DEATH THROES
Death Throes is the third novel in the Daniel Moss trilogy (to be published in 2019). Below is an extract from Chapter 1
In a secure room in Whitehall, the COBR meeting had been underway for ten minutes. The Cabinet Office Briefing Room had been convened by the Prime Minister as soon as the news had been flashed through to him. Chairing the meeting was Estelle Salter, known as The Guardian. Hers was a unique role, coordinating intelligence and strategic response of the Metropolitan Police, the Security Services, the Armed Forces, GCHQ, and a series of other agencies that existed below the radar of normal oversight. Salter was the most powerful person in the country after the Prime Minister, but above the political fray, unfettered by needing a public image, and unswayed by public opinion. It was she who now coordinated the response, the Prime Minister only too aware that only she had free access to all of the crucial Intel.
The Guardian looked around the room, taking in the grim, exhausted faces. It had been an exacting few months, the nation rocked by scandal, terrorist attacks, labour unrest, and rioting on the streets. The Prime Minister had been in power for less than a year. He had taken over in the aftermath of the assassinations of his two predecessors, in the wake of a chilling near coup that had threatened to undermine the entire country and its position on the world stage. The Prime Minister looked grave, wondering where the next outrage would be carried out on British soil. Next to the PM was Briony Williams, the Home Secretary, and next to her was the eminence grise of MI5, the Security Service, a man so bland that not even the best PR firms in London had managed to create the hint of public profile for him. To Estelle’s left sat the chairman of the Civil Nuclear Police Authority, Sir Donald Macken, who was leading the group through a worst-case scenario.
‘Finally, in the most serious case, as happened in Chernobyl, the core will undergo meltdown, temperature fail-safe mechanisms will break down, and the site will explode, leading to mass contamination, substantial fatalities, civil unrest, and economic meltdown. The markets will crash, and Britain will be plunged into a recession like no other…’
There was silence around the table. The nuclear power plant on the Northumbrian coast had been commissioned only six months before. It had always been controversial. Nobody wanted atomic energy in their backyard and the stretch of coast that had been chosen held a special place in the psyche of people who lived nearby. And now the nuclear power plant was offline. There had been a huge explosion two hours before, and the entire plant had been automatically disconnected from the power generation grid. The national energy supply was not in jeopardy – a single nuclear plant generated only a tiny proportion of the nation’s energy needs - but the security situation for the plant, for its workers, and the people living in the villages and countryside nearby was now a top priority.
The Guardian spoke. ‘I have brought Dr. Daniel Moss with me today. He is known to all of you, I expect…’ The Guardian smiled. How could they not know him? A year before he had been catapulted onto the world stage, the unwitting lynchpin in a plot to destabilise the UK and foment revolution in Russia. And then, during the summer, he flown to the Caribbean island of St. Peter, single-handedly saved the young Queen from kidnappers, and foiled a plot to remove her from the throne. ‘Dr. Moss has been gathering what little we know. Dr. Moss…?
Daniel Moss spoke quietly, the very epitome of a bookish professor. He was an unremarkable man, quite tall, with a shock of reddish hair. At first glance, he did not warrant a second. But his eyes, a deep emerald green, were alive with experience and knowledge. Daniel missed nothing, and it was his mind that they all needed now. ‘The site near Alnwick has been sealed off, with a five mile cordon sanitaire in place. Local police are being supported by officers from the Civil Nuclear Authority, and we are in constant touch with the site chief engineer, a Dr. Rachel Scott. At the moment, we’re playing a waiting game. As to the explosion, at the moment, we’re classifying it as cause unknown. GCHQ have detected no increase in communications chatter in recent days. The protesters at the gates are the same ones that have been there since day one, and our deep cover agent has already been in touch to say that nothing unusual has been going on at the protesters’ camp… And Air Command detected no unusual airborne activity at the time of the explosion.’
