by Hill, Will
“How do you manage it, Larissa?” she asked. “I know you and Jamie are normally in the same place, but still. It must be hard.”
“Sometimes it is,” she replied, honestly, putting down her knife and fork. “To be honest with you, there have been times when it felt impossible. When things got really bad a couple of months ago, before the attack on the Loop, when everything was happening with Valentin and Frankenstein, I didn’t think we were going to survive it. I really didn’t. It’s weird, you know, I only met him six months ago, so we don’t have that history behind us that makes you work hard when things get rough. But we got through it. And if there’s ever an end to all this, if that day ever comes, I think we’ll be fine. Because I doubt any two people have waded through as much shit in the first few months of being together as we have.”
“I think it’s awesome,” said Kara, with a broad smile. Out of the corner of her eye, Larissa noted the absence of a similar smile on Tim Albertsson’s face. “You know how lucky you are to fall for someone who does what we do? Someone you never have to lie to about your life?”
“I do,” replied Larissa. “I really, really do. I spent the first two years after I was turned lying every single day, just to try and stay alive. I don’t want to go back to that.”
“Don’t you worry about him, though?” asked Tim. “It’s all very well not having to lie to each other, and I see how great that must be, but the flipside is that you know exactly how dangerous it is every time he leaves the Loop. Isn’t that hard?”
“Of course it is,” replied Larissa, turning to face the Special Operator. “I know that every time he goes out might be the last time I ever see him. But he can handle himself. He’s already survived situations no one would have given him a hope of surviving, and we both knew the risks when we signed up. What it comes down to is this. I know that if he can come back to me, he will.”
Tim nodded, and said no more on the subject.
“Anyway,” said Kara, casting a sideways glance at him. “What’s the deal with Dominique Saint-Jacques? Larissa, you know him, right? I saw his picture in the report on the Paris mission and I feel like he could be just the thing to help me get over Bobby.”
“I’ve met Dominique,” said Tim, breaking into a smile. “We did a thing in Somalia a couple of years ago. You should probably take a number.”
“What are you saying?” demanded Kara. “He’s out of my league?”
“Did I say that?” asked Tim, his smile widening. “You said that, not me. I just said you should take a number. He’s a very popular young man.”
Larissa let her attention drift as Kara and Tim descended into bickering about a man who was five thousand miles away. On the other side of the table, Kelly, Danny and Aaron had huddled together and were talking to each other in low voices, but as far as Larissa, with her supernatural hearing, was concerned, there were no such things. She could hear whispering as loudly as most normal humans could hear shouting. And what she had heard was Aaron saying “… if I knew, I’d tell you. But I don’t. No one knows who he is.”
“What’s the gossip?” asked Larissa, abandoning the analysis of Kara’s attractiveness and leaning forward. “No one knows who who is?”
“The man in the cell,” said Aaron, his expression of mild surprise making it clear to Larissa that he thought she should have known that. “The one that no one is allowed to see. You haven’t heard about him?”
“I guess not,” said Larissa. “Who is he?”
“We don’t know,” said Danny. He spoke very slowly, as if to a child, then grinned at her. “That’s sort of the point.”
“Screw you,” said Larissa, smiling back at him. “What’s the story?”
“No one knows much of that either,” replied Kelly. “About a month ago there was a general alarm for a breach of the perimeter that got overridden about ten seconds after it started. Nothing got announced, nobody got called out, and then…”
“… and then my Department issued a memo,” continued Aaron, “listing the entire cellblock as DO NOT HANDLE, and making entry without direct authorisation from General Allen a punishable offence. The story got around that there’s a man in one of the cells, but nobody knows who he is, or if there’s actually anyone in there at all. It’s a black hole.”
“It’s weird,” said Danny. “Really weird.”
Larissa considered this. “It’s a regular cell, though, right?” she asked. “Not a supernatural?”
“Regular,” replied Aaron. “Just a standard concrete box.”
