Red Eye - 02

by James Lovegrove

  “Who’s antagonising? I’m just telling you stuff. A few home truths. If you choose to be antagonised, that’s your lookout.”

  “The bravado is impressive. But this isn’t just any old ‘Limey’ you’re talking to. Where I come from, I have a reputation.”

  “Yeah, as some kind of limp-dick faggot, no doubt.”

  “As a man who doesn’t mess about or compromise,” said Redlaw. “Look into my eyes. Look deep. Do you see someone who’s bothered about leaving you out here when the sun comes up? I’m perfectly happy to stand back and watch you burn. You kill vampires. You kill them systematically and ruthlessly. That’s a crime, in my book, and I see no reason why it should go unpunished.”

  “Yeah? You love the bloodsuckers that much?”

  “Whether I love them or not, they’re God’s creatures as much as you or I, and they don’t deserve to be treated as subhuman. No one does.”

  “So you’re a radical Christian wingnut. Woo-hoo. Good for you.”

  “Just tell me who’s paying you to do all this. Somebody must be.”

  “You don’t reckon I’m in it simply for the fun of it?”

  “No, I do not,” Redlaw stated firmly. “That equipment of yours can’t come cheap. Not to mention whatever’s been done to you to make you part-vampire—someone poured funds into the research and development on that. This is an extensive, well-bankrolled operation, and you don’t strike me as a man who renders his services for free. You don’t have the look of an ideology-driven fanatic. Just a worker on a wage.”

  The brightness in the east was silvery now. The soldier blinked snowflakes out of his eyes. Redlaw could tell he was doing his best not to look towards the dawn. He didn’t want to know how much longer he had.

  “Why did you come here alone?” Redlaw continued, trying another tack. “Why not with the others? A little freelancing on the side perhaps? Bet you’re regretting it now. You thought it would be straightforward. You were overconfident. Vampires are so disorganised, aren’t they? Not prone to co-operating with one another. Pick them off one by one. Easy meat. I know the score. But all it takes is somebody to give them a little direction, and that’s when a group of them can become a force to be reckoned with. You weren’t anticipating that, and hence your downfall.”

  “Oh, just fuck you, buddy,” the soldier snapped. “Fuck. You.”

  “Do you owe your employers, whoever they are, this much loyalty? Are you really prepared to give your life for them? I doubt they would ever return the favour, if the roles were reversed. You’re disposable. One of your teammates died in the sewers, and if your superiors are mourning his loss I’d be astonished. You’re nothing but robots in uniform to them, machines that do their bidding, and should one of you get broken, oh, well, never mind, they can always find anoth—”

  “For crying out loud!” the soldier butted in. “I’d rather burn than have to listen to you jabbering on for another minute with that stupid accent of yours. Aren’t you sick of talking yet?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m sick of,” Redlaw said, leaning over the man. “I’m sick of people like you and your employers treating vampires as if they’re of no account. Just murdering them and thinking it’s okay. It’s not okay, and I’m here to make sure that point gets across.”

  He spun on his heel. Daylight was sneaking across the waste ground that surrounded the factory, creeping fingers of dull light reaching towards the soldier. The man was obstinate. Redlaw knew his sort. He’d met plenty of them during his days as a copper, before he joined SHADE. Crooks who wouldn’t give up the tiniest scrap of information, anything that might incriminate them or their associates. However hard you sweated them, however doggedly persistent you were in the interview room, they clammed up and stayed that way right to the bitter end. All you could do was walk away and hope that, at the last moment, they would crack. They seldom did.

  The daylight touched the soldier.

  “You bastard!” he yelled out at Redlaw. “You goddamn bastard! Whatever you do to me, my team will do back to you tenfold. That’s a promise. You will not get away with this. You hear me, Redlaw, you fuck? You hear? You’re a dead man.”

  Redlaw turned, frowning. “How come you know my name? I never introduced myself.”

  “Oh, I know who you are,” the soldier said. “I know who you’ve pissed off, too. It’s the kind of guy who doesn’t let things lie. The kind to hold a grudge. He’s got a real hard-on for you.”

  “Name?”

  “He’s called Your Mother Is A Syphilitic Whore.”

