Department 19: Battle Lines by Will Hill

we speak. I am everywhere. I am
legion
.”
    “What are you talking about?” asked Seward, cold fingers working their way up his spine.
    Dracula shook his head. “You will find out soon enough,” he said.
    The servants scuttled back into the room, removing the plates and placing new cutlery before the vampire and his guest. Then they were gone, as a second team delivered new plates of food.
    Dracula lifted the silver lid from the plate before him and favoured Seward with a wide, contented smile.
    “As I thought,” he said. “Wood pigeon.
Bon appétit
.”

7
SINK OR SWIM
    “So where do we start?” asked Patrick Williams.
    “Intelligence is putting together probable location lists,” replied Holmwood. “We’ve had every available satellite working outwards from the hospital since early this morning, and we’ve tracked over a hundred heat blooms. They’re where we start.”
    “OK,” said Dominique Saint-Jacques. “Let’s get going.”
    Holmwood nodded. “I’m sending squads out with lists of five likely target locations. I’m authorising daylight operations, so destroy them before the sun goes down if you can. All usual containment protocols remain in place, and I want it made clear to all Operators that these targets are significantly more dangerous than the vampires they usually encounter. I’m putting in place a hard window of eight hours, after which you come home. I don’t care whether you’ve destroyed all five of your targets, or two of them, or none of them. Eight hours, then return to base. Having what’s left of this Department exhausted and careless is not an option. Clear?”
    “Clear, sir,” replied Dominique.
    “Excellent. I’m officially activating all Operational Squads that include rookies until this threat has been eliminated, then they go back to training. Look after them out there and bring them back safe. Clear?”
    “Yes, sir,” chorused the Zero Hour Task Force.
    “Good. Dismissed.”
    Jamie stepped out of the lift and strode along the central corridor of Level B.
    Search and destroy
, he thought.
Just like that. Search and destroy three hundred super-powerful vampires. No problem at all.
    He had left the Ops Room with his stomach churning uneasily. There was no doubt in his mind that the mass escapes of the previous night had been orchestrated by Dracula, or at the very least by Valeri, and that they had the potential to cause widespread carnage. There was a positive aspect to the move: such a large action, designed so clearly to occupy Department 19 and its counterparts around the world for a significant amount of time, strongly suggested that Dracula was not far in advance of their Zero Hour timeline, if at all. But that was going to be of little comfort to the men and women who were by now already heading out to hunt down the escapee vampires.
    Jamie pulled the console from his belt and typed as he walked.
    M-3/OP_EXT_L1/LIVEBRIEFING/BR4/ASAP
    He pressed SEND and knew that, far below him, in the circular confines of the Playground, the consoles belonging to John Morton and Lizzy Ellison would now be vibrating into life. He wondered how long it would take them to make their way up to Briefing Room 4 on Level 0, and guessed at ten minutes.
    It’ll probably take them five minutes to find the right room
, he thought, smiling to himself.
It used to for me.
    Jamie reached his quarters, pressed his ID against the keypad set into the wall, and pushed his door open when the red light turned green. He flopped down on his bed, grateful for a few minutes’ rest; given the situation that Cal Holmwood had described, he doubted there were going to be many similar opportunities in the next few days. Not that there ever really were; life inside Department 19 was physically and mentally exhausting, a result of the high stakes that were constantly in play. If Jamie and his colleagues failed to do their jobs well, people died; it was as simple as that. Every Operator understood this,