Department 19: Zero Hour

by Will Hill

  One more mile, he told himself. One step at a time. Get up.

  The man allowed himself ten seconds’ more rest, then forced himself back to his feet. The warehouse in Orsha had sold snowshoes, and he could no longer remember why he had decided not to buy a pair; they were bulky, and unwieldy to carry, but would have been invaluable in the situation he now found himself. Without them, each step was a Herculean challenge, a draining, energy-sapping nightmare. For the hundredth time, he cursed his own stupidity, hauled a foot out of the deep, sucking snow, and shoved it forward.

  Time passed.

  He had no sense of it any more; the darkness of the polar winter was seemingly infinite, the landscape unchanging. The red numbers on his GPS, ticking down with agonising slowness, were the only evidence that he was making progress, that his lurching, laboured steps were carrying him towards his destination.

  Nine hundred and seventy-one metres.

  Nine hundred and sixty-seven metres.

  Nine hundred and fifty-five metres.

  He was close now; he could hear the thunder as ice-breakers made their way up the Murmansk Fjord in the distance, could smell the churning water on the air. He forced himself not to run, not to expend what little energy he had left in a burst that would leave him panting and breathless and still short of his destination. Instead, he focused on the slow metronomic motion of his steps: one foot, then the other, then the other.

  An unknowable amount of time later, in which the man’s sense of himself had begun to disappear along with his perception of time, and he had become nothing more than pain and sweat and harsh, loud breath, he saw something ahead of him. He was part snow-blind, part delirious with desire for rest, and at first he assumed that it was nothing more than a cruel trick played by his reeling mind. But as he trudged forward, he began to believe, despite himself, that it was real; something regular and even, glimpsed through the tightly packed tree trunks and the great untouched ridges and valleys of snow.

  Something with straight lines and edges.

  A fence, he thought. It’s a fence. I’m almost there.

  The man pressed forward, his eyes fixed on the interlocking diamonds of wire that sparkled in the light of the moon that had risen overhead, bright and almost full. The fence was high, topped with snow-heavy coils of razor wire, and the man knew that he was now almost certainly being watched from some distant bunker; he was well inside the perimeter that would be monitored by the men and women who populated his destination. It didn’t matter, though; he wanted them to see him.

  He wanted them to know he was coming.

  The man accelerated; he knew it was foolish, but he simply could not stop himself. What lay beyond the fence was the reason he had travelled so far, and it was finally in sight. The snow flew up around his churning legs as he panted behind his mask, his lungs working overtime, his muscles screaming at him, but his heart was suddenly full of joy.

  I made it, he thought. I really made it. I’m home.

  A low growl rumbled through the freezing air, vibrating the man’s bones and stopping him dead in his tracks. His nerves, dulled for so long by cold and monotony, were suddenly humming, as adrenaline coursed through his system. The man forced himself still, fighting back the chemical urge to run, and listened to the darkness of the forest.

  Somewhere to his left, a branch snapped. Then the growl came again, longer and louder, and fear gripped at the man’s heart.

  Not now. Not when I’m so close. Please not now.

  He pulled his torch from his pocket and flicked it on. The beam illuminated almost nothing, a triangle perhaps three metres long and two metres wide. Beyond it, darkness crowded in, thick and malevolent. He risked a look at the fence; it had been so close, almost within reach, but now the distance between him and it seemed like miles. The man turned slowly, trying to keep the torch beam steady, searching for the source of the growl, wishing for ignorance, wishing he didn’t know what was making it.

  He swung the torch, shuffling his feet round in the knee-deep snow, then stopped. In front of him, reflecting the light of his torch, was a pair of huge brown eyes. The man swallowed, his mouth dry, his limbs trembling with fear.

  As he swung the shotgun slowly off his shoulder, a dark section of the forest beyond the eyes moved.

  For the second time in less than an hour, Matt Browning found himself standing outside a building on his own.

  SafetyNet was based inside a wide office building made of steel and glass; the charity’s logo was one of half a dozen designs attached to the wall beside the front door on small brass plates. Matt was standing in the parking lot beside it, having been stationed there with orders to make sure that nobody fitting their target’s description emerged. Given that the description comprised of little more than male, in his forties, medium height with a deep tan, Matt had already resolved to stop and question any man that came through the front door.

  Major Simmons had given the squad their orders as they pulled up outside the building, having navigated their way through the gridlocked maze of one-way streets that comprised the centre of San Francisco. Simmons himself would wait in the lobby, Andrews would position herself at the back of the building, and Lawrence and Landsman would go up to the offices of SafetyNet to look for Adam, or John Bell, as it appeared he was once again going by. Nobody was to draw a weapon unless it was absolutely necessary, or to identify themselves in any way, to anyone. The ideal scenario was that they would find John Bell sitting behind a desk, from where he would come quietly, with the minimum of fuss. Matt doubted that any member of the squad genuinely believed it would be so straightforward, but he saw no harm in hoping.

  Everything doesn’t always have to go wrong, he thought. Surely?

  Through his earpiece, he heard Danny Lawrence’s voice as he introduced himself to someone who presumably worked for SafetyNet.

