“No, what I said was, I would look into securing you a government contract,” the President said, with the verbal exactitude of the attorney he used to be. “I never promised anything.”
“I was led to believe—”
The President cut in. “What you chose to believe is your lookout, Howard. I’m not responsible for how you interpreted our little informal chitchat in the Rose Garden. You seem to forget that the economy is down the toilet. We’ve got a fiscal debt the size of Mount Everest.”
“It ought to be half as big by now, the amount of tax you take off of me.”
“Stop grumbling. You billionaires are doing okay. I’m just saying that, in the current climate, I’d be hard pushed to find funding for you. Congress would need to be wooed like a Catholic virgin on prom night. And if something then went wrong, if it all blew up in my face, I’d lose all political credibility. I’d be dead in the water. I’ve got to tread carefully on this one.”
“I’m offering you a cast-iron solution for dealing with the vampire immigration problem.”
“The vampire immigration problem that we don’t have.”
“I know of a few senators and governors who’d disagree with you there.”
“The Van Helsing Party? Those bozos make a lot of noise but nobody pays any attention. Nobody ever does, with these breakaway factions.”
“Fox News does. Middle America does. You’ve always got to think about the fly-over states.”
“Please,” said the President. “You can’t jump-start me into making a decision. Your scare tactics won’t work. You should know better than that.”
“What exactly has my twenty-five mill bought me, then?” asked the Bostonian.
“It’s bought you this phone number. My ear.”
“Hardly seems a sound return on my investment.”
“Your donation,” the President corrected him.
“Whatever. It just strikes me that, with your term running out and you being up for re-election and all, I could take a similar sum and invest it in one of your rival candidates. Someone who’d place a higher priority on my needs. A Van Helsing, even. That guy from North Dakota, the Pentecostalist with the great hair and the cute charity worker wife, he’s looking like a frontrunner. He killed at the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary.”
“The man’s an idiot.”
“This is a nation that put George W. Bush in the Oval Office twice. We’ve got a track record with idiots. And the Van Helsing message is skewing pretty well with Middle American voters right now. With my cash behind him, Mr North Dakota could become quite the contender. And I know he’d be properly grateful. Unlike some.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. The Bostonian had scored a direct hit.
Then the President came back on. “Sorry, distracted, missed what you just said. I’ve got an advisor standing beside me tapping his foot and pointing at his watch. Looks like the honourable chairman and his equally honourable wife can’t wait any longer for me to come and break dim sum with them. We’ll carry on this discussion at a later date, eh, Howard? When you’ve got a bit more information under your belt. In the meantime, keep at it. I’m far from giving you an outright ‘no’. I just need more reassurance that this isn’t going to be a fiasco, like that Solarville thing your pal Lambourne was involved in over in the UK. The British prime minister’s career was left in tatters after that whole sorry affair. Don’t want the same happening to me, do I? See you around.”
And that was that, connection cut, conversation over.
The Bostonian, J. Howard Farthingale III, glared at the phone in his hand as though it, somehow, was to blame for the call not going the way he would have liked. The medium was at fault, not the message.
Very deliberately, he placed the phone on the writing surface of his vintage Art Deco desk, a massive block of macassar ebony with silver bands and Bakelite drawer handles, once the property of a Golden Age Hollywood producer. Then, just as deliberately, he picked up an ornament, a fist-sized chunk of moon rock, and smashed the phone to smithereens with it.
The act damaged both desktop and moon rock, in addition to destroying the phone. The cheap item of consumer electronics could be easily replaced. As for the other two, the desk could be repaired, the moon rock substituted, but only at immense cost in both instances. This was altogether more masochistically satisfying to Farthingale.
Fucking president. Fuck that weaselly fucking slimeball. Who the fuck does he think he is?
Farthingale opened a sliding window and stepped out onto a sun terrace that one of the caretakers had scrupulously shovelled clear of snow first thing that morning. He took in the view and tried to appreciate it, hoping this would calm the thoughts raging through his head. The downward sweep of hill, fringed by tall pines. The cliff, the beach, the jetty where his Sunseeker Predator 108 was moored, icebound, its decks sheathed in winter tarpaulins. The reach between his island and the mainland, a channel two nautical miles wide which currently looked like a stretch of the Arctic Ocean, all pack-ice and small bergs. The mainland itself, a bay, a Massachusetts fishing port town, summer homes speckled along the coastline.
Just relax. It doesn’t matter.
The doctors had told him that with his condition, it was important to avoid stress. Stress could exacerbate the symptoms. It could even hospitalise him.
You can fix this. You can fix anything.
He’d been meaning to inform the President about Team Red Eye’s latest operation, but that had fallen by the wayside as their conversation had unfurled. No doubt word would reach him, probably by no later than midday today. The President had a team of secret service agents working for him who were dedicated to nothing else but compiling reports of vampire activity and vampire-related incidents. He would soon be aware that Team Red Eye had conducted their first ever mission in broad daylight. How would he react? Would he be impressed? He ought to be. Or would it trouble him that Farthingale had upped the ante? Hard to say. It could be either. The Most Powerful Man In The World was infuriatingly inscrutable at times.
