Department 19: Zero Hour (38 page)

“I’m aware of that,” said Turner, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Given that I’m the Security Officer. I was specifically asking about these two.”

The Operator nodded. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know how they got through the sensors.”

“Find out,” said Turner. “If they’ve mapped them, move them. But first, get the bodies out of there. I want them examined in the infirmary, then released to their families. I’ll have the security-camera footage leaked to the media.”

Kate frowned. “Sir?”

“They won’t run it,” said Turner. “But it’ll be on the internet within an hour. I want everyone to see what happens to people who try to break in here. Maybe it will dissuade anyone else from being so stupid.”

That’s clever,
thought Kate.
Cold, but very clever.

“I need a ladder, sir,” said the Operator.

“I’m sorry?” said Turner.

“I need a ladder to get the body down from the wire.”

“And?” said Turner. “Do you want me to build one for you? Call the hangar and have an engine brought out, for God’s sake.”

The Operator took the radio from his belt and spoke rapidly into it. Kate watched him for a second, then turned to the Security Officer.

“From the protest camp?” she said, gesturing towards the bodies.

“I would expect so,” said Turner. “Bloody stupid way to get yourself killed, but I suppose you have to admire it.”

“Really?” asked Kate.

Turner shrugged. “They risked their lives for something they believed was worthwhile. Does that remind you of anyone we know?”

Kate smiled, and nodded. She watched the Security Division Operators let themselves through the access door and into the space between the fences as behind her, from the direction of the hangar, she heard the rumble of an approaching engine. The Operators unrolled a black plastic bag and laid it on the ground beside the man whose burns had shocked her so badly; she looked away as they lifted his lifeless body on to it and began to zip it shut.

“This is going to happen again, isn’t it?” she said, her voice low.

“I’m sorry?” said Turner.

“Maybe not this exact thing,” said Kate. “But something like it. Then something else will happen, and something else after that. It’s going to get out of hand.”

Turner nodded. “It’s already getting out of hand,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer we can control the situation.” He pulled his console from his belt, unlocked it with his thumb, and held it out to Kate.

She took it from his gloved fingers and looked at the screen. Filling it were thumbnails of the pages of two police reports. She tapped the first image as Paul Turner continued to speak.

“Intelligence received those overnight,” he said. “Three civilian deaths, all involving the suspicion of vampirism. Two teenagers, both identifying as Goth, beaten to death in a park in Guildford yesterday evening. One of the attackers was a schoolmate of the deceased, another a neighbour.”

Kate felt cold creep through her. On the screen of the console, school photographs of the murdered teenagers stared at her with heavily made-up eyes.

“Paul Whates,” she said. “Amy Underwood. They were the same age as me, sir. Both of them.”

“I know,” said Turner.

“Someone killed them because they like to dye their hair and wear eyeliner?”

“Someone killed them because they thought they were vampires,” said Turner. “I honestly don’t know if that’s better or worse.”

“There’s no better here, sir,” said Kate, tearing her gaze away from the photos to look her commanding officer in the eye. “There are only degrees of worse.”

Turner nodded. “I agree,” he said. “People are scared, and they’re starting to turn on each other. And there’s nothing we can do that’s going to make any difference, apart from coming up with a cure or killing every vampire on the planet. Do you see either of those things happening quickly enough?”

“No,” said Kate, her heart heavy in her chest. “I don’t.”

“Neither do I,” said Turner. “I’d love nothing more than to be wrong, for your friend Matt and the rest of Lazarus to make this all go away, or for the Romania team to bring us something back we can destroy Dracula with. But I’m not holding my breath on either count.”

Kate frowned, as something slotted together in her mind. The team that was to search for the first victim had been despatched the previous evening, and she had not seen Jamie since the Zero Hour meeting the morning before that, had not seen Larissa since their breakfast shortly afterwards, and had not laid eyes on Matt for days, possibly weeks.

Probably just coincidence,
she thought.
But if not …

“Sir,” she said. “Do you know where my friends are?”

Turner narrowed his eyes. “Which ones in particular?” he asked.

“Matt,” she said. “And Larissa, and Jamie.”

“Yes,” said Turner. “I know where they are.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

The Security Officer’s eyes narrowed even further, and Kate braced herself to be told no. Then Turner sighed, and shook his head as a tiny smile appeared on his face.

“I shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s all classified above Zero Hour. But I trust you. And that’s not a mistake on my part, right?”

“No,” said Kate, instantly. “You can trust me, sir.”

Turner nodded. “Jamie and Larissa were selected by NS9 to be part of DARKWOODS,” he said. “Which is the mission to search for the first victim, acting on Grey’s intelligence. They’re in Romania as we speak. And Matt is in America, the Lazarus Project observer on GARDEN OF EDEN, an operation designed to locate the man known as Adam, a vampire who was allegedly cured. And before you ask, I have no updates on how any of them are doing. That’s all the information I have.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Kate.

Her heart was swelling with pride at the thought of what her friends were doing, of how
vital
the two operations were to the future not just of Blacklight, but of everything.

I’m not even surprised,
she thought.
Somehow they always end up at the centre of everything.

“So what do we do, sir?” she asked.

Turner glanced towards the hangar. A bright red fire engine from the Loop’s emergency services fleet was approaching, metal ladders gleaming on its roof. He waved his arm until the driver steered the red truck towards them, then turned back to Kate.

“Right now?” he said. “We do what we can, and hope it’s enough. That’s all we can do.”

The sky to the east was a glorious deep purple, the colour of a week-old bruise, as Jamie Carpenter opened his eyes.

