by Will Hill
Dear Colin,
No joke. This is the biggest story of both of our careers, the one that you’ll thank me for when they give you your knighthood. I want it to run on pages one and two tomorrow, and I want it to run uncut. Send me the layouts once they’re ready.
Cheers,
Kevin
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: 11:12:13
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Urgent submission
Kevin,
I can take a joke, and I’ve put up with a lot of your shit over the years. This takes the piss, though. It really does.
I want you to take two weeks off and think about your future. Unpaid, before you ask. I don’t want to see you in the office during that time.
Take a good look at yourself, then let me know whether you still want to be a journalist. I’m saying this as your friend. Because this is not how serious people behave.
Colin
“What now?” asked Kevin. His editor’s reply had come quickly, and was even worse than he had expected; he was trying to keep his tone of voice light, in the hope of keeping Albert Harker calm.
“As I told you,” replied the vampire, “I prepared for this eventuality. This makes our path slightly harder, Kevin, nothing more.”
“Feel like sharing this grand plan of yours?”
Harker shook his head. “In time. Although, as a hypothetical, imagine we paid a visit to your editor in his home and I pulled his fingernails out one at a time until he agreed to run the story. Do you foresee any major flaws in such a plan?”
“I wish I didn’t,” said McKenna. “Because I’d pay money to see that. I really would.”
“But you do see a flaw?”
McKenna nodded. “Colin has a video conference with New York every evening, where they sign off the next edition. Getting him at home wouldn’t work. We’d have to hold him prisoner in his office while he spoke to his boss.”
“How many people would be in the office at that time?” asked Harker.
McKenna shrugged. “Forty? Fifty? Maybe more?”
“I suspected as much,” said the vampire. “No matter. We will continue with the plan as I devised it.”
“All right,” said McKenna. “I’ve got faith, you know. I’m not worried.”
“Nor should you be,” said Harker, smiling. “Everything is going to be absolutely fine.”
Then someone knocked on the door.
Greg Browning stood in the dim corridor with Pete Randall beside him. His stomach was churning; this was the address that Kevin McKenna had sent them the night before, and was the last point at which the rug could be pulled out from under their feet.
The train journey had passed quickly and uneventfully. His legs had barely been able to carry him as he climbed aboard coach F of the stationary train; when he had made his way to coach D and found the nervous-looking man holding a copy of The Globe that he clearly wasn’t reading, Greg had been so relieved that he almost burst into tears.
He had been equally relieved to discover that he liked Pete Randall immediately; the friendship that he had felt begin to kindle as they spoke anonymously online had blossomed quickly in the flesh. They had spent the journey chatting as if they had known each other for years, talking mainly about their families and their children, even though it hurt both men to do so.
Greg heard voices on the other side of the hotel room door and felt his muscles tense.
Here it is, he thought. Here’s where we find out whether this is real.
The door opened, revealing a man he didn’t recognise, but who smiled at them with immense warmth.
“Gentlemen,” said the stranger. “My name is Albert Harker. Please come in. We have been so looking forward to your arrival.”
Harker stood aside, beckoning them into the room. Greg cast the briefest of glances at Pete, who gave the tiniest of shrugs.
We didn’t come all this way to turn back now.
He took a deep breath that he hoped wasn’t obvious, and walked slowly into the hotel room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pete Randall follow.
The room was exactly what he expected: a small box with cream walls and a headache-inducing green and yellow carpet. A table in the centre of the room was covered with a mass of papers and notebooks, and a man was standing beside the room’s single small window.
He recognised Kevin McKenna from the photos he had searched for on the internet when the blog post that had started all of this had gone live. He looked much as he had on his son’s computer screen; he was a little thinner, perhaps, but the smile on his face was wide and welcoming.
He must be under so much stress, thought Greg, admiringly. It takes true bravery to do what he’s doing.
The man stepped forward and extended his hand. “Kevin McKenna,” he said.
“I know who you are,” he replied, gripping the hand and shaking it vigorously. “I’m Greg Browning. This is Pete Randall. We’re glad to be here.”
“Thanks for coming,” said McKenna. “We weren’t sure if you would.”
“I’m not sure we were,” said Pete, stepping forward and shaking McKenna’s hand. “I was half expecting to find a room full of men in black ready to take me away.”
“I know what you mean,” said McKenna. “I’ve felt the same thing. But we’re still here. And now you are too.”
“Quite so,” said Albert Harker. He had closed the door and stepped forward into the room. “Gentlemen,” he said, smiling broadly. “The four of us represent the beginnings of a movement that Kevin and I have no doubt will one day number in the thousands. Men and women who are tired of being lied to, tired of watching their government put them in danger by refusing to acknowledge the monsters that walk in their midst.”
Greg felt like his heart was expanding in his chest. This was exactly what he had been hoping to hear.
“Kevin is the bravest of us all,” continued Harker. “He stood up when no one else dared to do so, and all it has got him is derision and mockery. We wanted to bring what we know to the public’s attention by traditional means, but Kevin’s paper has refused to run the story. This was a disappointment, but not an unexpected one. So now we are forced to use other methods, which I would call civil disobedience, but which the courts of this land may well consider industrial sabotage. As a result, we will think no less of you if you choose to walk away now, if this is not what you believed you were signing up for. But if you still want to help, we, and the parents of every missing child, will be in your debt.”
