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If we get the vampires on our list and no more than five innocent people die, then everything’s cool. That’s the equation. One of ours for every one of them. Maths, written in blood and human lives.
The collateral damage allowance was one thing Jamie had felt no guilt about keeping from his rookies; he figured they had more than enough to worry about. Instead, he watched the screen, feeling an unsettling sensation of inevitability as they approached their target.
An hour later their driver’s voice emerged from the intercom that linked the cab to the body of the vehicle.
“We’re a mile out, sir. Do you want me to proceed?”
“Roger that,” replied Jamie. “Go silent and get us one hundred metres out.”
“Roger,” replied the driver.
The rumble of the van’s engine died away, leaving silence behind. It sounded as though the vehicle’s power had been cut, but the lights and the screen remained bright, and it continued to move steadily forward.
“Weapons prep,” said Jamie, looking at his squad mates. Calm appeared to have settled over them both, a state of being that he wanted to believe was genuine. Away from the Loop, in the real world with weapons to fire, a mission to carry out and a target to destroy, he was hopeful that Morton and Ellison had reverted to what they were: highly trained men and women who had been in situations where their lives were in danger dozens of times before. This was the moment of truth, where training and experience would hopefully overwhelm trepidation, where they would realise that they could do what was being asked of them.
As one, Morton and Ellison began to clip their weapons and kit into place. Jamie did the same, keeping his gaze fixed on them; there were cold looks in both of their eyes that he liked. When the squad was fully equipped, he forced a smile.
“This is it,” he said. “We stay calm, we do our job, and we go home. It’s as simple as that. Clear?”
“Clear, sir,” they replied.
Operational Squad M-3 ran across the cracked tarmac in a five-metre spread with Jamie in the middle.
The van had pulled away as soon as their boots hit the ground; even in a place as desolate as this, the vehicle was likely to draw unwanted attention, so their driver would move it to a less visible location until he was called back to collect them.
They were on their own.
The industrial estate was as bleak and lifeless as the surface of the moon. The roads and pavements were strewn with litter, and empty offices, factories and warehouses stood dark and brooding on all sides. There was broken glass in several of the windows, but the buildings were not falling down; they simply looked abandoned. Jamie wondered what had brought about the exodus that had clearly taken place here; had the companies that had once inhabited these buildings gone out of business? Downsized? Sent their operations abroad? The place felt sad and pointless, built for a purpose that was now gone and would likely never return.
Looming before the squad was the two-storey factory that was their destination; the sign on the approach to the building announced it as the home of MCM FROZEN FOODS. The front doors, through which workers had presumably once streamed in and out in the mornings and evenings, had been locked with a sturdy length of chain and a shiny steel padlock, both of which were now lying on the ground, bent and twisted. The doors themselves were standing slightly open as the three Operators reached them.
“Christ,” breathed Morton. “Takes a lot of strength to do that.”
“That’s right,” said Jamie. “It does. Stay calm.”
“Not too subtle,” said Ellison. “Doesn’t look like he cares if he gets caught.”
“I doubt he’s thinking that clearly,” said Jamie. “If he didn’t feed in time, the hunger has probably driven him mad. If he did, if he’s still himself, he has a long history of mental instability. I’m not expecting predictable behaviour from any of our targets, and you shouldn’t either.”
“So what’s the plan?” asked Morton.
“We find him,” said Jamie. “Which shouldn’t be hard. Thermal imaging will make him look like a firework. Then we destroy him.”
“OK,” said Morton.
“Good,” said Jamie. “Follow me.”
He reached out, pushed open the doors, then slipped through, disappearing into the darkness. Morton and Ellison followed, their T-Bones drawn and resting steadily in their hands.
The reception that had once welcomed visitors to MCM FROZEN FOODS was no longer welcoming. The desk was empty apart from a small cluster of wires that had been left behind, and the fluorescent lights on the ceiling above it were dark. To the right of the desk stood a single door that presumably led into the warehouse itself. It too was standing open.
Jamie moved quietly across the reception and peered through the door. A cavernous black space stretched up and away from him. There was no movement, no sound of any kind. The warehouse, which would have once been piled from floor to ceiling with pallets of food awaiting despatch, appeared to be empty.
“Thermals,” whispered Jamie. “He’s in there somewhere. Ready One.”
The phrase was Blacklight code that authorised the use of weaponry. Morton and Ellison set their T-Bones against their shoulders, as Jamie drew his from his belt and led his squad into the warehouse. In an ideal world, it would not be him that ended Eric Bingham; it was vital that his new squad mates got used to destroying vampires as soon as possible. But this was far from an ideal world, and he was not prepared to take any chances, not after what he had seen in the Zero Hour Task Force briefing; if the opportunity to make the killing shot came his way, he would take it without hesitation.
