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 of the Lazarus Project, was remarkably tall and thin, like a giant stick insect wrapped in a spotless white lab coat. He was in his sixties, his face lined and weathered, his bald head perfectly round, flanked by two strips of grey hair that rested above his ears. The Professor was smiling gently at whatever Cal Holmwood was saying to him; then, as they made their way to opposite sides of the long table, he locked eyes with Jamie, smiling broadly at him. Jamie smiled back, involuntarily; the Professor made him feel something close to star-struck, even though they had only spoken to each other once, as the first meeting of the Zero Hour Task Force had come to its conclusion.
The Lazarus Project was an enigma, even within an organisation as secretive as Department 19.
It had only been officially mentioned once, during Admiral Seward’s speech about Dracula; its purpose was unknown, and its laboratories, located on Level F of the Loop, were off-limits to all but the tiny number of senior Operators who possessed the necessary clearance. The Project’s staff were rarely seen; their quarters were inside the security perimeter, and they made only occasional appearances in the dining hall or the mess. Nobody even knew how many of them there were. Doctors, scientists, administrative staff: all were hidden away behind an Iron Curtain of secrecy.
So when Professor Talbot had strolled into the inaugural Zero Hour meeting and introduced himself to the rest of the group, there had been a sudden sense of excitement in the room. Talbot was a mystery, whose work was classified far beyond Top Secret, yet the man himself was utterly disarming, friendly and charming to a fault. After the meeting ended, he had fallen into stride beside Jamie as they walked to the lift at the end of the Level 0 corridor.
“Mr Carpenter,” he said, his voice deep and warm. “I read the Lindisfarne report. I’m very sorry.”
Jamie looked up at him, completely thrown by the fact that this man
