Department 19: Battle Lines (70 page)

“I will not calm down!” shouted Jack, making everyone jump. “My squad were put in charge of destroying Albert Harker! Cal gave
me
the responsibility and… and…” He sighed deeply, the fire going out of him as quickly as it had flared up. “Just tell me what happened, Kate.”

“Harker’s dead,” she said, pointing at the wide pool of blood. “Matt destroyed him.”

“Matt did?” asked Jack, turning to face him.

“I suppose so,” he replied. “He’s dead, in any case.”

“McKenna?”

“Dead,” said Frankenstein. “That’s his blood in reception. Harker killed him.”

“OK,” said Jack. “Harker’s dead, McKenna’s dead. Anyone else?”

“The security guard who was manning reception,” said Frankenstein. “Three employees.”

“At least you three are alive,” said Jack. “Who are these two?” He pointed at the two men standing beside Kate and Matt.

“Pete Randall,” said Kate’s father, stepping forward. “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” said Jack, incredulous. “What the hell are you doing here, Mr Randall?”

“I thought I was helping Kevin McKenna expose vampires to the public,” said Pete. “I didn’t realise this was about Albert Harker’s revenge until it was too late.”

“
We
were helping him,” said Greg Browning, stepping forward. “We both were.”

“I’m assuming you’re Matt’s dad?” said Jack.

“Greg Browning. That’s right.”

“Of course,” said Jack, feeling the absurd urge to laugh rising through him. “Of course you are. Great. Is there anyone else here? Anyone else who was involved in this complete and utter shambles?”

“No,” said Pete. “Me and Greg, and McKenna, and Harker. These men had nothing to do with it.” He pointed at the five men in the blue overalls, who were watching the conversation with complete confusion on their faces.

“OK,” said Jack. “I’ll have a Security Division team sent here to explain the situation to them. No harm done.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Pete. “Not exactly.” He walked across to the conveyor belt, picked up one of the vandalised copies of
The Globe
, and passed it to Jack; he frowned, read the front page, and felt his heart stop in his chest.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, and held it up for everyone to see. “What the hell did you do?”

“It wasn’t them,” said Frankenstein. “It was Albert Harker.”

“No,” said Pete Randall. “We knew what we were doing. Nobody twisted our arms.”

“Jesus Christ,” repeated Jack. “I can’t believe this. Are you telling me these are out there?”

Pete nodded.

“How many?” he asked, his voice rising. “How many copies have left this building?”

Pete looked over at the printing press workers. One of them shuffled forward, a nervous look on his face.

“Hundred thousand,” he said. “Give or take.”

“When did the first lorry leave?” asked Jack.

“About an hour ago.”

“Where was it going?”

The man in the blue overalls shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” said Jack. “Don’t you have shipping records? Schedules?”

“Normally,” replied the man. “Normally, there are eight of us, not five. And normally, there isn’t a bloody monster flying around threatening to kill us.”

“Goddammit,” said Jack. “Are you telling me there’s no way you can find out where the lorries you loaded are going?”

“I’m sorry,” said the man.

“There’s something else you need to see, Jack,” said Frankenstein.

Jack looked at the monster. “What is it?”

“Come with me,” said Frankenstein. “It’s in the editorial department. I’ll show you.” He cast a sharp glance at Matt Browning, who nodded; he knew exactly what the monster was doing.

He’s buying us time. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to our dads, so he’s buying us some time.

“Jesus,” sighed Jack. “All right. Darcy, McLean, secure the perimeter. Any new lorries turn up, stop them and hold them. Nothing else leaves this building unless I say so. Randall, Browning, you and your fathers wait here. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said Kate.

Matt nodded, and waited as Operational Squad F-7 dispersed across the loading bay and Frankenstein led Jack Williams away between the silent machines. When they were gone, he turned to face his dad, anger bubbling up through him; he was intending to ask his dad exactly what the hell he thought he had been doing, if he understood quite how much damage he had done by helping to print the newspapers that were piled behind him, but the outrage died in his throat when he saw the look on his father’s face.