Jamie turned the dial on his belt that controlled his helmet’s visual modes and watched as the cold concrete walls and floor of the warehouse disappeared in a great wash of dark blue and black. An instant later he saw that he had told Morton the truth.
Eric Bingham wasn’t hard to find.
At the far end of the warehouse, a tight ball of bright yellow and orange was curled into the corner where the walls met the ceiling.
“There,” said Ellison, the word appearing directly into his and Morton’s ears.
“Got him,” confirmed Jamie. “Ellison, take point. Morton, next to me.”
Ellison moved past him and walked slowly towards the vampire. Morton fell into position beside him and they followed their squad mate, stepping quietly through the empty building. When they were still five metres away from their target, a strange noise began to be picked up by the speakers in Jamie’s helmet, a low, rattling sound that he suddenly recognised.
Eric Bingham was growling.
“What the hell?” asked Ellison.
Jamie opened his mouth to answer her, but then the yellow and orange ball moved, bursting out of the corner and rushing down towards them.
“I see you!” screamed Bingham as he hurtled through the air, the heat from his body blinding them. Jamie recoiled, fumbling for the dial on his belt, shouting for his squad to open fire.
“Jesus,” yelled Ellison, and fired her T-Bone. The projectile rocketed past the onrushing vampire and hit the wall with a metallic crunch. Morton did nothing; Jamie could hear his panting breath over their comms link and knew he had frozen.
Jamie yanked the barrel of his T-Bone round to where the vampire should have been and pulled the trigger. The metal stake burst from the barrel, but disappeared away into the darkness. Jamie swore, reached up and shoved his visor out of the way. The darkness of the warehouse pressed in on him, and his vision filled with expanding dots of grey and black. With a loud whir and a heavy thud, the metal stake flew back into the barrel of his T-Bone and locked into place.
“Where is he?” yelled Ellison. “I’ve lost him.”
“Regroup,” shouted Jamie, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to clear them. “On me, now.”
The ghostly faces of his squad mates seemed to materialise as they pushed their own visors clear. They arrived beside him, their eyes wide, their skin pale.
“Where is he?” repeated Ellison, her voice low. “I can’t see him.”
“Quiet,” whispered Jamie. “Both of you.” He flicked his visor down and swore again; the blazing heat that had been emanating from Bingham had blown out his helmet’s sensors. His visor was clearing, but slowly, ever so slowly; he shoved it back out of the way and drew his torch from its loop on his belt. A wide beam of white light burst from the LED; he swept it quickly across the wide dark space of the warehouse.
Nothing moved.
Ellison and Morton turned on their torches and two more beams appeared; they swooped and crossed, illuminating small circles of the huge room. Jamie could hear both his squad mates, the fear in their breathing, the rapid in and out.
“Easy,” he whispered. “Take it easy.”
“Is he still here?” asked Morton. He swung his torch as he spoke, aiming it into the distant corners.
“I don’t know,” hissed Jamie. “I can’t see any better than you can.” He flicked down his visor, desperate for it to be clear, then pushed it back up. His torch picked out a flash of something that skittered away from the beam, a long pink tail trailing behind it. He circled slowly, trying to keep his torch steady, trying not to let his hand shake.
“What do we do?” whispered Ellison. “Sir? What do we—”
Jamie felt the air shift behind him, a millisecond before Eric Bingham thundered through the middle of his squad, sending the three of them crashing to the ground; he hit the concrete hard and saw the vampire disappear away into the darkness. He leapt back to his feet, ignoring the pain that was shooting through his shoulders, and shone his torch in the direction Bingham had flown, heart pounding in his chest, blood roaring in his head. He saw something move, tried to follow it with his beam of light, but lost it.
Ellison and Morton climbed to their feet and closed in around him.
“We’re sitting ducks,” hissed Morton. “He can see us, but we can’t see him. We need to pull back.”
“Calm down, Operator,” said Jamie. “Just find the target.”
“We need to pull back,” repeated Morton, his voice low and unsteady.
“You heard him, John,” said Ellison. “Let’s do our job.”
“I see you!” screamed Eric Bingham. His voice echoed round the warehouse, seeming to come from everywhere at once. “I see you very well!”
Jamie tried to ignore the adrenaline that was pulsing through him, to push away the terrible screeching voice of the vampire and focus on the task at hand. He took a long step in the direction he had seen Bingham disappear, controlling his breathing, letting the darkness flow over him, willing it to reveal its contents.
