Without warning

What’s going to happen to them?’

‘No idea. I guess there’ll be more talks. Things are already pretty crowded in French Polynesia. For now, our problems are all here. We’ve got nigh on a hundred vessels to get out of the harbour and through the Panama Canal – are they going to be finished provisioning? You were having some trouble with supplies, as I recall.’

Pileggi tapped the clipboard with her pen. ‘Those two big container ships that came in early this morning from Port-au-Spain declared a lot of stuff we could use. So I requisitioned their cargo. My guys are going to check them out in the morning and begin redistribution.’

‘Uh-uh,’ grunted Musso. ‘How were the captains about that?’

She waved the question off with a hand gesture. ‘Relaxed. They even sent over a complete cargo manifest to help out. They’re Panamanian-flagged, with mostly Russian and Indian crews. The shipping line’s gone out of business. They say they’ll need some fuel and an escort to Australia, so I’d guess they’re going to sell what they can in Sydney. The Indians will want to go home from there, the Russians will probably jump ship and try to disappear into the crowd.’

‘Well, the crowd would be big enough, I imagine. Must be nearly two million displaced down there now.’

‘Passed that last week,’ the colonel replied, shaking her head. ‘They’re up to two point two, as of close of business yesterday. Two and a half if you count New Zealand. Mostly ours, but a fair number of Europeans too. Clean-shaven and fair-skinned, of course,’ she added dryly. ‘Don’t bother knocking if your name is Mohammed.’

Musso felt instinctive disapproval stirring in his gut, just as he disapproved of the British Government’s mass internment and deportation policies. It was ethnic cleansing by another name, or ethnic filtering perhaps Down Under. Racism cloaked as necessity, when you got right down to it. But it was hardly the worst thing happening in the world today. And the Aussies had taken anyone with an American passport, regardless of background. While their motives were almost entirely selfish – just look at how much remnant US military power had been redeployed down there to protect America’s most precious asset, its remaining people – you couldn’t argue with the result. Refugee allocations to southern-hemisphere locations were among the most precious things in the world at the moment, the ecological catastrophe of the Disappearance being mostly confined to the northern latitudes. Nobody in their right mind wanted to go into the tribal slaughterhouse that was Africa. And with so many South American countries succumbing to the contagion of anarchy or military takeover, slots in the Australia and New Zealand programs were the most avidly sought. Fortunes in trade goods were being made smuggling people in there.

The Marine Corps lawyer was about to ask Pileggi for a rundown on the civilian flights out of Soto Cano in Honduras, the other leg of her role in Operation Uplift, when he suddenly blinked in shock. A freighter, moored near the old fuelling station down in the bay, exploded. There was no warning. It simply lifted a few feet out of the water – a small dense blossom of white light cracking it amidships before flowering into a dark, oily orange ball of flame that lit up the entire harbour. The sundered bow and stern thumped back down, throwing up huge fantails of water, before the vessel keeled over and started to sink.

‘Motherfuck!’ cried Musso.

Pileggi spun around in her chair, half raising herself as she did so.

Musso didn’t bother with the formalities of ending the meeting. They were both already heading for the door when a navy lieutenant appeared, blocking their exit. She was holding a sheaf of paper and appeared goggle-eyed with surprise.

‘General Musso, there’s a message for you, sir. From President Chavez.’

‘What?’ He was tired, worn slick, and not firing on all cylinders.

She handed the message across as more explosions ripped through the night, muted by distance. A crackle of small-arms fire resolved itself from the rolling thunder.

‘What the fuck?’ Musso cursed as he snatched the piece of paper and skimmed through the text.

‘What is it, General?’ asked Susie Pileggi.

‘That commie wingnut down in Venezuela is demanding we leave Cuba,’ fumed Musso as he finished re-reading the transmission. ‘Says the Special Circumstances Committee of the Cuban Politburo in Caracas has requested the assistance of Venezuela in removing “all imperialist chancres” from the body of Cuba.’

‘What?’

‘He’s a whackjob – what do I know what he means?’

Pileggi’s eyes suddenly flew wide open, just as Musso’s had done a few seconds earlier. ‘Those container ships,’ she said. ‘We haven’t been able to inspect them yet, but one of them’s a conro vessel.’

Musso shook his head, trying to clear the mud out and not having a lot of luck.

‘A container ship with a roll-on/roll-off facility,’ she explained quickly. ‘Just like an LHD. You could use it for putting troops ashore.’

‘Shit!’

Another officer appeared at the door. A Signals Corps captain. ‘Excuse me, General, you need to see this, sir. It’s a distress call from the French ship, the Montcalm. She says she’s been torpedoed. Three hits and she’s going down, requesting immediate SAR to this location.’ The captain handed over another piece of paper containing the grid coordinates.

Musso turned to the first messenger. ‘Venezuelan navy, Lieutenant – do they even have submarines?’ he asked the wide-eyed naval officer.

She seemed to stumble over the answer before composing herself. ‘Two that I recall, General. A couple of Type 209 diesel-electric attack boats. German design. Not a bad ship killer if you can’t afford a top-shelf product.’

Tusk Musso squeezed out a silent curse as the sound of gunfire escalated behind him. He hurried back to the window for a quick look-see. The previously calm moonlit setting had changed into a maelstrom of moving craft, all illuminated by the guttering of the burning freighter. By pressing his face against the glass, he could see right up the main branch of the bay.

A big cargo vessel appeared to have beached itself. An armoured vehicle rolled down off the ramp, spewing tracer fire into the camp.