by P A Vasey
TRINITY’S FALL
P.A. Vasey
Copyright © 2019 P.A.Vasey
All rights reserved.
All characters and events in this novel are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This novel is dedicated to Rachael and Lauren.
Never stop making me proud.
What the country needs is the annihilation of the enemy.
Lord Horatio Nelson
Contents
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
He wakes like he’s been plugged into the mains. No sleepiness, no slow warming up. Within seconds his eyes are wide, dreams not just forgotten but erased. He drinks in the feedback of all his senses, but aside from his own noisy breath there is nothing to hear.
The walls around him are a sterile white, gleaming, featureless. He is lying in a bed, but he has no idea where he is. It doesn’t look like a hospital. He doesn’t know what time it is or even what day it is.
His mind races, and panic begins like a cluster of firecrackers in his abdomen. His heart starts to hammer in his chest and an invisible hand clasps over his mouth.
He doesn’t know who he is.
He sits up and pristine white sheets fall away. He’s wearing a grey rubber suit, tubes and cables wrapped around his torso. Some of the cables disappear underneath the bed, and pulses of red and green lights travel along them.
He swings his legs over the side and the coldness of the tiled floor through his bare feet gives him a jolt. His hands are tingling and he looks at them, turning them over, checking them out. They look like his. He recognizes the age spots and the plain gold wedding ring is vaguely familiar. He tries to stand and the room spins and the ground feels as if it’s melting under him. He collapses onto his hands and knees, his breathing becoming shallow and ragged.
At last you are awake
There’s a voice in his head. Is he going mad?
He closes his eyes and tries to slow his breathing.
You need to find out where we are
Alright, he’ll go along with this. Maybe it’s a stress response. Amped-up emotions, hormones and the like.
“I’ve no idea where we are,” he says out loud. “Shall we look around?”
There’s a slight moment of disorientation and light-headedness that makes him reach out and balance himself with a hand on the bed, but it passes. The cables are still connected to him so he’s careful to keep them intact as he walks across the room to where there is a small sink with a mirror. He bends down to see his face and staring back at him is someone he recognizes. White hair combed back, skin pockmarked with old acne scars, three-day stubble. Blue eyes with laughter lines.
His face.
He smiles and leans on the sink, shaking his head.
“It’ll all come back soon,” he says to his reflection. “You’ll be fine. It’s over.”
A strange disquiet comes over him, an unbidden feeling of restlessness and butterflies in his stomach. A tickling sensation under the skin, like spiders crawling in the dermis, appears. A feeling of pressure behind his eyes.
Then the voice again.
Someone is coming
A doorway swishes open and a girl walks in. Like him, she is wearing a rubber-look suit, slick, like dolphin-skin. She looks young, early twenties, dark hair, quite pretty. Nervous, eyes flitting left and right.
“What’s going on?” he hears himself say.
“You’re resting,” she stammers, and then coughs. “But you’re up. You must be feeling better?”
He smiles. “I guess I am.” He looks around and makes a sweeping gesture. “Can you tell me where I am? I’m a little confused.”
She gives a nervous smile. “You’re on the ship. The ship. I’m still getting my head around it.”
Ask her what ship
He shakes his head to clear the voice.
Ask her
“What ship?” he says.
“You know what ship,” she says. “The alien ship.”
Good: we will take it from them
The voice drips with malevolence and the temperature in the room seems to drop below freezing.
“Where are you?” he says, looking around the room.
“Who’re you talking to?” the girl says.
Kill her
“What?” He shakes his head, back and forwards, repetitively, frustrated. The girl leans in and he grabs her wrist, pulling her close. He has no free will. He didn’t make the move.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he grinds out. “But I can’t control myself. I can’t control …”
Her face changes, and she now has a concerned look, her mouth a tight grimace. She pulls on her arm, but his grip automatically tightens.
“Let go,” she says. “You’re hurting me.”
He continues to squeeze her wrist, and there’s a noise as one of her wrist joints cracks, like a knuckle popping.
“I can’t,” he says, silently pleading with her to understand. “I’m sorry.”
She brings her other hand around and grabs his fingers, trying to peel them off her wrist. Then she punches him. Hard. In the face.
Again and again she hits him with her free hand, her face contorted in anger as she gives everything she has. He feels nothing. He hears the impacts but there is no sensation. As she winds up another punch he lets go of her wrist and she jerks back and takes a few uneven steps away from him. She rubs her wrists and just stands there, face dark and glowering.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she says, backing off further, glancing sideways.
He tries to reply but now he cannot move his lips. He feels his throat constricting and a paralysis has come over him.
I am in full control now
Please, no.
