Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

  “Larissa,” said Kate. “Jesus. I heard your message. Is he OK?”

  She tried to form the words of an answer, but found it an impossible task. She had time to shake her head before Kate wrapped her arms round her and pulled her tight against her chest. She just about managed not to cry in front of two of the most senior members of the Department, but for a long moment, as she let her head rest on Kate’s shoulder, she simply couldn’t breathe; the weight of everything that had happened had settled on to her shattered chest, crushing the air out of her.

  “Operator,” said Paul Turner, his voice low. “Did Lieutenant Kinley give a report?”

  “No, sir,” said the man who had carried Jamie down the corridor. “She shouted for help and I found them in the lift. She told me he was bitten.”

  “How long ago?” asked Cal Holmwood.

  “An hour,” said the doctor. “That’s what she told me.”

  “You’re transfusing him?” asked Turner.

  “I was about to,” said the doctor.

  “Don’t,” said Turner. “Not yet.”

  Anger surged through Larissa’s exhausted body. She pushed Kate roughly away; her friend stumbled backwards, frowning with confusion.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Larissa, her eyes flaring as she fixed them on the Security Officer. “He needs to be transfused now.”

  “Who bit him?” asked Turner.

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” she asked.

  “I asked you a question,” said Turner. “Who bit Lieutenant Carpenter?”

  “The first victim bit him!” she shouted. “We found him, he refused to help, then he changed his mind and bit Jamie. Does that answer your question? Is there anything else you want to waste time asking me right now? Or can we get on with transfusing him before it’s too late?”

  “It’s not that simple, Larissa,” said Holmwood. “I think you know it isn’t.”

  “The Browning Theory,” said Turner.

  “Right,” said Holmwood. “This could make Carpenter more powerful than the Rusmanovs.”

  Turner nodded. “Maybe powerful enough to stand up to Dracula.”

  Larissa stared incredulously at the two men. “It is that simple,” she shouted. “You save him or you let him turn. It couldn’t be more simple.” She turned to the doctor. “Do it.”

  The doctor grimaced, and looked at Paul Turner. The Security Officer didn’t move so much as a muscle.

  Larissa felt her vampire side rise up, bringing with it reserves of strength she didn’t know she possessed. “Do it,” she repeated, her eyes blazing crimson. “Right now. Or I’ll make you.”

  “Stand down, Lieutenant,” said Turner, staring at her with his maddeningly empty eyes. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

  “Please, Larissa,” said Kate, her voice small. “Just take it easy.”

  Larissa laughed, a grunt of utter disbelief. “I don’t understand any of you,” she said. “You’re his colleagues. You’re supposed to be his friends. And you would rob him of everything that makes him human so you can use him as a weapon. How can you live with yourselves?”

  “Larissa,” said Holmwood, a pained expression on his face. “You need to understand—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “I don’t need to understand anything. You need to understand that this transfusion is going to happen, and that I will kill anyone who interferes with it. Am I making myself clear to you all? You can bring the entire active roster in here and watch me put them down one after the other, because I will not stand by and let you do this to him. Do you hear me? I WILL NOT LET YOU.”

  “Yes,” whispered Jamie. “You will.”

  The sound of her boyfriend’s voice swept away the rage that had momentarily overwhelmed Larissa. She turned to the bed, aware that silence had fallen over the infirmary.

  Jamie was looking up at her through eyes that were barely open, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips. “I don’t want the transfusion,” he said, his voice a low croak. “Let it take its course.”

  “No,” she said, her voice wavering. She wanted to punch him, grab him, shake him until he saw sense. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Jamie.”

  He lifted his head a few millimetres from his pillow and nodded, incredibly slowly. “I do,” he said. “What’s in my blood is what we went to Romania for. We all knew this was a possibility, even if we never said it out loud. It was just me that it happened to.”

  “It’s always just you,” she said, fiercely. “Why can’t it be someone else for once?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and smiled again. “I wouldn’t mind. Honest.”

  Larissa smiled, despite herself. She looked up, and saw Kate and the two senior Operators watching her exchange with her boyfriend with obvious anguish on their faces. Their pain made her feel fractionally better.

  She turned back to Jamie. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. “Tell me.”

  “Stay with me,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “I will.”

  “You promise?” he asked.

  “I promise,” she said, then tried a final time to make him see sense. “You don’t have to do this, Jamie. We can go back to the forest, go back with more Operators. We can make him help us, make him fight on our side. We can—”

  “No,” he said. “This is what needs to happen. This is what we do.”

  “You wanted this,” she cried. “You’ve always wanted this, and now you’ve got it and I’m not allowed any say in it. Where does this leave me, Jamie? Where does it leave us?”

  “It doesn’t change anything,” he whispered. “We’ll get through it, like we have everything else. Together.”

  She couldn’t respond; her throat was hot and full as tears finally broke loose and spilled down her cheeks.

  “Stay with me,” he repeated, his half-open eyes locked on hers.

  “I will,” she said. “I won’t leave this room. Now try and get some sleep. You’ve got a really shitty morning ahead of you.”

  Jamie nodded. “I know,” he said.

