by William Hill
“Some human?” Jamie roared. “That human is my mother, you disgusting creature! My mother, who never hurt anyone in her entire life, who has nothing to do with any of this, and you let him keep her here, in your house? I’m going to kill you!”
Frankenstein shot Jamie a look of sympathy, then turned back to the Chemist. “When did you finish your work? When did they leave?”
The vampire shot the monster a look of savage satisfaction. “Yesterday. About two hours before you came to see me.”
The words crushed the fight out of Jamie, and he sagged in Larissa’s arms.
So close. We were so close. We missed her by a matter of minutes. Too much. It’s too much to bear.
He heard Frankenstein ask the Chemist where they were going, but the monster’s voice sounded as though it was coming from underwater; it was distant and muffled. He felt Larissa place her cheek against his as she hugged him, felt the warmth of her body surrounding him, but felt nothing. He would fall to the floor if she released him, he knew it; she was the only thing holding him up.
“They went north,” answered the Chemist. “Alexandru sent the rest of his followers ahead, to prepare for some kind of party. That’s all I know.”
Jamie felt Larissa’s muscles tense momentarily, and then she spoke from above him. “I know where he means,” she said, softly. “I’ve been there. I know exactly where he means.”
“You’ve been where?” asked Jamie. “Where’s he talking about?”
“I’ll show you when we get back to base.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
“So you can let your pet monster blow me to pieces after I do? I don’t think so.”
Frankenstein rolled his eyes, then stepped away from the Chemist, who was glaring malevolently at the people who had invaded his home.
“I should press this,” he said, nodding toward the detonator in his hand. “God knows the world would not miss you. But I suspect you might consider it a kindness, and that is not what you deserve.” He looked around at the rest of the Blacklight team and motioned to the door.
“Can you stand?” whispered Larissa, and Jamie nodded. She let go of him, and he swayed unsteadily for a moment before walking toward the door, followed by Larissa and Morris.
Frankenstein walked backward after them, his eyes never leaving the Chemist, who was staring at him with naked murder in his eyes. “Don’t move until we’re gone,” he warned. Then he pulled the living room door shut in front of him and joined the three figures who were waiting for him on the garden path. They hurried through the gate and along the road toward their waiting vehicle.
“What does all this—” began Morris, but Frankenstein cut him off.
“Not now, Tom. We’ll debrief in the car. OK?”
Jamie walked along the road, his mind full of misery and hopelessness, his feet made of lead. He looked over at Larissa as they approached the car and gasped.
Her eyes were a deep, liquid crimson.
Then she moved.
She grabbed his wrist—so quickly it had happened before he even realized—unpeeled the fingers that were wrapped around the detonator, took it easily from his grip, and disappeared into the night sky.
33
ON THE WAY TO THE GALLOWS
There was silence in the SUV. Thomas Morris was behind the wheel, guiding the car towards the Loop, and a series of questions that no one in the vehicle was looking forward to answering. Frankenstein was in the passenger seat, staring out of the window at the passing countryside; the flat landscape sped past as the powerful engine devoured the distance. Jamie sat in the back, his hands over his face.
Eventually, Morris spoke.
“How bad is this going to be?”
Frankenstein laughed, a deep grunt without humor in it. “How bad do you think?” he replied. “We took a vampire off base without authorization, disobeying the specific orders of the director, then let her escape. We fraudulently commandeered a helicopter and a pilot, and lost the only lead that might have led us to Jamie’s mother. I think it might be quite bad. Don’t you?”
Morris nodded glumly, his eyes on the dark road.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” asked Jamie, his voice barely audible. “We’re never going to find her.”
Frankenstein leaned around his seat’s headrest and looked at him. “I promised you I would help you find her,” he said. “And I will continue to do so. But you have to be prepared for the fact that after tonight, we are probably going to be doing this on our own. And that’s assuming that Admiral Seward doesn’t have us both arrested. Which he very well might.”
Jamie nodded. He hadn’t expected to be told anything different. He had been wrong, so terribly wrong, and now Larissa was gone, and he had jeopardized the careers of two men who had believed in him, two men who had helped him.
“I’ll tell Seward it was my idea,” he said. “I’ll take the blame for everything.”
“I appreciate the gesture,” replied Frankenstein. “But that isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference. We should never have let you take her out of her cell. You couldn’t have done it without the code Tom gave you, and Seward knows that. We’re in this together.”
Morris groaned and turned the SUV off the motorway, sending it speeding past RAF Mildenhall on their left, approaching the final turning that would take them through the woods and into the Loop. A C-130 Hercules roared low over the road, lights flashing on its enormous belly as it rushed toward the long Mildenhall runway. The SUV shook and rattled as the huge aircraft thundered over them, then there was a loud thud on the roof of the car, and Morris spun the wheel to keep it on the asphalt. He slammed his foot on the brake and brought them sliding to a halt at the side of the road.
“What was that?” asked Frankenstein. Then the passenger door on the opposite side of the car to Jamie was pulled open, and Larissa swung easily into the seat next to him.
“Did you miss me?” she asked, sweetly.