‘Thank you, Dr. Moss.’ The Guardian continued smoothly, knowing how long these meetings could last once all of the ‘what ifs’ started. She toyed unconsciously with a double string of pearls at her throat, a smart woman in a dark blue business suit. ‘We will adjourn our meeting for now and re-convene in three hours. I’ll be in touch with principals if anything comes up, and you all have access to PANDORA.’ The Planning AND Operational Retrieval of Archives system was the brainchild of Daniel Moss, who had stepped in to bring it to life after its creator had died. PANDORA was one of a kind, a sophisticated information gathering system that was the backbone of the U.K. intelligence community.
The Prime Minister interrupted. ‘And the command structure, Guardian?’
Estelle nodded and spoke. ‘Richard Coverly from the Met is Gold Commander. He’s working from my department on secondment at the moment. The Bronze Commander on the ground is an inspector…’ She rifled through some documents. ‘Inspector Goodington from the Northumbria force. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I’ll see you again at 15.00. Come along, Dr. Moss.’
It was a short drive from the buildings of the Cabinet Office to the Nexus. The Guardian’s top-secret department was located in one of a myriad of buildings that formed the Ministry of Defence. The Guardian’s own private suite of rooms was located on the fourth floor. In times of crisis, she and her elite staff could be inside a subterranean bunker within the space of a minute. It was a scenario that they practised every month. One could not be too careful. After arriving in the underground secure parking area, guarded by armed members of SO15, The Guardian and Daniel Moss used a code to access the lift up into the main building. The lift was armoured and could withstand almost any kind of attack. Once at the fourth floor, the pair stepped out of the lift into a small anteroom. There, The Guardian stepped forward. In an instant she was bathed in an eerie green light, a bio scanner that compared her details on file with the person standing in the chamber. In moment the light disappeared, a green light above the doorway replacing the red warning sign. Estelle spoke. ‘Authority override. Estelle Salter. Q-5967-Q.’ The voice-operated override allowed both The Guardian and Daniel to continue. She turned to Daniel, smiling. ‘I think by now that I can trust you, don’t you think, Daniel?’
It was a loaded question. Daniel had been through it all too many times. Who will guard the guards themselves? He had been moved from the Ministry of Defence after the attempted Russian coup. It had been a reward for his loyalty, and a way for The Guardian to wrest control of PANDORA from the MoD at the same time. But Daniel had never felt that they completely trusted him. What would he have to do to prove himself? He had thwarted revolution, aided the purge that The Guardian had carried out, cutting through the swathes of traitors in the United Kingdom like a merciless scythe, and he had saved the young Queen from a certain death, preventing her uncle from seizing the crown for himself. What more could he do?
The Generals had grown tired of their political masters. The permanent revolution had gone awry, mired in economic realities. The people were enjoying freedoms that flew in the face of the nation’s ideology. Defence budgets had been cut, and the Generals had been told to streamline the services. They were apoplectic, and demanded to speak personally with the minister of defence. He refused, baulking at the idea of his own generals demanding anything at all from him. Instead, he sent a junior attaché, a young man in a cheap suit, whose bad breath offended the old men of the army. But the Generals would not be silenced. In secret meetings across the nation’s heartland, they met in small groups, discussing the dangers of the current status quo, decrying the new revolution that would see the army emasculated. Day by day, their numbers swelled, as more generals, and then colonels, and majors joined the disgruntled core. Why could the country not use its economic might to smash its enemies? Why must the great nation participate in the endless discussions of the United Nations? How much longer could the world deny the significance of the motherland? The generals became bolder as the questions became more demanding, more extreme, fuelled by anger and memories of promises broken.
Slowly, and without attracting the attention of the West, the Behemoth grew. The generals installed their own people in the ministry and the great councils of state. Promotions were made, subtly putting the renegade leaders in control of the most important strategic sites, the navy, the air force and the nation’s considerable arsenal of nuclear weapons. The generals were careful to continue arguing with the minister and with the State Council, buying off corrupt members of the National People’s Council by the dozen. No one suspected a thing. It was just another chapter in the dark history of the revolution. Across the country the red dragon awoke. The People’s Liberation Army of China would soon conquer again.
