14.2
Above the English Channel, a "special" DF-5A intercontinental ballistic missile with a payload of two-hundred and fifty kilotonnes, hit a flock of seagulls. The ICBM missile built in 1983, and launched from Tongdao, Peoples Republic of China, was originally on course to hit the address at 3 Abbey Road, St. Johns Wood, London England (NW8 9AY). This of course is the home of Abbey Road Studios, where The Beatles not only recorded the majority of their music, but also where their master recordings are kept locked in a vault.
Deng Xiaoping despised The Beatles.
Deng had personally authorized the destruction of their work, if and when they could ever launch an all out nuclear attack. He especially despised John Lennon for all his revolution, free-love paranoia nonsense. He had spent long nights trying to decipher Revolution No.9, and could only guess that it had a hidden meaning which was not good, and certainly against the Party line. Revolution No. 1, the single, and the White Album track had some disturbing lyrics about Mao. Even in death, the man was dangerous as he was more popular than ever (although he really enjoyed Imagine, especially the “imagine there is no heaven, no possessions” parts and often found himself humming away a few bars in long Party sessions).
So, for over twenty years the co-ordinates of Abbey Road were sitting snug inside the telemetry systems of this particular doomsday device just waiting for the day when it could unleash hellfire on their particular brand of “love.” Around the tip was stencil painted in Revolution Red: “To John George Ringo and Paul with love – Deng.”
All you need is love. Happiness is a warm gun, indeed.
The missile veered off course and plummeted down on the outskirts of Ware, Hertfordshire. It hit a huge pharmaceutical manufacturing plant, the explosion sending a massive cloud of irradiated chemical compounds a thousand feet into the air. The cloud slowly drifted southward toward London. Along the English coast it began to fall back down as rain.