  “I’m looking for an employee of yours,” said Danny. “John Bell?”

  “You a cop?” asked a male voice. “What’s he done?”

  Matt smiled to himself in the parking lot; it seemed as though everyone in San Francisco automatically assumed the worst when questioned.

  “Nothing,” said Danny, his voice light and friendly. “I have a message for him, that’s all. It needs to be delivered in person.”

  “Johnny’s working,” said the man, and Matt felt tension surge into his stomach. “He’s taking calls. I’m not going to interrupt him if he’s talking to someone.”

  “Of course not,” said Danny. “We’ll wait here, and you can send him out when he’s finished with his call.”

  “I suppose so,” said the man. He sounded unconvinced, but Matt was sure he would do as Danny said; the young Operator was relentlessly charming, and had a natural, easy-going authority about him. His mind raced with the confirmation that John Bell was not only real, but was sitting inside the building in front of him.

  “Great,” said Danny. “We’ll be here.”

  “All right,” said the man.

  A few seconds later Danny spoke into his microphone. “Everyone catch all that?”

  “Two minutes, Lawrence,” growled Simmons. “If he’s not standing in front of you in two minutes, you go in there and drag him out. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Danny.

  Matt shifted his weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, excitement bubbling through him. He was suddenly aware that the moment when he would need to do his job was imminent; if Danny and Landsman brought Adam out, they would head directly to the laboratory on the University of San Francisco campus that had been commandeered, where Matt would be expected to step to the fore.

  He would need to take blood, label up the samples to be sent back to Nevada and England, and complete a provisional DNA analysis as quickly as possible. His excitement at the thought of stepping back into a world he understood was tempered by the prospect that he had been trying to ignore ever since he boarded the Mina II: that there would be nothing of any use in Ada
m’s blood, that the cure would have left no genetic trace for Lazarus to work from. Matt didn’t want to believe it, but he had to allow for the possibility; if he didn’t, the potential for disappointment was enormous.

  The office building sat silently in front of him. Matt stared at it, wondering why nothing was happening; a minute had to have passed already, if not the two that Simmons had given as a deadline.

  Come on, he thought. He’s just one man. How hard can this be?

  Then he remembered the photos he had looked through on the Mina II as it soared towards Nevada, high-resolution images taken in the aftermath of NS9’s ill-fated visit to Adam’s former cabin.

  An enormous pillar of grey-black smoke rising from the orange floor of the Californian desert.

  The crater where the cabin had stood, where two NS9 Operators had been almost completely atomised.

  John Brady dead on a stretcher, his legs gone below the knees.

  Matt raised his eyes to the third floor of the office building, looking for any sign of movement through the tall glass windows. The excitement that had briefly filled him was gone, replaced with a deep sense of unease.

  Definitely more than two minutes. Way more. What’s going on in there?

  His attention was so focused on the third floor that he almost didn’t notice the dark silhouette of a man appear on the roof of the building, five storeys above the parking lot. Matt craned his neck, wondering for a moment whether his eyes were playing tricks on him in the fading light of the early evening, and watched as the figure ran towards the edge of the roof and leapt off it. He sailed through the space between the building and its neighbour and landed on the lower roof with a rattling thud and a shout of pain loud enough that Matt heard it clearly, even from street level.

  The sound broke his paralysis. He raised his wrist to his mouth and shouted into his microphone.

  “There’s someone on the roof!” he yelled. “He jumped to the next building.”

  A burst of static howled through his head, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain.

  “Come in,” he said. “Come in, anyone, come in.”

  There was a hissing crackle, then Major Simmons’ voice came through, sounding as distant as a radio transmission from the moon.

  “Browning? Come in?”

  “On the roof, sir,” Matt shouted. “Bell’s on the roof.”

  A second burst of static filled his ears, followed by the Major’s garbled voice.

  “Give … pursue … reinforcements.”

  Matt bellowed with frustration. There was no sign of anyone in the lobby, where Major Simmons should have been, no sign of movement anywhere in the building. Through his earpiece he heard what sounded like running footsteps, and looked up at the roof again. The figure had reached the edge of the next building; as Matt watched, he hurled himself on to the adjoining roof and disappeared. From somewhere high above, he heard the thump of a closing door.

  Do something. Make a decision, for God’s sake. Do something.

  Matt swore loudly, then took off along Balboa as fast as his legs would carry him. His hair rippled back from his face as his feet pounded the pavement, his arms pumping up and down. He didn’t risk so much as a look over his shoulder to see whether any of his squad mates had appeared; his attention was focused entirely on the building in front of him. It was a red-brick cube, tall and wide, with an unmarked pair of double doors standing at the back of a small parking lot. Matt raced across the tarmac and reached for the handle. As his fingers touched the smooth metal, the door burst open with a loud bang and slammed into his face.

  The impact broke his nose, sending a firework display of red and white light across his vision. His legs gave way beneath him and he crumpled to the ground, his mouth open, pain thundering through his head. He hit the tarmac on his back; blood poured down his throat, hot and metallic, as a groan emerged involuntarily from his mouth. Something passed above him, followed by the sound of running footsteps. The noise clattered into his skull, slicing through the thick fog of pain, and he forced himself to sit up, blood spilling from his nose and splattering on to the tarmac, startlingly red.

