by Will Hill
Chapter 38
LOVE BURNS
For the second time in less than eight hours the general alert rang through the Loop. Operators who had flopped into their beds on the lower levels less than forty minutes earlier were dragged back to the waking world, swearing and cursing as they pulled their uniforms back on and fastened their weapons into place.
Admiral Seward was in the main hangar, directing the sluggish men and women of Blacklight. Out on the runway two EC725 helicopters sat on the tarmac, light blazing from their open passenger compartments as technicians pulled hoses from trapdoors in the ground and filled them with fuel.
“Where’s the jet?” Seward shouted. “Damnit, we’d be there in forty minutes.”
“Cal Holmwood took the Mina II to Nevada three days ago, sir,” replied a passing Operator. “He’s running a training exercise with the Yanks, sir.”
Seward swore heartily, and turned his attention to the line of Operators forming behind him. He spoke to Paul Turner, who was overseeing the mobilisation.
“You, me, and the first eighteen men to report,” he ordered. “Comms and weapons check, then load them up. I want to be in the air in five minutes.”
“Yes sir,” replied Turner. He strode over to the reporting men, and began checking their radios and weapons. When an Operator was equipped to Turner’s satisfaction, the Major jerked his thumb towards the waiting helicopters, and the soldier ran out on to the tarmac and climbed up into one of the choppers.
Admiral Seward left him to it and walked quickly through the corridors towards the Ops Room. He was about to open the door when his mobile phone buzzed into life. He hauled it out of the pocket of his uniform and checked the screen.
NEW SMS
FROM: PETROV, GEN. Y.
VAULT 31 ABOUT TO BE COMPROMISED. HURRY OLD FRIEND.
YURI
A chill raced up Henry Seward’s spine.
How do they know about 31?
He shoved the Ops Room door open and stepped inside. Jamie, Frankenstein and Morris were gathered around a desk in the middle of the room, the teenager holding his radio in a slightly shaking hand. They looked up when he entered.
“Colonel Frankenstein, Lieutenant Morris, Mr Carpenter,” he said. “You are confined to base until further notice. I’m taking a rescue team to Russia immediately; I’ll deal with you when I return. In the meantime, I suggest you focus on the report I asked you for.”
Admiral Seward strode out of the room, without a backward glance. After a minute or so, Jamie was first to speak.
“We’re totally screwed,” he said. “I’m never going to see my mother again.”
Frankenstein looked at him, alarmed at the resignation in the teenager’s voice. It was as though the fire that usually burned inside him had been extinguished.
Morris spoke nervously.
“It’s not as bad as—”
“Tom,” interrupted Jamie. “Don’t try and placate me. I’m not a child.”
Morris looked down at the table, and the teenager continued. “I want to know what happened in Northumberland. Don’t tell me that Larissa tipped off Alexandru off, because I don’t believe that. I want to know what really happened.”
Frankenstein looked steadily at him. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “you’re asking the wrong people. I’m sorry if that isn’t what you want to hear.”
“Fine,” replied Jamie.
He stood up from the table and walked out of the Ops Room, without a backward glance. In the lift at the end of the corridor he gripped the metal rail until his knuckles turned white. Anger squirmed in his stomach, hot and acidic, and he bore down on it with all his strength, pushing it down as far as he was able. Then the lift door slid open on to the cellblock, and he strode along it, towards Larissa.
She was waiting for him.
The vampire girl stood in the middle of her cell, just beyond the UV wall; she smiled at him as he appeared in front of her, a smile that faltered slightly when she saw the thunderous expression on his face.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Did you tell Alexandru we were going to come for him?” he asked, his voice straining with the effort it was taking to keep his temper in check. “Did you tell him to run?”
Larissa’s eyes widened with realisation.
“He wasn’t there,” she said, “was he?”
“No,” replied Jamie. “He wasn’t there. Neither was my mother. They were both gone, to God knows where. Only a handful of people in the world knew we’d found him, but by the time we got there, less than ninety minutes later, he was gone. I want to know how that happened.”
“Ask me,” said Larissa. “Ask me the question again.”
“Did you tell him we were coming?”
“No,” she replied. “I didn’t.”
He sagged before her eyes. His shoulders slumped, and his head tipped forward, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
It’s over. Oh God, I’m never going to find her. It’s all over.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, his voice choked with despair. “I want to believe you, but I don’t know if I can.”
She took half a step forward, and said his name in a low voice.
“Jamie.”
He looked at her, his eyes red, pain etched in every line of his face.
“You can trust me,” she said, and then she moved.
Her hand shot through the UV field and grabbed him. Her whole arm burst into flames, purple fire erupting from the skin, but she didn’t even flinch. She pulled him through the barrier, spinning him to the side, and kissed him, as burning skin crackled in his ears and flooded his nostrils.
He kissed her back, his hands finding her hair. He could feel the heat of her burning arm through his uniform, but it felt as though it was coming from a thousand miles away, felt as though it was coming from another world. He surrendered himself entirely to the kiss, her lips cool and soft against his, her hands on his waist, his entire body trembling.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
She pulled away from him, and he opened his eyes. Her face was millimetres from his; he could feel the heat of her breath on his mouth, could see the intricate pattern of yellow that traced through the dark brown of her eyes.
