Department 19: Battle Lines (71 page)

Larissa knew that was the truth and it made her furious with herself. She had started to wonder if there was something wrong with her, if she possessed some natural propensity for self-destruction. She wanted to take her friends back to Blacklight, where she knew they would be on her side, would defend her against the distrust and suspicion she still regularly encountered at the Loop, and now she wasn’t sure if she could.

All because of stupid, handsome, arrogant Tim Albertsson.

Even after Mexico and Las Vegas, she had still believed there was time to make the problem go away. There was still a month left on her secondment; plenty of time to talk to him, to make it absolutely clear to him that nothing was going to happen between them, and for him to come to terms with that before the six of them departed for Britain.

General Allen’s bombshell the previous evening had destroyed that hope; now there was no time, and the awkwardness and embarrassment that she felt was raw and powerful. She couldn’t take Tim to Blacklight, not like this, not with the memory of his kiss so fresh in her mind, the memory of how he had looked at her in the club in Las Vegas, the naked hunger on his face. How could she introduce him to Jamie, and Kate and Matt? She would spend every waking minute on edge, waiting for Tim to say the wrong thing, either by accident or on purpose, to tear apart the fragile bonds that held Jamie and her together.

It was far too great a risk.

But she had made him a promise and if she didn’t keep it, she knew full well that she couldn’t take the others. There would be too many questions, too much animosity left behind; Tim would never forgive her if she compounded her change of heart by taking all of his closest friends with her when she left.

How did I make such a mess of this?
she wondered.
How did I manage to let it all go wrong?

Larissa rose up off her bed, feeling heat spill into the corners of her eyes, drying away the tears that had been starting to gather there. She hung in the cool air of her quarters, took a deep breath, let it out, and looked down at the two pieces of paper.

On one sheet were the names she had anticipated handing to General Allen when the time came. On the other was a second list, men and women she knew would be good for Blacklight, but who were not her friends. Taking them with her would mean she had done her job, done it properly and well, but would also mean that a real chance to improve her life had been left behind in the Nevada desert. She stared at the two lists of names for a long time, until the clock ticked over to 6:58.

All right
, she thought.
All right then.

Larissa floated down to the ground and picked up one of the pieces of paper. For a second, she stood absolutely still, her eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the wall in front of her; then she opened her door and flew down the corridor towards the elevator without a backward glance.

“Are you sure about this, Larissa?” asked General Allen. He was sitting on one of the sofas in his quarters while she perched on the other, her hands twisting nervously in her lap. “These aren’t the names I was expecting.”

“Are they a problem, sir?” she asked.

Allen shook his head. “No problem,” he said. “They’re just surprising. No Tim, no Kelly or Kara? None of your friends?”

“No, sir,” said Larissa, trying to keep her voice as level as possible. “I was sent here to take six Operators back to Blacklight. Not to make friends, sir.”

“I understand that,” said Allen. He narrowed his eyes in obvious suspicion. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Larissa felt heat threatening to rise in her cheeks and willed herself to remain calm. “Nothing, sir,” she said. “These are the Operators I think will be the best fit for Blacklight.”

General Allen picked the sheet of paper up and read it again. “Captain Van Thal,” he said. “Operators Johnson, Schneider and Burgess. Trainees Gregg and O’Malley. They’re from the class you and Tim have been training?”

Larissa nodded. “They’re going to be good Operators, sir.”

“I’m sure they are,” said Allen. “James Van Thal I understand. He’s spent time at Blacklight before. Did you know that when you chose him?”

“No, sir,” said Larissa. “Although that’s certainly a bonus.”

“Johnson, Schneider and Burgess. Have you worked with them all? Be honest with me.”

“I’ve worked with them all,” said Larissa. “And I’ve gathered opinions from other members of the Department. Everyone rates them extremely highly.”

General Allen set the list down on the sofa beside him and fell silent. Larissa studied his tanned, weathered face and wondered what he was thinking. She supposed there was nothing preventing him from rejecting her list and insisting that she take a different group of Operators back to England with her, but she was certain he wouldn’t want to do so.

