Force majeure 1 purgator.., p.1
Force Majeure 1.Purgatory, page 1
part #1 of Force Majeure Series
Annotation
Nuclear Apocalypse, is survival an option?
In our recent history, nuclear war has been an imminent and potentially devastating threat to humanity and the survival of our species.
1962 was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into an all-out nuclear war. President Kennedy won and the Soviet Union backed down.
In September 1983, Korean Airlines Flight 007 was shot down over the Sea of Japan, and brought relations between the two superpowers to an all-time low as nuclear threats rose.
1983's Operation Ryan saw missiles primed while nuclear strike aircraft lined up on runways in Poland. It was the Soviet response to the NATO's Able Archer 83 simulation exercises. President Reagan defused the situation.
In 2014, Soviet troops invaded Ukraine, attacking NATO forces positioned to defend their new ally. The President of Russia finally lost patience with the West's barriers to expansion. After repeated warnings, deciding a more devastating approach was needed, 300 megatons of nuclear missiles hit the UK alone.
And purgatory, the living hell, began…
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Harvey BlackCHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
Harvey Black
Purgatory
To my sister and brother-in-law, Shirley and Paul
CHAPTER 1
GROUND ZERO | ZERO HOUR –2 DAYS
1ST UNITED KINGDOM DIVISION, UKRAINE
The squadron of British Challenger 2 tanks were lined up on the eastern edge of the forest, hull down in berms recently prepared by the Royal Engineers. Out to their front, they had a pretty clear view out to some three or four kilometres, a perfect killing ground for when the enemy tanks eventually turned up. The border in this area was over fifty kilometres away, but the Soviets had crossed that three days previously, and had already been seen passing Sums’ka oblast, using the T1705 as one of their main axes.
Major Warren reacquainted himself with the key landmarks, not that there were many, the flat open fields providing very few points that could be used. But, on the other hand, it made it ideal tank country: both for fast movement across the open ground and for the tanks with their 120mm guns, waiting to take them out. It was 0330, and the entire regiment was on stand-to, not just as a matter of routine, but because they knew that today they would have to fight.
Although negotiations were frantically being progressed, it hadn’t stopped the Russians from crossing the Ukrainian border in force. The southern stretch of the eastern Ukrainian border, from Velyka Pysarivka in the north to Novoazovs’k in the south, bordering the Sea of Azov, jutted out, like a bulge, into the western border of Russia. The Russian Army commander had decided to pinch out the bulge by thrusting southwest through the area of Velyka Pysarivka and northwest through Novoazovs’k with a further attack from the Crimean Peninsular. The continuing escalation between Russia and NATO, allied with Ukraine, had instigated the movement of Western troops to secure Ukraine’s neutrality. In the south, US forces bolstered the Ukrainian army. A British, German, Dutch and Polish force strengthened the north. One British brigade was lined up with the Russian main northern axis of attack. Although the Russian Army was pushing against the entire Ukrainian front, pinching out the bulge was a major objective.
The Major’s radio crackled.
“Zero-Bravo, this is One-One-Bravo. Incoming. Out.”
Major Warren dropped down into the tank, sealing the hatch in the process.
“All call signs, this is Zero-Bravo. Incoming. Batten down. Good luck. Out.”
Seconds later, the first artillery shells hit the British lines. Along the two-kilometre brigade front, 152mm shells exploded, the Russian 2S19s keeping up a rate of fire of eight rounds per minute. The bombardment increased as the 203mm shells from the 2S7s added to the barrage. Within a matter of minutes, hundreds of Russian artillery pieces were delivering a devastating barrage against the British defenders.
The side of Zero-Bravo’s Challenger lifted fifteen-centimetres into the air as a projectile exploded close by, the squadron commander’s tank reverberating from the force of the blast. After thirty minutes, the bombardment suddenly stopped, the silence almost as disconcerting as the barrage itself — almost.
