Ruth's Diary - No. 5 (2.5)

[JHyde]

[15th December 2003]

We had a terrifying two days on the Grid, Friday and then Saturday. The research swots in Section P put together a startingly real training Extreme Emergency Response Initiative Exercise (EERIE), in which they led us in Section D to believe that a real emergency had taken place. So there we were, for more than 24 hours, believing that the world outside was falling apart.

The morning started normally enough. I updated the weekly Risk Assessment report, including what intelligence I had received about a truck parked in the East-End belonging to a group named PATMOS. Tom had a later morning start than usual and Zoe was still distressed about the breakdown of her latest relationship. (The Italian banker with whom she was enamoured turned out to be married and she was caught sleeping with him on camera for another op.) Harry was meeting with some people from St Alban's, updating Harry about a suspect who was also in the weekly report. And Colin was inviting everyone to come on a barge with him to go....somewhere......this weekend. I don't think he got there, somehow.

It was then that the major incident alarm sounded, and Harry declared an exercise with Tom as our EmEx officer. It all seemed quite harmless and a little out of the ordinary. Rather like a class trip on a Friday at school. We were told quickly that it was meant to have taken place in Parliament Square, half a mile away - it all seemed quite routine for an emergency response exercise.

But when the phones and mobiles weren't working, I suggested turning on the telly. The Today programme went off air. Dot in the control room oulled out all the comms leads. It was then that it dawned on us that this wasn't an exercise, but something rather more real.

Or so we thought.

Section P had put together a very convincing display for us. A re-routed television feed. A fire brigade officer in a van in Parliament Square called Steph telling us that a canister of VX gas had been released. They even threw in Mary from St Alban's wanting to leave to visit her sick child in hospital. (Which, looking back on it, might have been a bit much.)

I was asked to brief on the VX gas to the team, but was choked up and had to pass to Sam. The stuff is lethal and almost impossible to remove from the skin once it gets onto someone. And it takes so little. Not to mention how many people would be exposed once the wind blew it in different directions. I estimated that at least close to a million people would have been infected that first hour and possibly three quarters of the south-west of England by the end of the first day.

Steph, the fire brigade girl, had told us that the truck had 'Pluto Removals' on the side and I recognized it from the Risk Assessment report. The threat had been to bomb 10 UK cities. Scary as hell. And on top of that, Harry was being distant with the team.


Perhaps the most frightening thing of all was the confusion surrounding the continuity of government. The EmEx at Downing St didn't tell us definitively whether a state of emergency had been declared but did pass on the terrifying news that he believed the Cabinet didn't make it to Turnstile (the alternate seat of govenment when the country is under attack) and that the Royal Family was believed lost too. I stood by Tom in declaring a state of emergency with Thames House at the top, but he had to fight hard with the amateur lawyer from Edinburgh. (They probably picked Edinburgh because both Sam and Danny had relatives there this weekend. Savvy choice.)

The worst was still to come though. I found Harry muttering St Paul's writings to himself in his office. It transpired that he had used the loo before the emergency was declared. So Tom quarantined him. It was the closest I saw Tom to cracking over the ghastly 24 hours we spent in the grip of the constructed terror and I tried to comfort him unsuccessfully.

It did bring to mind forcefully that I really am just my job. And that I'm closer to my cat than anyone or anything else in my life. Most of the time I'm allright with that, but I do think there might be a better way to live. Maybe one day.

The team eventually started fighting amongst themselves and it came to a head late Saturday morning. Mark and Mary, the St Alban's meddlers who had been stirring up discontent all the time we had been locked in, made to leave the Grid. So Tom and Zoe (prepared for such an eventuality) pulled guns on them, first firing a warning shot.

And then the lights came on. It was like Harry and the gods from Section P had finished creating their little world and commanded 'Let there be light!'. So instead of Revelations and the end of the world, we had Genesis and the re-birth of ours. Bare moments from Tom pulling the trigger, they declared the exercise over. He would have done it too.

I didn't hesitate to call Harry a bastard as he appeared and I realised, along with everyone else, that it was a hoax. Unprofessional perhaps, but he really deserved it. Too damn convincing, all of it. Harry and the St Alban's people popped champagne corks while we stood, stunned, trying to grapple with the new reality that we were, in fact, safe. Quite bizarre, having people celebrate around you while you and your team mates stand crying and exhausted.

We were carted off for drinks and had the rest of the weekend to recuperate. I tried to write about it all last night, but I was so wrecked. It's still not quite real.

[17th December 2003]

I've made some recommendations following last week's EERIE. They need to get those regional disaster relief centres up and running and a clearer chain of command should this actually happen. If more money is needed, then it needs to be found. I scheduled a meeting with Harry to go over all of this and he's taking me with him to see the DG sometime early in the New Year. He almost seemed surprised I brought the EERIE up - the others have basically pushed it aside and tried to pretend it didn't happen, apart from some mumblings between Malcolm and Colin. I can't say I blame them. Although Zoe seems a little more in control.

I just want us to be better prepared if this ever does happen, God forbid. That chain of command in a state of emergency needs to be much clearer, and part of that is public education, for which we need to engage with the politicians. It's one area where the Westminister system of government really lets us down.

[21st December 2003]

A rather awkward incident today, as Danny asked Harry to spend Christmas with him and his family and the rest of us stood about nervously and mumbled various excuses. He protested that he had plans already, letting us all off the hook.

Truthfully, I love decorating my house and writing the odd card, but in terms of plans for the actual day, I think very little. Probably because I don't ever do anything on the actual day except cook a nice lunch and open a good bottle of wine.

Ironically enough, Harry seems as much alone as I am most of the time. I wonder what he actually does do on Christmas Day.

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