In a secure room in Whitehall, the COBR meeting had been underway for ten minutes. The Cabinet Office Briefing Room had been convened by the Prime Minister as soon as the news had been flashed through to him. Chairing the meeting was Estelle Salter, known as The Guardian. Hers was a unique role, coordinating intelligence and strategic response of the Metropolitan Police, the Security Services, the Armed Forces, GCHQ, and a series of other agencies that existed below the radar of normal oversight. Salter was the most powerful person in the country after the Prime Minister, but above the political fray, unfettered by needing a public image, and unswayed by public opinion. It was she who now coordinated the response, the Prime Minister only too aware that only she had free access to all of the crucial Intel.
The Guardian looked around the room, taking in the grim, exhausted faces. It had been an exacting few months, the nation rocked by scandal, terrorist attacks, labour unrest, and rioting on the streets. The Prime Minister had been in power for less than a year. He had taken over in the aftermath of the assassinations of his two predecessors, in the wake of a chilling near coup that had threatened to undermine the entire country and its position on the world stage. The Prime Minister looked grave, wondering where the next outrage would be carried out on British soil. Next to the PM was Briony Williams, the Home Secretary, and next to her was the eminence grise of MI5, the Security Service, a man so bland that not even the best PR firms in London had managed to create the hint of public profile for him. To Estelle’s left sat the chairman of the Civil Nuclear Police Authority, Sir Donald Macken, who was leading the group through a worst-case scenario.
‘Finally, in the most serious case, as happened in Chernobyl, the core will undergo meltdown, temperature fail-safe mechanisms will break down, and the site will explode, leading to mass contamination, substantial fatalities, civil unrest, and economic meltdown. The markets will crash, and Britain will be plunged into a recession like no other…’
There was silence around the table. The nuclear power plant on the Northumbrian coast had been commissioned only six months before. It had always been controversial. Nobody wanted atomic energy in their backyard and the stretch of coast that had been chosen held a special place in the psyche of people who lived nearby. And now the nuclear power plant was offline. There had been a huge explosion two hours before, and the entire plant had been automatically disconnected from the power generation grid. The national energy supply was not in jeopardy – a single nuclear plant generated only a tiny proportion of the nation’s energy needs - but the security situation for the plant, for its workers, and the people living in the villages and countryside nearby was now a top priority.
The Guardian spoke. ‘I have brought Dr. Daniel Moss with me today. He is known to all of you, I expect…’ The Guardian smiled. How could they not know him? A year before he had been catapulted onto the world stage, the unwitting lynchpin in a plot to destabilise the UK and foment revolution in Russia. And then, during the summer, he flown to the Caribbean island of St. Peter, single-handedly saved the young Queen from kidnappers, and foiled a plot to remove her from the throne. ‘Dr. Moss has been gathering what little we know. Dr. Moss…?
Daniel Moss spoke quietly, the very epitome of a bookish professor. He was an unremarkable man, quite tall, with a shock of reddish hair. At first glance, he did not warrant a second. But his eyes, a deep emerald green, were alive with experience and knowledge. Daniel missed nothing, and it was his mind that they all needed now. ‘The site near Alnwick has been sealed off, with a five mile cordon sanitaire in place. Local police are being supported by officers from the Civil Nuclear Authority, and we are in constant touch with the site chief engineer, a Dr. Rachel Scott. At the moment, we’re playing a waiting game. As to the explosion, at the moment, we’re classifying it as cause unknown. GCHQ have detected no increase in communications chatter in recent days. The protesters at the gates are the same ones that have been there since day one, and our deep cover agent has already been in touch to say that nothing unusual has been going on at the protesters’ camp… And Air Command detected no unusual airborne activity at the time of the explosion.’
