Without warning

‘No,’ said Jules as she handed Fifi a Tasmanian beer, ‘they probably tied those knots fine. But there were some things Dan did know well. Knots, sails, boats, tides, who’d take a bribe and who wouldn’t, the range and speed of every Coast Guard cutter in the Keys – anything to do with smuggling by sea and he was good for it. But piracy was not his gig.’

‘Yeah, well, he surely wasn’t worth a pinch of shit as one,’ sniffed Fifi.

‘So, what was the story today?’ asked Jules, as she picked a sandwich from a silver platter on the ottoman in front of her. She wasn’t really hungry. It was just something to do. Fifi had found half a turkey and a leg of Iberian ham in one of the giant double-door refrigerators down in the main galley and she’d thrown together a small feast of cold cuts and salad. She wasn’t eating either, and Jules suspected that preparing the meal was more about therapy than hunger. Long before Fifi had taken up smuggling, she had qualified as a commercial chef.

Fresh bread rolls, slathered with melting butter, lay in a pile next to a big bowl of baby spinach leaves, walnuts and slivers of pear and Parmesan. The drugs Jules had taken had begun a slow waltz with her gin and tonic, and she let the warm waves of sleepiness wash over her.

‘Yeats, my friends. The story today was Yeats,’ she said, answering her own question, if somewhat impenetrably. ‘“The centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” That’s where we are right now. On the edge of anarchy.’

* * * *

13 HONOLULU, HAWAII

The early evening drive down to the Governor’s residence in downtown Honolulu was enough to convince James Ritchie that the Hawaiian islands were going to go down a tube at high speed unless someone got their act together. The curfew seemed to have had no effect and the state government no interest in enforcing it. Thousands of people were milling about the streets, many of them agitated and besieging any place where they could buy emergency supplies of food and water. Large, increasingly unstable crowds had gathered outside travel agencies and airline shopfronts, which remained open well after normal business hours. Every gas station had a trail of vehicles snaking away from its bowsers, leading Ritchie to wonder where the hell these people thought they were going to escape to in their SUVs and family sedans.

His latest reports from Gitmo and Canada spoke of a strange glow, as if from a distant furnace, emanating from the energy wave, and as their route down to the Capitol District allowed Ritchie glimpses of the Pacific reaching away back east, he couldn’t shake the impression of a sunset that seemed denser and richer than normal. Long, slow lines of surf banked up in sets of three off the beach at Waikiki, a strong offshore breeze blowing thick foam back off the lip as they crested. The weird, almost ethereal light lent the spray a bright, burnished cherry colour, and seemed to paint the mass of surfers and body boarders bright pink as they carved up the barrels.

The Capitol District was less crowded, probably because it offered little in the way of supplies that could be bought up and hoarded. Police and state troopers were out in force, however, and the pulsing lights of over a dozen Honolulu PD squad cars bathed the district in a rich, electric red that overwhelmed the otherworldly light Ritchie had noticed before. His BlackBerry buzzed as the staff car swung off Beretania Street and in through the gates of Washington Place. It was his wife.

NANCY IS OK! FLEW OUT OF O’HARE THS MNG.

IN LONDON. WILL CALL L8R.

A hollow opened up in the admiral’s chest and filled with heat, but it subsided quickly, and he was left with a loose feeling in his bowels and a giddy, almost guilty, sense of relief. His only child had been scheduled to fly out of the US this week for a year’s travel through Europe and Asia. But Nancy was a bit of a free spirit – an ‘airhead’, he might have said were she anyone other than his own – and organisation was not her strong point. She was just as likely to miss a flight as catch one, and her trip had already been rescheduled twice for that very reason. Ritchie had spent the entire day trying to cope with the end of the world while stomping down on a feeling of utter hopelessness for his baby girl. He had spoken to nobody about it. Everyone had people somewhere back home and his first responsibility was to the nation, not to himself or even his family. But he shivered uncontrollably as tears filled his eyes, hot and stinging, and he had to hold his breath to forestall a sob.

Damn, he cursed silently. What a time to crack up.

‘You all right, sir?’