by Hill, Will
“What about the rest of us?” asked Jack Williams. “What do you want us to do?”
“Carry on,” replied Holmwood. “I’ll be reactivating all squads within a couple of hours. You have your target lists. Nothing changes.”
“Neither of my squad have been through ISAT,” said Brennan. “Nor have I, for that matter. Do we still go out?”
“Absolutely,” replied Holmwood. “We can’t make everyone who hasn’t been interviewed inactive, not with what’s going on out there. Just be vigilant. Anything out of the ordinary, you call it in. Understood?”
Brennan nodded.
“OK,” said Holmwood. “Anything else?”
“Yes, sir,” said Angela Darcy. “What about Albert Harker, sir?”
“We believe Harker may be responsible for the murder of a lawyer named Thomas Clarke in north London last night,” said the Interim Director. “Clarke was the executor of the estate of John Bathurst, also known as Johnny Supernova, the journalist to whom Albert gave an interview before he was committed. We are still attempting to ascertain whether there was something in Bathurst’s estate that Harker may be trying to acquire.”
“Maybe he blames the journalist for what happened to him,” said Patrick Williams. “With Bathurst dead, maybe he’s taking his revenge on people with connections to him.”
“That thought has occurred to us,” said Turner. “Fortunately, Bathurst’s list of known associates only contained one name, a former colleague of his called Kevin McKenna. He has been informed that a recently released prisoner with a grudge against John Bathurst may attempt to make contact with him, and that he is to call the police if so. We’re monitoring his mobile phone as a precaution.”
“OK,” said Patrick. “So we have no idea where Harker is.”
“It’s highly likely that he has gone to ground,” said Turner. “He must know we’ll be looking for him.”
“I tend to agree,” said Cal Holmwood. “Nonetheless, he remains a priority and I’ll keep you updated as new information becomes available. As for the rest of the Broadmoor escapees, we’re making solid progress. We have seventy-two confirmed destroyed, leaving two hundred and six unaccounted for. All target lists have been updated and the SOP remains in place until this is over.”
“Admiral Seward?” asked Jamie, quietly.
“Major Landis has reported no progress on that front, Lieutenant Carpenter. Is there anything else?”
There was silence around the table.
“Then that’s all,” said the Interim Director. “As always, everything that has been said here is Zero Hour classified. However, I would urge you to try to find ways to reassure your teams. We all have jobs to do and this is no time for panic, or for people making mistakes because they’re scared. Dismissed.”
*
Jamie made his way along the Level B corridor and pressed his ID card against the panel beside the door to his quarters, smiling as he heard the sound of familiar voices from inside his room.
He knew who they belonged to; after the message had come through ordering him to attend the emergency Zero Hour meeting, he had sent one of his own.
No secrets, he thought, and pushed the door open.
Sitting on his bed were Kate Randall and Matt Browning; they had used the override code that opened his door, which both of them knew by heart. They looked up as he entered, narrow smiles on their faces.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Not much,” said Matt, brightly. “Apart from one of my colleagues getting blown up by a bomb that was meant for one of my friends. How are you?”
Jamie laughed. “Never better,” he said, flopping down into the chair beside his desk. “The cameras don’t show anyone going in or out of Kate’s room yesterday morning, there was a second bomb in Paul Turner’s room so he and Cal are convinced that this is all about ISAT, whereas the rest of Zero Hour think it was Valentin. Oh, and nobody has any idea where Albert Harker is. So, yeah, everything’s awesome.”
“Jesus,” said Kate. “There was a bomb in Paul’s room?”
Jamie nodded. “They defused it last night.”
“Well, that seals it, surely?” said Matt, looking at Kate. “You and Major Turner? If this isn’t about ISAT, that’s an astronomical coincidence.”
“I suppose so,” said Kate. “Does anyone have any theories?”
Jamie shook his head. “Just that someone has something to hide and is willing to try and kill two Operators to keep it hidden.”
“Jesus,” said Kate. “I just keep thinking about Natalia. If she’d been badly hurt or—”
“She wasn’t, though,” interrupted Jamie. “She’s going to be fine.”
“I know,” said Kate. “But the bomb wasn’t meant for her, Jamie. She had nothing to do with any of this.”
“That’s a point,” said Matt. “Why was she there when it went off? Was she coming to see you or something?”
“I don’t know,” said Kate.
“OK,” said Matt. “But if the bomb went off when your door was opened, then she must have opened it. How did she do that?”
“How am I supposed to know?” snapped Kate. “Ask her yourself when she wakes up.”
Take it easy, thought Jamie. Don’t bite his head off.
“So,” he said. “That was the Zero Hour meeting. What’s next?”
“I’ve got to get back to Lazarus,” said Matt. “We’re short-staffed with Natalia in the infirmary.”
“I thought as much,” said Jamie. “What about you, Kate?”
“ISAT,” she said. “Paul sent me a message telling me we’re restarting this afternoon. Although he didn’t mention the bomb in his quarters, unsurprisingly. So it’s going to be a long day. What about you?”
