be late and the Caucus would descend upon him, breathing both flammable and poisonous vapours. They relished any opportunity to demonstrate their charter-bound authority over UNION. Hell, that was what had driven his predecessor to a massive nervous breakdown.
EKOPE
THRACE
NORTHERN GREECE
Alex slept fitfully. Finally, he dozed off, at around half three in the morning, only to be woken hours later when an idiot elsewhere in the taverna thoughtlessly slammed a door, hard. After a little lethargic cursing the Serb rolled over, pulling a pillow over his head and sleeping again.
The alarm brought him back to life (reluctantly) at half past ten, squinting balefully across the room at it. Hot already, and he felt sweaty and sticky before even getting out of bed After a cold shower Alex felt more like a member of the genus Homo sapiens again. Now, first order of the day for recently revived human beings was breakfast. Food and drink. He went down the wooden stairs, three at a time, but avoided running his hand along the railing, since in several places the passage of many hands had worn away the varnish and left splinters. Nobody else seemed to be around at the moment, oddly enough, since Mister Kazaklis would by now be sipping on his nth cup of coffee, his wife would be cleaning and tidying. Alex scanned the darkened room with underway curtains, empty wooded tables partially open door. Where were they?
A bustling Yianni Kazaklis came in from the street outside, pale and mopping his brow. Seeing Alex, he stopped. The normally relaxed and affable taverna owner looked unusually tense.
'Oh, Mister Petrovic, such bad news.'
Alex stopped in his tracks. Fear, at least a kilo of it, fell internally from his heart to a location near his colon. Non-specific fear, the kind that generated a flicker of panicked images: bad news? like what - war in Greece? death in his family? his flat burned down? the money traced?
'Ah, such bad news. Have you heard?'
Hardly possible, given that the taverna didn't have television in its rooms and guests needed to travel into the village to get a newsfax. Alex asked the Greek to explain. Kazaklis sat down at a table. He looked unwell. Had some disaster befallen Mrs Kazaklis?
'The Americans, you know. They had a bomb, a nuclear bomb, that went off last night, near Turkey. Radio Elados says it was an accident, but what do we know? There may be war. The Americans and Turkey and Greece -'
His coffee cup rattled as he shakily placed it back onto its saucer. Alex went cold and his feet tingled. Gooseflesh crept up the back of his neck. To a Yugoslav the thought of a nuclear explosion that may have been hostile brought back a host of evil memories - the Last War, when Hungary and Romania's tiny nuclear arsenals had killed millions in each country and -
Holy Mother of God. Fallout. The stuff that had killed his father.
'Mister Kazaklis, did the radio say anything about fallout - radioactivity, plutonium, anything like that. Please; it's important.'
How commensurate Mister Kazaklis felt with these terms was a moot point, since his English didn't run to technical vocabulary.
'"Fallout"? No, no, I think not. Why?'
He spoke to an empty space. Alex raced back upstairs to his room. A string of unspoken expletives ran through his mind as he dropped onto all fours alongside the bed and stretched under the blanket that hung to the floor. Where had it - ah, the handle, right, he panicked.
A small suitcase came into view as he pulled. It resembled the type of item an office executive might carry sandwiches in; Petrovic used it to keep his TACT unit in. He only ever got one of the status-symbol artefacts when going on holiday in Greece. Too expensive and exclusive to hand out freely otherwise and, besides which, he felt sure that one reason he received one was in fact to impress the locals with a FedCon device.
Dial the number, press the lock, insert and turn the key; presto, revealed, one Total Access Communications Terminal, slightly scratched, capable of communicating via Polsat and dedicated uplink modes or compatible non-agency transceivers. A marvel of compact communication with the FedCon world-wide. Having opened the case and turned on the TACT - source of feeble puns in English - he needed to remember the access code number sequence for the channel he wanted. Nine zero five six, Civilian Traffic, News Update, and listen …
There was no news about any explosion, nuclear or otherwise. None at all. That meant a cover-up, which by implication meant bad news, which meant bad times ahead for Alex. It was preposterous to imagine that there really would be no information about such an event because the one type of crisis impossible to hide from concerned citizens, dosimeters, sleepless satellites, luxometric scanners, aircraft, EMPaths and all was a nuclear explosion. Or, rather than a cover-up, knowing from experience how bumblingly inept the Higher Echelons could be, more probably they were sitting on the information until it could be given a pretty gloss.
