that was almost all that was visible, until he recognised the boy and smiled, revealing three rounded, pearly teeth.
The boy didn’t smile back.
“Mutam-ul-it,” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.
The guard’s smile vanished. He nodded and knocked on the door behind him. It flew open immediately. In the doorway stood a broad man, silhouetted against the harsh light of the bare bulb inside his room.
A European observer might have noticed this man’s wild red beard, deep-set blue eyes and the explosion of orange hair on his head. But to everybody in this town he could be identified simply as ‘the white man’. Certainly nobody paid any attention to the thin black tie worn loosely around his neck, or to his slender-lapelled suit – black, dusty and worn at the elbows. Who here would even notice that on one lapel was a short, green stripe?
When this man spoke it was in grammatically perfect Hassaniya Arabic, but with a strong northern English accent.
“I told you this would happen,” he announced, waving the boy away. He turned to his guard. “Go get the trucks. Now.”
08 BIRDS IN FLIGHT
At last Jimmy could feel the temperature creeping up a couple of degrees. The sun was rising – not that he could see it with the fog still so thick. He’d made it through the night. But the white world around him seemed to close in. Then it started spinning.
If I stop I’ll die, he told himself. But the voice was faint, as if something inside him was still shouting, but he had lost the ability to hear it. Keep walking, it continued, so feebly it was quieter than a thought. Then came echoes of the phrases he had repeated to himself over and over thousands of times since he started his trek: Find Uno Stovorsky. Warn France. But they were confused and lost beneath the wind.
Then even that noise stopped. Jimmy no longer knew where he was or where he was going. For a second it even felt like his thoughts were completely detached from his body. All the pain floated from his limbs…
No, he heard. Find Stovorsky… France… But the words didn’t mean anything any more.
A light pierced his eyes. Something silver and glimmering. It seemed to pull Jimmy towards it. He was overwhelmed by the sensation that this was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen. The surrounding whiteness flickered from grey to blue to black. Is it night again? Jimmy wondered.
It was his last thought before his head hit the snow.
“Birds in flight, sir,” came a voice through Lt Cdr Love’s intercom. “The launch was clean.”
Dr Giesel ran his hands nervously up and down the front of his life-jacket, then straightened his tie.
“They’re definitely on target?” he whispered. “Because if they’re even slightly off—”
“This is the British Navy,” Love cut in. “We don’t do ‘slightly off’.” He kept his gaze straight ahead at the clutch of buildings on the horizon. The Tomahawk missiles twinkled above them. There was a glint of pride in his eye. But when he caught sight of the other man’s concern his expression softened. “The missiles are guided by GPS,” he explained, “and the targets can’t move. They’re buildings. Not people.”
Dr Giesel was satisfied for a second, until fear crept into his face again.
“What’s up?” Love asked. “Worried about killing a few Frenchmen?”
Dr Giesel’s mouth fell open in horror. How could this man be so flippant? Didn’t he realise he was effectively starting a war?
“Don’t worry,” chuckled Love. “Much as I would have loved to blow up some Frenchmen, we’ve got a live satellite feed that shows us they started evacuating as soon as they spotted us on the horizon. Our missiles will take about ninety seconds to reach them. That’s more than enough time for whoever’s left in there to clear out. Then the place is ours.” He winked and turned back to wait for the explosions. “It’s almost too easy, isn’t it?”
The intercom crackled into life again. “The last French truck has left the site, sir. The place is deserted.”
Love turned to Dr Giesel and gestured as if to say, ‘I told you.’
“Send the satellite feed up to my monitor,” he ordered, into the intercom.
A second later, one of the screens on Love’s control desk switched from a graphical display to a pin-sharp satellite image of the coast 16 kilometres ahead. The sand was a beautiful reddish-orange, but it was blemished by groups of square white buildings and criss-crossed by tracks. Then there were six much larger rectangular buildings lined up next to the water. They would have been overwhelming on the ground, but here they were reduced to knots of pixels. And racing away towards the edges of the screen were dozens of small black squares.
For a few seconds everybody on the bridge stood in silence, while French jeeps and trucks fled the compound. It was like watching germs squirming under a microscope. Some of them twisted and turned as if they didn’t know where to go. This was no orderly retreat, thought Dr Giesel.
In contrast, the atmosphere on the Enforcer was totally calm.
“Only a few people in the world have ever seen these images,” said Love softly. “You won’t find this place on Google, that’s for sure. And only a handful know what really goes on here.” He looked round at Dr Giesel. “Soon you’ll be the one in charge.”
Suddenly the screen went white. Dr Giesel’s eyes jumped from the monitor on the control desk to the horizon. Two towers of black smoke erupted into the sky. After a split-second they were lit up with orange flames. Then came the sound – two deep booms that shook the floor. Dr Giesel placed a hand on the control desk to steady himself, but noticed that he was the only person affected.
“Better prepare your team,” Love announced, so casually it was as if he had asked what was for dinner. “Mutam-ul-it will be under your control in no time.”
Dr Giesel was terrified to see what damage had been done, but at the same time he couldn’t look away. The smoke finally cleared enough for the ground to be visible again on the satellite feed. In the exact spots where there had been two white squares there were now two black patches, each surrounded by a ring of fire in the footprint of the destroyed buildings. The precision was incredible. But then the doctor noticed something at the edge of the screen.
“What’s that?” He nervously leaned forwards and laid a finger on the monitor. The black dots that had been rushing away from the compound were now rushing in every possible direction. Some had stopped completely, but after a few seconds they turned around and went back the way they came.
Lt Cdr Love peered at the screen. “What’s going on?” he barked into the intercom. “Don’t the French know how to evacuate? What are they doing heading back in?”
There was a pause, then a crackle. “It doesn’t appear to be the French, sir.”
“What?”
“It’s another force.”
“Another force?” There was confusion from everybody on the bridge.
“That’s right,” confirmed the voice on the intercom. “They appear to be taking over the French vehicles and…”
“I can see what they appear to be doing!” raged Love. “Why are they doing it? And how are we going to stop them?” He spun round to each of his officers in turn. Every one wore a blank stare.
“Well?” he bellowed. “Who the hell are these people?”
* * *
One second Mutam-ul-it was there; the next it had vanished in a plume of black smoke. Hot ash rained down around the girl, then hailstones formed out of the sand that had been melted together by the