Red Beginnings

By Charles Loft

A group of terrorists obtain some nuclear material and plan to build an atomic weapon. This leads to a global chase by Intelligence and Security Forces and by Arab terrorists wanting the nuclear material and any nuclear devices. It is a race against time to catch them. Will they make it in time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Loft
• Release date: Feb 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370860807

Book preview

Foreword

‘Continuous effort--not strength or intelligence--is the key to unlocking our potential.’-- Winston Churchill

This novel has been written over a considerable period of time. It has taken time for ideas to gel, sub-plots to form and characters to surface. The novel in fact takes place over a very much shorter period of time than it has taken for me to write the novel. Places have had to be researched, and technology and physics considered. It has not been helped by my somewhat irregular writing habits. It has taken me around three and a half years to complete this novel. Some days I can write and write, then for weeks or perhaps months I hit a block. Then my creative juices start to flow a little at a time and bit by bit, progress is made. It has been a huge achievement for me to complete this novel. I am proud, and surprised as to how it has turned out. The basic plot however is unchanged from when I decided to write the novel. Parts have been added in, that I could not have written earlier than I did. But much was in place in my mind and in my mind’s eye when I actually began writing Red Beginnings. It has turned out way better than I expected and far, far better than I ever could have imagined. I can only hope that you the reader, enjoy the patience and perseverance that has gone into the writing of this book. That is after all my aim, to entertain, to titillate and to create real suspense. I have got to quite like drinking vodka but I haven’t (yet) developed a predisposition for throwing glasses at the wall or floor. I considered drinking vodka copiously a necessary part of the research and yes it does dumb the sensibilities after a sufficient quantity. It also in sufficient quantity numbs my brain and my writing arm. If I’ve learnt one thing it is that writing a novel is a very major task and not one to be taken on lightly. In doing so I’ve developed enormous respect for the authors who turn out novels by the dozens or scores. Here then is ... Red Beginnings.

Plot

A group of Islamic moderates achieve what terrorists have been trying and failing to do for years, to obtain nuclear material and set off a working atomic test weapon. The (fictional) story interleaves the obtaining nuclear and engineering materials and the bombs construction, their transfer between continents, and to possibly the UK; and the race by International and UK Intelligence, Security and Military forces and agencies, and by Arab terrorists to locate the group holding the political power to re-align the West. The pace is fast and ever faster moving, urgency increasing by the hour or minute as the real intent becomes clear as terrorists set out to win the race despite every effort, money no object, by a large sector of the West’s and NATO forces. The UN are unable to intervene and shock follows shock as things race to a possible terrifying conclusion, with after-shocks reverberating all around the globe. That such a thing could be possible and perhaps, or perhaps not prevented. That much involves Russian terrorists is merely convenience for writing the story. It could equally as well be any group of terrorists from anywhere in the world. How will it all end? For the better, or for the terrifying worst?

Table of Contents

Foreword

Plot

Introduction

Prologue

Part 1 Day of All Days

1 Some Scottish Fresh Air

2 Gathering of Forces

3 Touch and Go

4 Clerics Anyone?

5 Old Friends

6 Discovering Old Times Together

7 Some Plans

8 Was It Possible?

9 A Select Group of Friends

10 Gathering of the Clan

11 Out for High Tea

12 Daring All - The Heist

Part 2 Cold Chills the Night

13 Ivan The Terrible

14 Northern Russia and Belarus

15 Into Deepest Romania

16 The Mediterranean

17 And So, Africa

18 Intel of One Sort or Another

19 Forces Meet

20 Sand in The Desert

21 Abdul and Many Camels Part Company

22 Taking to the Air

23 Time to Engineer Some Thoughts

24 Boards Are so Much More Fun

25 Into The Net

26 Some Tailgating

27 A Place to Rest

Part 3 And then It All Went Dark

28 The Eagles’ Nest

29 Diversions

30 Yet Another Meeting

31 Arab Wanderings

32 Out and About

33 Flamenco anyone?

34 Tales of America

35 C’est La Vie

36 Far from the Beaten Track

37 Knights of the Round Table

38 Chess Moves

39 And so, ... to London

40 In The Meantime - Checkmate

Part 4 No Day Too Soon

41 Seats Around a Table

42 Some Consequences

43 To a Close

44 Loose Ends

Appendix

Postscript

Introduction

‘Patience and perseverance get their due reward.’