  “Give me his name and I’ll pull you inside, into the building,” Redlaw said.

  The soldier’s face had begun to redden. At first Redlaw thought this was from the effort of shouting, but then he realised it was inflammation. Sunburn.

  So the soldier wasn’t vampire enough that the sun’s rays would destroy him in a matter of seconds.

  They were going to cook him instead. Slowly.

  “Do you honestly want this?” he said. “To be roasted alive like a joint of beef? Is that how you want to die?”

  “I’m not... giving you... anything,” the soldier gasped. The red deepened, flaring to an angry carmine colour. Blisters popped up on his face, and flakes of skin began to peel away.

  “Give me a name,” Redlaw insisted. “I can stop this before it goes too far. Just tell me who has a grudge against me.”

  “No,” the soldier rasped. The blisters were multiplying. His hands were starting to singe.

  “What you’re going through, it must be excruciating. Let me end it before it gets any worse.”

  “No,” the soldier repeated.

  “Your funeral,” said Redlaw, and he turned again and carried on walking back towards the factory, and behind him the soldier began to howl and then to scream.

  Tina was in the doorway, camcorder in hand. Her face was ashen and her body was shaking—but she was filming.

  “Are you sure you want to be doing that?” Redlaw asked as he passed her.

  “No,” she replied. “Are you sure you want to leave that man out there?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Feel sorry for him. He wouldn’t hesitate to do as bad or worse to me, or to you.”

  “You’re a cold son of a bitch, Redlaw,” Tina said.

  “Did you not know that about me already?”

  “I do now.”

  And still the soldier screamed, as smoke rose off him and patches of black charring spread like clouds over his exposed skin.

  And still, for all her qualms and squeamishness, Tina kept filming.

  And Redlaw strode on, further into the shadows of the factory.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  AMONG THE ITEMS removed from the soldier while he’d lain unconscious was a phone. Redlaw turned it on. Outside, the screams were ebbing, quietening, breaking down into sporadic whimpers and sobs.

  That method of interrogation had yielded some small dividend. The phone presented another possible channel of enquiry.

  Redlaw scrolled through the contacts list. It wasn’t extensive, just a handful of names, a bank, a telecoms service provider, a pizza delivery company. He checked the call history. The most recent incoming call had been at 2.07AM and had lasted a couple of minutes. The caller was registered only by his or her number.

  A conversation of reasonable length, at that hour of the morning, had to be significant.

  Redlaw thumbed the button to dial the number back.

  Ten rings, and at last a thick, sleepy voice answered.

  “Colonel. Is it done? Tell me it’s done.”

  “Who am I talking to?” Redlaw said.

  The voice sharpened. “Who the hell is this? That’s not Jacobsen. Why are you using Jacobsen’s...?” Then indignation faded to something cooler. “John Redlaw. It’s you, isn’t it? And Jacobsen...”

  “Your friend Jacobsen is out catching some sun.”

  The man on
the other end of the line laughed hollowly. “Oh, very good. You got the drop on him, then.”

  “He made it easy, coming on his own. That was very arrogant, sending just one of your men after me. Insulting, too.”

  “I was making the best of a bad situation. The colonel wanted you all for himself. I couldn’t dissuade him, so I let him go ahead and hoped it’d bear fruit.”

  “Which it didn’t,” said Redlaw.

  “Obviously.”

  “So I’ll ask again. Who are you? I don’t recognise the voice. The accent is... Boston, yes? But beyond that, I don’t know anything about you, while you, for your part, appear to be waging some sort of personal vendetta against me. Seems a little lopsided, that state of affairs.”

  “You really have no idea who you’re talking with?”

  “I hope that’s a rhetorical question, because that’s exactly what I just said.”

  The man laughed again, genuinely amused this time. “Well then, you’re at a serious disadvantage, aren’t you? Seeing as how I know plenty about you.”

  “Perhaps I am at a disadvantage,” said Redlaw. “Then again, perhaps not. I’m sure I’m right in thinking you’re the one who’s calling the shots round here. These vampire-assassinating soldiers are on your payroll. I’m also sure, based on the conversation we’ve had thus far, that you don’t work on anyone’s behalf but your own. You’re not affiliated to any arm of the US administration or security services. You’re an independent, private individual. And wealthy. Ultra-wealthy, in fact.”

