Never Never (2 page)

T
he water pummeled
Mike's face like a personal vendetta.

Even with the precious seconds he'd had to jump free of the dinghy, all control was ripped from his hands as the explosion of water ruptured in front of him when the airliner hit.

He was being dragged down to the darkest depths of the Irish Sea, his arms and legs thrashing to fight the suction of the vortex. Panic filled him. He didn't know if he was up or down, if he was swimming in the direction of the surface or the bottom.

His lungs burned as he tried to combat the fear that was freezing his joints. Something hard slammed into his side spinning him end over end in torturously slow circles. He only had a moment to pray for Sarah, Gavin and the baby before his head broke the surface. He sucked in gasps of breath.

“Da!”

Thank you, God.
Mike's eyes were blurred and stinging, blinding him to all but the sunlight overhead. He felt hands tugging his arm and he twisted his head in Gavin's direction.

“Da! You're bleeding!”

“Get to the shore,” Mike gasped, his eyesight clearing just enough to make out Gavin's face. “Swim to…” He swallowed more water as a large wave swamped him. The water turned black around them. It was thick with debris, with oil.

Gavin released him and began to swim for the shore. One hundred meters, no more. Mike's limbs were heavy and when his feet touched something soft but solid that shouldn't be there fear race up his spine. He turned in the direction toward shore behind Gavin.

The solid form beneath his feet fell away. Mike focused on his strokes. Water filled his mouth and nose but he didn't stop to cough or retch. He plunged on through the water until he saw Gavin reach the beach and collapse. The sight gave Mike the strength he needed. His boy was safe. Now he just had to join him. The further he swam from the roiling vortex the less the water fought him.

He knew he was tiring, but the shore was close now. His waterlogged boots were like twin weights anchoring him to the seabed. He hadn't thought to kick them free. He dog paddled closer to the shore. His calf muscles spasmed violently. Suddenly, he felt the shelf under his feet. Two more hard strokes and he was standing. Five more steps and the water was to his waist.

The air was silent. No cries for help. Just the lapping sound of debris and junk scraping the shore.

Finally he fell forward to crawl the rest of the way out of the water. He collapsed next to Gavin, trembling and breathless.

“Da,” Gavin said in a whisper. “What happened?”

Before Mike could answer, Gavin make a strangling sound and scrambled to his feet. The surf surged an object onto the beach next to Mike. When he turned to look, he saw it was a woman's body. Headless.

Mike recoiled and dragged himself to his feet. He saw the airliner's fuselage protruding from the center of the Irish Sea where they'd been fishing. The surrounding water was thick with debris. And bodies.

Mike blinked several times to clear his vision, then turned to follow Gavin into the woods. The terrain dropped away when he hit the first line of trees and he stumbled. Gavin was already standing by the Jeep.

Mike staggered the last few yards to the vehicle. Gavin stood with his back against the Jeep staring over Mike's shoulder.

The sky was dark with fluttering debris as pieces of the airliner's cabin rained down on them.

“Should we…do something…?” Gavin asked.

“Nay,” Mike rasped, leaning against the car. “There'll be no survivors.”

“I didn't hear an explosion. Did you?”

Mike turned and felt the solid comfort of the Jeep against his back as he leaned into it, his legs shaking from his swim.

“No.”

“The engines were going one minute and the next…” Gavin shook his head. “It just fell out of the sky.”

“Are ye all right, lad? Can you drive? ”

Gavin nodded but he seemed unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of the detritus of everyday life onboard a transatlantic airline now scattered to the winds.

“Should we…see if there's anything to salvage?” Gavin asked tentatively.

“Nay, lad.” Mike watched the dark form of a body bobbing alongside the visible part of the wing of the airliner. They would do better to get back to the nunnery as soon as possible. “Let's go. We can't do anything here.”

As Gavin turned from the terrible sight, Mike put a hand on his shoulder. With so much death suddenly surrounding them—of people who were drinking cocktails and watching movies just minutes ago—it felt vital to feel the solid flesh and bone of his lad.

Gavin looked at him. “You okay, Da?”

“Aye,” Mike said gruffly, turning away before Gavin could see the emotion in his eyes. He jerked open the passenger's side door and fell into the seat. The sun from the September day had ebbed away leaving only the chill of the coming autumn.

Gavin got in the driver's seat and inserted the key in the ignition.

“We lost our tackle,” he said. “And all our catch.”

Mike closed his eyes. “We'll find more.”

The sound of the ignition clicking filled the Jeep's interior.

“It won't start,” Gavin said. He turned the key again. Nothing. Mike looked again in the direction of where the airliner went down.

Oh, shit.

