Department 19: Battle Lines (31 page)

Green
.

“Do you believe that makes you better than the rest of this Department?”

“Of course not,” said Jamie, his face like thunder.

Green
.

“Are you proud to be a descendant?”

“Yes. I am.”

Green
.

“Why?”

“Kate,” said Jamie, looking over at her. “Is this really—”

“Lieutenant Carpenter,” said Paul Turner, his voice low. “I’d ask you to direct your attention to me when I’m talking to you. And I’d like you to answer my question, please.”

Jamie stared at the Security Officer, his expression unreadable. “Fine,” he said, eventually. “What was the question?”

“Why are you proud to be a descendant of the founders, Lieutenant Carpenter?”

“Because I’m proud of the men my ancestors were,” said Jamie. “I’m proud of the things they did. They make me feel like I’m part of something special.”

Green
.

“It makes you feel special?” asked Turner.

“That’s not what I said.”

Green
.

“I heard what you said, Lieutenant. Does it make you feel special?”

“No.”

Green
.

“Do you blame yourself for the condition that Colonel Frankenstein now suffers from?”

“Yes.”

Green
.

“Explain.”

“Because if I had trusted him before I went to Lindisfarne, he wouldn’t have been attacked by the werewolf.”

Green
.

“You can’t know that for certain,” said the Security Officer. “Don’t you consider it egotistical to believe that everything happens because of you?”

“I don’t think that everything happens because of me.”

Green
.

“Do you wish your mother wasn’t a vampire?”

A long, heavy silence filled the room, as Jamie stared at Paul Turner with open, blazing fury.

“Of course I do,” he said, the words emerging from his mouth like pulled teeth.

Green
.

“Do you wish that Colonel Frankenstein wasn’t a lycanthrope?”

“Yes.”

Green
.

“Do you love your mother?”

“Paul,” said Kate, sharply. “Stop this.” Her face was pale, her eyes wide, but Turner didn’t so much as glance in her direction.

“Do you love your mother, Lieutenant Carpenter?”

“Yes,” said Jamie, his voice laced with venom. “I do. Very much.”

Green
.

“You would do anything to return her to normal, correct?”

“No.”

Green
.

“You wouldn’t?”

“No,” repeated Jamie.

Green
.

“Why not? You just told me you love her. Very much, in fact.”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” snarled Jamie. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you? But you’re wrong. I love my mother more than anyone else alive, and I wish every day that what happened to Colonel Frankenstein hadn’t. But I still wouldn’t betray the Department for them, no matter what anyone offered me.”

Green
.

“Why not, Lieutenant Carpenter?”

“Because neither of them would want me to.”

Green
.

“Is that the only reason?”

“No.”

Green
.

“Why else?”

“Because I’m not a traitor, Major Turner. It’s as simple as that.”

Green
.

For several seconds, it seemed as though everyone in the interview room was holding their breath; the air felt poisonous, thick and heavy with tension. When it felt as though the pressure had reached the point where it must surely explode, Paul Turner spoke.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Carpenter,” he said, calmly. “That will be all.”

Jamie stared at the Security Officer, then slowly turned his head to look at Kate. She could feel her face burning with embarrassment and anger, and found that she couldn’t meet his pale blue gaze; she dropped her eyes to the table, ashamed.

“All right then,” said Jamie, slowly. “Thank you.”

Paul Turner got up and unlocked the interview room door. The Intelligence Division Operators reappeared; they began to disconnect Jamie from the monitoring equipment as Turner held the door open, waiting for Kate. She climbed slowly to her feet and exited the room, taking great care not to make eye contact with Jamie as she did so. The Security Officer stepped past her, held open the door to the ISAT lounge, then followed her inside.

“He’s clean,” said Turner, as soon as the door was closed behind them. “Who’s next?” His tone – businesslike, almost casual – was utterly maddening.

“What was that?” Kate asked.

Turner frowned. “What was what?”

“You know what,” she said, her voice rising. “
That
. All that stuff about his mother and Frankenstein. Why the hell did you bring all that up?”

