Hello I’m Harry Riley   Welcome to Harry’s ten minute tales

This is called:

  ‘The Echo Man’

by Harry Riley

(this story is fiction and resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental)

Young Professor Victor Adams was bemused as he followed his colleagues into ‘Number Ten’ to meet the Prime Minister. He was among a party of boffins recruited at short notice for a particular task as yet unspecified. Britain and America had just achieved the satisfactory ‘unconditional surrender’ of a violent regime with the avowed intention of world domination. The diminutive and sharp-featured P.M. marched briskly into the meeting room escorted by several dark suited and uniformed personnel and asked his visitors to be seated. Hamilton Rogers (Secretary of State) was also present and it was he who did the introductions and set out the agenda for the meeting. A pleasant looking young female sat by his side to record the minutes. Questions would be taken afterwards.

Without too much unnecessary preamble Hamilton Rogers began, in his somewhat high pitched and squeaky voice, to illustrate their task. “Gentlemen, now victory has been achieved by our newest weapon, namely the dropping of the ‘Teutonium’ bomb on the city of Namascura we need to make a thorough assessment of it’s impact on the civilian population. The massive devastation of assets brought the enemy to its knees and forced his immediate capitulation but now the hard work begins. Although possibly strangers to one another you have each been handpicked because of your special attributes. It falls on your shoulders to go out there and gather data on the after-effects of the action. We are all in uncharted territory. As a major town was utterly destroyed…raised to the ground, there is no fixed accommodation for you, so ‘together’ with your international colleagues you will be sleeping in caravans.” He waited for the response to his joke, which never came.

Brigadier Badger-Smythe took his cue from the Prime Minister’s impatience and stood up to explain the party would be travelling under his jurisdiction and with full army protection. He gave each of them a prepared list of items they would need and said they would be given twenty-four hours to return home and collect changes of clothing for the five-day visit. Take off by military jet would be ‘Sunday O’Seven hundred hours’ and they would be given medical checks and radiation detectors on landing.