by Will Hill
Every few seconds, Turner glanced at Kate. It was almost nothing, little more than a flicker of his eyeballs, but it was there, and it was as regular as clockwork. Jamie watched, turning over what had happened in his mind.
As far as I knew, they’d never met until today. But when he knelt down in front of the vampire, she called him Shaun. And there was worry in her voice. Then after she was bitten, he staked the vampire, even though it was our only lead, even though information was our first priority. Like he wanted to punish it for what it had done. And then he tried to push Larissa out of the way, to get to Kate.
It wasn’t a ‘eureka’ moment; no light bulbs burst into life above his head, no explosion of realisation hit him between the eyes. He was just suddenly aware of something that now seemed obvious.
There’s something going on between them. Between Shaun and Kate.
Jamie was surprised to find that the first emotion he felt was jealousy.
He didn’t fancy Kate, and in truth he never had. There had been something desperate between them on Lindisfarne, as the darkness closed in on them from all sides, but it hadn’t been real. It had been the fear of death, followed by the euphoria of survival, the primal joy of being alive. And Jamie knew full well, looking back, that by the time they had landed on the island, he was already falling for Larissa; had been ever since the first time he had gone to see her in her cell, deep in the lower levels of the Loop.
He had believed, however, without arrogance or vanity, that Kate’s feelings for him were somewhat more complicated than his for her. So had Larissa; it was why they had kept their slowly blossoming relationship a secret. Not because they were seeking to exclude Kate, or because they didn’t trust her to keep their secret – relationships between Operators were strictly against regulations – but because they didn’t want to hurt her. If they were right, and she saw Jamie as potentially more than just a friend and a colleague, then revealing their relationship to her would have been insensitive at best, and cruel at worst. Their plan had been to give her time to move on, then gently break the news.
But if he was seeing things clearly, and he was sure that he was, then all their care and concern had been for nothing. Because now it appeared that Kate’s feelings for him were truly nothing more than fraternal.
Her feelings for Shaun Turner, however, were clearly another matter.
Jamie thought about all the time they had spent worrying about Kate’s feelings, all the tiptoeing around, all the lies and half-lies and secrets. It had all been for absolutely nothing, he realised, and his jealousy was suddenly replaced by a deep anger. It made him feel ashamed, as he looked at the blood leaking from the hole in her arm, but it was there, nonetheless; anger at the fact that she hadn’t told him and Larissa about whatever was going on with Shaun, even though he knew it was appallingly hypocritical of him to do so, and a tiny ball of anger, shot through with disappointment and rejection, that she had not been interested in him after all, that there was someone else she wanted more.
To hell with you then, he thought, viciously. We don’t need you, and we definitely don’t need him. Larissa and I will be fine on our own.
Kate looked over at him, and gave him a small smile. Her teeth were gritted against the pain, but it was as if she was trying to tell him silently that she was all right.
Jamie watched, and the anger went out of him so quickly it was as if it had never been there at all. He realised instantly that he did need her, that they needed her. She was the ice to Larissa’s fire, the one who thought everything through, who could control her emotions and do what was best, with neither the impulsiveness that fuelled Larissa nor the lightning temper that Jamie knew was his own greatest weakness. Without her, they would be incomplete; he knew it, and he knew that Larissa would know it too. The three of them were tied together, had been ever since the morning after they had returned from Lindisfarne.
After reading the letter that Frankenstein had left for him, Jamie had fallen into the deepest sleep of his life; he had eventually awoken ten hours later, and even then only because Admiral Seward had sent for him.
The Director of Department 19 had debriefed him in his office, where he had jumped instantly at the offer to make his temporary position at Blacklight permanent, pride flooding through him when Seward announced that he was the youngest descendant ever to take up an active commission. He immediately asked about Kate and Larissa, and felt his heart sink when Seward told him that they had decisions of their own to make, and that he might not see them again. But as it turned out, the three of them had been reunited less than an hour later, in one of the Briefing Rooms on Level 0 of the Loop.
