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  TEN TO MIDNIGHT

  All Rights Reserved © 2000 Toby Murray

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  EXCERPT FROM TEN TO MIDNIGHT

  The air was thick with a sweet, burning stench that reminded Father O’Malley of overcooked chicken. He didn’t care to pursue that thought any further. For the first time in living memory, the Houston skyline was unobstructed by skyscrapers and other creations of man. Only the foundations of the city’s gleaming concrete towers remained; pathetic testaments to a civilization whose fragility had been exposed in a moment of ultra-physical annihilation.

  Cars and buses had been contorted into parodical, abstract forms, their paintwork uniformly scorched black. Gas pipes protruded at impossible angles from the ruined ground, the protective layers of earth above having been violently uprooted by Godlike forces. Millions of tons of incinerated rubble mercifully concealed the numerous human forms beneath, although one didn’t have to look far for signs of human destruction. Corpses and parts of corpses, mostly charred black, scattered the smoldering landscape in abundance. Out of morbid curiosity, O’Malley stopped to inspect one such body. The cadaver was of indeterminate gender, so deformed had it been by blast effects. Its lips and most of its facial flesh had been seared into non-existence, creating the illusion of a hideous grin on what little remained of its features. Only then did O’Malley realize that he wasn’t looking at an entire corpse, merely a head and upper torso that had been separated from the rest of an unseen body.

  He held a hand over his mouth to prevent himself from retching over the remains, unwilling to further defile its final resting place with vomit.

  FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR

  One of the more popular fallacies of our time is that the horrible specter of nuclear apocalypse has been vanquished by the end of the Cold War and the onset of détente. A brief objective analysis of the world political scene, however, reveals just how dangerously misplaced this belief is. Particularly when placed in the context of modern history, which teaches us that even prolonged periods of peace are generally followed by a series of short, brutal wars. Mankind’s nature being what it is, the prospect of war looms for as long as governments deem it necessary to maintain armed forces. So goes the theory; now let us deal with the facts.

  The end of the Cold War has created a geopolitical vacuum that has been filled by what one might describe as geopolitical stasis where nuclear weapons are concerned. U.S.-Russian negotiations to limit strategic nuclear weapons no longer make the headlines; not surprising when one considers that the START-II treaty signed by both the US and Russia in the not so distant past, when post-Cold War euphoria abounded, are not even close to being ratified. Meanwhile, Russia itself is sliding further towards anarchy with every passing day. As it does so, the safety protocols that govern the use of nuclear weapons are at best deteriorating, and at worst being totally ignored.

  Eternal optimists will refer with glee to the informal 1994 agreement between the US and Russia, which stated that neither nation would any longer target their nuclear weapons at the other. Yet, although this agreement was made with the best of intentions, it holds little substance in a world where sophisticated guidance systems can be re-programmed in a matter of minutes. At the end of 1997, the United States and Russia still possessed a combined nuclear arsenal of approximately 30,000 operational warheads; more than enough to wipe out virtually all life on the planet several times over. This, if nothing else, should provide a sobering reminder of the dangers that still face us to those who thought that phrases such as “overkill” and “megatonnage” belonged exclusively to the dark ages of the Cold War.

  In the wings, meanwhile, we see other nations joining the vaunted “nuclear club”. Iran and North Korea are thought by western intelligence sources to be close to achieving nuclear capability, if indeed they have not already done so. India and Pakistan, as we now know, are already nuclear capable. Israel is also strongly believed to possess a sizeable nuclear arsenal. Several other emerging military powers, such as Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and even Japan are thought to have the capability to build a nuclear deterrent should they wish to do so. As we enter the 21stcentury, we are in increasing danger of witnessing the total collapse of existing non-proliferation treaties. This is a peril that western leaders have shown reticence in acknowledging, much less tackling. In less than a decade, there may be as many as a dozen nuclear powers, the majority of whom will inevitably possess ballistic missile technology capable of delivering these terrible weapons to almost any location on the planet.

  If the likes of Russia, North Korea, India and Pakistan have taught us anything, it is that the ability to build an operational nuclear arsenal is not necessarily relative to economic might. All that is required is political will. In the New World Order, nuclear weapons have become something of a political fashion statement --- He has it, thus I must have it too. A nuclear arsenal is increasingly seen as indicative of a nation’s status and potency. Russia, in particular, embodies this theory. It is still considered to be a major player on the international stage, and continues to hold a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (I find it interesting that all five permanent members just happen to be founder members of the nuclear club). Yet Russia is essentially a third world nation. Her GDP is less than that of Portugal. As one US State Department official stated recently, “Russia is little more than Burkina Faso with nukes.” Such flippant remarks are indicative of the dangerous and arrogant complacency that has become so alarmingly prevalent within western governments.

