Saturday, September 1st, 2017

Gulf of Thailand

HMS BULWARK

The trip back aboard the twenty-thousand-tonne Royal Navy assault ship had been by Merlin HC.3 helicopter.

Mindy and Dave had commented that it was how it should have been some many months before as it had been their planned method of exfiltration with the commander. They were not alone but had been joined by Captain McFadden, Sergeant Martin, and a dozen of their men. The operation to evacuate all troops, vehicles, and intelligence material was underway and the massive Chinook HC.6 twin-rotor transport helicopters were busy airlifting the heavy vehicles and the vast majority of the troops who were all very happy to be returning to British Sovereign Territory. On landing aboard the assault ship, they were all led into the superstructure where Fusion One were met by Commander Lawrence, Jennifer, and Sarah. All three were very relieved to see their friends alive and mostly in one piece. A debriefing would wait, so all were led to their cabins where Sarah had ensured that food and drink was available.

All six stripped out of their sweaty, muddy, and decidedly stinky clothing before taking swift showers and then clambering into their pits for much needed sleep.

Later that same day...

Mindy stirred.

For a moment, she had no idea where she was. Something about her surroundings was familiar. The forced air-conditioning was like her subterranean safehouses, so her mind placed her in Chicago but no, the 'safehouse' was moving; she could feel vibrations and a rolling, pitching motion. Then it came to her like the recoil of a twelve-gauge shotgun: she was at sea in the Gulf of Thailand on the way home - again.

She was worn out and she figured it would be days until her body clock was back to normal and she had filed away enough sleep. Her body ached all over especially where the bullet had grazed her. She finally chose to open her green eyes and she found herself staring at a grey-painted overhead. She lay in a bunk fitted overtop a desk below. Across the cabin, she could see (and hear) her husband sleeping soundly. She wished they had a double bed available; she so wanted his touch on her skin but that would have to wait until they were in more intimate surroundings. Carefully, she threw back the duvet and swung herself onto the thinly carpeted deck below. For a moment, she simply stood there, her legs absorbing the ship's movement through the water. Swiftly, she dressed – she needed to pee!

After visiting the head a few steps up the passageway outside her cabin, she emerged to find a grinning Chloe and Ariana waiting for her.

"You ready for something to eat?" Ariana asked.

"Yeah," Mindy replied. "I'm fucking starving! Breakfast?"

"You're a tad late for that," Joshua chuckled as he emerged from his cabin.

"Lunch?"

Chloe shook her head.

"You telling me I've been asleep for almost twelve sodding hours?!"

"Yep!" Joshua grinned. "Freya was the first to wake up about an hour ago – she's up on deck, I think."

"Dinner is in about forty minutes," Dave said. "Exceptions have been made for the hired help," he added as he grimaced at Mindy's clothing.

Mindy stared down at her clean white blouse and black officer's trousers with black uniform shoes. "What's wrong?"

"He's just teasing you," Ariana laughed as uniformed Lieutenant Perrin appeared to escort them to dinner.

"Mindy'll do, she looks very smart – for a change!" Sarah needled.

Mindy wisely said nothing but instead she visualised Sarah's body in multiple pieces on the bloody deck.

..._...

The wardroom was not full but a table had been reserved for them, nonetheless.

Commander Lawrence was in uniform, as was Captain McFadden – Red Sea rig; mess dress minus the jacket. The commander advanced on Mindy.

"Mindy, welcome!" he said as he grasped her hand and led her over to her chair, and sat her down. "Dave, across from Mindy, please. Joshua, you and I can flank Mindy while I think the captain and Jenn can flank Dave. Lieutenant, you will endure Ariana. Freya, next me, please."

Once everyone was seated, a steward appeared with a tray and a bowl of tomato soup was placed before each of them while another steward took orders for drinks with Dave, Mindy, and the commander opting for a beer while the captain was provided with a chilled white wine leaving the others with soft drinks. As a ravenous Mindy tore apart a bread roll and slathered it in butter, she looked over at the commander.

"What was the butcher's bill?" Mindy asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

"I am very pleased to say that there were no deaths amongst our people," the commander replied. "There were injuries and the medical staff aboard Ocean are very busy but overall the mission was a success and we accomplished the primary and secondary objectives. You can celebrate, Mindy."