They had made small talk in the beginning; they barely knew each other at all, not really, and the bonds that had been temporarily forged between them had been in response to a threat that no longer existed. Nervously at first, then with increasing passion, Jamie told them about his mother, and Kate explained that her dad had been confirmed as one of the survivors of the massacre on Lindisfarne. Larissa had asked Admiral Seward for a favour, and he had compiled for her a report on her younger brother Liam, who was apparently living with their mother, and doing well at school.
They exchanged pieces of trivia about their lives, talked around the terrible events of the previous night and confirmed that they had all accepted the invitation to join Department 19. Somewhere in the midst of it all, they became friends.
From that point on, they had been inseparable.
They had gone through accelerated Operator training together, encouraging each other as they neared the finish line and the course hardened and sharpened. They stood side by side as they received their commissions from Admiral Seward, smiling happily as the Director told them they were going to be formed into an Operational Squad together, even though it was not customary to do so with three inexperienced Operators.
Jamie had been embarrassed to discover that he had been commissioned as a Lieutenant, rather than as an Operator like the two girls, and that he was technically their immediate superior, but neither Kate nor Larissa had appeared anything other than delighted for him. He had loved them both for that, and had gone out of his way to ensure that beyond his being the first call sign that was announced when they entered or left the Loop, there would be no differences between them, no hierarchy to be adhered to. They had gone out together, night after night, to every corner of the country, responding to intercepted Echelon messages, or information supplied by the Intelligence Division; they had fought and survived, time and again, and they had done it together.
They all knew that Jamie, as a Lieutenant, was sometimes privy to information that he was unable to share with his two friends; it was an unspoken thing, made bearable by the fact that it was obvious to both Kate and Larissa that Jamie hated the situation even more than they did. That Kate would keep something like her and Shaun from him hurt Jamie deeply, mainly because he could now clearly imagine how Kate would have felt if she had ever found out about him and Larissa.
At least she doesn’t know about that. That’s something.
Part of him, the childish, vicious part that he was always disappointed by, wanted to tell Kate right now, while she was at her lowest point, when it would hurt her the most. But he fought back the urge. He was still staring at the wall above Shaun Turner’s head, wondering how things had become so complicated, when the pilot announced that they were beginning their descent to the Loop.
The helicopter’s wheels screeched down on to the tarmac, and Shaun Turner hauled the door open while it was still slowing to a halt. Then he was reaching for Kate, the look in his eyes daring Larissa to try to stop him a second time. The vampire girl’s eyes flared red, but she relaxed her grip on Kate’s arm, and let Shaun help her down from the chopper’s open door. Kate winced as she moved, a fresh trickle of blood running from beneath the dressing on her arm. Then she was surrounded by men in white coats, who lifted her gently on to a stretcher and ran her into the hangar and out of view.
Jamie
and the rest of the combined Operational Squad stepped down from the helicopter and stood beside Shaun Turner, watching the doctors disappear.
“She’ll be all right,” said Larissa, floating a couple of centimetres above the tarmac of the runway. “We got her back here in time.”
“I know,” said Shaun Turner, quietly. “I just—”
“She wasn’t talking to you,” Jamie growled, and saw Jack Williams recoil out of the corner of his eye. “She was talking to me. Kate’s a member of my squad. She’s nothing to do with you.”
Jamie was absolutely sure that wasn’t the case, but he wasn’t trying for the truth; he was trying to provoke Shaun Turner, and the look in the Operator’s eyes told him he had succeeded.
“Maybe you don’t know everything,” replied Turner, his eyes narrow, his voice like ice. “Did you ever think of that?”
“Maybe I know more than you think,” replied Jamie. “I know that you destroyed our only way of finding out where that boatload of prisoners was being taken, which means we lost what might have been our only lead to find Dracula, for no reason. I know that you disobeyed your squad leader’s direct order to make sure we got one of the vamps alive, again for no reason. I know that much for certain.”
