Red Eye - 02

by James Lovegrove

  But it was after dark now, and the dead of winter, and the town seemed lifeless and lost. Everything was closed and empty, as though the entire place had been mothballed and stowed away at the back of some wardrobe until spring. Nothing moved other than snowdrifts, their seaward surfaces sifted by an onshore wind, their crests giving off thin horizontal plumes of snow like the peaks of high-altitude mountains.

  Streetlamps hummed, stoplights pulsed at intersections, and a lighthouse flared distantly in the darkness, but brighter and more constant than all of them was the near-full moon, whose glow sharply delineated everything in tones of opal and jet.

  The school bus trundled down towards the harbour and came to a halt at the quayside, rocking back on its suspension like an exhausted marathon runner crouching on his haunches after the race. Steam purled off its bonnet. Hot metal ticked.

  Redlaw stepped out, followed by Tina. He surveyed the prospect of moored boats before him, hundreds of them frozen at anchor, utterly motionless. The clatter of the halyards slapping against the masts in the wind created an eerie tinkling cacophony.

  Out to sea a small island could be seen, silhouetted against the stars. Lights twinkled there.

  “How far, do you reckon?” Tina asked.

  “Couple of miles.”

  “And is it safe? To cross, I mean.”

  “Farthingale told me the strait—the ‘reach’, he called it—is frozen solid. The ice is several feet thick. It should be fine to walk on.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  “No other way to get there,” Redlaw said with a shrug. He leaned back inside the bus. “All of you,” he said to the vampires. “Listen to me. Whatever the outcome tonight, whatever happens to me, remember who you are. Remember what you are. You are powerful creatures. Apex predators. You still think of yourselves as people, and you are, but you’re also more than that now, so much more. When it’s necessary, you have to show that. You have to do what’s best for you and take what’s yours. Be extraordinary. That’s all I can ask from you. Understood?”

  Nervous nods, but he could see his words had had an effect. The vampires were holding themselves that little bit straighter in their seats. Their eyes showed a little more resolve.

  “Any questions about what I’m proposing to do? Any second thoughts?”

  Shaken heads.

  “Good. Wish me luck.”

  They did.

  “And you, Tina,” he said, back outside again. “Second thoughts?”

  “Nope.”

  “I could insist on your not coming.”

  “And I could insist on you not being such an obstinate, chauvinistic douchebag. I’ve got a job to do, a part to play.” She patted her rucksack, where among other things her camcorder was stashed. “You need me.”

  “Like the proverbial hole in the head,” said Redlaw.

  THEY MADE THEIR way over a tumble of large rocks, down to the beach. Snow covered everything so thickly it was impossible to tell where the sand ended and the frozen sea began. It was only the change in the quality of their footfalls that told Redlaw and Tina they were no longer on dry land. A solid crunch became something creakier and less certain, with a kind of deadened resonance to it.

  They trod warily. The ice was not smooth, rather a treacherous landscape of lumps and dips and shallow crevices. There was plenty of tripping and stumbling. Every step had to be considered and evaluated beforehand.

  As they left the shore behind, they became aware of low groans and rumbles coming from beneath them. Sometimes there was even a sharp gunshot-like crack that brought them up short. The ice was ill at ease, fractious, flexing under internal pressures. The noises were a reminder that it was a work in progress, constantly making and unmaking itself. And below it, the sea, chafing and rubbing. It was hard for Redlaw and Tina not to think about the sea, hard not to imagine the black gelid water waiting down there—waiting for some flaw in the ice to break under their feet, waiting for one or both of them to come plunging ineluctably in.

  Roughly halfway across the reach, Redlaw paused to take stock. The mainland seemed far away while the island, paradoxically, looked no closer.

  “Point of no return?” Tina enquired.

  “We passed that days ago,” came the reply.

  Onward they went over the booming, crackling floe. Redlaw could not recall undertaking a journey on foot as arduous as this one. Ice and snow conspired to create a terrain that seemed to defy being walked on. Nowhere was the going even, or firm, or trustworthy. He twisted his ankle every few minutes. Tina, for her part, cursed with virtually every step. It was a good thing they weren’t trying to be stealthy.

