| |
[Taken from Paula Wilson’s minutes and Hareen Trestogeen’s recordings. RBB]
President Marat Olov put an arm on Lara Horvat’s shoulder, while holding a still replete plate of food in the other. ‘A fine spread, Lara. Excellent,’ he said.
The buffet had gone down well and Lara was pleased to see each of the leaders deep in conversation with each other. Perhaps that they were standing instead of formally seated at a table allowed them to be more relaxed with each other.
Caroline Stoddart, the British UN envoy was deep in conversation with President Che Yang, while President Phillipe Ramseur was in an animated discussion with Prime Minister Church and her defence minister, Malcolm Gorman.
Lara was pleased with the informality and walked over to Paula Wilson who was sitting on her own on the far side of the room.
‘Okay?’ asked the secretary general.
‘Yes, ma’am. Just keeping out of the way.’
‘They’re all enjoying the informal nature of the lunch. I’m almost reluctant to break them away for the meeting,’ Lara said and laughed.
‘Ma’am, there is an interesting aura of cooperation in this room. Much better than the meetings your predecessor was trying to control prior to New York. Everything was so much more... fractious,’ said Paula.
‘Maybe we’ll be able to all move forward together if we can solve the Slimbridge situation.’
Eventually, much later than planned, the plates emptied and were set aside.
‘Ladies, gentlemen,’ said Lara. ‘Shall we retreat into the meeting room?’
‘Indeed,’ said Che Yang, refilling his orange drink from the jug and following some of the others as they moved through to the second briefing room, all still deep in conversation.
Lara waited until they were all seated. ‘Let me call this meeting of the Security Council to order. Joining us today are British Defence Minister Malcolm Gorman, who you all know; Caroline Stoddart, the British UN envoy and Paula Wilson who was an assistant to my predecessor, and has decided to join my new team. Paula has visited half a dozen Federation worlds including Arlucian, so don’t be tardy in picking her brains if you need to.’
The participants nodded to the co-opted attendees.
‘Firstly,’ said Lara, ‘I wish to thank the British government for providing these meeting facilities within Number Ten and even more so for their kind provision of an area of land east of London for the new United Nations Headquarters. It has been planned and approved. Work should begin in a few weeks. Thanks also to those of you present and the twenty-two other countries who are collectively picking up the tab for the construction.
‘Now, I’d like to call upon Malcolm Gorman for the latest intelligence from the USA.’
The British defence minister stood and walked to a position near the secretary general where he could be seen more easily by all of those in attendance.
‘I bring no good news,’ he said. ‘We have reports of several, what they call “groups of insurgents”, being executed. Three leaders of a group from Charleston were executed last night live on television. President Slimbridge then followed the execution with the following broadcast. I do apologise that the execution does appear at the beginning of this recording. I was going to remove it, but Prime Minister Church suggested I should show the whole episode, so consider yourselves warned.’
Malcolm Gorman pointed an IR device at the giant briefing-room television screen then sat down.
The film began with a title “Broadcast by President Slimbridge.” A military detail marched into view from the left of the screen. Three soldiers broke away and took three prisoners with them. They were made to stand and face the front with a red-brick wall behind them. Nine other members of the detail were commanded by a colonel, standing to one side, to raise their weapons, take aim and fire. The prisoners, all dressed in white, were suddenly coloured in red as if they’d been splashed by paint. In dreadful slow motion they crumpled to the floor.
The scene changed to the White House, then the Oval Office and zoomed in upon a very serious President Slimbridge, immaculately dressed, facing the camera with his hands clasped together on the desktop before him.
‘Citizens of the United States of America,’ he said. ‘It truly grieves me to have you witness the execution of previously faithful citizens who had become insurgents. They had been commanding a troop of more than one hundred persons and their objective was to overthrow your president. Their leader is Charles Mayne, a democrat who desires the presidency for himself, but as an agent of the communist Federation.
‘I wanted you to see what happens to traitors, and caution you that there are many more insurgency groups. Mayne’s foot soldiers are being held in custody, but the crimes of the educated officers, two colonels and a captain, were beyond the mercy of our justice system. They were traitors.
‘The Federation want to take over the whole planet. They turned the heads of some leaders, fooling them into visiting many specially primed planets which were to show their political system in a good light. They were lying! They were only taken to planets to see staged presentations of people working together. It was all a lie! There are thousands of their planets where people are unable to scrape a living – where they live in concrete blocks of apartments, like the old Soviet Union – where there are shortages, disease and low life expectancy. All of this was hidden from view.
‘I say to you, that if we became part of the Federation, at the moment of joining we would be overwhelmed by millions of robots who would force people to give up their property and begin a life of virtual slavery.