"Did he suffer?" Jennifer asked, not needing to say the man's name.

"Oh, yes," Chloe grinned.

"I felt sorry for the pit," Ariana commented as she dug into her soup and everybody laughed.

"How are your men, captain?" Dave asked.

"They are in good spirits and they had fun."

"Typical bloody Royals!" Commander Lawrence laughed.

"Well, I am glad you are all back safely," Sarah said. "I was on tenterhooks every second you were ashore."

"I will admit," Mindy offered. "Things went a little better than the last time."

"I got to keep my clothes on," Jennifer grinned.

"And what a lovely Pegasus it was!" Commander Lawrence chuckled and Freya almost choked on her soup.

After their soup, they were offered a choice of fish or beef with just about everybody desiring red meat, except for Freya who preferred some relatively fresh catfish.

..._...

After dinner which finished off with some amazing ice cream and fruit, they retired to the bar where Mindy found herself being bought drinks by the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and Gurkha officers present.

Sarah laughed as Mindy tried to deflect the interested single men who eventually took one look at Dave before moving away and towards a beer. It was the first time in days, or probably months, that the team had been able to totally relax. Mindy realised that nobody was trying to kill her or her friends and as she sagged into a vacant armchair she felt utter relief at the sudden realisation that it was all over. The nuclear Armageddon was no more and nobody else would die beyond those who had lost their lives to that point.

"Well, girls, you glad your time in the jungle is over?" Sinead asked Ariana and Freya.

"Yes," they both replied emphatically. "I never want to see another humid hellhole like that ever again," Ariana added for them both.

"What are your plans now?" Sinead asked as Craig Lawrence walked over to join the trio.

"I want to spend time with Frieda," Freya responded after conscious thought. "She needs a life and she's been through a lot, not to mention killing that French bastard. Hell, she's only eleven! I'm turning fifteen in two weeks and I want my life back."

"I just want to settle down and put all this crap behind me and get on with what's left of my childhood," the fifteen-year-old Ariana added.

"You know I already have a Predator..."

"Dakota – a certifiable nutcase!" Ariana laughed.

"Well, Ariana, I would like to offer you a home; assuming you can stand the nutcase!" Sinead chuckled.

"I suppose I am just as certifiable . . . you really mean that?"

"Of course I do, Ariana. What's two fucked up nutcases in the grand scheme of things!"

Ariana almost screeched her happiness but swifty brought herself under control as she knew that she was a guest in the wardroom.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Call me Sinead, Ariana."

Ariana wrapped her arms around Sinead and hugged her tightly, tears running down her face.

"Thank you, Sinead."

Craig grinned at Freya whose expression showed happiness for her friend but a little bit of envy.

"I have never been married – at least not in the normal sense; I was married to the sea. I joined the RN after university when I was nineteen, in 1988. I live alone in a big house just north of London, outside the M25. A village called Chorleywood. I commute via the underground to the Ministry of Defence two days a week. If you can tolerate a salty old curmudgeon, I would very much like to offer a home to you and Frieda, Freya."

"Oh, God, I'm crying now," Freya groaned as she wiped her eyes. "Yes, sir, I would very much like that and I am sure Frieda will as well."

"Let's stick with Craig, shall we."

"So, you've told them," Mindy said with a broad grin.

"Yes, we have."

"Good, two bitches I don't need to deal with," Mindy growled, somewhat good-naturedly and very pleased for the two girls.

Indeed, there was a lot to think about, what with the recovered Predators who needed homes, not to mention some who needed rehabilitated. Then there were others who needed help, their lives shattered. Despite it all being 'over' there was still a lot of work to be done, not to mention the elephant in the room which had been so close to being replaced. Despite not finding the boy, nor a direct trail to the boy, they at least had a lead and a confirmation that the boy was probably still alive. Mindy would move heaven and earth to return that boy to his family and then she would bring heaven and earth down upon whomsoever had the boy and woe betide them if they had hurt him in any way by so much as singing a hair on his head.

Despite her daughter's general aversion to it, Mindy would consciously invade a foreign country to recover the boy if that was what it took.

"A penny for your thoughts," Sarah asked Mindy.

"You don't want my thoughts, Sarah: they're crude and unrefined – at least that's what Dave says."