  Eventually, after one of the longest hours of Redlaw’s life, the island began to look as if it could after all be reached. The moonlight picked out the trees that furred its shoulders, the luxury cruiser tethered at the shoreline, and the house which occupied the curve between its two low hills. The house was a sprawling modern affair made up of interleaving layers, and light spilled from most of its many windows, invitingly warm and yellow.

  Redlaw aimed for the jetty where the boat sat. There was a ladder descending into the sea, its rungs rimed with icicles. He scaled it, Tina close behind. It was a relief to feel wooden planks beneath his feet—nice and flat and reliable.

  “So we just waltz up to the front door and knock?” Tina said.

  “Don’t see why not. We’re expected.”

  “I was thinking there’d some kind of reception committee.”

  “Be careful what you wish for.”

  Redlaw drew his Cindermaker and advanced to the end of the jetty. Tina unhitched her rucksack, opened it, delved in, and fetched out something. Then she jogged to catch up with Redlaw.

  Redlaw had his back to her. He was scoping out the lie of the land. The trees on either side were full of shadows. Full of people too? Enemies lurking?

  “I’m not looking forward to this,” he murmured to Tina.

  “Me either,” Tina said, and moved in close behind him and placed her stun gun against the nape of his neck and hit the trigger.

  Redlaw went down with a hapless, guttural cry. As he writhed in the snow, Tina bent and calmly dosed him with a second short sharp shock of voltage.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “So Christ-fucking sorry.”

  Redlaw’s hands were claws. His entire body twitched like a dying bird’s. One final huge immense shudder passed through him, and he lay still.

  Tina took a step back, panting hard. “He’s down,” she called out, loud as she could. “Out for the count. Come and get him.”

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then figures emerged from the treeline. One, two... Five in all. They converged on Tina and Redlaw from both sides. All of them bore guns and were aiming them either at Tina or at the prone Redlaw.

  “All yours,” Tina said, indicating the unconscious body. “One British vampire-rights sympathiser, signed, sealed, delivered.”

  One of the five armed figures stepped forward and nudged Redlaw with a toecap. This tentative test was followed by a wholehearted kick to the ribs.

  Redlaw didn’t stir.

  “Oh, happy day,” said the giver of the kick. “We’ve got him, men. At last.”

  Warrant Officer Jeanette Berger—for it was she—looked around at her teammates. Their grins of glee were easily as broad as hers.

  “Let’s take him up to the house,” said Berger, plucking the Cindermaker from Redlaw’s nerveless fingers, “and put on a show for the boss.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  FARTHINGALE FELT FULLY in charge of things, a master of the universe once more. There had been some dark moments this past day or so, periods of grievous self-doubt. But it had all come good in the end. You couldn’t keep someone as determined and resourceful as J. Howard Farthingale III down for long. In hindsight, all that had happened was that there had been a hiccup or two in his plans, a touch of—what was the phrase?—mission creep.
Nothing he couldn’t contend with.

  His call to Tina Checkley was the moment when he had started to get everything back on track, the turning point. The calls to Redlaw that had followed had put the next piece of the jigsaw in place. And then, when Farthingale had been contacted out of the blue by a disgruntled yet contrite Jeanette Berger, it had served to cement the impression that fate was well and truly on his side after all. The stars were aligning. Everything was turning his way. The natural order was being restored.

  Earlier that day, his Bell 222 had touched down on Far Tintagel’s heated helipad. All of the domestic staff, except for Rozetta, had climbed aboard the helicopter and been whisked off to the mainland. Farthingale told them he was granting them an impromptu three days of paid vacation. They accepted gladly and didn’t question.

  A couple of hours later the chopper returned, this time carrying the five surviving members of Team Red Eye. The pilot had picked them up from the helipad at the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where two of the team had been receiving treatment for their injuries.