Alex replaced the communicator glumly and sat on the bed. Holy Mother, he thought, look at my options now. I can stay indoors to avoid fallout, get outside to hunt down a few more facts, or leave Greece immediately. Hardly a richness of choice!
Long awareness of the Seven-tenths Rule from childhood lessons meant Alex chose the first option; stay indoors for at least forty-eight hours. While doing so he checked Radio Ellados for further updates; these remained infuriatingly low on hard facts but removed any lingering doubt that the affair had been hoaxed or a colossal mistake. From what the specialists said, given Alex's very poor Greek, the fallout seemed to be confined to a small coastal footprint.
The evening meal felt tense and unpleasant, merely eating as a form of absently passing the time. The host and his wife made themselves scarce after dining rapidly, leaving a solitary Alex looking around wondering what to do in the coming day, looking outward and inward and being bored with both. Then fate, fickle genius locii, intervened.
A stranger wandered into the taverna, dusty, drawn and not one of the villagers. He looked all around, curiously, as if he knew where he was but not what it was. Alex pushed a glass toward him and the stranger poured himself a glass of wine, nodding silently in appreciation. After emptying the glass with a thirsty relish, the man stood again, his clothing stiffened with sweat and dust. From wherever he had come, it had been on foot.
'Hello,' he said, in English. Unusual, or prescient.
'Hello,' said Alex in cautious tone.
'Would you know where to find Mister Petrovic?'
'Enosis. Taksim, varek grada kosec grada.'
McDuff and Beck both wore their serious expressions. McDuff seemed normal but Beck visibly emitted death-rays from his eyes. It seemed that Assistant Manager Beck disliked his staff: going for a holiday; going abroad for a holiday; going abroad for a holiday to a non-FedCon state. Although Alex had gone on vacations to Greece for years, Beck never seemed to be able to come to an accommodation or to appreciate leniency.
' - and finally, Mister Petravacci -' a little slip Beck frequently made apparently hinting that Alexander Dragan Petrovic was really Italian - 'make a mental note of this phrase: Enosis. Taksim varek grada kosek grada. If that phrase is used by a person in conversation when you are in Greece, then they need your urgent attention and aid. Is that clear? Urgent attention.' Beck detested having to inform travellers beyond the FedCon boundaries of this rubbish, James Bond nonsense, but UNION insisted he do it.
Alex knew the origin of the phrase. "Gnosis" had been the rallying cry of those who wanted a united Greek Cyprus, a dream long since turned to dust; "Task var. grad Kosei grad" was an old Albanian folk song in dialect, not a phrase that would ever crop up in conversation with nationalist tension running high. Last year the danger-passage had been a quote from Macbeth he couldn't remember.
'Enosis. Taksim varek grada kosek grada,' repeated the stranger, wiping his forehead with a hand that came away grimy with sweat and dirt.
'Oh yes?' enquired Alex politely. He got a sour look from his new friend.
'Don't play silly word games with me, mister. I need help.' He spoke in English, precise but accented. From a pocket he produced a tired-looking garlic sausage, wrapped in a ziplock plastic bag, almost as sweaty and dirty as himself.
'To get past the roadblocks,' he explained when Alex stared at the bagged sausage. 'Oh, there is practically no fallout. Those Demolition devices have to be clean. Here, take it.' The sausage was offered. 'DON'T eat it and be careful handling it, there's a thermally-sealed plastic ampoule inside the sausage with a water sample from Metaxas Barracks, ninety-nine per cent probability poisoned.'
The stranger didn't go into any of the details of the hair-raising activities undertaken to obtain that sample - bribery, threats, theft.
The Serb looked puzzled at his new drinking partner's description.
'You get the easy part, mister tourist. Get this sample to RSFG Munich within twelve hours. That's your assignment. It comes from the top levels of UNION so try not to screw my work up, okay?'
