Jessamy Beech Ch. 12: Thanatos

John nodded, "We better make sure he never finds out then, eh?"

Having negotiated his way around the debris storm, Brian Newald steered the Phoenix back to due south, towards what had once been Birmingham.

. . .

The landscape changed. From dead fields, skeletal trees and ruined buildings to a scene of such utter devastation that the others were rendered speechless, unable to find the words to describe what they were seeing. Jessamy had seen it before of course. But memories were still no substitute for the harsh reality.

The land had been scoured clean, ripped apart, gouged into jagged edged crevasses and canyons that plummeted hundreds of feet down into the blackened depths of the earth. Twisted, melted steelwork - all that remained of tall buildings teetered on the precipices and creaked as they swayed in the wind. Huge fires still burned unchecked, turning the sky a sickly greyish brown. Beneath the Phoenix, nothing lived.

PART THREE: ANY LANDING YOU CAN WALK AWAY FROM ...

Worcester was a flooded wasteland. Mounds of rubble, dead trees and the cathedral the only evidence that there had ever been a city there at all. Certainly with the effects of climate change before Thanatos there had been problems with flooding almost annually, but never on this scale.

Many of the survivors had struggled their way through the rising waters to the safety of the nearby Malvern Hills, erecting a shanty town spread across the bald slopes in which to see out the end of the world.

Something suddenly screamed past the Merlin, so close that Newald reflexively jerked the controls to one side. Only their seatbelts saved Jessamy and the others from being tossed around the cabin.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?" Ross yelled.

"Meteorite," said Newald, pointing ahead. The meteorite had struck a few miles ahead of them, throwing a plume of earth and burning ash hundreds of feet into the air.

The Phoenix was pushed sideways by displaced air as another chunk of spaceborne rock hurtled past. Then another ...

Then three more.

"WE'RE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT!" Ross called, "GET US OUT OF HERE!"

"Taking evasive action," the fiery shower continued as Newald banked hard, searching desperately for open sky over Cheltenham. Dozens of superheated rocks now thundered down from their low orbit to smash into the once grand terraces of Georgian townhouses below them. Some no bigger than a fist, others as large as a microwave oven, all deadly.

"Gloucester. I see the cathedral," Jessamy pointed into the hazy distance, "get us closer and take us down."

Something unspoken passed between them as Jessamy and the others looked at one another. They were running out of time. It appeared that the day Bromden had predicted twenty years earlier had finally arrived.

Thanatos was falling out of its rapidly decaying orbit ...

. . .

The meteorite shower had thankfully petered out by the time Newald guided them over the country park of Robinswood Hill and on to the outskirts of Gloucester, following the main artery of Stroud Road at an altitude of no more than a hundred feet.

"Once we're on the ground, get out quick," Jessamy warned the others, "Ross and John, if you guard the transport, me and Hamnavoe will head for the bunker. Trevithick's had a few more hours so he might even be there ahead of -"

PTING! PTOING -TING!

"Now what?"

"Someone's shooting at us," called Newald. Sure enough a group of a dozen or so shabbily dressed figures spread across the street below were firing at the Merlin, "General Chinnor's long gone so it's just scavengers or bandits. But if they hit the fuel containers we'll go up like a box of fireworks."

Phoenix juddered as another spray of bullets chewed at the underside. A red warning light lit up Newald's dashboard as the helicopter's tail began to swing wildly sideways.

""WHAT'S HAPPENING?" Jessamy yelled.

"I'm losing control of the tail rotor. They must have hit the hydraulics. We have to land now! Brace for impact," the Merlin's undercarriage clattered alarmingly through the dead branches of trees as Newald descended.

"They're still coming!" Hamnavoe called as he unclipped his seatbelt and slid the Merlin's side door open. Bullets and arrows zinged past as he clung on tightly, attempting to return fire.

At the intersection of Stroud Road and Calton Road, Newald found what he'd been searching for. A broad triangle of open grass just wide enough to land on. The Merlin bounced violently as he dropped it down too quickly, the rotor tips clipping the branches of a line of dead conifers.

A jolt as one of the wheels encountered a rut, then they were down. Jessamy expelled a breath that she hadn't realised she'd been holding, "Good job. Let's set up a perimeter and hold off these fucking crazies."

"I should hopefully be able to fix it and get us airborne again," said Newald, taking off his headset.

"You just keep your head down."

BLAM!

"FUCK!" Ross staggered backwards as he stepped out of the Merlin, clutching his thigh with his one good hand. Jessamy unloaded a full clip from her Glock at the approaching hostiles, taking down at least two, then scurried to Ross's side.