M
aster Sergeant Padraig Hurley
stood on the parade grounds on the army base outside of Dublin city limits and watched the troops file past him. A line of three vehicles moved to where the truck depot was located behind the first barracks. It was eighteen hundred hours with most of his men expecting to be dismissed to the mess hall. He watched them go through their drill with heavy limbs and sluggish paces.

As his men passed, he even noticed scowls and disgruntled glances in his direction.

It hadn't been this way five years ago. Then, before the EMP, Hurley had the power to make their lives a living hell on this earth. That power had commanded respect and immediate obedience.

Now, over the years a full third of his troops had slunk off into the night with Hurley's superiors telling him there was nothing they could do about it—not until Ireland could rebuild, not until Ireland's allies could give them a hand, not until Ireland was on its feet again.

And in the meantime, Master Sergeant Hurley was practically leading a volunteer army.

Frustrated, he blew his whistle and watched the men come to a gradual stop. Nothing crisp about it. A few even stood with their weight shifted to one leg, their shoulders sagging, their heads twisting around to grin at a friend.

“Dismissed!” he barked, feeling an irrational urge to lift his weapon and mow down the first line of men in front of him.

Think that would get their attention? Think they might be able to hold ranks for longer than fifteen minutes then?

He watched them wander toward the barracks and the mess tent. He felt the sharpness in the air of the coming autumn and his eye again caught the line of Jeeps past the parade ground.

Only for some reason they weren't moving anymore.

F
rom where she
stood waiting on the front steps of the convent Sarah finally saw the two men emerge from the shadows.

“Mike!”

“Aye, it's us,” he called, his voice thick with exhaustion.

She ran down the steps and into the darkness. They met in the middle of the garden path. Her arms went around his waist. His clothes were wet. She pulled back as Gavin edged past them heading for the front door.

“What happened? Why are you so late? Why are you wet?”

“Sure, I'll tell you everything, Sarah,” Mike said, “only I'm starving and frozen to the bone.”

“Did you fall in? Why are you wet?”

Mother Angelina met them at the door and lifted a lantern to peer into Mike's face.

“You've returned,” she said. “Sister Monica is preparing a late meal. You'll need a bandage.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Mike said. In the lantern light, Sarah could see that his face was ashen and his shoulders sagged with weariness. In a flash, she realized they must have walked from Rosslare.

“Mike, the Jeep….”

“You're not going to let me even sit down first?”

Noises came from down the long stone hall. Sophia, disheveled and groggy, was pulling on a robe and following Gavin to the dining room. As they entered, one of the nuns was building up the fire in the fireplace. Both Mike and Gavin went to stand near it and held out their hands.

Another nun appeared with a stack of blankets and laid them in front of the fire.

“You'll be needing to take off those wet things,” she said brusquely. They didn't hesitate although Sophia turned her back as her husband and father-in-law stripped in front of the fire before they were wrapped in blankets. Chairs were pushed to the fireplace where the two now sat. Sarah knelt near Mike's chair and took his hand. It was like ice.

Sister Monica handed both men steaming mugs of tea and returned to the kitchen. Fiona and Declan appeared in the doorway.

Sarah waited while Mike and Gavin warmed themselves and ate. Sister Monica stitched and bandaged a cut over Mike's eye.

“You have our curiosity,” Mother Angelina said with a smile. “If you are ready to tell your tale?”

“How did you fall in the water?” Sarah asked. “
Both
of you?”

“We didn't fall in,” Gavin said. He sat with one arm draped around Sophia's shoulders. He looked tired, his eyes were glassy and vacant.

“We jumped,” Mike said as Sister Monica added a long draught of whiskey to his third cup of hot tea. “Did you happen to see the airliner that flew over this afternoon?”

Sarah frowned. “I heard it. Why? Did it drop something?”

“You could say that.”

“It fell out of the sky, so it did,” Gavin said to his wife. “The engines went silent and it just…fell.”

“Almost on top of us,” Mike added.

Sarah felt her heart beginning to pound in her throat.

“We jumped in the water to avoid getting hit.”

“How can a plane just fall?” Fiona asked. “I've never heard of that.”

“Mother of God pray for us,” Mother Angelina murmured. Sarah looked at her and then back at Mike.

There's nothing to worry about. It's all over and they're alive.

“There were many bodies?” Angelina asked quietly.

“Aye, Mother. Many.”

The room was silent except for the hushed prayers of the Sisters and the crackle of the wood in the fireplace. Sarah noticed that Mac had entered the room and now stood by the door listening.

“You walked back, didn't you?” Sarah asked, feeling a ball of hard panic sitting in her throat.

“The Jeep's kaput,” Mike said wearily.

“Why? How?” Declan asked. His words were slightly slurred.

“We tried to start it,” Gavin said. “It wouldn't turn over.”

“The battery?” Sarah asked. Mike looked at her but didn't answer.

