CHAPTER
NINETEEN
THE
WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING.
Sir
Charles Lampitt sat and watched the rain streaming down the glass of
the waiting room window. His smooth, carefully shaven face was
perfectly passive. Every crease of his suit was in place. He vaguely
concentrated on staying entirely still. And breathing of course.
Slowly. Long in and long out. Gently propelling oxygen through his
arteries.
He
was sixty seven years old and very much at the top of his game. His
rise to the upper stories of the English Establishment had been seamless for
nearly fifty years. When he had finally made it to the top, the first
thing he had done was to tell his new secretary to bring him a copy
of his personnel file. It hadn't made particularly interesting
reading. He didn't learn anything about himself he hadn't known
already. The words past bosses had used to evaluate his performance
were a little detached. A little cold.
Effective.
Diligent. Well organised. Committed. Assured.
He
had always been a safe pair of hands. Solid. A good chap in a tight
spot. He had never been one of the flamboyant high fliers. He had
never made any attempt to cut a dash. Instead, he had completed each
and every task he had been given with a minimum of fuss.
It
had been enough. In the end, he had been the only realistic candidate
to become the new boss of MI5 when Bill Simmons had retired.
And
then like so many others who had gone before him, he realised it
might have been a very good idea to have been careful about what he
had wished for. He had been in the job for just under a year when
Hackney had exploded into flames and the memories of the Cobra
Committee Meetings were still enough to make him shudder. For a while
it had seemed like the country might suffer a complete collapse. For
a while, the State seemed to have lost the ability to maintain any
kind of order. He had watched men and women age decades in a few
short days.
And
they had been given no choice. Only desperate measures would do. Day
after day they had watched the near disintegration of the Prime
Minister. His much vaunted urbanity had splintered. As the crisis
deepened, a kind of darkness seemed to wrap itself around Edward
Montford.
It
must have been the third week of the crisis when Charles Lampitt
first noticed the Prime Minister's eyes. The pupils were pinned. Tiny
dark pebbles of rage in a pale, haggard face. Charles knew all about
pinned eyes. He had lived through the pinned eyes of his daughter
Camilla for six dreadful years until the day of her overdose had felt
like a kind of merciful release. What on earth was the PM taking? And
for what?
He
had shared his time at Oxford with Edward Montford, but only in terms
of the calendar. They had never spoken. He had watched the Montford
star burn brightly. The hundred at Lords in the Varsity Match. The
Presidency of the Union. The stream of doting debutantes. The bouts
of hooliganism in white tie and tails. He had despised everything
about him. The gloating privilege. The certainty of his entitlement.
The gaping lack of any kind of moral compass.
Had
he been surprised when Edward Montford had glided into Number Ten
complete with his shining wife and children? Of course he hadn't. Had
he been pleased? Of course he hadn't.
Charles
had been summoned to an audience with the new leader a week after the
photo call at the famous front door. Montford had been all smooth
charm and born and bred authority. Sleek. Already at home. Absurdly
confident. Charles's loathing had been undiminished, but he had
consoled himself with the fact that the new Prime Minister was no
fool. The cold eyes on the other side of the desk gleamed with the
cunning intelligence of a fox.
But
there was not so much as a shred of morality to be found in those
cold, cold eyes.
When
the Hackney Crisis seemed about to overwhelm them, Charles found
himself transfixed by those cold, cold eyes. Those pinned eyes. Those
merciless eyes.
“It
is time for you to find a way to resolve this, Lampitt. I don't care
how you do it. I don't care how dirty your hands get. I don't care
what laws you break. And I don't care if you burn in hell as a
punishment. Find a way to fix it. Bring me whatever papers you need
me to sign and I will sign them. I've had enough of fucking around
here. Am I understood?”
And
Charles had nodded. And Charles had once again been the safe pair of
hands. The good chap in a tight spot. He had arranged a clandestine
meeting with the man he considered to be the most evil he had ever
come across.