"How bad?" she asked, quickly applying pressure to the wound.

"Just winged me. Looks worse than it is."

"Aunt Jess!" called John, "you better come see this."

Jessamy tugged Ross behind the cover of the Merlin's undercarriage and glanced in the direction John was pointing. The hostiles, whoever they were, were already beating a hasty retreat, but had left two of their number watching from the garden of an abandoned house a couple of hundred yards away.

"What d'you think?" John asked.

"I think that they're going for reinforcements and they've left these two assholes to keep tabs on us," Jessamy slammed a fresh clip into her handgun, "I'll bet my right tit they'll be back. Phoenix is too good a prize to ignore."

. . .

It was agreed that John would stay with Phoenix and Ross to provide cover while Newald effected minor repairs to the stricken aircraft. Jessamy and Hamnavoe would head into the city centre a mile or so away to look for Trevithick.

Jessamy felt a lump in her throat, and didn't trust herself to speak as she nodded to her nephew and wounded brother. She had a sick feeling that she would never see them both alive again. Family was precious. But the reality was that Ross wouldn't be able to keep up and the Merlin needed protecting if they were to escape when their task was complete.

"We'll be as quick as we can," Hamnavoe assured them.

. . .

Gloucester's city centre was eerily deserted. Every building, every shop it seemed had been looted and ransacked by General Chinnor's men when they'd advanced south all those years before, leaving nothing but tags sprayed on the burnt out properties to show where they'd been, and rat-gnawed skeletal remains of those who'd attempted to resist.

More meteorites - harbingers of the imminent apocalypse, blasted into the ruined city as Jessamy and Hamnavoe moved through the park, now the final resting place of a small airliner, folded into the ground like some collosal piece of origami. From there past the old registry office onto Southgate Street, skirting the edge of the redeveloped docks, before finally crossing Westgate Street into the grounds of the cathedral itself. They saw no-one.

In the early days of Thanatos the enormous building had been used as a hospital or temporary accommodation for refugees. Piles of rusting camp beds littered the dead lawns outside. The honey coloured stone walls were now peppered by gunfire and scorch marks. Gargoyles and chunks of heavy masonry lay embedded in the soil where they'd been cast down, either by natural phenomena or human intervention.

"Shall we?" Jessamy whispered, drawing her weapon.

"Ladies first," Hamnavoe smiled.

PART FOUR: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

The cathedral's interior had hardly changed in nineteen years. Jessamy and Hamnavoe moved slowly, listening intently for the slightest sound that might warn them of an ambush. But apart from the wind soughing through the broken stained glass the place was as silent as a freshly dug grave.

The black marble slab was no longer flush with the cathedral's flagstone floor. It had been lifted five feet into the air on four great hydraulic rams each as thick as Jessamy's thigh and now waited, looking like the obsidian dining table of some demonic giant. Steps led down into the space beneath, lit dimly by electric light from some unseen source.

A thick rubber seal around the slab to prevent the ingress of dust and damp had long since perished into crumbling black flakes. Scratches and chips evidenced someone attempting to force an entry. Judging by the amount of identifying tags sprayed around the cathedral walls, Jessamy guessed it had most likely been General Chinnor's men. There had to have been some hidden control outside to lift the slab but its whereabouts was no longer important.

She remembered what Alison Nethybridge had said as they'd unwittingly crouched in hiding on top of this very bunker almost twenty years before, "Strange," Alison had whispered, "this one looks newer than ..."

Why the fuck didn't I pay attention, Jessamy asked herself.

"Do not go gentle into that good night ..." she whispered, "... Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

"What was that lass?" asked Hamnavoe.

Jessamy shook her head and raised her Glock in a two handed grip as she crept closer ...

"INITIATING SECURITY PROCEDURE. PLEASE PLACE RIGHT HAND ON SENSOR FOR FINGERPRINT RECOGNITION ..." intoned a synthesized female voice faintly from somewhere below.

Jessamy froze, "There's someone already here."

"THANK YOU ..."

Her heart was hammering as she ducked under the foot thick marble slab onto the concrete steps, every one of her senses straining. Dust sifted down from the cathedral's high ceiling as outside, another meteorite obliterated a distant suburb of the city with a jarring thud.

A tall hooded figure dressed entirely in black stood with his back to her in a small vestibule area at the bottom of the steps. A room no larger than a lift. A polished steel door reinforced with thick riveted bands took up much of the wall opposite, beside which some sort of control panel occupied the figure's attention.

"... PLEASE POSITION BOTH EYES AGAINST SENSOR FOR SECURITY RETINAL SCAN ..."