“That is weird,” said Larissa. “What are the theories?”
“I heard it’s Allen’s brother,” said Kelly. “Someone in the mess was saying he got compromised and the General brought him in until things calmed down.”
“Why would he put his own brother in a cell?” asked Aaron. “What would be the harm in letting him live in quarters?”
“Who knows?” said Danny. “Maybe it’s some human informant, someone the Director doesn’t want the rest of us to know about.”
“Why wouldn’t he want the rest of us to know?” asked Kelly.
Aaron looked over at Larissa, who nodded her head. “Because even places like this have unfriendly eyes and ears,” Larissa said, softly. “I know. Believe me, I know.”
The four of them sat in silence for a moment, allowing the implication of Larissa’s words to wash over them. The betrayals of Blacklight by two of its own members had caused great disquiet throughout the other supernatural Departments of the world. The idea that there could be traitors within their own ranks, on top of all the dangers they faced in the outside world, was a deeply unsettling one that no Operator liked to dwell on for too long.
“Thanks for that, Larissa,” said Danny, pushing his half-eaten burger away. “I just lost my appetite.”
“That’s not the worst thing that could happen,” said Kelly, eyeing her friend’s stomach theatrically. “You’re going to need a bigger uniform any day now.”
“You absolute—”
Whatever colourful insult Danny had been about to throw at Kelly was lost in the bellows of laughter that burst from Larissa and Aaron. Tim and Kara immediately stopped sparring and demanded to be let in on the joke; as Aaron brought them up to speed, Larissa smiled as she looked at her friends. But at the back of her mind, she was still thinking about the anonymous man in the cell, and wondering how she might find out who he was.
51 DAYS TILL ZERO HOUR
15
ONE OF OUR OWN
Jamie fell in beside Jack Williams as the Zero Hour Task Force followed Jacob Scott along the Level B corridor.
“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked.
Jack shook his head. “I know as much as you, mate. Jacob’s got something he wants to tell us. I don’t think anyone knows what it is.”
“Is it a Dracula thing?”
“I don’t think so,” said Jack. “I think it’s something else.”
The two Operators walked on in silence for a few moments, until Jamie spoke again. “How’d you get on today?”
“OK,” replied Jack. “Got the first two on our list. Tried to press for the third, but he was moving so I called it a night. What about you?”
“Got the first,” replied Jamie.
“Your rookies make out all right?”
“Kind of,” said Jamie. “Ellison’s going to be great, I can already tell. She’s ice-cold. Morton sort of freaked out, to be honest with you. I think coming face to face with an actual vamp scared him more than he was expecting it to. But considering they should still be in training, they did all right. Yours?”
“Better than I expected,” said Jack. “Didn’t panic, didn’t freeze, did what I told them. Did you hear about Angela?”
“I got in and went straight to bed,” replied Jamie. “What’s she done?”
“She told Holmwood she wanted a new squad,” smiled Jack. “Both of hers are in the infirmary, but all she wants to do is get back out there. Ca
l had to give her a direct order to go to bed.”
Jamie grinned. Nothing about Angela Darcy, the beautiful, terrifying former spy, could ever surprise him; he had seen her at work in Paris, after she volunteered to help him rescue Frankenstein, and had been impressed and intimidated at the same time. The only other person he had ever seen who was so casually, elegantly lethal was Larissa, who had being a vampire as an excuse. That Angela was as friendly and flirtatious as she was dangerous only added to her appeal, and it was a well-known fact that at least a dozen of the Department’s men were in love with her.
“I’m not even surprised,” he replied.
“Me neither,” said Jack. “I’m amazed Cal had the balls to tell her no.”
Jack laughed and Jamie joined in, enjoying the easy friendship that had bloomed since the first time the two men had met. They had fought together many times in the six months since Jamie had arrived at the Loop, and Jack had been one of the Operators who volunteered for the Paris rescue mission. Jamie had been delighted to have him; he was a fine Operator and leader, as well as a good friend.
