Department 19: Battle Lines (27 page)

Brilliant timing. Just bloody fantastic. Thanks very much.

Five hours later Jamie opened his eyes.

The thick fog of tiredness that he had to fight his way out of most mornings was strangely, wonderfully absent; his mind was clear and his body felt more rested than it had in months. He checked the digital clock that stood on his bedside table and was astonished to see that it was 8:45am. It was incredibly rare for him, or any other Operator, to sleep so late. Alarms, console messages, unscheduled briefings: any or all of these interrupted sleep in the Loop on an almost nightly basis.

Jamie swung himself out of bed and flicked on his little plastic kettle. He made a steaming mug of coffee, left it cooling on his desk, and headed for the showers. In the wide block in the middle of the Level B corridor, he stepped under the water, letting the heat burn away the aches and pains that always gradually resurfaced, no matter how well he slept, and thought about John Morton.

Most Department 19 Operators were already highly experienced when they arrived at the Loop to begin their training, either in the military, the intelligence services, or the elite regiments of the police; it tended to count for very little, however, when they were first confronted by a live vampire. So it had been with Morton; the reality had clearly shaken him and made him immediately begin to question everything. This was natural, in Jamie’s experience, possibly even healthy, but it presented him with a problem. The situation they found themselves in, with hundreds of particularly dangerous new vampires on the loose, didn’t permit the shallow learning curve that was preferred for rookie Operators, which meant that he was going to have to have a conversation with John Morton that he was not looking forward to.

Jamie towelled himself dry and made his way back to his quarters. A message had appeared on his console while he was in the shower; he pressed READ with his thumb.

M-3/AWAIT_FURTHER_INSTRUCTIONS/MAINTAIN_READINESS

He breathed a sigh of relief.

That buys me some time. Enough, hopefully.

Morton and Ellison would by now be awake, in the dormitories on Level A where all rookie Operators were housed. For a moment, Jamie considered giving them the morning off, but decided against it. Going easy on them would do nobody any good, least of all them; a couple of hours in the Playground with Terry would sharpen them up. He sent a quick message to that effect, then pulled the most overdue report from the teetering pile on his desk, settled into his chair, and began to read.

An hour later his console beeped into life again, rousing him from the report. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and opened the message, although he was already sure he knew what it was going to say.

NS303,67-J/ISAT_INTERVIEW/SURDIV/1100

He checked his watch. It read 10:36.

For Christ’s sake. As if there’s nothing important going on right now.

The same message had been waiting for him when he returned from the Interim Director’s quarters in the early hours of the morning. Part of him had been hoping that either Kate, or Paul Turner himself, might have moved his appointment back, given the demands of MOVING SHADOWS and the implications of Jacob Scott’s revelation.

Too much to ask, clearly.

Jamie closed his eyes and tried to imagine answering Kate’s ISAT’s questions. Then he stood up, gave his head a quick shake, and started to pull on his uniform, dragging the black jumpsuit over his body, doing up the zip and folding the flaps into place. He pushed his feet into boots that had once been so hard they made his toes bleed, but which were now as soft as silk, and laced them tight. His Glock 17 went into the holster on his right hip, even though he wasn’t leaving the Loop, and his belt was fastened tightly round his waist. He checked his appearance in the mirror and exited his quarters, walking quickly towards the lift at the end of the curved corridor. When it arrived, he stepped inside and hit the button marked G, checking his watch yet again as he did so.

Twenty minutes. Enough time for breakfast before I go up to ISAT.

The lift slid smoothly to a halt. Jamie set off for the dining hall, his boots clicking rapidly along the corridor floor.

I’m not doing this on an empty stomach
,
he thought.
It might not be Kate asking the questions. If it’s Paul Turner, I’m going to need to be at my best.

Larissa spun, drawing the stake from her belt faster than the human eye could follow, and threw. It accelerated through the air in a silver blur, slamming into the head of the vampire that had seized Tim. It fell back, blood gushing from a hole in its forehead, its glowing red eyes wide and incredulous. Larissa leapt forward as Tim’s hands went to his uninjured neck, pulled the stake out of the vampire’s skull and plunged it into its heart. Blood thumped into the warm evening air, pattering to the ground as thick crimson rain.