“We need to pull back,” said Morton again, but Jamie ignored him. He was waiting for the telltale shift in the air that meant the vampire was moving. He pulled the MP5 from his belt, pressed his torch against its barrel and stopped, listening to the silent warehouse, feeling the air on the skin of his face.
Movement.
Behind him.
Jamie spun on the balls of his feet, raising the MP5 and pulling its trigger as he turned. Fire licked from the barrel as deafening reports crashed through the enclosed space of the warehouse. His torch beam illuminated his squad mates as they threw themselves to the ground, then picked out something moving at head height, twisting and fluttering, trailing sprays of gleaming red blood behind it. He heard a guttural scream, then silence.
Morton was first to his feet, his eyes blazing, his torch beam blinding as he pointed it at Jamie’s face. “What the hell are you—”
Jamie reached out and knocked the torch aside. “Look,” he said, and shone his own light on to the warehouse floor, where splashes of crimson appeared in the beam. Jamie followed them towards a dark patch of the warehouse floor, the contents of which became horribly clear in the bright beam of the torch.
“Christ,” breathed Ellison.
Eric Bingham was lying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood, staring up at them with wide, frightened eyes. He was middle-aged, probably nearer to fifty than forty, and looked remarkably small on the wide expanse of concrete. His chest was a ruin of bullet holes and his right arm lay shattered at his side.
“Please,” he said, the words sending blood cascading down his chin. “I don’t know. I told them. Please.”
Beams from Morton’s and Ellison’s torches joined Jamie’s own, illuminating the sorry sight before them.
“I missed,” said Ellison. “When he charged us. I missed my shot.”
“So did I,” said Jamie. “It happened fast. It nearly always does.”
“Jamie—” began Morton.
“Don’t worry about it,” interrupted Jamie. “It’s done. Ellison?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Finish it.”
“Yes, sir,” repeated Ellison. She stepped forward, drawing her stake.
Bingham watched her with uncomprehending eyes. “Please,” he repeated. “I told them. I promise. Please.”
Ellison paused for a moment, beyond the reach of his one functioning arm. Then she darted forward and planted the stake in the vampire’s chest. There was a loud crunching noise, before Eric Bingham exploded in an eruption of flying blood. Ellison leapt backwards, avoiding the worst of the mess, and placed the stake back in its loop on her belt.
*
“That was all wrong,” said Morton.
The three Operators were back in their van, strapped in and ready to move on. Jamie had ordered the driver to wait while he requested an Operational update from the Surveillance Division, hoping that one of their remaining targets might have been identified since they had departed from the Loop. The connection had been established and he was waiting for any new information to be transmitted to them.
“What was?” asked Jamie. He had been staring at the touch screen, but something in his squad mate’s voice made him turn his head.
“That,” replied Morton. His face was pale, almost grey, and his eyes were glassy. “The vampire. Bingham. It… wasn’t right.”
“We did what we needed to do,” said Ellison. “Nothing went wrong.”
“I’m not saying it did,” said Morton.
“Why did it feel wrong?” asked Jamie.
“I’m a soldier,” said Morton. “Or at least I was. I’ve fought enemies in every corner of the world, but nothing like that. That wasn’t human.”
“It was,” said Jamie. “Don’t let yourself start to think otherwise. It was a human being with a disease, a disease that gave him unnatural power. It wasn’t a monster, or a demon, or anything like that.”
“It was all wrong,” repeated Morton. He stared at Jamie, who didn’t look away; he believed he knew what his squad mate was really saying.
He was scared. I think he’d forgotten what it feels like.
“I’m not a soldier,” said Ellison. “I never have been. But I’d be willing to bet I’ve killed more living things than the two of you put together. Was Bingham stronger and faster than them? Yes. Was he more frightening? Definitely. But he was still just a target, one that needed taking down. Think of it that way, John. Trust me, it helps.”
Jamie glanced over at Ellison, whose attention was fixed on her squad mate.
I got lucky here, he thought. With her. Very lucky.
On the control screen, a grey download bar was replaced by a window containing two lines of text. He glanced up and read them.
M-3/FIELD UPDATE RESPONSE
NO NEW INFORMATION AVAILABLE
Jamie returned his gaze to John Morton, and made a decision. “I’m pulling the rest of this operation,” he said. “We’re going back to the Loop.”
Ellison frowned. “We’ve got five and a half hours until our window closes, sir.”
“I understand that,” said Jamie. “But I’m not going after unidentified targets with a newly commissioned Operator who is having trouble. It isn’t safe.”
