Jessamy Beech Ch. 15: Mull

Closing her mouth over his, Merida absorbed his groans, loving the way the sound vibrated over her lips. Wishing for the one thing she could never have.

Jessamy Beech, her sister in law, sharing their bed again...

...

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T FIX IT?"

"S-sorry sir. But we need to reformat the drive and install the software from scratch."

Jack Aubrey chewed his bottom lip, thinking. This was all he needed. The Soteria Lite apparatus had been transferred into his top floor rooms in Duart Castle without mishap and, though it had its own built in power source, had been plugged in to a back up generator as a precaution.

The modular black cubes, each eighteen inches on a side sat on a heavy oak table next to the collapsible uplink dish. Without a working targeting system it was just so much junk. The three technicians, who'd he'd dubbed Curly, Larry and Moe that he'd assigned to look after the apparatus, eyed him nervously.

"And where... do we get the software?" Aubrey growled, trying to stay calm, "we can't just download stuff from the internet any more."

Beyond the window, HMS Poseidon was anchored so close in to the shore that he could hear the shouts of the crew as they went about their business.

"W-we can duplicate it from any of the bunker sites in the UK, sir," said Curly.

BLAM-BLAM!

Aubrey drew a handgun and shot the man twice in the chest before turning to the others, "We know the location of one bunker site. Gloucester. It has an INSANE amount of insurmountable security built into it. Even if we could get past the retinal scans and voiceprint recognition how do you propose we get to Gloucester and back here in TWO FUCKING DAYS? Our one helicopter pilot went AWOL in case you've been asleep in a cupboard for the last week."

One of the surviving techs, Larry, timidly raised a hand, edging away from Curly's blood spattered corpse lying on the flagstoned floor beside him, "Sir. W-we can input coordinates manually. All we n-need is a large scale map. Like an Ordnance Survey map for instance."

Aubrey stared.

"Sir? I said we can..."

"I heard what you said. Take a couple of RIBs over to the mainland. Search everywhere. Find me a map of Northumberland."

...

At first light the Lupita neared Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of mainland Britain. At the Gills Bay ferry port to their left, the rusting red and white hulk of the catamaran MV Pentalina wallowed in the shallows, its cargo of vehicles long since spilt out into the depths of the sea. Dozens of cars and caravans that would never make the short crossing north to St Margaret's Hope on Orkney.

Big flakes of snow spiralled lazily down from clouds the colour of a fresh bruise as Jessamy handed Hamnavoe a mug of coffee. It was his turn to man the helm, steering the yacht cautiously around floating debris.

"Cheers, darlin'..."

"Angus?" she asked softly as he took a sip, "I've been thinking..."

"Oh fuck! Now we're in trouble..."

Jessamy punched him in the arm, "I'm being serious. Look, we don't know what sort of setup Aubrey's going to have at Duart Castle. I don't want Pheebs put in any danger."

Hamnavoe watched her warily, "Go on..."

"I'm proposing mooring up in Tobermory and continuing overland to the castle on foot. I want you to stay with the Lupita and take care of Phoebe. If anything happens to me..."

"NO, JB. No fuckin' way. That was never part o' the plan."

Jessamy gritted her teeth, preparing for an argument, "The plan's changed."

Hamnavoe faced her, "I'm your fuckin' husband Jess. My job is to protect you. Not stand by while..."

KRUMP!

The deck jolted beneath their feet as the Lupita's hull slammed into something. Hamnavoe's scalding coffee sloshed over his hand.

"What the fuck was that?" Jessamy steadied herself by clinging onto the boom while peering over the side down into the oily water.

Hamnavoe shook his head, "I'm turnin' off the engine until we know."

"Mum? What happened?" Phoebe called, as she climbed up on to the deck from below.

"Nothing to worry about sweetheart. Your stepdad can't steer a boat is all."

Phoebe gestured back down towards the cabin, "So why's all this water coming in?"

Jessamy and Hamnavoe looked at each other.

...

The rusting chassis of an ancient minibus had ripped a two foot hole in the Lupita's hull, just below the waterline. Despite their best efforts to prevent it, cold seawater was jetting into the main cabin at an alarming rate and was already ankle deep.

Jessamy shivered as she towelled herself dry. Diving into ice cold water under a listing yacht in just her underwear wasn't something she'd want to make a habit of. But it had been the only way to assess the damage.

"How bad?" Hamnavoe asked.

Jessamy shook her head as she reached for her clothes, "The Lupita's not going anywhere. We're fucked."

...

In Northumberland, on Berwick Upon Tweed's north wall, John Beech handed his father a pair of binoculars, "There," he pointed, "where you can see the caravan site up there on the clifftop, dad."

