Tamsin Beech Ch. 07: Kerrera

She'd lain awake for much of the night, running through over and over in her mind the afternoon spent with Tamsin. It had been glorious, an awakening, far surpassing any experience she'd had alone. Her cousin had grown beautiful just like Aunt Merida and with such a skilful and considerate lover, Phoebe knew without a doubt that she wanted a repeat performance ...

A quiet metallic click made her freeze on the spot. The sudden movement of dropping into cover could draw attention as surely as shouting. So Phoebe crouched very slowly amongst the heather and gorse as two figures moved into view, climbing the hill from the direction of Ardantrive.

Dressed in faded black fatigues with body armour, their strange angular eyes scanned the way ahead as they advanced, a loose webbing buckle clinking. They both carried Kalashnikovs with additional sidearms in thigh holsters.

Phoebe glanced around. Where exactly had she stopped? A game trail led from the ridgeline directly to the lochan. If she was lucky ...

With a splintering crash and a yelp of surprise, one of the soldiers disappeared from view. Any newcomer to the island was bound to make for one of the only sources of fresh water ... which was precisely why Phoebe and her mother had dug the stake filled pit there.

The other soldier looked alarmed as he spotted her and raised his AK, "Dangsin! Mugi naelyeo nwa!"

Whatever he'd shouted, Phoebe wasn't going to wait for a translation. She raised her Glock in a two-handed grip as the North Korean charged towards her. But then to her surprise he let out a grunt of pain as one of her hidden rabbit snares tightened around his ankle ... and he landed face down in the peaty mud.

"D-drop your weapon or I'll sh-shoot!" she yelled, unable to keep the tremor from her voice.

The soldier jerked his foot, looking down to see what had snagged it.

"P-please," Phoebe begged, "don't make me do this."

"Dangsin-eun jeohang sseulegi," the man snarled, raising his Kalashnikov.

BLAM!

Phoebe shot him once in the head.

. . .

By the time Jessamy reached Slatrach Bay, she could see the wounded Russian Leonid Denisovich being helped aboard the trawler by her brother and Merida, while Hamnavoe stood watch. She raised a hand. It wouldn't do for the old Scot to think she was the enemy and start taking pot shots.

TAKATAKATAK!

Immediately a volley of gunfire from farther up the path peppered the steep embankment beside her. Jessamy caught a glimpse of two black clad figures as she ducked into cover behind a crumbling drystone wall.

"ANGUS! GET THE FUCK UNDER COVER!" she screamed. No-one on the boat would be of much use. She'd have to deal with this on her own.

Another gunshot rang out from the hills to her right. What was up there? The lochan? She prayed that Phoebe was okay. Crawling through waist high reeds, Jessamy brough the crossbow up to her shoulder. Both North Koreans had been out in the open, standing in the middle of the weed choked dirt track that led back to Balliemore and the old jetty.

She slowly eased around the mossy base of the wall so that inch by inch the track gradually came into view. One of the men crouched against the rusting remains of a farmer's quad bike.

Shit. So where was the other?

Jessamy realised she'd be giving her position away, but the longer she dithered the longer the North Koreans would have to get to the boat. She fired a crossbow bolt into the man's eye socket and sat up ...

"Dangsin-eun seong-gi!" shrieked a voice as the other soldier sprang from cover and charged towards Jessamy. She'd been outflanked.

She mentally berated herself for her own carelessness and stupidity.

Something blue moved in Jessamy's peripheral vision and a split second later a butcher's cleaver embedded itself in the North Korean's back, midway between his shoulder blades. He gave a strange, surprised sounding gurgle and dropped dead at her feet.

"What the f ..." she drew her knife as a shadow fell across her, temporarily blocking the sun.

"You hurt?" McTavish asked, offering a hand to help her up.

Jessamy was stunned. She gratefully accepted the Reekie's blue stained hand and allowed herself to be pulled upright, "Uh, thanks."

"No problem," McTavish muttered, "better get onboard."

. . .

Tamsin reached the point where she and Phoebe had turned inland, but instead carried on north along Kerrera's coastal path. With Carn Breugach behind her she passed derelict cottages at Ardchoirc. A child's slide lay sun bleached and rusting on its side under a tangle of knotweed. Somewhere ahead lay the turnoff to the few deserted houses that had once made up Balliemore, and the jetty where the hourly ferry from Gallanachmore on the mainland had once docked.