Oh, right, great, wonderful, fantastic! - what the hell was this lunatic on about? Cut short a holiday to take a second-hand, third-rate wurst to Germany - mad!
Mister Mad rose to leave, then paused and turned back, as if on a whim. He gave a smile more like a sneer.
'Oh. Try nine zero five seven, civilian traffic, special news review. They're running a coded confirmation. You might find it interesting.'
He left and Alex neither saw nor heard of him ever again. On the other hand, channel nine zero five seven did have coded confirmation of the "incident"; "Enosis taksim varek grada kosek grada" was the emergency catchphrase; there really was an ampoule hidden within the sausage. A nasty creeping hot-and-cold feeling came over him, working it's way from the toes upwards. Whoever or whatever the stranger had been, he was well-informed, aware what was going on.
And exactly what was going on? A person (i.e. Alex) needed to carry an ampoule, with a sample of water therein, to Research Science Foundation Germany at Munich. He hadn't asked for it but an adventure had come to him unbidden and settled uncomfortably in his lap, although as yet Alex didn't think of events as an "adventure", more an "unpleasant sustained disturbance". He sat glumly on his bed upstairs, thinking slowly and carefully. The strange visitor with his salami might be an entrapment attempt by the Americans (or, less likely, the Greeks) but how could they suborn the Polsat and Internal Net news channels? By virtue of Occams Razor the bad news he almost disbelieved must be true. Unfortunately.
Should he leave Greece? Yes, a good idea, all things considered, and while leaving he might as well take that farcical sausage with him, too. No entrapment could be so bizarre, could it?
He checked his chrono; eleven hours until they expected him back in Munich. So kind of them to set him such a generous deadline. Greek customs protocol alone might take eleven hours if they felt awkward.
Problems!
A spark of resolve grew within him. So, the FedCon were unable to solve this little problem, were they? Two million of them in total and they chose to unload upon him and him alone. Well, he'd show them. Just out of spite, too.
In all, it took Alex suprisingly little time to reach the Graeco-Bulgarian border. His bill was settled in cash (the Kazaklis being sorry to see him go); bags were packed and Panos hailed on the intangible village grapevine within half an hour; it then took another hour to reach the border in Panos' automobile accompanied by the smell of sweat, hot leather, petrol and aftershave. The taxi driver reminded Alex of the Special Device, wished him luck and departed at high speed for home.
The Komotino customs post sat on a feeder road to the west of the town itself; used mainly to check articulated transport and ground-effect vehicles carrying cargo to and from Bulgaria, it was a small, low-key operation compared with the joint FedCon/Bulgarian one on the other side of the border. Normally the staff consisted of four men, two on duty, two off. Their job mostly consisted of examining paperwork and routinely passing it. Mostly. If they were annoyed or bored then to acquire a simple "Approved" stamp might take hour; this much Alex knew from previous visits and at all costs he needed to avoid such a delay, which was where the Special Device came in. Not that it looked especially device-like: a brown paper bag containing food and a small knife.
Here goes, he thought.
George and Ari sat idly playing cards together in their plastic waterproof Customs cabin. Although initially transparent, years of dust, wear, weather and hard usage had given it a translucent cover which rendered the outside world only semi-visible. This meant they didn't spot the stranger immediately. Also, he came on foot; this was unusual behaviour at this particular point on the border. Nor did the stranger carry on up to the border or the customs post. Rather, he sat calmly upon one of the worn stone walls leading there; from a brown paper bag he produced food and began eating slowly, unaware of how incongruous such behaviour seemed. George spotted the stranger whilst Ari remained intently scanning his cards.
'Hey. Ari. Look.'
''Shh.'
'Someone's on the wall.'
'Oh. Doing what?'
'Eating.'
'Not illegal.'
'Your deal. Ah, here he comes.'
'Right. Pick your cards up.'
'What for?'
'So I can't see them, stupid.'
Alex left his peeled onion half-eaten when he saw two officials leave their cosy cubicle and wave imperiously at him, their interest triggered by his standing up. He gave them a lazy, friendly wave back. They waved even harder. One made a "come here" gesture with forefinger that dispelled any ambiguity.