“Jaysus, Joseph and Mary!” Fiona gasped. “You think it's another EMP, don't you?”

“I fear it might be,” Mike said.

As soon as his words left his mouth Sarah felt the floor drop away and her vision waver. She stood up, her hands on the arm of his chair for support.

“Sarah, lass…”

“Oh my God,” she said, her eyes on the fire. The room and the people in it dropped away.

John.

M
ike stood
in the washroom the next morning dripping from the ice cold water he'd just splashed on his face. He didn't need a mirror to tell him he looked rough.

Sarah had held all the questions he knew she was brimming with until he'd had a night's sleep. When he awoke this morning, she was already gone. Off tending to Siobhan most likely. He grabbed a towel and gingerly rubbed his face, mindful of the bandage.

He knew her first thought when she heard about the airliner was of John. He'd fretted about that very thing on the walk back to the convent. But in the end, it was what it was. The lad was either safe in the UK. Or he wasn't.

Deep in his thoughts, he didn't notice that Sarah had walked up and was standing at the washroom door with the baby in her arms. Looking at her, he could see she'd lost all her pregnancy weight. Her jeans even looked a little loose. He dropped the towel in the stone basin in front of him.

“We'll get him back,” he said. “I swear we will.”

She moved to him and he took Siobhan from her. The child's beauty always amazed him. Where she got that translucent pink skin and the wide blue eyes was beyond him. He kissed her, prompting a giggle.

“Your Da's scratchy this morning, eh, Siobhan?” he said with a laugh. When he looked at Sarah, his smile fell away.

“How?” she said, her arms crossed. “
How
will we get him back? Are we going to the UK? Or are we going to wait for him to come back here?”

“I don't know.”

“Because it's just something people say, isn't it? ‘We'll get him back.' Only you don't have a plan of how to do that. What if we leave and he's heading back here? You know John.”

Mike sighed. “Aye, I do. The lad will come here. That's certain.”

“So we
won't
get him back, is what you're saying. We'll stay and wait and hope he shows up.”

“Sarah…”

“Do you think he made it there safely?”

“The plane came down hours after he should have landed in Oxford.”

She chewed her lip and he knew he hadn't told her anything she hadn't already told herself.

“Have you had breakfast yet?” he asked, shifting Siobhan to his other arm and reaching for his shirt. It was cold. Either winter was going to be particularly brutal this year or just long as hell.

“Siobhan ate,” Sarah said.

They moved into the sunshine and Mike blinked at the glare.

“How's your head?” she asked.

“Fine. I asked Declan to gather everyone.”

“Fiona told me. What are you going to say?”

“Just that we suspect there was another EMP.”

“How does that affect them?” Sarah said as they walked to the main house. “We've been essentially living without electricity for the last four and a half years. It's not like their lives will change.”

“This second EMP, if that's what it was, changes everything,” Mike said, pausing on the doorstep to the convent. He handed the child back to Sarah while he buttoned his shirt. “It evens the playing field. Whatever edge the Garda or Dublin or even the UK had is gone now. There are no lights
anywhere
now. No vehicles and no communications. We've all gone back to square one.”

“What do you think people will do?”

“No telling. But if the Dubliners leave the city—which is likely—to look for food or to take what they need—we need to be ready.”

“Is that necessary? They can't find us here.”

“We need a place we can defend. A fortress.”

“Not this castle idea of yours again.” Sarah rolled her eyes.

“Aye, that's it exactly. A castle. With the ocean behind us and high on a bluff where we can see what's coming. Nobody will be able to scale the walls or burn us out.”

“Ever hear of a siege?”

“Not when there's grazing and crops and a water source inside the castle.”

Sarah looked uncertainly around her. He knew she felt safe here. The blackbirds sang and flew over the little garden plot that had comfortably fed the entire convent—nearly seventy people—all summer long.

“Likely Dublin and the other main cities will react at first by looting themselves,” Mike said, “but they'll soon get hungry enough to come into the countryside.”

Her face was screwed into a mask of confusion. “
Who
are you talking about?”

“The opportunists, the provisional government, the army. And it's people like us they'll look to take from. We'll need to move quickly.”

Sarah put a hand on Mike's arm as if to prevent him from entering the front door. Siobhan began to fuss in her arms and he took the baby from her.

“You just got through telling me the only way to find John again is to wait for him to come back
here
.”

“Listen, Sarah…”

“
No
.” Her face was flushed. “He's coming back
here
. You know he is. If…if he can.”

“Sarah, lass, listen to me…”

“No! I'm not leaving without him. You can do what you want.” She pulled Siobhan out of his arms, causing the child to give a startled shriek, and stomped into the convent.

T
he dining room
was the biggest room in the nunnery. Since Sarah and Mike and the people of the compound had come, everyone took their meals together in this room.

