Department 18 [02] Night Souls

by Maynard Sims

  In his study at Faircroft Manor, John Holly cradled the telephone between his chin and his shoulder, his fingers dancing over the keys of his computer. “That’s interesting. Who’s with him?”

  “There are three others. Two men and a woman. I don’t recognize any of them. But Pike and Czerwinski were in Whitehall earlier.”

  Department 18, Holly thought. It was the only clear reason Pike would be in Whitehall. “I’m going to send a photo of someone through to your phone. Ring me again when you receive it and tell me if you recognize him and if he’s there with Pike.”

  The man with the cell hung up and waited. The others were all staring at him, waiting for further instructions. “We wait,” he said softly.

  John Holly clicked a few more keys and opened a directory. He scrolled through the list of files, finally finding what he was looking for. He’d had dealings with Department 18 a long, long time ago, and one man in particular. He found the file he was looking for and downloaded a jpeg to his phone, then he punched in the number, and pressed SEND.

  In the office building, the man’s cell phone vibrated in his hand. He checked the picture Holly had sent to him, smiled, and hit 1 on speed dial.

  “Well?” Holly said.

  “Yes, that’s one of them.”

  “Harry Bailey. Strange, I thought he’d retired.” He leaned back in his chair and considered the latest shift in events for a moment. “Okay, go ahead with the plan, but you are going to have to play it very carefully. Bailey is almost as formidable an opponent as Pike. Very powerful. I’ll leave it to you how you work it, but my advice would be to separate them, split them up. Just remember I want Pike and Czerwinski alive. The others are expendable.”

  He hung up and laced his fingers under his chin. Department 18 could pose a threat. He’d kept tabs on them since the early ‘90s and had always been a little puzzled why they hadn’t featured in his life since the days of Jay Cavanagh.

  He remembered meeting Harry Bailey in the small hotel in Bayswater and being impressed by him, impressed and slightly unnerved. There was a depth to Bailey’s psychic abilities that made John Holly reluctant to engage with him in anything other than mild mental fencing. He got to his feet, went across to the small drinks cabinet in the corner of the room and poured himself a large gin.

  And then he went back to his desk, and his phone, to wait.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit.

  —William Shakespeare

  Clerkenwell, London, England

  Dylan had hung back from the others and beckoned Harry Bailey across to him. “We’re not alone,” he said quietly.

  “I know,” Bailey said. “They must have been here waiting for us. I sensed them a few minutes after we entered the building.”

  “Do you think Pike is aware of them?” Dylan said.

  Yes, I am.

  The words entered his thoughts. He looked across at Jason Pike, who acknowledged his attention with a slight bow of his head.

  “He’s good,” Dylan said.

  “Yes,” Bailey said. “Yes, he is. Come on, let’s move up a floor.”

  As they pushed through the fire door onto the fifth floor, Miranda Payne gave a small gasp. Daniel Milton was lying on his back in the center of the corridor, unmoving. She opened her mouth to speak, but Pike was already running past her. At the sound of his feet beating on the linoleum, the rats scattered, disappearing through various open doors along the corridor. When he reached Daniel’s side, he crouched down and felt for a pulse in his neck. “He’s still alive! Unconscious but alive!” he called to the others, who were moving more cautiously along, checking each room they came to.

  Harry Bailey was the next to reach Daniel, squatting down beside him, lifting the side of his jacket and examining the ragged, bloody wound in his chest. He made a noise of disgust in his throat. “Christ! The rats were eating him alive.” He turned to Dylan. “Call an ambulance.”

  Dylan pulled out his cell and started to dial 999.

  “Wait!” Pike said.

  Dylan paused with his thumb poised above the last 9. “He needs medical attention, urgently.”

  “I know. But we have something else to deal with first, before we bring more innocent souls here.”

  As he said it, the door to the stairwell opened and three men and two women stepped into the corridor. At the other end of the corridor, another door opened and six more men appeared.

  “What’s going on?” Miranda Payne said, an edge of panic in her voice.

  “Holly laid a trap for me,” Pike said calmly. “Daniel was the goat tethered to the stake. The bait.”

  Dylan looked from one end of the corridor to the other and felt a chill take a slow walk down his spine. The intruders were standing there unmoving, their faces impassive. They looked like they had come from their daily work. Three were dressed in suits. One had come from a building site and was still wearing his hard hat; at the back of the second group there was a young, uniformed police constable.

  “Looks like we’ve been ambushed by the Village People,” Bailey whispered in his ear.

  Dylan gave a small snort of laughter, but the comment had an effect as he felt his spirits rallying.

  Pushing himself up from the floor, Pike got to his feet. He turned to Jacek. “Take Dr. Payne into that room and shut the door. Do what you can to secure it.”

  “But I want to help,” Jacek protested.

  “You two are the most vulnerable. Do as I say.” There was steel in his voice, steel and total conviction. “We can handle this,” he added, more softly.

  “If you say so,” Jacek said and ushered Miranda Payne into the nearest office and closed the door. Pike listened and could hear the screech of a heavy steel filing cabinet as it was dragged across from the corner and set against the door.

