To the right of the admin building were three long rectangular warehouses, marked by heavy steel doors sized for trucks rather than airplanes.
He’d been scanning the site for the last fifteen minutes as he approached it. There was an Order sensor array buried in the admin building. It had taken most of the last fifteen minutes of his drone’s approach to hack into it and disable it. It was an up to date version of the older sensor array he’d taken down at the Black Rock roadhouse. The drone’s sensor and computing arrays were state of the art, and up to the task of disabling the airport’s Order security system. The newer model was not able to be spoofed with a fake feed and he’d resorted to a hard shutdown. The system would go dark alerting its owners to the fact that it’d failed, but it would need to be manually rebooted before it could be used again.
James figured that anyone on site at the airport would be too busy fending off a mass vampire attack to bother with rebooting a system that would simply tell them what they could see with their own eyes. While landing thirty-four private jets without anyone noticing was the preferable option, it was not feasible given the lack of preparation of the site. The Order would have some idea of what was coming their way, that was a foregone conclusion. Whether they would walk into a suicide battle versus hundreds of vampires was another matter. James refrained from making a judgment call. It was better to wait and see. He had his orders from Chloe and he intended to carry out those orders in full.
He flicked a switch and let down the rear ramp.
One of the chameleons sniffed loudly behind his right ear.
James whirled half out of his seat. His eyes wide. Gullette looked at him with a baleful glare. “Vermin stench. Too many to destroy.” He unrolled a long forefinger at James. “Your problem.”
James glanced back through the drone’s windscreen at the deceptively quiet and well-lit airport. No, the problem belonged to the Mirovar force team.
He was in position with the chameleons, all he had to do now was wait for the ‘go,’ command from Chloe.
* * *
Tamsah al Ramil studied the vampires crowding the hanger.
Seven private jets, all but one with blacked out windows filled the building. The last jet was long-bodied and sat by itself at the back of the hanger. Standing singularly, in pairs, in small groups surrounding the aircraft, or sitting on the wings were ninety-seven vampires listening to music, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. Ninety-eight including himself.
Tamsah was bemused. He’d never imagined being surrounded by so much vile evil. It was either a nightmare of demonic death come to claim him, or an opportunity to spend the last of his heart’s blood dealing death to those who deserved it based on their very existence.
He sighed. The evil within these others, their lust for blood, their need to feed on people - these things he must own as well. Whatever evil he saw around him also resided within his own heart.
There was an obvious solution. Simply walk into the dawn and allow the sun to claim him. He had recoiled from the idea of such feckless suicide. He grimaced, he could not claim that his current path was honorable or his rejection of self-slaughter would expiate his vampire shame - for honor was forbidden to a vampire.
Yes, honor was lost beyond all hope of recovery, but a life may still be redeemed through faith, an iron-clad purpose and service to justice. The essence of the Way of the Faithful was fearlessness in the face of truth. His new half-life could be redeemed from the vile muck by protecting the truth speaker. The one who could see truth in a glance and never feared to speak it. The one who’d sparked a fire in his soul that only death could extinguish.
Tamsah relaxed, his tri-edged blades would drink deep tonight. He glanced around at the nearby vampires. One slapped another on the back and made a crude joke about what could be done to the corpses of the Mirovar team. The other responded with an even more abominable suggestion. Both laughed - a cold grating sound.
Tamsah memorized their faces. They would not survive tonight; he would make certain of that. He could not abide such filth to live. He would acquaint them with the sharp edge of his faith. Sharp edges were best for serving justice to the wicked.
He promised to give them all the justice they needed.
Tamsah looked hard at them with eyes flat like dark river pebbles. Truly, he would be generous when the time came.
After all, justice was not a frugal master.
* * *
Two black Chevrolet Suburban SUVs pulled to a halt at the rear of the gas station.