Oho, thought the Serb, Step One completed successfully. He got up slowly, picked up his hand luggage, looked approvingly and admiringly at the sky and started to walk. The first hurdle had been to make the customs people notice him instead of vice-versa.
'Hello,' he said, in a cheerful tone, in English. The two customs officers didn't so much as blink.
'Yes sir.'
'Can we help you sir.'
'I see you have luggage, sir.'
'Can we inspect your bags, sir.'
Certainly they could! Alex first casually opened the metal-edged secure case, revealing boxed slides by the dozen. The customs officers were interested, made obvious by the way they suddenly became quieter, although their double-act continued.
'Yes sir. What are these sir?'
'Slides.'
'Slides sir?'
'Yes. Here, let me show you. I can use this flat-screen viewer. Just give me a second. Right, these are - these six - are from the oracle at Ekope, one slide from each point of the compass and two from the middle. This shows the Doric columns; this one shows the detail in some of the seating - it's a good one, isn't it! I'm quite proud of that one. Ah, now this set are various statues on the road towards Xanthos. Two for each statue, one from the front and one from the rear, so you can judge the condition of each, and there's a reference one that shows the whole prospect. The quality of light is inconsistent in a few but the Department of Antiquities forbids anyone using illumination greater that two-thousand six hundred lux, and as you can see from the built-in flash mine is only rated at a thousand.'
Not a little bored by this monotone monologue, the two guards nodded and waved magnanimously, being familiar with the culture tourists who came to soak up Hellenic culture. They sorted through each case in a rapid and practiced manner, not missing anything, running a scanner over any object deemed worthy of study. What interested them most of all was the TACT unit Alex had clipped to his belt. They recognised the device but not why a tourist would be carrying one.
'Yes sir.'
'Satellite communicator sir. Not spying are you sir.'
'Oh, this thing? No, just regulations. I have to carry it at all times in a country out of or beyond the auspices of the Federated Concordat, since there aren't any reciprocation clauses and if there should be an accident or illness I would have to be air-ambulanced out to the nearest mandated medical site, providing that there wasn't -'
'Yes, yes, yes, sir,' interrupted one of the officials, which was a good thing since Alex would happily have paraphrased the entire Manual of Personnel Operations if needed.
'Do you have anything to declare, sir.'
'Um - well, no.'
'Why are you leaving the country sir.'
Alex gave a diffident shrug. Now he needed to angle for a little sympathy or mild derision, either would do.
'My landlord kicked me out. He said with all the troubles and the Americans messing about, he didn't want a foreigner under his roof. I had enough money to get a taxi but not much for food.'
Glad to be rid of this boring foreign oddity, the two customs officers stamped his docket, put "Approved" in Greek and English stamps on any spare space available on his luggage, then sped him on his way, still blustering about taxi fares, re-imbursement foreign policy and xenophobia. They exchanged glances, watched their visitor amble off over the brow of the hill towards the FedCon/Bulgarian customs house, looked at each other again and started to laugh; they swapped a few choice insults about stupid foreign tourists (a Slav, too, by the sound of it) and their stupid foreign ways.
They would have been considerably less amused if they had been able to see the passer-by, once out of sight, throw his paper bag away, retain a gnawed salami and stick it into a smart-card holding slot in his TACT unit; the rest of the luggage went into a ditch and a sly grin spread over Alex's face. Phase Two successfully completed; now for a quick sprint and Phase Three.
Bibor heard the buzzing coming from a great distance as if through a tunnel; gradually the sound grew louder and louder, like a circular saw cutting wood. Persistent and insistent.
Awake. He'd been asleep, not dreaming, just sleeping. And the buzz-saw noise was his alarm, flashing on and off whilst generating a hideous droning noise guaranteed to vibrate even the soundest sleeper awake. Shuddering and blinking once, he looked around. Shit. Still on the Iceberg. According to his alarm there was still half an hour before his duty started. Christ, it felt like a quantum jump from Senior Supervisor to Deputy; he still hadn't adjusted to it; he was still apprehensive that his tour of duty aboard ICE07 might be extended because of his promotion. Still - those three extra increments on the pay scale would be highly welcome; maybe he could repaint the gloomy grey cubby-hole that laughingly masqueraded as his cabin.