“All call signs, this is Zero-Bravo. Report. Over.”
“Zero-Bravo, this is One-Zero. One-Two intact, lost contact with One-One. Over.”
“Roger that. Out to you.”
“Zero-Bravo, Two-Zero—”
Before 2nd Troop could continue to report, Regimental Headquarters interrupted. “All call signs. One-One-Bravo. Incoming aircraft. One minute. Out.”
“All call signs, Zero-Bravo. Air to ground attack imminent. Out.”
Before Warren had finished putting the handset down, the air around them became violent again as, first, Sukhoi Pak FA aircraft released precision-guided bombs which were followed by the older Frogfoot ground-attack aircraft. Again, the British lines were battered. The Russians didn’t have it all their own way as the gunners pounded the Soviet artillery with counter-battery fire and surface-to-air missiles swept some of the attacking aircraft out of the sky. High up in the air, British Typhoons clashed with Soviet air superiority fighters, there to protect the vulnerable ground-attack aircraft below them. Silence fell over the squadron again, and Major Warren thrust his shoulders out of the turret, calling to his tank troops to stand by. His binoculars soon showed him the mass of Russian T-90 tanks powering across the open ground. Columns of earth shot up amongst the fifty-ton tanks as British artillery zoned in on the advancing tank regiment. The T-90s’ 125mm smoothbore guns moved from side to side as the tank commanders and gunners searched for targets, knowing that British Challengers would be waiting for them. Out of his squadron of twelve tanks, Major Warren knew that at least two were lost, or unable to communicate, but he could still pack a punch with those that were left. Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicles could be seen dispersed amongst the advancing Russian force, and he dropped back down inside his tank and gave orders for his squadron to open fire as targets presented themselves. His gunner fired, the Charm 3, with its depleted uranium, armoured piercing round, left the barrel at over 1,500 metres per second, striking the Russian tank just over one second later, bringing the armoured vehicle to a halt, killing the crew, smoke billowing around it as the vehicle caught fire, fuelled by the exploding ammunition within the fighting compartment. Finding a second target, he ordered his gunner to fire again. Although a direct hit, the T-90 kept coming. They shifted to a second berm before the Russian tank commanders zoned in on their location, from where they took out two more tanks, the squadron accounting for thirteen T-90s and twelve Russian BMP3s. The Russian commander ordered his attacking forces to withdraw. The British clearly needed more softening up before he had another bash at punching through their lines.
The British squadron shifted again, keeping the Soviets guessing as to their locations, knowing it would start all over again once the Russian commanders issued the appropriate orders.
CHAPTER 2
GROUND ZERO | ZERO HOUR
BILSON-DUDLEY-WALSALL TRIANGLE, WEST BROMWICH
Three generations of a family died today. Charlie and his wife, Elsie, hurried as best they could as the warning sirens wailed throughout the city of Birmingham. A brilliant white light blocked their view of any objects or colour around them. Charlie’s cataract-covered eyes blinked out, as if a switch had been flicked turning his world, and his wife’s, into darkness. Even before his thoughts turned to how he and his wife were to get home, blinded, the rapidly inflating fireball, expanding out to a thousand metres in a matter of seconds, engulfed them, vaporising clothing, flesh and bone. The lives of the two lone-surviving grandparents of the Watson family had just been snuffed out.
Two kilometres further out from Ground Zero, Charlie’s son, Craig, laden down with bags of food and other essential supplies, part of the stocks he was reluctantly building up to survive the Armageddon he was sceptical would ever happen, pushed his way through the shop doorway of the Tanning Studio, clashing with others fighting to get under cover as they were all bathed in the blinding white light of the detonation 500 metres above their heads. He crashed down onto the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, his shopping bags spewing their contents, which were crushed by pounding feet as others followed him in. It mattered not as the blast wave and searing heat struck the three-storey building on Church Street. The glass frontage erupted, showering the occupants with bullet-like shards of strengthened glass, piercing their bodies with hundreds of splinters. They had little time to register the shock, or the pain, as the concrete and brick structure above and around them was blasted into oblivion, disintegrating around them, the larger surviving chunks crashing down onto their fragile bodies, smashing skulls and limbs, killing all.