It all started in a different part of the world. I’ll leave you guessing for now, but all will be made clear. In due course. And in sufficiently very good time.

Prologue

‘Amongst the good and the bad there is extreme good and extreme bad.’

In an eastern bloc country, a small group of men are taking their guns apart, cleaning them and putting them back together again with an ease that only comes with considerable, in fact extensive practice. There’s a popping noise in the background. Part of the group are firing on a target range in a clearing, hidden deep inside the forest. The men are wearing black, not camouflage gear.

One of the group is giving out orders in quick succession. The men listen and respond with an easy ambience. They now know what they are here for. Until today, they were vague about what mission their leader might have in mind for them. This knowledge spurs them on to become better than the best, an elite force, whose training and discipline matches that and those of anywhere in the world.

They trust their leader Viktor implicitly. He has trained them from being nobodies, with no experience in the military world of things, into being disciplined fighters able to take on and defeat anything they encounter.

They are trained for success in whatever they do. All they presently lack is experience on real-world missions, but they have practised over and over again to meet any situation that might be thrown at them.

Their drills have been as realistic as possible, under fire from live ammunition, responding to ambushes and to securing buildings or scrubland. They have yet to kill, but they are sure that the mission Viktor has described to them will fill that gap in their experience. They have been trained to kill and to do so either silently or in open combat and to do so ruthlessly, and without hesitation.

Their training has matched that of special groups in the military anywhere in the world, but theirs is different, they have a special mission with altogether no comparison anywhere elsewhere. Only Viktor could have come up with and master-minded such a plan.

And they themselves are to a man ready to carry out this mission. It will demand their all from each of them, each must play his part, and each must look after the others in the team. Only by all of them acting together can such a plan come to fruition.

And they will no longer be anonymous, the world, the very entire world will know of what they are setting out to achieve. The plan is a stroke of brilliance, to each of them, a plan that cannot possibly fail or even be allowed to come close to failure.

Until today, their confidence had not been complete, just as with a jigsaw puzzle with parts not yet in place, they had not seen the entire picture. But Viktor had detailed his plan and now all of the parts, all of the pieces fitted together.

Today they acted as if they had known of the plan, their mission from the beginning, from day one of their training. Things would be set in motion very shortly. This renewed their energy, renewed their enthusiasm and renewed their spirits. It was all now falling into place.

And leading to, as to how it all ends ... ? Viktor assured them that they would, as in would, succeed ...

Part 1 Day of All Days

Chapter 1 Some Scottish Fresh Air

‘A beetle is strong against another beetle, but very weak against an elephant.’

He nervously fiddled with the wires, trying to get a good contact on the battery. The blinding white flash of a brightness very rarely, in fact almost never seen in the world these days, was seen over twenty miles away, milliseconds later by a lone hill farmer, out in all weathers.

It had been a stormy afternoon, with thunder never far away and a strong wind lashing heavy rain against all and sundry. The sky had lightened momentarily allowing him to see his task just that little bit more clearly. The flash exceeded any local lightning by a factor tens of thousands of times the combined lightning of the local thunderstorm. And the sonic boom that rolled over hills and through valleys tens if not hundreds of miles away was of nightmare proportions almost beckoning the gates of doom, and Hell being opened, in the wake of the nuclear holocaust and immediate blast radius.

The Muslim cleric had arrived on the remote Scottish hillside earlier the same afternoon. The weather was truly awful, but that did not matter in the course of events. He had travelled by motorbike and sidecar, and with a twenty-minute timer could easily have been a safe distance away, behind a solid stone wall or building.

But he was growing old, and this way, his path to Muslim Heaven was assured, by his own self-sacrifice.