From behind, he certainly looked like Hamnavoe's description. The figure stooped slightly to look closely into a pair of dark lenses ...

"FREEZE!" Jessamy yelled, her Glock inches from the figure's back.

"THANK YOU ..."

Jessamy jammed the cold barrel of the gun against the figure's head, "Step away from the panel and turn around nice and slow Trevithick ..."

"... PLEASE INPUT SECURITY CODE AND NAME FOR VOICEPRINT RECOGNITION ..."

"I said step away ... NOW!" Jessamy snarled.

The figure ignored her, "1811/9729/0435/271131 ... Admiral Dale Edward Fredr -"

Jessamy clubbed the figure across the head. He stumbled sideways against the wall.

"VOICEPRINT RECOGNITION INCOMPLETE ... RESETTING SECURITY PROTOCOLS ..."

Trevithick glared up at Jessamy, "You stupid interfering bitch."

His black hood had fallen away, revealing a gaunt, balding man in his late sixties or possibly even early seventies. A trickle of blood smeared across one sunken cheek where Jessamy had struck him. Emotionless grey eyes regarded her coldly.

She stared. If she hadn't known better she would have believed she was face to face with the grim reaper himself.

Death.

Thanatos.

Trevithick suddenly lunged, alarmingly quick for such an old man. Jessamy caught a glimpse of a metallic flash in the light, then something slammed into her chest and she fell back.

"Don't you understand, woman? EVERYONE WILL DIE! I'm not here to save the planet. I'm here to make sure no-one else can."

BLAM!

"Get away from her or I'll blow yer ugly head aff yer fuckin' shoulders," Hamnavoe shouted as he charged down the stairs. His bullet had ricocheted ineffectively off the reinforced metal door next to Trevithick - harmless, but deafening in the confined space.

"YOU!" Trevithick gasped.

"Aye, me. You okay JB?"

Jessamy climbed shakily to her feet, winded. If she hadn't been wearing the police stab vest, the nine inch hunting knife embedded in it would most likely be stuck through her heart. She nodded.

Hamnavoe turned to Trevithick, "I take the wrap for your murders on Orkney and you don't even send me a fuckin' Christmas card ye ungrateful bastard."

"Why are you even here?" Trevithick asked.

"To activate the satellite network and blow Thanatos out of the sky," interrupted Jessamy, "but unfortunately we need you to open the bunker."

"I was about to open it, you stupid bitch. To destroy what's inside. Who are you anyway? Hamnavoe's latest whore?"

Jessamy was really taking a dislike to Trevithick. Or Admiral Dale Fredrickson as she had to keep reminding herself. But no matter what her personal feelings towards him were, they desperately needed his help, "The name's Jessamy. Jessamy Beech. Please, we're running out of time. I know who you really are, Admiral."

Trevithick smirked, "Jessamy ... why does that name ring a bell?"

"She's THE Jessamy Beech," Hamnavoe clarified.

Trevithick ignored him, "Beech ... Jessamy Beech. Aah ... I've got it. Did you by any chance have a mother called ... Victoria, or ... something?"

"My mother was called Vicky. She was in the navy at Culdrose in Cornwall."

"Well, well, well ... what a small world we live in. Vicky Beech's little daughter all grown up. I should've spotted the resemblance but you have that ridiculous tattoo."

"Y-you knew ... my mum?" Jessamy was shaken. This was certainly an unexpected turn of events.

"Of course I knew her," Trevithick continued, "Vicky was my personal assistant and my driver for several years. Lovely girl. I was only a humble captain back then. My promotion came through with the proviso I assumed responsibility for this bunker business."

Her mother's calendar on the cottage wall in Madron ... CAPT DF - CAMBORNE RAIL, AUDI - COP ...

DF. Dale Fredrickson. Not an admiral then but a captain.

Jessamy trembled as she forced herself to look Trevithick in the eye, "Do you kn-know what happened to her?"

"Of course I do. I killed her. On your birthday if memory serves."

Behind them Hamnavoe gasped. Jessamy gripped her Glock tightly with sweating fingers, unable to fully comprehend what she'd just been told, "Y-you killed her? What d-do you mean you killed her?"

"She was in my way," Trevithick watched her defiantly, waiting to see what reaction his words would have, "I pushed her. She fell, and cracked her head open like an egg."

There it was. The thirty year old puzzle of her mother's fate cleared up once and for all. No reason, no apology, no remorse.

"JB ..." Hamnavoe murmured.

"And wh-what did you do then?" Jessamy blinked back tears. Tears of anger, tears of fury. Tears of rage.

"I jumped in the car and drove off. Left her alone, bleeding in the dirt outside our cottage in Porkellis. She really should've moved when she was told. It was her own fault really."

