Red Eye - 02 (17 page)

“It’s a delicate situation. Vampires are easily antagonised. We need to be cautious and diplomatic, not go about waving cameras in their faces.”

“I can be diplomatic.”

“You? I don’t think so.”

With a snort, Tina stowed the camcorder back inside her rucksack.

“Tchaikovsky,” Redlaw called out into the barren vastness of the church.

No answer. But the shadows were full, as they had been the last time he was here, and busy. Bodies on the move. Crawling. Peering.

“Tchaikovsky. Show yourself.”

From the darkness, as though from another world, came the priest’s rich, Russian-inflected baritone. “Redlaw. Back so soon. And I see you’ve brought a friend.”

“Her name is Tina Checkley. I can vouch for her. She’s a neutral party, nothing to be afraid of.”

“Unless you fuck with me,” Tina chipped in. “Then I’m your worst nightmare.”

“Not helping,” Redlaw said out of the side of his mouth. To Tchaikovsky he said, “Just a bit of bluster, that. She’s harmless. We need to discuss things, you and I. The attacks on Sunless nests are getting more overt and reckless. That’s dangerous for—”

“You bring a stranger,” Tchaikovsky interrupted, “unannounced, into our home?” The menace in his voice was clear and unmistakable. Up in the rafters and high on the walls, his vampires whispered and hissed in sibilant discontent. “You dare?”

“I told you, she’s nothing to be afraid of. She’s of no consequence.”

“Hey, thanks,” Tina said.

“Do you want to live?” Redlaw asked her.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Then shut. Up.”

Meekly: “Okay.”

“Why?” Tchaikovsky demanded. “Why is she here? We barely know each other, Redlaw, and already you jeopardise my security and the security of my flock by dragging along some random girl into our place of hiding, our sanctuary. You I can just about tolerate, but she—she is a trespasser. And trespassers are not welcome.”

The priestly shtriga emerged into a patch of dim gloom, his cassock flowing around him. His gaze was fixed on Tina, eyes ablaze with hostility.

“I apologise,” said Redlaw. “I thought we had an understanding.”

“What next? The police? The army? Maybe some of your old Night Brigade cronies. You think this is acceptable? You think this is something I’m going to allow to go unpunished?”

Redlaw turned to Tina. “I think you should get ready to make a run for it.”

“What?”

His hand moved several inches towards his Cindermaker. “My fault. I should have been firmer with you. Should have forced you to stay behind.”

“Oh, God. We’re in serious shit, aren’t we?”

“I’ll do my best to cover you. When I say go, head for the door and don’t stop. Find the nearest sunlight, if there’s any left, and stay in it. I can buy you a minute or two at best. Don’t hesitate. Don’t, whatever you do, look back.”

“Redlaw...” said Tina.

“Oh, Redlaw,” said Tchaikovsky. “Shame on you, lying to her like that. You know there’s no way she’s getting out of here alive. I am shtriga. My vampires are legion. Try your hardest, and she still won’t make it to the door. Why give her false hope?”

“Then do me a kindness,” Redlaw said. “Let her leave, unharmed. You can have me. I don’t matter. I won’t resist. A trade. Her life for mine.”

“How noble. But the fact is, my children are hungry. So very hungry. So many mouths to feed, and I can’t keep fobbing them off with animal blood. Not when there’s only one kind of blood that can truly placate and satisfy.”

“Mine. Take mine.”

“One man’s? When there are two of you? When you’ve so obligingly supplied an extra body, filled to bursting with delicious hot blood? Yes, this is the best solution for all concerned. You’ve presented yourselves to us on a plate, as it were, and we shall make the most of it.”

All around, the vampires were showing themselves, slinking between the pews and, spider-like, over them, making for Redlaw and Tina. The church resounded to sighs of joy and hideous moist slurps of lip-smacking relish.

Tina was trembling, her knees starting to buckle. She gripped Redlaw’s arm, digging her fingernails in so hard that it hurt, even through the parka sleeve’s thick lining. “Jesus, Redlaw, please, stop this, make it not be happening...”

A single shot
, Redlaw thought
. Hit Tchaikovsky in the head. Might kill him. Might startle the others enough so that we can make a getaway
.

It was a Hail Mary, a desperate ploy.

God, hear me
.

They were as good as dead anyway. What other chance did they have?

Guide my aim, O Lord
.

He drew the Cindermaker, lightning fast. The gun boomed.

But Tchaikovsky was not there. Quick as Redlaw had been, the shtriga, inevitably, was quicker. He sprang into the air, leapfrogging over the Fraxinus round’s trajectory. A split second later he came down on top of Redlaw, feet on his shoulders. The impact drove Redlaw flat onto the church flagstones, winding him. The last thing he saw before blacking out was Tchaikovsky’s fist as it lashed at his face, a blur of flesh and bone. The last thing he thought was
I failed her
, followed by
God failed me
.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

C
OLONEL
J
ACOBSEN WENT
round the basement levels, rousting Team Red Eye from their quarters.

“Up you get. Up and at ’em. New mission. This is not a goddamn drill.”

He hammered on Red Eye Seven’s door.

“That means you, Abbotts. Switch off the gay porn, wipe down your dick, be in the parking garage in ten. Hustle, hustle. Now, now, now.”

“Screw you, asshole,” came the reply from Abbotts’s room.

“Screw you, asshole,
sir
,” Jacobsen retorted.