Two and a half kilometres away, Mrs Annie Watson, with Peter and Josh in the back of the Ford Focus, slammed on the brakes as the car in front came to a sudden stop, the driver blinded by the flash of the nuclear explosion. Looking over her shoulder to chastise the two children for fighting had saved her from being blinded herself, but not from careering into the back of the now stationary car in front — the car’s crumpled front, cracked windscreen and exploding airbags testament to the violence of the collision. Shocked, her body thrown forward into the tightened seat belt and air bags as a car hurtled into the rear of her car, her first thoughts were for Josh and Peter in the back. As she twisted round, free of the now deflating airbags, to check on their safety, their eyes wide open in panic, the shockwave struck. Sudden and violent, a hurricane force blast flipped the car over in front, its upside down chassis flying over the car as her Ford Focus was thrown up into its flight path, locking the bonnet with the upturned Vauxhall, a second, third and fourth vehicle piled into the coupled cars forming an entangled mass that was in turn engulfed by the collapsing buildings around them. Annie managed to reach out to her two children for a mere few seconds before the buckled roof, deformed by the weight of the cars on top, mixed in with chunks of masonry and other debris, pressed down, compressing their fragile bodies, literally squeezing the life out of them. All along the road, hundreds of cars had been similarly destroyed. A few of the many drivers and passengers, although trapped and badly injured, initially survived. But none would make it out alive. Not because of the second and third nuclear bombs that struck the city, or the fallout that would slowly irradiate them, but simply because there would be no one able to help or in a position to initiate a rescue. In fact, any rescue attempt anywhere in the city was unlikely to appear for weeks, if at all. The last of the Watson family, along with 400,000 others, had just ceased to exist. Of the remaining population of over two million that lived in the Birmingham, West Bromwich and Dudley area, three quarters of a million had received injuries ranging from crushing injuries, third-degree burns and high doses of radiation to minor injuries. Any injury was unlikely to receive treatment, unless administered by friends or family.
GROUND ZERO | ZERO HOUR
ILFORD-ROMFORD-DAGENHAM TRIANGLE, LONDON
The nuclear ball of flame detonated a kilometre above northeast London, over a million degrees of heat at its centre, vaporised all it touched. Expanding out to a radius of one kilometre in the first second, reaching two kilometres in less than ten seconds, the now 6,000 degrees centigrade fireball ignited anything flammable in its path, consuming everything on route, eating into flesh and bone, hungrily engulfing all that lay before it in a deluge of hot, fiery gases, laying waste to all it touched. The searing heat stripped away clothing and flesh, leaving blackened, broken corpses.
Lawrence brought his hands up to his face, seeing and smelling the roasted skin as his fingers melded with the bubbling flesh on his face. But he felt no pain: there were no nerves alive to signal the agony that lay beneath the surface. However, as his clothing smouldered and his flesh melted, shock and then unconsciousness took over. A woman close by screamed again and again, barely audible above the noise of crashing buildings and the roaring rush of air as the raging fires in the centre of the city sucked in more and more oxygen. Her screams were not from pain. Like Lawrence, Meihui felt no pain. Her screams were brought on by the spectacle of her flesh melting before her eyes, before she too lapsed into silence as her body succumbed to shock, then oblivion. Neither would survive that day, but would be consumed by the ever-growing firestorm.