This way he could be sure. Had he saved himself, his age precluded other chances at martyrdom for him. This was why he himself had volunteered for this mission.

It was doubtful he saw or at least comprehended the spark as the wires connected to the device made contact with the battery. Milliseconds later his body was atomized totally and completely at the centre of a several million-degree instant atomic furnace. The battery had fired many small detonators that fired pieces of enriched Uranium into a fission-sized ball starting an instant and unstoppable chain reaction of the order of 65 kilotons, just over three times the size atomic yield of the atomic weapon dropped by the United States of America on Nagasaki. The amount of fissionable material amounted to around 15 lbs making the entire weapon cumbersome but just manageable by one person including the case, shielding and firing mechanisms. It weighed about a couple of hundred pounds and fitted into a wooden crate no more than 4’ 6" in each direction.

But this time, there were few human casualties. Hillsides of roasted and evaporated sheep, large areas made ungrazable for decades to come, and the limited milk production of a large part of Northern Scotland halted indefinitely by the lingering radiation in the cold Scottish air and on the Scottish moors and mountains. Fortunately, winds had been blowing to the North, so most of the radiation was carried away from the mainland. In fact, it was highly likely that the sole human casualty was the Muslim cleric responsible for causing this colossal and almighty atrocity against Nature.

But casualties had never been the intention of this preliminary device. It was the capability that mattered, and the seismic tremors at many measuring stations around the world would have very promptly indicated the nature and size of the explosion.

The Prime Minister had been very rapidly called to a COBRA meeting of senior military and intelligence chiefs at a secure location, within 20 minutes of the explosion. The ‘red’ phone or should we say fax connecting with Moscow was already hot from hurried and frantic conversations. No, no UK or American nuclear weapon had been armed nor had it been on route over Northern Scotland for any Russian destination and most definitely not on the way to Moscow, no nuclear arm codes had been released and all were securely accounted for. And no, it had not been a result of any missile from any submarine, missile or bomb from any plane, nor from any land-based launch.

The seismic shocks had already been analysed on Russian, UK, US, French and any other nuclear armed countries’ computers and found not to match the pattern of any previous nuclear test, so giving rise to much alarm as to the exact nature of who had manufactured the device and more significantly who had ordered its nuclear deployment.

There were hushed tones around the table in the UK secure military base where the Prime Minister and leaders of all Britain’s Armed Forces and Intelligence Services had gathered so quickly, flown in by fast helicopter and military jet transport. A coded message had been received and it was absolutely and categorically not to anyone around the table’s liking.

It claimed that a large Muslim organisation had several of these devices and that unless various demands were met, the next device would be targeted at and exploded on a major British population centre. It had arrived so quickly after the explosion that it could ‘only’ have come from the people behind this ‘happening’. Photographs showing the mushroom cloud extending over 11 miles into the sky were handed around, taken by military jets quickly flown to the scene and by reconnaissance satellites. The size of the explosion was quoted.

The Prime Minister was first to break the initial silence. My God! Any suggestions?

The explosion had been a thermonuclear device beyond any doubt. It was known that in partial disarmament, some weapons grade material mostly from dismantled Soviet weapons had never been fully accounted for. The expertise to assemble any of this into an atomic bomb had until now been considered sufficient of a hurdle in itself to make any worries from terrorist or non-nuclear governments seem improbable in the extreme, before now, as all dismantling and destruction of the weapons assembly and firing mechanisms had been very carefully and very fully supervised. But Russia had notified world leaders of the theft of some nuclear material many months previously.

Now, the coded threats and very non-veiled demands were on the table. If one weapon had been assembled into arming and firing capability, so could others. That was beyond doubt. If the explosion in the Scottish Highlands was a test firing, it had, totally alarmingly, been highly successful.

It wasn’t presently known if sufficient nuclear material had been assembled by the terror group in question for further deployment, but on balance it had to be assumed that this was most regrettably likely, or very likely to be the case. And their demands were so far highly political. It was beyond question that the risk of an attack on a major UK city was sufficient that in the immediate aftermath of the Scottish detonation, their immediate demands had to be acceded to. There was simply no choice at all in this matter.