  The initial moments of the meeting between Farthingale and the soldiers had been awkward. Each side felt aggrieved, betrayed by the other. But what united them and enabled them to let bygones be bygones was their shared hatred of Redlaw. Their animosity towards him outweighed their resentment towards each other.

  “You want Redlaw?” Farthingale had told them. “I’m going to hand him to you on a platter.”

  “That’s all we ask,” Berger had said. “Then we’re quits, right?”

  “Right. You’ve made a wise move, coming back to me.”

  “Don’t see as we had much of a choice. Not sure how you do it, but you always seem to know where the targets are. It was a last resort, phoning you, but I figured we’d get better results by pooling our resources than not.”

  “I for one am not holding a grudge, Warrant Officer Berger. It’ll be a relief to have this whole messy business wrapped up tidily and discreetly. Then we can all get on with our lives.”

  He had refrained from mentioning the reports he’d seen on TV about a group of unidentified armed individuals leaving a trail of carnage behind them across New York that morning. “Slaughter on the Streets” was one local news channel’s lunchtime headline, while one of the national news channels, which happened to belong to a network he owned, had gone with “Midday Manhattan Massacre.”

  Farthingale knew Team Red Eye were the culprits—who else could it have been?—but it had seemed prudent not to raise the subject and, potentially, hackles. The attack dogs were back on the leash; that was what counted. The fallout from their little rebellion was a matter for a later date. He would deal with that as and when he had to. Redlaw was now the overriding priority, the horizon line of his ambition.

  Now, as Team Red Eye approached the house, Farthingale stepped out onto the terrace. Two of the soldiers were dragging a limp, insensible figure behind them by the arms—Redlaw. His feet ploughed wayward furrows in the snow.

  The girl—Tina Checkley—came too, Berger marching her upslope at gunpoint. Tina was objecting loudly to this.

  “Hey, I’m on your side, you know. You don’t have to stick that thing in the back of my head. I gave him to you, in case you didn’t notice. Remember? Knocked him out cold for you.”

  “Shut up and walk,” said Berger. “You were with him, so you’re guilty by association until someone tells me otherwise.”

  “I’m telling you otherwise, Berger,” Farthingale announced from the terrace. “Let Ms Checkley go. She’s no more Redlaw’s ally than I am. She’s proved it, amply.”

  Berger did not lower the gun—Redlaw’s Cindermaker. “Yeah, but isn’t it a bit suspicious that she came here with him? Why’d he let her? It must have occurred to him that there was a chance of an ambush. Why put her potentially in danger?”

  “He didn’t want me tagging along,” Tina said. “I had to talk him into it. And believe me, it was a hard sell. He’s as stubborn as a mule. In the end what swung it was, I told him I could act as a kind of human shield. You know, a non-combatant, an innocent bystander. If there was trouble, having someone like me around might make someone like you think twice about opening fire.”

  “Shows how little you know,” said Giacoia.

  “Yeah, well, Redlaw bought it anyway. Plus, I think he thought having a witness around might be a good idea.”

  “Why so keen to come, though?” said Berger. “You got a death wish or something?”

  “This is a story, my story,” said Tina flatly, “and I want to see it through to the end.”

  “Spoken like a true journalist,” Farthingale said, and a couple of the soldiers, hearing this, nodded sagely. The girl was a journalist, yes. That went some way to explaining her actions. They’d met journalists while serving. Crazy people. Certifiable. Soldiers went to war zones because they were ordered to. Journalists went because they got a perverse kick out of it.

  “But also,” Tina said, “I’m here on account of him.” She gestured at Farthingale. “Your boss is my boss, now, too. He’s offering me work.”

  “Come now, Tina,” said Farthingale genially, “don’t undersell me, or yourself. In return for all you’ve done today, I’m offering you a position with a national news network. Any position you like—back-room, editorial, behind camera, in front of camera. You only have to decide where on the ladder you wish to start, how high up the pecking order. I’m confident that, wherever you set out from, a glittering career awaits you. I hardly know you, but from what I’ve seen, I can tell you’ll go far. It’s my pleasure to be the one who gives you your big break.”