“What about you?” asked Pete. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because of what was done to me,” replied Harker. “Please brace yourselves, gentlemen, and try not to panic.”
Greg frowned, and was opening his mouth to ask Harker what he was talking about, when the man’s eyes flooded a dark, glowing red. His heart stopped dead in his chest as terrible memories flooded through him, carrying with them emotions he had tried to suppress: fear, panic, and dreadful, awful helplessness. They galvanised his limbs and he fled for the door, his eyes wide and staring, his mouth opening and working soundlessly. He was reaching for the door handle when he felt a rush of air above his head and suddenly Albert Harker was standing in front of him, blocking the door.
“Kevin could not have told you,” he said, his eyes burning. “You would not have come. But I believe there should be no secrets between us. Yes, I am a vampire. I never wished to be one, but I am. I am the victim of a crime for which there can be no justice. And, when our task is complete, I will be the irrefutable proof the public needs. Will you stay and help us? I promise you, there is nothing more you do not know. Please?”
Greg stared at the vampire; it was only the second one he had ever seen in the flesh, after the girl who had landed in his garden months earlier, triggering the collapse of the life he had taken so wastefully for granted. Fear was roaring through him, but something else was making its presence known bene
ath it: a deep, burning sense of outrage.
This is it. This is what we’re fighting against, in the flesh. This is what we’re trying to stop happening to anyone else.
“I’m still in,” he heard himself say, and looked over at Pete Randall. His companion looked as though he was reliving his worst nightmare, his eyes bulging, his throat swallowing convulsively. But he managed to force his vocal cords into action and tell Harker that he was still in too.
“Thank you,” said the vampire. The red was fading from his eyes; it was now little more than a pink glow in the corners. “I promise you that neither one of you will live to regret your decision. Kevin will fill you in on everything that has happened, and then I suggest you both get some rest. We have a busy night ahead of us.”
46
IT NEVER RAINS…
“Jamie?” asked Kate, her voice full of concern. “What does it say?”
“Show them,” said Jamie, handing the console back to Ellison and grabbing his own from his belt. He slid its screen into life with his thumb and opened the location tracker. As he typed Morton’s name into the search field, he heard Kate gasp as Ellison did as she was told.
“Oh no,” he heard Matt whisper. “That’s awful.”
Jamie didn’t respond; his mind was pounding with a single thought: that they had to go and help Morton, had to go and save him from himself. The console beeped as its screen lit up, displaying the location of the rookie Operator’s chip.
It was in the northern outskirts of London, moving south.
Jamie opened the Surveillance Division menu, his fingers flying across the console’s touch screen, and opened the satellite tracking record for Alastair Dempsey. The satellites had followed his heat bloom from the substation near Holborn where he had escaped their squad the previous day to a disused warehouse in the middle of Soho. Dempsey had entered it an hour before dawn that morning, and there was nothing to indicate that he had left the building since then.
“He’s nearly in London,” said Jamie, looking up at Ellison. “There’s no way we can get there before he gets to Dempsey.”
Ellison looked absolutely heartbroken. “What do we do, sir?” she asked, her voice cracking. “We can’t leave him out there on his own.”
“Of course not,” said Jamie.
“I’ll come with you,” said Kate, scrambling to her feet.
“Me too,” said Matt.
“No,” said Jamie. “Thank you both, you know how much that means to me. But we’ll do this ourselves.”
“What happened to sticking together?” asked Kate. There was a ghost of a smile on her face, just enough to let Jamie know that she wasn’t really serious.
“We’ll be fine,” he said, glancing at Ellison, who nodded. “You’re needed here. I’ll let you know as soon as we find him.”
“See that you do,” said Kate. “And be careful. Both of you.”
“We will,” said Jamie, then turned to face his squad mate. “Ready?”
“Ready, sir.”
“OK then,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Matt watched his friend stride out of the dining hall, his face a mask of helpless concern.
“Jesus,” whispered Kate. “I can’t believe this.”
“It’ll be OK,” said Matt, trying to sound a lot surer than he felt. “Jamie can handle it. It’ll be OK.”
“Paul showed me the footage of the escapees,” said Kate. “They’re brutal, Matt. Strong and fast and vicious.”
“I know that, Kate,” snapped Matt. “I saw the footage too. But they’re still just vampires, and Jamie knows what he’s doing.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kate, turning her head and giving him a thin smile. “I’m just worried about him. These new vamps are dangerous. They really are.”
“I know,” said Matt. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to snap.” He sighed deeply. “Why hasn’t Science come up with anything yet? They’ve had captive escapees for almost four days and they still have no explanation for why these new vamps all look like they were turned by—”
He stopped dead.
Something had flickered into life in the back of his mind, and Matt knew from long experience to simply shut everything else down and see if his brain could fan the flames. For several agonising moments, the idea danced out of reach, slippery and elusive, but then it caught and burst into bright, burning life.
“My God,” he whispered, and stood up from his chair.