Oh yes
He watches the girl reach behind her where he sees what must be his clothes laid out on a shelf. She scrabbles around in them and pulls out a gun. A Glock 9mm.
“What have you got there?” he says.
But it is not him talking now.
She shrugs, a gesture laden with surrender. She slowly raises the gun and points it at him and it shakes as if there is an earthquake happening under her feet.
“Are you a gambler?” whispers his voice.
“What?” Her lip twitches and her wide-eyed stare becomes even bigger and wider.
“Do you like to bet?”
She nods. “Sure. Now and again.”
He feels himself nodding back, mirroring her. “Do you feel like betting now?”
“What?”
“Do you think you could shoot me before I take the gun from you?”
He wants to scream. To shout out and tell her to unload the whole magazine into his face. But the gun is wavering even more and he can feel his muscles begin to wind up, readying to reach out and grab it in a microsecond, before a single neuronal impulse can travel from her brain to her trigger finger.
“Do it,” he says.
Her eyes flicker left and right, before coming back to him. To her credit she backs off a couple of feet until she is against the wall, theoretically out of reach. But he knows better. This isn’t going to end well.
“Got every reason to shoot yuh,” she whispers, her eyes bulging.
“Yes you do.”
She starts to cry, and lowers the gun, letting it flop helplessly by her side. He frantically tries to regain control of his body but he has no idea how to do it. He’s been locked out. His thoughts echo around his head before fading away to nothing.
“You stand to win,” he says, slowly raising his arms in a supplicant fashion. A peaceful gesture, but with no peaceful intent at all.
“Win what?” she sobs.
He hears himself chuckle.
“Everything. Life.”
She is wavering; he can see it in her eyes. She is alone, in a nightmare with no way out other than taking the shot. She can see it clearly. See it in his eyes. Knowing that if she doesn’t shoot, she’s going to die.
She brings the gun up again, points it at him.
“SHOOT!” he yells.
But she crumples to the floor, sobbing, great globs of water pouring from her eyes.
“Get up,” he says, with an icy calm.
He feels the contempt. Senses the anger coming from somewhere within him.
A strange look passes before the girl’s eyes and she rises like a puppet on strings. Her mouth goes slack and her gaze becomes unfocussed.
“Put the gun in your mouth,” he says.
He is screaming; silently, passionately, pointlessly. He asks the voice to have mercy, to let her go, to leave, to do anything other than make this young woman shoot herself.
She puts the gun in her mouth. It appears voluntary, but isn’t.
“Pull the trigger,” he hisses.
He tries to look away but of course he can do no such thing. His head feels like it’s going to explode and ice water pours over his body once again. He wants to pull his knees up to his chest and wrap his arms around his shins; if he could just curl up into a ball, he would.
Then he’s released.
He drops his chin to his chest and starts to cry. He reaches backward and grabs the sides of the bed as his whole body starts to shake. He stifles the sobs at first but then, overcome by the wave of emotions he breaks down completely, all his defenses gone. He screams the kind of scream that comes from a person drained of all hope.
After what seems like an eternity, his wailing tapers off and his chest stops heaving and he lets go of the sides of the bed. He feels cold; colder than he has ever felt before.
It gnaws at his insides like hungry maggots.
He looks up and the girl is gone.
ONE
There was a biting wind coming off Lake St Clair and I pulled the collar of my jacket around my neck and tightened my scarf, wishing I’d brought a beanie. The traffic in Detroit at rush hour was hectic, and, despite the chill in the air, tourists were still out and about, heading down to the waterfront. The noise of the city was subdued with sounds from the construction site of a new lecture theatre and education facility at the hospital across the street. The sun was behind me and still bright, so I put my sunglasses on and walked briskly to the junction with Mack Avenue where the bus stop was. There was a metal seat there and I sat down, grateful to be out of the wind.
My phone rang, and I rummaged around in my bag, eventually finding it hidden in the detritus of my disorganized life. The strident whoop-whoop of an emergency vehicle siren started up, a red fire truck rounding the corner and heading my way. I keyed the answer button on the phone.
“Hello?”
“Is that you, Kate?” A male voice: no one I recognized.
“This is Dr Sara Clarke. Can I help you?”
There was a pause, then: “I don’t want you to freak out.”
“Why would I freak out? Who’s this?”
The sound of the siren increased, and now it was audible on the phone as well. I waited until the fire truck crossed the junction in front of me, turning right and heading back up into the city.
“Waiting,” I said. “Speak now or never.”
The voice at the other end had also waited until the siren decrescendo had become inaudible. I looked up and down the street, checking out pedestrians, none of whom were talking on their phones. The cars passing had their windows up, and none were slowing as they passed me.
“I’m over here,” said the voice. “Straight across the road.”
