' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (63 page)

Australian National Flags began to appear on the roofs of buildings in Woolongong and Kembla,
and hung from windows as it became clear that New South Wales was back in the hands of Australians.

Several hours later, as the operations officers for all the units in Australia began working on plans for the liberation of Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and the remainder of the Philippines, the Politburo finally bowed to the inevitable, replacing Premier Chan and calling for a ceasefire.

President Kirkland ended the call and looked up at the clock on the wall of the conference room and wondered if this was in fact the first time a war really had been ‘All over by Christmas.’ The time was 235
9hrs.  

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jamaica: Tuesday, 18
th
January.

Private yachts were not an unusual sight in the bay and the latest arrival was not even close to being as ostentatious as some of the vessels. They also had beautiful bikinied young things sunning themselves on their decks, but aboard the
Krasivaya Dama
the beautiful girl strolling about the decks wearing only mirrored aviator’s sunglasses and a captain’s uniform cap was the owner and not the owners ‘niece’. She stayed beneath the sun awnings generally, but when she sunbathed she was nude and did so at specific times, retreating back to the shade at the gentle chimes of a small travelling alarm clock. 

She dined alone in the
best restaurants, lovely, although aloof from the other diners.

A one night stand with a local boy who possessed a packed pair of speedos and an enviable physique, and again a week later with a nubile blonde French scuba diving instructress, were the acts of someone scratching an itch, not one who was reaching out for companionship. Despite these instances of waterbed gymnastics she remained
rather lonely and one evening she accepted an invitation to a rather wild gathering at a shore side villa. She partied hard and fell asleep both sated and naked on a sun lounger beside its pool.

She was awoken next morning by a maid who was worried that the sun, already well above the horizon, would inflict a bad sun burn on the girls back, but 99 miles above their heads Kondor-138 had already passed by twice in an orbit that also included the Spratly Islands. Its recognition software was working as advertised.

Still in London, in the low rent bedsit, the specialist received a text message and immediately departed, returning the key to the landlady and took a cab ride to Bond Street. A
gold credit card bought a first class seat on a flight to Kingston, Jamaica, new luggage and a new wardrobe.

USS John C Stennis: The Tasman Sea, 50 miles south east of Sydney, Australia. Wednesday, 19
th
January, 2359hrs.

Pennant number CVN-74, the USS
John C Stennis
, still marked with the scars of war was a fitting gathering place for the memorial service, held three months exactly from the moment the city had been destroyed. The President of the United States and the Australian Prime Minister cast wreaths upon the waters. The tide would carry the items the remaining way to shore, to the ruins of the city and the final resting place of so many.

General Henry Shaw attended, standing as close to the spot where his eldest children had last lived and breathed, as close as the experts would allow.

Once the midnight memorial service had ended the President was preparing to depart with Prime Minister Perry Letteridge, when he saw the lonely figure still stood at the edge of the flight deck staring into the night, towards the horizon.

The President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had not spoken in three months, not since the night Sydney had died, with Matthew and Natalie Shaw aboard their ships in the harbour. Henry had made no move to alter that situation even now, and as rumour had it that he was about to resign from the service, Theodore Kirkland crossed the flight deck.

“Henry?”

General Shaw turned and the President could not but help notice the change in his top soldier in just three months.

“Mister President, sir?”

“I was sorry to hear of Jacqueline’s passing.”

He meant it genuinely, but it was as if there was now a wall between the President and his once closest advisor.

“We received the flowers, thank you sir.” 

He caught the whiff of the peppermints Henry used constantly to cover the smell of bourbon, and the eyes confirmed it, and those eyes also held no spark of the amity they had once held.

“Is it true that you are leaving the service, General?”

Instead of answering, Henry asked a question of his own.

“Is it true that you are
planning to bankrupt the UK and the other European countries that kicked the politicians out?”

The general may have been absent from the President’s side but he was well informed nonetheless.

“That is not technically correct, no.” But he knew that Henry saw it for the lie it was.

“And you are
backing the Vietnamese in their claim on the Spratly Islands, instead of the Philippines, Mister President?”

He was indeed very well informed indeed, the President concluded.

One of the terms of the ceasefire was the withdrawal from the islands and relinquishment of any future claims upon it by the People’s Republic of China. Vietnam had occupied them upon the departure of the Chinese troops.

Various US oil companies had already brokered a deal with the Vietnamese.

“That is not yet something we have released to the public, but yes.”

“Why?”

“Because they have them, and possession is nine tenths of the law.”

“They didn’t fight Mister President, they waited until others had weakened China and then they sneaked in the back door. The Filipinos didn’t stop fighting, not even after they had been occupied.”

“It’s politics.”

“It’s disloyal
, it is cowardly, it is dishonourable and as such it is unbefitting of the office…sir!”