Turner looked at her, and seemed to suddenly notice just how angry she was. His eyes widened and his expression softened.

“It wasn’t anything personal, Kate,” he said. “I know Lieutenant Carpenter and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I have no secret desire to torment him, I promise you. I know he doesn’t believe that, but it’s the truth.”

The Security Officer poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the desk, then poured a second and handed it to Kate. She took it without a word and waited for him to continue.

“ISAT isn’t only about finding out what people might have done in the past,” he said, lowering himself on to the sofa and sipping his coffee. “It’s also about the future. Part of the purpose of this project is to assess whether any Operator presents a potential security risk, and the questions I asked Jamie were with that purpose in mind. I don’t believe for a second that he is, was, or is ever likely to be a traitor. I never doubted he would pass his interview, and I’m glad he did. But his circumstances present possible opportunities for leverage and I had to investigate them. Tom Morris betrayed us because Alexandru was able to offer him something that was more important to him than Blacklight. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t actually deliver it. There are things that our enemies could offer Jamie that he might want, possibly desperately, and I needed to make it clear that we know what they are.”

“I get it, sir,” said Kate. “But that doesn’t mean I like it.”

“I don’t either,” said Turner. “I warned you they would hate us for this, Kate. Did you think I was joking?”

“No,” she sighed. “I knew you weren’t.”

Turner looked closely at her. “We’ve got three more interviews before lunch,” he said. “Then eight more this afternoon. Once they’re done, I want you to take the evening off. And I mean
off
, you understand? Go to the mess, go for a run, go and get some sleep. Go and do anything you want, as long as it has nothing to do with all this. Now go and get your head straight; we start the next one in twenty minutes.”

Kate nodded and headed straight for the door. She was intending to head up to Level 0 and grab a few lungfuls of fresh air, perhaps even stretch her legs for a minute or two, so she let out an audible groan when the receptionist called her name as she laid her hand on the handle of the security door.

“Yes?” she said, turning back.

“Someone’s asking to see you,” said the Operator behind the desk, an apologetic look on his face. “I told her you were busy, but she wanted to wait. I’m sorry, Kate.”

“It’s OK,” she said, and forced a smile. “I’ll see her. I need a break anyway.”

On the level below, a dark figure crouched in the centre of room 261.

On the floor sat a plastic tub filled with a precise mixture of diesel and farm fertiliser, a combination familiar to terrorist groups throughout the world. Hanging from a metal tripod were the explosive charges of half a dozen hand grenades, carefully spaced and resting in the clear liquid. Wires ran from them to a simple trigger: a piece of copper on a hinge that would close an electrical circuit and allow current to pass into, and fire, the charges. The trigger was attached to a radio receiver; when it detected a particular aural input, it would wait three seconds, before closing the circuit.

The dark figure armed the device and turned on the receiver. Then it slipped silently out of the room and disappeared along the corridor.

Ninety minutes later the lift doors at one end of Level B slid open.

The corridor in front of her was long and curved, and it took several minutes to reach the door. She unlocked the door, then paused for a second, considering, not for the first time, what a strange series of turns her life had taken in the last few months.

She pushed the door inwards. Blinding white light filled her eyes, a tidal wave of heat and noise threw her backwards across the corridor, and everything went dark.

“Larissa.”

The voice was distant, floating towards her from somewhere in the emptiness. She tasted copper as she drifted back into herself, felt solid ground beneath her, and forced her eyes to open. A dark shape filled her vision, before gradually coming into focus. It was Tim Albertsson; he was looking down at her with worry on his face.

“Tim?” she managed.

“You’re OK,” he said, relief rippling across his features. “You’re fine, don’t worry. It’s OK.”

Behind him, Larissa saw the rest of the Special Operations Squad. They were gathered round their squad leader, staring down at her. She pushed herself up on to her elbows and looked slowly around. She was lying on the warm grass of the walled garden, the night sky hanging low above her; she smelt the thick, coppery scent of blood, and then everything came back to her.

The cutters. Rejon. The shotgun.

