by Will Hill
No, he told himself. Don’t even think that, no matter what was between her and Albertsson. You need to get on her side, right now. She needs you.
But he couldn’t forget the way Tim had behaved throughout the previous day, how embarrassingly obvious the tension between him and Larissa had become, and what the American had said when Jamie’s girlfriend woke him up and told him they needed to talk.
He said it was overdue, he thought. Like it’s been brewing since Larissa was in Nevada, at least.
“What now?” asked Van Orel. “Just what the hell do we do now?”
“We go on,” said Larissa.
“Just like that?” asked Van Orel, and let out a laugh that Jamie thought sounded worryingly close to hysterical. “Just carry on like nothing happened? Like our squad leader wasn’t bled dry while we were asleep two metres away?”
“Get a hold of yourself,” said Larissa, her eyes flashing red.
“Get a hold of myself?” said Van Orel, his eyes wide. “Something came in here while we were asleep and tore out Tim’s throat and drank his blood until he was empty. And none of us heard a thing, not a bloody thing. What’s to stop it coming back tonight, huh? What if it’s just going to pick us off, one at a time, until there’s nobody left? What if—”
“That is enough,” said Petrov, his voice loud and firm. “It does no good to think like that.”
“I can’t help it!” shouted Van Orel. “I don’t want to die in this bloody forest!”
“I will not tell you again,” said Petrov. “That is enough.”
Van Orel stared at the Russian Operator, then lowered his eyes.
“We have to keep going,” said Larissa. “I know you’re scared, and that’s OK. I’m scared too. But we can’t report this, because we have no comms. We can’t ask for guidance, or new orders, for the same reason. So what do you want us to do? Go back to the landing site and say that we abandoned the Priority 1 operation that was entrusted to us because we couldn’t do our jobs without Tim to tell us how?”
“For God’s sake, Larissa,” said Engel, looking at the vampire girl with wide, wet eyes. “Have some humanity. Please.”
Larissa shrugged. “Think whatever you want,” she said. “On operations, people die. Particularly on Priority 1s. If this is the first time any of you have been through this, then I’m sorry, I truly am. But it’s the risk we all signed up for, Tim included. So I say we do what we were sent here to do.”
“I agree,” said Petrov.
Van Orel rounded on him. “You do?”
“Yes,” said Petrov, his grey eyes narrow. “I do.”
“So do I,” said Jamie. “This is a terrible thing, obviously it is, but I’m not going back to the Loop with my tail between my legs to tell my Director I couldn’t cope when things went wrong. And I’m sorry to say this, because I know how self-serving it’s going to sound, but Tim wouldn’t want me to. If one of us had been killed, he would have carried on. You know he would.”
“Tim was squad leader,” said Engel, fiercely. “He had the authority to make that decision. Who put you in charge?”
Jamie shook his head. “Nobody,” he said. “But it’s an important point. We need a new squad leader.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” shouted Engel.
“Nevertheless,” said Larissa, “Jamie’s right.”
“So I suppose your vote is for him then?” asked Van Orel.
“My vote goes to Arkady,” said Jamie, before Larissa had time to respond.
Petrov tilted his head to one side and looked at him, but said nothing.
“OK,” said Van Orel, looking enormously relieved. “Arkady, sure. OK. I can get behind that.”
“So can I,” said Larissa. “Engel?”
“Jesus Christ,” replied the German Operator. She appeared on the verge of tears. “His body is barely cold, for God’s sake. What are we going to do with him? Leave him here and hope we find him on our way back, if we even get out of here alive?”
“We carry him,” said Petrov. “We make a frame and we carry him in his sleeping bag.”
“So you’ll do it?” asked Van Orel. “You’ll be squad leader?”
Petrov nodded. “I will do it,” he said. “If that is what is wanted.”
“It is,” said Larissa.
“Fine,” said Petrov. “We continue. Kinley, Engel, make a frame. Van Orel, Carpenter, take down the camp. Ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the squad, as one.