Ross yawned. It had been a long night with Merida, discussing possible plans for the future if Jessamy's mission was successful. Not to mention spending a considerable amount of time with his head between her creamy smooth thighs. He screwed up one eye and squinted, trying to hold the binoculars steady in the gusting wind with his single hand. It was dawn and a storm was brewing out over the North Sea gusting snow flurries at them, "Are you sure?"

John nodded, "There were maybe half a dozen, skulking around. Trying not to be seen."

Ross glanced at the snipers positioned on either side of him, "And you're certain it was Reekies?"

John huffed, "Dad, I've seen enough of them to know what I was looking at. They're getting closer, checking us out."

Fuck, thought Ross. This was all they needed. Just two days until Aubrey's deadline. Two days to evacuate the children and most vulnerable adults to somewhere safe and after years of just the occasional raid or skirmish, it looked as if the Reekies were finally making their move. They'd never once been bold enough to come within sight of the town before.

But there was still a chance that maybe his son was mistaken. Perhaps it was just a random band of scavs or refugees trying to summon up the courage to come begging for help.

Two pale figures rose up from behind a dense bramble thicket in the binocular's field of vision perhaps a mile away. Painfully thin almost to the point of being emaciated, their bodies decorated with random blue markings and dried blood. Their hair was matted and unkempt, what little clothing they wore, filthy tatters. Reekies. The barely human cannibalistic things that lurked in the lava flooded ruins of Scotland's capital.

Ross lowered the binoculars, "Seal the gates. All defence force personnel to their posts."

"But dad, there's only a few of them. I could take some men out on horses and..."

Ross shook his head, "They're scouts. Where there's a few there's likely to be a hundred more..."

PART TWO: GORBACHEV

"The water's not too deep here Pheebs. When the yacht starts to go under we'll have to row ashore in the dinghy," Jessamy told her daughter. The cabin below was now knee deep in water as the Lupita slowly listed to one side. Phoebe sat on top the white fibreglass hull, arms wrapped around her knees trembling.

They'd wasted hours already. And without a boat, getting to Mull before Aubrey's deadline was going to be impossible. They'd travelled barely a third of the distance.

"I've salvaged all I could," said Hamnavoe, "food, maps, weapons. We could try looking for another boat lass, once we get ashore."

They both knew that every seaworthy craft along Scotland's north coast would already have been commandeered years before by desperate refugees trying to reach Orkney. Any search would be futile. Jessamy spun to face him, her eyes blazing, "It's your fault we're in this mess. Why the f... why the hell couldn't you watch what you were doing Angus?"

He raised his hands in a placating gesture, "Now hold on JB..."

Jessamy stood and stormed towards the old Scot, feeling the Lupita's deck shift as she moved, "Don't you realise what's at stake here Angus? Our friends, family, everything that's decent. We're practically all that's left after Thanatos!"

"Unless Berwick surrenders."

Jessamy slapped him, hard across the face, "NEVER SAY THAT! THERE WILL BE NO SURRENDER! I know Aubrey. I know what he's capable of. He's a fucking monster!"

"Mum?"

Jessamy wasn't finished. Days of pent up anger after witnessing the destruction of her home came bubbling to the surface, "He kept women locked up at Devonport, Angus. Like cattle. The only reason he kept all the navy personnel alive there was to use as slave labour and crew his fucking ship!"

"Mum, look... "

Jessamy angrily glanced back at her daughter, "Not now Phoebe! Can't you see I'm... "

Phoebe pointed, shielding her eyes from the wind driven snow, "There's a boat coming!"

Sure enough, a battered looking beam trawler that may have once been painted a cheerful orange was bearing down on their beleaguered vessel, churning up a foaming white bow wave. Just visible painted across the bow were the words Millennium Falcon.

"Gorbachev," Hamnavoe whispered.

Jessamy drew her Glock and chambered a round, "That piece of shit sold us out to Keaton's militia."

Hamnavoe quickly but gently pushed her gun hand down, "Let me do the talkin' eh? Hide yer Glock. Hide yer face. He willnae come closer if he's sees it's us."

Jessamy looked for a moment as if she was about to argue, then raised her hood. Hamnavoe tugged his beanie down and pulled his Buff up over his nose, clapping his hands together to give anyone on the approaching trawler the impression that he was cold.

"AHOY THE YACHT!" shouted a man leaning out of the Millennium Falcon's wheelhouse as the trawler drew alongside. He was just as Jessamy remembered him. Average height, mostly bald and in his sixties. An enormous red birthmark across the top of his hairless head had earned him the nickname Gorbachev, "YE HAVIN' BOTHER?"

