‘We’re in dangerous, unchartered waters here, gentlemen, if you’ll forgive me the maritime analogy. This isn’t just a military problem, it’s political. But we have no political authority to lead us, and frankly I don’t see that changing any time soon. The civilian leadership here is barely coping with local responsibilities. Just feeding the islands and maintaining order is keeping Governor Lingle busy twenty-five hours a day. She makes the point, quite reasonably, that she can do infinitely more in her current office. After all, her state government instrumentalities remain completely intact and functional, whereas almost everything at the federal level has disappeared. I get the same line from Alaska and Washington State. They might be bucketing out a sinking boat, but we’re asking them to give up the bucket and the boat just to help us out. I don’t think we should plan for a new executive to emerge any time soon. Certainly not soon enough to deal with your immediate concerns, General Franks.’
A brusque nod from Franks signalled his agreement. ‘So, what do I do, Jim?’ he asked.
The words seemed to come from outside Ritchie. ‘If there is no political solution, we will have to find a military one. And fast.’
21
17TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS
Sleep finally claimed her, but only after hours of pain, dulled in the end by a dangerously large dose of Advil. The argument with Monique had been titanic and galvanising, and she feared that it had cost her more than just a few hours’ rest. Caitlin felt as though something vital had torn inside her head. She had lost her temper, and lashed out physically at one point, pushing Monique away from her, which only served to reinforce the French girl’s certainty that she held the moral high ground. After Monique’s initial shock at being pushed into the wall, Caitlin was sure she’d seen a smile and a small measure of triumph on her face.
‘So, in the end it is always the same, Caitlin, yes?’ she’d teased. ‘If you cannot win by reason you will do so with violence.’
Caitlin had been unable to reply. She’d staggered backwards, suddenly losing her balance to a strong surge of nausea and a blinding stab of pain behind one eye. She’d collapsed and vomited up all of her dinner. Monique was beside her immediately.
She had to hand it to the chick, she didn’t hold grudges. From a crazed harpy, screeching at Caitlin that she knew
She was genuinely remorseful. Caitlin didn’t know whether to be aggravated or touched, and in the end it hadn’t mattered. She was too sick to care. Sleep had only been possible after taking the painkillers, and she’d only managed that after three attempts. Her stomach was rebellious and disinclined to keep anything down. Eventually, however, she had drifted into a feverish, unsatisfying and fitful doze, waking frequently, or thinking she had, but never gaining full consciousness. The couch was just a few inches too short for her to stretch out comfortably, and the cushions were old and hard. She was so tired and drained, though, that it didn’t matter. Her body needed to rest.
She found some peace by emptying her mind of all the troubles piling up around them, and imagining herself young again. Really young. Perhaps fifteen or sixteen, on a family beach holiday in Baja. Her dad was newly retired. Her older brother, Dom, was just about to leave home to take up a basketball scholarship all the way over in Vermont. Mom was still healthy. Caitlin lay shivering now in the darkness of the small, unheated apartment in a city tearing itself apart, and recalled an endless couple of weeks, surfing, swimming and hiking with her family. She managed a sad, lonesome smile at the memory of the surfing lessons she’d tried to give her parents. Her mother had wisely begged off after ten minutes, but Dad, he’d always been up for anything, and without the air force telling him what he could do with his life twenty-four,’ seven, Dave Monroe vowed that he would spend whatever was left of it living as a surf bum. He was
It didn’t last. Nightmares tormented her, some vivid, some half remembered. Her family was gone and she was left to wander a world denuded of love and kindness. She dreamed herself in a city she did not quite recognise, where decomposing bodies hung from lampposts. Swinging on rotted ropes, they twisted in the breeze and revealed themselves as her family – then Wales, even Monique. She ran and ran through the dream, deeper into a city where children laboured under the whip and scourge to build pyramids of severed heads, where monsters capered and ghouls in human form held dominion over all. Every barbarous malignancy of human nature was free to bloom and run free. She passed through this landscape of horrors as a shadow, unable to act, invisible to victim and tormentor alike. Every now and then she would come awake with her heart hammering and her mouth dry and she would attempt to find the happy place where she’d swum and played with her father in the surf off Baja, but to close her eyes meant falling back into dreams where the whole world had become a charnel house.
In the early hours of morning, sometime before the inky blankness of night gave way to the slightest hint of grey dawn she dreamed herself imprisoned in a cell, somewhere in the old fortress of Noisy-le-Sec. Her captors had beaten her, told her that as a ‘floater’, a deniable asset, she was already dead. She lay on an old cobblestone floor, in a pool of her own vomit and blood, her eyes closed almost shut by swelling. Two teeth were loose, probably knocked free of their roots. The pain from them alone was a hard, white supernova burning one side of her face. She could hear voices discussing her. Gutteral French, a smattering of German, and a few snatches of Arabic.
‘She is already a ghost. Let us be finished with it now.’
‘But the Americans, they know…’
‘But they can do nothing! She is Echelon. She does not exist.’
‘They dare to send her against us. They should learn such impudence is always punished.’
‘There will be reprisals.’
‘But of course!’
‘Oh, it is fine for you, al Banna, you are not…’