Right. Now for the four "S's". Christ, about the only decent thing about cabin B7 was the personal shower cubicle. That was how he woke up of a morning. After a few weeks you no longer noticed how stale and flat the recycled water was, nor did you dwell much on the nature, exactly, of recycled water.
Dressed in a regulation blue jump-suit, orange life-preserver, green lace-ups and utility belt, Bibor jogged easily through corridor after corridor on his "morning" constitutional, an exercise routine aided by the miniscule gravity aboard the Iceberg. An occasional member of staff would nod to him as they stood aside to let him by. An earlink monitor kept him au fait until he trotted over to the central stairwell and leapt for the ladder, using his hands and feet to slide down. A neat trick. Less neat if someone happened to be sliding up the down ladder as he was descending it, but low-g collisions weren't too painful.
'Morning all! How fares the world; Duty Officer update, please.'
A harassed-looking woman checked through a greenscreen and began to recite a list of incidents: Graeco-Turkish hostility had climbed yet another point on the Henderson scale; a submarine freighter had fouled an undersea fish retainer in the English Channel; there was a corruption scandal on the Russian bourse; Munich Research had their sample; September Station had carried out a successful interdiction; a typhoid epidemic was sweeping through the Campo in Mexico, denied by the Mexican government, confirmed by the FedCon teams on the ground there. The Duty Officer, a lanky Swede ill-designed for the cramped orbital environment of ICE07, looked peevishly at her superior, wondering how it was possible to be so vivacious and informed this early in the day.
Knowing all the methods of "enhancing" long and boring periods of duty, Bibor sniffed at an ashtray, trying to detect tobacco. He looked in the dead spaces between island-consoles and found a disposable wrapper for a sandwich. Tut tut. Food was not allowed on duty. Looking between two other consoles Bibor found a full wrapper. He could hear the technicians silently cursing their over-inquisitive overseer.
'Tut tut,' he said, holding the offending article up between thumb and forefinger. 'Naughty. Lose it.'
One of the technicians looked aggrieved. Bibor gave her a withering look. Shouldn't have got caught, should you, madam.
'Just a minute - what was that about Munich?' The Duty Officers precise suddenly came back to him. 'RSFG got their sample? That was damned quick.'
He checked the wall chrono: six hours (and seven minutes) until the deadline elapsed, Colonel Weiss would be happy indeed, because he had worried about missing the delivery time after his uncharacteristic lapse. Next time (if or when there was a next time) he'd told supervisors, there would be precisely no rash promise to deliver anything whatsoever.
'Fenestre. Atria,' he snapped, very businesslike. 'Hello sir. Good news.'
Upon receiving the news, Weiss relaxed a little in his fluid swivel-seat, gently moving it from side to side to the discomfiture of his aide. Well. Six hours was not a long time considering the personnel and resources RSFG could apply to a problem. Had he been a smoker he would have lit a cigarette; as a confirmed non-smoker he merely sucked a mint. Now, all that remained was for Munich to analyse their sample and pronounce their findings, hopefully within six hours.
'Ah, sir, how soon do we need those seven new members?' asked his visitor, Olukaside.
'Pardon? Oh, them. Yesterday. Why ask? You know we always need new inductees.'
The Nigerian nodded.
'As a suggestion, sir, why not try the courier who carried that sample to RSFG from Greece? It means only six others to look for. From what Bibor told me he seems, er, appropriate.'
Yes. Appropriate. Forging a Red Card through faintly criminal family contacts and bluffing a route across four countries, nonchalantly depositing a crumpled paper bag with half a pitta and a salami in RSFG Reception and declaring it to be their "poison polony". Such behaviour smacked of dishonesty and, Weiss thought, we could use a person like that. Still, since he hadn't been pre-selected and vetted perhaps an Eagle Three would be advisable.