  “See?” Tina said to Berger. “There’s my real motive right there. I knew if I forced Redlaw to take me with him, there might be a chance for me to really prove myself to Mr Farthingale. And when Redlaw turned his back on me down there by the jetty, I saw my moment and I grabbed it. Me and my trusty Taser. So...” She placed a hand on the barrel of the Cindermaker and gently but firmly pushed down. “Kindly get that damn thing out of my face, bee-yatch. Stop treating me like I’m a prisoner of war. I just did what none of you guys, with all your weapons and training and amped-up vamp powers, could. I took down John Redlaw. I think that earns me a little damn respect, don’t you?”

  Berger scowled, but she had to concede that this pinch-faced, feisty girl had a point. She gave Tina a grudging nod, and Tina answered it with a beaming smile that said simultaneously thank you and fuck you.

  “You do realise what’s going to happen to Redlaw?” Berger said. “What you’re partly responsible for? It’s not going to be pretty.”

  “The man’s a wackjob,” Tina replied blithely. “He scares me, and that’s no lie.”

  “But you’ve been with him a while, am I right?”

  “He’s not my friend, if that’s what you’re driving at. He’s just the story—part of it. We’re not attached in any way. If you ask me—setting journalistic impartiality aside—Redlaw deserves what’s coming to him. I mean, siding with vampires over humans...” Her face showed how offensive she thought that was.

  “And that’s the least of it,” said Child, holding up a heavily bandaged hand. “Dude needs a serious reassessment of his values.”

  “Damn fucking straight,” agreed Abbotts. He pointed to his face, then his crotch. “Bad enough he messed up my good looks, but to ruin another man’s junk...”

  He delivered a swift, contemptuous kick to the body in the snow.

  “Gonna return the compliment, Redlaw,” he spat. “And I won’t just take the one like you did. I’ll take ’em both, and I’ll shove ’em down your throat. Make you choke on them.”

  “You’ll get your turn, private,” said Berger. “We all will. First things first. Let’s get those clothes off him. He won’t be nearly so dangerous when he’s freezing half to death.”

  Lim and Giacoia stripped Redlaw down to his underpants. This revealed a body that carried more than its fair share of scarrin
g. All over were the traces of wounds received in the line of duty, ranging from sets of deep parallel slashes to an ugly-looking gouge on one shoulder that had cost him a large chunk of flesh. It was a map of violence, etched out in macabre contour lines and puckered valleys of pain, and it had been added to very recently in the form of angry red bite marks on his left forearm.

  Child let out a low whistle. “Shee-it. Vampires done all that to him, and now he’s their best bud?”

  “Amongst Britain’s SHADE officers,” said Farthingale, “Redlaw had a reputation for being unusually dedicated to his job.”

  “Well, there’s dedication and then there’s just plain stupid,” said Giacoia. “A GI with half those injuries, he’d have been invalided out, taken off active duty and given a nice cosy desk job.”

  “Pretty fit-looking for a guy his age,” Lim observed.

  “Yeah. Fancy crucifix, too,” said Child. “You could throttle a bull with that chain.”

  “Can we stop admiring and start tying up?” Berger snapped. “We don’t want him coming round on us before he’s properly secured.”

  “Sure thing.” Giacoia pulled Redlaw’s arms behind his back and lashed a plastic zip tie around his wrists. He tested the zip tie with a few hard tugs. It didn’t budge. There wasn’t a millimetre of slack. No way was Redlaw breaking free.

  “Now wake him up,” said Berger.

  One-handed, Child hoisted Redlaw into a kneeling position. Giacoia slapped his face several times, increasingly hard.

  Redlaw groaned. His eyelids fluttered. Snapped open.

  “Good evening,” Berger said to him, almost chirpy. “Welcome back to the world. How’re you doing?”

  “Just super,” Redlaw replied hoarsely.

  “Well, we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?” Berger looked at Giacoia. “LT. You get first dibs.”

  “Hey, no fair!” said Abbotts. “The loot’s not been injured by him. How come he gets a go before any of the rest of us?”