"You won."

"I suppose. People died. Good people. We still need to find the rest of Eidolon and finish off the Axis of Evil."

"I know but good prevailed."

"It all started in that damn jungle but it did not stop there. The Axis put all my friends at risk as they began to identify the nuclear horror in Canada and in the U.S., then across the Atlantic in the U.K. where we identified most of those bastards. Then came that mess in London with Amber being tortured by our own people for something she didn't do. She suffered at my orders and I hate myself for that. Yet another trip to Europe came apart like it always does."

"I know; Kaitlin and Naomi almost got kidnapped."

"On a good note, our time in the Med was profitable with a few cunts put out of their misery."

"The Genovese?"

"Yeah – that closed a book which has been open for too damn long; all my sodding life. My Daddy and my Mom are avenged. I worried about what I was; I became who I am to take down that family. Now I have a different purpose and I can do good by helping those who can't help themselves and whenever I see evil, I have to destroy it!"

"Then came the sandbox," Sarah said, glancing over at Joshua.

"Yes – a lot of crap hit the fan there. That bastard turned up again, then some bright spark thought we should capture a train. Then . . . then . . . Joshua."

"You called!"

"We were just running through past events and we've reached the Sahara," Sarah explained.

"Oh."

"A good time for you to explain yourself," Chloe said coldly as she took a seat and faced the young man she loved.

"Are you sitting comfortably?" Joshua said. "Then I'll begin... Once upon a time, a long time ago in a desert far, far away . . . It is a period of war. Vigilante strike groups, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Axis. During the battle, vigilantes managed to steal secret plans to the Axis of Evil's ultimate weapon..."

"Oh for fuck's..." Mindy growled as Dave gently patted her arm.

"The insatiably handsome Joshua was trapped inside the sinister base belonging to the Axis, and he was forced to say goodbye to those he loved. Okay, let's move on, getting a little maudlin. Well, the last time you saw the devastatingly handsome hero, he was running away from his friends. The hero had an idea and he had remembered something he had seen on his travels within the facility. The clock was ticking, and I had just one hour to complete my plan. I ran faster than I had ever run as I raced down corridor after corridor and then I found the stairs. I took them six at a time, leaping ever downwards, downwards. At sub-level eight, I stopped and I took a fire axe to a toughened glass window – the doors were all locked down. Once I had made enough of a gap, I rolled through and ran down two more corridors before I found a storeroom where I stuffed certain items into two large packs. That took me all of twenty minutes. I then returned to the stairs and kept on descending to sub-level eighteen. The staircase kept getting steeper and steeper before the final eight sets of stairs which were carved into bedrock. There I found a tunnel carved into the bedrock, running horizontally in a weaving fashion. I saw little evidence of toolmarks so I think it might have been made by a river a long time ago. Anyway, I ran down that tunnel for quite some distance..."

"Why?" Ariana asked.

"Oh, forgot to mention – back up on the sub-level two, there was a sign on the wall with an arrow pointing downwards: 'SHELTER'. Well, at the end of that bedrock tunnel, I found a big steel hatch – about eight feet to a side – which was open. I ran through and hit a button on the wall which started the door closing on its hydraulics..."

...+...

Tuesday, June 27th, 2017

Once the giant steel, hydraulically-operated door had closed, latches on all four sides slotted in place locking the door closed.

Joshua turned and walked ten yards to where the concrete corridor turned sharp left and then extended a further eighty yards before it turned sharply to the right where a second massive steel, hydraulically-operated door sat in the open position. Quickly, he humped his two packs through the door and dumped them on the ground before he turned and hit the button to operate the hydraulics. A minute later, the door latched into place and that was that; he was locked away from the world, hundreds of feet below ground in a steel fallout shelter.

Joshua turned and walked into a reception area which was tastefully decorated and detracted from the fact it was windowless and deep in the bedrock below the Sahara Desert. He walked past several benches and desks intended to check in those arriving in the shelter. Pulling his pistol from his holster, Joshua moved carefully, checking out each space for anybody who might be a danger to him but after three hours searching the shelter, Joshua found no one; he was very much alone.

He knew his friends and Chloe had left him – they had had no choice if they wanted to survive.

..._...