Her own fault. That was it. Jessamy had heard enough.

"You murdering piece of shit ..."

BLAM!

The back of Trevithick's head exploded in a red mist, leaving a wet smear dribbling down the damp concrete wall. His corpse crumpled to the floor.

"JB! WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?"

PART FIVE: THE END OF ALL THINGS

Outside, the dull concussive thuds of more meteorite impacts shook the nine hundred year old walls of the cathedral. Ear-splitting screams of hurtling rocks, superheated and glowing from their violent entry into the planet's atmosphere, explosions, and the deafening crashes of the city's few surviving buildings collapsing.

In the bunker entrance, Hamnavoe looked up from Trevithick's lifeless body as if he'd come to a decision about something, "I can, still get us inside Jess. A-and I'll do so ... but on one condition."

Jessamy slid down the metal wall and sat dejectedly on the dusty floor, "Yeah, whatever. So long as it's not one last blowjob. It's over ... we're fucked Hamnavoe ... and it's all my stupid fault ..."

"Marry me Jessamy. Make an honest man o' me. I willnae ask ye again," Jessamy detected a different quality about Hamnavoe's voice. A harder, more authoritative, commanding tone that she'd not heard before.

She peered up at him, "Are you kidding me? The world's about to end and you're proposing again?"

"Jess," Hamnavoe crouched and gripped Jessamy's hands in his own, "I've never been more serious. Please, marry me."

Jessamy looked the old Scot in the eye. Only months before he'd been a bounty, nothing more. Someone to be hunted like an animal and turned over to Keaton to answer for his crimes. But now he was a dear friend, a comrade in arms. And much more, "We're dead anyway ... but okay, yes, whatever ... I'll marry you."

"Thank you," Hamnavoe kissed her lightly on the forehead, then thumbed the red illuminated panel on the wall display.

"INITIATING SECURITY PROCEDURE. PLEASE PLACE RIGHT HAND ON SENSOR FOR FINGERPRINT RECOGNITION ..."

Hamnavoe did as he was instructed, spreading his fingers against the glass.

"What the hell are you doing? Hamnavoe, that's not going to work," Jessamy groaned.

The panel flashed green, "THANK YOU ..."

Jessamy was astounded. She'd briefly considered cutting off Trevithick's hand for the first part of the security procedure but knew that it would be pointless when there were further steps, "How the fuck are you doing this Hamnavoe?"

"... PLEASE POSITION BOTH EYES AGAINST SENSOR FOR SECURITY RETINAL SCAN ..."

Hamnavoe moved up close to the wall and stared unblinking into the black lenses there, as the machine scanned both his retinas.

Again the panel flashed green, "THANK YOU ..."

Fingerprints couldn't be forged, Jessamy was certain of that. And even if they could, the patterns of capillaries on the back wall of a person's eye were as unique as their personality. Jessamy reflexively gripped her handgun, "Hamnavoe. You're fucking scaring me now."

"... PLEASE INPUT SECURITY CODE AND NAME FOR VOICEPRINT RECOGNITION ..."

"2504/6609/0566/250719 ... Major Angus James Banavie."

Jessamy's jaw dropped, "You're Angus Banavie!"

"THANK YOU," said the disembodied voice of the bunker, "IDENTITY CONFIRMED AS MAJOR ANGUS JAMES BANAVIE. WELCOME TO SOTERIA, MAJOR BANAVIE."

The bunker door slid silently open.

Jessamy was stunned. By her own stupidity as much as by Hamnavoe's revelation, "Well dip me in chocolate and throw me to the fucking lesbians. You're Angus Banavie. All this fucking time you've been Angus Banavie."

Hamnavoe shrugged.

Jessamy slapped him hard across the head, "You sneaky, lying, motherfucking sonofabitch!"

"I love you too JB. Now, are we gonnae save the fuckin' world or no'?"

. . .

Jessamy had expected some sort of a control console immediately inside the bunker, with perhaps a display screen tracking the satellite network's position around the Earth. She hadn't expected six compact but comfortable bedrooms leading off a central common room, toilets, showers, or a wide-screen TV with a vast library of e-books, films and games. She hadn't expected a rack of NBC suits, a decontamination suite, or weapons and enough ammunition to start a small war. She hadn't expected a galley kitchen with a water recycling and purification system and enough food to last six people an entire year. All fully air conditioned and brightly lit.

Jessamy pulled an SA80 from a rack just inside the entrance. It looked unused, brand new, "Wow. With a UGL. I've always wanted one of these. That, um ... computer voice said Soteria or something. What is that?"