Hayden
De Kock. Ex of the South African Defense Force. A colonel. A senior
officer of the Broederbond. A name whispered with recoiling horror. A
name touted for trial in The Hague for endless crimes against
humanity. A gun for hire in every godforsaken corner of Africa where
minerals were buried beneath the earth.
Chief
Executive Officer and majority shareholder of Holbrooke Securities
BVI Ltd.
Charles's
first meeting with De Kock had lasted half an hour. At the end of the
meeting, he had shaken the South African's hand. The handshake had
been the moment he had crossed a line. There was no point in trying
to convince himself he had been in the dark about what was about to
happen. De Kock had laid it on the line with brutal clarity.
“You
need to understand what your money is buying here, man. There will be
a lot of dead people, ya? You know that?”
Yes.
Yes, he did. Only too well. Edward Montford had told him to do what
needed to be done and he had done it. He had handed over a chest of
his country's treasure to Hayden De Kock and the South African had
duly dispatched his secret death onto the streets of London.
The
Prime Minister's secretary appeared. “He will see you now.”
It
was nearly three thirty in the morning. Outside the rain was lashing
the pavements. He should have been asleep in his bed. He should have
taken early retirement and lived out his final days in the Dorset
countryside. He should have resigned when Edward Montford commanded
him to cross the line. He should have done all kinds of things, but
he hadn't.
And
now here he was in the dark hours before a grey dawn. Montford didn't
bother to rise. He waved Charles to a chair with a vague flap of a
gaunt hand. The man looked dreadful. Deathly pale. Almost bleached.
“Charles.”
Just that. No 'thanks for coming at such a late hour,
'Charles'. No
'how is Gillian keeping?' No nothing. Just 'Charles'.
Charles
sat and waited for the eyes. After thirty seconds or so the Prime
Minister raised his gaze from the papers in front of him. Still
pinned. Still tiny malevolent pebbles.
“So?
How far have they got?”
He
hadn't been told to prepare a brief about the Guardian's ongoing
investigation into the alleged Hackney Death Squads. There had been
no need. Charles reached into his briefcase and took out a transcript
of the brain storming meeting which had been held the morning before.
“Would
you like me to summarise?”
“Obviously.
Do you seriously think I want to listen to you reading out the whole
fucking thing?”
“No
Prime Minister. Of course not. I'm afraid they now have Holbrooke
Securities. They have the location of the compound in Colchester.
They have various pieces of footage of suspects being taken.”
“Fuck.”
“Indeed.
The good news is they have hit a brick wall.”
“What
kind of brick wall?”
“The
kind they build in the British Virgin Isles.”
“Ah.
Good. That kind. So they have no evidence of HMG paying Holbrooke?”
“No
Prime Minister.”
“What
are the chances they will find anything?”
“I
would say minimal at best. But there are no absolute guarantees.”
“Fuck.”
Montford
heaved himself out of his seat and once he was on his feet the true
extent of his emaciation shocked Charles.
“I'm
just thinking aloud here, Charles. Just musing, OK? Maybe there is
someone we could maybe get out of the way? If you get my drift?”
“I
would strongly advise against such a course of action Prime Minister.
It would merely set alarm bells ringing. It would make them even more
determined.”
“Yes.
I suppose it would. So what do you propose?”
“I
think we need to sit tight. I find it hard to imagine anyone from
Holbrooke leaking. Were they to do so, they would basically be
signing their own death warrant.”
“Fucking
evil bastard, isn't he? This De Kock?”
“Yes,
he is Prime Minister."
“Wait
it out and hope then? That's what you think?”
“It
is Prime Minister.”
Montford
sat back down.
“OK.
Fine. Thank you, Charles."
The
Chief of MI5 left by the back door.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
PLACES
WE HAD NEVER HEARD OF
The
weather forecasters told us the rain was going to stop two days
before the rain actually stopped. Once upon a time, such news would
have been greeted with a general air glee. The news of a coming
spring heatwave would have been something to celebrate.
But
this wasn't the case any more of course. Not in 2030. Instead, the
evening news was again home to a selection of climate experts whose
faces had become as familiar as footballers to the watching public.
And none of them were smiling. All measurements and projections
suggested the coming summer would almost certainly break all records.