Jamie immediately saw that Engel and Van Orel, who had both seemed on the verge of losing it, were calmer for having been given orders to follow. He was about to start folding down the shelter when Petrov spoke again.
“First,” he said, “we will have a moment of silence for Special Operator Albertsson.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jamie saw a momentary grimace cross his girlfriend’s face, before she dropped her gaze respectfully to the ground. He did likewise, focusing on the patch of dirt between his feet, doubt and darkness crowding his mind.
As he had finally drifted to sleep in the early hours of the morning, with his girlfriend and his squad leader still somewhere else, Jamie had momentarily wondered whether it was possible for this operation to get any worse. Now, in the cold gloom of the morning with a dead body lying on the ground before him, his squad mates brimming with paranoia and uncertainty, and a dark hole in his heart where his faith in Larissa should have been, he had his answer.
Things could always get worse.
Julian Carpenter stubbed out his cigarette, then ran the half-full packet under a tap and threw it in the bin along with his lighter and an overflowing ashtray.
He had quit smoking when Marie had announced she was pregnant with Jamie, and had never fallen off the wagon, not even in the long, desperate months when he criss-crossed America in search of Adam. But the previous morning, after the Blacklight SUV had driven away and left him standing outside a cottage he had not seen with his own eyes for almost five years, he had walked the two miles to the village shop and bought two bottles of vodka and three packets of Marlboros.
The rest of the day had passed in a blur of sobbing and drunken, violent recrimination, the vast majority of it aimed inward. He was angry with Cal Holmwood, and with Bob Allen, but he was furious with himself for the way he had handled things, for the blind panic that had overwhelmed him after what he had seen in the California desert – the terrible, nightmarish vision of his son as a vampire – and had driven him voluntarily into captivity; first in Nevada, and then at the Loop, where his family had been an agonisingly short distance away, completely oblivious to his presence. He had eventually passed out on the sofa in the cottage’s living room, his heart heavy in his chest, his throat raw, his mind awash with despair.
It’s worth it, was the last thing he could remember thinking before he lost consciousness. It’s all worth it, as long as Jamie’s OK. As long as he’s safe.
He had awoken as the sun dragged itself lazily over the horizon, and had staggered outside to watch light spill slowly across the Broads. His head was pounding, his stomach churning with acid, and he sat in the garden and drank coffee and smoked as dawn broke. Fear was pulsing through his body, the fear that this was his life now, this aimless, endless nothing. He started to cry again, and wondered how long he would be able to cope with this new reality, how long he would be able to resist placing the shotgun that was kept on top of the bookcase in the dining room under his chin and …
No, he thought. Not that. Never that.
Julian watched sunlight creep across the garden his mother had once kept so pristine that it barely looked real, but which was now an overgrown tangle of weeds and climbing vines; the light was watery yellow, and moved languidly, as though it saw no reason to hurry. It reached his bare feet, rolled up his legs and arms and chest until it washed slowly over his face. He closed his eyes, letting its warmth revive him, allowing the feel of the sun on his skin to fill him with something ot
her than anger, and made a decision.
This is not how this ends. You’re not going down like this. Not without a fight.
He forced himself up on to legs that felt like jelly and staggered back into the cottage. There was one thing he knew, even through the fog clouding his mind, one thing of which he was certain: the only way he could even try to help keep his son safe was by again becoming the man he had once been.
The man who died.
Showered, dressed, and with the sodden cigarettes dissolving in the bin, Julian compiled a mental checklist of what he needed.
First, and most importantly, was the ability to move without being tracked by Blacklight. He had examined the cottage and its grounds the previous morning, as he was making a start on the first bottle of vodka, and had seen immediately that working around the surveillance net that had been put in place would be impossible; it was as tight as any he had ever seen. He was going to have to think creatively, and decide his movements based on how they would appear on the screens in the Surveillance Division, which meant removing the tracker on the underside of the car parked beside the cottage was out; the moment it stopped transmitting, or one of the many cameras showed that the car was gone but the tracker wasn’t, Cal would send a team to take him back in. But a solution would have to be found; there were places he needed to go, one in particular, that he didn’t want Blacklight to know about.