‘Thank you, Dr. Moss.’ The Guardian continued smoothly, knowing how long these meetings could last once all of the ‘what ifs’ started. She toyed unconsciously with a double string of pearls at her throat, a smart woman in a dark blue business suit. ‘We will adjourn our meeting for now and re-convene in three hours. I’ll be in touch with principals if anything comes up, and you all have access to PANDORA.’ The Planning AND Operational Retrieval of Archives system was the brainchild of Daniel Moss, who had stepped in to bring it to life after its creator had died. PANDORA was one of a kind, a sophisticated information gathering system that was the backbone of the U.K. intelligence community.
The Prime Minister interrupted. ‘And the command structure, Guardian?’
Estelle nodded and spoke. ‘Richard Coverly from the Met is Gold Commander. He’s working from my department on secondment at the moment. The Bronze Commander on the ground is an inspector…’ She rifled through some documents. ‘Inspector Goodington from the Northumbria force. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I’ll see you again at 15.00. Come along, Dr. Moss.’
It was a short drive from the buildings of the Cabinet Office to the Nexus. The Guardian’s top-secret department was located in one of a myriad of buildings that formed the Ministry of Defence. The Guardian’s own private suite of rooms was located on the fourth floor. In times of crisis, she and her elite staff could be inside a subterranean bunker within the space of a minute. It was a scenario that they practised every month. One could not be too careful. After arriving in the underground secure parking area, guarded by armed members of SO15, The Guardian and Daniel Moss used a code to access the lift up into the main building. The lift was armoured and could withstand almost any kind of attack. Once at the fourth floor, the pair stepped out of the lift into a small anteroom. There, The Guardian stepped forward. In an instant she was bathed in an eerie green light, a bio scanner that compared her details on file with the person standing in the chamber. In moment the light disappeared, a green light above the doorway replacing the red warning sign. Estelle spoke. ‘Authority override. Estelle Salter. Q-5967-Q.’ The voice-operated override allowed both The Guardian and Daniel to continue. She turned to Daniel, smiling. ‘I think by now that I can trust you, don’t you think, Daniel?’
It was a loaded question. Daniel had been through it all too many times. Who will guard the guards themselves? He had been moved from the Ministry of Defence after the attempted Russian coup. It had been a reward for his loyalty, and a way for The Guardian to wrest control of PANDORA from the MoD at the same time. But Daniel had never felt that they completely trusted him. What would he have to do to prove himself? He had thwarted revolution, aided the purge that The Guardian had carried out, cutting through the swathes of traitors in the United Kingdom like a merciless scythe, and he had saved the young Queen from a certain death, preventing her uncle from seizing the crown for himself. What more could he do?
The Generals had grown tired of their political masters. The permanent revolution had gone awry, mired in economic realities. The people were enjoying freedoms that flew in the face of the nation’s ideology. Defence budgets had been cut, and the Generals had been told to streamline the services. They were apoplectic, and demanded to speak personally with the minister of defence. He refused, baulking at the idea of his own generals demanding anything at all from him. Instead, he sent a junior attaché, a young man in a cheap suit, whose bad breath offended the old men of the army. But the Generals would not be silenced. In secret meetings across the nation’s heartland, they met in small groups, discussing the dangers of the current status quo, decrying the new revolution that would see the army emasculated. Day by day, their numbers swelled, as more generals, and then colonels, and majors joined the disgruntled core. Why could the country not use its economic might to smash its enemies? Why must the great nation participate in the endless discussions of the United Nations? How much longer could the world deny the significance of the motherland? The generals became bolder as the questions became more demanding, more extreme, fuelled by anger and memories of promises broken.
Slowly, and without attracting the attention of the West, the Behemoth grew. The generals installed their own people in the ministry and the great councils of state. Promotions were made, subtly putting the renegade leaders in control of the most important strategic sites, the navy, the air force and the nation’s considerable arsenal of nuclear weapons. The generals were careful to continue arguing with the minister and with the State Council, buying off corrupt members of the National People’s Council by the dozen. No one suspected a thing. It was just another chapter in the dark history of the revolution. Across the country the red dragon awoke. The People’s Liberation Army of China would soon conquer again.