  “You can tell all that just from my voice?”

  “Voice, mannerisms, vocabulary, haughty air... And your last response confirmed it. You didn’t deny anything, meaning I nailed you.”

  “How smart you are,” said the other, a touch bitterly.

  “Wasn’t difficult. I’ve met your type before. The breed is the same the world over. Billionaire bullyboys who go round kicking the little people out of the way or buying them up like commodities. You’re easy to spot.”

  “Ooh, you wound me, Redlaw,” the man deadpanned. “I’m hurt. Really I am. ‘Billionaire bullyboy.’ You’ve hit my guilt button. In fact, I feel so bad about myself now, I’m going to give away all my material possessions and go work with underprivileged kids for the rest of my days.”

  Redlaw rode over the sarcasm with a weary sigh. “I had a run-in with someone like you not so long ago. He came off worse. Maybe you’ve heard of him. You’re all members of the same special club, aren’t you? You all move in the same rarefied circles. The name was Lambourne. Nathaniel Lambourne. Ring any bells?”

  “Nice, Redlaw,” said the other. “Well played. Waiting to see how I react when you mention him.”

  “A colleague of yours, then. No. More than that. A friend.”

  “We were close, you could say.”

  “Ah. Now things are starting to make sense. Why you hate me so much. Why you’re gunning for me. So let me think. I’m not so conceited as to assume that these attacks on vampires have been a lure all along, designed specifically to get me across the Atlantic so that you could have me killed. That would be an unreliable and inefficient method of taking revenge. Why go to so much trouble when you could simply pay to have me bumped off in my homeland by a professional hitman? However, since I do happen to be over here and involved with the vampires you’re busily trying to exterminate, it’s a happy coincidence for you, isn’t it? Two birds with one stone. Serendipity.”

  “‘Luck of the loaded’ is how I prefer to look at it. I’ve found that the more prosperous and influential you are, the more fate seems to go your way. It’s like some sort of immutable law of nature.”

  “So come on, tell me your name,” Redlaw chided. “It’s not as if I can’t find out for myself. Given what I know about you now—status, place of birth, connection to Lambourne—I could trawl the internet and establish your identity within quarter of an hour. Save me the time and effort. Do me a favour.”

  “The only favour I’m going to do you, Redlaw, is killing you,” came the reply. “I’ve got more soldiers. I can keep sending them at you until you’re well and truly dead.”

  “Then do. Try. Maybe you’ll succeed. But shouldn’t I at least know who it is I’ve mortally offended? Don’t you want me to hear it from your own lips? Wouldn’t that be much more satisfying than leaving me to dig it up from some website?”

  Thin-skinned. Narcissistic. Autocratic. Pride easily pricked. In a short space of time Redlaw had built up a fairly detailed impression of his interlocutor. If he’d gauged this right...

  “J. Howard Farthingale the Third,” the man said.

  Bingo. There we are.

  “And know this, John Redlaw,” J. Howard Farthingale III went on. “You have less than twenty-four hours to live. I swear it. If one of my people can find you, so can others. Make your peace with God, because you’re going to be meeting Him very soon.”

  “When God and I do meet,” Redlaw replied equably, “we’re going to have words, believe you me. And if it’s today, then so much the worse for Him, because I have several major bones to pick with Him. But I’m not counting on it, and if I were you I wouldn’t count on it either. I’m surprisingly hard to kill. The Lord, for reasons of His own, made me that way.”

  “We’ll see about that, Mr Redlaw,” said Farthingale. “We’ll just see.”

  The line went dead.

  Redlaw’s first instinct was to destroy the phone, so that its GPS signal couldn’t be used to triangulate his whereabouts. There seemed little point, however, since Farthingale’s soldiers already seemed to have no difficulty locating vampires. Besides, it might be useful to have a hotline to the enemy. He closed the phone and stuffed it in his pocket, then set his mind to pondering his next move.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  WE’LL SEE ABOUT that, Mr Redlaw. We’ll just see.