Julian placed a tea towel, his mother’s carving knife, and the last of the vodka on the table, and sat down. He forced himself to breathe, trying to keep his heartrate slow and steady, then rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and surveyed the bandage that encircled his forearm. He had no idea what advances had been made to the locator chips during his time away from Blacklight; in his day, it had been possible to remove them without damaging the small metal units, or triggering any kind of alarm.
There were no guarantees that was still the case.
This might be over before it even starts, he thought.
Slowly, he unwrapped the bandage. Beneath it, the incision that had been made by one of the Blacklight doctors was still red, the stitches black and ugly. Julian reached for the vodka and realised with embarrassment that his hand was shaking; he gripped the glass bottle tightly, and tipped its contents over his forearm.
The pain as the alcohol hit the wound was enormous, like dipping his arm into a box of white-hot razor blades. Julian threw his head back, his teeth gritted, the cords of muscle in his neck standing out, and waited for it to pass. It did so slowly, shifting gradually from searing agony to a low, hot throbbing. Julian took a long, deep breath, put the vodka bottle down, and picked up the carving knife.
Working as carefully as possible, he ran the sharp tip of the knife along the length of the incision, slicing open the black stitches. They split with a snapping noise that seemed horribly loud, and with each one that gave way, the wound peeled further open. The pain intensified, and he started to sweat from his forehead as his stomach churned with nausea. Then, finally, the last of the stitches was gone; he wiped his brow with the back of a trembling hand and examined the wound.
It was a slender oval of bright red and angry pink. Julian slid the point of the knife into it, keeping the sharp edge away from the raw flesh, and gently pressed the flat of the blade against one side of the wound, widening it. At the bottom of the shallow incision, no more than a centimetre below the surface of his arm, he could see the dull grey metal of the locator chip. Skin had already begun to heal over it, brand new and pale, and he realised with sinking resignation that he would have to cut through it to get the chip out.
Julian withdrew the knife, poured vodka over it, and tried to steady his hand; the sharp point of the blade was shaking dangerously. He worked the knife slowly back into the wound, clenching his jaw as vodka touched raw flesh, sending brief flashes of agony through his arm. He steadied the blade at one end of the chip, above the translucent layer of new skin. He took a deep breath, then pressed the point against it, and cut.
The pain was unreal, a thunderbolt of agony that erupted out of his forearm and charged into his head, sending him dizzy. The chip disappeared from view as blood welled up in the wound, covering the knife and spilling out on to the kitchen table. Julian shook his head, trying not to pass out from the pain, and pushed the knife forward. Something tore with a sound that seemed deafening inside his head, and he screamed at the ceiling, his face bright white, his eyes squeezed together as his vision began to grey.
Faint, he thought, distantly. I’m going to faint.
As his head started to swim, Julian let go of the knife and swung his fist up as hard as he could manage. It slammed into his ear, sending a jarring lightning bolt of pain through his head. His vision cleared instantly, and his reeling mind tried to focus again on the task at hand. He gripped the handle of the knife, and using what felt like the last of his resolve, dug the tip of the blade under the smooth side of the chip, slicing through flesh as he struggled for purchase. Blood spurted out of the wound in a glistening red arc and pattered down on to the table.
What if you cut a muscle? his mind asked, almost absently. Or an artery?
Julian pushed the thought away and bent the knife blade backwards with what little strength he had left. For long, awful seconds, nothing happened. Then, with a final burst of pain, the locator chip came loose; it was carried out of his arm on a fresh wave of blood and splashed on to the wooden table.
