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A meteorite impact had at some point over the last thirty years gouged away the grassy shelf between the castle and the sea. It was now a straight drop from the battlements to the waters of the sound, meaning that HMS Poseidon could sit anchored as close in to the shore as it was possible to get a ship of its size, right alongside. New deck plates had been welded crudely over the gaping wound on the ship's foredeck where its big gun had been destroyed. But black scorch marks across the frigate's bow remained. O'Brian's helmsman skilfully steered the RIB into a small stony beach at the base of the castle and killed the outboard.
Jessamy smiled to herself. Aubrey had all his eggs in one basket.
PART FOUR: ENDGAME
"Well, well, well... if it's isn't the biggest thorn in my side... Jessamy fucking Beech," Jack Aubrey wearing a full Royal Naval captain's uniform complete with ceremonial sword and medal ribbons that he most certainly hadn't earned, paced slowly around Jessamy, Gorbachev and their two man escort - O'Brian and one of his thugs watching them closely.
Jessamy glared at him, one eye beginning to swell shut from O'Brian's punch. They'd both been dragged and shoved into the castle and up a wide stone staircase to Aubrey's suite of rooms on the uppermost floor. They found themselves in a spacious office occupied by an enormous oak desk taken up by a collapsible antenna, a portable generator, and a number of large black cubes, each eighteen inches on a side linked together with multicoloured cables. Another door stood slightly ajar leading into what Jessamy assumed would be a bedroom. The faint rustling sounds of someone getting dressed out of view told her they weren't alone.
"Thought I'd dress up for the occasion. What d'you think? Not bad for an ex con eh?"
Jessamy stared, but said nothing. As they were being brought in she'd had the opportunity to note the gun emplacements being built around the castle's grounds and the large number of the Poseidon's crew going about their business. It looked as if Aubrey was intending to stay put for quite some time. But sneaking in here undetected would have been nigh on impossible.
"Cat got your tongue?" Aubrey studied her as if she were a rare specimen on a lepidopterist's table. His eyes taking in the tattoo, her shorn hair, the more recent scars that hadn't been there the last time they'd met all those years before in Falmouth harbour, "you're starting to look old Jessamy Beech. Old and past it. I suppose you're here to try and stop me? Try to save your friends in Berwick Upon Tweed? Is that why you've come all this way?"
"You're a murdering piece of shit Aubrey," Jessamy snarled. The cable ties securing her wrists were beginning to cut off her circulation. She could feel the sharp plastic biting into her skin.
Aubrey laughed, "O'Brian tells me your boat was carrying a consignment of weapons."
Gorbachev began to speak but Jessamy interrupted, "What of it?"
"Once I've wiped out Berwick, they'll come in very useful when I take the Poseidon down to Northumberland to pick off any... stragglers."
"What about the deadline?" Jessamy asked quickly, "what if they surrender first?"
Aubrey waved a hand, "I really don't give a shit what they do. I've decided I'm going to destroy it anyway. My ultimatum was to lure you up here if you were still alive. Draw you out into the open. It's all about you... young lady. All about... you."
"You bastard."
Aubrey nodded slowly, looking infuriatingly pleased with himself, "All that's postponing the inevitable is a glitch in Soteria Lite's targeting system. Once we've found a way around that we'll open fire. You can say au revoir to all your friends... Jessamy fucking Beech."
"Sir," O'Brian interrupted, "she was carrying these. I don't know if any of it might be useful."
Aubrey's second in command handed over the papers taken from Jessamy's jacket.
The Poseidon's captain glanced at them. Hand drawn maps showing the route Jessamy and Hamnavoe had travelled across Scotland in pursuit of Trevithick months before, shortcuts and passable roads across Cornwall between Penzance and Liskeard... and the route they'd sailed in the Lupita from Looe to Berwick Upon Tweed.
Jack Aubrey raised an eyebrow, "What are these numbers?"
Jessamy glowered at him, her teeth clenching.
"These numbers. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY?"
O'Brian drew his handgun and pressed it to Jessamy's temple, "I suggest you tell him bitch."
"Okay, okay," Jessamy blustered, "they're just map coordinates. That's all. I can't navigate for shit. We needed to track our position by landmarks on shore using Ordnance Survey maps."
Aubrey clapped his hands, "Map coordinates?"
Jessamy nodded.
"For Berwick Upon Tweed?"
Jessamy didn't respond at first. But Aubrey watched, smirking as her expression changed from one of stubborn defiance to terrified realisation of what she'd done, "Please, no. I'm begging you! There are women and children there!"
"Jessamy Beech... you've finally done something worthwhile. The one little nugget of information I needed to blast your friends into oblivion... and you deliver it to me personally."