  Thus far, the response of western leaders to the inherent dangers posed by nuclear proliferation has been to play down the threat, almost as if they sense that their electorates have developed a psychological blind spot to the prospect of nuclear conflict. In a sense, you can understand this from the point of view of leaders catering to constituencies spoon-fed on junk culture --- masses who find sex scandals and other trivial irrelevancies far more engaging than the more abstract issues that threaten our very existence. After all, there is far much more airtime to be gained by a politician prepared to discuss the intricate aspects of Presidential fellatio than one concerned with such severe topics as the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Indeed, it is considered politically incorrect these days even to suggest the possibility that a third world nation might, under certain circumstances, feel compelled to use the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Political correctitude tends to the misguided belief that if nations such as the US, Britain, France, China and Russia can be trusted with nuclear weapons, then why not third world nations also?

  The logic to this argument seems to be that since the presence of nuclear weapons has maintained world peace for over half a century, then the proliferation of nuclear weapons is not necessarily a bad thing. Yet what this dangerously naïve logic tends to ignore is that deterrence worked during the Cold War purely because of the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (i.e. both sides had sufficient nuclear capability to ensure that a nuclear attack would prove fatally counter-productive). The MAD concept has little or no relevance to a third world nation in possession of just a few low-yield tactical warheads that it might decide to use against an enemy who lacks the ability to respond in kind.

  Anothe
r ominous factor, often overlooked by commentators, is that many of the current generation of western leaders reached political maturity only after the Cold War ended. Accordingly, they are largely unschooled in the fundamental aspects of the geopolitics of the nuclear age. This is a state of affairs that they have at best learned to live with, at worst conditioned themselves to disregard. Complacency, as history teaches us, is an inherently dangerous trait for those connected with the volatile arena of International Relations. Indeed, modern history is full of examples of complacency leading to conflict. If nothing else, the Cold War conditioned world leaders to be more acutely conscious of the wider implications of engaging in military action. Ironically, that period of history was characterized by the enforced subordination to the doctrines of bipolar politics of the rogue nations who may provide the most potent threats of the 21stcentury.

  While researching this novel, I examined a number of possible scenarios for a nuclear conflict, and was alarmed at quite how many actually exist; and not necessarily the obvious ones. For example, consider the threat of a war between the NATO and Russia over Ukraine. You might think this to be a distant possibility, but then who would have thought in 1914 that the assassination of an unloved nonentity in Eastern Europe would lead to one of the cruelest wars in history? The essential ingredient for any war is an underlying distrust between the competing powers. Add to that an element of fear, and you have a potential conflict.

  All of these ingredients are present in the Ukrainian scenario, for the following reasons: As the European economic zone of influence expands further east, swallowing former Soviet republics, Russia finds herself increasingly isolated. This has shown signs of engendering within Russia a dangerous inferiority complex that would only be aggravated by former Soviet republics sealing their ties with the west by seeking membership of NATO, or worse, the EU. Hence the number of current Russian political and military leaders who have warned Western powers against expanding NATO to Russia’s own borders; threats that are being foolishly disregarded by our own leaders. To understand why Russia is being so defensive in this respect, one needs only to look at its history. Russia has been invaded - usually without success - more often than perhaps any other nation on earth. It is therefore only natural that it should feel threatened by the prospect of an awesome military power such as NATO perched on its doorstep. How would America react in such a scenario?

  Needless to say, these issues have been ignored by western policymakers, who may come to rue the day that they dismissed Russian sentiments with such contempt.

  After some consideration, the scenario I chose for this novel was one of the more obvious ones. It is unlikely that any rational power would intentionally start a nuclear war, but the possibilities for an accident are almost infinite, particularly if the element of tension already exists.

  Personally, I do not believe that nuclear conflict is inevitable, but that is not to say that the threat does not continue to cast a shadow over the very existence of our infant civilization.

  I leave you, the reader, to judge on just how successful I have been in creating a future history of what would be the most horrific war in the history of mankind. I hope that once you have read this novel, you are in no doubt whatsoever that the world is on the brink every bit as much as it was twenty years ago.

  And to hell with blow jobs in the Oval Office.

