Department 19: Zero Hour (54 page)

Twelve more hours,
he told himself.
That’s
n
othing. Not after two and a half years.

Julian took another sip of his coffee. He had ordered a sandwich from room service, and he examined the new radio he had bought as he waited for it to arrive. He had installed and charged the battery, and turned the handset on, watching the colour screen bloom into life. Now his fingers moved quickly across the keypad, tuning the handset to a frequency that he and his oldest, closest friend had agreed upon, when they had been younger and the world had seemed much less dark.

There was a crackle as the radio tuned, then silence. Julian had expected nothing else, but he still felt a momentary pang of disappointment as the reality of his exile was hammered home once again. The day had felt good, like he had made progress on a solvable problem; the silence made him wonder, not for the first time, whether there was any point in even trying to change his situation, or whether he should simply do as he had been ordered, and keep his head down.

Julian considered this as he drained his coffee, then raised the radio and broke the explicit promise he had made to Cal Holmwood.

“Come in, Victor,” he said. “Victor, do you copy? Come in.”

“I’m not crazy, right?” asked Van Orel. “Tell me you’re all seeing this too?”

“Yeah,” said Jamie, his voice low. “I see it.”

“Me too,” said Larissa.

“And you can see what it is?” asked Van Orel.

“Yes,” said Petrov. “It is a wall.”

After taking down their camp, the DARKWOODS squad had continued to pick their way through the trees, across streams and impassable deadfalls, heading deeper and deeper into the forest.

There had been little conversation. Arkady Petrov led them silently onwards, Larissa floating at his shoulder, Jamie bringing up the rear of the reduced column. In front of him, Engel and Van Orel carried the body of Tim Albertsson between them on a makeshift stretcher, wrapped in his sleeping bag. The death of the American had soured the atmosphere within the squad from professionally neutral to outright poisonous; the air was thick with suspicion and paranoia. It had also, as far as Jamie was concerned, brought out the worst in two of his squad mates.

The decapitation of their chain of command had revealed a hitherto unseen streak of panic in Kristian Van Orel. The South African’s relief at the election of Petrov as squad leader had been almost desperate, and had placated him momentarily. But now, as the forest swallowed them, he was muttering almost constantly to himself; from what Jamie overheard, he appeared to be saying goodbye to his family, an act of fatalism that worried him deeply. And Greta Engel’s palpable horror at the death of Albertsson had quickly evolved from concern over the treatment of his body into obvious suspicion of Larissa; she was glancing up at his girlfriend every few seconds, clearly unable to help herself.

It was making Jamie, who could see the entire squad from his position, increasingly nervous; he knew how sharp Larissa’s supernatural senses were, and there was no chance she was unaware of Engel’s scrutiny. If the German couldn’t at least manage to make her suspicions less obvious, a confrontation was simply inevitable; he was sure it was already taking a great deal of Larissa’s resolve to resist bringing the situation to a head right now. In the event of such a confrontation, he was not remotely concerned for the safety of his girlfriend; if a physical altercation took place between her and Engel, the result would not be in any doubt whatsoever.

That
was what scared him.

Jamie knew there was a struggle taking place inside Larissa, a struggle whose outcome was far from certain. Her vampire side was never far from the surface, and the situation that the squad found themselves in was almost tailor-made to bring it out; the isolation, the constant tension, the effect the forest was having on her senses, the tunnel and its strange control room. If she came to believe that she was genuinely being suspected of murder by at least one, maybe more, of her heavily armed squad mates, it would not be long until her vampire side asserted itself entirely; it was at its most persuasive, its most powerful, when she felt threatened.

It was also the reason why Jamie couldn’t be absolutely certain that she hadn’t killed Tim Albertsson.

He wanted to believe her, and he hated himself for not being entirely able to do so. But the facts as he saw them were straightforward: there had been something between Larissa and Albertsson, something she had never told him about, but which had made the American openly hostile towards him. For almost thirty-six hours, Jamie had thought about little else, which he acknowledged was an awful thing to admit during a Priority 1 operation. With painful thoroughness, his mind had worked its way through every possible scenario.

Had they kissed? Had they slept together? Had they had an affair in Nevada? Was it still going on?

If so, was that why Albertsson had selected him for the operation? To rub his nose in it, to flaunt how stupid, how naive they thought he was? In which case, it would make sense that Larissa wouldn’t want him to find out, and would be angry with Tim if she thought he was on the verge of giving the game away.

Would that have been enough to make her kill him?

It’s possible,
he told himself.
If he refused to stop, and she felt threatened, then it’s definitely possible. You know it is.

As if on cue, Larissa looked back at him from her position above the squad, and smiled. Jamie returned it as best he could until she turned away, then let the expression fade from his face. He had no idea what to do about the concerns wheeling through his head; all he could think to do was watch, and wait, and hope that if things went wrong, he could stop them before too much blood was spilled.

“I can see something!” shouted Larissa from overhead. “Up ahead. Something big.”

“What is it?” called Petrov.

The wall – the Russian was right, that was exactly what it was – curved away to the east and west. It was a seemingly endless row of trees, their towering trunks pressed against each other without the smallest gap between them, their tops mingling into the distant canopy. The squad stood at the vast wooden barrier’s base, staring up at it.