  “No,” said Larissa, shaking her head. “You don’t. But you will.” She turned to Cal Holmwood. “You need to get the FTB to send a team to our insertion point at the edge of the forest. The rest of our squad should be there by now. With Tim Albertsson’s body.”

  The Interim Director closed the infirmary doors behind him as quietly as he could and strode away down the Level C corridor.

  Kate Randall had decided to stay with her friends, at least until Jamie fell asleep. Paul Turner had ordered the Surveillance Division to contact the FTB and pass on Larissa’s extraction instructions, and was now quietly making arrangements with the medical team to manage Carpenter’s hunger when it hit him some time in the next few hours.

  As he reached the lift, Holmwood’s console beeped on his belt. He lifted it from its loop, saw the name of the Prime Minister glowing up at him, and groaned. He thumbed open first the screen and then the message itself, which was short and to the point.

  Call me immediately. Downing Street number.

  Great, thought Cal, as he stepped into the lift and pressed the button marked A. Absolutely bloody fantastic. Because there’s nothing I’d rather do right now than get talked down to by some jumped-up secretary in a school tie.

  Inside his quarters, Holmwood poured himself a large glass of Scotch and settled into the chair behind his desk, the place where he now seemed to spend the vast majority of his time. When half the whisky was gone, he opened a secure communications window and selected the Prime Minister’s name from a drop-down menu. There was a long moment of silence as the call was passed through a labyrinth of security connections and layers of encryption, then connected to an office in Downing Street. A second later the leader of the country’s voice rang out through speakers set in the walls of the room.

  “Colonel Holmwood?”

  “I’m here, sir,” said Cal. “What can I do for you?”<
br />
  “Go back in time and not make such a damn mess of all this?” suggested the Prime Minister.

  Holmwood didn’t respond. Stay calm, he told himself. Keep your temper.

  “That was a joke, Colonel,” said the Prime Minister, after several uncomfortable seconds had passed.

  “Yes, sir,” said Cal.

  The Prime Minster cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed. “The time has come to go public, Colonel,” he said. “Which isn’t something I ever thought I would have to say to you, nor something I ever wanted. I hope you know how grateful the Chief of the General Staff and I are for the work that you and your Department do, and for your many years of dedicated service to your country. But the situation has changed, as I’m sure you are aware, and I no longer see another option. That bloody TV show has caused chaos. We have civil unrest in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle and Glasgow, a wave of violence that the police are struggling to contain, let alone do anything to stop. The public are scared, and they have heard no reasons not to be from their government. We need to let them know what we’re doing to protect them, which means telling them about Blacklight. I know this won’t be what you want to hear, Colonel Holmwood, but I’m afraid it is now necessary.”

  Cal rolled his eyes, glad the Prime Minister couldn’t see the look of contempt on his face.

  You’re sorry, he thought. Of course you are. You know damn well that taking Blacklight public won’t save a single civilian life. If anything, it will make our job even harder, because the vampires who didn’t know we existed will start looking over their shoulders. But that doesn’t matter, does it? Because you need to be seen to be doing something, before the opinion polls fall too far.

  That’s what this is really all about.

  “I need you to wait two more days, sir,” he said. “After that, neither my Department nor anyone else is going to be able to keep the public safe. So you can tell them whatever you want.”

  “You’re talking about Zero Hour.”

  “That’s right, sir,” said Holmwood.

  “Then level with me, Colonel,” said the Prime Minister. “Is there anything you can genuinely do to stop it arriving? If you can honestly tell me yes, then I’ll give you the two days. Otherwise we’re briefing the press in an hour.”

  “Honestly?” said Holmwood. “I don’t know, sir. But if it can be stopped, I know that we’re the only ones that can do it. And we have seen some promising developments in recent days.”

  “Being?”

  “There’s very little I can tell you at this point, sir,” said Holmwood. He had no intention of giving the Prime Minister any reason to get carried away.

  “Then tell me what you can.”

  “Our research department believe they are closer to a potential cure than at any previous point. And we acquired a new weapon, one that has the potential to be significant, sir.” He omitted the fact that the weapon in question was a teenage boy lying unconscious in an infirmary bed.

  “A potential cure for vampirism?” asked the Prime Minister.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Which would work on Dracula?”

  “If it was perfected and synthesised, if we were able to locate him, and if it could be introduced into his system, then theoretically yes, sir.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Fine,” said the Prime Minister, eventually. “Forty-eight hours, Colonel. Then you’re going to find yourself one of the most famous men in the country.”

  “I look forward to that, sir,” said Cal.

  The Prime Minister laughed. “Do whatever you can,” he said. “I know you will, but I wanted to say it anyway. Do whatever you can to stop this.”

  “We will, sir,” said Cal.

  “I know,” said the Prime Minister. “Goodbye, Colonel.”

  “Goodbye, sir.”

  A long tone filled the room, signifying that the connection had been cut. Cal closed the comms window, and sat back in his chair.

  He had told the Prime Minister the truth; they would do whatever was in their power to stop Zero Hour coming. But as he stared at the Blacklight crest in the centre of his wall screen, the Department’s motto emblazoned below it, he was forced to admit to himself that his hopes of success were almost non-existent.