Tim slowly lowered his hands and turned to face her. Larissa’s head was pounding with the scent of freshly spilled blood; she could hear her own roaring through her veins, could feel burning heat emanating from her eyes and cheeks. She was breathing heavily, but not as the result of exertion; it was something primal, the panting of an animal in the middle of a hunt. She was still capable of rational thought, still knew who she was, where she was, and what she was doing, but that information seemed dull and distant compared to the bright red immediacy of violence.

Her squad leader glanced down at the remains of the vampire who had grabbed him, then returned his gaze to her. “Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” she said. “Try not to be so easy to sneak up on next time.”

Tim narrowed his eyes and stared at her for a long moment. She held his gaze until he turned away and addressed the rest of the squad. “We go in the front door,” he said, his voice low. “We’re going to empty it out, room by room. Overlapping, flanking formation. Anything that moves gets destroyed.”

“Yes, sir,” growled Larissa, as the rest of the squad voiced their agreement.

“OK,” said Tim. “Follow me.”

He dropped into a low crouch and they followed him up the driveway to the front door of the house. It was ominously quiet in the aftermath of all the shooting and screaming. Tim raised his right hand and jabbed two fingers in the direction of the door; Anna Frost, the quiet, serious Canadian Special Operator whose name suited her perfectly, and José Rios, the handsome, relentlessly charming Dominican who had been a Recon Marine sniper before his recruitment to NS9, ran forward and set themselves on either side of the door, their backs to the wall, their HK416s raised.

“Larissa,” said Tim, his voice low. “See if anybody’s home, would you?”

Larissa grinned and floated forward. She slid silently to the ground in front of the large, ornate wooden door, feeling her fangs pressing against her lower lip; she took a deep breath, then slammed the palms of her hands against the door. It exploded inwards, the heavy wood splintering as though a bomb had been detonated against it.

From inside the house there came screams of terror and the rattle of panicked Spanish. Larissa leapt backwards, landing behind Tim; the squad leader was flanked by Jill Flaherty, the tall, powerful former NSA agent who served as his second-in-command, and Pete Rushton, a loud, relentlessly optimistic Californian who had served in Delta Force for almost a decade before being summoned to Nevada. Frost and Rios swung themselves around the shattered door frame and disappeared into the house, their rifles at their shoulders.

“Clear,” yelled Rios.

“Go,” bellowed Tim. Flaherty and Rushton ran through the empty doorway, their weapons drawn, overlapping Frost and Rios, who had already checked the corners and exits. Tim ran forward and Larissa followed him. A second later the squad regrouped in the middle of a vast entrance hall, a tight cluster of black, bristling with weapons.

“No welcome party,” said Rushton. “That’s just rude.”

Larissa smiled at him, her eyes full of heat.

“I want a fast sweep of this floor,” said Tim, ignoring his squad mate’s comment. “Room by room. No surprises.”

“Yes, sir,” said Flaherty. She stepped forward, her MP7 in one hand, her console in the other. On its screen was an architectural blueprint of the house they were standing in. “Three rooms in the centre of this level. Eighteen around the outer wall, sir.”

“Don’t we have a satellite overhead?” asked Larissa. “There’s no time for a twenty-one-room sweep.”

“I’ve requested sat coverage,” replied Tim. “Surveillance is telling me we’ll have overlook any minute. Until then, we’re on our own.”

“But twenty-one—”

“You heard me, Lieutenant Kinley,” said Tim. “We’ll just have to move quickly. Frost, take point.”

Anna Frost nodded, and walked silently across the wide entrance lobby to where a dark wooden door stood closed. She settled her HK416 against her shoulder as the rest of the squad formed up a short distance behind her, took a deep breath, then kicked the door open, darting back behind the cover of the wall as it swung on its hinges. There was no movement inside the room, no rattle of gunfire. Frost checked over her shoulder for confirmation and saw Tim pointing a finger silently towards the open door. She nodded and stepped noiselessly into the room. As she did so, Larissa heard something, something inaudible to anyone without her supernatural hearing.