Frankenstein hauled the T-Bone from his belt and shoved it against her throat. She pulled it easily out of his hand and threw it out of the open door. The monster fumbled for his stake, but Jamie shouted at him to stop, and turned to Larissa.
“Where have you been?” he shouted, his face bright red with anger. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“I’m pleased to see you, too,” she said, then handed him the cylindrical detonator. He looked at it dumbly. “I went to make sure the Chemist was telling the truth,” she continued. “Something told me you would be unwilling to take me at my word.”
Frankenstein laughed. “This is absolutely—”
“I’m not talking to you,” interrupted Larissa. “I’m talking to Jamie.”
Jamie looked at the angry gray-green face looming at them from the front seat of the car, then at Larissa’s calm expression. “And?” he asked. “Was he telling the truth?”
Larissa nodded. “He was. I know exactly where they are.”
Morris craned his head around from the driver’s seat.
“How can you possibly expect us to believe you?” he asked.
“I don’t expect anything,” she replied. “Take us back to base and get a satellite over Northumberland. I can show you with your own eyes.”
It took them no more than ninety seconds to cross the distance from the authorization tunnel to the wide semicircle of tarmac in front of the hangar, but in that time a welcoming committee had gathered to meet them.
Morris brought the SUV to a halt, and the four passengers stepped out of the car. Admiral Seward was the first to reach them, his face so red it looked as though he might burst.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said, his voice tight with fury. “In my twenty years in this Department, I’ve never seen such insubordination, such flagrant recklessness, or such godforsaken outright stupidity!”
“Sir—” began Morris, but Seward shouted him down.
“Don’t say anything!” he bellowed. “Not a da
mn word, do you hear me? Any of you!”
He waved a hand, and two operators appeared alongside him.
“Take her back to her cell, immediately,” Seward said. “If she so much as blinks without your permission, destroy her.”
One of the operators drew his T-Bone and pointed it at Larissa’s chest. The second hauled the detonator roughly out of Jamie’s hand, then placed his other hand on her lower back and shoved her toward the hangar.
Jamie threw a desperate look at Frankenstein, who widened his eyes in a clear warning not to say or do anything. Instead he spoke to the director.
“Admiral,” he said. “She says she has the location of Alexandru Rusmanov. Let her show us before she goes back to her cell.”
“Are you telling me what to do, Colonel?” asked Seward, his voice cold.
“No, sir,” replied Frankenstein. “I’m just saying that you shouldn’t let our actions allow a Priority A1 target to get away. Sir.”
Seward stepped forward and stared up into the monster’s face. “Do you have any idea how serious this is?” he asked. “I can have you court-martialed for what you have done today. I can make sure you spend the rest of your life behind bars.”
“Believe me, sir,” the monster replied, “I’m well aware of the likely consequences.”
They stared at each other, then Seward shouted for the operators who were holding Larissa to stop.
“Five minutes,” the director said. “Then she goes back to her cell. Whether she shows us anything or not.”
Admiral Seward stood in the middle of the Department 19 Ops Room, looking up at the huge screen that covered one wall. Frankenstein, Jamie, and Morris sat silently at three of the empty desks, waiting. Larissa stood against the far wall, the two operators training their weapons on her. She had described the location to a young communications officer, who was now tapping at a keyboard. Seward was standing silently, his eyes trained on the silver watch on his wrist. After a few seconds, he looked down at Frankenstein, smiled, and held up four fingers in the air.
“Sir, we have a satellite in geosynchronous orbit over Faslane,” said the communications officer. “Do I have permission to move her?”
“Granted, Lieutenant,” replied Seward. “Proceed.”
“Ninety seconds to target, sir.”
“Very well.”
The screen bloomed into life, showing HMNB Clyde in stunning high-definition detail. The naval base, home to the UK’s Trident nuclear submarines, hugged the eastern shore of Gare Loch, twenty-five miles west of Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde. Jamie marveled at the detail of the live pictures, beaming down from a highly classified Skynet 6 satellite six hundred kilometers above the earth’s surface.
The picture began to move, slowly at first, then with rapidly accelerating speed as the satellite’s engines fired, sending it east-southeast, over Southern Scotland and into Northern England. It flew over the Cheviot Hills and slowed as it approached Alnwick, settling over a grand country estate on the outskirts of the market town. The resolution intensified as the satellite’s powerful cameras zoomed in on the collection of buildings filling the screen.
A large house, built in the shape of a wide capital H, was surrounded by a number of outbuildings: stables, sheds, garages. Gravel tracks linked them together, winding through thick copses of trees and immaculately manicured lawns. A swing set was clearly visible at the rear of the house, beside a sandbox and a pair of small football goals.
Nothing moved. The image was as still as a photograph.
Seward checked his watch. “One minute,” he said.
Jamie flashed an anxious glance at Frankenstein, then looked over at Larissa and was surprised to see that she was not paying any attention at all to the screen. She was looking directly at him. When his eyes met hers, she made no attempt to look away, or to pretend she had been looking elsewhere. She simply returned his gaze, her eyes calm, her face pale, her skin flawless.
I could stare at her forever.
“Contact,” shouted the communications officer, and the spell was broken.