"NO, AUBREY! I'M BEGGING YOU. DON'T DO THIS!"
Aubrey turned to O'Brian and gestured to Gorbachev, "Take this idiot outside and shoot him. Take a couple of RIBs to pick up the rest of the weapons in Tobermory and tell the Poseidon to prepare for immediate departure."
O'Brian nodded, "Aye captain. What do you want done with Beech?"
The bedroom door abruptly swung open and a dark figure stepped into the room. A woman... dressed from head to foot in black, her face concealed by a tinted visor and mask, she wore a holstered Heckler & Koch handgun at her hip and what appeared to be a sheathed Japanese katana across her back, "Leave her to me."
"Jessamy Beech," announced Aubrey, "meet your Nemesis."
...
The amassed army of Reekies surrounding Berwick Upon Tweed had waited all night and through the following day. Howling, screeching at one another, drumming on anything they could lay their gore streaked hands on. Occasionally a flaming arrow or random piece of thrown rubble would come whooshing harmlessly over the walls, but the horde made no attempt to attack.
"Why the fuck don't they just get it over with?" John Beech asked his father as the overcast day spat a grey drizzle down at them.
"Watch your language," Ross grinned, though he didn't feel like smiling. Hardly anyone in the town had slept. They were all tired and stressed, and that he guessed, was exactly what the Reekies wanted. Spook your enemy, deprive them of sleep, then attack when they were least expecting it, "they're wearing us down. They can attack whenever they feel like it. Are your mother and sister safe?"
John nodded, "Merida and Tamsin are barricaded inside the old barracks building with Ada and all the other kids. I've posted a couple of snipers on the roof in case any Reekies get inside the compound."
It took Ross a few seconds for the implication of what his son had said to sink in. John was expecting the Reekies to breach the walls, as if it was inevitable. And if truth be told, Ross was no longer as confident about keeping out a horde of bloodthirsty cannibals armed with automatic weapons.
He wondered how his little sister Jessamy, was coping. If she'd been unsuccessful in her mission, whether or not they held off the Reekies would be completely irrelevant. Aubrey would activate the Soteria satellite network and they'd all be dead before nightfall.
A loud roar suddenly rose from the untidy ranks of gathered Reekies, like a gale force wind gusting through treetops. Before many of the town's defence force could gather themselves, a withering storm of automatic gunfire and arrows suddenly erupted from the ruins.
"TAKE COVER!" Ross screamed, "HERE THEY COME!"
...
Nemesis drew her katana as O'Brian and his colleague led Gorbachev pleading and whimpering for his life from Aubrey's quarters.
"So... we meet again," the assassin purred as she paced like a stalking predator slowly around behind Jessamy. Aubrey folded his arms and watched the drama unfold, wearing a bemused expression.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jessamy responded, "I've never met you before in my life."
The katana's razor sharp blade swished down through the air and sliced through the cable ties that had secured Jessamy's wrists, "And now she's gone I don't think I'll ever be able to love anyone like that again," Nemesis whined in a little girl voice, "recognise those words?... you should do. They were yours."
Jessamy racked her brain. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but somehow distorted, older.
Nemesis moved closer, her masked face inches from Jessamy's, "You left me to die. You and your South African whore."
Lupita Mpenzi? What did she have to do with this? Certainly her friend had returned fire when Nemesis had shown up in Madron but it had only been in self defence. A chilling little worm of an idea began crawling through Jessamy's subconscious, evasive for now, but searching for a way out into the open as her mind raced, "Look. I don't know who you are. Whatever you imagine I've done to you in the past is history now, okay?"
Nemesis reached up with a gloved hand that was missing two fingers and pulled back her hood. Thick blonde hair tumbled down over one shoulder, whereas the opposite side of her head was an angry mass of pink scar tissue. Her face remained covered, the tinted visor reflecting back an image of Jessamy's confused expression, "You've still no idea who I am do you? I loved you the moment I set eyes on you. The day you helped me... with my bags at Woodvale..."
Jessamy's mouth fell open as Nemesis pulled off her mask and visor, "Alison! We thought..."
"Thought that I was dead? I would've been... if Jack here hadn't pulled me out of the Tamar and put me back together," Alison Nethybridge pointed angrily to her ruined face, her sightless eye, "this... this is your fault."
She trailed a fingernail lightly down over Jessamy's bruised cheek, "Now. You're going to watch while your friends in Berwick Upon Tweed are vapourised. I want you to know how it feels to lose someone you love."
Jessamy already knew. Thanks to Aubrey she knew only too well what it felt like. She was still finding it difficult to comprehend what she'd just learned. Nemesis was in fact the timid, bespectacled communications specialist Alison Nethybridge. The woman they'd left for dead in the River Tamar.
