Jessamy Beech Ch. 14: Falmouth

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Firstly, a big thankyou to everyone who's given JB such high scores, but especially Devir Ginator for all your comments, encouragement and sticking with JB from the beginning. Hope the, er ... climax lives up to your expectations.

Secondly, this is the penultimate episode. I've always found that after a while, stories have a habit of starting to write themselves. An idea gives rise to another idea, then another. That's exactly what's happened here. This chapter sets the scene for the ending and therefore a lot of pieces have to be in the right place in order to tie up the loose ends. Apologies if it gets a bit wordy, but it'll all make sense eventually. I hope.

Thirdly, I checked to see how loud a Mark 45 naval gun actually is when it fires. Roughly 128 decibels, so with ear protection it would probably be safe to stand near one for short periods without suffering permanent hearing damage.

Fourthly, I was curious to see how thick a book JB would be if it was printed, so I formatted the whole story with paragraph styles and so on. Just over 700 pages!

. . .

The neolithic dolmen of Lanyon Quoit had for thousands of years stood on scrubby moorland beside the main Madron to Morvah road, four or five miles inland from the town of Penzance. A mute sentinel to history's passing.

The four great slabs of weathered Cornish granite arranged together like a collosal table now found themselves teetering on the brink of a vast nothingness. An absence in the landscape as if the fields and villages, woods and roads between it and the sea had simply been removed. Scooped up and discarded elsewhere by some godlike hand.

The ground sloping gradually down into the roughly circular shallow bowl was smooth, melted into undulating ripples and still slightly warm to the touch. Coloured layers of rock strata were clearly visible - stripes of red, green and ochre exposed to the human eye for the first time ever. Deep, untapped seams of tin and copper sparkled far below in the warm noon sunlight - a miner's dream. And miles to the south Angus Hamnavoe could just about make out the sea rushing eagerly in from Mounts Bay to fill the void, raising clouds of steam like a morning mist.

Finding their way along back roads from Mullion had taken hours. Many tracks they'd routinely travelled were simply no longer there and he very much doubted the old pickup would survive driving cross country.

But Jessamy had needed to know. She'd needed to see with her own eyes what was left.

If only there'd been some wreckage or debris she might have been able to make sense of it. But there was nothing. The house, the village and the entire surrounding area was simply gone. Vapourised. Jessamy's entire family had been wiped out.

"I don't know what to say lass," Hamnavoe watched her, feeling utterly useless.

Jessamy was silent. Her two beautiful daughters, her brother, her father and Mpenzi were dead. She'd cried all the tears she had on the bumpy drive over. She'd punched the dashboard until her knuckles bled, screamed and sworn until her voice was nothing but a ragged hoarseness. Now there was only one thing left to do.

Jessamy Beech drew her Glock and chambered a round.

"Jess ...?" Hamnavoe started towards her.

She raised the weapon and pressed the barrel firmly against the stubbled side of her head, "I'm ... so sorry Angus. It was all for nothing. I can't ... do this any more."

Hamnavoe froze, scared to move. The desolation in her voice terrified him, "Jess, no. Please ..."

But what was he going to say? He could tell her everything was going to be alright. That they could rebuild. Make the most of things as they always had.

It would all be lies.

"Goodbye Angus," Jessamy looked at her husband for one final time, then closed her eyes ...

"MUMMY!"

A few yards back up the road, the door of another battered pickup creaked open. All Hamnavoe's attention had been on Jessamy and neither of them had even heard the engine.

Jessamy numbly lowered the gun as she watched Phoebe and Ada sprinting across the cracked tarmac towards her. Behind them Ross and his son John were climbing out of the vehicle.

Her face crumpled as Jessamy's daughters dived into her outstretched arms. They collapsed in a sobbing huddle on the edge of the great bowl, "My babies, my babies, I thought I'd lost you ..."

"What the fuck happened Angus?" Ross gasped. He gazed out across the vista, trying to balance what he was seeing with what his memory told him should be there. Fields, trees, houses, churches, roads.

"Soteria," Hamnavoe muttered through gritted teeth. It was the only explanation, "I've ... seen this in a hundred computer simulations. Someone got into the bunker after us and used the fuckin' satellites."

"But weren't there all sorts of security measures?" asked John.

Hamnavoe nodded, "Aye. They musta hacked the portable unit, Soteria Lite," he gripped Ross's arm, "good to see you an' the wee 'uns in one piece anyway. Where were ye?"