A tiny inhalation of breath.

“Wait!” she yelled.

But she was too late.

As Frost stepped into the room, something silver whistled out from behind the door and crashed into the side of her helmet, sending sparks flying into the air and driving her to her knees. She twisted as she buckled, pulling the trigger on her HK416 instinctively. Fire burst from the end of the barrel as the rifle thundered deafeningly in the enclosed space of the house.

“Move!” yelled Tim Albertsson, and ran forward.

Larissa beat him to it. She blurred through the space between where she was standing and where Frost was lying on the floor, and scooped the Operator easily into the air with one hand, drawing her T-Bone with the other. She pushed Frost behind her, pointed her weapon into the space behind the door, and froze.

Slumped on the ground was a woman, no older than twenty or twenty-one. She was wearing an orange bikini, and bleeding from at least a dozen bullet wounds. Crimson covered the wall and pooled on the ground beneath her. Resting limply in one of her hands was a long machete. Her eyes were wide and staring, devoid of life.

The rest of the Special Operations Squad burst into the room, their weapons drawn, skidding to a halt as they followed Larissa’s gaze.

“Christ,” said Flaherty. “What the hell is this?”

“Anna,” said Tim, taking hold of the Canadian’s shoulders. “Are you hurt?”

Larissa released her grip. Frost staggered slightly, but managed to stay upright.

“I’m OK,” she said. “Stupid of me. I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s OK,” replied Tim. “You’re all right.”

“Sir,” said Flaherty, and Tim turned towards her. “This girl wasn’t a vampire. She’s human, sir.”

Anna Frost pushed back her visor. “Human?” she asked, her voice unsteady.

“Human,” confirmed Flaherty. She was crouched beside the dead girl, running the beam from her UV torch over her skin.

“She’s dead?” asked Frost. “I killed her?”

Tim turned sharply back to face her. “She attacked you, Operator. Remember that. You did your job.”

Frost nodded, but the sickly grey-green colour of her face suggested that she was far from convinced. Larissa stared helplessly at her, then heard something else, from beyond the closed door at the far end of the room. It was a soft scratching sound, like bare feet shuffling across wooden floorboards.

“We’re about to have company,” she whispered.

Tim took one look at the expression on her face and ordered his squad to take cover. Rushton pulled Frost and Flaherty down behind a huge leather sofa that sat in the middle of the room, as Tim and Rios took cover behind a heavy wooden desk beneath the window. Larissa floated silently up into the air, spreading herself easily against the ceiling, and trained her T-Bone down at the closed door.

There was a long, pregnant silence. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound, until Larissa heard a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the door, a millisecond before it was kicked open.

It slammed against the wall with a deafening crash as a stream of figures burst through the empty space, screaming and yelling and waving their hands above their heads, hands that were full of metal.

“Freeze!” bellowed Tim Albertsson, rising up from behind the desk, his rifle locked against his shoulder. The rest of the squad rose as one, their weapons pointed at the mass of screaming humanity, which stopped dead at the sight of the black-clad figures before them.

Standing inside the doorway were seven women in bikinis. The oldest appeared to be in her late twenties, and several appeared to be little more than teenagers. In their hands they carried an array of kitchen knives, machetes, and other sharp pieces of household metal; one girl was carrying a garden trowel.

“Drop the weapons!” shouted Tim Albertsson. “Drop them now!”

The women instantly threw what they were holding to the ground; the makeshift weapons clattered against the floorboards, one of the knives digging into the wood and vibrating. They wore expressions of fear and misery on their faces, and several of them clutched at their almost naked bodies, covering their chests and crotches to the best of their ability. At the front, a tall, dark-skinned woman stared at the black figures, her arms hanging loosely at her sides. She looked as though she was about to speak when her eyes flicked to the corner of the room and what lay there. Her hands flew to her mouth and she screamed through her fingers. She stumbled forward, until Rios yelled at her to stay still.

“
Bastardo
!
” she cried. “
Asesino! Olivia, mi pobrecita, mi querida ángel…
”