"Alison," Jessamy protested, "if it's about that night in Bristol... i-it was just a bit of fun. We were both strung out being on the run from General Chinnor. We both needed some human contact. That's all it was."
Alison's sword blade was at Jessamy's throat before she even realised the other woman had moved. The razor sharp steel just kissing the skin like a lover's feather soft touch, "A bit of fun? A BIT OF FUN? I loved you."
"Ladies," Aubrey interrupted, "much as I'm enjoying your little catfight I think it's time we put our plan into action. Berwick Upon Tweed's had its three days."
"Please," Jessamy begged, "call them on the shortwave. Give them one last chance to surrender. I'm begging you. I'll do anything."
Aubrey smirked, nodding in agreement, "Yes... you will. But... after we've dealt with your friends," he turned away and punched a red button on one of the black cubes.
"GOOD EVENING CAPTAIN AUBREY. HOW CAN I BE OF ASSISTANCE?" a female's synthesized voice trilled from a hidden speaker, sounding tinny but still recognisable as the same one Jessamy and Hamnavoe had heard in Gloucester's Soteria bunker.
"Good evening Laura," Aubrey leaned against the great oak desk, his back to Jessamy and Alison, "are all systems functioning within normal operational parameters?"
"NEGATIVE CAPTAIN AUBREY. SOTERIA LITE TARGETING SYSTEM STILL REQUIRES AN URGENT SOFTWARE UPDATE."
"I'd like to input target coordinates verbally if that's okay with you Laura."
"Please don't do this!" Jessamy tried to take a step forward but instantly felt Alison's katana nip the skin of her neck. She froze, wondering just how effective the assassin would be if she tried to lunge across the room.
Alison crowded uncomfortably close, watching. Waiting for her captive to try something reckless. Daring her, willing her to. Close enough for Jessamy to feel her breath. Close enough that she could no longer see Jessamy's hands...
"AWAITING TARGET COORDINATES CAPTAIN AUBREY."
Aubrey smiled over his shoulder, then carefully unfolded Jessamy's sketch map as if it were a priceless relic, "Laura. I'd like you to target the following coordinates. They're from the UK Ordnance Survey mapping system. The grid reference is as follows... NM 74882 35318. Latitude 56.456097, longitude -5.6551098."
The voice of the Soteria system read back the coordinates then, "EXTRAPOLATING FROM INFORMATION HELD IN CURRENT DATABASE... TARGET COORDINATES LOCKED IN. HOW MANY UNITS DO YOU WISH TO DEPLOY, CAPTAIN AUBREY?"
Aubrey glanced at Jessamy, "What do you think Jessica? One satellite to destroy your pissy little town? Or shall we use a couple to make absolutely sure?" he turned away, "Laura. Use whichever two units are closest."
"UNITS DD-13 AND BB-8 WILL BE ORBITING AT OPTIMUM RANGE ABOVE THE TARGET COORDINATES IN TWO MINUTES. AWAITING YOUR ORDER TO FIRE, CAPTAIN AUBREY."
Aubrey clenched his jaw, "No more talk. No more fucking around... FIRE!"
"NO!" Jessamy screamed, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
"UNITS DD-13 AND BB-8 WILL FIRE ONCE IN POSITION. YOU NOW HAVE ONE MINUTE FIFTY SECONDS IN WHICH TO ABORT..."
Jessamy twisted sideways, feeling Alison's sword cut into her neck as she wrenched the assassin's HK handgun out of its holster, ducked and rolled across the flagstoned floor. In a moment she was upright...
BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!
"How many more times? The name's Jessamy!"
Her first two shots hit Aubrey in the neck and shoulder. The third missed. He stumbled backwards, bounced off the table and landed in a twisted heap, groaning in pain. Seriously wounded but alive. Alison Nethybridge dropped into a fighting stance, sword gripped two handed in front of her.
"ONE MINUTE FORTY FIVE SECONDS..."
"That was sloppy Alison. Really fucking sloppy," Jessamy grinned, "allowing a prisoner to take your weapon."
"What?" Alison snarled, her ruined face contorting with rage, "you think you're going to abort the countdown? You don't have an authorisation code. Laura won't listen to you."
Jessamy's face broke into a wide smile, "Oh, I've absolutely no intention of stopping it."
Alison looked confused, watching Aubrey out of the corner of her eye clutching a hand to his bleeding neck, coughing up a bloody froth, "What do you mean you've no intention of stopping it? What's so funny?"
Jessamy laughed, backing towards the Soteria Lite apparatus as she covered Alison with her own handgun, "I had no plan when I came here. Then I remembered a friend of mine told me that in the event of a system failure Soteria Lite would accept coordinates input verbally."