"Hello there!" Hamnavoe called across, trying his best to disguise his voice, "we've run into something. Hull's breached. I don't suppose ye could help?"

Gorbachev stepped out onto the trawler's deck, clutching a sawn off shotgun. He appeared to be alone, "Sure. But it'll cost ye. How many of ye are there?"

Typical Gorbachev. Wouldn't do anything for nothing, thought Hamnavoe, "Three. Me, a woman an' a girl."

Gorbachev's face brightened, "They for sale?"

Hamnavoe shrugged, "They could be, aye. Er... what about in exchange for a lift?"

Gorbachev pondered, scratching his bald head. If he allowed three strangers onto his boat, he'd be outnumbered. Would the potential profit outweigh the risk? Beneath their feet the Lupita lurched as the yacht began to slide beneath the waves. Jessamy clutched Phoebe to her, ready to jump overboard.

"Now would be a good time mate," Hamnavoe urged.

Gorbachev blew his breath out between clenched teeth, "Sure, okay. Right. Leave your weapons there. I'll come alongside, as close as I can... and ye jump across, yeah? The woman an' the lassie first."

Hamnavoe made a show of dropping his handgun then winked at Jessamy. Gorbachev threw a line across to help hold the two craft alongside one another in the increasing swell. Hamnavoe tied it securely to the Lupita's handrail, "When the waves lift the Lupita higher than the trawler I want you two to jump across. Gorbachev'll be busy in the wheelhouse... but have yer weapon handy,just in case."

Jessamy nodded.

"Mum I'm scared," Phoebe looked ashen as her mother helped her climb over the handrail, the Millennium Falcon edging steadily closer with each wave.

"Hold my hand tight Pheebs," Jessamy instructed, "when I say jump, you jump okay? I will never let you go. Promise."

The old tyres tied to the trawler's side to act as bumpers squeaked along the Lupita's hull as Gorbachev came in too close, pushing against it alarmingly. Jessamy and Phoebe would have to time their jump perfectly or risk falling between the two vessels and being crushed or drowned.

The next wave lifted the yacht a few feet higher and...

"JUMP!" Jessamy leapt across, taking Phoebe with her. They landed awkwardly on the trawler's cluttered deck and scrambled quickly to their feet.

"Ye okay?" Gorbachev called from the wheelhouse, blissfully unaware of who his passengers were.

"We're fine!" Jessamy called. She noticed that the Millennium Falcon was moving on, leaving the Lupita behind.

Gorbachev stepped out to face them, raising his shotgun. With his free hand he began untying the line joining the two vessels, "Well in that case we willnae need to bother pickin' up yer friend eh?"

Jessamy shoved Phoebe behind her and had her weapon raised and pointed in an instant. She lowered her hood, "I don't think so. Turn this thing around."

Gorbachev's expression went from sneering smugness to wide eyed terror as he caught his first glimpse of Jessamy's familiar tattooed face. Not only was his seemingly defenceless new captive armed and dangerous. It was the country's most notorious bounty hunter. It was Jessamy Beech, "Y-you."

"Yeah, me. Your worst nightmare. Drop the gun."

Gorbachev looked indecisive.

"I SAID DROP IT!"

Gorbachev didn't need to be told a third time. The shotgun clattered to the deck. Jessamy kept the trawler's skipper covered as Phoebe retrieved the weapon, "Now. Turn this piece of junk around and go back for Hamnavoe or you're fish food."

"Hamnavoe? H-hamnavoe's here as well?"

"Yep. And you, shithead, have got some explaining to do."

Minutes later, Jessamy, Phoebe and Hamnavoe watched in silence from the trawler's deck as the Lupita slid to her final resting place beneath the waves of the Pentland Firth, leaving only the tip of her mast poking above the water like a grave marker.

Once they were safely away from the debris choked shoreline, Hamnavoe stormed into the wheelhouse and dragged Gorbachev outside, ''Ye sold us out ye connivin' wee feck! Ye told Keaton's militia where we were headed."

"I d-didnae expect him to f-follow ye all that way Ham," Gorbachev gurgled as Hamnavoe violently shook him, "I see ye cut her hair M-miss Beech. It suits ye."

"Leave ma wife oot of it. We almost died!" Hamnavoe slammed Gorbachev roughly against the rusting bulkhead.

"Ye don't have to pretend she's yer wife anymore Ham. I know who she is."

Jessamy stepped forward, "I AM his wife, idiot," she leaned close, close enough to smell the stale whisky on Gorbachev's breath, "now, the only thing that's keeping you alive is my little girl over there. I'm not about to blow a hole through your scheming head with her watching. If you want to keep it that way you'll do something for us. Understood?"