Eleven minutes later, Private Chris Abbotts stumbled into the garage, securing the last of the Velcro straps on his protective vest. He folded himself into the narrow back-row seat of the Hummer H2, next to Red Eye Six, PFC Kyle Larousse.

“Hey, bud.”

“Hey.”

The two men had plenty in common. Both were the youngest and lowest ranked on the squad, both were southerners—Abbotts from Birmingham, Alabama, Larousse from Corpus Christi, Texas—and both were just a beer and a paycheque away from being hopeless white trash. Abbotts could boast the distinction of having spent a total of fifty-seven days in the stockade for a string of disciplinary infractions throughout his career, including gross insubordination and brawling while drunk and disorderly, leading to an Other-Than-Honourable Discharge. Larousse’s military record was, on the face of it, clean, but thanks to a good-time reputation and a lack of respect for authority he had never been likely to progress further than the lower ranks.

Jeanette Berger started up the Hummer and the giant car rolled up a ramp to the garage door, which retracted automatically. All at once, Team Red Eye were out on East 84th Street, having emerged from beneath an impressive midtown townhouse. The building was, to all intents and purposes, a grand, single-occupancy home with little to make it unusual other than that its owner had not long ago done what a lot of the super-rich were doing with their urban residences: extended underground. Workmen had excavated down below the basement and out beneath the street to create an extra pair of floors, each of which was larger than the house’s ground footprint. There was the garage now, and a network of rooms, guest suites mostly, along with a gym and recreation complex and a dining area. This had augmented the property’s overall square footage by a good 50% and its market value by as much as 75%.

Turning left onto Lexington Avenue, the Hummer cruised south. Snow chains gave the car a firm grip on the icy roadway, and its laden weight, nearly 9,000 lbs, added further stability and traction. Still, Berger drove with care. It was the other traffic she was worried about. The Hummer could survive any collision almost intact, but a crash would bring unwanted attention and complications, and of course there was the potential for a fatality among the occupants of any vehicle that ploughed into it or it ploughed into.

“Okay, listen up, people,” said Jacobsen. “Here’s the deal. You want the good news or the bad?”

“Good first,” said Gunnery Sergeant Child.

“The good news is that we don’t have to travel at all far this time. We should be hitting the op zone in about ten minutes.”

“Well, hallelujah,” said Abbotts. “It’s okay for the rest of you guys, you got comfy seats, but me’n Larousse back here, we ain’t got legroom fit for a midget. Any longer than a quarter-hour journey, I start getting cramp in my thighs like you wouldn’t believe.”

“And already the moaning starts,” said Red Eye Four, Justin Lim, lately a corporal in the Green Berets.

“Hey, fuck you, convenience store,” said Abbotts sharply. “How come you ain’t sitting back here anyway? What are you, five-three? Five-four, tops. This seat was made for your Korean ass.”

“‘Convenience store,’” sighed Lim. “Racial profile much?”

“Matter of fact,” Abbotts went on, “why don’t we have two of these cars ’stead of one? Seems crazy. Ain’t as if the guy bankrolling this whole deal is short of money. What’s an extra Hummer to him?”

“Think about it,” said Lieutenant Giacoia. “Two of these things driving around in convoy, that stands out. It gets noticed. One, on the other hand, just looks like some Russian oligarch or rap artist taking his wheels out for a spin. Does the word ‘covert’ mean anything to you?”

“I don’t know much,” said Abbotts, “but I know a pimp ride like this is anything but covert.”

“Sure it is,” said Lim. “Maybe not in Redneckville where you come from, where a rusty pickup’s a limousine, but here in the civilised world, we’re blending right in.”

“Oh, now who’s stereotyping? Guess you’d like me to put on a wifebeater and fetch out my banjo so’s we can all—”

“Enough!” barked Jacobsen. “I’m not getting paid to listen to you bitch and bicker like a schoolroom full of little girls. Minds on the job. Don’t any of you want to know what the bad news is?”

“Kinda not,” said Child, “but tell us anyway.”

“This is going to be the largest nest we’ve tackled yet, by a wide margin. Estimate puts it at fifty vamps, maybe even more. So we do not take any chances. We stay sharp and play it by the book.”

“That’s the best guess we have?” said Larousse. “Up to fifty?”

“I’m sorry, is that a problem?”

“How are we even getting hold of this intel? Where’s it coming from? Enquiring minds need to know.”

“No,” said Jacobsen, “all you need to know, Private Larousse, is that you’re part vampire, you have all of a vampire’s strengths and pretty much none of its weaknesses, you have guns that destroy vampires and body armour that makes you impervious to their teeth and talons, you are, in short, superior to a vampire in every meaningful way, and your purpose in this world is to be pointed at vampires and blow their undead asses to hell. Anything more than that is above your pay grade and no concern of yours.”

Twisted round in the front passenger seat, Jacobsen stared down Larousse until the latter looked away.

“That’s settled, then,” he said. “If the working conditions don’t suit, you can always quit, any of you, and kiss a cosy retirement goodbye. Otherwise, brain in neutral, zip lip, engage training.”

Jacobsen had to keep reminding himself that his team, like him, had volunteered to be subjected to the Porphyrian process and that this was not an official military unit; this was private enterprise. Hence, he was prepared to cut them some slack.

At the same time, discipline and the chain of command could not entirely be dispensed with. That would be inviting disaster.

T
HEY ARRIVED.

Jacobsen had earlier carried out a preliminary reconnaissance of the op zone via satellite image and Street View. Eyeball reconnaissance confirmed that his theoretical plan of attack was valid and viable.