The policy of non-response to terrorist demands was now shattered into fragments that weren’t going to be pieced back together again anytime soon. This was not a ‘normal’ terrorist attack and any demands were not going to be ‘normal’ terrorists’ demands.

The few sole consolations from the location of this first attack on UK soil were firstly that there were no known human casualties at this time, and that the device had somehow had to be transported there and hence be transportable by modest motor vehicle means. This also meant that it was unlikely to have been highly shielded, meaning that radiation traces might have been left outside of the six square miles of the blast periphery, and that starting to try to locate any similar devices ‘might’ lead to other detectable radiation sources.

The very inclement weather though, prior to the detonation was a problem. No possibility of satellite surveillance film of the entire area at ground level was possible, so a lot might depend on chance sightings, or not, of any vehicle travelling in the vicinity, if indeed it had been transported there on that particular day of all days.

But very lucky in the one sense given the time of the year, late on in Autumn, and the very atrocious weather, meant it was most unlikely anyone would have been outdoors within the blast and immediate radiation areas, let alone been attempting to climb any of the near-by hills and mountains. It had happened at about as desolate and isolated a location as existed within the UK. But the message it carried could not have been expressed more loudly in the Press, the Media, nor even via the Internet.

Chapter 2 Gathering of Forces

‘How to get the maximum attention from out of the most unlikely location and scenario.’

The demands could mostly be met without losing face, at least in public. Some people very much preferred to be kept in detention securely under lock and key could be spirited away to quiet locations and released with veiled threats that it might be better for their families that they didn’t publicly express their freedom and that even if they did, it would officially be denied that they had ever been released. They would be electronically tagged with a microchip without their knowledge and in any case would be covertly supervised and followed. Costly and inconvenient yes, but what other choice?

Then Super-Mosques would be built in many major population areas with costs paid for out of Government Reserves and other diverted and sufficiently disguised public funds. There was at this stage no stated requirement to actually say any public money would be used in their construction.

But what might they demand next, that might be impossible to not accede to? And it might yet become a major influence on domestic home or foreign policy or economics and be impossible to conceal?

The only answer was to apprehend the group behind the nuclear devices, for every other such device they had to be tracked and found, disarmed and dismantled, and most importantly for the new-found expertise to be traced to its source and eliminated, either by secret detention or lethal force. It was certainly not going to be easy, they had minimal or no clues and even with the best intellects in the security organizations and military, and the best personnel out in the field, there was presently no telling when or even if at all they might get any results. But results had to be got, and soon, at any cost.

First there had to be a public announcement about a military exercise that had gone wrong and awry, with a jet fighter bomber on a routine training flight crashing and dispersing some nuclear material. A jet fighter bomber had now indeed been crashed on auto pilot near towards the centre of the nuclear explosion. It was claimed that being nearly full of jet fuel, (which it wasn’t) that fires had been set off on nearby hillsides, which were being attempted to be contained, and that the pilot had managed to eject safely (which he had) along with his crews. Costly again in terms of the cost of the jet plane, but essential to at least provide some sense of plausibility to the media.

Only lone hill farmers outside of the immediate vicinity of the explosion knew that the weather had been so bad as to prevent any ‘fires’ from spreading. It was claimed that any bad weather was very local, and any rain very localised, both statements of which were manifestly untrue. The blast crater had quickly been filled and covered with charred vegetation from the outer part of the blast circle. All that remained was the wrecked fighter jet nearby.

The media cloak could provide substantial conventional armaments being carried alongside a nuclear power test device. Nowhere near the mark in truth, but the media could probably be fobbed off fairly easily, at least before they carried out much more detailed investigations. In any case, money would change hands, and the media interest diverted to other lesser matters.

Time for the security and intelligence forces to come up with some answers, it had to be hoped.

Initial radiation readings and the seismic shock wave analysis showed that far from being a gun type uranium weapon, with a piece of enriched Uranium fired into a central block to make a critical mass, or two non-critical mass pieces fired together to make a cylindrical mass, as with the first Hiroshima explosion, it had resulted from a much more sophisticated device also incorporating Plutonium, where many pieces were imploded together simultaneously to make an implosion type device, as had been used at Nagasaki, but with more than three times the explosive power.

