Battle Lines. Will Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ button marked 0. As the lift began to ascend, he wondered what Cal Holmwood might want this time.

      It often felt as though he spent more time in the Ops Room than in the small quarters where he occasionally found the opportunity to sleep. It was an oval room in the centre of the only above-ground level of the Loop, and it was where the Priority Level missions were briefed and despatched. In the month that had followed the attack on the Loop and the abduction of Henry Seward, the Department’s veteran Director, it had become the hub of the entire base, as every mission had become Priority Level. It was exceedingly rare to find good news waiting there.

      Jamie leant against the cool metal wall of the lift and let his mind drift; as was so often the case, his thoughts were quickly full of his friends. The catastrophic attack on the Loop by Valeri and his vampire army had affected them all profoundly; Kate was still struggling to come to terms with the death of Shaun, the young Operator who had been her boyfriend, and had made a decision in recent days that Jamie had pleaded with her to reconsider. Matt was buried deep in the bowels of the Loop, spending every waking second staring at a computer screen. And Larissa, the vampire girl who had become the most important thing in the world to Jamie, was gone.

      The lift door slid open again, and he walked slowly down the Level 0 corridor. He paused outside the door to the Ops Room, took a deep breath, then stepped inside.

      Gathered round the long row of tables in the centre of the room was a group of dark figures.

      Cal Holmwood stood at the head, with Jack Williams at his side. Arrayed along the sides of the table, their attention focused on the Interim Director, stood Patrick Williams, Dominique Saint-Jacques, Jacob Scott, Andrew Jarvis, Richard Brennan and a Communications Division Operator called Amy Andrews. She had been recently added to the Task Force, along with Dominique and Angela Darcy, who appeared to be absent; in the aftermath of Valeri’s attack, it had been expanded to include at least one representative from every Division in the Department.

      As Jamie sat down, he noted that Paul Turner was also missing, although this no longer qualified as surprising.

      “Lieutenant Carpenter,” said Cal Holmwood. “How are your recruits coming along?”

      “Pretty well, sir,” replied Jamie. “Terry’s making sure they realise what they’ve signed up for.”

      Cal Holmwood smiled grimly. “I’m glad to hear it. They’re going to see for themselves in a few hours.”

      Jamie frowned. The Blacklight training programme had once taken thirteen months to complete, on top of the elite-level training that the majority of recruits had already undertaken before they were even made aware of the Department’s existence. But circumstances had made this impossible, and what was being carried out in the Playground now was the very definition of a crash course. It was far from ideal, from anyone’s perspective, but it was unavoidable: the Department had been hurt, and hurt badly.

      There were rooms on the residential levels that had been occupied by Operators who were never going to return to them, unused desks in the Surveillance, Security and Intelligence Divisions, Operational Squads that had lost one, two, or in some awful cases, all three of their members. These empty spaces, these holes in the fabric of the Department, would not be filled easily, even by the new men and women who were being recruited specifically to do so. Friends, colleagues, even family members had been lost, and rookies would not take their places, even though they were vital: restoring the Department to something approaching full strength was of paramount importance.

      The countdown to Zero Hour would not wait for them to be ready.

      Nonetheless, Jamie did not believe the members of his new squad were; he had not been intending to take them out for another week, at least.

      “Why, sir?” he asked, looking at the Interim Director. “What’s happened?”

      Holmwood glanced over at Jack Williams. “Jack?”

      Jamie’s friend nodded. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “In the Security Officer’s absence, I’ve been asked to brief you all on the events of last night.” He tapped a series of commands into the console in front of him, and the Operators turned their attention to the screen set high on the wall. A window opened and grainy CCTV images filled the screen: running figures in white coats, leaping, grasping shapes moving among them, tearing and rending. Blood sprayed on to walls and ceilings, and the panicked, pleading eyes of the victims were wide, even in the low-resolution footage.

      “This,” said Jack, “is D ward of Broadmoor Hospital, one of three secure hospitals that house the most dangerously ill men and women in the country. At 1:47 this morning, a group of vampires broke into the facility, killing every member of staff and releasing every patient from their rooms. We’ve confronted twenty-nine of them so far and managed to bring two into custody. Every single one has been turned.”

      There was a sharp communal intake of breath.

      “All of them?” asked Patrick Williams, his voice low.

      “That’s correct,” replied his brother.

      “This was an attack on us, not on the patients,” said Dominique Saint-Jacques. “They turned them all and let them out, didn’t they?”

      “That appears to be the case,” replied Jack. “However, this was not the only incident of its type to take place last night. Vampires also attacked the Florence Supermax facility in Colorado, the Black Dolphin prison in Sol-Iletsk, the C Max in Pretoria, al-Ha’ir prison in Riyadh, Kamunting Detention Centre in Malaysia, Goulburn Correctional Centre in New South Wales, and the Penitenciária Federal de Catanduvas in southern Brazil. There are now more than four thousand maximum-security prisoners unaccounted for, and in every country, those who have been recovered have all been turned. This appears to have been nothing less than a deliberate, coordinated attack on the supernatural Departments of the world.”

      There was silence as the Operators attempted to absorb the scale of what they were hearing. Jamie looked round the table; Patrick Williams and Dominique Saint-Jacques were staring steadily at Jack, their expressions calm and neutral, and he felt admiration rise through his chest.

      Nothing fazes them, he thought. Absolutely nothing.

      He was about to return his attention to Jack when he caught sight of Jacob Scott; the Australian Colonel was staring down at the desk, his eyes wide, his face deathly pale. The outspoken veteran Operator looked, to Jamie’s untrained eye, as though he was about to have a heart attack; his fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned bright white.

      “This is now this Department’s number-one priority,” said Cal Holmwood. Jamie dragged his gaze away from Colonel Scott, a frown furrowing his brow, and turned back to the Interim Director. “I’m sure you can see that the potential for public exposure and loss of life is extremely significant. I’m calling back the Field Teams—”

      “All of them?” interrupted Jamie. “Even the ones that are looking for Admiral Seward? And Dracula?”

      “Major Landis’s team will continue to search for Admiral Seward,” replied Holmwood, fixing him with a glacial stare. “The rest are coming home until this situation is resolved.”

      “Dracula is gathering strength,” said Jamie. “Right now, while we’re sitting here. Surely he’s the priority.”

      “This is about Dracula,” said Holmwood. “Jack, bring up the gatehouse.”

      The СКАЧАТЬ