26. THE WAR ROOMS

The War Rooms were located in South Bristol on a site reserved for Government Buildings. As Kai drove through a wide bar gate a sign affixed to the wall that formed its anchor warned in red letters: ‘This Is A Security Controlled Area’.

After parking the two men headed towards a soulless two-storey, reinforced concrete building deliberately deprived of windows and covered in ivy. Its only means of ventilation derived from three shafts that penetrated the roof.

Diamonde announced their arrival via the clunky intercom and the white doored entrance automatically opened accompanied by a clattering buzz that did little to assuage Glen’s worries. He further observed upon admittance that the walls were about a yard and a half thick.

Everything about the place screamed Cold War as they were escorted through a labyrinth of unpainted, musty corridors. A barren landscape painted from an expressionless, purely functional palette. It resonated of a previous period when the world was under threat and the fact it had been recommissioned was significant.

It was summer, but the bleak encompassing walls made Glen shudder. It wasn’t only a nuclear blast it appeared designed to repel but all warmth and beauty from the outside world too.

A dozen or so rooms led off from the main corridor in which Kafkaesque clerks worked among a combination of grey filing cabinets and cold aluminium shelving stacked with files.

‘This, Matey, is the War Room,’ Kai declared as they entered a large, central room, the heart from which all the corridors sprang like arteries. It reached up to the top of the building and the air was dense with a creative, yet desperate fugue.

The walls were embellished with maps and charts. A long oak table with all the chairs, bar one, occupied by what seemed important people took up the centre of the room. Mower’s attention was grasped by an adjacent shorter but wider table, its top a hive of activity as women with paddles were stretching across moving models of historical figures, one of which was Florence Nightingale, on blocks along paths and maps filled with dates and such.

  ‘Park your useless arse,’ hollered an American in military uniform that provided a canvas for his array of awards and accomplishments.

  ‘That’s General Colman P Willmington III,’ Diamonde advised him in hushed tones. ‘Head of the Hologram Defense Program.’

  ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ another very impressive gentleman said at the head of the table as he stood and extended his hand to grip Mower’s firmly. ‘I am Professor Delphi the Chief of Staff. And you are,’ he added, beckoning his guest to occupy the one vacant seat, ‘the man entrusted to save the world.’