Her eyes widened, and panic rose through her as she looked down at herself. Her uniform was shredded, blown open by the shotgun’s heavy shell. But beneath the torn fabric was only the skin of her stomach, flat and white. She touched it hesitantly with one pale hand, feeling its firm surface beneath her fingers.

“What happened?” she asked. She felt as though she might cry with relief.

“You passed out,” said Tim, smiling at her. “There was a hole right through you, Larissa. I’ve never… none of us has ever seen anything like it. We could
see through you
.”

“Lovely,” said Larissa, softly.

“Thankfully, Rejon had a fridge full of blood in his bar,” said Tim, holding up two empty plastic bottles. “I tipped them into your mouth. You were unconscious, but you managed to swallow it. Automatic, I guess. And then…”

“The hole just closed up,” said Flaherty, her eyes wide with wonder. “Everything grew back, all the bones and the organs and the muscle, then new skin, and it was suddenly like nothing had ever happened.”

“Yeah,” said Larissa. “It does that.”

“That shot should have killed you,” said Tim.

“But it didn’t,” said Larissa, pushing herself up on to slightly unsteady legs and smiling at her squad mates. “Believe it or not, I’ve had worse.” She was remembering the sensation of being burned alive by the ultraviolet bombs that had risen out of the grounds of the Loop when Valeri Rusmanov’s attack had seemed on the verge of success.

“Christ,” said Rushton. He was looking at her with an expression that she thought was weirdly close to adoration. “I would
not
want to see what that looks like.”

Larissa’s smile widened. “It wasn’t pretty.”

Tim grinned, as the rest of the squad seemed to visibly relax before her eyes; their concern for her now allayed, they could belatedly enjoy the success of their mission.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Tim. “Flaherty, take Rushton and Rios back downstairs and clean up. I want no trace that we were ever here. Then go up the way we came and relieve Frost. Rendezvous in the lobby in four minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” said Flaherty, and led Rushton and Rios back down through General Rejon’s improvised escape hole. The second they were gone, Tim stepped forward, took Larissa’s face in his gloved hands, and kissed her.

For a long moment, she was too shocked to respond; his lips mashed furiously against her own, and she felt heat begin to creep into the corners of her eyes once more. Then clarity rushed through her and she pushed him away, harder than was necessary. He stumbled backwards, but quickly righted himself and looked at her, his cheeks flushed a deep pink.

“Don’t do that,” she warned, her voice low.

“I’m sorry,” he replied, staring hungrily at her. His breath was short and his eyes gleamed. “Actually, I’m not. Not in the slightest.”

“Well, you should be,” said Larissa. “Don’t do it again, Tim.”

“All right,” he said, but didn’t drop his gaze. The intensity of his stare caused a flickering warmth to bloom in her stomach, which she instantly extinguished.

Jesus Christ. What the hell are you thinking?

“Is this going to be a problem?” she asked, as calmly as she was able.

“Not for me,” replied Tim. “I can’t speak for you.”

You arrogant prick.

“Good,” she said, fighting to keep her temper. “In which case, it’s probably time to head home.”

“Let’s do that,” replied Tim, smiling broadly at her.

Kevin McKenna was in a foul mood as he made his way down to the garage beneath
The
Globe
’s offices.

His day had started with the police at his door, warning him that an escaped prisoner might try to contact him, and ended with his editor calling him into his office just after five o’clock, a classic end-of-the-day ambush that he had seen coming a mile away, and telling him that while his general reportage was as bitchy and lowbrow as ever, two adjectives that Colin Burton meant as compliments, both the investigative pieces he had turned in the day before were unacceptable. McKenna had asked why, although he already knew the answer.

“Because you’re not hot shit any more, Kev,” said Colin. “I know you were once, and I know you wish you still were, but you’re not. You don’t work for
The Gutter
, you work for me. And my readers don’t give a damn about any of this bollocks.” He picked up one of the pieces, entitled DIY ART INVADES MOSCOW, and waved it in McKenna’s face. “Celebrities, tits, gossip, crime, football. They’re our bread and butter. Got it?”