Toward the side entrance of the Medical Research Centre was a figure standing in the shadow of the overhang by the closed doors. He raised a hand and moved forward into the daylight, giving a glimpse of a buzz cut and a tweed jacket.
“I only want to talk to you.”
“Who are you?”
“Pete, Pete Navarro. Remember me?”
I squinted into the sun, but the face didn’t ring any bells. “I don’t think so.”
He started to vigorously nod his head. “Yes, you do. Very well in fact.”
“I think you’re one of my patients,” I said, trying to get a rise out of him.
“No, no. I can prove it. How do you think I got your number?”
“Hmmm, let me think, the hospital switchboard?”
There was silence for a few beats, then: “Who’re you hiding from, Kate?”
“Who the fuck is Kate?” I said.
“You are. Who the fuck is Sara Clarke?”
I took a deep breath and hung up.
I pulled out a packet of Marlboro Lights, cupped my hands around my mouth and lit up. A long drag allowed the acrid smoke to wash around my throat and lungs, and the hit kicked in as the chemicals percolated into my brain. Four thousand chemicals, and at least fifty were carcinogenic. I’d started smoking a few months ago, despite my job as an Oncology Fellow exposing me daily to the horrors of cigarettes and the toll they placed on human life. I hid my new addiction from my patients and colleagues fairly well, and if I was ever discovered, I planned to respond ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ I also reckoned it was either going to be cigarettes or alcohol, and I hated how the latter made me feel.
The phone rang again. The figure hadn’t moved, but he was staring at me, cellphone stuck to the side of his head. I stubbed the cigarette out on the sidewalk and crossed my knees against the cold.
“Can’t you take a hint, asshole?” I muttered to myself, picking up my phone once more.
“Please listen,” came the voice. “This is really important. Let me come over there and show you.”
He looked harmless enough, not a big man. He was wearing eyeglasses of some description. Clean-shaven. European-white. I still couldn’t place him.
I said, “Who are you?”
“A friend,” he said. “I can prove it.”
I shook my head. Well, it’d been a shitty day so far and I needed cheering up. “Right, fuck it, come on over then. But my bus will be here in a couple of minutes.”
He cut the connection and jaywalked quickly across the street, dodging between a couple of taxis and a cyclist. As he approached I drilled into his face, seeking any familiar shapes. None were discernible. He sat down next to me without preamble, gave a lopsided smile, and tilted his head sideways to look at me. “You’ve changed, Kate, but only so much. Different hair, some work maybe, but same attitude.”
“Again with the ‘Kate’?” I said.
He pulled a face. “Y
es, Kate. Look, I don’t make friends easily, but I liked you and I thought we got on okay. Even when you were seeing that arrogant shit, Jackson.”
“I don’t know any Jackson.”
“You did. Richard Jackson. A buffed-up Army major from Creech. You guys were going at it for a few months. It was the talk of the hospital.”
I gave him a death stare. “No, I don’t think so, Pete. The only Jackson I can vaguely remember is an acquaintance from college. He was a roommate of one of my friends, but I don’t think I’ve seen him for, maybe fifteen years. He was the least ‘buffed’ person you could meet, as well.” I looked him in the eye. “I really think you’ve got the wrong person, Pete.”
“Wait,” he said, and he pulled out his cellphone. He opened it up and started scrolling through his photo stream. He went back month-by-month until he stopped at a date the previous June. He opened an image, enlarged it with a flick of his fingers and held the phone up in front of my eyes.
“That’s you. And by the way, that handsome dude standing next to you? That would be me.”
A chill went down my spine. I reached into my jacket pocket, shakily brought out my spectacles, and pushed them up my nose. The picture came into hard focus. It was a photograph of a woman, in a bar, lifting a drink toward the camera. This guy Navarro was next to her, looking awkward but also holding a beer in a salute. The woman was smiling and looked happy to be there. Standing behind the bar was someone I assumed was the barman, making the two-finger bunny ears gesture behind the woman’s head. Her hair was a bit blonder, and a lot longer, and her nose was maybe flatter, the cheekbones a little higher. But otherwise it was me. Or my clone.
I looked at Navarro. “Are there more?”
“Another one from that same night.” He reached over and flicked the screen sideways a couple of times, scanning through photographs until he came upon the right one. In this, the woman was in profile; arms draped around a tall muscular man wearing a white T-shirt and desert army BDU pants. She was planting a kiss on his cheek as he looked toward the camera winking.
“Richard Jackson,” said Navarro.
As I stared at the picture it felt as if my world was tumbling around my ears. This time I was more certain that the person in the photograph was me, but I had no recollection of the scene, or the occasion. And I had no idea who Richard Jackson was.