The President looked at Henry, feeling his temper rise.

“I believe we had a similar discussion once, and as you couldn’t even grasp the realities back when you were sober, I see no point in continuing this any further.”

Mike and another agent had been stood a discrete distance from their principle,
but they had taken two steps closer as the voices were raised.

“I wish you well with your retirement General.
”

The President turned on his heel, and snapped an order at
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs without deigning to look at him.

“
Be sure that you make it happen, and soon!”

Theodore
departed, boarding Marine One without another word or glance.

As the sound of the helicopters rotors faded Henry was still looking toward the horizon. He put a hand inside his uniform jacket and withdrew a slim hip flask, but his fingers had snagged another object along with it, a faded beer mat. Henry could not read the faint writing in the dark
ness but on replacing it inside his jacket he tossed the hipflask into the sea.

Montego Bay, Jamaica: 0900hrs, Monday 24
th
January.

The legal system in the former colony remains essentially British, and as such the young constable who had first boarded the
Krasivaya Dama
off South Negril Point presented himself at the mortuary in order to provide continuity of evidence, in other words, he was to confirm that the body upon the slab and the body he had accompanied from the yacht’s main cabin to the mortuary two days before were one and the same. Constable McKenzie’s Inspector had added a requirement of his own to that of the young officer’s duties to the coroner. It was a matter of pride, his Inspector had explained.

Constable McKenzie was not from Kingston or any of the more ‘lively’ areas of the
island; he had been raised in a small inland village and had seen a grand total of two dead bodies in his twenty years. The first had been his next door neighbour’s granny when McKenzie had been five. She had been laid out in her best Sunday dress and the blocks of ice placed around the bed had slowed what his father had termed ‘the ripening’. The Granny hadn’t looked dead, she had just looked asleep. The most memorable part of the whole occasion had been young McKenzie having his hands slapped for trying to lift the pennies off the old ladies eyes, to see if she was in fact awake.

The second body had been the
chestnut haired young woman on the boat. She had also been on a bed, and she hadn’t looked dead either, at least not at first. He had felt embarrassed at intruding on a scene of obviously quite recent intimacy. She had been lying naked upon the rumpled sheets; face down on the red satin covers and with those glorious locks spread out like a chestnut veil and the tattoo of dogs paw marks on her right cheek. Blood splatter on the mirrored headboard was the first clue that she was not in fact sleeping. The colour of the sheets had hidden the large amount of blood actually present.

His sergeant drove him to the mortuary and pulled the car up outside the front entrance.

“Are you ready boy, got your notebook and a pen?”

McKenzie held up the notebook, it was opened to the page where he had recorded the delivery of the body the previous Saturday morning and he fumbled in a pocket before
producing a biro, much chewed upon at one end.

“Yes,
Sarge.”

“Does it work?”

The young officer ran the nib back and forth on one corner of an inside cover of his notebook, making rapid zig zag motions before looking at his sergeant apologetically.

The thirty-year veteran rolled his eyes upwards before handing over his own.

“I want it back or you will be walking the beat all next month.”

McKenzie exited the car, carefully closing the door behind him.

“And remember what the Inspector said?”

McKenzie bent to look back into the car.

“Yes Sergeant, I shouldn’t faint or throw up.”

The sergeant studied him for a moment before putting the car into first gear.

“Away with you now before you’re late boy,” his ‘skipper’ growled. “I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up.”

The car started to move off and McKenzie braced himself to enter the building.

“And if you’ve puked up over yourself you’ll be walking behind the car!”

He raised a hand to acknowledge he understood as the car
drove away.

He entered the mortuary, stepping out of the heat of a fine Caribbean morning into the air-conditioned reception area. He wasn’t sure if the cool breeze that wafted over him was for the benefit of the living, or just a higher tech method of ensuring the residents did not ripen.

After signing himself in the young constable was shown along a corridor and upon opening the double doors at the end he had his first experience of an entirely different atmosphere.

It is a strange smell, a unique mix of sterilising fluid, formaldehyde, antiseptic, uncooked meat, gastric juices and last meals at every single possible stage of digestion.

A pair of mortuary technicians noticed the young officer enter and his naturally dark complexion became edged with grey as he sampled the smell for the first time. They looked at each other and winked. A probationary constable, quite obviously, so there would be some sport this fine morning.

Constable McKenzie swallowed the bile that had risen, and surveyed the white tiled room. There were only two other people in the room;
living that is, and both wore disposable plastic aprons over their white coats, and those aprons were already blood splattered.

“Are you the forensic examiners?” He did not actually know what the proper title would be, but it sounded right.

“No officer, we just prepare them for the pathologist, and he will be here at any time now so why don’t you find the body you are here for and he can start with that one.”