Again.
The
people of England resigned themselves to weeks and weeks of being
rationed to one shower a week. Programme schedulers pondered on the
problem of how to find new ways to cover all too familiar news.
But
as things turned out, they didn't have to. On the last day of the
rain, nobody had heard of either the Rioni River or Lake Qaraoun. By
the time the sun set on the first day of the heatwave, anyone who
tuned into the news was beginning to become accustomed to both of
these obscure locations.
Hastily
put together visuals informed us the source of the Rioni River was to
be found on the western facing slopes of the Caucasus Mountains in
Georgia. We were told the river flowed west for 327 kilometers
through a drainage basin of 13,400 square kilometers. The river
eventually emptied out into the Black Sea at the port of Poti.
Lake
Qaraoun was a reservoir complete with a dam and a hydroelectric power
plant which provided water to most of the southern half of Lebanon.
It
seems ridiculous now, but at the time none of us saw any of it
coming. How blind we were. Hindsight tells us it was inevitable.
Other thirsty countries were bound to latch onto the idea Suleiman
Khalidi had sold to the Scottish Government.
Many
countries were trying to learn how to get by with less and less
water. But some countries were thirstier than others and Turkey and
Israel were among the world's most parched.
When
the Turkish Parliament reduced the daily water ration for the
citizens of Ankara to twenty litres a day, the people didn't take it
well. They embarked on a month's worth of street riots which made
Hackney look almost serene. Turkey had a well-practiced routine to
fall back on to deal with this kind of civic mayhem: The Generals
took charge and they cracked the whip. Thousands were killed and tens
of thousands were detained. A brutal calm was imposed and people
learned to fill up their government issue 20 litre containers once a
day from standpipes in the streets without so much as a word of
complaint.
The
Israelis took the news of their Government's 30 litre daily ration
with more stoicism. They complained mightily and everyone was angry
all the time but they took it on the chin.
Nobody
predicted what happened on the ninth of April. The early hours must
have seemed like some kind of a gift from God to insomniac news
junkies. A few minutes after 4.00 am GMT, the men and women who had
drawn the short straw of marshalling their news channels through the
quiet hours when nothing ever happened suddenly seemed energised.
They absorbed what they were being told in their ear pieces and
adopted appropriate expressions.
“There
seem to be extraordinary events unfolding in the Middle East.”
For
several hours the breaking news was all about jumpy video footage
from mobile phones which had been uploaded onto the social media.
A
long column of tanks on a wide road on a flat plain. Helicopters
ducking and stooping overhead like over-protective hawks. A dawn sky
blooming with parachutes bursting into flower. More tanks, in threes
and fours, throwing up dust in small baked villages.
Experts
were roused from their slumber and brought into studios by speeding
taxis. By 5 am, there were plenty of digital maps to go along with
the garbled reports from the locals on the ground. Soon two maps sat
side by side. In the north, there was the border area of Eastern
Turkey and Western Georgia sitting snugly by the Black Sea. In the
south, there was the border area of Northern Israel and Southern
Lebanon.
It
seemed a force of many Turkish army tanks was racing north up the
coast road. There were no reports of any kind of opposition. A small
force of tanks had been ordered north by the Israeli Defence Force
from a jump off point a couple of miles from Kiryat Shmona. For a
while, everyone was desperate to know if the footage of parachutes
was true or fake. It was true. Over three hundred airborne troops had
dropped into what appeared to be pretty much the middle of nowhere.
The
experts were struggling. Was this a coordinated attack? Well of
course it was. To imagine two neighbouring countries would launch
attacks on two other neighbouring countries at the same hour on the
same day could hardly be a coincidence. But why? Were Turkey and
Israel long term allies? No. Had anyone been expecting this? No.
By the time Europe brewed the day's first cup of coffee, the two armies had put
plenty of miles behind them. And still, no expert could be found who
had the first idea of why any of it was happening at all. Of course,
Israel had plenty of previous when it came to invading South Lebanon,
but there seemed little reason for them to do it again. Most
Hezbollah fighters had left the area years earlier to fight in Syria
at the behest of their Iranian paymasters. Israel's northern border
hadn't been so quiet in years. As to what kind of Georgian bee had
found its way into the Turkish bonnet, nobody had the faintest idea.