“There’s no way this is naturally occurring,” said Van Orel, his voice low. “Someone planted them like this.”

“How long would it take for them to grow so big?” asked Engel.

Petrov shook his head. “Many years,” he said. “Perhaps hundreds.”

Centuries,
thought Jamie, and shivered.
The patience required to do something like this, the sheer bloody-minded resolve. I can’t begin to imagine it.

Petrov looked up at Larissa. “Can you look for a way through?”

The vampire nodded, and flew rapidly away to the east, her supernaturally sharp eyes examining the wall closely.

“I don’t like it,” said Van Orel. “Looks like it’s meant to hold King bloody Kong.”

“Not necessarily,” said Jamie, his voice low. “If the whole wall curves like this section does, then it’s a circle. What if
he’s
inside, and the wall is to keep everyone else
out
?”

“That is good sense,” said Petrov. “Everything has been designed to keep people away. The dead animals, the traps, and I am certain the machines in the tunnel as well. Perhaps this is some final barrier.”

“It’s a bloody big one,” said Van Orel.

“He really doesn’t want to be found, does he?” said Engel. “I wonder why?”

“Why don’t we go and ask him?” said Larissa.

The whole squad jumped. Jamie felt his heart accelerate in his chest as he spun round to see his girlfriend hovering five metres away; her return had been absolutely silent.

“Jesus Christ!” shouted Van Orel. “What the hell are you playing at, sneaking up on us like that?”

Larissa rolled her eyes, the tiniest of smiles curling the corners of her mouth. “There’s an entrance,” she said. “Follow me.”

The squad followed the vampire round the base of the wall as she fluttered impatiently above them. Jamie stared up at the towering wooden barrier as they walked, his mind struggling to fully comprehend it. He understood the incredibly long lives that vampires were capable of living, objectively at least; he and Larissa had talked about it at length, and he believed he was sympathetic to the problems it caused even if, deep down, a part of him that his girlfriend hated could not quite get over the idea that it sounded brilliant. The wall was the hypothetical made physical; a structure that had taken an incredible amount of time to grow, and had been planned by someone who had known they would be around to see it complete. It was time measured not in hours and days and weeks, but in decades and centuries.

In generations.

“Here,” shouted Larissa, and swooped down to the ground. “Right here.”

The four Operators stopped and looked where she was pointing. At the point where two of the huge tree trunks met, a rectangular hole had been cut. It was barely wide enough for a human being, but its straight edges were clear evidence that it was deliberate. As was the fact that it would have been very hard to see without Larissa’s supernatural eyesight; shrubs and bushes blocked it almost entirely from view, no doubt by design.

“I saw at least two more of them,” said Larissa, her eyes glowing red with excitement. “This was the closest.”

“OK,” said Petrov, and drew his T-Bone. “We go through.”

Jamie’s heart was thudding in his chest like it was about to explode. Five pairs of eyes were fixed on the hole between the trees, on the entrance it clearly was. Five chests rose and fell, the sound of breathing the only noise in the silent, empty forest, until Petrov stepped forward, turned himself sideways, and slid through the opening.

For long seconds, there was only silence, pregnant with tension. Then the Russian’s voice echoed back to them through the hole; it sounded low and thick, as though it had suddenly been filled with emotion.

“It is OK.”

Larissa moved instantly; she let out a low growl, and disappeared through the entrance. Van Orel grinned, as though he had suddenly, belatedly become aware of how truly strange the situation they found themselves in was, and followed her. Jamie stood aside so that Engel could go next, then took a deep breath, and squeezed through the narrow opening.

Jamie’s first thought was that it reminded him of the Loop.

On the other side of the wall of trees was a vast circle of neatly tended grass, across which ran two stone paths that formed a cross at the middle. The forest canopy hung overhead, as thick and impenetrable as ever, but with a number of remarkable modifications. Square holes had been made in it at wide intervals, forming three long concentric rings; sunlight blazed down through them in neat shafts, hitting the ground on a beautiful arrangement of gardens and vegetable patches.

Beyond the shimmering edges of the light, the ground was covered with the same dull grass as the rest of the forest. But where the sunbeams touched down, great blooms of flowers sprang up, high and colourful, sending intoxicating scents into the air; roses, chrysanthemums, lilies, orchids, and countless others that Jamie didn’t recognise. To the left of where the squad were standing, rows of vegetables were bathed in sunlight, their green stalks lush and full.

“My God,” said Jamie, his eyes wide, his voice low. “This is incredible.”

Larissa appeared at his side, her mouth hanging open with apparent disbelief. “This is his place,” she said, softly. “He
made
this, Jamie. He built it so he could be safe outside, but things would still grow. Can you imagine even thinking of such an idea?”

Jamie shook his head.

No,
he thought.
I can’t. I just can’t. This is crazy.

“Building,” said Petrov, and pointed towards the centre of the circle. “Ready One. Carpenter, take point.”

Jamie nodded and drew his T-Bone, his eyes still fixed on the streaming beams of sunlight. It felt like being inside a cathedral, like being in the presence of something glorious; where the rest of the forest was full of gloomy darkness, this felt like a place of peace, of tranquillity. He led his squad mates across the grass and on to the nearest stone path; the contrast between the perpetual twilight and the pillars of light was blinding, but when he squinted he could make out an angular shape ahead of them.