As he sank onto a comfy looking couch, Joshua checked his watch – he was out of time.

The entire shelter began to shake which Joshua thought wasn't too bad but then the shaking increased and dust began to fall and rise all around him, clouding the atmosphere. The shaking became too much for Joshua as he lay on the couch, hands over his head which felt like it was going to be crushed. He passed out as the rumbling crash of thunder passed through the shelter and drowned out the sounds of the shaking structure. The lights flickered and several failed completely under the onslaught from that most powerful of explosions. High above, in the desert, a flash brighter than anything many humans had experienced had led a blooming fireball which erupted outwards and upwards, before it formed one of the very few objects on the planet which could put the fear of God into just about any man or woman who saw it. The mushroom-cloud grew and grew, racing many thousands of feet into the clear azure-blue desert sky. Nobody who had observed the colossal detonation moved. Nobody who had observed the colossal detonation was capable of movement as they stood transfixed by mankind's most horrific, most incredible, and most destructive technological advance.

Not to mention the demonstration of ultimate power.

..._...

It was a good hour after the detonation when the fireball above was mostly diminished but the destruction was total above ground with just blackened concrete and steel to mark the demolition of the massive structure which had once loomed over the sands of the Sahara Desert.

The destruction continued below ground where the impossible heat of the detonation had turned the sand to glass down to a depth of some two hundred feet and destroyed a lot of the underground portions of the facility. But then had come the shockwave which had smashed that freshly created glass in a millisecond before passing through the earth, shattering strata and creating earthquakes which ran in every direction causing more mayhem up to forty miles distant. Down below, the shockwaves had been interminable as the purpose built shelter had been rocked in every direction before the energy had finally subsided and been absorbed by Mother Earth herself.

Within that facility, lights had shattered, and some structures had exploded under the stresses caused by the vibrations and shockwave. The lone occupant regained consciousness with the normal confusion of waking up somewhere strange and wondering how he had got there. Then it had all come racing back into his mind and he felt physically sick at the understanding of what had just occurred and what his disposition now was. The youth bolted from the couch and barely made it to the nearest facilities where he vomited up everything in his stomach and after several minutes of retching, he sank to the tiled floor of the toilet cubical and tried to figure out his next move.

"Food! I need food!" he declared as he regained his feet and he made for the kitchen he had seen on his initial check of the facility.

It was a large kitchen and was designed to feed around fifty which was the intended complement of the fallout shelter. The food was mainly frozen with some long-lasting refrigerated foodstuffs. Joshua grabbed a can of Coke and rummaged through a dried goods storeroom to liberate some chocolate bars and some cheese. He sat down at one of the eight tables in the dining hall and ate his haul. His headache had receded, and he was able to breath properly now the dust had settled.

After eating, he went in search of a bed and found a room intended for four people in two bunk beds. He took a bottom bunk and soon fell asleep.

..._...

The following few days passed without incident but ominously, Joshua found that the radiation monitors fitted to the inner steel door were way past any margins of safety and for some reason the monitors on the outer steel door were not reporting and he assumed that the door had been struck by the shockwave racing down the corridor and reaching a dead end.

More importantly, the shelter had resisted the explosion and was radiation tight with no traces of escalating radiation within the walls. He had, however, begun to dig through the shelter in more detail. Every desk and filing cabinet was routed through to find something, anything which might aid his escape from the shelter. On day six, he finally found something helpful and after pulling together three tables in the dining hall, he spread out what appeared to be the original blueprints for the Deadlight facility above and the shelter below. Like any tyrant, Jacques Maurand, the administrator of the Deadlight facility, was also a coward which meant that he had to have had an escape plan, a way to retreat should everything go bad and one of the devices which he was building went wrong and was about to detonate prematurely.

It took another seven days to actually work through the monumentally massive collection of plans all printed out on enormous A0 pieces of paper and then bound into books of fifty sheets – there were over two hundred books, and they were very heavy. Joshua decided not to wear himself out as he could see plenty of physical work in his future when he made his escape back to the surface and civilisation. Instead, he made himself work twelve-hour shifts – one on and one off. He ate properly and took regular exercise in the well-equipped gym and by running around the shelter. Power was provided by geothermic energy and the air was filtered from somewhere on the surface, presumably some distance away from the presumably smouldering facility above.