Farthingale’s best option seemed to be to continue piling on the pressure. By escalating the scale and audacity of his team’s attacks on vampires, he could apply more leverage on the President, force his hand. The President blathering on about the economy, what bullshit. He had a military black budget slush fund that was equivalent to the GDP of the average Arab emirate, and he could dip his hand into it any time he liked, without needing to seek congressional approval. The Porphyrian Project could be rolled out countrywide in a matter of months, at great financial advantage to its progenitor, Farthingale. All that was required was the presidential say-so.
“I just need more reassurance that this isn’t going to be a fiasco, like that Solarville thing.”
Farthingale thought of Nathaniel Lambourne. Not a friend, as such, but a close colleague, a fellow business titan. Solarville had seemed a sure thing. Too bad it had turned to shit.
That fate would not befall Porphyrian. Farthingale was convinced of that.
His eye was caught by movement below. His sister, coming out from the lower storey, onto the snow. She was wrapped up well—one-piece ski suit, mittens, fur-trimmed hat and polka dot wellingtons, all in fuchsia pink, her favourite colour. Her nurse, Rozetta, made sure Clara was always dressed in whatever was appropriate for the occasion and the time of year, and always fashionably.
Clara bent and started rolling a ball of snow. Soon she’d amassed it to a decent size, as big as one of those inflatable exercise balls people wallowed on at gyms. But she was struggling. It was too heavy for her.
Farthingale pulled on a fleece-lined waxed Barbour and went down to help. Clara was thrilled to see him. Her pudgy face lit up and she threw herself at him for a hug.
“Howie! Howie! I’m making a snowman. You wanna make a snowman with me?”
She was forty-four, two years his junior, and had the mind of a child and the body mass index of a baby. Her slanted,
Down’s Syndrome eyes sparkled brightly with winter wonderland delight.
“Sure, let’s do that, Clara.”
They spent an hour assembling the snowman and patting it into shape. Rozetta fetched all the necessary accoutrements: a carrot, some lumps of coal, and a scarf and an old felt hat she had scavenged from somewhere in the house. Farthingale felt better when it was done, when the coal eyes and smile were in place and the snowman looked like a classic storybook snowman. He watched Clara as she skipped in circles around their creation, chortling with glee and singing a song only she knew. Her happiness was consoling, contagious. Clara was good for him, in so many ways. So many ways.
CHAPTER
NINE
REDLAW HELD UP the loose corner of chainlink fence and Tina scooted under on hands and knees. Then she held up the corner for him. Side by side they slalomed down a steep embankment, like skiers without skis, and crossed an area of waste ground.
Rail tracks lay buried in snow, raised lines like surgical scars on skin. The subway tunnel yawned. Above it hulked the remains of a decommissioned industrial plant, the name of a toothpaste manufacturer still just visible in huge spectral capitals on one side.
Graffiti fringed the tunnel entrance, incongruously gaudy in an otherwise colourless place. The swarms of tags, slogans and illustrations continued inside the tunnel, but only as far as the daylight extended. As the darkness thickened, the graffiti petered out. Eventually the walls were nothing but bare bedrock.
Tina switched on the ruggedized flashlight they’d bought at an army surplus store that morning, along with a parka and gloves for Redlaw and, most expensive of all, a set of night vision goggles. She aimed the beam around, spotlighting rails, ties and concrete pillars.
“Try and hold it still,” Redlaw said. “Otherwise you create false movement with the shadows.”
She swung towards him, accidentally shining the flashlight in his face. His vision seemed to explode. It was like looking into a supernova.
“And keep that wretched thing out of my eyes,” he snapped.
“I didn’t mean to,” said Tina, adding under her breath, “Jeez, chill out, why don’t you?”
It took over a minute for the afterimage of the 500-lumen bulb to fade and for Redlaw’s eyesight to normalise.
About half a mile in, they arrived at the place where Tina had shot the footage of soldiers.
“They were heading in this direction?” Redlaw asked, pointing back the way he and Tina had come.
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s carry on.”
They went deeper in, and Redlaw could feel the tunnel’s gradual descent. They were delving further below Manhattan with every step, and the air grew damp and stale. There was litter here, food wrappers, beer empties, fast-food packaging, all of it suggesting relatively recent human habitation. No Sunless detritus yet.
Then he spotted bones. A jumble of small white skeletons, rodents and mammals, strewn by the trackside.
A good sign.
There were more piles of bones further on, and then Redlaw and Tina came to an area where three sets of tracks converged. At least one of them was still in use, judging by the service lights affixed to pillars alongside it at infrequent intervals.
“Turn off the torch,” he said to Tina. “We can manage without it for now, and those things eat batteries.”
She did as told, slipping the flashlight into the rucksack she was carrying. At the same time, she produced a camcorder and thumbed its power button on.
“What’s that?” Redlaw demanded.
“Duh! What does it look like?”
“I know what it is. I mean what are you doing with it?”
“I’m going to start videoing.”
“Videoing what?”
“You, stupid. The great John Redlaw, on the case.”