Euphoria flooded through him, momentarily overwhelming the pain in his arm and his concern at the amount of blood that was soaking into the table; the metal chip was proof that he was not helpless, that his misfortunes had not beaten him all the way down. But it was gone as quickly as it arrived, as Julian surveyed the carnage he had wrought on himself.
He simply could not bring himself to tip vodka into the wound again, so he pressed it together as firmly as he dared, sealed it shut with strips of stationery tape, and tightly rewrapped the bandage. Blood seeped through it almost instantly, but didn’t spread too far, and he sighed with relief. Infection was a genuine concern, but he would deal with it as and when.
Julian picked up the chip, tied it securely to a rubber band, and put it round the wrist of the arm he had just performed impromptu surgery on. It was vital that it appear to Blacklight as though nothing had changed, so he would need to carry the locator with him most of the time. But now it could be taken off if the situation required, and that gave him an advantage over the men and women who were watching him, no matter how small.
OK, he thought. What’s next?
The answer came without him even having to think about it.
It was time to go home.
Julian drove to Norwich in silence.
The elderly dark green Mercedes that had belonged to his mother had been extremely reluctant to start, but perseverance and a colourful range of shouted insults had eventually seen the engine splutter into life. The car handled like a tank, and seemed to be drinking petrol at an alarming rate, but its leather seats were soft and comfortable, and the big engine had lost little of its power; it devoured picturesque mile after picturesque mile, until Julian turned off the main road and into a trading estate at the edge of the city.
In an electronics shop the size of an aircraft hangar, he bought a torch and the best radio handset he could find. It was a sleek black device, capable of transmitting across a wide frequency spectrum, with an encryption filter that made it impossible for anyone to monitor any conversation he might use it for, and a fingerprint sensor that locked its control panel. He paid cash at the till, stowed the radio under the passenger seat of the Mercedes, and headed back east.
On the outskirts of Great Yarmouth, he found what he was looking for: a second-hand car dealership with a neon sign in the shape of a deck of cards over its entrance next to the words FULL HOUSE CARS. Julian parked in the car park of a vast twenty-four-hour supermarket on the other side of the road, took his chip off his wrist and put it in the glove compartment, and heade
d towards the car dealership. It looked as though its best days, assuming there had actually been any, were long behind it, which Julian hoped would make it the kind of establishment willing to deal in cash and forget names and faces.
He was right. Twenty minutes later he was driving his mother’s Mercedes towards the seafront with the owner of FULL HOUSE CARS, a vastly overweight man by the name of Bobby, with a bald head and a goatee, following behind in the decade-old Ford Focus Julian had just bought with a small bundle of fifty-pound notes.
Outside a chain hotel overlooking the sea, Julian took the keys to the Ford and sent Bobby on his way. He left the Mercedes in the hotel car park, then walked round to a long outdoor seating area that faced the flat grey expanse of the North Sea. He took a seat at one of the picnic tables, then carefully removed the locator chip from his wrist and taped it to the underside of the bench, pressing it firmly between two of the wooden boards. Then he strolled as casually as he was able to his new Ford, and climbed behind the wheel.
If Blacklight was closely monitoring him, and he was convinced it would be, for at least the first few days of his release, they would see that he had left his mother’s cottage, driven to a retail park outside Norwich, then to a supermarket in Great Yarmouth, and was now stationary outside a hotel on the seafront, with his car parked in the same establishment. If they were watching incredibly closely, they might have noticed that he hadn’t appeared to get out of the car at the supermarket, and if they had him on continuous surveillance, they would eventually become suspicious when he didn’t move from the picnic table; if nothing else, he would need to go to the bathroom at some point.
Three hours there, he thought, as he turned the Ford’s key. Half an hour to get what I need. Three hours back.
It was a clear risk; his destination would undoubtedly have been flagged in whatever fake profile Cal Holmwood had given the Surveillance Division, and the potential for discovery was far higher than he would have liked. But there was simply nothing he could do about it; he had taken what precautions he could, and now he would simply have to hope that his luck held.
