CHAPTER 23
Crash Day + 27 weeks 6.15 a.m.
O2 Arena - ‘Safety Zone 4’, London
Alan Maxwell stared impassively at the woman. The name on her ID card was Sinita Rajput.
‘You say you’re from GZ, Cheltenham?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
He steepled his fingers beneath his bearded chin, deep in thought, his bushy brows locked together like two links of a heavy chain. The emergency contact line he’d had with them had finally failed eight weeks ago. If he tried dialling now he didn’t even get the busy tone, just static. In the weeks leading up to that, his calls were only being answered with a pre-recorded message informing him that all communication officers were otherwise engaged and that he should call back at another time.
Maxwell offered her a warm smile by the light of the lamp on his desk. Its glow flickered slightly as the solitary generator hiccuped momentarily. Come dawn it was turned off. Daylight they got for free. For an hour in the early evening he allowed two of the four generators to turn over, giving them enough power for cooking and to run a couple of flat-screen TVs and DVD players. One of Lieutenant Brooks’ foraging patrols had brought back a supermarket trolley full of DVDs from a ransacked HMV. It was something to keep his people distracted for a short period every day.
‘So, Sinita, tell me what’s going on over there.’
She looked up at him sitting behind his desk, flanked by Brooks on one side and Morgan - Maxwell’s deputy supervisor - on the other. Alan insisted they both remained on their feet when they had their daily briefing with him; a small thing really, just a gentle reminder that he was the one in charge here. The Chief . . . as it were.
‘Things went bad there,’ she said, after gathering her thoughts for a moment. ‘I . . . I was one of the medical team. A ward nurse before the crash . . .’
‘Good. That will be useful. Please . . . carry on,’ said Alan patiently.
‘We took in roughly sixty thousand at Cheltenham. Plus the thousand emergency workers, soldiers and government people. There was talk from the first day the safety zone started taking people in, that this . . . this crisis would blow itself out within a month. So they told us to distribute standard maintenance allowances—’
‘How much?’ Alan was intrigued.
‘Fifteen hundred calories per adult female, two thousand calories for men. It was about nine weeks after the crash that my supervisor was telling the government people that it was better we started lowering the allowance.’
Alan nodded. His people had been on twelve hundred calories from day one.
‘They agreed a while later,’ she continued. ‘But then it had to be a big cut. We were handing out eight-hundred-calorie nutrition packages for a month before they suddenly started rounding people up at . . . at gunpoint and removing them from the safety zone. They . . .’
She shook her head and closed her eyes, clearly willing herself not to cry, or appear weak in front of these strangers. Her jaw clenched. She took a moment before continuing. ‘They . . . the soldiers were selecting non-essential workers. Old people, unskilled people. It was awful. Then, there was news from . . . from, I think it was Heathrow first, then Wembley.’
‘What news?’
‘The riots. Riots inside.’
Alan frowned. He’d heard rumours from several groups of people who’d tried their luck here. But nothing confirmed by GZ-C.
‘They lost control in those places,’ the woman continued. ‘The soldiers were overrun by the refugees, the storage areas ransacked . . . completely gone in just a few minutes. The news made the government people at Cheltenham panic. One morning they started evicting the civilians that were left, just pushing them towards the exit. And then I think someone heard that all the other safe zones were rioting, and that news spread like wildfire . . .’
Her lips trembled, curled - her chin creased and dimpled.
‘It’s okay, Sinita,’ said Alan. He got up, walked round and sat on the edge of the desk and patted her shoulder reassuringly.
She took a deep breath. ‘It was a massacre. I saw hundreds of women, children, and boys and men . . . lying on top of each other. Those that didn’t get killed . . . they ran.’
‘And you?’
‘I . . . I’m an essential worker,’ she said with a humourless smile. ‘I got to stay.’
She wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘We lasted another two weeks, I suppose, on what was left. Then the soldiers turned on everyone else.’
‘On the emergency authorities?’
