Washington Street, Camden, Maine
On any normal August morning, it would be too early for people to be worrying about their cars in Camden, but not today. Unaware of what was going on or why, residents and visitors alike descended upon the two open-air municipal car parks placed on either side of Washington Street. Many of the cars were less than ten years old and relied heavily on microprocessors, complicated circuitry, and miles of wires.
Sergei sat behind darkened windows in the corner of the car park and monitored the situation. The two car parks had one hundred and seventy-four spaces in all, and most of these were full. He hadn’t bothered to count the exact number. He would, if pushed, make up a number. He had a smile on his square face; the Camden Police Headquarters was next to the car park and showed no signs of life. No patrol vehicles parked outside and no noises within. From time to time people banged on the door, but to no avail. It was as if the police had deserted them, but Sergei knew the truth. The police, like everyone else, would be getting to work on foot.
A car grumbled to life and Sergei moved his eyes, nothing else. It was a yellow Honda Civic that had been hidden underneath some sort of protective cover. Was it to protect the paintwork stone chips or because the owner liked the look and didn’t want to splash out for carbon fibre? Sergei didn’t have a clue, but what he did know was that the vehicle started! A small cheer went up from the other vehicle owners. Slowly, Sergei raised his digital SLR and focused the long lens on the vehicle as it drove away. The car park became silent again. His technology had worked, but then he had never doubted it.
He started to feel warm as the morning sun hit his passenger window; his car would soon be a hothouse without an open window or air conditioning. He looked at his digital watch; 07:00, four hours until they pulled out. Sergei rolled his eyes. This was going to be boring. He had never enjoyed the surveillance aspect of the job; he was much happier with a weapon or fighting with his fists, but his experience and command of English had put him on this mission.
Another car moved. This time it was German – a BMW X5. Sergei photographed it and frowned. Why had that car started when it was full of modern electronics? Was the EMP not as powerful as they had been led to believe? This was why they’d been placed in Camden, to assess the effectiveness of the EMP’s outer splash, at this distance from its detonation. Sergei stifled a yawn. Getting up at the arse-crack of dawn, so that he could be in position unnoticed by those checking their cars had been necessary, if unpleasant.
Several other motorists now started to speak to the driver, and then one banged on the door. Sergei nodded; this is how it would start. Fights would break out over working cars and only the strong or the armed would survive. An angry shout, and the driver pulled away with a screech of tyres. Yes, it was about to get interesting. Sergei opened his glove compartment; the light went on and illuminated a Glock, two spare magazines, and two grenades. No one was going to take his car.
He checked his watch. It was time to move to his next location to observe. Sergei started up the Tahoe, gaining many excited looks, and then squealed out of the parking lot. Five minutes later he slowly pulled into the supermarket, turned left, driving to the furthest space away from the entrance. In his experience all those making a beeline for the store would turn in the opposite direction and stop directly outside the store’s wide, double doors. He turned off the engine and waited.
Within fifteen minutes he had been rewarded by the arrival of six vehicles. One was an ancient Chevy pick-up, two were motorbikes driven by men with beards and leather, and the last three were Nineties-era sedans. None of them were as reliant on technology as more modern vehicles. As he had predicted each vehicle had driven close to the front door whereupon the driver peered inside the store.
As he observed, the elderly driver of the ancient Chevy started to chat with the two bikers. He was too far away to either hear or read their lips, but he had a fair idea of what was about to happen. The Chevy backed up to the metal security doors, the two bikers then hooked up a pair of chains from the back, and the pick-up tried to move away. Without electricity, no alarm bells rang, no lights flashed, and no calls to either a security company or the police were made. The doors started to give; they bent at the bottom until a gap formed wide enough for a man to enter. And then all six drivers proceeded to loot the store.
Camden Hills State Park, Maine
The emergency rendezvous was just off the coast road in Camden Hills State Park. Oleg had driven quickly through Camden, stopping for nothing and almost running over a second police officer. This one had been standing on the highway next to his useless Crown Victoria and attempting to wave him down. Oleg made a mental note of the model as he accelerated past.
