PINDAR Medical Centre. 08.01.
"That concludes the test Prime Minister." announced the complex's duty doctor. The bunker's self-contained medical unit was stocked with items of diagnostic equipment equal or better in some cases to those found in many public hospitals, now either ruined or overcrowded with casualties, and more arriving all the time. Elsewhere in the mini-infirmary in an out of sight isolation room, Ian Campbell lay knocked out by the Mexican 'flu; his body flooded with a cocktail of antivirals and connected to a rehydration fluid drip.
Once he'd had his wounds cleaned and an initial assessment at RAF Northolt - the government's 'bug out' airfield situated in northwest of the capital - Anthony Rampling had been helicoptered back to the Whitehall citadel for a further examination.
His electrocardiogram examination had seemed interminable; especially since the physician had banned him from reading or hearing about the latest situational updates for fear they would set his heart racing even faster. Now, at long last, the electrodes had been peeled from his chest and the uncertainty would soon be at an end.
"You can button your shirt now, and take a seat over there." the doctor motioned to a seat next to a desk in the corner of the room as he scanned through the ECG traces on the device's screen. "I'll be with you in a moment."
Rampling could tell the man seemed unpurturbed, and hoped that indicated a favourable diagnosis. Satisfied that all was in order the medic came over to join the Prime Minister.
"Well the good news is that I can't see any underlying problems with your heart. Ideally I'd refer you on to a specialist cardiologist just to be absolutely sure, but under the circumstances I believe you could safely postpone a consultation for a while.
What I think has affected you is a case of Angina Pectoralis triggered by post traumatic shock. It's my opinion the effects will be temporary and you should make a complete recovery in due course, though it would be wise to keep an eye on your cardiovascular system.
In the meantime, however, I'd advise you to cut down as much as possible on your workload. Now I know that's going to be difficult at the moment, but it's something you should give careful consideration to if you at all can. Are you taking any prescription medications at present?"
"No."
"Well I'll pescribe some beta-blockers for you. They'll keep your heart rate down, but you must be careful about how you take them; only according to the instructions." The doctor scrawled something in an unintelligible hand on a pad. "Nurse Suri will get them for you. We've got a fully equipped dispensary down here which would put a major hospital to shame!" he said almost happily.
"Unless anything else is bothering you and you want to talk about it you're free to resume your duties. I think I'm going to be on call here for quite a while yet, so if you feel your symptoms getting worse, or something else comes up, don't hesitate to consult me. But remember; please try and reduce your stress levels."
"Thanks; I'll try." Rampling replied as he rose to leave.
After pocketing a box of tablets - Take ONE 25mg tablet every TWELVE hours the physician had instructed - the Prime Minister, followed by his aides and bodyguards, left for his private bedroom suite: There were a number of them in PINDAR reserved for high ranking cabinet members.
"I'm going to freshen up. Would you please all leave me for a while and inform the cabinet I should be joining them again in about half an hour. Don't worry, I'll find my own way there."
"Very good Sir." the senior aide replied. All of his entourage turned and left.
Inside his compact bedroom/office Rampling washed, then changed out of his dirtied suit into a clean one from the wardrobe which had been prestocked with clothes in his size. Not feeling at all hungry after his ordeal he passed on the selection of wrapped snacks laid out for him but instead logged in to his private terminal to catch up with the news.
The civil servant who wrote the Prime Minister's regularly updated briefings was a master at their craft; being able with a mixture of terse brevity, yet providing greater detail when required to convey a great deal of information in a short span of reading time. As Anthony had expected the news was universally bad.
The damage assessment was still ongoing but it was clear the earthquake had taken a heavy toll; the fatalities numbered in the thousands already and estimated to eventually reach the tens of thousands. The regional infrastructure had been severely damaged with the motorways and railways of the south-east requiring urgent extensive repairs.
The London Underground had suffered particularly badly with tunnel collapses and severe flooding in major sections. Without it the capital would be effectively paralysed. The outlook in both costs of the repairs and the time it would take to accomplish them was depressing.
Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless, and would remain so indefinitely. Eventually some of the less damaged dwellings could be repaired, but widespread demolition and reconstruction of those homes too far gone to be saved would be necessary. The resulting building boom would offset the recession the disaster was certain to provoke to an extent, but at the cost of an added increase in the rate of inflation which was bound to rise anyway as a result of the growth of post-'quake public expenditure.
The Business, Trade, and Innovation minister had appended a note here that in his opinion there wouldn't be enough skilled tradespeople to fulfill the demand for their services; mass retraining of the workforce displaced from other occupations by the tremor and a relaxation of the immigration laws to attract foreign workers here should be a matter of priority. Rampling could imagine what the public reaction to a loosening of border controls would be!
But even that gloomy forecast didn't mark the end of the economic woes to come. An initial back of an envelope estimate was the Gross National Product would shrink by at least 8%, and that was before taking into account the knock-on global effects of having a major financial centre taken offline. Though the Docklands had their own standby power supplies and connectivity was gradually being restored, London's reputation as a place of stability in which to conduct business had been irrevocably harmed.
Fortunately it seemed the remainder of England and Wales were reasonably OK for the moment. After the initial shock to its system the National Grid had recovered; now with the southeastern power network isolated, most people outside the affected region had their electricity back, as well as access to basic media and some sort of telecoms, but not the unrestricted internet as yet. Scotland however, had surprised everyone by using technical means to circumvent the government's emergency online controls and declaring a de-facto digital independence to match its real world rebellion.
Yet even within the UK a new wave of discontent was stirring; despite at first being deprived of the means to express themselves online some ingenious minds were busy finding workarounds to defeat the censorship. On social media hosted beyond these shores the hashtags #thirdtimelucky and #betterlucknexttime had surfaced in response to the failed assassination, while jihadist websites gleefully ascribed the disaster as Allah casting His judgement upon the kuffar as well as posting video of some small, but highly visible celebrations of the earthquake in the predominantly muslim areas of some northern cities.
At the sight of those demonstrations a cold anger grew within Rampling. However he was satisfied to learn Stuart Pullman and Christopher Parsons had tasked the army to root the perpetrators out and ensure there would be no repeat of such disrespectful behaviour. No doubt they'd enjoyed issuing those orders.
And if all that wasn't enough there was a greater potential disaster brewing at Dungeness. Hopefully the situation there could be stabilised quickly or-. Rampling's thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on his door. "Prime Minister; you wanted to be informed when half an hour had passed." his aide said quietly.
"Thank you. I'll be with you in a moment." Reluctantly he rose to walk to the Situation Room.
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