All eyes in the Ops Room turned to the screen. Walking slowly between the main house and one of the outbuildings was a large, hunched figure.
“That’s Anderson,” breathed Frankenstein.
“Confirm identity,” said Seward, and the lieutenant took hold of the small joystick that emerged from the middle of his console. He guided the satellite’s camera north, in the direction the figure was heading, and tracked it on maximum zoom. The man—it was a man, the slightly balding pate now clearly visible—walked quickly, his head level, his shoulders back, as calmly as if he were taking an evening stroll along one of the long sand beaches that were little more than five miles to the east. He reached the outbuilding, took a brief look to his left and right, then glanced upward, and pushed open the door, disappearing from view.
“Freeze that image!” shouted Frankenstein.
The communications officer wound the satellite feed back and paused it at the millisecond when the man had tipped his head backward, as though he was looking directly at them. The picture sharpened into focus, and a round, childish face with small features emerged into crystal clarity.
“There they are,” said Larissa. “Where Alexandru goes, Anderson goes.”
“Run it,” said Seward.
Frankenstein groaned. “Sir, it’s obvious—”
“I said run it,” interrupted the director. “I’ve had more than enough of people playing hunches today.”
The lieutenant punched buttons, opening a window and entering the Department 19 mainframe. He dragged the still of the man’s face into a box and hit SEARCH. Less than ten seconds later, the computer returned its results.
SUBJECT NAME: ANDERSON, (UNKNOWN)
SPECIES: VAMPIRE
PRIORITY LEVEL: A2
KNOWN ASSOCIATES:RUSMANOV, ALEXANDRU
RUSMANOV, VALERI
RUSMANOV, ILYANA
MOST RECENT SIGHTING: 3/24/2007
WHEREABOUTS: UNKNOWN
Jamie breathed out a sigh of relief and looked at Larissa, gratitude all over his tired face. Larissa smiled at him, and mouthed, “Told you.”
“Zoom out and switch to infrared,” said Seward.
The picture switched from the still of Anderson to a live close-up of the building he had just entered, then drew out and up until it again showed the entire estate. Then, as the infrared kicked in, it changed to a series of colored swirls; waves of dark blue and black where the cold woods and lawns had been, the H of the main house a rainbow of yellow and orange, studded with moving blobs of hot, dark red.
“There must be thirty of them in there,” said the lieutenant.
Frankenstein turned his chair and looked at the director. Seward was staring at the screen, his jaw set firm, assessing what he was seeing in front of him. After a long pause, he spoke, and the monster closed his eyes with relief.
“Scramble a strike team,” said Seward. “Four squads. Full weapons and tactical. I want wheels up in thirty minutes.” He looked down at the men in the seats below him, as if suddenly remembering they were there. “Frankenstein, Morris, you will lead squads two and four. Carpenter, you will be limited to the transport. I would leave you here, but given the events of today, I believe I would rather have you where I can keep an eye on you.”
Jamie opened his mouth to protest, but Seward cut him off.
“Do not try my patience any further, young man. I’m giving you a gift by letting you come at all. Don’t make me take it back.”
Jamie closed his mouth.
“Security,” continued the director. “Take her back to her cell, then report to the hangar for briefing.”
Suddenly, the whole room was moving. Seward stepped down from the command platform and strode toward the door. The two operators who had been guarding Larissa took her by the shoulders and led her in the same direction, to the elevator that would return her to the cellblock, deep in the bowels of the base.
&
nbsp; Jamie jumped to his feet, calling her name. She looked back at him briefly, then turned away, allowing herself to be led out of the room.
“It’s not fair,” he shouted at Frankenstein and Morris, who had risen from their chairs and were watching him. “She did what she promised.”
“She can’t go,” said Frankenstein. “You know she can’t.”
Jamie looked at Morris, who stared uncomfortably at the ground.
“Fine,” he spat. “Let’s go and get my mother. We can deal with Larissa when we get back.”
34
THE HUNTING PARTY
The mobilization of the Department 19 strike team was a sight unlike anything Jamie had ever seen. The hangar on Level 0 was a hive of activity; Operators in black uniform and purple visors filled the wide floor, clustered into tight circles as officers, Frankenstein and Morris among them, briefed them on the mission ahead. The hum of voices and the click of weapons being checked was deafening in the silent night air, but Jamie barely heard it; his attention was trained on the large structures that loomed in the darkness on the other side of the runway.
The doors of two of the buildings were slowly rolling open, spilling bright white light across the tarmac, illuminating the white markings that led to the runway. Two enormous black shapes were slowly being revealed, and Jamie watched, fascinated.
Inside the hangars stood a pair of black helicopters, their fuselages hanging bloated and swollen beneath twin sets of rotors. They were so tall and wide that Jamie could not believe they were capable of flight; their cockpits sat tiny above their bellies, which were the size of a suburban house. Behind him, he could hear the voices of Frankenstein and Morris giving orders to their men, but he paid no attention. It had been made clear to him that he was not going to be allowed to be involved in the mission, that his role was to be purely that of an observer, and so he saw no reason to bother with the briefings and the mission priority checklists. Instead he stood alone in the huge arc of the main hangar’s open door and watched.