Greg Browning was looking at him with an expression of utter fury.

“You left us,” he said, his lower lip trembling. “Your mother, and your sister, and me. You left us and you didn’t say a bloody thing. We thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry,” said Matt, a lump leaping into his throat. “I really am, Dad. But I had to. I had a chance to do something important, and it was something I couldn’t tell you about.”

“I don’t understand,” said Greg. “You’re one of them? One of the people that took you away?”

Matt nodded. “I’m really more of a scientist, but yes. I work for them.”

“Who are they?”

“I can’t tell you that, Dad. You already know too much.”

“You couldn’t tell us what you were doing?” Greg’s voice was rising, reaching a volume and pitch that were very familiar to Matt. “You couldn’t even say goodbye to your mother?”

“I’m sorry,” said Matt. “There’s nothing else I can say.”

“Mr Browning,” said Kate. “Matt never meant to hurt you or his mother. I can promise you that.”

“How do you know what he meant to do?” asked Greg, turning on her. “You let your dad think you were dead. What do you know about compassion?”

“I did what?” asked Kate, her voice catching in her throat.

“You let me think you were dead,” said Pete Randall. His voice was little more than a whisper. “They told me you were dead, Kate. I almost believed them.”

Guilt so sharp it was physically painful spilled through her.

They told him I was dead? They promised me they would never tell him that.

She thought back to the conversation that had taken place on the morning she had agreed to join Blacklight; her only condition, the one thing she had asked for, on which she was completely immovable, had been that they let her father know that she was all right, that she was safe.

A pillar of cold fury rose inside her.

Major Gonzalez said they would tell him I was OK. He told me that to my face. He said they would wait a few weeks until things died down, then they would tell him that I was doing something secret, but that I was OK.

She suddenly understood why her father was here, why he had ended up in the company of a monster like Albert Harker, and the realisation threatened to overwhelm her. He had not spent the last few months quietly proud of a daughter who was doing something important and secret; he had spent the last few months wondering whether his only daughter was dead or alive.

He must have felt like he had nothing left to lose.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she managed. “I never wanted you to think that. I didn’t know that’s what you had been told.”

“And that’s supposed to make it all right?” asked Pete. “You left me without even saying goodbye and I’m supposed to be OK with that?”

“She really didn’t know,” said Matt, his stomach churning; this painful mixture of guilt and recrimination was not how being reunited with their fathers was supposed to be. “I know what she was told.”

“I don’t care what she was told,” shouted Pete, and Matt flinched. “I’ve been on my own in an empty house on a dying island, wondering what happened to you, for three months.
Three months
. How could you do that to me, Kate? After what happened to your mother?”

Kate’s eyes widened in shock. “Don’t bring her into this,” she said. “It’s not my fault she died, Dad. You can’t blame me for that.”

Pete sagged, visibly. “I’m not,” he said, softly. “And I don’t. Never think that, not even for a moment. But I’ve
missed
you, Kate. I’ve missed you so much.”

Kate took her father’s hands and met his gaze with her own. “I’ve missed you too, Dad,” she said. “I never wanted what I did to hurt you, although I suppose I knew it would. But it was an opportunity to
do something
, Dad, maybe the only one I was ever going to get. This was my chance.”

“I would never have stopped you,” said Pete. “I’ve known since you were five that I was going to have to say goodbye to you one day. Lindisfarne was never going to be big enough for you, and that’s fine, that’s great. I wanted you to go out and make a life of your own, and your mum dying didn’t change that.”

“It did for me,” said Kate, her voice shaking. “I could never have packed a case and said goodbye and left you in that house on your own. I could never have done it.”

“So you let me think you were dead? You thought that was kinder?”

“I didn’t know that’s what you were told!” shouted Kate. “I’ve told you that!”

There was a long moment of silence, deep and pregnant with tension. Father and daughter stared at each other, their chests rising and falling, the heat high and clear in their faces. Eventually, it was Pete who dropped his eyes first.