  “Jason Pike!” One of the men from the first group took a step forward. He was middle-aged, brown hair graying at the temples. Dressed in a sharply cut, expensive-looking suit, he was every inch the successful businessman. He was holding a cell phone.

  Pike took a step toward him. “Who are you?”

  “My name is not important. This is.” He held up the phone. “John Holly would like to speak with you.” He crouched down and slid the cell phone along the smooth linoleum. It skidded to a stop three feet from where Pike was standing.

  For a moment Jason did nothing, just stood staring at the phone on the floor. Then he took a step forward, bent down, and scooped it up, pressing it to his ear. “Yes?”

  “Hello, Jason,” John Holly said. “You seem to have a little problem there.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Ah, but at what cost? Haven’t enough people lost their lives in all this? Look at poor Daniel there. Back broken. Even if he lives—which is doubtful—he’ll never walk again. Why don’t we call an end to this now?”

  Pike stared down at Daniel Milton. The skin of his face was gray and waxy, and he was scarcely breathing. “What do you want?”

  “You and Czerwinski go with my people. Leave the others there with Milton. Simple really.”

  “Nothing to do with you or your family is ever simple, John, so let’s cut the bullshit. What do you really want?”

  “I’ll tell you that when we meet face to face.”

  “And you give me your word that the others will not be harmed and that you’ll let them take Daniel to the hospital?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then tell your people to leave, and I’ll make my way to Faircroft Manor to meet with you later today,” Pike said. “I give you my word.” He counted the seconds of silence as Holly considered the deal being offered.

  Finally John Holly spoke. “Agreed,” he said. “Pass the phone back to Malcolm.”

  “The guy in the suit?”

  “Is he wearing a suit? Malcolm O’Donnell? Must be in your honor, Jason. Yes, pass the phone to him.�
��

  Pike crouched and slid the phone back along the corridor.

  Malcolm bent to retrieve it and pressed it against his ear, listening to the instructions coming from the other end of the line. Eventually he rang off and slipped the cell phone back in his jacket pocket. He raised his arm and signaled to the men at the far end of the corridor. As one, they turned and disappeared through the door from which they’d emerged.

  Then Malcolm turned and said something to the group he was with. Within seconds Pike, Bailey, and Dylan were alone in the corridor with Daniel.

  Harry Bailey was the first to speak. “So you’re going to meet with him?”

  “I said I would,” Pike said.

  “Now, is that such a good idea?” Dylan said.

  “No,” Pike said. “It’s a lousy idea, but it was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment.”

  Harry Bailey rubbed his chin. “It was too easy,” he said, shaking his head. “Something’s not right. Phone for the ambulance now. Let’s get Milton to a hospital.” He walked across to the office in which Jacek and Miranda Payne had barricaded themselves and banged on the door with his fist. “You can come out now. They’ve gone.” He waited to hear the filing cabinet being dragged away from the door.

  He heard nothing.

  He banged on the door again.

  “The ambulance is on its way,” Dylan said.

  As Bailey called out again Dylan said, “Another problem?”

  “Give me a hand here,” Bailey said. His shoulder was against the door, and he was pushing with all his strength.

  Dylan and Pike rushed across and added their weight to the effort. Gradually the door inched open. When the gap was wide enough Pike said, “Mr. Dylan, you’re the smallest.”

  Dylan nodded and squeezed through the gap.

  “Well?” Bailey said once Dylan was through.

  “They’re not here,” Dylan called back.

  Bailey’s anger boiled to the surface, and he slammed his hand against door. “I said it was too easy.”

  Inside the room, Dylan put his shoulder against the filing cabinet and pushed it out of the way, opening the door for the others.

  Bailey was first through. “How?” he said.

  Dylan jerked his thumb in the direction of the window, which was open wide. Bailey walked across and looked through. The window opened onto a metal fire escape.

  “There must have been more of them waiting out there,” Dylan said.

  “So why didn’t we sense them?” Bailey said. “We got a sense of the others.”

  “Because Holly was blocking you,” Pike said entering the room. “He was watching our every move. Look.” He pointed to the corner of the room.

  The object was spherical, white with a black dot in the center and about the size of a garden pea. It was tucked in the corner where two walls met the ceiling. You would have to be looking for it to see it. “A camera,” Pike said. “There are more in the corridor, and I suspect all over the building.

  He was watching us the entire time, and we—I—played straight into his hands. I’ve been guilty of the sin of hubris. I believed Holly had set all this up in order to get his hands on me. I was wrong. He was after Jacek Czerwinski. Jacek was the target all along.”

  “But why?” Dylan said. “What’s so important about him?”

  Pike allowed himself a small smile. “Jacek Czerwinski, or rather his niece, Julia, could possibly be the last hope for the human race.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Faircroft Manor, Hertfordshire, England

  John Holly rarely showed emotion—he thought it a weakness—but as he watched events at the Clerkenwell office building play out on the multiscreened wall in his study, he couldn’t resist a smile of triumph. It had gone even better than he’d anticipated. From the moment he saw Czerwinski’s face appear on the screens in front of him, Holly knew he would succeed, and he’d settled back to watch how his hastily arranged plan would play out. And it had gone like clockwork, beautiful clockwork.