“I’m going to agree to this,” he said, eventually. “And I’m not going to make you tell me what’s really going on here, even though I know there’s more than you’re saying. I just want to make sure you know that if there
was
anything you wanted to tell me, it would stay between us. All right?”

Larissa’s throat tightened; the General’s voice was full of kindness and devoid of judgement. “I do know that, sir,” she said. “Thank you.”

“OK,” he said, getting up from the sofa and standing in front of her. “You’re cleared for departure at 10:00. I’ll give them their orders and have them meet you in the hangar at 09:30. I imagine most of them are going to be a little bit surprised.”

Larissa got to her feet. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “And thank you for making me so welcome here.”

General Allen smiled widely. “It’s been a genuine pleasure, Lieutenant Kinley. I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you too, sir,” she said. “I really am.”

*

Six hours later the
Mina II
sped smoothly east, its supersonic engines propelling it above the flat blue-grey expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Larissa sat strapped into one of the seats that ran along the walls of the aircraft’s hold, her heart pounding in her chest.

She had been unprepared for the range of emotions that had spilled through her as the sleek jet sprinted along the Area 51 runway and leapt gracefully into the bright Nevada sky. Sadness she had been expecting, and it was there in spades; what she had not anticipated were the potent blooms of grief and loneliness, and a sharp, acidic burst of something that felt horribly close to despair. For a single, panicked moment she had considered shouting for the pilot to turn the plane around, to take them back so she could change her mind.

But it was too late for that; the six Operators she had selected were sitting in the
Mina
’s hold, looking at her with expressions of mild curiosity that hadn’t changed since they had arrived in the NS9 hangar to report for a mission that none of them had been expecting to be a part of.

Captain James Van Thal was a tall, dark-skinned man in what Larissa guessed was his early forties. His head was shaved bald and his eyes were a beautiful pale brown. He had been a Recon Marine before being recruited into NS9; a stripe of pale pink rose up the back of his neck and on to his scalp, the result of a series of grafts to replace skin that had been burned away in the Iraqi desert more than a decade earlier.

He was soft-spoken and had been one of the first people to welcome Larissa to Dreamland, without making any mention whatsoever of the fact that she was a vampire; she had been impressed and grateful. Kelly and Danny had worked closely with him before he had been moved into the Intelligence Division, and both spoke of him in glowing, almost reverential terms. He had been born in Angola in the middle of the War of Independence, and his father had apparently died getting his infant son out of the country; Larissa’s friends said that Van Thal was happy to talk about it in general terms, but would not be drawn on any details. His aura around Dreamland was similar to Paul Turner’s around the Loop, although the two men could not have been more different; Van Thal was warm and friendly, unfailingly polite and gregarious.

Patrick Johnson and Mark Schneider looked so alike that they could easily have been mistaken for brothers, especially in their NS9 uniforms. The two men were in their early twenties, with closely cropped hair and the deep tans that came with being stationed in a desert where the daytime temperature regularly exceeded forty degrees. They were both former Navy SEALs and had both been leading Operational squads for several years; they were solid, experienced Operators, the kind of men that nobody at Blacklight would be surprised Larissa had brought with her.

Carrie Burgess was a tall, sharp-faced woman in her twenties with black hair and delicate features. She looked nothing like the CIA intelligence operative she had been before NS9, but had a reputation as one of NS9’s sharpest intelligence analysts, for calm, level-headed thinking and strategic excellence. Larissa had only worked with her directly once, and had found her somewhat bland, but she worked closely with Tim Albertsson and the rest of the NS9 Special Operator programme, which was enough for her; the SO programme only utilised the very best of the best.