“Give it to me.”
He made a grab for the camcorder. Tina was too quick for him, stepping aside and pulling it back so that his fingers just missed.
“What the fuck are you on?” she yelled. “What’s up with you?”
“You can’t record this.”
“And why not?”
“Because I say so.”
Her laughter was scornful. “You need to give me a better reason than that.”
“Because I’d prefer you not to.”
“Same difference. Uh-uh. Don’t you dare.” Redlaw had braced himself to make another lunge for the camcorder. “Try that again and I’ll kick you in the balls. I know self-defence, too. Hapkido moves. I can have you on the floor with a thumb lock, crying like a baby.”
“If you believe that’ll happen, you’re sorely mistaken,” said Redlaw. He took a deep breath. “Tina, please put the camera away. I can’t be in any footage you shoot. I just can’t.”
“Well, tough, because you’re a story, my story, and I’m getting you down on disk whether you like it or not.”
“For what purpose?”
“To show the world what you’re doing.”
“I really don’t want the world to know what I’m doing,” said Redlaw. “Couldn’t we have discussed this beforehand? You never even asked my permission.”
“Would you have given it?”
“No.”
“That’s why I didn’t ask for it,” said Tina. “What’s with the camera-shyness anyway? You’re not that bad-looking, if that’s what you’re worried about. For an old guy, I mean. You’re in okay shape. Still got most of your hair. Your eyes are pretty scary, but apart from that...”
“For one thing, it’ll be distracting having you pointing a camera at me the whole time. For another, I like to maintain a low profile. I’m... I’m not in this for publicity.”
“And that’s it? Nothing else? No other justification?”
“Absolutely none.”
He could see she was sceptical. She knew she wasn’t getting the whole truth. How could he tell her that the last thing he needed was SHADE finding out where he was? Khalid would have search bots scanning the cybersphere for the slightest mention of his name.
“Well,” she said, “then we have ourselves a problem, Mr Redlaw. ’Cause I only took you down here on the understanding that I could film you at work.”
“An understanding you never actually voiced.”
“I thought it was obvious.”
“It was not.”
“You saw me pack my camera as we were leaving the apartment.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You should have been watching more carefully, then,” she said. “It’s not my fault you weren’t paying attention.”
Aggravating little...
Redlaw reined in his temper. “Tell me,” he said, “what are you planning on doing with whatever you film here? Upload it onto the internet, presumably.”
“Hey, check out grandpa, all hip with the modern computer jive! Yeah, I’d edit it down, post teaser clips on Facebook and wherever. YouTube, of course. Various other places, all linking back to me. I’ve got my own website, see. Well, the stub of one. Tick Talk’s what I’m calling it. Tick’s my nickname.”
“But why?”
“Because it’ll be cool stuff,” she said simply. “And it might well help me get my dream job, working for one of the big networks.”
“Ah. Right. Self-interest. Of course.”
“I live in the real world. And I think you do too, in your way. I’m helping you, aren’t I? Why would I even be here, if I’m not? So, fair’s fair, you help me in return.”
“By being your story.”
Tina made a quiz show ding-dong sound. “Kee-rect. Quid pro quo. Something for something.”
She had appealed to his sense of morality.
Damn her.
“Look,” Redlaw said, “I could agree to you videoing me—”
“Yay.”
“—but on one condition.”
“Like what?”
“You don’t upload, post, share anything, not one frame, without my approval.”
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“Okay. Participant’s consent. I can get with that.”
“And,” said Redlaw, “none of it appears anywhere ’til after I’m done and gone.”
“Which’ll be when?”
“I don’t know. How long is a piece of string? I don’t even know what I’m getting myself into here. It may be nothing. What I’m saying is, shoot what you like, and when we’re finished—and I’ll tell you when we’re finished—the footage can see the light of day, but not before then.”
“Hmm.”
“Oh, and you pixellate my face, or whatever it’s called,” Redlaw added. “Blur it so that I’m unrecognisable. And bleep out my name whenever it’s mentioned.”
“What would be the point of that?” Tina fumed. “The footage will mainly be of interest because of the subject matter—the star of the show, you.”
“It’s negotiable, I suppose,” Redlaw conceded. “We’ll see. But my other conditions stand. Break them, and I break you. Clear?”
Her expression was mulish, but Redlaw could be obstinate too, and he meant every word he said. His threat was genuine, and she knew it.
“Grumpy much?” she said.
“Dead serious, that’s all. And I’m not a man you want to cross.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve made your point, Huffy the Vampire Slayer. Now we know whose dick’s bigger, can we get on with this?”
Redlaw fixed her with his sternest, most forbidding stare, then nodded.
THE TRACKS DEVIATED, the lit one continuing on a level course to some unseen station further up the line, both of the others plunging into pitch blackness. Redlaw wavered between the latter two, then plumped for the left-hand one. It was instinct as much as anything. The tunnel was the steeper of the pair; it went deeper, therefore seemed to afford greater protection, better shelter.
He had commandeered the flashlight off Tina, and with its beam he soon found confirmation that he’d made the correct choice of tunnel.
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