Then he found it and began to work out a plan.

..._...

The machinery room was massive and at the far end of the shelter.

It was soundproofed and accessed via a double set of steel hatches forming an air lock. Inside was all the machinery required to keep the shelter liveable with safe breathable air, a comfortable temperature, clean drinkable water, and a set of machines to process waste. It was a complex set of machinery but to function it required certain items from outside the facility, one of which was air to be filtered. Air could be recirculated within the facility but the primary choice was good air drawn from some five miles beyond the facility to the north and that was Joshua's way out.

He hoped.

..._...

On day fifteen of his subterranean incarceration, Joshua set his plan in motion.

The packs which he had painstakingly filled and dragged down to the shelter were essential. They contained explosives, mining safety equipment, ropes, carabiners, climbing axes, and torches. After a final shower and meal, he dressed in his combat fatigues and boots, stuffing some extra clothing and equipment into a medium-sized backpack as well as plenty of food and drink – as much as he could realistically carry. Then, he had said a mental goodbye to the fallout shelter which had saved his life and he heaved open a hatch in the back of the machinery room which was hidden and would have been impossible to find without the plans or prior knowledge of its existence. As he had hoped, he had found himself in more of the tunnel which had once been a river under the Sahara Desert. Laid on the bare rock in the unlit tunnel, a vibrating two-foot diameter steel-reinforced plastic hose ran off into the distance – it was the air intake for the fallout shelter. All he had to do was follow the hose to safety.

At least he hoped it would be that easy.

..._...

Initially, he made good time as he walked the relatively flat but winding tunnel.

The first mile or so was easy and passed swiftly but then the tunnel began to climb, and the smooth surface became a struggle for his boots and he strained against the weight he was carrying. Finally, after what was a six-hour hike, he chose to rest and have a snooze. The tunnel was in total darkness and Joshua had relied on his senses as much as possible to avoid using the torches and their valuable batteries. It was also cool, and he soon dozed off.

He awoke three hours later and ate a sandwich he had made the previous day, one of a dozen he had brought with him, and which would be rationed along with his water and chocolate bars. He had to use the hose itself to haul himself up some of the steeper sections of tunnel. The hose had been secured to the bedrock in several places to prevent it slipping. The climbing sapped his energy quicker than on the flatter stretches and despite his fitness level, he found it hard going and he covered less actual distance from the facility. The darkness and solitary lifestyle were also getting to him. He missed his family and friends. He worried almost constantly about Chloe and Becky.

What must they think?

That he was dead.

He had to escape; he had a shrewd idea what Becky must be going through, not to mention Chloe.

..._...

Hours passed and indeed an entire day, followed by another, as Joshua proceeded onwards in the solitary darkness of the underground tunnel.

For the seventeen-year-old it was morale sapping as he walked and slept in perpetual darkness. His mind was consumed with one purpose: to survive. His sleep was plagued by nightmares of his death and what that would do to Chloe and Becky. It was mental torture, and it ate away at his psyche which made the subterranean trip seem never ending. But then, towards the end of the third day, just as his mind was starting to deteriorate, he heard something some distance ahead; a roaring noise.

The roaring noise became louder and louder until it overtook all else blocking out the sound of his footsteps. Almost without warning, the beam from the torch reflected off something, the light dancing around the tunnel and Joshua stopped dead. The subterranean tunnel which he had navigated was indeed a long dry river tributary. The main river had worn away at its own tunnel dropping below the level of he tributary some hundred or so years before. As he looked upriver, he could make out a very narrow ledge probably of a harder rock which the water had not been able to wear away.

Therefore, after a short break and his penultimate sandwich, he began trudging somewhat wearily but with a new purpose, along the ledge which had a slight slope upwards.

..._...

Seven hours later, there was a change in the darkness.

It was a glow, a slight glow. That glow grew and became definite daylight. For a moment, Joshua's heart leapt at the fact he was about to escape his world beneath the desert and beat a nuclear bomb detonating directly above him. Then he noticed that the light was above him, about two hundred feet above him. His only way out would be by climbing.