"We drove up to Sennen Cove this morning to check on our lobster pots and let the girls stretch their legs on the beach. We heard this sound like ... like an earthquake or something. There were landslips on the way back so we had to detour."

"Lucky for you. I'm sorry lad ... but I don't think your dad and Lupita were that fortunate," Hamnavoe clenched and unclenched his fists as he strode a short distance away leaving the Beech family alone with their grief for a few minutes.

He had a pretty good idea who was responsible for the atrocity. They'd all spoken openly about the whereabouts of the Gloucester bunker and the portable control unit Soteria Lite on the helicopter flight after destroying Thanatos. The only other person who'd been present to listen in on that conversation had been the pilot - Brian Newald.

Jessamy's friend Merida had informed them by shortwave radio that Newald had never arrived back in Berwick Upon Tweed and was therefore presumed dead.

But what if he'd flown elsewhere? Hamnavoe doubted that a little shit like Newald would have the technical knowledge to activate the portable unit so he had to assume that he was in league with someone who did. Someone who had enough of a grudge against Jessamy Beech and her family to murder thousands of innocent people ...

Jack Aubrey.

. . .

The six of them piled in to the most roadworthy of the pickups after transferring any extra fuel and supplies across, working in total silence, each of them preoccupied with their own thoughts.

They drove just a couple of miles east to the hamlet of Mulfra where Hamnavoe and John found an abandoned bungalow in which to spend the night, regroup and decide what to do next. Jessamy ensured her daughters were made comfortable in sleeping bags brought back from the honeymoon in Mullion, never letting them out of her sight for a minute. She'd been convinced she'd lost both Phoebe and little Ada and feared that any lapse on her part would be tempting fate.

Supper was a mish mash of whatever meagre provisions they could scrape together and a couple of fresh lobster from their pots in Sennen Cove, though none of them commented on the extravagance.

"It was Aubrey wasn't it?" Jessamy asked quietly once the girls were safely tucked in. The wind howled eerily outside, like the souls of the dead searching for a way in through cracked windows and missing roof slates. She stared unseeing into the modest campfire built in the bungalow's mildewed conservatory.

Hamnavoe nodded grimly, "Ye came to the same conclusion as me lass. I'm guessin' that little fucker Newald flew the Phoenix to Devonport, told Aubrey about the bunker and gave him a lift there. It's taken them weeks tae work out how tae use Soteria Lite but ..."

"But they got there in the end, eh?"

Hamnavoe nodded again. In their desperate escape from the bunker they'd neglected to reseal the outer door. They were themselves partly to blame.

"So satellites did that Angus? The same ones you destroyed Thanatos with?" Ross clutched a tin mug of coffee in trembling hands.

"Aye lad. When I was trainin' for the project there were computer models to simulate how much damage different numbers o' units would dae. CPBWs. Charged Particle Beam Weapons. I'm guessing Aubrey used aboot a third o' the entire orbital network."

"Fuck," John was the least affected by the day's events. He'd lost a granddad that he'd only known for a few weeks. As far as he was concerned, most of his family were still safe in Berwick Upon Tweed hundreds of miles to the north.

"Yeah, fuck. He can target anywhere on Earth," Jessamy realised in horror, "it'll be like when he used the Poseidon's big naval gun on communities but a lot worse. He can basically hold the entire planet to ransom. Nowhere is safe. Shit, Angus! If he finds out about Berwick ... they could be next."

"Ye're not wrong there JB. Question is ... what are we gonnae dae aboot it?"

"First we need to get the girls safe," Jessamy decided, "then we go after Aubrey."

"Agreed," said Ross without hesitation. Merida and their daughter Tamsin were still in Berwick and any threat to the town was a threat to them, "we could take them to Merida but the journey overland would take weeks. And you've seen what the Midlands around Birmingham is like. It'd be fuckin' suicide."

Jessamy gazed into the flames, her words cold, emotionless, almost mechanical, "When Jiff was alive, he taught me everything he knew about handling a boat. If we can find one that's still seaworthy, I can get us there. To Berwick," she looked up and fixed each of them in turn with eyes filled with smouldering rage, "Aubrey almost won today. If ... my girls hadn't shown up when they did, I was ... I was ready to put a bullet in my head. That piece of shit has taken far too much from me over the years. Jiff. My friends. My dad. No more. It ends."