  Toby Murray

  London, England,

  November 1998

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing this novel - in all its incarnations - has been a labor of love for the best part of three years. There have been times when I wanted to quit, and times when I never wanted to see a word processor for the rest of my life. I would therefore like to accord my gratitude to the people who convinced me that TTM was worth persevering with, for this novel would not exist without them:

  My wife Lee, for her love, advice, creative input, brutally honest criticism and for the endless hours of brainstorming (apologies for blowing up her nation in the progress). This story is as much hers as it is mine.

  To all the informed members of the ‘alt.war.military.us’ and ‘alt.us.politics’ Internet newsgroups who have endured my endless questions and answered them with patience, diligence and detail. Also to Jurgen Voegler, Major Tim Evans, Anatoly Filitov, Dr John Moorhouse for helping me wargame the Third World War, the folks at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (www.riia.org), 1stLt. Sandy Tollmeyer, Doug McClelland and Captain Richard Barnes. Particular thanks also to my good E-Mail buddy Sergei Avalev for the “Pep” on Russian aphorisms. Very amusing. As promised, the vodka is on me next time I’m in Moscow.

  Colin Rowbotham, my old English teacher; the man who first encouraged me to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and taught me that a failed novelist who only half finishes a work is far better than one who spends his life not even trying.

  Tony Tyler for his encouragement, proofing and not being afraid to tell me when I was writing “inane waffle” (his words not mine).

  Gwyneth for persuading me that Investment Banking was far less rewarding than she convinced herself it was.

  John Blackshaw, Lorna Otieno, Andy Afolabi, Dave Chinnick, Barry Shaw, Martyn Burns, Adrian Bowers, Richard Bennett, Herbie ‘Bassey’, Derek Oliver, Pattie, Peter Thomson and Richard Ellison for being the best friends one could have and for picking me up from various pub floors when the booze flowed a little too freely. Although I’ll never admit it to your faces, you guys kept me going.

  Craig Rosenthal for the original concept (and for loaning me a couple of characters).

  Andrew Murray (no relation) for the politics - any mistakes are mine, not his.

  All the ladies and gents at the Los Alamos Atomic Research Institute’s public relations office for being so helpful, patient and diligent in dealing with my asinine inquiries.

  Especially to my Mum, Aunt Glad, Cyril & Barbara, Roberta & Micky, Charlotte, Dan and Nikki for always believing in me and for enduring the whims and eccentricities of their oft-wayward relative (they might recognize some of the characterizations). Also to my late, great grandmother Grace Emden, for always being there.

  This novel is dedicated to the many brave men and women of the British and U.S. armed forces who continue to fight the good fight, and especially to those who never came home.

  At what point shall we expect the danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Africa, Asia and Europe combined, with all the treasure of the earth… could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years… If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

  Abraham Lincoln

  January 27, 1838

  A man’s character is his fate…

  Heraclitus

  I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

  Albert Einstein

  If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst forth at once in the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One… I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.

  The sacred Hindu epic Bhagavad-Gita recalled by J. Robert Oppenheimer

  July 16, 1945

  The living would envy the dead.

  Nikita Khrushchev

  20 July, 1963

  To Steve and Caroline. I told you so.

  NOTES

  · It is estimated that, under the terms of the START II treaty, the combined nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russian Federation will, by 2003, number approximately 20,000 warheads. This number comprises all weapons in the nuclear triad (air, sea and land based). At the time of writing, neither the United States nor Russia has yet ratified START II.

  · Ethnic Russians comprise approximately 22% of the Ukrainian population. Since the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, there have been several clashes between this group and Ukrainian nationalists.

  · In 1992, the Strategic Air Command was disbanded and replaced by Air Combat Command; the justification being that a new organizational structure was required to cope with the challenges of a multipolar world, rather than a bipolar one. In 1995, USSTRATCOM was established to exercise command authority over all strategic forces (air, land and sea based).

  · Intelligence sources have estimated that Russia’s satellite based early warning systems are only sixty percent functional, possibly less. This has been caused by a lack of funding causing orbital stations to fall into disrepair.

  · In 1998, a friendship treaty was signed between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Ukraine, with a view to establishing an economic and military union. However, certain political elements in both countries remain fundamentally hostile to the idea.

  · In 1996, President Bill Clinton was said to have informed Congressional leaders that it was no longer the policy of the United States to automatically retaliate against a nuclear attack against the west.

  PERSPECTIVE: POLITICAL BACKGROUND TO THE RUSSO-UKRAINE CONFLICT

  The background to the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine can be traced back to the last days of the Soviet Union. Ukraine became autonomous of the USSR on 1stDecember, 1991. Following the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Ukraine found itself the custodian of not only the feared Black Sea Fleet but a substantial arsenal of intermediate range and intercontinental ballistic nuclear weapons.