It took a full hour to prepare ropes, climbing axes, crampons, and other climbing paraphernalia. He also removed everything he did not need from his pack to save weight. Then, after taking a deep breath, he began to climb, hand over hand, climbing up as far as he could before he needed to begin using his climbing axes and crampons. He was some thirty feet in the air when he fixed his first climbing cam into a small opening, and he hooked a loop of rope through a carabiner clipped to the device as a first safety point for his almost vertical climb. The next few feet were relatively easy but then the rock face became smoother and smoother due to the water which still ran down the face making it slippery to boot. His boots were able to gain grip thanks to the crampons which dug into the rock face, but it took extra energy to obtain that grip and Joshua was getting weaker. Hauling himself up the same rock face took all his strength which while considerable was not unending. The thought of what lay beyond that far opening was all that kept him going.

Chloe and Becky, and his being reunited with them.

..._...

The stress of being below ground and the exhaustion felt by his body were constantly fighting against him and preventing him from reaching his goal.

Twice he slipped on the wet rock, his body slamming into the same wet rock, and he badly bruised his chest on the second impact then he fell down twenty feet. Every muscle ached like he'd just completed ten rounds with Mindy on the mat and part of his mind was telling him to give up and go back down, that it was the end. But deep inside, a part of him refused to give up. It was that part of him which had been there to get him past his father dying, through his time alone in New York, and had given him the will to live after taking several bullets to save Chloe.

His determination would never let him down and it would always be there right when he needed it. The determination remained with him for the next forty minutes and finally, finally, the light was just feet away as his energy levels were flagging on empty as was his torch. His hands shook as they heaved his bulk upwards, lifting his body the final distance to what he seriously hoped was freedom. Pain was all he felt, mentally and physically. Every movement was agony, but he never stopped as he climbed and climbed until...

There was no more cliff.

Ahead of him was blessedly flat rock but most importantly, horizontal flat rock illuminated by natural light.

..._...

That flat(-ish) rock extended some three hundred yards with a shallow curve.

Joshua could not stand so he crawled, and he crawled. He crawled further than he had ever crawled – not that he had much choice; he so needed to reach that daylight. Then he felt the amazing touch of warmth as the sun caressed his skin.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed as he pulled himself to his feet and stumbled into the...

He never saw the vehicle that came from his left and he never felt the impact as his body struck the bonnet, the roof, and then the packed sand beyond.

...+...

Saturday, September 1st, 2017

Mindy was smirking.

Dave grimaced.

"You got knocked down by a car!" Chloe exclaimed.

"I feel your pain," Dave commiserated.

Mindy grinned nastily.

"I woke up in a hospital in Bamako. Nobody took much notice of me and it was a few hours before I found out I had been in a coma for two weeks. I got checked out a couple of days later and I found my way back to blighty. My timing sucked but at least I found you guys again. I really missed Chloe and Becky."

"We really missed you," Chloe admitted, wiping away a tear or two.

"Was it all worth it?" Mindy asked quietly. "All the death."

"Huh?" Chloe asked.

"I don't care about the enemy deaths; fuck 'em all! But I do care about those who we knew."

"It is not a Sunday, but I think a suitable toast can be made," Craig said as he then whispered into Freya's left ear before calling over to a steward. "Ten Pusser's, please, steward!"

The small glasses, each containing a single shot of dark Pusser's Rum, were brought to the table upon a small round wooden tray which was placed down beside Craig. Swiftly, Craig slid a glass to each person at their table.

"Freya?"

"As the youngest here, it is down to me to make the toast," the girl said as she raised her glass. "To absent friends."

"To absent friends!" they all intoned as they each raised a glass and then took a sip of the potent spirit.

For a full minute nobody spoke – Freya and Ariana choked on their rum; a substance they were not used to drinking – as they remembered their fallen friends.

..._...

Sarah noticed that Mindy was missing as they approached midnight.

After a brief search, Sarah found herself out on the capacious fight deck aft of the superstructure. With no flight operations underway, the deck was dimly lit. Over on the starboard quarter, Sarah could see a Royal Marine patrolling the deck and peering over the side to ensure that they would not be boarded by pirates or worse. There was a warm breeze blowing across the flightdeck which allowed for a comfortable scene. Sarah walked over to the sentry who nodded to Sarah before tipping his head towards where a ladder dropped a few feet down below the flight deck. Sarah walked over and looked down to where one of the ship's M134 miniguns was mounted to dissuade boarders. Mindy was standing beside the weapon, staring out at the ship's churning wake.