  The turning of Jamie Carpenter was a bonus, but was not the giant step forward that the first victim’s cooperation would have been. The Browning Theory suggested that Jamie would, in time, become an extremely powerful vampire, and that would certainly be useful. But he was never going to be the equal of the vampire who had bitten him, who had five centuries of power bubbling through his veins.

  It was not the only disappointment to come from how DARKWOODS had ended. If the time ever came that it was needed, Jamie would not be able to help them launch PROMETHEUS, the strategic plan that was classified at such a level that Cal would deny it existed if asked by anyone, including the Prime Minister and Paul Turner.

  For that, they had needed the first victim himself.

  Cal got up from his desk, crossed the room, and unscrewed the cap on the bottle of Scotch. He was about to fill his glass for the second time when the incoming call tone rang through his quarters. He swore heavily, put the bottle down, and turned towards the screen, expecting to see the Prime Minister’s name; he had presumably forgotten something he wanted to say, or had changed his mind about the extension he had granted. Instead, the name of the NS9 Director glowed in a new window, above the words ACCEPT and REJECT.

  Holmwood strode back to his desk and clicked ACCEPT. The window expanded and General Allen’s face appeared; his tanned skin looked pale, and there were bags under his eyes that were almost black. He seemed to have aged ten years since Cal had last spoken to him, barely two days earlier.

  “Jesus, Bob,” said Cal. “You look like shit. Is everything OK?”

  Allen smiled, and shook his head. “Not even close,” he said. “You?”

  “About the same,” said Holmwood. “I’ve just had to talk the Prime Minister out of going public. The little prick is worried that people are going to be angry with him for not telling them about vamps until now.”

  “Did you tell him he’s going to have bigger problems than that in a couple of days?”

  “I tried,” said Cal. “He heard me. Whether he listened is another matter.”

  Allen nodded. “I’m briefing the White House later today,” he said. “I’m expecting about the same from them. I should thank you for that, I suppose.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting one of your vamps go on TV and tell the whole world that they’re real. That was quality work from your boys, Cal. Great stuff, really.”

  “Are you kidding me?” asked Cal. “Exactly how was I supposed to stop that from happening? The show is recorded live, in London. Nobody knew what they were going to do until it was happening.”

  “You couldn’t shut it down?” asked Allen. “Once you saw where they were going with it?”

  “No, Bob,” said Cal. “I can’t have a commercial television station taken off the air at a moment’s notice. And neither can you, so don’t even start with me.”

  “Fair enough,” said Allen. “I suppose it was going to come out somewhere. There was probably no stopping it after McKenna’s article.”

  “Are you going to give me shit for that too?” asked Cal.

  Allen rolled his eyes, and smiled. “No, Cal,” he said. “I read the reports and I know you did all you could. It’s out now, so we just have to deal with it.”

  “How bad is it over there?” asked Cal.

  “Not too bad yet,” said Allen. “Your show got picked up and it’s running non-stop on the news networks, but we’ve refuted it as much as possible. We’ve had some violence in the cities, some reports of hoarding and looting. I’ve got the National Guard standing by, so we’re playing wait and see. But it’s going to get worse. I’ve had half a dozen of my retired Operators get in touch with me today and tell me
they’ve had journalists asking them to go on the record about NS9. Their records are all sealed, classified at the highest level. But the news media tracked them down in less than a day.”

  “They pay well,” said Cal. “For information. Someone will take their money, Bob. Prepare yourself for that.”

  Allen nodded. “Anyway,” he said, “this isn’t why I called you, Cal. Can you tell me what happened in Romania?”

  “Not much,” said Holmwood. “I’m sorry to hear about Tim Albertsson, Bob. But I don’t have a report from Larissa yet.”

  “Why not?” asked Allen. “I had to hear about Albertsson from the Germans. They heard it from their Operator, after the first victim flew them out of the forest. The actual first victim, who they found, Cal. Although I presume you already know that?”

  “Larissa got back here half an hour ago,” said Cal. “With Lieutenant Carpenter, who was bitten by the first victim. Dealing with that hasn’t left me much time to make calls.”

  Allen frowned. “Jamie was bitten?”

  Holmwood nodded.

  “Are you transfusing him?”

  “No,” said Cal. “We’re not.”

  “Jesus,” said Allen. “That’s cold, Cal. I’m glad I didn’t have to make that call.”

  “Jamie made it,” said Cal. “He insisted that we let him turn. He understands what’s at stake.”

  The two men fell silent. Holmwood stared at his American counterpart, refusing to drop his eyes; he would not be made to feel bad about the decision that had been taken in the infirmary, a decision that he and Paul Turner had agreed on their way down to Level C that they would have made for Jamie had he not made it for himself.

  It’s for the greater good, he told himself. There’s no time left for sentiment.

  “How’s Larissa taking it?” asked Allen, eventually.

  Cal shrugged. “How do you think?”

  “I’m honestly surprised she let it happen.”

  “She made her objections known,” said Cal, remembering Larissa’s threat to kill everyone on the active roster. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “All right,” said Allen. “Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Did Browning report back to you?”