LITMIR.BIZ

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faith in the van’s tracking and weapon systems meant that he was almost able to relax. But these were far from normal circumstances; he found himself concentrating on projecting calm to his new squad mates, even though his mind was still reeling at what had been done to Alex Jacobs and John Carlisle.

      He had tried several times to start a conversation with his rookies, but had received only one-word answers; he had eventually given up, leaving them to their thoughts. As a result, the atmosphere inside the van was tense, dangerously so for the early stages of an operation; his new squad mates were obviously wound too tight, but Jamie thought drawing attention to the fact was only likely to make it worse. Instead, he had lowered the van’s control screen and called up a map of eastern England, marked with two moving dots. The black dot was them as they accelerated south.

      The red dot was Eric Bingham, their target.

      He was still in Peterborough and appeared to have gone to ground in the hours since his escape from Broadmoor. He was moving, but within an exceedingly small range, and the Surveillance Division had pinned his location down to a warehouse on a long-derelict industrial estate on the edge of town, a warehouse that he had now not left for more than six hours. This was the first bit of genuinely good news that Jamie had heard all day; a disused warehouse meant no civilians, no potential hostages, and almost no risk of collateral damage. As squad leader, he had been given a clearance of five for the mission at hand, a concept that he would never, ever get used to.

       If we get the vampires on our list and no more than five innocent people die, then everything’s cool. That’s the equation. One of ours for every one of them. Maths, written in blood and human lives.

      The collateral damage allowance was one thing Jamie had felt no guilt about keeping from his rookies; he figured they had more than enough to worry about. Instead, he watched the screen, feeling an unsettling sensation of inevitability as they approached their target.

      An hour later their driver’s voice emerged from the intercom that linked the cab to the body of the vehicle.

      “We’re a mile out, sir. Do you want me to proceed?”

      “Roger that,” replied Jamie. “Go silent and get us one hundred metres out.”

      “Roger,” replied the driver.

      The rumble of the van’s engine died away, leaving silence behind. It sounded as though the vehicle’s power had been cut, but the lights and the screen remained bright, and it continued to move steadily forward.

      “Weapons prep,” said Jamie, looking at his squad mates. Calm appeared to have settled over them both, a state of being that he wanted to believe was genuine. Away from the Loop, in the real world with weapons to fire, a mission to carry out and a target to destroy, he was hopeful that Morton and Ellison had reverted to what they were: highly trained men and women who had been in situations where their lives were in danger dozens of times before. This was the moment of truth, where training and experience would hopefully overwhelm trepidation, where they would realise that they could do what was being asked of them.

      As one, Morton and Ellison began to clip their weapons and kit into place. Jamie did the same, keeping his gaze fixed on them; there were cold looks in both of their eyes that he liked. When the squad was fully equipped, he forced a smile.

      “This is it,” he said. “We stay calm, we do our job, and we go home. It’s as simple as that. Clear?”

      “Clear, sir,” they replied.

      Operational Squad M-3 ran across the cracked tarmac in a five-metre spread with Jamie in the middle.

      The van had pulled away as soon as their boots hit the ground; even in a place as desolate as this, the vehicle was likely to draw unwanted attention, so their driver would move it to a less visible location until he was called back to collect them.

      They were on their own.

      The industrial estate was as bleak and lifeless as the surface of the moon. The roads and pavements were strewn with litter, and empty offices, factories and warehouses stood dark and brooding on all sides. There was broken glass in several of the windows, but the buildings were not falling down; they simply looked abandoned. Jamie wondered what had brought about the exodus that had clearly taken place here; had the companies that had once inhabited these buildings gone out of business? Downsized? Sent their operations abroad? The place felt sad and pointless, built for a purpose that was now gone and would likely never return.

      Looming before the squad was the two-storey factory that was their destination; the sign on the approach to the building announced it as the home of MCM FROZEN FOODS. The front doors, through which workers had presumably once streamed in and out in the mornings and evenings, had been locked with a sturdy length of chain and a shiny steel padlock, both of which were now lying on the ground, bent and twisted. The doors themselves were standing slightly open as the three Operators reached them.

      “Christ,” breathed Morton. “Takes a lot of strength to do that.”

      “That’s right,” said Jamie. “It does. Stay calm.”

      “Not too subtle,” said Ellison. “Doesn’t look like he cares if he gets caught.”

      “I doubt he’s thinking that clearly,” said Jamie. “If he didn’t feed in time, the hunger has probably driven him mad. If he did, if he’s still himself, he has a long history of mental instability. I’m not expecting predictable behaviour from any of our targets, and you shouldn’t either.”

      “So what’s the plan?” asked Morton.

      “We find him,” said Jamie. “Which shouldn’t be hard. Thermal imaging will make him look like a firework. Then we destroy him.”

      “OK,” said Morton.

      “Good,” said Jamie. “Follow me.”

      He reached out, pushed open the doors, then slipped through, disappearing into the darkness. Morton and Ellison followed, their T-Bones drawn and resting steadily in their hands.

      The reception that had once welcomed visitors to MCM FROZEN FOODS was no longer welcoming. The desk was empty apart from a small cluster of wires that had been left behind, and the fluorescent lights on the ceiling above it were dark. To the right of the desk stood a single door that presumably led into the warehouse itself. It too was standing open.

      Jamie moved quietly across the reception and peered through the door. A cavernous black space stretched up and away from him. There was no movement, no sound of any kind. The warehouse, which would have once been piled from floor to ceiling with pallets of food awaiting despatch, appeared to be empty.

      “Thermals,” whispered Jamie. “He’s in there somewhere. Ready One.”

      The phrase was Blacklight code that authorised the use of weaponry. Morton and Ellison set their T-Bones against their shoulders, as Jamie drew his from his belt and led his squad into the warehouse. In an ideal world, it would not be him that ended Eric Bingham; it was vital that his new squad mates got used to destroying vampires as soon as possible. But this was far from an ideal world, and he was not prepared to take any chances, not after what he had seen in the Zero Hour Task Force briefing; if the opportunity to make the killing shot came his way, he would take it without hesitation.

      Jamie turned the dial on his belt that controlled his helmet’s visual modes and watched as the cold concrete walls and floor of the warehouse disappeared in a great wash of dark blue and black. An instant later he saw that he had told Morton the truth.

      Eric Bingham wasn’t hard to find.

      At the far end of the warehouse, a tight ball of bright yellow and orange was curled into the corner where the walls met the ceiling.

      “There,” said Ellison, the word appearing directly into his and Morton’s ears.

      “Got him,” confirmed Jamie. “Ellison, take point. Morton, next to me.”

      Ellison moved past him and walked slowly towards the vampire. Morton fell into

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