The sound of automatic gunfire from across the island did nothing to settle her nerves. Neither Phoebe or her mother had taken a rifle so Tamsin guessed that at least one of them had encountered the enemy.

She stopped dead under a canopy of gnarled oak trees, one booted foot in midair as she glimpsed something glisten in the long grass at her feet. Slowly, very slowly she took a step backwards ... away from the tripwire she'd almost walked into.

"STOP!" shouted a voice.

Tamsin looked up, shielding her eyes from the glare of the morning sun. There they were. Two of them - dressed in black overalls and body armour, both striding confidently down the track from Balliemore with weapons trained on her.

"Drop your weapon!" one of them shouted. Tamsin wondered how a North Korean could possibly speak such unaccented English. Clearly educated. She dropped her Grach, and as inconspicuously as possible took another step backwards.

The English speaking soldier lowered his weapon, an AK12 and grinned wolfishly. With jet black hair and angular features he reminded Tamsin of the more fearsome of the Coalition soldiers stationed on Lindisfarne. But the way this one was smiling as he approached unnerved her. Cold, calculating.

"We meet at last ... Tamsin Zakhvatchikov," he said.

Tamsin was stunned as she edged back another step, "H-how do you know who I am?"

"I should know. Before you ran off to join the resistance, you were my fiancee after all.

The words chilled her. It was him. Kim Napp Gylan himself. It was for this man she'd spent four years of her life imprisoned on Lindisfarne.

"Cho!" he ordered, "search her for any other weapons."

The other North Korean nodded and strode forward as Tamsin took another step back.

But Kim Napp Gylan had noticed, "Wait! She's up to something!"

Cho began to turn. But his superior's warning had come a moment too late. His right foot snagged against the tripwire and a second later ...

KRUMP!

The man threw himself to one side as a heavy tractor wheel dropped from the tree above him, the impact shattering his left arm and crushing the ribs on one side of his chest. It bounced and rolled off the road onto the rocky beach.

Tamsin drew her axe and crouched. The Grach was out of reach somewhere in the long grass. If she ran she had doubt the North Korean would simply shoot her in the back. The mortally wounded Cho groaned in agony, coughing up blood by the side of the dusty road.

"You devious little bitch," Kim Napp Gylan growled as he dropped the AK12 and pulled out an enormous hunting knife instead, "if this is what you want ... so be it."

He circled around, watching Tamsin's every move.

"Your grandfather promised me a wife, to cement our uneasy alliance. I came all this way ... just for you."

She could tell what he was trying to do ...

"I could have given you anything. The best food, servants. You wouldn't have had to spend your life sleeping in ditches and hiding."

Kim Napp Gylan was stalking her. Trying to get her back facing the sun so his knife would dazzle her with the sunlight on its blade, "You've no right to even be here," Tamsin spat, "this is our land."

The North Koreans' leader laughed bitterly, "Well no-one put up much of a fight for it. Not even your pitiful resistance movement."

Tamsin cocked her head as she thought she heard something over the wind and the wavelets lapping at the shore.

But he hadn't finished goading her, "There can't have been many of your resistance friends left once your headquarters was destroyed. Did you ever know who actually found them and gave the order?"

Tamsin glared. She didn't. No-one had even wondered. What would have been the point? No amount of head scratching and investigation would bring Novaye Nadezhde and its four hundred strong population of men, women and children back.

Kim Napp Gylan's smile grew wider, showing the perfect teeth that only the highest ranking members of the Coalition could afford, "It was me."

Tamsin's face contorted with rage. She knew it was what her enemy had been trying to do. Make her lose her temper and attack. But she couldn't help herself. She raised the axe and charged ...

Kim Napp Gylan smoothly sidestepped and sliced across Tamsin's upper arm. She squealed as searing pain made her drop the axe, and clutched her wound, feeling warm blood pulsing through her fingers.

"Too easy," said the North Korean.

Tamsin staggered back, tears stinging her eyes. In an instant of rage she'd forgotten everything Leonid had taught her back in Conwy. She'd let her emotions get the better of her.

"I know what your grandfather wants," Kim Napp Gylan sneered, "the nuclear weapons on board the Baekdusan. He's desperate for them. But if he makes the first move against my people ... he'll have a war on his hands."

Thokka-thokka ...

