Without warning

‘What the hell do you mean, “preventively”?’

Blackstone answered for him. ‘To prevent them being arrested when they fuck up so badly they really do get a lot of people killed.’

‘Like this morning?’

‘Oh grow up, Kipper,’ snarled Blackstone. ‘This is serious. We don’t want to take over here. We don’t want to take over anywhere. Hell, we’re desperate for someone to tell us what to do, but nobody’s putting a hand up. Everyone’s arguing about fucking cookies.’

‘Bullshit, General, that’s an exaggeration.’

‘No,’ said McCutcheon, tag-teaming again. ‘It’s a metaphor. For “pointless, infuriating contention about complete fucking inanities”. Like cookies – which I can assure you they did argue about. Somebody said they needed to start conserving food, so they spent three-quarters of an hour debating whether they were entitled to a packet of fucking Oreos at their meetings. This was just last Thursday, by phone hook-up, during the worst of the pollutant storm. By phone hook-up, Kipper – they were all at home. They could have eaten their own fucking cookies.’

Kipper rubbed his tired, burning eyes, but it only made them sting all the worse. ‘So what are you go

‘If we have to. But really, I’ve met that guy. He’s a freak – got that gimpy eye, and half of one ear chewed off. Wouldn’t be a good look for the next President.’

‘President?’

‘Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. We need a President, and pronto. If we don’t get a handle on this situation, we’re all going to hell in a hand-basket.’

Kipper bumped up against a filing cabinet, jarring his elbow on the corner. ‘Shit! Who the fuck talks like that? “Hell in a handbasket”!’

The air force man’s eyes twinkled. ‘Gra

‘Back on message, Major,’ said Blackstone. ‘Mr Kipper, we have some command and control issues here, and elsewhere. Here it’s bad enough, elsewhere it gets worse by an order of magnitude. That mess at your food bank this morning was a C-3 issue. That’s what happens when command, control and communication break down. Blood. Gets. Spilled.’

Kipper’s head was reeling. He wondered if the heating had been turned up too high or if any contamination had made it into the building through the filters.

‘Do you know anything about the line of succession, Kipper?’ asked Blackstone.

‘The line of what?’

‘Succession,’ echoed McCutcheon. ‘You know, the President gets whacked in a motorcade, the Veep steps up to the plate and bam! - any hopes the enemies of freedom had of exploiting our temporary constitutional befuddlement are right down the crapper.’

‘Are you sure you’re an air force guy?’

‘Sure, born and bred. Anyway, the line of succession – focus, dude. Right? You with me? It’s toast. We got nada. Nobody. Everyone we could’ve tapped for the top job is gone. Everyone we’ve approached since is like: “Oh no, don’t ask me, I’m too fucking busy. I got this fucking cookie crisis exploding in my face here.”‘

The engineer exhaled a deep breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding in. That probably explained his dizziness. ‘So, what do you want me to do about it?’

‘About that? Nothing,’ said Blackstone. ‘That’s our problem for now. But this city is yours. Kipper, you’re now on the Executive Committee. You and your department heads. I need you to do a better job ru

‘Whoa! Wait on a second. That’s a political appointment. Only elected officials can sit on the committee.’

McCutcheon shrugged. ‘Only elected officials on the civilian side, and they’re all unavailable now. So General Blackstone is the senior member, and he’s appointing you and the other department heads.’

‘What are we – your Good Germans?’

‘No, you’re the only people we can rely on to keep this place from falling apart.’

‘You don’t get a choice, Kipper,’ growled Blackstone. ‘The days of easy choices are over. You’ve been drafted. You can either get with the program or you can fuck off and we’ll find someone who will.’

‘Jesus Christ, you people…’

‘Yeah, wrestle with your conscience in bed, if you have to. But you need to decide whether you’re going to help pull your city through, or walk away.’

It was too much. Kipper turned and stormed out of the door.

Was it his imagination or did the Municipal Tower seem to be even more overrun with military uniforms than he’d thought when he first came in? Kipper shook off the thought. No sense getting paranoid. A lot of the support staff were scurrying about on fast forward. A few saw him and looked relieved, others seemed even more frightened and just put their heads down, hurrying past.

The soldiers didn’t seem to be intimidating anyone. Indeed, some of them looked pretty well spooked, too. But their very presence, in full combat gear, including their weapons, was enough to put the zap on anyone’s head. And what the fuck were they carrying arms for anyway, what did -

Kipper pulled up in confusion. He’d been so angry, so unbalanced by the meeting with Blackstone and McCutcheon, that he’d stomped right around the corner into the Pla

Instead he found Rhonda, his secretary, a large and formidable African-American presence in a room full of frightened white folk.

‘Kipper! Thank the Lord at last!’ she cried out when she saw him. ‘We were begi

‘Not yet, Ro

He smiled wearily at his team, or what was left of it. Barney Tench, his deputy and old college bud, who looked about as glum as Kipper had ever seen him; Marv Basco, the sanitation chief, a dead ringer for Larry from the Three Stooges; Dave Chugg, water, who looked a lot like Curly to Marv’s Larry, at least when you stood them next to each other; and Heather Cosgrove. Sweet, fragile, freaked-out little Heather.