Further afield, running towards his home, overtaking other panicking pedestrians, Mike saw the route ahead of him light up as if he was under the beam of an extremely powerful searchlight. Resisting the temptation to slow down and look back, he pumped his arms up and down even harder, picking up speed, a sense of dread driving him forward, but to no avail. The hurricane-force wind, levelling buildings in its path, picked him up by his legs and carried him in its destructive grip, smashing his body into the side of a multi-storey car park, fracturing every bone in his body. Beneath him, another pedestrian was pinned to the concrete facing, his body peppered with shards of glass and debris. The man died almost instantly. Any person not under cover was thrown around like a rag doll. The tempest continued on, tearing asunder every building blocking its way, wreaking havoc.
GROUND ZERO | ZERO HOUR
ILFORD-ROMFORD-DAGENHAM TRIANGLE, LONDON
Oliver Price was proud of his fallout shelter, following some of the advice and plans provided in every daily newspaper for a full week. The pamphlet he and his family had been provided with by the Government, Protect & Survive II, was a carbon copy, with a few minor amendments, of the older Cold War booklet issued in the sixties. When the peace talks over Ukraine had broken down, it had been hurriedly issued by the Government a mere two weeks before the bombs struck. It had been his bible. The closet under the stairs of his family’s four-bedroom detached house had been recommended as the ideal location for a shelter. Inner doors from two of the bedrooms had been placed up across the entrance of the small room, padded out with two single mattresses, and a wall of sandbags stacked up against those. Oliver Price had even sandbagged the treads and risers and placed props inside the closet to shore up the wooden stairs and the additional weight above their heads. He felt his family couldn’t have been more secure. The minute the sirens had wailed, he and his family, pre-warned by a BBC emergency broadcast, had fled to their temporary abode, tuning their battery-powered radio to the emergency station. They sat in their cramped space amongst their contingency food supplies, cans of beans, tins of chopped ham with pork, soup, sausages, peas, along with a bottle of their favourite Reggae Reggae sauce to give some added spice, and other items they considered essential to their survival should the unlikely nuclear event occur. Large plastic containers of water lined the walls. First-aid items, consisting of various medicines and bandages, and placed there by his wife should they be needed, were stowed on shelves. Oliver was confident they had enough provisions to last them for twenty-one days, the time recommended by the Government before you exposed yourselves to the contaminated outdoors. They laughed and joked in the dark, treating it as a game with their two teenage daughters, confident that no one would be insane enough to release nuclear weapons. Their older daughter, Alexandria, complained about not having a signal on her iPhone whilst Sophie tapped away on the family iPad, ready to test them all with a recent quiz game she had downloaded earlier. They saw nothing of the light that blinded many in the city, lasting only a few seconds but taking away the eyesight of many of the citizens caught out in the open.
The thermal pulse and blast wave quickly followed; first engulfing their detached home in a heat storm that defied anything they had ever seen or experienced before, smoke pooling under the ceiling as the door and window frames fed the flames. More was to come as the blast wave followed, shattering any remaining windows, pulverising walls, collapsing the roof, timber, masonry and tiles crushing down on the Price family’s meagre defences. Although the blast extinguished the fire, once it had passed, smouldering flames reignited and a firestorm raged through that part of the city. Heat, dust and radiation penetrated the partially breached shelter, the family coughing and spluttering as they fought for breath, looking up as the stairs creaked and trembled above their heads, debris from the upper floor and roof struts bearing down on it. But it mattered not. The firestorm that followed engulfed their house, and many other homes in the area, consuming the oxygen at a phenomenal rate, feeding the flames, raising the temperature and replacing the life-giving air with carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Oliver, along with his wife and two teenage girls, gagged for breath. However, sucking in a vacuum, their eyes bulging in the dark, their hands clawing at the walls, scrabbling to get out of what was to become their tomb. They were slowly asphyxiated. But they were not on their own: tens of thousands had just been killed in the local area. Across the length and breadth of the country, 47 million people had either been killed outright, were in the process of dying, or would be dead before a month passed by. The majority of the remaining population, some 20 million people, had been, or would very soon be, exposed to radiation sickness, starvation and a future that could only be described as grim.