Everything
was cleared up at 9 am GMT when the Chief of Staff of the Turkish
Army and Prime Minister of Israel staged a joint press conference in
Ankara. Both men were grim faced as they read prepared statements and
took no questions. They explained their countries needed water. The
water they needed was available in neighbouring countries. They were,
therefore, annexing the territory they needed to improve water
supply.
And
that was it. They offered no kind of provocation or justification.
They had sought no kind of UN mandate. They hadn't bothered with any
careful ground laying through the media.
The
experts were aghast. Speechless. This wasn't how things were supposed
to happen. Even Hitler had taken the trouble to concoct a cover story
before invading Poland. Countries didn't behave this way.
Not
in 2030.
A
Historian from the University of East Sussex was the first to smack
the nail firmly on the head. He said it was like the world had gone
back into to the second half of the Nineteenth Century when strong
countries had felt entirely justified in invading and colonising
weaker countries who had the resources they craved. Back then it had
been all about gold and silver and cotton and opium and tea.
Now
it was all down to water. And from now on it looked like everything
would always be down to water.
A
boffin from a high powered Washington think tank seemed to get behind
the thinking of the Turks and the Israelis. If only one of them had
launched an unprovoked attack, then the world might just have turned
on them. But two? Two at once? Did the rest of the world have the
energy to actually do anything other than issue statements full of
appalled words? Probably not. And when all was said and done, would
anyone really care enough about either Western Georgia or Southern
Lebanon to risk either people or treasure? Probably not
The
boffin was proved right. Just about every country on earth condemned
the invaders in the strongest of terms. But nobody actually did
anything. The fact barely a shot was fired certainly helped. The
motives of the aggressors were quite different. The Israelis had a
clear plan on how they would build a network of canals and aqueducts
to carry water all the way from the Lake Qaraoun reservoir to the
thirsty towns and villages of the north of their country.
The
Turks had no such worked out plan about how on earth they were going
to move the waters of the Rioni River to the parched towns of
Anatolia. It was a bridge they intended to maybe cross later. Maybe
they never would cross it all. In the short term, the Generals needed
something to make their people feel better about being Turks. State
TV even talked about the coming of a new Ottoman Empire.
For
a while, all eyes were on the Permanent Security Council at the UN.
The USA and France were close allies of both invaders. But what of
Russia, China, and India who had taken the place of the UK when
Scotland had flown the coop and England had been deemed to be too
small and too weak to play with the big boys. Would the Russians or
the Chinese thrown down a resolution and force the Americans into the
embarrassment of a veto?
There
was nothing. Not a peep.
A
month after the tanks rolled, Chinese forces took over Katanga
Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For many years Beijing
had tried to secure a reliable supply of Coltan by spending fortunes
on roads and phone lines. This strategy had worked, but only up to a
point. Local warlords refused to give up on murder and general mayhem
and it made life endlessly difficult for the Chines companies on the
ground. So it was that China followed the lead of Ankara and Tel Aviv
and simply invaded the place.
Once
again they were condemned in the strongest of terms by more or less
everyone. And once again nobody even thought of actually doing
anything. World War Three for Katanga? Come on. Be serious. I mean
who the hell even knew where Katanga even was?
The
world was a changed place. Old rules were back in play. Conquer and
colonise. Invade and take.
Was
this the get go of a second age of Empire? Maybe it was.
The
reaction of the world's stock exchanges to the three invasions was
probably the most shocking thing of all. The years of drought had
been anything but kind to stocks and shares. The days of jubilant
traders popping champagne for the cameras seemed to have disappeared
forever. Now, for the first time in a long time, the Dow and the
Footsie 100 and the Hang Seng were surging again. Global capital
markets clearly like the look and feel of this new era of
Imperialism.
Shocking?
Of course it was shocking. Surprising? Of course it wasn't.
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