New Jerusalem 3 Stanley Barton blinked once. This was not what he was expecting.
"Really?"
"Yes, Prime Minister. We have an asset very highly placed in the Kremlin, codenamed
Backstay, who has been working for us since just after the war. The precise details of his identity are something that we've kept even Prime Ministers Eden and Churchill, on account of
Backstay being a member of the Politburo for the last 10 years. Our next most important asset is in the KGB's Second Chief Directorate, codenamed
Lighter, who has been working for us since 1947. Additionally, we have two further sources close to the top of Soviet military intelligence and the First Chief Directorate of the KGB,
Paragon and
Dodo, each of which have given us an insight into Soviet strategic policies, decision making and secrets and, most significantly, the ability to independently verify the material passed on by the other three. It has been this intelligence that enabled us to prevent the Red Shadow Crisis of 1960 turning into a full blown war, among other achievements."
"Very well. I don't want to know any further details about them, just the codenames and the intelligence reports. I don't want to inadvertently give anything away while I'm meeting with General Secretary Stalin or any of his ilk."
"Certainly, sir. We also use them as channels to feed our own erroneous intelligence reports to the Soviets, moving our lesser agents higher up in their institutional esteem and influence. As of recently, we've had more success moving up our men through the Soviet Navy than their air force or the Red Army, although the latter remains our most penetrated service. In particular, they've bought our explanation that the North Sea Floating Fortresses currently under construction are for oil platform security; when the truth comes out, it will push up our agents in place. The Soviets are labouring under the impression that they have our intelligence services quite thoroughly infiltrated, but we've been feeding them product and false information through two circles of double agents since the middle of the war."
"Good. I only have one question - will we be able to get them out when and if the time comes?"
"I can't guarantee success, Prime Minister, but we will do everything in our power to do so."
"Not good enough. If they risk their lives for us, we owe them a debt. It is a matter of honour, Sir Miles."
"Perhaps you mistook my apparent equivocation, sir. I refuse to guarantee success when it cannot be guaranteed. However, we have got some fair runs on the board in terms of getting men out of the USSR. It worked in '61 with one of our highly placed men codenamed
Hero. Going back further than that, we have had some measure of success operating inside the Soviet Union under very difficult circumstances; we got Bukharin out of the Lubyanka in 1938 and we assassinated Stalin in 1956."
"We what?!"
"The death of Stalin was not an accident."
"That much is obvious! The Soviets have all but admitted to doing it themselves!"
"A face-saving farago, Prime Minister. He was killed by Sir Charles Ratcliffe at his dacha, right as he was trying to launch a general nuclear attack."
“No one mourned him then or now. What of the precedent? It doesn’t make for a very stable world if every power can go about killing off the other’s leaders.”
“Exactly, sir. To that end, there were four secret protocols agreed upon at the Stockholm Conference: not to target leadership in peacetime; not to take any overt action against strategic weapons or their delivery systems during peacetime; notification of atomic tests using approved back channels; and an agreement not to introduce atomic weapons onto the territory of another nuclear power using covert means. They’ve worked so far.”
“Sensible. What’s next?”
“On the issue of nuclear weapons, the Ministry of Magic has a very secret program underway to develop a high magic...thing... that would effectively counteract their effects.”
“What?!”
“I’m no wizard, Prime Minister, but Alcuin Spong has described it as the arcane equivalent of Tube Alloys and the Orion Program, combined. It would be an extensive combination of extremely complex and powerful spells, a huge network of amplifying focus items and a massive weapon. Their last report stated that their initial endeavours had refined the concepts down to five options, all of them based around a revolutionary combination of chronomantic, planar and solar magics. They plan to work them together into something that has never existed before.”
“That sounds promising. Will it work?”
“There is no way we can know, Prime Minister. Simply shielding individuals and very small locations from a nuclear initiation is currently possible, albeit something limited to only three archmages in the Empire. But our wizards are literally proposing developing a way to break the physical building blocks of the universe, which could have some dangerous results; no one has tried anything like this since the Nazis.” Cuthbertson paused meaningfully.
“Do you mean what I think you mean?”
“Yes, sir. Such a weapon can only be made with lives.”
Prime Minister Barton stiffened. This was too, too like the damned Nazis.
“No. There will be no blood spilt, no sacrifices. No.”
“They don’t mean blood magic, Prime Minister; only demonologists and necromancers would have truck with such horror. From what I’m given to understand, it refers to life essence willingly given.”
“It still smacks of witchcraft to me. Nothing is required yet?”
“No, Spong has said that they can’t put a timeframe on the effort yet.”
“Very well. Proceed, but there will be none of that business, no without specific permission.”
“Yes, Prime Minister.”
“There must be some things that distinguish us from the other side, Sir Miles. This is one of them. Besides, there are other more conventional defences under development. Next?”
“Several years ago, we came into a new source of information about the possible future actions and decisions of particular states, most specifically the Soviet Union, but also the United States. This intelligence is codenamed
Lapcat and presented as if it is from a sensitive source within foreign governments. However, it is not.”