Justin Blake emerged from a front passenger seat, rising to his full six feet, eight inches of height. The skies were clear, a swollen orb of a moon rested over the eastern horizon. A slight breeze hinted at the coming fall. A coyote howled in the distance and was answered by a series of short yaps. He took a deep breath of the fresh night air and exhaled mightily. He ran his big hands though his thick head of dark hair, quickly wrapping it into a tight ponytail with a red tie.
He glanced around at the horizon, his eyes missing nothing. He tapped his Order nightglasses. The tactical network ran through a self-diagnostic and reported its good health with a soft chirp.
It was a good night for hunting vampires.
His team emerged from the two vans and circled around him. His eyes flicked across them. They were all ready and poised for a fight. Their weapons waited in the backs of the SUVs. It wouldn’t do to scare the locals by wearing them openly. There would be time to arm themselves once the plan had been established.
Justin’s second in command, Samuel Taylor, six-foot-two-inch tall, built like an Olympic gold medalist track and field athlete, with coal-black skin and short, tight, black hair stood opposite him. Standing next to Sam was his constant companion, Taylor Feury. Taylor was an even six-foot tall, an almost white blond, with an innocent face that often led people to underestimate his abilities. A warrior specialist, he was the other half of the pair of blademasters known as the Two Taylors. Along with Justin, they were the sharp end of the spear of the Blake force team. In any conflict, they were the first in and the last out. Next to the Two Taylors, stood Tim Leung and Max Guerra, a pair of Californian netmasters who knew more about cyberwarfare than most people had forgotten and who could handle a katana like the veteran vampire slayers they were. Rounding out the team were Red Cevarre, and Patrick Wichowski, a red-headed combat surgeon, and the team’s loremaster respectively.
Sam asked, “What do you make of this call?”
Everyone had heard the broadcast request from Arthur Slayne. The Blake force team had diverted from the investigation of a Las Vegas coven of vampires to support the Mirovar force team in a battle against a massive vampire force at Slayne’s airfield. They had answered the call and converged behind the gas station opposite the entrance to the airport. Justin replied, “It’ll be a real shit storm, but Arthur is right. We can’t leave these vampires alive.”
Patrick tapped his nightglasses and suggested, “Slayne and the Mirovar force team must be close to arriving.”
Justin nodded. The sharp notes of a group of approaching motorcycles cut through the night air. Less than half a minute later, the first of the riders rolled past the north end of the roadhouse behind the gas station. They were quickly followed by the other five. Arthur had sent through a private message alerting Justin to the grim news of the death of Francis Mirovar. The pace of the war had accelerated and death was stalking the Ramp masters, ever ready to snatch their lives away in an instant. He’d passed the news onto his team, and they had accepted it well.
Arthur Slayne and the Mirovar force team rolled to a halt and parked their bikes in a line next to the Blake team’s Chevy Suburbans. Arthur got off his bike and strode over to Justin. He gripped his hand firmly and declared, “Thanks for coming. I knew I could rely on you.”
Justin grinned and shrugged it off. “I can’t turn down the opportunity to kill more vampires in a night than the Order has claimed in the last decade.”
Jay a
pproached and shook Justin’s hand. “Well met, it looks like we will finally fight together.”
Justin’s lip curled sardonically. “Let’s hope it’s not for the last time.”
“Amen to that,” Arthur added.
Justin stroked his broad chin and then pointed his index finger at Arthur. “Tactics? We’ve rushed in here. What is the real situation?”
Arthur lifted the P-Case, and showed it to the combined team. “This is the Panopticon in evacuation mode. You will have seen the news. It wasn’t a naturally occurring volcano in Utah. The Panopticon fortress has been destroyed. The Mirovar team, and I infiltrated the fortress, stole the Panopticon, and barely escaped with our lives.” He patted the P-Case. “Now Crane and Armitage want the Panopticon back. The vampires are here in great numbers precisely because of this P-Case. I’ve wrapped it in Faraday tape, so they can’t track the beacon, but somehow they worked out we were exfiltrating via my airport.”