“Yeah?” asked Turner, his voice rising in volume. He turned to face Jamie, who took half a step forward; there was no way he was going to let Turner intimidate him. “That’s what you know?”
“That’s why I said it,” replied Jamie.
The two Operators stared at each other. They were not quite nose to nose, but the space between them was pregnant with the possibility of violence. Behind him, Jamie heard a low growl emerge from Larissa’s throat, as she readied herself for whatever was about to happen. Standing off to one side, Jack Williams watched in horror; he hadn’t the slightest idea of how he should respond to what was taking place before him, between a member of his squad and one of his closest friends. In the end, Jamie spared him the decision.
He casually turned away from Shaun Turner, as though the Security Officer’s son was no longer worthy of his attention, and found Larissa staring at him with her beautiful brown eyes, all traces of red gone from them. He gave her a smile, which she returned; a tight, narrow smile that had little humour in it, but a smile nonetheless. Jamie walked over to her, leaving Shaun fuming on the tarmac, and leant in close.
“Go inside,” he said, softly. “I’ll be in soon. I’m going to give everyone a few minutes to cool off. OK?”
She nodded, and walked calmly towards the hangar. He stood on the shadowy runway, and watched her go.
Jamie made his way into the hangar ten minutes later.
Far from having cleared, his head was spinning with everything the people around him wanted him to be. A friend, a leader, a boyfriend, a confidant, a senior member of Blacklight; it all seemed so irreconcilable, as though someone had deliberately constructed a scenario that would pull him in every direction at once.
As he walked into the hangar, the Duty Operator told him that Jack had taken his squad to the Ops Room for debriefing by the Security Officer, and that Jamie and Larissa were ordered to attend.
A debriefing by Shaun’s dad. Great. No prizes for guessing whose side he’s going to be on.
Jamie nodded at the Operator, and walked through the double doors and into Level 0’s main corridor. He strode quickly past the Ops Room and pressed the button beside one of the lift doors set into the wall. When the doors slid silently open, he stepped inside the car and hit the button marked C.
The lift slowed, then stopped. Jamie strode along the corridor until he reached the large double doors marked INFIRMARY, pushed them open and stepped inside.
Kate was lying in the first bed on the left.
Her eyes were closed, and two thick tubes had been inserted into her, one in each arm. Blood was running steadily out of one and disappearing inside a cylindrical metal cabinet; it was pouring, equally steadily, down the other and into her body, from a series of bags that had been hung on a drip stand beside the bed. She was connected to a large trolley full of steadily beeping machines, and Jamie felt cold fingers grab at his spine as he remembered the first time he had seen Matt Browning in this very same room.
The teenager had been hurt, much more seriously so than Kate, and the Blacklight doctors had induced a coma to try and prevent any damage to his brain. It had left him looking like a plastic doll; his skin had been so smooth and pale that he didn’t look real. It had been one of the most unsettling things Jamie had ever seen, made worse by the fact that Matt was the same age as him, and had almost died merely by the dubious virtue of being in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.
For a second, Kate had looked like Matt did.
But as he approached her bed, he saw that the similarities were superficial; the machines were the same, the rhythmic beeping was the same, but Kate still looked like herself. Her face was a little paler than usual, but it still had colour in it, and her brow was furrowed in what looked like a frown, even though she was asleep.
“Can I help you?”
The voice came from behind him, and Jamie turned towards it. A doctor was standing at the foot of the bed, holding a clipboard in his hand.
“Is she going to be all right?” asked Jamie. “I’m her squad leader.”
And her friend.
“She’s going to be fine,” replied the doctor. “We were able to begin transfusion before the turn even started. She’s going to need to rest here for twelve hours, then you can have her back, good as new.”
“Thank you,” said Jamie. “That’s good to hear.”
The doctor nodded, before walking away down the infirmary. Jamie pulled a chair up to the side of Kate’s bed, and lowered himself into it. Kate stirred, her shoulders rolling as she shifted position.
