course I will,” he replied. “I will need two days to set my affairs in order, then I’ll return home like the dutiful lapdog.”
“Your affairs are trivia,” replied Valeri. “You are to accompany me tonight.”
“In which case, I would remind you of two things,” said Valentin, his smile still in place. “Firstly, that you are a guest in my home. And secondly, that I have not been afraid of you for more than five hundred years now.”
Valeri took half a step forward, a dangerous look on his face.
“Is that a fact, brother?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
“It is,” replied Valentin. “A fact that leaves you with two options. You can allow me to conclude my trivia as I see fit, after which I will return home, as I promised. Or you can try to remove me from this house by force, which will result in one of us explaining to your master why we have destroyed the other. So what’s it going to be, brother?”
8
THE BIG LEAGUES
Jamie swung his legs out from under his bedding and sat on the edge of his mattress, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.
He had headed straight to his quarters after leaving the detention level, his mind full of relief and his heart heavy with guilt. He always felt bad after seeing his mother; the sight of her in her cell was painful, and filled him with feelings of impotence. But his visits were the only things that she looked forward to, and he would not dream of denying her them. When Alexandru had taken her, he had feared, in his darkest moments, that he was never going to see her again, never going to get the chance to make it up to her, to make amends for being such a bad son. He was not going to fall back into his old pattern of complacency, of taking her for granted, even if the sight of her in her cell made his heart ache and his skin tingle with helpless anger.
She needs me. That’s all that matters. And I’m not going to let her down.
The electric clock on his bedside table read 8:55. Jamie hauled himself to his feet and raised his arms above his head, feeling the muscles creak and tremble as they stretched. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but thoughts of his mother refused to leave him. He grabbed his towel, walked to the shower block at the centre of Level B and climbed into one of the stalls, hoping that the relentless drumming of the water would empty his mind, giving him a few minutes of peace.
Dried and dressed, Jamie sat down at his desk and attempted to review the minutes of the first Zero Hour Task Force meeting. He read the dry, colourless text of the report from start to finish, but realised he was looking at the shapes of the letters rather than taking any sense from the words, and pushed the folder aside. He looked at his watch, and saw that it was time to make his way to the Ops Room.
The prospect filled him with little excitement; the pride he had felt when Admiral Seward summoned him to his office and told him that he was being appointed to the Department’s most highly classified Task Force had been short-lived. The Director had immediately made it clear to him that he was only being involved because of his first-hand experience with Alexandru Rusmanov, and that he would be largely expected to speak when he was spoken to. Seward had also warned him that his presence on the Task Force was likely to be unpopular with the more experienced Operators, and this had proven to be an understatement.
Jamie was the second person to arrive for the meeting.
Major Paul Turner glanced up at him as he stepped through the door, then returned his attention to a sheaf of papers splayed across the table before him. Jamie considered saying hello, then decided against it. The Security Officer, who had succeeded the late Thomas Morris in the post, had been among the small group of Operators who had arrived on Lindisfarne after Jamie had destroyed Alexandru Rusmanov. Although they had been too late to help, to prevent the loss of Frankenstein or the turning of his mother, Jamie would always be grateful that they had tried. The reason he held his tongue was very simple: Paul Turner scared the hell out of him.
There never seemed to be anything behind the Major’s eyes, no emotion, or empathy. Since Lindisfarne, Jamie had been astonished to learn that Turner was married to Caroline Seward, a union that made him Admiral Seward’s brother-in-law. They had a son called Shaun, who was himself a Blacklight Operator, and this Jamie found almost impossible to believe; Turner appeared to him more like a robot than a loving husband and a father.
I can’t picture him having dinner with his wife and asking her about her day, or taking his son aside and giving him advice, he thought. I just can’t see it.
Jamie took the seat opposite Turner, and silently waited for the rest of the Zero Hour Task Force to arrive. Less than a minute later the door to the Ops Room opened, and Operators began to file in and sit down.
Henry Seward took the seat at the head of the table, the Director of Department 19 nodding briefly in Jamie’s direction as he did so, then leaning over and engaging in conversation with Paul Turner at a volume too low for Jamie to hear.
Two Operators that Jamie had met for the first time at the previous meeting, men in their early thirties who represented the Science and Intelligence Divisions of Blacklight, walked through the door, deep in conversation, and sat down across from him. Neither so much as glanced in his direction; both had made it abundantly clear that they opposed his presence on the Task Force, and had clearly not changed their minds since the first meeting. Jamie was trying to make sure that the anger he could feel bubbling up in his chest didn’t show on his face, when the door opened again, and Jack Williams walked in.
Jamie smiled gratefully at the sight of his friend, who strode across the room and flopped down in the seat beside him.
“All right?” whispered Jack.
“All right,” replied Jamie. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going,” smiled Jack. “Yourself?”
“Fine,” replied Jamie, feeling his mood lift.
Jack Williams was a descendant of the founders of Blacklight, just like Jamie, and although he was eight years older and had been an Operator for almost four years, he had become one of Jamie’s closest friends in the Department. He was widely regarded as the finest young Operator in the Department and a man destined for great things, a viewpoint reinforced by his membership of the Zero Hour Task Force, but he also had an uncanny ability to make Jamie laugh, to make him feel like there could still be light in the middle of all the darkness that surrounded them.
Jack’s father was Robert Williams, a veteran Operator who had served Blacklight since the 1970s, and the grandson-in-law of Quincey Harker, the greatest legend of the Department, whose tenure as Director had transformed the organisation into the hi-tech, highly classified unit it was today. Jack’s younger brother Patrick was also an Operator, but where Jack was loud and confident, the life of the party and the biggest personality in any room, Patrick was quiet and appeared to be almost pathologically shy.
Jamie had spent a lot of time with the two brothers in the officers’ mess, and the differences between them were like night and day. What was even more striking, though, was the fierce love that so clearly existed between them, the loyalty that was utterly beyond question, to which Jamie, an only child, responded with deep admiration, and more than a little jealousy.
Jamie was about to tell Jack that he still appeared to be the unpopular kid in the room when the door opened for the final time, and the last two members of the Zero Hour Task Force arrived.
Colonel Cal Holmwood, Blacklight’s Deputy Director and one of its most senior and decorated Operators, was the man who had piloted the Mina II, the supersonic Department 19 jet, to Lindisfarne on the night that Frankenstein had been lost, dragged over the steep cliffs by a werewolf whose intention had been to kill Jamie. He had flown survivors back to the Loop after that terrible night was over, and now entered the Ops Room deep in conversation with the man who fascinated Jamie more than any other in the entire Department.
Professor Richard Talbot, the director