Sam asked, “Have you got any other exfil paths?”
Arthur pursed his lips. “No. We had an advantage of speed and stealth. Somehow that got penetrated, they picked up our trail and anticipated our destination here in Nevada. We can’t simply divert at this time. For the rest of the night, Crane has at least three hundred plus vampires to throw at us to hunt us down. Plus, he’s got shadowstars in the air. We have to pull him into a battle here and take his forces down. Then we can fly out before he can respond with further reinforcements.”
“There’s another issue here,” Sam said, “There weren’t three hundred plus vampires within flight range of Las Vegas six hours ago. Crane’s ordered the creation of a lot of new vampires.”
Justin said, “It begs the question. Is Crane still committed to the secrecy of vampires or are we seeing a massive shift in his strategy?”
“Oh my God,” Jay swore, “If we do nothing, what is to stop Crane sending all those vampires into Las Vegas just to draw us out against them? That many could kill a thousand people a minute, and keep doing it hour after hour until dawn.”
“It’s clear we have to go in,” Justin stated, “but what if Crane nukes the airport?”
“Well, all bets would be off,” Arthur replied. “But he won’t do that while we have the P-Case. He wants the Panopticon back. Growing a new AI from scratch would take longer than he can afford. There’s something going down in China. Crane’s forces are massed over there and I’m sure he’s got a powerful need to get the Panopticon back in one piece - and that means one thing and one thing only - hand to hand combat. He can’t afford heavy weapons or some fool vampire trashing the P-Case. He’s called up a militia force, a bunch of numpties and wannabe vampires who I doubt he’ll trust with weapons. He’ll throw them at us as cannon-fodder to wear us out.”
“So, what do you intend?” Justin asked.
“We need to break the vampires here and then exfil the country. I have a secret location in South America where I can stage at. The new Order site of the Panopticon is in Hong Kong, but I have to get there first. We have Huawei quantum processors secretly manufactured in China based on stolen US designs, and the latest Hyundai hydrogen fuel-cells to power the site. Once the Panopticon is operational, we can run its feeds via satellite uplinks to our Order nightglasses.”
“That’s all well and good, but it’s a moot point if we don’t survive tonight.” Justin stabbed Arthur with his gaze and hammered his left hand with his open right hand. “What are your immediate plans to get from behind this gas station to inside an aircraft flying out of here?”
“Hold your horses, big fella, there’s a bit more to go,” Arthur instructed, placing a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “They’ve already disabled my first sensor array about fifteen minutes ago. There is a second array which is currently on standby and the encryption is my own personal suite which will be impossible for them to break without the benefit of the Panopticon’s quantum processors. Right now, they think we are blind. Once I switch the second array on, we’ll know the full extent and disposition of their forces. Not only that, I can slave the feeds to our Order nightglasses and everyone will have the same tactical information.”
“Okay,” Justin said. “That’s a plus.”
“A big plus.” Arthur paused for a moment, pursed his lips and waved his hands in circles as if wafting smoke upward between them. “Look, I know this is going to sound strange.” A stillness fell over the team. “My plan was always to make a clean getaway with the Panopticon. However, I always build vampire traps wherever I go.” Arthur looked across at Li and Anton. “You saw it in Boston. The warehouse on the docks was a big vampire trap. We didn’t get as many as we would have liked and lost a great friend too, but that happens in life. Nothing is certain.” Arthur looked around the assembled Ramp masters. “Truly, Crane finding us has a massive silver lining if we seize the moment. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to seriously hurt the Vampire Dominion.”
“Team, heads up.” Justin stated firmly. He pointed his finger at Arthur. “I’ve got the context. Let’s get the details sorted, the longer we wait the more likely they’ll think of a better way to take us all down.”
Arthur nodded. “Agreed. It’s quite simple really. I have prepared an aircraft in hanger number one on the southeast corner of the runways. It’s fully fueled and prepped to go. However, the hanger is swarming with filth.”