Hamnavoe placed a hand over hers, "We're with ye JB. Whatever it takes. To the fuckin' end."

. . .

Since assuming control of RNB Devonport, Captain Jack Aubrey hadn't been in the habit of knocking before he entered a room. With his most unpredictable asset however he was prepared to make an exception.

KNOCK-KNOCK!

"Come."

The top floor rooms of the imposing Wardroom building were smaller than those lower down, darker and had already been in need of renovation when the base was still in Royal Navy hands. Why Nemesis chose to quarter herself all the way up here in the draughts and damp was beyond him. He pushed the door wide and stepped in.

"What?" she sat unabashedly naked, with her slim back to him. Perched at an antique dressing table staring at her reflection in its cracked and spotted mirror. Her weapons lay spread out on the neatly made double bed, meticulously arranged with night sights and ammunition. Knives and sword oiled and gleaming.

"I want you to go to Cornwall again."

Her one good eye glared at him, while the other sightless milky orb betrayed nothing, squeezed half shut in a twisted mess of angry scar tissue, "Why?"

If anyone else on the base had shown this level of disrespect, Aubrey would have had them flogged or shot. But he needed Nemesis. He was loathe to admit that he was also very slightly afraid of her, "Jessamy Beech and Lupita Mpenzi are dead. We blasted Penzance and the immediate area from orbit this morning. No survivors."

"And?"

Aubrey had been apprehensive about sharing the news, wondering how his assassin would take it. He'd effectively stripped away her reason for existing and she'd responded with just a single word.

Nemesis turned to face him. No matter how many times he saw her without her black face mask, he would never be able to do so without a shudder of revulsion tinged with pity. Even after a dozen major skin grafts, the right side of her face had all the expression of a shop mannequin. Dead. Her remaining pale blue eye regarded him from beneath locks of thick blonde hair. But the opposing arm, shoulder and shriveled breast were still crisscrossed with lines of angry keloid scars, where shards of metal had torn into her and broken bones reset.

The assassin's left side belonged to a petite pale skinned goddess, her right to a monster.

Aubrey continued, now conscious of his own more recent scars - already six years old, "We flew a UAV over the area. It spotted a few survivors driving east in a pickup but we lost contact before we could identify any of them. We're ... assuming they might be looking for a way out of Cornwall now that their last viable community has been destroyed. We control the roads ... so the only means of leaving the county would be by boat. Newquay would be the obvious choice, but we know Beech had contacts in Liskeard, a town which is basically on its last legs ... to which the nearest navigable harbour is Looe."

Nemesis nodded, agreeing with Aubrey's simple logic. General Chinnor's rabble had sacked Liskeard six years before. Without the leadership of the man they'd called Ox, any resistance in the town had quickly crumbled and any subsequent attempts to re-establish the community there had been unsuccessful. The savage battle of Truro days after had rendered that town virtually uninhabitable too.

But made a legend of Jessamy fucking Beech.

"Go there and find this group," Aubrey finished, "question the locals, wait a few days. Do as you wish but make one hundred percent certain it's not her."

Nemesis uncrossed her legs, one smooth and shapely, the other discoloured and gnarled by old burns, "You don't own me Aubrey. I'm grateful for what you did, but I think I've more than paid my debt to you over the years."

"Jessamy Beech did this to you, not me. It was her that decided to make a run for it that night," Aubrey reminded her. He swallowed, trying to control the barely discernible tremor creeping into his voice. Nemesis was dangerous. A lethal weapon trained personally by O'Brian, his second in command. Barely six months after pulling her broken body from the River Tamar nineteen years before, she'd miraculously recovered well enough to embark on her first mission.

A mission that had only been partly successful but nevertheless proven her worth and potential.

"Very well, I'll go. Do ... you find me desirable captain?" Nemesis asked him.

Aubrey paused. Had he heard her correctly? The sudden shift of subject matter unnerved him, "Uh ... that's an ..."

"It's a simple question. Would you want to fuck me? Even kiss me?"

Aubrey felt a bead of sweat tickle its way down his temple as he unconsciously took a step backwards toward the door.

Nemesis stood and paced towards him like a big cat stalking, "No man would. Or any woman for that matter. And they never will. When they see what's under my mask they're repulsed, sickened. I'm destined to live a life of celibacy," she picked up a beautifully restored Heckler & Koch handgun from the bed with her three fingered right hand and expertly slapped a full clip into it, "haha ... no wonder I'm fucking crazy. I stole a boat that night and made a break for it because of what Jessamy Beech did to me. She rejected me. I wanted her to suffer ... and I ended up looking like this for my trouble. A fucking freak."