“Can you hear me?” Jamie asked, softly. “Kate?”
A smile spread across her face, but her eyes remained closed.
“Shaun?” she whispered. “Is that you?”
Jamie recoiled. He lurched up from the chair, and stumbled towards the door. Behind him, he heard Kate say Shaun’s name again, a mild tone of concern in her voice, but he didn’t look back. He shoved his way through the doors and almost collided with one of the Loop’s administrative staff, a young man in a dark grey suit and tie.
“Watch where the hell you’re going,” Jamie snarled, feeling savage satisfaction as the man took a step backwards, his eyes flickering nervously across Jamie’s uniform and body armour.
“Lieutenant Carpenter?” the man asked, his voice trembling.
Jamie saw the fear on the man’s face, and shame flooded through him.
Why are you taking it out on him, you bully? It’s not his fault.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m Lieutenant Carpenter. What can I do for you?”
“Major Turner sent me to find you, sir,” the man in the suit replied, his voice a little steadier. “You are ordered to the Ops Room for debriefing, sir.”
Jamie swore, then thanked the man, who backed away with a look of relief on his face. Jamie watched him go, then made his way back to the lift. He stood in the metal box as it ascended, trying to empty his head of everything, trying to find a neutral space before he faced Paul Turner’s inevitable wrath.
Jamie opened the Ops Room door, and instantly felt relief; Admiral Seward was standing at the lectern, with Paul Turner a respectful distance to the side. He knew the Security Officer would be eager to draw Jamie’s attention to the fact that he was late, for the second time today, but he also knew that he wouldn’t do it with the Director in the room. It would be disrespectful, and Paul Turner was nothing if not a believer in the chain of command.
He glanced around the room, and saw Larissa sitting with the members of Squad F-7. She looked at him as she entered, her expression tight with worry, presumably about Kate. Angela’s was more transparent; she regarded him with a wide, friendly smile, a direct counterpoint to the look of distaste t
hat appeared on Shaun Turner’s face. Jack Williams gave him a grin, as he took the seat next to Larissa.
“Lieutenant Carpenter,” said Admiral Seward, and Jamie felt all the eyes in the room turn to him.
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
“How’s Operator Randall?” asked Seward. “I presume you were checking on her?”
Thank you, sir.
“Yes, sir,” Jamie replied. “She’s going to be fine, sir. The transfusion is almost complete, and they’re predicting twelve hours for a full recovery.”
He heard the small sound he had been expecting escape from Larissa’s throat. He knew it would be a mixture of two emotions: relief that Kate was going to be fine, and sorrow that Jamie had gone to the infirmary without her.
“That’s good news,” said Seward. “Very good news. As is the fact that all two hundred and twenty-seven of the ship’s prisoners are now recuperating in hospital in Newcastle, with none of their injuries classed as life-threatening. Sadly, that’s where the good news ends. The first priority of this mission was to ascertain exactly where the prisoners were going to be taken. Who feels like giving me the coordinates?” The Director peered at the five Operators. “Anyone? No? Am I to assume that you’ve all come down with a crippling case of shyness, or that you COMPLETELY FAILED IN YOUR PRIMARY OBJECTIVE?”
“Sir, we—” began Jack Williams.
“Quiet!” roared Seward. “Operators, these are perilous times. We are ninety days from Zero Hour. If those prisoners were intended to aid Dracula’s recuperation then I’d rather he had drained each and every one of them if it meant we knew where he and Valeri were. Do I make myself clear?” The Operators nodded as one. “Terrific,” continued Seward, the fury suddenly gone from his voice and replaced by a deep weariness. “I’ve asked PBS6 in Beijing to investigate this from their end, but I’m not going to be holding my breath. In the meantime, I’m standing both of your squads down for eighteen hours. Unless the Loop is attacked or the vampires declare war on all of humanity, you can consider yourself off-duty till then. Dismissed.”