This was particularly worrying as a further and much higher level of expertise was needed, and such knowledge and expertise was in very short supply in terms of those handful of physicists with such known knowledge world-wide. Had duress, perhaps directed at one of their families been made upon one of these scientists to force co-operation that would never wilfully be given?

There are of course only a handful or so of nuclear powers around the world. The USA, China, Russia, France and the UK are all known to have nuclear weapons and there are those nations which have carried out nuclear tests, namely India, Pakistan and North Korea. Israel is widely thought as certain to presently have such weapons and weapon capability. South Africa had had this knowledge and capability but had voluntarily disarmed years previously.

It would on the face of it seem most likely that any leaks might well have come from India or Pakistan, though not in any consideration of having been deliberately or treacherously given, except under extreme duress, as those involved were all cloaked in the tightest government secrecy agreements and very close military surveillance.

These were some of the first threads discussed at the very hastily convened UK security meeting. Immediate action had been taken to lower the media profile, agreed in the very first minute or two of the meeting, and very promptly put into effect.

A senior air-crew on stand-by had been very quickly briefed once airborne as to what they had to do, bailing out at a given location (previously unbeknown to them) outside of the blast and radiation area. They didn’t know exactly why, except that it was totally necessary in the National Interest that they followed orders to the letter, and most particularly in exactly where the plane was to be crashed.

The exact orders to crash the plane had come after they were airborne, but they had written confirmation opened on receiving the crash order that they would be held completely blameless, and that the crash would be as a result of a ‘major defect’ to become apparent during later investigation. Their pay, pensions and service records all depended on them at no time indicating that the crash was deliberate and intended. Though the latter information was only conveyed by the Defence Chief Air Marshal himself verbally and by implication.

The pilot crew were rescued very shortly after ejecting, from near where they safely parachute landed, by a helicopter from the closest operating RAF base, before being conducted to a very, as in most secret de-briefing. They were only then told that the crash was a ‘cover-up’ operation for an as yet unexplained nuclear explosion in the Scottish Highlands, and that they were not under any circumstances to say any more to anyone other than they had inexplicably lost control while on a routine training exercise.

All of which was to be considered in the National Interest, the interest of National Security and most of all at the highest level of security clearance. Given that air-crews on standby with possible nuclear missile capability had the highest level of access to classified material other than that deemed to be for senior chiefs FYEO attention only, the de-briefing was in fact merely a formality. They knew as well as anybody that anything classified as ‘Most Highly Secret’ was just that and never to be talked about with anyone else, except perhaps in private between themselves, and even then only most very discretely.

It soon became very apparent that the nuclear explosion had been as a result of the use of nuclear material from Russia. The radiation signature was entirely in accord with the materials Russia had notified the West as having been stolen. Given that demands were made by Muslims, for Muslim purposes, it was decided very conclusively that the State of Russia was in no way to be held responsible for the act of terror, excepting their ‘laxness’ in allowing the material to be stolen in the first place. Given that Russia had said very clearly that they had taken the fullest security measures to protect the material, there was little else to be said. Despite the very fullest investigation, Russia had said it was none the wiser as to exactly how the material had been stolen, only being able to identify afterwards where it had been stolen from.

Chapter 3 Touch and Go

‘Termites and ants achieve what they do en-masse. A single beaver though can down a large tree.’

The hand-over of the agreement by the Government was carried out as instructed, to the letter. It had to be faxed to a local intelligence agent, who was instructed to visit a busy Mosque not far out from Central Birmingham. Many people were constantly entering and leaving the building. The drop was to be in a room the fourth door in along the second corridor to the left of the main entrance.

The instructions were clear, the courier was to be alone and unarmed. On entering the corridor, he passed a metal detector machine and there were people in Arab-type clothing milling about in the corridor. He reached the door which was partly ajar and as instructed knocked on the door. Hurry Quickly,