“I’ve got to go and have a conversation I really don’t want to have,” said Jamie.
“With who?” asked Matt.
“One of my rookies,” said Jamie. “John Morton.”
“I heard you brought your squad back early,” said Kate. “Is everything OK?”
“I don’t know,” said Jamie. “He missed a shot when we were taking out our first target, then started talking about vampires, how they aren’t right, how what we did wasn’t right. I asked Holmwood to bench him, but he wouldn’t go for it. I got him to authorise a psych evaluation, though, so now I have to go and tell Morton. Which should be fun.”
“I bet,” said Kate.
“Speaking of fun,” he said, smiling broadly, “you’re in for a treat this afternoon. You and Major Turner.”
Kate frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Jamie.
33
PLAYING WITH FIRE
LINCOLN COUNTY, NEVADA, USA
YESTERDAY
Larissa knocked on the door of Tim Albertsson’s quarters and waited for the Special Operator to appear.
She had slept well, surprisingly; tiredness had apparently overwhelmed the unease that had filled her in the aftermath of Tim’s attempt to kiss her. She had looked at her body in the mirror after getting out of the shower, seen the round patch of new skin on her stomach that was paler than the rest, and forgiven herself for the exhaustion she had felt in the gym. She sometimes forgot that her body regularly endured extremes that would kill a regular human being; to her, it had come to seem bizarrely normal.
There was no response to her knock, and no sounds of movement from within Tim’s room, so she gave up. Her console displayed no orders, and there were no training sessions scheduled for the day, so she had intended to clear the air with Tim, then round up the others and enjoy a few hours of well-earned time off. She tapped a message into her console as she walked along the corridor of Level 3, asking her friends where they were. As she waited for the elevator, the first reply beeped on to her screen.
Morning, gorgeous. In San Diego till early afternoon checking out the new SEAL intake. Kara and Danny here too. Be good without me. Tim
; Larissa winced as she read it.
On the one hand, the tone of the message was no different to the dozens of others Tim had sent her, suggesting he was not annoyed with her, as she had feared he might be. On the other, the message was so blatantly flirtatious that she was instantly furious with herself for having taken so long to understand the situation.
I have to talk to him when he gets back, she thought. As soon as he gets back.
Her console beeped again and she thumbed the screen. Two more messages appeared, one above the other.
In Intelligence training. Might see you later. Aaron
Still in Colorado. Leaving soon, God willing. Kelly
Larissa smiled, and slipped the console back into its loop on her belt.
Kelly had been part of the response team despatched to Colorado to deal with the aftermath of the Supermax breakout; she had been due to come home the previous day, but her orders had been changed at the last minute. She hadn’t been able to tell them why – everything to do with the prison break was Zero Hour restricted, a classification that all the supernatural Departments of the world had adopted – but her demeanour had suggested that it was not something she was relishing.
Larissa sent a group message telling them to look after themselves, then stepped into the lift and pressed the button marked 0. A minute later she stepped into the wide, semicircular hangar and looked out across the long-dry expanse of Papoose Lake. It was barely eight thirty in the morning, but the temperature outside was already in the high nineties and rising. By lunchtime it would be well into three figures, the sun beating down with such ferocity that it would burn regular skin within minutes; her own vulnerable flesh would erupt in an inferno of purple fire if a single ray of the bright desert light touched it.
The shade extended a metre or two beyond the edge of the hangar; its shimmering edge marked the border of her habitable world. She stared at it, painfully aware of the limitations that had been imposed upon her; she had made peace with her condition, had even managed to find ways to enjoy certain aspects of it, but the rational part of her still ultimately viewed it as a curse, a prison cell that followed her wherever she went. Her vampire side, the part of her that she increasingly thought of as almost a different person, cared little about such things, was interested only in blood and violence. She tried not to spend too much time thinking about it, and was grateful for the thought that suddenly arrived in her head, lifting her heart and brightening her mood.
I’ve got a day off. For the first time in what feels like forever, there’s absolutely nothing I’m supposed to be doing.
The realisation washed over her like cool water. She knew there was a good chance that orders would appear on her console later in the day, but she would deal with them if and when they arrived; as of right now, she was free. And, as she stared at the burning white salt of Papoose Lake, she realised there was something she wanted to do.
Ten minutes later she was back in her quarters, logging in to the NS9 network. She had been given access the day she arrived, a gesture she had taken as a somewhat surprising show of trust, even allowing for the new spirit of togetherness among the supernatural Departments. She had expected to find her access limited, the way a guest user is restricted to certain areas of a system, but had been pleased to find the entire NS9 network open to her. She had barely used it, as her time had been spent largely either in the training rooms or with her friends. But she was using it now, to search for any information on the prisoner in the cell, the prisoner whose existence was not officially acknowledged.