“So what is it you do?” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “For these people you work for?”

“I can’t—”

“You can’t tell me,” said Pete. “Right.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you kill vampires?”

“Dad,” said Kate, helplessly. “You know I can’t—”

Pete shook his head, then lowered it, as though he was deep in thought. “Is it right?” he asked, eventually. “What you do now. Is it right?”

“It’s necessary,” replied Kate.

“All right,” said Pete. “All right then.” He drew his daughter to him and threw his arms round her. Matt watched, relief spreading through him, before turning back to his dad.

“Your mother is going to be so happy,” said Greg. “She… well. She’s going to be very happy.”

“How is she, Dad?” he asked. “How’s Laura? I miss you all.”

“They’re OK,” said Greg, his voice suddenly unsteady. “As far as I know, they’re all fine. She’s going to be so happy when she hears you’re all right.”

As far as you know?
wondered Matt.
Why don’t you know for certain?

The answer hit him like a bucket of cold water.

She left him. After I went, she took Laura and she left him. Has he been on his own all this time?

Then he realised what his father had said, and his heart sank.

“You can’t tell Mum about me, Dad,” he said. “If they let you go, you can’t tell anyone about any of this.”

“What do you mean,
if
they let me go?”

“What did you think was going to happen to you if you got caught, Dad? You were just going to get a slap on the wrist and be sent home on the next train? This is classified government business, Dad, more highly classified than you can imagine.” He was suddenly furious with his father for being so stupid, for having got himself mixed up in this bloody mess. “Why are you even here, Dad? What the hell were you doing with someone like Albert Harker?”

It was Pete Randall who answered; Matt’s father looked so shocked he was incapable of speaking.

“We didn’t know what he was,” he said, letting go of his daughter. “We thought we were helping Kevin McKenna do something good, helping him warn the public about vampires. We didn’t know this was what Harker really had in mind.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” said Matt. “I’m sure you were doing what you thought was right. But you were wrong. It won’t help the public to know about this stuff. It won’t do any good.”

“We just wanted to do something,” said Greg Browning, finding his voice. “We didn’t want anyone else to go through the same thing as us. I lost my family and they told Pete he’d lost his. All because of vampires and the goddamn men in black. So what were we supposed to do?”

Kate looked over at Matt; he met her gaze, but said nothing.

He had no answer to his father’s question.

Larissa floated above her bed, her hands laced behind her head, and checked the clock on her bedside table for perhaps the hundredth time in the last hour.

6:42.

Eighteen minutes until General Allen is expecting me to give him my decision. And I still don’t know what I’m going to tell him.

On her desk were two pieces of paper, representing two very different futures; she stared at them from across her quarters, and felt her stomach churn with uncertainty.

She had slept, although for a long time after leaving the NS9 Director’s quarters she had not thought she was going to be able to, but when it came, it had been fitful and full of bad dreams. When she had woken up to see the clock telling her it was just after 5am, she had given up and headed for the showers. The pounding water had done nothing to clear her head, however; she had been no closer to a decision when she returned to her room than she had been when she lay down on her bed seven hours earlier, to consider a decision she had long thought would be easy.

Within a week of her arrival in Nevada, Larissa had been pretty sure who she was going to take back to Blacklight with her. Tim had asked her as soon as they began to work together and through him she had met four of the remaining five, the four Operators with whom she had become close: Kara, Kelly, Danny and Aaron. Her participation in the attack on General Rejon’s compound had left her spoilt for choice as far as the sixth place was concerned, but she had taken an instant liking to Anna Frost, the quiet, elegant Canadian Operator who reminded her so much of Kate Randall.

And that should have been it. Six names, six men and women who would all be assets to Blacklight, and who she would be delighted to have in the Loop with her; the right choices, for herself and her Department.

Until Tim Albertsson ruined it.

That isn’t fair
, she told herself.
You both ruined it. You liked the attention and you misread the situation. It’s your fault too.