‘My government, together with the chiefs of the armed forces, realised just in time what was about to be foisted upon the unsuspecting public.’
He unlinked his fingers and leaned forward towards the camera, adopting a more friendly demeanour and a quieter tone. ‘It is a matter of great regret that we did not know that a group of anti-Federation terrorists were planning to destroy the United Nations building at the very moment when it contained all of the world’s leaders and all of the Federation people too. If we’d known what they were planning, we might have been able to stop it and save New York City, but we didn’t know. A simple veto from the USA could have stopped the plan to join the Federation at a stroke.’
He sat back in his chair. ‘But we also know that the act of the terrorists stopped the Federation in its tracks, destroying the ringleaders and their worldly lackeys. Sadly, they also destroyed the innocent population of the city. That is, of course, the real tragedy... but it is always the innocent who suffer in totalitarian regimes.’
He paused again. ‘I call on you now, everyone in this wonderful country of ours, the last bastion of freedom in the world, to keep alert. If you hear or see anything suspicious, let us know. Go to the local police or tell your local army base. The Federation have been wounded. They have retreated. We’ve seen nothing of them since New York, except their destruction of our space activities and weather satellites, of course.
‘They destroyed Moonbase, destroyed the peaceful International Space Station, destroyed America’s satellites which provided the GPS signals for navigation, destroyed our broadcasting satellites – this is coming to you via local relays. They even destroyed the fabulous Hubble telescope, the lunar orbiting platform, the satellites studying deep space and the sun. What will they do next?
‘Citizens of the USA. We are in grave danger from the aliens, but also from their supporters on Earth, indeed, inside our own country. We must stay alert. The first year will be difficult as they are trying to stop international trade. If we can, with your help, survive this first year, then we will have broken the back of the crisis.’
During his last sentence, music began to play. Initially so quietly that it was almost impossible to identify it, but gradually the famous anthem grew in intensity. The Star Spangled Banner was soon in full swing. Superimposed flags, blowing in the wind, materialised behind the president as he stood and placed his hand firmly over his heart. Throughout the country, many citizens followed suit. Many others must have been sickened by the executions.
The anthem came to an end and the scene returned to an exterior view of the White House before fading to black.
‘What threatened punishment could have made these soldiers obey such orders?’ asked the prime minister.
‘Is ‘e mad?’ asked President Ramseur.
‘It would seem so,’ said President Yang.
‘Is there more, Malcolm?’ asked the prime minister.
‘It is full of lies, of course, and not just his speech. The group of insurgents was thirty strong, not a hundred. We don’t think Charles Mayne was actually commanding them. However, that is where there is some better news.
‘We know from communications which have reached us through Peter Stone in Canada, that there is now a properly organised militia being formed. It will be supporting Charles Mayne and is being commanded by General Beech, who was once President Spence’s head of the joint chiefs.’
‘Yes. Met him a few times,’ said President Olov.
‘It will take time,’ continued Malcolm, ‘but at least we know it will be well organised. Less good news is that we hear that Slimbridge’s broadcast has been well received. It was, of course, aimed at the gullible.’
The prime minister said, ‘Unfortunately, when people have no other point of reference, they can be easily sucked along on a wave of distorted national pride. In decades to come, they will wonder how they allowed it to happen.’
Malcolm Gorman returned to his seat and Lara Horvat took over the chair.
‘I have some good news too,’ she said.
All eyes turned back to her.
‘Paula and I had a visitor the other day. He asked me not to tell anyone, but as I report to those of you in this room, I think I have a duty to be honest about it.’
The level of interest of the others tangibly rose.
‘Ambassador Trestogeen materialised in my room in the office you are loaning me at the Ministry of Defence.’
There was considerable shock and sounds of ‘really?’ in the room.
‘What he say?’ asked President Chan.
‘He asked about my White House meeting. No one will be surprised to hear that it went badly. President Slimbridge passed me on to a Matthew Brown who told us his views on Federation politics. It was all dreadfully distorted and, of course, the president himself denied any involvement in the New York debacle.’
‘Well, ‘e would,’ said President Ramseur.
Paula handed out transcripts of the meetings with Slimbridge and Brown.
‘I put all they had said to me,’ the secretary general continued, ‘to the ambassador and he was horrified at the distortion of the truth.
‘I told him we needed help and he left, saying he was going to “think on it”, but I’ve heard nothing since.’
At that moment there was a pop and increase in air pressure. Lara and Paula recognised the sound and feeling instantly – Ambassador Yol Hareen Trestogeen was standing, or rather swaying, beside the giant television. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said in his less than perfect esponged gurgling English. ‘One of our bots told me you were all in one place, so I hope you don’t mind the intrusion.’