‘Oh, yes, the civilian emergency volunteers, the civil servants, the cabinet members . . . everyone not in their unit.’ She looked up at Lieutenant Brooks, her wet eyes narrowing ever so slightly. She reached for her ID card and held it up. ‘This piece of plastic didn’t mean anything all of a sudden. Several other women I was working with were raped and . . .’ Her words ground to a halt. ‘I . . .’ She started and faltered.
‘It’s okay, my dear, take your time.’
‘So,’ she wiped her nose on her sleeve, ‘so, I left before they did the same to me.’
Alan stifled an urge to turn around and study Flight Lieutenant Brooks’ expression. During the first few weeks he’d been haranguing Cheltenham to send him more soldiers to help guard the dome. Now he wondered whether he’d actually been fortunate not to have a regiment of troops sharing the dome with them. Too many men in uniform and a more senior ranking officer than Brooks might have been something for Alan to worry about if supplies eventually began to get tight here.
Not if . . . when . . . supplies become tight, Alan. When. They’re not going to last for ever.
Maxwell shuffled uncomfortably. They had quite a few years’ worth as things stood. But he wondered if Brooks and his two platoons of RAF gunners might one day decide to take matters into their own hands, decide who was essential and who wasn’t.
Something to keep in mind.
Maxwell offered the woman a kindly smile - one he hoped was comforting, fatherly. ‘Well, Ms Rajput, let me assure you that you’ll be safe here.’
She nodded, eager to believe that, and then her face was in her hands, her shoulders shaking; her firm resolve to appear the strong woman in front of them had lasted as long as it could; she weakened and crumbled.
‘There’s food and water for you. We have an urn of heated water downstairs in the main piazza. Go down there and one of my people will sort you out a cup of tea.’
She stood up, pushing the chair back. ‘Th-thank you,’ she managed to sob. ‘I . . . I . . . was—’
‘That’s all right, Ms Rajput. You go and sort yourself out now. Morgan here will show you down and take your details. Help you settle in.’
‘You . . . you’re a kind man,’ she smiled weakly. ‘But how . . . how have you . . . ?’
‘Coped so well?’
She nodded. ‘I heard . . . from someone . . . I think I heard, that every last one of our safe zones ended in a mess.’ She managed a haunted smile of relief. ‘I really thought it was all . . . all gone.’
‘We’ve held out because difficult decisions were made early on.’
‘What?’
Maxwell gazed out of the office window looking down onto the rows of cots below. Dawn had broken and pallid grey light slipped across the entrance plaza. The people were stirring, roused by the clatter of a ladle on a metal catering pan.
‘Morgan will tell you,’ he continued, ‘I made the call to let in a lot fewer than I was told to.’ He shook his head. ‘Hardest decision I ever made, but I believe it was the right one.’
She nodded. ‘Yes . . . yes, I suppose it was.’
Morgan led her out of the office. The door closed behind them leaving him alone with Brooks.
‘My God,’ uttered Brooks eventually. ‘Then, what? It’s just us now?’
Maxwell nodded. ‘Us, and I suppose a few small groups here and there.’ He laughed.
‘The sort of survivalist nut jobs who’ve been hoping for something like this for years. I imagine they’re like pigs in mud.’
‘Jesus.’
‘The thing is, Brooks, this dome, those people out there, that is the UK now. That’s it. We’re what’s left of law and order, what’s left of the chain of command.’ He shrugged unhappily. ‘And I suppose by default that’s going to make me . . . well, that makes me the Prime Minister, doesn’t it? The Big Cheese.’
Brooks looked down at him sharply but said nothing. He swallowed noisily, shuffled uncomfortably.
Maxwell stood up and stepped towards the window, looking down at Starbucks’ outside seating area, at Morgan leading the woman through the chairs and tables. He sat her down on an unassigned cot, produced a clipboard and began asking her questions, scribbling down her answers.
If this is all there is now, just us - he shot a glance at Brooks - then I need to think about the future. Who I can trust . . .
‘Brooks,’ he said, ‘I think I’m going to have to make some changes round here.’