“Where is it from?”
“In June 1961, through means that we still do not understand, a young man appeared on the side of a road in Buckinghamshire. He was found, quite coincidentally, by a member of the intelligence services, and claimed to be from the year 2015.”
Barton stared steadily. “Was he?”
“Subsequent investigation revealed that the individual was telling the truth. Furthermore, it was deduced that he was from some sort of alternate universe. A decision was made to attempt to return him to his own world, but not until all available information was extracted; this compromise was reached on the basis of the distinct differences between the histories and geopolitics of the two worlds.”
Time travel. He was knowledgeable enough not to dismiss the phenomenon out of hand, having heard both the old stories and the very, very quiet modern accounts of ...anomalies..., but it seemed plain
unlikely.
“How useful has it been?”
“With regard to immediately operable intelligence, not particularly. Frankly, it seems like some sort of perverse dystopian nightmare world in every respect. The most notable effect so far has been to decide Prime Minister Eden on a full commitment to the war in Vietnam, but there have been a number of commercial technological developments that have been passed along to British industrial concerns for exploitation and we have had some useful leads on natural resource deposits. All in all, it seems that
Lapcat is rendering more results and advantages in an oblique fashion than a direct one.”
“You mentioned that it can offer information on the Americans as well as the Reds. Anything of direct use for my upcoming meeting with President Kennedy?”
“No, Prime Minister. On that world, he was shot last November.”
“I see. Well, put together whatever I need to see and continue giving everything usable to the relevant industries; the more advantages, the more economic growth we’ll get. The more growth we get, the more funds available for my Grand Design.”
“Yes, Prime Minister. On that matter, our final two items may have a bearing.”
“Go on.”
"Back in the early 1930s, a British party was exploring the Rub' al Khali in Arabia in search of a lost city. They found something out there, deep in the desert, not the city though - that was located a few years later. Through a freak occurence, they uncovered evidence of a massive meteor crater. Further examinations revealed immense deposits of meteoric gold, platinum and diamond. Mining operations began in 1937 under tight security and secrecy, using only the most loyal clans of dwarves that were direct vassals of the Crown. It ended up yielding almost £220 million a year through the war and played a very large part in us paying off the Yanks, much to their surprise. We estimate that it has another three decades worth of operations, all of which must be very, very secret."
"Why? I can understand security, naturally enough, but we've rarely kept mineral supplies secret, except for Tube Alloys. Was it just a matter of not letting the Americans know how deep our pockets were?"
"It is a matter of what else was found there, adjacent to the meteoric deposits. The remains of a mining camp of sorts, with some rather ancient skeletons."
"How old?" Barton asked, thinking that he had an inkling where this might be going.
"An estimated twenty-five thousand years, sir. With an average height of eighteen feet."
"I can see why now. That will be jolly handy for the Grand Design. Right, what's the last one of the crown jewels?"
"I'm afraid what I have to say may change some of your plans for the disposition of funds, Prime Minister. You are aware of the case of Colonel Fawcett?"
"I am."
"What follows involves what he found out in South America, material we have uncovered from scholars of the Maya and some very strange events that occurred at two places called Tunguska and Roswell."
...................................................................................................................................................................
Prime Minister Barton sat in his study at Number 10 Downing Street and brooded. The morning had not been what he was expecting, even if it had started in fine fashion with the audience with Her Majesty, who had put him at ease as was her want with all of her ministers. After the briefing, he had sat through a further explanation by the Chiefs of Staff on how to start a nuclear war, even though his mind was half elsewhere, and written his letters of last resort for the strategic missile submarines. That had been the easiest part of the day, as each letter consisted of a single word - "Strike".
The information that Cuthbertson had given him over that last half hour did not change anything, not immediately. It wasn't even a given, all things considered, and the contingency plans were quite substantive. It did change some aspects of what he had planned whilst in Opposition, but he had his duty and that was iron to him. Power had never been the intense driver for him as it was for others; he had only ever sought power to do good, but now the situation behooved him to do good to gain power. That is what would be needed.
His Grand Design remained his greatest motivation, though, not far off matters that may never actually occur. Increase national economic growth whilst paying down the debt would both increase the funds available for health, pensions, education and welfare and increase the prosperity of the ordinary everyday Englishman and his family. Together, they would build a better, fairer society, a new Jerusalem. The engine of this growth was to be spending on defence and industry on a level not seen since the Depression and exports to this world and beyond. Nothing had changed that.
He would do whatever needed to be done, just as he had sworn to himself back in the ruins of Berlin. From the bloody ashes of the old world would come a new land, better and brighter and strong.
For only from strength could there be peace.
and the potential human and moral costs, even with willing sacrifice of life force. Did this mean people giving up their entire life force, or part of it which might regenerate over time? I get the feeling that Barton is going to make some difficult decisions here. Also is it a weapon or a defence against nuclear attacks?