Nemesis clutched the HK in a two handed grip and took careful aim at her reflection in the mirror, "I've wanted Jessamy Beech's head for the best part of nineteen years captain. That want has been festering inside me like a fucking tumour. You'd better pray for your sake she's alive ... so I can finish her myself."

Threat? Or promise? Aubrey wondered how easy it would be to get O'Brian and his men to deal with Nemesis once and for all. He had a tiger by the tail, and he sensed that his grip was gradually weakening.

Nemesis was oblivious to the panicked thoughts tumbling through his head, "She only knows me as Nemesis - a faceless mercenary hired by you. She probably doesn't even remember the name ... Alison Nethybridge."

BLAM!

. . .

The town of Looe, two days later ...

"Somebody put this place through the wringer an' no mistake," Hamnavoe stood with hands on hips, surveying what was left of the harbour.

Flakes of unseasonal snow fluttered down from a leaden sky to land on trawlers, crab and lobster boats, even dinghies lying piled against one another burnt and rotting next to the bridge spanning the East Looe River to West Looe. Many bore bullet holes and great splintered rents from larger weapons. There'd been no-one in what remained of Liskeard willing to help them find a serviceable boat so they would have to search for one themselves.

"General fucking Chinnor," Jessamy swore, "he burnt Liskeard to the ground but did this first so none of the survivors could escape."

"Were you there Aunt Jess?" asked John.

Jessamy nodded curtly, "I'll tell you about it one day when there's time. Cummon, there's a boat yard down towards the beach. There may be something out of the water we can patch up."

"Why are we going on a boat Mummy?" Ada clutched her mother's hand tightly. The upheaval of leaving the only home they'd ever known was taking its toll on the girls.

"We're taking you to a safe place called Berwick Upon Tweed sweetheart. It's a long way from here so we have to go by boat," Jessamy hugged her youngest daughter to her hip. Apart from Hamnavoe, Ada and Phoebe were now her world, her reason for existing. Her first priority was getting them to safety.

"Mummy, what's in ... B-berry Contwee?" Ada asked, frowning over the pronunciation.

"Berwick. Upon. Tweed. Children like you, living inside a high wall to keep the bad people out. You'll be safe and have lots of friends. But there's a beach too, a-and a river to fish in. But best of all you'll get to meet your Aunt Merida and cousin Tamsin. A-and there's a dog too, called Myrtle that you can take on walks. Won't that be great?"

Ada nodded, still not seeming very convinced.

Jessamy stooped and kissed her daughter's head, "It'll be your new home sweetheart ... and there's lots of people there who'll never, ever let anything bad happen to you."

"Are you going away again Mum?" asked Phoebe with a hard edge to her voice. At three years older than Ada, she was more capable of reading body language and detecting subtle clues in the way people spoke. Their mother had mentioned other people protecting them as if she herself would be elsewhere.

Jessamy let out a long sigh, "I have to deal with the bad man who destroyed our home Pheebs. Before he can do it again to other people."

Phoebe nodded but said nothing. Her grandfather, every friend she'd ever had including Lupita Mpenzi and her home had simply been erased. And now the mother who'd returned after six months from who knew where had admitted she was heading off again.

Jessamy knelt down and took hold of her eldest daughter's hands, "Pheebs. I'm sorry, but it has to be done. I'm partly to blame for what happened a-and I have to put it right. Uncle Ross and Aunt Merida will take care of you while I'm away, okay?"

Ross stepped forward, "Wait a minute Jess, I'm going with you. If you're going after Aubrey you'll need ..."

"Please," Jessamy began, squeezing her eyes shut to hold in the tears that threatened, "do as I ask Ross. Stay in Berwick and look after my girls. I couldn't stand losing you as well as dad."

. . .

They found a thirty foot yacht on a long trailer in the boatyard. Though scuffed and streaked with moss, the hull appeared intact and seaworthy. Its engine had been partly dismantled and many of the boat's lines had rotted through thirty years of neglect. It would need work. Sails would have to be replaced, pulleys cleaned of rust and a suitable vehicle found to tow it down the nearby slipway into the sea.

"What d'you think Angus?" Jessamy asked. Ross and John had taken the girls into an abandoned chandler's to hunt for anything useful.