Five minutes later, he pulled into the park, becoming invisible from the road. He got out and stretched his legs before opening the trunk and checking his equipment. He had two satellite phones; one was Russian military and the other an Iridium. Layers of protective material inserted into every panel of the SUV shielded the phones from the EMP. The material was similar to that used in space suits to protect astronauts from solar radiation. This was technology Oleg knew and understood; a layer of metal was sandwiched inside strong layers of boPET polyester film, which protected the metal from damage. In theory, any energy released by an EMP would hit it and not the electronics underneath.
So far, everything he had tested had worked. It would make for an interesting report when he presented this to his employer; he had submitted his primary findings via his military sat phone.
Oleg heard footfall. He quickly shut the trunk of the car as a pair of hikers stepped out.
‘Good morning,’ the first said with a smile on his face.
‘Good morning,’ Oleg replied warily.
‘It’s a beautiful day for a hike,’ the second said.
‘Yes it is,’ he agreed. From the matching hiking boots and shirts, Oleg concluded that the middle-aged couple were husband and wife.
‘Well, we mustn’t keep you,’ the husband said. ‘Enjoy your hike.’
The wife smiled at him and the pair strode towards the main road. Oleg watched them go with a quizzical frown; did they not know what had happened? There was nothing he could say to help them. He shrugged. He was reminded of the Amish. They would not be affected one iota by the EMP, unless, of course, they sold their crops to buyers outside the community. Perhaps they would even agree with the EMP’s deployment as it would herald a return to a simpler more God-fearing existence.
*
The Mini Cooper S tore along the coast road, its speed and handling not consistent with its age. Tate knew that part of the sensation of speed was an illusion because they were almost sitting on the road, but he enjoyed it nevertheless.
‘Your son—’
Donoghue interrupted him: ‘—is a product of my wife’s first marriage.’
‘I see.’
‘He’s a waste of space, just like his father was.’
‘You knew him?’
‘Sure, he was the high school jock. I was always second best, and that’s part of the reason why I enlisted – to be the best.’
From Donoghue’s bearing, it had been immediately obvious to Tate that he was ex-military. ‘What were you?’
‘MP. Except when I mustered out I walked right into the job here. Camden was so quiet it was almost like an active retirement.’
‘And then this happened.’
‘Yep.’
Tate saw a figure ahead and slowed. It was a man in uniform waving at them.
‘That’s Brian Kent!’ Donoghue said with relief. ‘He should have been back at the station by now.’
As they drew nearer, Tate recognised the officer who had stopped him for speeding. Tate brought the Mini to a halt next to him. Kent put his hand on the roof of the small car and bent down to the window. ‘Chief, Mr Tate, what are you doing in Sara’s car?’
Donoghue ignored his officer’s question. ‘Brian, have you seen any other vehicles this morning?’
‘Just one, a black Tahoe.’
Donoghue and Tate exchanged glances. Tate spoke. ‘How long ago was that?’
‘Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. I dunno, my watch is busted, but he was in a hell of a hurry. Damn near ran me over! He was heading north. Chief, can you tell me what’s going on? My Vic just stopped, the cut-out is dead, and my radio is down.’
‘Brian, we’ve been attacked by some sort of bomb that stops electronics from working. It’s called an EMP.’
‘An EMP? Yeah, that’s a good one, Chief; I’ve watched The Matrix too.’
‘No, Kent, it’s true,’ Tate stated.
‘What?’ Kent was confused.
‘Brian, stay with your car – that’s an order.’
Without waiting for Kent to reply, Tate floored the accelerator pedal. The Mini squealed north, leaving a bemused police officer and two lines of rubber in its wake.
College Park Airport, Washington, DC
Maksim Oleniuk blew a smoke ring and watched it lazily drift apart before he spoke. ‘You have done well, Tatiana.’
‘Thank you,’ Terri replied.
