Tamsin Beech Ch. 12: Windermere

Yeonmi's eyes blazed, "What's to stop me killing you now and driving the rest of the way alone?"

Tamsin chewed her lip for a moment, "Because ... you're a good mother. You won't put your daughter in any unnecessary danger. And besides, Leonid's outside. He's had special forces' training too ... if you harm either of us he won't hesitate to put a fucking bullet through your skull."

Yeonmi was silent.

"One more thing," Tamsin added, "if you eventually get to the Baekdusan and decide to nuke Fort George ... just consider for a moment who else you'll be nuking there too."

The North Korean glanced down at her suckling daughter, then glared murderously up at Tamsin. For the first time since she'd fled Fort George, she knew she'd been well and truly outmanoeuvred. She bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood, "I nappeun nyeon."

"Swear at me all you like," said Tamsin coldly and calmly, "do we have a deal?"

After half a minute's hesitation when it appeared the North Korean woman would surely draw her own weapon, Yeonmi nodded. Just once, "I will take you. But I swear, on my brother's grave ... that once we're there, I'll make you pay for all you've done."

. . .

Over two hundred miles farther to the south, Tamsin's other aunt - Jessamy Beech steered her GAZ Tigr around icy potholes, remains of corpses and the snow covered burnt out carcasses of other vehicles. She'd passed into Oxfordshire at the limit of the Coalition's infrastructure repairs and the condition of the frozen, rutted roads was growing steadily worse.

Asking around colonists, refugees and contacts from her bounty hunting days had given her no clues whatsoever as to the Baekdusan's whereabouts. But if she found the carrier there was a slim chance that she might also find Ada. She had to keep trying. They'd all assumed the DPRK's flagship might need repairs and there would be only so many ports where a vessel of that size could be moored with both the facilities and deep enough water. But where?

If she wasn't going to resign herself to traveling around the entire coastline of the UK, checking out each and every harbour, she was going to have to consult some experts. Pulling off the road to avoid the jagged meteorite crater up ahead that had once been Oxford itself, Jessamy steered the Tigr across scrubland in a roughly south westerly direction ...

COMING SOON ... CHAPTER THIRTEEN: BATH

"Ada. Dobryy vecher. Please, er ... come in," President Volk stood to one side to allow Ada into his quarters.

"I ... apologise for my appearance sir," Volk watched the girl self consciously tug the sleeves of her uniform overalls down, in a vain attempt to flatten out some of the creases. After a full day scavenging in the city's old ferry terminal with Kazan and his men, he guessed that she simply hadn't had time to source attire more suited to dinner with a president.

"Erm, not ... at all Private Prizrak," Volk reassured her, surreptitiously eyeing her up and down. At only nineteen Ada Prizrak was stunning. Long blonde hair tied up in a sensible bun, eyes the icy blue colour of glacial meltwater. Full and sensual lips. Bone structure that was somehow both strong and delicate at the same time, and even the black Spetsnaz uniform looked good on her, clinging to toned curves that showed not an inch of fat.

She'd thankfully left off her kevlar body armour.

Ada was a fine young woman. Krasivaya. But he had no doubt that with her Spetsnaz training she would be capable of snapping his neck easily with her bare hands. Volk noticed something else too. For the first time in a long while, for some inexplicable reason ... he was nervous. Like a tongue tied teenager on a first date, he was nervous, "you look ... capable. In your uniform that is."

"Capable, sir?"

Volk knew that it had been a worthwhile day for Ada. He'd had Kazan report as soon as he'd returned to the ship. The shore party had come back to the Baekdusan with a hundred metres of cabling, silicone sealant and an assortment of power tools that could be broken down for spares. With nothing new being manufactured, the Coalition had learned to recycle and repurpose until things reached a stage where they were utterly beyond repair.

"Capable ... of, of ensuring my safety. As, er ... as one of my bodyguard."

What was the matter with him? Were his nerves affecting his speech? Perhaps it was just his imagination. Or perhaps the effects of the glass of vodka he'd knocked back earlier.

"Ah, yes. I ... understand now sir," Ada Prizrak replied politely. She fixed him with her cool gaze as she pushed an errant lock of hair back behind one delicately sculpted ear.

"Why don't you let your hair down?" Volk suggested, as he led Ada across the cabin to where his dining table had been set for two, "let me see the real you? I'm sure that, um ... under the, the Spetsnaz uniform there's a beautiful young woman hiding somewhere."

Ada blushed as she sat where Volk indicated, "Yes sir."

Who was she to deny the president's request? Reaching behind her, Ada released her hair from its tight knot. Then quickly ran her clawed fingers through it as it dropped around her shoulders.

"Much better," from a dusty bottle, Volk poured pre-Thanatos wine into two mismatched glasses, "and please, for this evening you can, er ... you can dispense with the 'sir'. You're my guest."

For a moment, Ada looked as nervous as he felt, "So, wh-what should I call you s ..."

"Call me Alexei."

Ada repeated the name softly as if testing the feel of it, "Alexei."