  The expression on their faces when they realized Czerwinski had gone was priceless. As for the woman? Taking her as well was a masterstroke, effectively clipping the wings of Department 18. If they interfered now they would have Dr. Miranda Payne’s death on their collective conscience.

  As he switched off the screens, the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, listened for a few seconds, and said, “I saw it all. Well done. Get down here as soon as you can.” He rang off and left the study, taking the flight of stairs down to the first floor where Alice had her rooms.

  She was lying on the bed reading, her arm folded behind her head. She barely looked at him as he entered the room.

  “Get up,” he said. “We’re expecting company.”

  “Who is it this time? Another of your cartel? Frankly, John, I’m getting tired of being shown off like a circus sideshow,” she said and went back to her book.

  “I assure you this is one person you are really going to want to meet.”

  She snorted derisively. “I doubt that.”

  He ignored her and looked about the room. “Where’s the girl?”

  “What girl?”

  He crossed to the bed and knocked the book from her hand. She glared up at him. “Right, do I have your attention now? Where’s Karolina?”

  “Gone,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly.

  “Gone where?”

  “I let her go, and by now she should be far, far away. Away from this place, away from you.”

  “That was a very foolish thing to do,” he said calmly.

  “Why? You said she was mine to do with as I chose. I chose to let her go. Get over it.” She picked up her book from the bed where it had landed and continued reading.

  Holly said nothing more. He turned and walked to the door. In the doorway he stopped and looked back at her. “Tidy yourself up,” he said. “They’ll be here in an hour or so, and I want you downstairs when they arrive.”

  He closed the door quietly as he left the room, controlling his anger with a supreme effort of will.

  Back in his study, he picked up the phone again. “Masters, get some of the men together. I want you to make a search of the grounds.”

  The girl might, as Alice had said, be miles away, but then again…

  It was irrelevant in the wider scheme of things. Julia was all that mattered now.

  Abe Holly had recognized this immediately when she was born, all those years ago. She was outwardly normal, despite her heritage. Unlike the abomination born by Alice Spur from Holly. Even though she was half human and half breather, Julia seemed to be normal from the human perspective. What it was that made Julia so unique Abe Holly had never been able to find out. Whether she was able to demonstrate the breather characteristics he was never able to ascertain either.

  Now John Holly had managed to find her, and, after all this time, he intended to get the answers.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  The power of God is with you at all times; through the activities of mind, senses, breathing, and emotions; and is constantly doing all the work using you as a mere instrument.

  —Bhagavad Gita

  Department 18 Headquarters, Whitehall, London, England

  “So how the hell did all this happen?” Simon Crozier said, flicking a stray piece of dust from his knee.

  “It was a setup,” Michael Dylan said. “Pike thinks it was planned by Holly to get his hands on Czerwinski.”

  “And did our Mr. Pike tell you why Czerwinski is so important that Holly would go to all this trouble?”

  Dylan and Bailey exchanged looks. Both shook their head.

  “He said something about Czerwinski’s niece being the last hope for the human race,” Dylan said. “But he never followed it up.”

  “Fantastic,” Crozier said with heavy irony. “And where’s Pike now?”

  “He went in the ambulance with Daniel Milton,” Dylan said.

  Harry Bailey shifted uncomfortab
ly in his seat. This had been a foul up of the first magnitude. Usually, when this kind of thing happened, Simon Crozier would be incandescent with rage. He always worked off a short fuse, and the fact that he was taking this news so calmly, so placidly, bothered Bailey more. “Jason said he’d hook up with us later.”

  Crozier looked at him bleakly. “Well I suppose we should be grateful for that. And Dr. Payne? Any ideas what Holly wants with her?”

  “A lever,” Bailey said. “To use against us.”

  “Do we know that for a fact?”

  Again Dylan and Bailey glanced at each other.

  “Not for a fact, no,” Dylan said. “But it seems the most likely scenario.”

  Crozier leaned back in his seat and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “I brought Miranda Payne on board as a favor to her father,” he said. “I take it you’re aware who her father is?”

  This drew blank looks from the pair of them.

  “Miranda’s father is Sir Nigel Foxton,” Crozier said.

  Michael Dylan’s face took on the color of freshly kneaded dough. “Shit!” he said under his breath.

  Harry Bailey looked nonplussed. “Am I missing something? Who’s Nigel Foxton?”

  Simon Crozier sighed. “Sir Nigel Foxton is a very senior civil servant, based at the Treasury, Harry,” he said. “He’s the man who holds our purse strings. The man who could close this department on a whim if he chose to do so.”

  Bailey grimaced. “So we’re in the shit,” he said.

  “Succinctly put,” Crozier said. “And now I have to go to our paymaster and tell him that his cherished daughter, his only daughter I might add, has been snatched by a psychic sexual vampire, responsible for the countless deaths of young women all about Miranda’s age. I don’t think he’s going to take the news with equanimity, do you?”

  He rose from his desk. “Find her. Find her and bring her back alive. And when you see Pike bring him to see me and we’ll go through this again. That’s all.” He dismissed them with a wave of his hand.