Sam inquired, “How are we going to get rid of the vampires and shadowstars?”
“A great question,” Arthur turned and clasped Jay on the shoulder. “I need your team to go in with me.” He raised the P-Case. “This is both a shield and bait. We go into the airport on our motorcycles. The sensor arrays on the drones will pick up we’re all Ramp masters, and Crane will send in his militia. I’m not expecting him to send all of them in at once. He’ll want to probe us first and see what we’ve got. I’m sure he doesn’t know that Justin and his team are here, but he has to suspect the Blake team could arrive, given we’re in Justin’s normal area of operations.” Arthur grinned. “So, we’ll give him what he expects.”
Jay frowned momentarily, then nodded. “We go in first and draw their initial force into battle.”
Anton stated, “So, we’ll be bait to draw the vampires into a fight.” He looked across at Peter and smiled a lopsided grin. “Just like England?”
Peter lifted his hands and remarked, “I told you it would happen again.”
Jay scowled at Anton and Peter, and then asked, “Then what?”
“We head to warehouse number two - which is anything but - it’s actually a fortress. The doors are reinforced to defeat vampires. There are walkways around the inner walls with shooting slits in the walls. There’s heaps of spare ammunition and weapons. I have miniguns built into the corners with two thousand rounds of paired silver and lead 7.62mm hollow-point rounds each. There is a cleared four-hundred-yard kill zone around the building. There are fake doors on the roof, but no external access from above. The walls are made of smooth hard unscalable synthetic rock. The roof is too high to leap to for a vampire. It’s a vampire trap.” He waved his hands expansively. “It’s designed to draw vampires toward it and then kill them en masse.” He wagged his finger at Justin like a school master instructing a student. “This is where we thin their numbers.”
“What if they hold back and establish a cordon around your trap?” Justin asked, seeking to explore all angles and cover contingencies.
“There are multiple levels of tunnels beneath the airport. It’s a maze that’s easy to get lost in, but if you have a pair of Order nightglasses hooked up to my sensor array you’ll be okay, and as backup I have a map application for the nightglasses. The tunnels can be used to get from warehouse number two to hanger number one.”
“What’s stopping the vampires from swarming through the tunnels and coming up in the middle of your warehouse?” Sam asked.
“One, the entrances are all hidden. Two, if they manage to work out how to access the tunnels and do that, we’ll know as th
e tunnels are monitored by my sensor array.”
“What about shadowstars? Crane, Armitage and the praetorians?” Justin asked. “This won’t be happening without Crane’s approval. He’s going to be all over this.”
“I have surface to air missiles.”
“Against shadowstars?” Sam asked non-plussed. “They’d have to be kick-ass.”
“Shoulder fired evolutions of the Stinger II,” Arthur declared. “They have a hypersonic engine. Next to impossible to defend against, and with a two-stage warhead that operates like a shaped charge followed by a thermobaric explosive. They are advanced working prototypes and we have the only ones built in the world.”
“How many do you have?” Justin asked, frowning.
“Eight. In two caches of four each - it should be enough. Crane only has about twelve shadowstar drones worldwide. And over half his fleet is deployed in China. I don’t think we’ll see more than four drones here.”
Justin and Sam nodded.
Jay offered, “There’s a lot of moving parts in your plan. This could get real messy real fast.”
Arthur turned to Jay and emphasized. “The bottom line is that we can’t let hundreds of vampires leave this site.”
“Crane has shifted strategy and is creating vampires in large numbers,” Justin stated. “What does he really expect to happen here?”
Arthur shrugged his shoulders and suggested, “Perhaps he’s got a plan to get rid of them at the end of the battle, but we can’t assume that’s the case. If we let these vampires live, they’ll kill five hundred to a thousand people a week until they die.”
Everyone fell into silence as Arthur’s words soaked in. This many vampires were like an appalling disaster happening every week.
The Crane War Page 32