Alexei Volk sat and lifted the lids from serving dishes. Solyanka - meat, pickles, tomatoes and herbs in a thick soup. Pelmeni - Russian ravioli, and kotlety - fried meat patties of beef and chicken. While growing up near Moscow's Ostozhenka Street he'd been used to eating like this almost every day. Until his tenth year ... when Zakhvatchikov's predecessor had seen fit to bring the rogue asteroid Thanatos down on all their heads.

Ada gaped. The feast laid out before her certainly made a change from the kimchi the rest of the crew had to endure.

"Help yourself. The pirogi are particularly good," Volk had dismissed his staff for the evening and found it quite a novelty to be serving up his own food for once, "you have lovely hair Ada."

Ada carefully ladled soup into her bowl, "Thankyou sir. Can I ask why you wished to see me?"

Volk bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself laughing. Wasn't it fucking obvious? He wanted to rip the uniform off her and throw her facedown on his bed. Bury his face between her warm thighs and do all the depraved things that Ludmila Mudak had denied him for months, "I uh ... wanted to get to know you better Ada."

No sooner were the words out of Volk's mouth, than he recognised the truth in them.

It was true. He'd been infatuated by the beautiful blonde recruit since meeting her up on the Baekdusan's flight deck. She was the polar opposite of everything Ludmila Mudak had once been. Demure, natural and above all, pure. What could be the harm in treating young Ada Prizrak with a modicum of respect? Seducing the woman on her terms rather than using his rank to bully and cajole to get what he wanted?

"You have a very big cabin sir," Ada interrupted his thoughts.

"Uh, do I?" Volk glanced around, taking a sip of his wine. It wasn't quite up to the standards of the carrier Lenin's presidential suite. But it was warm and comfortable. Oil lanterns. Grey steel bulkheads. Living space with dining and office areas, a separate bedroom with ensuite and a dressing room, "how big is your own cabin?"

Ada laughed. A high, musical sound that instantly transformed her face into that of an angel in Volk's eyes, "I don't have a cabin sir. Alexei I mean. I share a berth with one of the North Korean women. One of us sleeps while the other's on duty," she shrugged, "I don't even know her name."

Volk nodded, "Yes. We still have a language barrier with the North Koreans unfortunately. Yes indeed. But you've done well to learn Russian. Where was it you were recruited from?"

"Fort George sir. A holding facility for refugees in Scotland."

"Fort George," Volk nodded, "I know it. Eighteenth century fortification. It could've made a viable settlement. If the resistance hadn't forced us to abandon it. So you're an orphan?"

Ada sipped a spoonful of her soup, forcing herself to eat with a measure of decorum. She was sitting barely four feet away from the president himself after all, "I've always assumed so. My sister disappeared and I've not seen my mother since I was about six. I ... don't really remember much about her to be honest. Just that she was hardly ever there."

"Zakhvatchikov did a noble thing. Recruiting orphans like yourself Ada. A pity the resistance saw fit to undo all his good work. The north is lost. With the Baekdusan and a handful of colonists, we can begin rebuilding here in the south, but first ..."

Ada paused, soup spoon halfway to her mouth, "First?"

Volk hesitated. Why was he telling her this? Ada Prizrak was certainly young and achingly pretty. And he wanted nothing more than to lure her into his bed in the next room. But she was a bodyguard. A 'postoronniy' - nothing more.

But then if he wanted to earn her trust, wasn't being open as good a place as any to start? Instead of becoming involved with Ludmila Mudak's power hungry scheming, why hadn't he waited for this little beauty to come along?

"I'll make the resistance pay for what they've done. With Captain Geomi's help we have targeted several locations where the resistance scum might be based. All one of us needs to do is input a launch code and the Baekdusan's missiles will annihilate them. You really have lovely hair Ada."

Hadn't the president already said that? Ada thought for a second, "If it brings peace then it's a good plan sir."

Satisfied with her response, Volk lounged back in his chair, toying with the stem of his wine glass, "Tell me Ada. Do you have ... fond memories of Fort George?"

Ada shook her head vehemently, "Not really sir. I just remember being cold and lonely almost all the time."

Volk smiled. A wide, wolfish smile. If he was to impress this young woman, he wasn't going to do it by simply feeding her with a sumptuous feast prepared by others. He was going to have to give her something that only he had the power to give, "Then ... as a gift to you, I'll order Captain Geomi to target Fort George with one of our missiles. Yes indeed. Wipe the place out once and for all. The source of all your bad memories gone in a flash. How does that sound?"

Ada swallowed hard. This was unexpected. She'd arrived at the president's suite expecting him to force himself on her and have to lie back and pretend to enjoy it as he fucked her. Now he was offering to waste one of the Baekdusan's precious arsenal of nuclear weapons destroying an empty fort in the middle of nowhere. For her.

She wasn't sure what else to do, so nodded, "It, uh ... sounds good sir. Alexei I mean."

"Good," Volk grinned and drained his wine glass, "and can I just say that you have lovely hair Ada."