There was the sound again. Tamsin feinted to her enemy's left side, then dropped to the ground trying to sweep his legs from under him. But he was too fast. He met her kneecap with the toe of his boot as she swung her feet. Pain exploded through her knee, driving out all rational thought from Tamsin's head. She rolled away, trying to stand but guessed it would be a while before she could do so.

"Enough of this," Kim Napp Gylan snarled impatiently. Before she could squirm away, he roughly seized Tamsin's long red hair and pulled her head back ready to slit her throat.

THOKKA-THOKKA-THOKKA ...

Through tears of pain and frustration Tamsin was astounded to see not one, but two Russian Kamov helicopter gunships swooping up the strait from the south. Kim Napp Gylan took a step back, letting go of her hair.

Russian reinforcements. So what remained of the resistance was finally doomed. She gaped in horror as the lead Kamov slowed to a hover, the downdraft flattening the grass around her and blowing her hair in her eyes. The side door opened and from a distance of no more than fifty feet a uniformed figure peered out at her.

Volk.

She wasn't going to go down without a fight. Making the most of Kim Napp Gylan's distraction, Tamsin snatched up her axe and spun around towards him, screaming as the pain in her injured arm and knee threatened to overwhelm her. With a single blow, the North Korean leader's head left his shoulders and hit the road with a dull crack.

"And the name's Beech, asshole," Tamsin glared defiantly up at Volk as Kim Napp Gylan's headless body collapsed in a heap behind her. The suspicious North Koreans would undoubtedly blame President Zakhvatchikov and the Russians for their leader's death and they'd have their war.

The Kamovs could only land at the Ardantrive boatyard she reasoned. So if she hurried she still had time. Limping past Kim Napp Gylan's decapitated corpse and the groaning Major Cho, she stumbled up the hill towards Balliemore, and across the island ... Slatrach Bay.

. . .

Half an hour later ...

"I want this man kept alive," General Volk told his medic as he gazed impassively down at the wounded Cho, "he's the only witness the North Koreans will believe. If they hear that a rebel killed their commander in chief they'll remain as part of the Coalition to avenge his death. If they have any reason to believe otherwise ... we'll have a war on our hands. Is that understood?"

The medic nodded.

"The resistance might be across the island," said one of the Kamov pilots, "shall we give chase sir?"

"No," answered Volk quietly, "hunting them down will give our North Korean allies a purpose. Let them go."

This wasn't exactly how the president had planned it. But Vladimir Zakhvatchikov had finally succeeded. If Cho could be kept alive long enough to convince the North Koreans that a rebel had indeed murdered their leader, war would be averted and the president could assume control of the entire Coalition. Though it might be prudent, he thought, to keep the killer's identity a secret.

PART FIVE: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

"Come with us," Merida Beech pleaded.

Jessamy stood on the stone quay at Slatrach Bay regarding her oldest and dearest friend, "I want to. But after the way I spoke to you Meri, I deserve nothing. I didn't think Angus was well enough to travel. But if it's what he wants ..."

"She's right mum. Th-there's nothing for us here anymore," Phoebe had come scrambling down from Kerrera's hilly interior only minutes earlier, a haunted expression in her eyes and Jessamy's old Glock clutched tightly in her trembling hand. Jessamy could guess why. She'd been in a similar state after she'd killed her first Reiver in Dalmally over thirty years earlier.

From across the island they could hear the whirring clatter of helicopters and waited for the inevitable moment when the Coalition would come swooping over the hills towards them with guns blazing.

Jessamy sighed, "Well ... alright. Thanks. But I'm going to find your daughter first. I'm going to find Tamsin."

"I'll go with you," Ross called.

"No," Jessamy stated firmly, "this is the least I can do. Get your boat ready to sail. There's still a chance we can slip away."

McTavish called down from his spot on the wheelhouse roof, pointing, "It's her ... Tamsin."

They looked as one towards the old Balliemore road leading through the hills to the ferry. Just a few hundred yards away, a scruffy figure limped slowly towards them, the morning sunlight glinting on her long red hair unmistakable.

"She's hurt!" Merida cried.

"Start your engine," Jessamy ordered, "we'll go get her. Phee, cummon."

Tamsin collapsed into their arms as Jessamy and her daughter reached her minutes later, one arm saturated in blood and one knee looking distinctly odd.

"Kim N-napp Gylan. He's dead," Tamsin groaned as they half dragged, half carried her down to the dock.

"Who?" Phoebe asked.

Jessamy shook her head, "Something to do with the North Koreans."