Larissa had talked to an Operator from the NS9 Security Division at the bar in the bowling alley that sat on the other side of the mountain, and asked him about the prisoner outright. The man’s eyes had widened, before he quickly denied the existence of any such prisoner. Larissa had persisted, applying a combination of her English accent and several deep glasses of rye whiskey to the increasingly helpless Operator. She reassured him that she didn’t expect him to tell her who the prisoner was, as she moved her stool so that her leg rested against his. She didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. All she wanted to know was the date the prisoner had arrived at Dreamland. Anyone could have told her that. No one would ever know it had been him. Eventually, the Operator had given in; she had thanked him, kissed him on the cheek, and left him staring at his glass with a look of profound confusion on his face.
Larissa opened the security logs and entered the date the Operator had given her. The prisoner had to have arrived at the base somehow and had likely not been expected, given the general alarm that Kelly had told her had sounded briefly on the day in question. She was hopeful that the records of the unscheduled arrival might still exist.
The system returned the results, for a Wednesday fourteen weeks earlier. There were two main columns, for arrivals and departures to and from the base, each containing a list of entries. Most appeared in both columns; these were squads departing on Operations and returning home when they were done. There were several entries in the departures column that had no counterpart in arrivals; these, Larissa assumed, were Operators being sent on longer-term missions, such as the one that Kelly was currently on in Colorado. She was sure that if she checked the subsequent days, the listings would eventually reappear in the arrivals column.
On the day she was interested in there were only two entries in the arrivals column without counterpart departures. One looked the same as almost all the rest: a string of Operator identification numbers, an operational reference and the access code and entry vector used by a vehicle entering the restricted airspace around Dreamland. This was most likely a returning mission that had departed on a previous day. The other entry, however, was quite different.
Where there should have been at least one ID number, there was merely an empty space. Where the Operational reference should have been was also blank, and instead of an entry vector, the word GATE 1 had been entered into the record. The access code that had been recorded was also different, unlike those recorded in every other entry for that day.
That’s him, she thought, excitedly. Whoever he is, that’s him. That’s when he arrived.
Larissa wrote down the access code on a scrap of paper, closed the logs, and opened the security rota schedule. This was a large spreadsheet, listing every guard point and security position across the entirety of the Dreamland site; it was a vast document, as it applied not just to NS9, but also to the Air Force detachments at Groom Lake and throughout the entire White Sands Missile Range. There were more than a hundred entry points listed, ranging from traditional barriers and guard houses to underground sentry posts that watched over the subterranean installations where the truly unpleasant work was being done: chemical and biological weapons, low-yield nuclear research, next-generation fission weapons, all of it in direct breach of dozens of international treaties, all of it carrying on far beyond the range of even the most sophisticated satellite.
She was looking for the rota for Gate 1, the guard post and barrier that controlled access from the long road that led west from highway 375 and was referred to by Area 51 conspiracy fans as the Front Gate. It was on government land, hidden from the public beyond signs that warned the curious not to go any further.
He came in there? wondered Larissa. By road? That’s weird.
She found the right column and scrolled down until she reached the date she was looking for. On duty at the Front Gate that day had been an Air Force Senior Airman named Lee Ashworth. Larissa closed the spreadsheet and entered Ashworth’s name into the personnel directory; it returned his file immediately. She scanned quickly down to the key line of information: Senior Airman Ashworth’s current posting.
Please don’t let him have moved. Please.
POSTING: Edwards AFB Detachment 559. GOLD SQUADRON. Groom Lake.
Larissa looked at the man’s photo, memorised his face, and logged out of the network. A minute later she was standing at the end of the Level 3 corridor, floating impatiently up and down as s
he waited for the elevator to arrive.
She got out on Level 1 and walked quickly down its main corridor; her destination lay at the opposite end of the base, beyond a heavy metal door.
Tim Albertsson had shown her the tunnel on her second day in the desert.
He had been ordered by General Allen to show her around and let her get a feel for the place. The functional stuff had taken barely half a day: the dining hall, the gym, her quarters, the Briefing Rooms and the hangar. With the official tour concluded, Tim had shown her what he called “the fun stuff”: the weapons ranges, the creepy, long-abandoned research labs sealed away on the lower levels, and the tunnel.
It was more than half a mile long, running directly beneath the mountain range that separated Groom Lake from Papoose Lake, and emerged inside the complex of buildings the outside world referred to as Area 51. It was part of a wide network of tunnels, covered walkways and canopies that had been installed to shield the installation’s men and women from the increasingly advanced eyes of the spy satellites that orbited overhead, and now served a purpose that its designers would likely never have envisaged: allowing Larissa to move around the vast majority of the two bases in broad daylight.
She reached the heavy door and ran her ID card over the panel beside it. Electromagnetic locks disengaged and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Larissa stepped through, pulled it shut behind her, then rose into the air and accelerated. She shot forward with a speed that would have been dizzying to any watching human eyes; one moment she was motionless in the air, the next she was a streak of black and glowing red. The half-mile of tunnel passed below and around her in less than five seconds; she slid gracefully to a halt in front of a door that was the mirror of the one she had just come through, unlocked it with her ID card, and emerged into a circular holding area made of flat, gleaming metal.
“Remain still,” ordered an electronic voice.
Larissa did as she was told; in the walls and ceiling machines were scanning her identification chip, taking photos, and logging the time of her entry.