  Matt raised his head and saw a man sprinting across Balboa, heading for Third Avenue. He staggered in the same direction until he reached the pavement, and looked down the street towards SafetyNet, hoping to see Danny and the others coming to his aid.

  There was no sign of them.

  “Hey, man.”

  Matt spun round, his heart pounding, and found himself looking into the wide-eyed, earnest face of a teenager clutching a skateboard under his arm.

  “Man, are you all right?” he asked. “You’re, like, covered in blood, dude.”

  Matt frowned, then shoved past the kid without answering and broke into a shambling run. Behind him the teenager shouted, ‘Hey!’, then muttered ‘asshole’ under his breath. Matt ignored him; he urged his shaking legs forward, and was rewarded as he turned the corner on to Third Avenue.

  The running man was still in sight, barely a block ahead.

  Matt took a deep breath and ran down the street, gritting his teeth against the pain that radiated from his broken nose every time his feet thudded on to the pavement.

  The man had reached Anza and was hopping impatiently from one foot to the other, waiting to cross the road; a long orange and white bus was slowly making its way across the junction with Third. Matt ran down the sloping street, grateful for the contours that made San Francisco so distinctive. He was closing on the man, could see brown hair reaching down to the collar of a yellow T-shirt, jeans that were fluttering above battered Converse. He was barely ten metres away when the man darted out behind the bus and sprinted across the road, sparking a furious cacophony of car horns and shouts of angry surprise.

  Matt redoubled his efforts. He had never been any good at sport, preferring to spend his time curled up with a book or leaning over a keyboard, but he had regrettably extensive experience of running away from people; as a result, he was light on his feet, and possessed unexpected reserves of stamina.

  This is weird, he thought, as he neared the wide lanes of Anza. I’ve never been the one doing the chasing before.

  The thought made him grin, despite the hot ball in his chest that was threatening to turn into a stitch. He glanced to his left as he approached the road and saw that it was empty. The far lanes, the ones running west, were hidden by the bus that had now stopped; he was just going to have to hope for the best.

  Matt belted out into the road without slowing and looked to his right as he passed the wide rear of the bus. Anything coming at speed was going to hit him; there would simply be no avoiding it.

  The road was clear.

  At the junction of Second Avenue, a block to the east, Matt saw lines of traffic held on a red light and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he refocused his attention on his target; the man was running for his life towards the wide, bustling expanse of Geary, a block to the north.

  Not going to catch him, thought Matt. He’s too fast.

  He tried to dismiss the thought as a relic of the old version of Matt Browning, the version who had only ever doubted himself, had always believed that he would fail, but realised it wasn’t his subconscious trying to sabotage him.

  It was simple fact.

  The man was sprinting with everything he had, his feet flying across the pavement. And slowly but surely, the gap between them was widening.

  If he gets across Geary, I’m going to lose him.

  Matt reached deep into his reserves of strength and demanded everything his tiring legs had left. They responded; the gap began to close, but not fast enough, nowhere near fast enough, and he realised with sudden clarity what he was going to have to do. He reached beneath his arm and drew the Glock that he had tried to refuse in the Dreamland hangar, insisting that he wouldn’t need it.

  He pushed himself for ten more steps, then skidded to a halt and raised the gun. What he was about to do was madness, he knew; he was a medioc
re shot at the best of times, when his chest wasn’t heaving and his legs didn’t feel like jelly. But if he was going to do it, it had to be now; the block was deserted, apart from himself and the running man.

  Geary, on the other hand, would not be, and Matt knew he could not discharge a firearm on a busy San Francisco street, no matter how urgent the operation. He would probably not get into trouble for doing so, such was the air of panic that was permeating the supernatural Departments, but he would simply not be able to live with himself if he hit some innocent bystander.

  If he was going to shoot, he had to shoot now.

  The man was twenty metres from the junction as Matt sighted down the pistol’s barrel and squeezed the trigger. He was aiming for the legs, hoping to bring him down without killing him, but as the gun bucked in his hand and the deafening metallic bang removed the sound from his ears and replaced it with a high, screaming whine, he saw that he had missed. A cloud of dust burst from the wall of a building five metres behind the target. Matt swore and aimed again. He took a deep breath, held it, then pulled the trigger a second time.

  An explosion of concrete burst up behind the man’s sprinting feet; his legs twisted, collided with each other, and sent him into the air in a graceless spiral of flailing limbs. He crashed to the ground with a thud, and began to crawl.

  Matt wasted no time on pity; he ran down the street, the Glock swinging in his hand. As he closed the distance, the man lurched to his feet and turned towards him. His face was incredibly pale, his eyes wide and staring, his mouth tight with pain as blood poured from a dozen small holes in his legs. Matt stopped and levelled his pistol.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  The man took half an unsteady step backwards.

  “I said don’t move,” said Matt. “I’m not here to hurt you. But I need you to stay where you are.”

  “You’re with them,” said the man.

  Matt nodded. “I’m with them,” he said. “And you’re John Bell. Or should I call you Adam?”