Sarah stood beside Mindy without saying a word. Together, they both stared into the darkness. The wake, twinkling with planktonian bioluminescence, showed up to be green in the darkness and weirdly alluring. Neither said a word for several minutes, both remaining with their eyes fixed on infinity. Mindy drew comfort from the dark waters, the dark sky dotted with stars, and the arrow straight wake in those dark waters. Mindy's heart was dark with past events. She found herself having feelings which was a strange feeling for Mindy Lizewski née Macready, aka Hit Girl. She felt sorrow for those who had died at her command. Normally, she felt almost nothing when somebody died – even a friend. But over time, she had begun to feel remorse to a certain point and a feeling of loss to a slightly higher level.

Mindy had little idea how to cope with emotions, but she was trying so hard ever since Dave had come into her life. Others had acted as sounding boards; first Chloe and then her mother. For years, it had been just her and her Daddy with nobody else to care about but then she had Dave after her Daddy died. Despite Marcus' best efforts, she had not been able to open up to him as a young girl going through a very difficult time in her life. Then had come Cathy who had become a sudo mother for her. Mindy could not express her emotions, so she tended to bottle them up. Naturally, those emotions led her into trouble at times – Stephanie had still not really let the incident with the Bugatti go; maybe they both needed psychiatric treatment.

Oh, yes, did they both need psychiatric treatment!

September 9th

The Phoenix

It was a pleasure to be back in familiar surroundings although everyone was feeling more than a little travel weary.

Leaving Asia was a great feeling and after being welcomed aboard by Stephanie and Becky, they all settled down in their seats for take-off. They would be heading directly for Chicago via Los Angeles. It would be a long flight but it allowed everybody time to decompress after combat. The presence of the adults also meant that Stephanie and Becky were no longer winding up the flight crew who were seriously considering making use of the Tasers which Mindy had left them. However, a few salty threats from Captain Anderson had put the two girls in their place.

Indeed, as Captain Anderson walked through his aircraft somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, he smiled at each family group, fast asleep. He knew what they had all endured and he also knew the happiness of regaining a loved one. For him, the knowledge that it was all over, felt like nothing on earth. The aircraft was in desperate need of a deep clean and a major service for all its equipment within and without, including the two gigantic engines which had seen sterling service over the past few months with never a glimmer of a fault.

Once he and Arya had delivered THE PHOENIX to Boeing in Everett, the pair would take a long holiday together.

September 14th

Rayong City, Thailand

Sunan Chen was not a happy man.

His pride and joy, a Sunseeker Sportsfisher 37 cruiser, had been stolen four months previously, just two days before he was due to take a cruise with his family. The boat had been returned three weeks later, splattered with blood and riddled with bullet holes. The eight-year-old boat had been scrapped. But then, at the end of the second week in September, he had received a phone call requesting his presence at the same docks from where his pride and joy had been stolen. He had dutifully driven to the docks only to grimace as he watched the pristine white hull of a brand-new sports cruiser being lowered carefully into the water beside a dock.

A man wearing a lightweight suit appeared at his side.

"A lovely vessel," the man stated in English with a thoroughly English accent.

"Yes, it is."

"A Fairline Targa 38. Twin three-hundred horsepower Volvo Penta D4 diesel engines. Two good-sized cabins to sleep four. Air conditioning – a must in this climate."

"A beautiful vessel," Chen agreed as the sight felt like a knife being twisted in his gut.

"Sunan Chen?"

"Yes . .. you know my name?"

"Please sign here, here, and here, Mr Chen."

Chen found a clipboard handed to him along with an expensive-looking pen. The paperwork related to – the Fairline Targa 38...

"What is this?"

"A gift from a grateful nation, Mr Chen. We apologise for your boat being wrecked. We hope that this vessel will compensate you in some way. Once in the water, the boatyard will fuel her and ensure she is ready for sea."

Chen signed and then just stood there as he was handed a stack of documentation by another man. As the two men left the boatyard and headed back to the British Embassy in Bangkok, they left Sunan Chen to take a few tentative steps towards the dock.

The Thai man was astounded to find himself the owner of a brand-new boat.