Battle Lines. Will Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ carpet of the hallway. By the time he had pushed himself back to his feet, the front door was closed and locked, and two figures in black uniforms were standing in front of him. Their faces were hidden by purple visors that emerged from the black helmets they were wearing; Johnny couldn’t see a single millimetre of exposed skin. One of them stepped forward, raising a gloved hand, and terror exploded through him. He turned and ran for the open door of his flat.

      He didn’t make it.

      As Johnny stretched for the door frame, intending to fling himself through the gap between it and the door, fingers closed in the hair at the back of his head, then whipped him sharply to the right. His balance left him and his head thudded into the wall. He saw stars and fought to stay upright, his brain screaming a single coherent thought.

       Have to get away. Have to get away. Have to get away.

      He threw himself forward, feeling an explosion of pain as a handful of his hair and scalp tore loose, and staggered through the door. He pushed weakly at it, but a heavy black boot had already been wedged against the frame, and it wouldn’t close. He turned and stumbled up the stairs towards his kitchen, his mind reeling with panic. Footsteps thudded on the stairs behind him, horribly slow and calm, and Johnny realised there was nowhere to go. Then hands grabbed at him again; he was pushed through the kitchen and into the living room, where he was thrown on to his battered sofa. He stared up at the black figures. One of them appeared to be looking down at him from behind its impenetrable purple visor, while the other had picked up his tape recorder and pressed play. Albert Harker’s voice instantly emerged from the small speaker.

      “… is the biggest secret in the world, a secret that my family and others have kept for more than a century. And I’m telling it…”

      The figure clicked the stop button, opened the recorder and took out the tape. It passed it to its colleague, who held it up in front of Johnny’s face.

      “This is the recording of your interview with Albert Harker?” it said, in the same empty voice he had heard through the front door.

      Johnny nodded. He was literally too frightened to speak.

      The figure slid the tape into a pouch on the side of its uniform.

      “Where are your notes?” it asked.

      He pointed with a trembling finger. His notebook was lying where he had left it, on the arm of his chair. The second figure picked it up, leafed through it, then pocketed it.

      Johnny managed to find his voice. “Hey,” he shouted. “There’s other stuff in there.”

      “Other stuff?” asked the figure.

      “Normal stuff,” replied Johnny. “Work stuff. The Harker notes are only the last two pages. Let me keep the rest. Please?”

      There was a long pause. Then the dark figure pulled out the notebook, tore out the last written pages and threw the rest down on to the coffee table.

      Johnny was about to crawl across the floor and grab it when a black gloved hand gripped his face and turned his head. The purple visor was millimetres away from his face and he fought back a new torrent of panic.

      “Mr Supernova,” said the black figure, and the flatness of its voice made him want to scream. “It would be extremely inadvisable to attempt to publish what you heard today. The unsubstantiated ramblings of a man with both a long-standing substance addiction and a well-known grudge against his family will be of little interest to anyone, and cannot possibly be claimed to be in the public interest. To publish such a story would in all likelihood result in the death of your career, a career that is already ailing badly. Do you understand what I am saying to you?”

      Johnny nodded rapidly. For a long moment, the visor didn’t move; he could see his own terrified face reflected in the purple surface. Then the figure released its grip and stood up.

      “We’re done here,” it said. The second figure nodded, strode back into the kitchen, and opened the door.

      A second later they were gone.

      He stared after them for a long moment, then burst up from the sofa. He ran across the room, his steps short and unsteady, and clattered down the stairs.

      The corridor was empty.

      The front door was shut.

      Johnny let out a high, childlike sob and slammed his door shut, locking it and sliding the chain into place. He ran back up the stairs, scrabbled at the shelf of tapes beside the window and clutched the copy of the Harker interview in his shaking hands. Gripping it tightly, he slid to the floor, turning his back against the wall. He drew his knees up to his chin and began to weep.

      A mile away, Albert Harker walked up on to London Bridge wondering why he had lied to the journalist.

      No, that wasn’t right.

      He hadn’t lied; everything he had told Supernova was the truth. But he had omitted something from his account of his refusal to join Department 19.

      *

       On New Year’s Day 1980, Albert’s twin brother Robert had taken him aside, sworn him to secrecy, and told him about Blacklight.

       He was as animated as Albert had ever seen him, bursting with excitement at what the New Year had in store for them both. Albert listened, then asked him how he had come to know about the organisation he was describing. Robert frowned; it was the look of someone who has got carried away with something and hasn’t thought the potential consequences through.

       “Dad told me,” he said, eventually. “On our birthday, when he was drunk. He said it was only one more year until we could start our real lives. I asked him what he meant and he told me.”

       “Where was I?” asked Albert. A familiar sensation had begun to creep into his chest, as though his heart was being packed in ice.

       “It was late,” said Robert. “You were asleep.”

       “So how come you’re only telling me now?”

       Robert’s gaze flicked momentarily to the floor and Albert knew the answer before his brother spoke it aloud.

       “He told me not to tell you,” said Robert, with the decency to at least look apologetic. “The next morning. He said he shouldn’t have told me and that I wasn’t to tell you. So I told him I wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Bert.”

       Albert pushed the hurt aside, something he was vastly experienced at doing, and tried instead to focus on what his brother had said; there was a future in which they would be together, would do something incredible, and exciting, and dangerous. The New Year, which usually brought him nothing but gloom, suddenly seemed bright and full of possibility.

       “Don’t worry about it,” he replied, and smiled. “Although it sounds like you’re going to have to get a lot better at keeping secrets.”

       Robert grinned. “So should Dad. You know who he told me works for Blacklight?”

       “Who?”

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