They stared at each other as though they were the only two people alive.
Pain finally broke across her face, and she fell to the ground, thumping her arm, putting out the flames that were rising from it, until all that was left was grey smoke drifting towards the roof of the cell. The smell was nauseating, and he knelt beside her. The smoke cleared, and his stomach lurched.
Her arm rested across her knee, burnt almost entirely black. The skin had peeled away in sheets, revealing muscles that had been seared into tough dark ropes. Beneath them he could see the gleaming white of bone, and he looked away, afraid he would be sick.
“It’s all right,” she gasped. “It’ll grow back. I just need blood.”
Without thinking, Jamie pulled the collar of his uniform down and turned the uninjured side of his exposed neck towards her. She laughed, despite the agony in her arm.
“That’s sweet,” she said, through a grimace of pain. “But I don’t think we’re ready for that just yet.”
Jamie flushed red, then ran down the block to the guard office.
She could have put her arm through the barrier any time she wanted, if she wanted to hurt me.
Any time.
“I need blood,” he said. The guard started to ask him a question, but Jamie was in no mood for it. “Now,” he said. “On Admiral Seward’s authority. Check with him if you like, but I don’t think he’ll appreciate being disturbed.”
The Operator behind the glass looked at Jamie, his mouth hanging open. After a moment he sighed, rolled his chair back across the office and pulled open a stainless-steel fridge set into the wall. Cold air flooded out, and the guard reached in and pulled out two litre pouches of O negative blood. He pushe
d the chair back across the tiled floor, the wheels rattling across the shiny surface, and brought himself to a halt in front of Jamie. He shoved the pouches through the slot in the plastic, then rolled back to his desk, without giving Jamie another glance.
The teenager ran back down the block. Larissa had crawled to her bed and was holding her injured arm against her chest. She smiled at him when he reappeared, but her eyes were full of pain.
Jamie walked straight through the UV field and went to her. He handed her the blood, and sat on the bed next to her as she tore the first one open with her teeth, holding it in her good left hand.
“Look away,” she said.
“No chance,” he replied.
She didn’t wait to see if he would change his mind; she upended the plastic pouch and squeezed the contents into her mouth. Her eyes turned red as the blood slid down her throat, and she swallowed convulsively, her throat working, her head thrown back. There was a fizzing sound, and Jamie looked down at her arm.
What he saw astonished him. The charred, blackened skin was bubbling, as though it had been soaked in acid. Before his eyes, the flesh lightened to a dark red, then a bright scarlet, then to the same pale pink of the rest of her. Muscle fibres and thin sheets of skin re-grew, knitting to the revived flesh and filling the holes the fire had burnt. The fizzing lessened, and Jamie gasped. Larissa’s arm looked no worse than if she had been lying in the sun for an afternoon.
She was breathing hard, her lips thin, her eyes crimson.
“Does it hurt?” he asked. “When it grows back?”
She nodded, then opened her trembling mouth. “Not as badly,” she said. “But it hurts.”
She pulled open the second pouch, and drank it hungrily. A thick stream of blood broke from the corner of her mouth and ran down her chin; Jamie fought the absurd urge to lick it off. The fizzing noise came again, and the colour of her arm faded until it was impossible to believe any injury had been done to it. He reached out and stroked the new skin; it was warm and smooth.
She took his hand, looked him in the eyes.
“I would never hurt you,” she said. “I’m sorry for leading you to Valhalla without telling you why I wanted to go. But you can trust me. I’ll never lie to you again.”
He leant over and kissed her. Her lips met his, but this time he pulled away and stood up off the bed. She looked at him, confusion on her face.
“I’ll be back,” he said, and smiled.
Chapter 39
A FORMAL INVITATION
DEPARTMENT 19 NORTHERN OUTPOST
RAF FYLINGDALES, NORTH YORKSHIRE MOORS
FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO
Flying Officer John Elliott checked his screens, stepped through the door of the bunker into the cold evening and breathed out a cloud of warm air. Night watch was the worst. The hours stretched out forever and tiredness pulled constantly at him, no matter how many coffees he drank and cigarettes he smoked.
He checked his watch. 1:18. Forty-two minutes to go.
Elliott lit a Camel Light, grimaced as the smoke crawled across his dry throat, but persevered. Dave Sargent had the next watch, and as soon as he keyed in his access code and swung open the door of the bunker, Elliott could stand down. He could be in his bed within four minutes. He had timed it.
The young Flying Officer looked out across the base and to the moors beyond. The giant pale blue golf balls that had hidden Fylingdales’ Cold War radar dishes were gone now, but the vast three-sided phased array pyramid that replaced them rose up from the top of Snod Hill, silent and still ominous even after a year stationed here.
The Blacklight outpost was at the western edge of the base, away from the roads that carried busloads of tourists to Whitby during the summer months, away from the RAF personnel and their families, a nondescript grey concrete square with a heavy steel door set into it that led down into a small bunker, one square room with two desks set into the walls and a tiny bathroom at the rear. The barracks was a short distance away along the route of the fence, linked to the front of the bunker by a gravel path. The low brick building was dark; the rest of Elliott’s unit were asleep in their beds.