The group paused at the end of the corridor as they waited for a lift to arrive, then piled into the metal box and ascended to Level A. Jacob Scott led them along the central corridor and stopped outside the suite of rooms that made up the Interim Director’s quarters. He rapped on the door, then waited. After a minute or so, it swung open and a bleary-eyed Cal Holmwood peered out at them.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Jacob? What is this?”
“I need to show you something, sir,” replied Colonel Scott. “Can we come in?”
A flicker of obvious annoyance passed across Holmwood’s face. “This needs to happen now, Jacob? It can’t wait till morning?”
“No, sir,” replied Scott. “I’m afraid it can’t.”
The Interim Director sighed. “Fine. Come in then, the lot of you.” He pulled the door to his quarters open. Jacob Scott stepped inside and the Zero Hour Task Force followed him. Once the last man was in, Holmwood pushed the door closed and demanded to know what the hell was going on.
“It’ll be easier if I show you, sir,” said Jacob. “Can you call up the security footage of the Broadmoor escape?”
“Why?” asked Holmwood. “It’s still being analysed. We don’t even have a preliminary report yet.”
“Like I said, sir,” said Colonel Scott, “it’ll be easier if I show you.”
Holmwood looked at the rest of the men standing silently in his quarters. “Paul,” he said, his gaze coming to rest on Major Turner. “Do you know what this is about?”
“No, sir,” replied the Security Officer. “This is Jacob’s show.”
Jamie glanced at Jack, who widened his eyes in a gesture that conveyed exactly what it was meant to.
Holy shit. This must be serious.
Holmwood considered for a moment, then sighed. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll load the footage. Care to tell me what I’m looking for?”
“If you run the view of the courtyard as the hospital is breached, sir,” replied Scott, “I’ll tell you as soon as I see it.”
Holmwood grunted, then flopped down into the chair behind his long wooden desk. He woke up his console and tapped in a series of commands. A wide screen lit up on the wall opposite, and the Operators shuffled to either side so that everyone could see. Holmwood navigated through the Blacklight network and dragged a file labelled EXT_COURTYARD out of a folder containing hundreds of gigabytes of footage of the Broadmoor escape. He double-clicked it and black and white video filled the screen.
The camera was positioned on the back of the gatehouse, directly above the entry arch; it looked across the courtyard towards the main door of the hospital building itself. As the footage began, a Range Rover was sitting in the middle of the frame with its driver’s side door open and a man standing beside it. Beyond the car, on the ground in front of the hospital, lay a figure in a white hospital gown that suddenly leapt to its feet, causing several of the audience to gasp. The patient sprinted across the courtyard and leapt on to the bonnet of the car, thrashing and clawing and hammering at the windscreen, managing to get one hand through the glass. Then the car accelerated backwards, passing beneath the camera and out of view.
“Who was that in the car?” asked Brennan. His voice was low and shaken.
“Benjamin Dawson,” replied Paul Turner, without taking his eyes off the screen. “And Charles Walsh. Both residents of Crowthorne, the village below Broadmoor. Both deceased.”
Jamie said nothing. His eyes were locked on the awful events playing out on the wall screen. The video had no sound, which, if anything, made it worse; the horror seemed unreal without the screams that would have inevitably accompanied it in real life. The courtyard was still for a few moments, until a second white figure fell from somewhere above the camera’s range. It thudded to the ground, one of its legs visibly breaking, then dragged itself in the same direction the car had gone. Seconds later another patient dropped into frame, followed by another, and another. Several of them ran for the gate, while others simply stood in the courtyard, seemingly unsure of what to do next.
