Without warning

producer.

‘It’s saying that Saddam appeared briefly before a crowd at one of his palaces about forty minutes ago,’ the man called out.

The footage showed a beaming dictator. Melton thought he was smiling so much that if he’d been a cartoon character, the top of his head might well have fallen off. Dressed in army greens and sporting a black beret, he fired six rounds from a pistol into the air as a small coterie of unctuously smiling generals watched on and the hand- picked crowd exploded into spasms of joy and tyrannophilia. Saddam began talking and an Arab voice-over cut in, after a few seconds, paraphrasing him. The English producer translated as the roomful of journalists remained unnaturally still and quiet.

‘He’s saying that Allah the merciful, the Almighty, has swept the crusaders from the very heart of their castle… from the very face of the earth, which they defiled with their presence. He’s calling on General Franks to come out of his spider hole, to fight right now. He’s demanding that all of the Arab world rise up and throw out the invaders… and their dogs and puppets in Riyadh and Kuwait and Qatar… And he’s promising to lead a coalition of the Fedayeen, the honourable, to drive the infidel and the apostate out of the holy lands.’

The Iraqi leader punched out a few more gunshots before spreading his arms wide and retreating inside the palace. Probably to haul ass to an underground bunker before a Tomahawk caught him out in the open, thought Melton. He raised an eyebrow at Mirsaad, and the Jordanian nodded, confirming the accuracy of the BBC man’s translation. Within a second, the room was in uproar again, even louder and somehow denser this time. Melton shifted in his seat and rolled his shoulders in a vain attempt to shrug off a growing sense of frustration.

He had no family back in the States. He was an only child and his parents, who’d had him late in life, were both dead. For the first time in what felt like a long and lonesome existence, he was glad to be on his own in the world. His work didn’t lend itself to stable relationships, and although he’d never had trouble finding women to date, none had ever lasted beyond a few weeks. Now, perversely, he was thankful for that. What must it have been like for these poor fuckers around him who had family back home? A cursory glance around the canteen told him they were the ones whose voices were loudest, and whose faces were the most strained.

‘What will you do, Bret?’ asked Mirsaad.

He was about to throw out the standard reply of ‘My job’, when it occurred to him what a ridiculous answer that would be. Did he even have a job anymore? His month’s salary and travel allowance were due to be paid overnight – would it go through? He had no idea. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered honestly, raising his voice to be heard over the tumult. ‘What about you?’

Mirsaad seemed almost ashamed. ‘I have an assignment in Palestine,’ he said. ‘They are celebrating there. Dancing in the streets. A big party. But soon I think there will be fighting, no?’

‘Fighting?’ muttered Bret Melton, as he contemplated the loss of his whole world and the prospect of what remained falling to pieces beneath his feet. ‘I reckon so.’

* * * *

6

PITIЙ-SALPКTRIИRE HOSPITAL, PARIS

A harried-looking man wearing a white coat over a dark suit appeared at the door and pushed past Maggie. Poleaxed by the TV news, she barely noticed him. The physician seemed to do his level best to ignore all of them, including Caitlin, even as he questioned her. A name-tag on his white jacket read Colbert.

‘Vous avez mal? Une douleur, un malaise?’ he said, asking whether she was experiencing any pain or discomfort. He addressed the query to his watch, which he was examining as though it was the most fascinating trinket in the world.

‘Oui, docteur. Quand j’essaie de tourner la tкte, j’ai mal au cou, et зa me fait – ‘ She stopped short. To judge by the wide-eyed surprise on Monique’s face, the young woman had not known she could speak French.

Shit.

‘Oui? Vous sentez quoi exactement?’ Colbert encouraged her to continue.

‘My neck… is very stiff and sore,’ she said slowly, in English. ‘It hurts so much to turn it, I get sick. And I have a terrible ache in my head all the time.’

Monique’s hand fell away from hers. The young woman stared at her as if she had grown a new limb. The others were still fixated on the BBC. More commercial satellite imagery, from all over the North American continent, was becoming available every minute. Forty-five minutes after the short burst of white noise that shut down all communication with the richest, most powerful nation in the world – and big chunks of the countries bordering her to the north and south – the truth was unavoidable. They were gone.

Caitlin had woken into some sort of Kafkaesque nightmare and for a moment she clutched at the hope that it might just be an actual nightmare, or even a psychotic breakdown, perhaps the result of an acquired brain injury.

‘But you told us you could not speak French,’ Monique said.

‘Fookin’ ‘ell, look’t that.’

‘Mademoiselle Mercure, malheureusement j’ai une mauvaise nouvelle a vous annoncer…’ Dr Colbert, still mechanically checking his watch, had just told her he had more bad news.

No shit, Sherlock, thought Caitlin.

Monique, like the doctor, was also phase-locked in her own little world. ‘But you told us. You told us you could not speak French.’

Caitlin stared back at her, as the world broke up into jagged mirror shards of meaning and insanity. She improvised as best she could. ‘I don’t speak it very well. It’s embarrassing to even try. You guys are like so hard- core about it, with all the eye rolling and the shrugging. I mean, you know, lighten up.’