The night before the surgery is always the quietest.
I stood at my office window, looking out over a sleeping London. The city didn't know. Its inhabitants—both native and parasitic—slumbered in blissful ignorance, unaware that when dawn broke, the Britain they knew would begin to change forever. On my desk, the map of Tower Hamlets was spread under the lamplight, its quaintly named streets like Brick Lane and Whitechapel marked with red dots. Each dot was a tumor to be excised.
I felt no nerves. I felt no guilt. I felt a strange calm, the tranquility of an engineer about to demolish a rotten structure to lay a new, strong foundation. There would be dust, noise, and destruction. It was all part of the building process.
The encrypted phone on my desk buzzed. A message from Simon Blackwood.
Time: 2:17 AM.
Injunction filed. Judge Atwood. Our legal team is at the courthouse now, filing an emergency motion to quash on national security grounds. Estimate: we'll win, but this will buy them a few hours.
I had expected it. The enemy would not be idle. They would use their weapons—the very laws they had twisted to protect the criminal and punish the citizen—against me.
In the corner of my vision, the System interface flickered.
Alert: Judicial Resistance Detected.
New Task Available: Neutralize Judicial Resistance.
Description: Ensure Operation Sword of Sovereignty proceeds on schedule, overriding or bypassing all initial legal challenges. Speed is everything.
Reward: Level 1 Intelligence File on Judge Marcus Atwood (Personal & Professional Vulnerabilities).
I smiled coldly. The System understood the nature of modern warfare. It wasn't just about tanks and soldiers anymore; it was about public opinion, legal loopholes, and the private secrets kept in closets.
"Accept," I whispered. I sent a short reply to Blackwood: Make sure the judge understands the consequences of obstructing national security. Use any means necessary.
I knew what that order meant. Blackwood knew, too. Information was ammunition. And I had just given him a full magazine.
The rest of the night passed in a tense silence. I didn't sleep. I reviewed every detail of the operational plan with Sterling over a secure video call. He was the consummate soldier, focused on logistics and execution. To him, this was a military operation on home soil. To me, it was a reclamation.
…
The next morning, the atmosphere in Downing Street was heavy. Even Rottington, my usually stoic assistant, looked pale as he brought me my breakfast. He said nothing, but his eyes—filled with unspoken anxiety—spoke volumes. He was the embodiment of the old Britain: polite, conflict-averse, and willing to ignore the disease rather than endure the pain of the cure.
"Something on your mind, Rottington?" I asked, cutting my toast with sharp precision.
He was startled. "No, Mr. Prime Minister. Of course not."
"Good," I said. "Because what happens tonight is beyond the comprehension of people who just want 'everything to be all right'. Everything is not all right. And I am going to fix it."
He gave a silent nod and quickly exited the room. I was left alone with my thoughts. I thought of the men and women on the police force—many of them must be hesitant, raised on the liberal doctrines of community outreach and de-escalation. Tonight, they would be ordered to kick down doors. They would see frightened faces. They would hear children crying.
Pity was a luxury I could not afford. Every tear shed tonight was an investment to prevent an ocean of tears in the future. Every family broken was the price to reunite the family of the British nation. I held to this conviction. It was my shield against doubt.
…
21:00 hours. I was at the heart of the operation. Not in Downing Street, but in a windowless situation room deep beneath the Cabinet Office—one of the COBR rooms. The air was chilled by hardworking air conditioners, filled with the smell of ozone from dozens of servers and stale coffee.
The wall in front of me was a mosaic of high-definition screens. A main screen showed a digital map of London, with hundreds of blue dots (police teams) and red dots (targets) clustered in the Tower Hamlets area. Smaller screens displayed live feeds from surveillance drones, infrared imagery from helicopters, and muted news channels.
Sir James Sterling stood beside me, a knot of tension in his dark suit. A few senior police commanders and a liaison from MI5 completed the small group in the room. There were no other politicians. This wasn't a committee. It was a council of war.
"All teams in position, Prime Minister," Sterling reported, his voice low and gravelly. "Legal resistance has been dealt with for now. Blackwood sent word that Judge Atwood has suddenly recused himself from the case for 'personal reasons'."
I just nodded, my eyes fixed on the digital clock in the corner of the main screen. The final countdown.
21:59:50
I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears, steady and strong.
21:59:55
The entire history of Britain, from Agincourt to Trafalgar, from Dunkirk to the Falklands, seemed to flow through me in that moment. This was another battle in the eternal war for this nation's survival.
22:00:00
I pressed the intercom button on the console before me, connecting me to all team commanders on the ground.
"All stations, this is the Prime Minister. Execute Operation Sword of Sovereignty," I said. My voice sounded foreign, devoid of emotion, like the voice of history itself.
"Good luck."
On the main screen, the blue dots began to move in unison, converging on the red dots in a carefully choreographed, predatory dance. The room filled with the crackle of radio traffic—terse, professional call signs, confirmations, and situation reports.
"Alpha team at Target One. Door is breached."
"Charlie team, target is attempting to flee out the back. Containment team moving in."
"Visual from Drone Three: crowd is beginning to form on Commercial Road. Public order team on standby."
I watched, detached from the chaos on the streets by layers of technology and authority. On one screen, I saw the infrared footage of a team storming a block of flats. White-hot figures subdued another, cuffed him, and dragged him out. I couldn't see their faces, only the moving, thermal shapes of human beings in a silent drama.
Sterling leaned over, a phone pressed to his ear. After a few seconds, he hung up.
"First report, Prime Minister," he said, an unmistakable note of triumph in his voice.
"The first twenty targets are secure. Thirteen of them were high-level gang leaders we've been after for years. Minimal resistance."
I didn't smile. I just nodded.
This was only the beginning. The first incision had been made. Blood had been drawn. The patient was now on the table, its heart exposed. There was no turning back.