Oleniuk smiled. ‘I have to hand it to you: your American English is flawless. It is only your cheekbones that betray your Russian roots.’
‘Thank you again.’
‘To be able to open one’s mouth and converse in a foreign language, as though it were one’s own, without a trace of an accent, is a rare gift. Would you believe that after four years at my English boarding school and a further three at Oxford, I was still called “the Russian”? I could never escape my lineage. You have. Bravo. But practice can make perfect, which is why, whenever I can I like to speak in the language of Shakespeare.’ Oleniuk shifted his bulk behind the utilitarian metal desk and his left hand subconsciously fingered his neck. ‘And Hunter does not suspect a thing. This is correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘Excellent.’ Oleniuk could see the woman was uneasy. Simon Hunter was unconscious, on a military cot in a partitioned area of the hangar. Her part of the mission was over, or so she had believed.
‘What happens now?’ she asked.
Oleniuk remained silent as he inhaled deeply on his cigarette. ‘They call this a civilised country, yet I am not allowed to enjoy a smoke after a delicious meal? That is the height of incivility, don’t you agree?’
‘I have never smoked.’
‘Not even after sex?’ He raised an eyebrow, suggestively. Terri didn’t reply. Oleniuk stabbed his cigarette out into an overflowing ashtray. ‘What happens now is that America crumbles.’
‘I meant what happens to me?’
‘I know.’ Oleniuk leaned back in his seat and let his eyes undress her. ‘You, of course, will be reassigned. There is no benefit to Blackline in having you in Washington at this time. It is the perfect opportunity for you to disappear. Terri Bowser will be consigned to history, one of the many who vanished when the United States went to pot.’
‘And what will happen to Simon?’
‘Hunter.’ Oleniuk noted she was referring to the prisoner by his first name. It had to be nipped in the bud. He had not and would not tell anyone the true reason why Terri had been assigned to Simon Hunter. ‘Hunter will be taken to a specialist facility where he will be interrogated. He is a valuable operational British asset who unfortunately vanished, with his American girlfriend, on the day of the attack. We have not captured a real British spy for a decade. I am sure he has many secrets to spill about the operations and inner workings of British Intelligence.’
There was a sharp knock on the thin steel door. One of the large Russians who had taken Terri from Simon’s townhouse now stood behind her. ‘He is awake.’
‘Then we had better say good morning to him.’ Oleniuk pointed at Terri. ‘Bind her hands. Terri, I feel our best course of action is if you keep up your pretence a little longer.’
With neither word nor warning, the commando took Terri by the shoulders and lifted her up from the chair. He took a new pair of plastic ties from his pocket and bound her wrists together. Oleniuk stood, took a step forward, and slapped her hard across the face. Terri cried out, the sound amplified within the steel shell of the hangar. Her eyes tightened with resentment. Oleniuk’s mouth turned up to form a narrow smile.
He led them out of the small office and into the main hangar room. At the back of the hangar and on either side sat prefabricated cabins used as detention cells by Oleniuk. In between these and facing the rear doors stood a white Bell 407. Nearer the middle of the hangar and to one side was a rest area. It contained several military cots and was watched over by the other man who had snatched the pair. Oleniuk clenched his fists as he battled the inner fury he felt at finally being in the same room as the man he despised: Simon Hunter. Oleniuk had to hold himself back, like a great reef holding the power of the ocean at bay. Those before him must see only calm, still waters and not the tumultuous, raging white horses.
He violently and suddenly shoved Terri forward so that she fell on top of Hunter. ‘Good morning, Simon. Did you sleep well?’
*
Head thick with sedatives, Hunter’s stomach lurched at the sight of Terri. They had taken her too! He held her, his face becoming a mask of anger as he took in the red welt on her cheek. Looking up, his expression changed as he battled to keep the signs of recognition from his face. Even though they had never met, he knew Oleniuk and knew he’d officially died five years ago in Mariupol. ‘If you’ve done anything to her, there will be hell to pay!’