"And?"
"Haha! I really can't believe Aubrey was stupid enough to fall for it. The coordinates he's just put in... they're not for Berwick. They're for here. Duart Castle. You, Alison... are fucked!"
"ONE MINUTE THIRTY FIVE SECONDS..."
Alison's face reddened with fury as she realised the extent of their gullibility, "But... but you'll die too!"
Jessamy nodded, "That can't be helped. That's the difference between us Alison. I'm willing to die for the people I love. But I'll be taking you two twisted fucks and the Poseidon with me."
"Unless I abort the countdown myself!" Alison lunged towards Jessamy, her katana slicing a shimmering arc through the air.
...
Fifteen miles away in Tobermory, Hamnavoe stiffened as he heard the sound he'd dreaded. Rigid inflatables from the Poseidon. More than one. Coming their way, fast.
"Stay here," he warned Phoebe. They'd found a comfortable back room on the second floor of an old bakery from where they could keep watch on the Millennium Falcon outside. Hamnavoe drew his handgun, wishing he had something with a bit more oomph, like one of Gorbachev's Kalashnikovs. But he and Jessamy had searched the trawler thoroughly and found no compatible ammunition for them.
The RIBs drew up alongside the old quay. Three men in each.
When they'd taken Jessamy away, Hamnavoe had watched as one of Aubrey's thugs left the trawler carrying a couple of the smuggled guns. He'd guessed they'd be back for the rest. It appeared he'd been right.
Four of them clambered onboard Gorbachev's boat, while one stayed with the RIBs and another remained on the quay shouting orders. A solid looking individual with buzz cut grey hair who Hamnavoe guessed to be of a similar age to himself. It was the one who'd punched Jessamy when she'd been taken prisoner. O'Brian? Was that his name?
Hamnavoe edged closer to the cracked window, hoping that years of grime and cobwebs on the glass would hide him just long enough. With only four out of the six on the boat the situation wasn't ideal. But he guessed that this was as good as it was going to get. He took aim...
...
O'Brian cast his eyes around Tobermory Bay. He was still finding it hard to believe that Beech had been alone onboard the dilapidated trawler with its skipper. Once the guns were loaded aboard the RIBs he resolved to conduct a more thorough search of the town.
What a shit hole. Children and entire families had been evacuated to Mull when Thanatos first started breaking up in orbit thirty years before. Hoping for safety. A better life. Now all that was left were corpses and rats. He wondered how far the old fishing boat had come. It looked barely seaworthy - its gear rusted and corroded, the deck timbers rotted, and all manner of retrofitted additions welded on. An air conditioning unit. Bow plates for ice breaking.
O'Brian stared down at the waterline. To where a roughly square metal box had been fastened in place to the trawler's orange hull. What the fuck could that be? It looked like...
"EVERYBODY OFF THE BOAT! GET OFF NOW!" O'Brian backed away, panicking as he scanned the buildings along Tobermory's main street behind him.
BLAM!
Hamnavoe's shot hit the scavenged fuel tank dead centre. There'd been all sorts of crap in the Millennium Falcon's hold but it wasn't until Phoebe had found a couple of full petrol cans while tidying that he'd had an idea. Leaving Phoebe in hiding, it hadn't taken more than half an hour to strap the tank from an old BMW onto the trawler's hull and fill it.
KABOOM!
The Millennium Falcon was engulfed in a fireball. Plumes of black smoke billowed into the late afternoon sky as the peeling hull was blasted apart, destroying the cargo of Kalashnikovs and anyone who happened to be below decks.
Hamnavoe squinted as he took aim again. Their leader, O'Brian, had dived for cover behind the old village clock tower. Which left only the guy guarding the RIBs as a viable target.
BLAM-BLAM!
Both shots took the man high in the chest as he fumbled with his SA80, throwing him backwards into the harbour's oily water. If the bullets hadn't finished him, drowning certainly would.
TAKATAKATAK!
Glass exploded inches from Hamnavoe's face as O'Brian leaned out of cover and strafed the front of the bakery, "PHOEBE! GET DOWN!" he hissed.
...
On Berwick Upon Tweed's north wall, over a third of the town's defence force were wiped out in the first minute. Reekies charged at the undefended sections, scrabbling up the ancient stonework with their clawlike nails as the defenders desperately tried to pick them off.
But for each Reekie killed it seemed that ten more took their place. Bludgeoning Berwick's frightened soldiers with weapons crafted from rusted car parts and gardening tools, cutting them down with rudimentary crossbows, and blasting away with Kalashnikov assault rifles that they'd mysteriously obtained from who knew where.