Then the hospital door burst outwards, breaking and splintering on to the cobblestones of the courtyard. A huge man in a white gown appeared in the doorway, his eyes glowing; they showed up on the monochrome footage as bright, flickering white. He walked slowly forward, stopped, then threw back his head and screamed silently at the night sky. All at once the courtyard was full of movement, as the newly-turned patients of Broadmoor spilled into it; dozens of them, then what seemed like hundreds, running and leaping and pushing at each other, a wide stream of vampires revelling in the glory of freedom. They began to run across the courtyard, disappearing beneath the camera and flooding out into the night.
“Freeze it there!” shouted Jacob Scott. “Right there!”
Jamie looked over at the Australian Colonel; his eyes were fixed on the screen, his weathered face pale and drawn. Cal Holmwood hit a key on his console and the footage stopped moving. He rewound until Jacob told him to stop, then tapped at his console again. The still image sharpened until it looked like a photograph.
“What are we looking at?” he asked.
Jacob Scott got slowly to his feet and walked across to the wall screen. He reached out a trembling hand and pointed at a man walking calmly across the courtyard.
“Him,” said Scott. “He’s who I wanted you to see.”
“Who is that?” asked Jamie.
“That’s one of us,” replied the Colonel. “That’s Albert Harker.”
16
CLASSIFIED MEANS CLASSIFIED
TWENTY MINUTES LATER
“I can’t believe it,” said Cal Holmwood. “I knew David Harker. I can’t believe he’d do that to his own son.”
“He did it, sir,” said Jacob Scott, his voice low and unsteady. “I was there. I saw.”
Jamie had listened with slowly dawning horror to the long, sad tale of Albert Harker. Colonel Scott had told it carefully, leaving out nothing, allowing the cruelty that had apparently lurked at the heart of the Harker family to be fully revealed; how his father and brother had committed Albert to Broadmoor under an assumed name, to languish there in secret until he died.
How could they do it? he thought, his mind struggling to process such horror. How could anyone do that?
“I don’t know these men,” he said. “They’re not still Operators, are they?”
“They’re both dead,” replied Holmwood. “David died more than a decade ago, Robert, what, getting on for two years?”
Paul Turner nodded. “About six months after his sons passed,” he said.
Jamie’s mind was filled with an image of the bronze plaque in the rose garden at the edge of the Loop. “The Harker brothers who died when the first Mina went down,” he said, slowly. “John and George. They were Robert’s sons?”
“David’s grandsons,” said Holmwood. “And Albert’s nephews, although I doubt they
even knew he existed. I can’t imagine their father mentioned his brother very often.”
“But you knew Albert existed,” pressed Jamie. “You knew David Harker and you must have known he had two sons. Didn’t you ever wonder about him?”
“We knew Albert was… different,” said Holmwood. “I mean, everyone did. It was no secret. It was a scandal when he turned us down and we all knew David was furious. But I had no idea about the rest.”
“No one knew, sir,” said Jacob Scott. “David and Robert knew, and I knew. That was it.”
“How did you know?” asked Paul Turner. “Why were you even there, Jacob? This was clearly a family matter.”
“Robert asked me to go with him,” replied Scott. “He told me he needed someone he could trust. So I went.”
“I don’t understand why Robert wanted anyone there apart from himself and his father,” said Holmwood.
“I’ve thought about that, sir,” said Scott, his eyes flicking momentarily to the floor. “I’ve thought about it a lot, over the years. I’ve come to the conclusion that Robert didn’t trust David not to go too far if it was just the three of them.”
The implication of the Colonel’s words hung in the air, clear to everyone in the room.
Jesus, thought Jamie. Jesus Christ.
“Are you saying that—” Jack Williams began, but was interrupted by the Interim Director.
“I think we all know exactly what Jacob is saying, Jack,” said Holmwood. “And before we crucify the memory of a loyal member of this Department, I would remind you all that Jacob is telling us what he believes, rather than what he knows for certain. Is that clear to you all?”
“That’s right,” said Scott. “You asked me what I thought. I don’t know for certain what was going through David’s mind.”