Fiona thought she would never get tired of seeing their whole community around the table like one big happy family. Her two little girls sat to her left on a long wooden bench. They were inseparable and Fiona was glad for that. Both of them had seen some terrible things in their young lives. It was good that they had each other.

Declan sat on her right. Solemn, silent and still. Nothing like the man she'd once known and loved. The man who had led his gypsy family with humor and bravery. Now his hands shook and there were times when he looked at her with uncertainty.

Breakfast had been over for an hour but the air buzzed with anticipation. She hoped Mike wasn't planning on breaking the news to everyone about the EMP as some sort of surprise since she was pretty sure everyone already knew.

When Sarah came into the room—a squirming, fighting Siobhan in her arms—her face was dark with frustration. A few steps later, Mike entered to cheers and applause from the gathered men and women. He went to the head of the table and held out his arms for quiet. Fiona noticed he did not look in Sarah's direction. Sophia—so big she looked like she'd deliver any moment—lumbered over to Sarah to relieve her of Siobhan. The child settled down quickly.

Fiona knew that everyone here had cause to trust and respect her brother. From the men he'd rescued from the work camp in Dublin last spring to the women he'd brought home safely from the rape camp—herself included. She felt a movement on her right and placed a calming hand on Declan's knee. He'd even found her dear Declan and brought him back from the grave. Almost literally.

“Well, sure you'll have all heard the big news by now,” Mike said in a loud voice. Instantly, the talking ceased and all eyes regarded him.

“Is it true then?” Terry Donaghue called out. A thin, wiry man, it had taken Terry many months to regain his strength. He sat with his wife, Jill, and their two sons, Tommy and Darby.

“We won't know for sure until the evening news,” Mike said to general laughter. “But I think it's a fair guess.”

“Did you leave the Jeep in the woods?” Tommy asked.

“Aye and I'll be asking you and Gavin to return to it and strip it of anything that might be of use to us,” Mike said.

“What does it mean for us?” Liddy O'Malley asked. In her late thirties, Liddy was impregnated by rape last winter and delivered a beautiful baby girl in mid summer. Because her husband Davey refused to accept the child, Mike had asked him to leave the community.

“Good question, Liddy,” Mike said. “I'd say it means good news and bad news for us.”

“What's the good news?” Tommy called out to more laughter.

Mike grinned. “It means we're all working from the same playbook now, to use a phrase from our American allies.”

“Some allies!” Regan called out. “They never did shite for us when the first EMP went off.” She turned to look at Sarah. “No offense, Sarah.”

Fiona couldn't see Sarah's face. Regan was a handful—and mostly trouble—but she was also brave and had withstood more than most so the group was inclined to be forgiving.

“In any case,” Mike said, giving Regan an annoyed look, “the good news is we're all in the same boat now.”.

“And the bad news?” Terry's wife Jill raised her hand as she spoke.

“We need to leave.” Mike said. He gave a slight bow to Mother Angelina who sat closest to him at the table.

“Sure all of the Sisters are welcome to come with us, so they are. And we'll never be able to thank them enough for the sanctuary they gave us. I hope to return the favor some day.”

Mother Angelina smiled. Mike glanced over to where Mac stood by the door and nodded to him, the invitation offered. Mac's shoulders relaxed and he nodded back.

“And go where?” Nuala O'Connell asked. She was sitting with her two young boys and her newborn daughter in her lap. Nuala knew full well where Mike wanted them all to go. Fiona wondered if Mike had asked Nuala to ask the question.

“To Disney World!” a young boy shouted. The group laughed and Terry tousled his son's hair with a grin.

“That's the shot, lad,” Mike said with a laugh. “Sure we're going to Cinderella's Castle, so we are…where we'll be safe and where no one can ever take what's ours ever again.”

The group applauded along with a few whistles that Fiona thought came from Gavin and Tommy.

“It's ten days walk from here,” Mike said, rubbing his hands together as he clearly warmed to his subject. Fiona wouldn't be surprised if he'd totally forgotten Sarah was glowering in the audience.

“Maybe a little more. Northwest and on the coast. It's called Henredon Castle and before the Crisis it was used as a tourist attraction back in the day but it was in good shape. A classic example of a Norman fortress. Built in 1175.”

“How do you know there's nobody living in it?” someone asked.

“I don't, do I?”

Heads turned and Fiona knew it was Sarah. The tension crackled in the air between her and Mike.

“Ten days is a long way to walk with screaming babies and women who've just delivered,” Sarah said, her voice cold but firm. “Not to mention lugging all our worldly belongings behind us. And what exactly do you suggest we do if we get there and the place is already inhabited? Have you thought about that?”

“We do what everyone has done throughout history,” Mike said with a shrug, turning to face his audience. “We
take
it.”