They took Tamsin onboard the Novaya Nachalo and carried her below to assess her injuries while Ross carefully reversed the trawler back out into the current. McTavish, Jessamy and Hamnavoe remained on deck, watchful for any sign of pursuit from the Russians.

But it never came.

They steamed unchallenged westward past the island of Mull, where Jessamy pointed out the wide bowl shape where Duart Castle had once stood on a rocky promontory before she'd tricked Jack Aubrey into firing two of Soteria's satellites at himself. She showed them the ruins of Torosay and Tobermory where she'd grown up. And then finally, with Ardnamurchan Point on their right they emerged into open sea.

"Where are we heading?" asked Ross.

"Leonid and Tamsin both need more time to heal," said Merida, "she has a deep laceration that needs stitching and has lost a lot of blood. But what concerns me more is the dislocated knee. I've no idea how she managed to walk across the island on it. We need somewhere with a settlement where we can maybe work in return for their medical treatment."

"Hamnavoe too," Jessamy added soberly, "willow bark and cannabis is hardly touching his pain now. In the coming weeks he's going to need something a lot stronger."

"Where do you suggest?" asked Ross.

"I think I know just the place, if it's okay with all of you," Jessamy piped up with a twinkle in her eye, "I'd been meaning to go back to pay a visit. And by the way Meri ... you've a fine daughter."

Merida seemed about to reply, but held her tongue.

"And what's more ... I think if you guys all stick together, this Volk guy and his president won't stand a fucking chance. That includes your blue friend up on the roof ... McTavish. He saved my sorry ass after I treated him like shit ... and I won't forget that."

The others nodded in agreement.

"So ... I was thinking, Phoebe and I would like to join you. If that's okay with you Pheebs?"

Phoebe paused in cleaning her Glock and smiled.

Jessamy continued, "But we're British. Not Russian or North Korean or any other damn thing. British. So ... can we at least give the boat a British sounding name?"

Bottlenose dolphins playfully rode their bow wave as Ross steered the newly christened Kerrera II northward.

THE END OF CHAPTER SEVEN

With a loud grunt, Volk ejaculated in Ludmila Mudak's laughing face. Glistening ropes of his semen landed in her hair, gobs and splatters festooned her cheeks and dribbled into the corners of her mouth, "My goodness General Volk! Aren't you a messy boy?"

She'd teased him mercilessly from the moment they'd stumbled back into her quarters on board the aircraft carrier Lenin. After postponing their dinner date for three solid days of meetings with the North Koreans aboard the Baekdusan, he'd finally found the time and had been in a celebratory mood. Wine had flowed freely and Ludmila Mudak had been more than willing to make up for lost time.

After flying back from Kerrera, their wounded Major Cho had lived just long enough to recount the story of how a nameless rebel had brutally murdered and mutilated their beloved leader Kim Napp Gylan. President Zakhvatchikov had immediately offered the considerable resources at his disposal in order to bring the perpetrator to justice.

Volk failed to mention to the North Koreans the quiet word he'd had with Cho. The murderer's identity would have to remain a secret. If word got out that Zakhvatchikov's own granddaughter had been responsible, war would be inevitable.

"So President Zakhvatchikov is now leader of the entire Coalition?" Mudak asked, "some kind of national hero?"

Volk rolled on to his back, breathing heavily and just nodded.

"Mmm," Mudak purred, "the most powerful man ... on the planet," she twirled a fingertip in his greying chest hair and leaned over to kiss him, "what does that make you my ... prints sredi vlyublennykh?"

Her lips tasted salty, slippery and wet with his own cum but Volk didn't care. Ludmila Mudak had let him do things to her that he'd only ever fantasised about. He just prayed that this night wouldn't be a one off and that she wouldn't be tempted away by someone younger, "He's ... still my president. But he's made me commander in chief of our forces here in Britain."

Mudak pushed herself up on one elbow, her pierced nipples pressing against his chest, "Really?"

Volk nodded.

"So ... not General Volk anymore?"

Volk gripped her waist, "No. Supreme Marshal Volk. But you, Major Mudak, may call me whatever you like."

She let her hand slide down over his ribcage, slowly down over his abdomen and on into the thatch of fine curling hairs below, "So after the president ... you, are now the most powerful man in the world."

Volk nodded wistfully, "I suppose so. Yes. There's only one more promotion left for me now ..."

COMING SOON ... CHAPTER EIGHT: KIRKWALL