Beyond the fence that ran past the bunker were the empty moors, the bracken and long grass undisturbed by ramblers and hikers who knew better than to approach the base. Across the moors, in the hills above Harrogate, was RAF Menwith Hill, the NSA listening post that was sovereign US territory.
Elliott had been there a couple of times, had eaten a burger in the diner and drank Coors Light and lost forty dollars in the bowling alley. The Yanks had made themselves right at home, building an authentic American small town in the shadows of the vast radar fields that scanned the world’s airwaves for the words and phrases that threw up red flags on the Echelon database.
Before he joined Blacklight, Elliott had thought the people who believed in things like Echelon were crazy loners who spent all their time wearing tin foil hats and feverishly posting on the internet. Now he knew things that would make them weep into their keyboards.
Something crunched the gravel softly behind the bunker.
Instantly, Flying Officer Elliott drew his Glock from its holster and pulled his radio from its loop on his belt. He keyed his ID code into the pad and held it to his ear.
“Code in.” Commander Jackson’s voice sounded tired and grumpy.
“Elliott, John. NS303-81E.”
“What’s going on, Elliott?”
“I heard something, sir. Behind the bunker.”
“Did you investigate?”
“No, sir.”
The Commander swore heartily.
“Go and check it out. I’ll be there in three minutes.”
“Sir, the protocol—”
“Three minutes, Flying Officer. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Elliott placed the radio back in his belt and cupped his left hand under the butt of his pistol. Treading softly, he stepped along the side of the bunker. Experience told him it would be an animal of some kind, a badger burrowed under the fence from the moors, or a seagull come inland from the coast and too tired to fly back. But the protocols existed for a reason. No one came near the Blacklight bunker without authorisation, and any unusual noise was taken very seriously.
He reached the corner of the bunker and steadied his Glock in his hands. He took a deep breath, then stepped round the corner.
Nothing.
The wide space between the wall of the bunker and the fence was empty, the gravel track undisturbed. Elliott lowered his weapon and reached for his radio to let his Commander Jackson know it was false alarm.
Thunk.
Adrenaline splashed through Elliott’s nervous system. No animal had made the heavy noise that had come from the front of the bunker. He raised his pistol again, and stepped sharply round the corner and against the long wall of the bunker. Before him, RAF Fylingdales glowed brightly with amber yellow light, and Elliott wished for the first time that the flat expanse of grass that separated the Blacklight bunker from the rest of the complex didn’t exist.
He checked his watch as he inched along the concrete wall. Forty-five seconds since he had spoken with Commander Jackson. Just over two minutes until back-up arrived.
Elliott crept along the wall, the nose of his gun steady in the cool evening air. Then he heard a noise that chilled the blood in his veins, and he saw the muzzle of the pistol start to tremble involuntarily.
It sounded like a laugh.
A high-pitched, almost childlike laugh.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and his whole body began to shake as a second huge dose of adrenaline crashed through his system. He inched forward, took a deep breath, covered the last two feet to the corner of the bunker, and swung himself round the corner.
There was a figure standing in front of the door.
Everything moved in slow-motion. Elliott stifled a scream, his eyes bulging in terror, and he began to pull his finger back against the feather-li
ght trigger of the pistol. The figure was wearing a white T-shirt, and it was this detail that sank into Elliott’s brain just quickly enough to halt his finger. He took a second, closer look, and then lowered the gun, panting, his breath coming in sharp hitches.
It wasn’t a person.
It was just a T-shirt, fastened to the door of the bunker. There was something dark sticking out of the middle of the chest, and there were words printed on the white material. He stepped forward to take a closer look, then a hand fell on his shoulder, and this time he did scream.
*
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Elliott?” barked Commander Jackson, spinning the young Flying Officer round to face him. “Are you...”
He trailed off as he saw the T-shirt flapping gently in the night air.
The two men stepped forward, and Commander Jackson took the heavy torch from his belt and shone it on the bunker door.
The T-shirt was pinned by a heavy metal bolt, at least a foot long, that had been driven through the material and several inches into the steel bunker door.
How much force does it take to do that? Elliott wondered.
Printed on the T-shirt was a line drawing of an island with a single word below it in cheerful yellow type.
LINDISFARNE
Below that, across the stomach, in a dark red liquid that turned Elliott’s stomach, four words had been scrawled.
TELL
THE BOY
TO
COME
“Issue a proximity alert,” Commander Jackson said, in a low voice.
“And wake the rest of the unit.”
Elliott pushed open the heavy door, noticing with slightly numb horror that a small pyramid of metal now emerged from the inside of it.
It almost went right through.
He sat at the communications desk and punched in the command to issue the proximity alert. This signal would be sent to every military base within a fifty-mile radius, ordering them to check their radars for any unexplained aerial phenomenon in the last thirty minutes. The radar operators in the bases would not know what they were looking for, or why, and would delete the record of their search as soon as the results had been transmitted back to the Northern Outpost, as the protocol dictated.