Tom Gregg was barely out of his teens, short and powerful with jet-black skin and huge, nervous eyes. He had joined the Army straight out of high school, and quickly made an impression on his superiors with his determination and tenacity; he had already been marked out as a future member of the special forces, most likely Delta, by the time General Allen had swooped in and recruited him for NS9. He had performed well during the training that Larissa had helped Tim Albertsson oversee, taking his knocks with quiet persistence, always eager to learn and improve.

Laura O’Malley was slightly older than Gregg, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three. She was short and extremely pretty, her dark red hair as much a signifier of her Boston Irish roots as her surname, and had arrived at Dreamland from the NSA, the shadowy branch of the National Security apparatus, where much of what she had done was highly classified. Larissa was already looking forward to seeing her and Angela Darcy together; the two women’s careers had been remarkably similar, and she suspected they were either going to become good friends or bitter rivals.

Larissa looked round the cabin at the men and women she was taking to join the Department she loved and hated in equal measure. She was sure they would do well, and she was excited at the prospect of working with them, but there was something far more interesting than them on board the
Mina II
; something to which her attention kept returning, and was the reason her heart was still pounding in her chest after the visceral, physical shock of leaving Nevada had worn off.

At the rear of the hold, two Blacklight Operators, visors down and MP5s in their hands, stood in front of a thick plastic barrier that stood flush against the walls, ceiling and floor, creating a sealed space beyond it. On a bench at the back of this space, a black hood over his head, his hands cuffed behind his back, sat the man Lee Ashworth had told her about.

The prisoner had been escorted through the hangar barely five minutes before the
Mina II
taxied out on to the Dreamland runway, flanked by the same Operators who were now standing guard outside his cell. They were members of Paul Turner’s Security Division, and had spoken only to inform her that she and her NS9 recruits were forbidden from attempting to make any type of contact with the prisoner. It was infuriating to Larissa, who outranked them both, but she let it slide; Interim Director Holmwood had presumably made it clear to them that their orders superseded rank.

The prisoner himself had barely moved since the plastic barrier had been sealed, other than to occasionally stretch his legs and shift the pressure on his shoulders. His head was lowered almost to his chest, and Larissa couldn’t tell whether he was awake or asleep. She stared at the man, who had been the focus of so much gossip inside Dreamland, and felt her skin tingle with excitement and frustration; he was now less than five metres away from her and she still did not know who he was.

Once they were back at the Loop, she had every intention of telling the Interim Director how much she knew and asking him outright who the prisoner was, a man important enough to have his identity protected not only by the hood on his head but by the two armed Operators guarding him. Far from being sated, her curiosity about the prisoner was hungrier than it had ever been.

“Three minutes,” said the pilot, his voice emerging from speakers set into the walls.

Larissa’s heart leapt in her chest as she pulled the safety harness round her shoulders and waist. Three minutes and she would be back at the Loop. And while the prospect of returning to Blacklight did not fill her with unequivocal joy, there were three reasons she was suddenly trembling with excitement.

Kate. Matt.

Jamie.

*

The
Mina II
slid down on to the Loop’s runway with a low, rattling thud and a momentary screech of tyres.

Larissa unbuckled her harness as the pilot applied the brakes and steered the sleek supersonic jet towards the hangar; she flew easily through the air and floated beside the door-release handle, waiting for the light on its control panel to turn green. The deafening roar of the engines was diminishing, and behind her she could hear her recruits unfastening themselves, getting to their feet, and pulling their bags out from under their seats. She ignored them; her eyes remained fixed on the small glowing red circle. With a final shuddering lurch, the
Mina II
came to a halt, its engines letting out a long, low whine as the red light in front of Larissa turned green. She flipped open the plastic case that covered the panel, raised the safety handle, and pressed the flat yellow button.

There was an instant rumble of machinery as the ramp at the front of the aircraft began to slowly lower to the ground, letting a gust of cool evening air into the stuffy hold. Larissa breathed it in, relishing the smells of the Loop: petrol, grass, grease, sweat. The ramp thudded down on to the tarmac of the landing area and she swooped out through the open doorway, her supernaturally enhanced eyes searching the familiar landscape for familiar faces.