Gorbachev nodded, still mulling over the idea of the unlikely pair being married.

"SAY IT!" Hamnavoe boomed.

"Yes. Yeah, wh-whatever ye want. Jus' don't kill me eh?"

Jessamy relaxed a little, nodding to Hamnavoe to back off.

"Ye're an angel Jessamy Beech, an absolute fuckin' angel," Gorbachev blustered, "ye willnae regret this. I really must wholeheartedly apologise for before, but well... a fella's got tae make a livin' somehow eh?"

Jessamy ignored him, "How much fuel you got on board?"

Gorbachev looked worried, "F-full tanks, give or take... uh, why?"

Hamnavoe clapped an arm around his old acquaintance's shoulders, "Ye're taking us to Mull."

...

"Seal all public buildings. Ask Merida and Mrs Taber to get the children and elderly to safety," Ross Beech ordered. The wailing warning siren could be heard all over the town of Berwick Upon Tweed, so there could be no doubt that the horde of Reekies massing beyond the walls would know they'd been spotted. That their objective would be well defended and ready for them.

Still they came. Dozens became hundreds, wielding makeshift weapons of machetes and axes, studded clubs and rudimentary longbows. Setting up crude shelters and staying just beyond effective weapons' range it became clear that behind the warpaint and filed teeth there was a brooding, hateful intelligence.

The town's defence force arranged themselves at regular intervals along the walls, armed with crossbows, shotguns and a small number of automatic weapons.

"Why aren't they attacking, dad?" John Beech asked.

Ross shook his head, "Don't know son. It's like they're waiting for something. Maybe they know something we don't."

...

Gorbachev hugged the coastline as the storm strengthened throughout the day, hampering their progress. The wind whipped the sea into a churning cauldron of white foam and blinding sleet reduced visibility to no more than a few hundred yards. Hamnavoe stayed in the Millennium Falcon's wheelhouse, keeping an eye on their captive skipper while Jessamy took Phoebe to explore below decks.

"What did he say his cargo was mum?" Phoebe asked as they picked their way down a grimy aluminium ladder into what would have once been the trawler's fish hold.

"Medical supplies for the cholera epidemic in Wick," Jessamy answered, clutching a penlight torch against her Glock as she surveyed the shadows, "if you believe that... you'll believe anything. Either Captain Gorbachev's had a crisis of conscience or he's being extremely well paid."

"Or he's lying?" Phoebe suggested.

Jessamy nodded, "Or he's lying. Here we are."

A dozen battered long wooden crates had been lashed down with a cargo net. Each one had had its original contents scrubbed out and replaced with some indecipherable markings that Jessamy couldn't read. In a language that quite possibly wasn't even English. She slashed a hole in the net with her multitool and holstered her sidearm while she tried to prise at the lid of the topmost.

"Don't you... wish you'd stayed in Berwick with Ada and Tamsin?" she asked her daughter.

Phoebe took a moment or two to answer, "A bit. But I want to be like you when I'm older. I want to learn how to do the things you do."

Jessamy shook her head, "Once... we've done what we're out here to do, the world'll be safe again. There'll be no need for people like me. Women will no longer need to carry guns."

Phoebe nodded, unconvinced.

"Nng... finally!" Jessamy pulled the crate's lid up and off to reveal its contents. Not medical supplies, but two dozen gleaming Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles packed in white polystyrene flakes.

Jessamy took one out, inhaling the smell of fresh gun oil, "This is brand new. It's never been fired."

"Are all the crates full of these mum?"

Jessamy nodded as she re-counted the crates, "If they are, that's close to three hundred of these things. Gorbachev better have a damn good explanation. Come on. Watch your step."

...

"So Keaton offered me a contract ferryin' supplies to Wick if I told him where I'd dropped ye," Gorbachev was explaining to Hamnavoe as Jessamy and Phoebe returned, "he needed a skipper who knew the waters so it was in his best interests to let me live."

Hamnavoe nodded, "What kind of supplies?"

"This kind!" Jessamy tossed an unloaded Kalashnikov at Gorbachev, watching as he fumbled the catch and dropped it with a loud clatter, "care to explain?"

Gorbachev looked at them, the colour draining from his face, "I'm just deliverin'... honest. I've no idea where the guns come from or where they're going. Keaton gets me to make a delivery like this every month or so. Kirkwall to Wick."

"That's a lot of guns. Who's your contact?" Jessamy asked. Hamnavoe took over at the trawler's controls as Gorbachev backed away terrified.

"A foreigner. Big guy. Don't know his name."

"You ever bring anything back?"

Gorbachev shook his head, "No, never. I sail back empty."