The sun had not yet crawled above the horizon and it was bitterly cold, even inside his sleeping bag. The tarpaulin and plastic shelter had kept out the snow that had fallen relentlessly through the night, but not the whistling, creeping wind; it had worked its way into every warm corner, icy-cold fingers that searched and pried.

Jamie sat up, keeping the sleeping bag wrapped tightly round him, and shivered. Dawn was still half an hour away, maybe slightly less, and he felt physically exhausted, like his limbs were full of concrete and his head was made of glass. His mind felt slow, as though it needed shutting down and rebooting, and he tried to remember when he had last had more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep. He rubbed his upper arms with his hands, trying to will life back into them, and looked around the camp.

Tim Albertsson was asleep on his back beneath the edge of the shelter, one hand tucked behind his head. He looked a picture of contentment, as though he was sleeping under the finest duvet in the most luxurious hotel room in the world, rather than in a snowy field at the edge of the Teleorman Forest. There was the hint of a smile on the American’s tanned, handsome face, and the expression caused Jamie a momentary burst of anger.

He’s even smug when he’s asleep,
he thought.

Jamie knew he was prone to making snap judgements, a quality that was not one of his best, and had caused him trouble in the past. He had taken an instant liking to Thomas Morris, who had turned out not only to have been working to betray Blacklight from within, but to have been involved in the death of Jamie’s father. Conversely, he had initially disliked Frankenstein and
loathed
Henry Seward, two men for whom he had come to have the utmost respect.

As a result, he would never have claimed to be the most reliable judge of character, and he was hoping that this would prove to be the case with Tim Albertsson; that the fault lay with him and that, in time, he would come to see the American’s finer qualities, would be able to respect him as an Operator even if he never came to like him as a person.

Jamie genuinely hoped so, because he currently felt very differently.

Right now, he hated Tim Albertsson.

Absolutely hated him.

It wasn’t just that there was obviously something between the American and Larissa that he wasn’t being told, although that was certainly reason enough. It was the way Albertsson talked, and walked, just the fundamental way he
was
; he reminded Jamie of the bullies who had swaggered round the playgrounds of the many schools he had attended after his dad had died, absolutely certain of their superiority to those around them, full of unwarranted, unjustifiable arrogance.

Come back to me when you’ve faced down Alexandru Rusmanov and lived to tell the tale,
he thought.
Then you can act like a big shot as much as you want.

Next to Albertsson, Arkady Petrov lay asleep on his side, his shaven scalp protruding from the thick green sleeping bag, his breathing light and steady. Jamie was sure that the cold, which he found utterly debilitating, posed no problem at all for Petrov, who had been raised in the biting teeth of the Russian winter and whose home base lay inside the Arctic Circle.

In the centre of the camp lay the sleeping forms of Van Orel and Engel. They had – involuntarily, he presumed – huddled together during the night, and were spooning like a couple on their honeymoon. Jamie smiled, wondering how embarrassed the two Operators would be when they awoke.

In the latest of the snap judgements that he was trying to stop himself making, he had decided that he liked Kristian Van Orel; liked him a lot. The South African was funny and self-deprecating, and seemed disinterested in the importance of age or experience. As far as Jamie, who worried endlessly about both of those issues, was concerned, it was a significant point in his favour.

At the southern edge of the shelter, where the snow that covered the rest of the field was piled steep and high, an empty sleeping bag lay crumpled on the groundsheet. Jamie stared at it, then dragged his protesting body out into the cold and went to find his girlfriend.

Snow crunched beneath his boots as he ducked under the corner of the shelter and stood up, stretching his aching arms towards the sky. His head was beginning to clear, and he allowed himself a moment to marvel at the vista of purple and orange that filled the sky to the east.

“Morning.”

Jamie smiled at the sound of Larissa’s voice, and turned towards it. His girlfriend was perched on a tree branch at the edge of the dark forest, high above the camp. She looked even paler than usual, but her eyes glowed momentarily red at the sight of him, and a smile rose slowly on to her face.

“Morning,” he replied, picking his way carefully up the slope towards her. “I thought your watch finished two hours ago?”

“It did,” she said. “I didn’t see the point of waking anyone else.”

“So you could get some sleep?” he suggested.

Larissa shrugged. “I’m not tired.”

Jamie reached the wide trunk of the tree, depressingly aware that his feet were already numb, even through his boots, and looked up at her. “Are you coming down?” he asked.

Larissa didn’t answer. Jamie was about to repeat the question when she pushed herself off the branch, floated gracefully down to the snow-covered ground, and closed his mouth with her own, the kiss passionate, almost violent. His eyes widened with surprise, then closed as he felt heat in his stomach, felt Larissa press herself against him. He gave himself over to the kiss, luxuriating in something that was warm and soft rather than cold and hard, then forced himself to break it and step back.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Larissa narrowed her eyes, the red in their corners pulsing. “I can’t kiss my boyfriend?”

Jamie shook his head. “You can,” he said. “You most definitely can. But maybe when we’re not in the middle of a Priority Level 1 operation?”

Larissa looked at him, her expression unreadable. Jamie stared back; the kiss had been so urgent, so aggressive, almost like she’d been trying to prove something with it. As he looked at her, he realised he could wait no longer to find out what she was hiding from him.

“What happened in Nevada, Larissa?” he asked. “With you and Tim. And please don’t say nothing.”

“Nothing,” she said.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just don’t.”

Larissa’s eyes flared momentarily, before a look of profound sadness crossed her face. “It’s not what you think,” she said, softly. “I understand if you don’t believe that, and I don’t blame you, but it’s the truth. Nothing happened between me and Tim, absolutely nothing. He was someone I thought was a friend, but he turned out not to be. I should have told you everything when I got back to the Loop, and I will, I promise I will. But this isn’t the time or the place.”