“What’s going on?” asked Kate. “Matt? Where the hell are you going?”
“I have to check something,” he replied, then turned and ran off without a backward glance.
47
TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN
EDWARDS AIR FORCE: DETACHMENT GROOM LAKE NEVADA, USA
FIVE HOURS LATER
Larissa had been perched on a stool at the bar in the Groom Lake officers’ mess for almost forty minutes when Lee Ashworth finally made his way into the building. She was practically vibrating with excitement; she was ready to get the answers she was looking for.
The mess was a square building that had been built in the 1950s and expanded continuously over the subsequent decades; at its heart was an ornate dark wood bar, a varnished wooden floor and a collection of leather chairs and sofas that stood around low tables on which had been played innumerable hands of cards. But it had been added to and decorated with whatever could be scavenged from the surrounding towns and bases: a fluorescent sign announcing WELCOME TO TRINITY, a Dark Shadows pinball machine, a Mercury High School Football pennant, photos of atomic bomb tests, of the F-117A stealth fighter and the B-2 bomber, and a hundred other curios and mementoes.
Senior Airman Ashworth made his way to the bar, nodding at a couple of his colleagues as he did so. He ordered coffee and a breakfast burrito, and hauled himself up on to a stool, barely even glancing in her direction.
“You’ve got some nerve,” he hissed. “Some goddamn nerve.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Larissa.
She had ambushed Lee Ashworth in his office an hour earlier and shown him the photographs she had taken in Las Vegas two nights earlier. She had placed her phone alongside the photo of his wife and children, to make sure her meaning was absolutely clear, then suggested that he might be more inclined to tell her about the day the stranger had arrived at Area 51 than he had been the last time they had talked.
He had unleashed a torrent of swearing and insults of such imagination and volume that Larissa, who had once spent more than a year in the company of Alexandru Rusmanov, one of the most dangerous and abusive creatures ever to walk the earth, was genuinely impressed. Then he had told her to meet him in the mess in an hour, and to get the hell out of his office before he called the MPs.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” said Ashworth, his face red with anger. “So let’s just get this over with. Sit there, shut the hell up, and listen. All right?”
Larissa smiled. “Fine by me, sir.”
Ashworth gave her one final glare, took a sip of his coffee, and began to talk.
“I pulled guard detail that week because we had eight guys back at Edwards running models and it was Gold Squadron’s turn in the rotation. So I ended up at the Front Gate. It’s not a bad post, but it’s boring. It’s really, really boring. You get the call sheet for the day and that’s all you normally see, unless some geek drives past the signs by accident, and even then the grunts normally grab them before they get anywhere near the gate.”
“Grunts?” interrupted Larissa.
“Civilian security,” said Ashworth. “They patrol the perimeter in their pick-ups and their Aviators, acting like they’re the badasses of the world, when all they really do is drink coffee and listen to ESPN. Maybe once a month some hiker will lose track of the markers, and they get to swoop down all big and bad and hold them until the police get out here to take them away. But most of them, ninety-nine per cent of them, drive up to the signs, take some pictures, wait for the
grunts to park their truck up on the top of the hill, then head home, happy with their Area 51 experience. And on the day you’re interested in, that’s what I assumed was happening. We picked up this crappy little jeep as soon as it turned off 375, and the system tracked it all the way along the road. Nothing out of the ordinary, no unusual speed, no explosives, no weapons.
“It makes its way up to the signs and it stops, just like all the others. I’m watching it on my screens in the guardhouse, and the grunts are in their usual spot on the hill, and there’s no reason to think anything’s wrong, right? I mean, this happens all the time. All the time. But then a minute or so passes, and the jeep just sits there, and whoever’s driving it doesn’t get out, and I don’t see any camera flashes, and I start to get this weird feeling, you know? Not anything major, not any big thing, just like something is a little bit off.
“I’m about to radio the grunts and tell them to drive down and say hello to this guy, when whoever’s in the jeep floors it. And for a moment I just stand there, staring at the screen, because what the hell is this guy doing? He’s going to invade Area 51 in his jeep? I see the grunts haul their truck round and start down the hill, and that’s when I snap out of it. I grab my M4 down off the wall, radio in that we’ve got an intruder, run outside to the barrier, and wait to see who gets there first.
“The grunts are hauling ass down the ridge, trying to cut him off, but he’s really shifting, whoever he is. I figure he’s going to roll it on the last bend, but he doesn’t. He comes round the corner, going hell for leather, this huge cloud of dust blowing up behind him, and I see the grunt truck in the dust, and a bit of me is like, I want to meet this guy. Because he has balls, you know, if nothing else. And he can drive, no question about that. I raise the stingers and clear out to the side, because they’re going to flip him about ten metres into the air the speed he’s going.
“But he doesn’t hit them. At the last minute, and I really mean the last minute, he hits the brakes, and there’s this huge squeal of tyres, and the jeep starts to shake from side to side because he’s dumping off the speed too quickly, and then it stops, about a metre in front of the gate and the stingers. The grunt truck screeches to a halt beside it and I’m running out with my M4 raised when the jeep’s door opens and this guy jumps out, his hands in the air.”