‘I have done nothing yet, and that is how it will stay as long as you cooperate.’
‘Under whose authority are you holding me here? I am a member of Her Majesty’s diplomatic mission to the United States of America. I demand that you release us this instant!’
‘It is very un-British to make demands, old boy. Don’t you think?’
Hunter caressed Terri’s face; the fear in her eyes made his stomach knot. ‘What do you want?’
‘Everything.’
‘What do you think I know?’
‘We shall start with something easy. What is the location of your ambassador?’ Hunter shook his head slowly and a wry smile split the man’s lips. ‘Well?’
‘You’ve asked me the one question I cannot answer.’
‘Oh? Cannot or will not, Simon?’
‘Cannot, Mister …’
‘You may call me Max.’
That confirmed it. The Russian was Oleniuk, but how and why was he here? ‘I cannot answer that question, Max. I do not know where the British Ambassador is. No one does. We filed a missing person report with the Metro Police early this morning.’
Oleniuk’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did?’
‘We have not been able to contact him since Saturday morning, and of course now the power is out.’
*
‘Suka!’ Oleniuk’s frustration had him subconsciously switch back to Russian. He addressed the guard in the same language as he stalked away across the hangar: ‘Put them in the cell!’
His hit list was almost complete; Akulov had taken out targets across Maine and now Washington, but two more remained, and Anthony Tudor, the British Ambassador to the United States of America, was one of them.
Oleniuk had lobbied for Tudor’s assassination during his tenure as the British Ambassador to Moscow, but at the time he had been overruled by his own chief within the GRU. Now he had the power to correct, as he saw it, a past error. It wasn’t the fact that Tudor was missing that had made his anger flare; it was the fact that it was Hunter who had told him. Hunter the man he hated more than any other man alive.
He needed to control his rage; that would come later and with it as much psychological and physical pain as Hunter could bear. Oleniuk stepped out into the heat of the parking bay. The airport was still. He closed his eyes and listened intensely – absolute silence. It was calming. He inhaled deeply and his rage dissipated.
He walked around the corner of the hangar and faced the airfield. There were again no signs of life. None of the small private planes and helicopters had moved. None of them could, except for his own Bell, which sat safely out of sight, and a pair of Gulfstream G650ERs in the much larger hangar next door. All three airframes had been protected by the EMP shielding affixed to the walls and ceilings of the hangars, work that had been conducted in secrecy by workers flown in from China. When the time came to leave the airport, an unexplained but severe fire would level both hangars, incinerating all evidence of the Russians and all trace of the EMP shielding. Then he and his prisoners would be away.
Oleniuk needed some “Yankee air”, as he called it, and pulled a packet of American Marlboros from one pocket and a Zippo lighter from another. Lighting a cigarette, he pulled deeply. It was a beautiful day, and could only get better. He stared up at the white clouds drifting carelessly in the summer sky, the same sky that also stared down upon Russia yet seemed so much clearer, so much cleaner here in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. His sat phone rang. ‘Da?’
‘I have him. It will be done,’ Akulov stated.
‘You are positive?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘Very well. Go ahead, then return to base.’ Oleniuk closed down and re-pocketed the sat phone. It was excellent news; soon they could evacuate. He flicked away the butt of his cigarette and tapped a new one out of his packet.
‘Hey! Hey you!’ A grey-haired man in blue overalls had appeared from the other side of the hangar. It was the caretaker, a man he had seen once before. The man held his arm up. ‘Can’t you read?’ Oleniuk raised his eyebrows in incomprehension as the man spoke again. ‘No smoking, son! Jeez, you want to set the place alight, is that it? Blow us all to smithereens?’
Oleniuk was tempted to say “yes” but instead regarded the large red sign above his head. ‘I am sorry; I did not know.’
‘Hm, well now you do. Enough vapours around here to set it all off, and then where would we all be?’
‘Shuffling off our mortal coils?’ Oleniuk paraphrased Shakespeare. The old man just scowled and placed his hands on his hips.