  Even as he broke the connection, Farthingale couldn’t tell if it was a strong parting shot or a weak one. He was rattled. Off his game. Who the hell did Redlaw think he was? Jumped-up little British turd. A no-account nonentity from a has-been nation. The nerve of him, to talk like that to J. Howard Farthingale III, an American titan, a master of the universe. The sheer fucking temerity.

  Farthingale sat up, mulberry silk pyjamas whispering against 1,000-thread-count Egyptian cotton bed-linen. He hit a button on the nightstand to open the drapes. Snow was plummeting from a smudged-charcoal sky. Deep drifts had built up overnight against the sides of Far Tintagel. The house’s low-lying single-storey sections were almost entirely buried. Several of the pines were engulfed up to their topmost branches. The reach between the island and the mainland was a seamless tract of white.

  Farthingale had been planning on travelling to New York today in order to supervise Team Red Eye’s operations first hand. His private helicopter, a Bell 222, was stationed at Boston’s City Heliport and could ferry him to the Midtown Skyport on Manhattan in under ninety minutes. But no sane pilot would fly in conditions like these.

  He was housebound. Snowbound.

  Frustrating though that might be, at least he wasn’t completely cut off. His office was the hub from which he conducted most of his business. Like a spider at the centre of its web, Farthingale didn’t have to move to know what was going on at any time in any corner of his empire. Strands of communication radiated out from his desk, his computer, his phone, and he was sensitively attuned to the data that came tingling along them. As long as he remained vigilant and in touch, nothing happened that he could not control or act upon.

  His phone bleeped. Redlaw again?

  No.

  The call originated from that number, perhaps the most important of all the numbers logged in the phone’s memory.

  “Farthingale,” said the President. “I’ll get straight to the point. This ends now.”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me. Don’t act all innocent. This bullshit you’re pulling. Automatic weapons being discharged in resid
ential Manhattan? In the heart of goddamn New York? No way, buster. It’s over. You pull the plug on the whole shebang, right now, today. That isn’t a suggestion, it’s an order. Straight from the Oval Office.”

  “Sir, if I can just say—”

  “No, you cannot ‘just say,’ Farthingale. Do you have any idea how angry I am? Can you hear it in my voice? You’ve been trying to provoke a response out of me. Well, here it is. I do not want your semi-vampiric soldiers. The Joint Chiefs of Staff do not want your semi-vampiric soldiers. The Pentagon and the DoD and Homeland Security and, I don’t know, probably the State Department for Agriculture too, do not want your semi-vampiric soldiers. No one does. Or ever will. Because, you see, you’ve pushed me and you’ve prodded me and you’ve goaded me, and I do not like being pushed, prodded and goaded. I do not care for it. I do not react kindly to it at all. You’ve pissed off the wrong man, you entitled, old-money prick.”

  “But have you really thought about this, Mr President?” Farthingale said. “Thought it through? Never mind the potential for dealing with vampire immigration. What about the military applications of the Porphyrian Project? I’m offering you super-soldiers. Stronger, more resilient, less vulnerable to harm, with a broadened spectrum of senses... Surely that’s a commander-in-chief’s wet dream. Think if you had crack units of Porphyrian-enhanced operatives working undercover in hostile nations. Think of the antiterrorist coups you could pull off, the regime changes you could effect, the anti-American dictators you could topple. A whole battalion of treated troops would be unstoppable.”

  “No, Farthingale,” the President said. “I’m not buying it. You are conducting criminal activities on US soil.”

  “I’ve told you, they’re field-tests.”

  “Your people shot up a church last night, for God’s sake.”

  “A deconsecrated church full of vampires.”

  “You’re off the rails and flouting at least a hundred federal laws. I could have you arrested and sent to Guantanamo. I should. But because I’m a lenient man at heart, and because I appreciate that all you’ve been doing is trying to impress me, which is sort of sweet, I’m going to let you have this one last hurrah. The church, I’m referring to. I will—reluctantly—put procedures in place to hush it up. We can get the FBI to claim it was infighting between rival vampire factions, like a gang-on-gang drive-by shooting. That should fly. People’ll rest a little easier in their beds knowing that vamps kill their own.”