The mobilization of the Department 19 strike team was a sight unlike anything Jamie had ever seen. The hangar on Level 0 was a hive of activity; Operators in black uniform and purple visors filled the wide floor, clustered into tight circles as officers, Frankenstein and Morris among them, briefed them on the mission ahead. The hum of voices and the click of weapons being checked was deafening in the silent night air, but Jamie barely heard it; his attention was trained on the large structures that loomed in the darkness on the other side of the runway.
The doors of two of the buildings were slowly rolling open, spilling bright white light across the tarmac, illuminating the white markings that led to the runway. Two enormous black shapes were slowly being revealed, and Jamie watched, fascinated.
Inside the hangars stood a pair of black helicopters, their fuselages hanging bloated and swollen beneath twin sets of rotors. They were so tall and wide that Jamie could not believe they were capable of flight; their cockpits sat tiny above their bellies, which were the size of a suburban house. Behind him, he could hear the voices of Frankenstein and Morris giving orders to their men, but he paid no attention. It had been made clear to him that he was not going to be allowed to be involved in the mission, that his role was to be purely that of an observer, and so he saw no reason to bother with the briefings and the mission priority checklists. Instead he stood alone in the huge arc of the main hangar’s open door and watched.
With two earth-rattling explosions of sound, the engines of the helicopters growled into life. Jamie felt the vibrations shudder through him, even though he was the length of a football field away from the towering vehicles. Lights blinked on in the cockpits, and Jamie could see the pilots, impossibly small, running through their pre-flight checks. Then there were two heavy screeches of rubber, and the helicopters began to move toward him, rolling slowly over the tarmac under the power of their diesel engines, toward the strike team that would soon occupy them.
As they crossed the runway and emerged into the bright light of the open main hangar, Jamie gasped. The scale of the vehicles was vast; they towered above him, at least two stories tall and as wide as a 747. They looked as though someone had taken the cockpit, wings, landing gear, and rotor assemblies from a normal-size helicopter and then glued them onto a huge steel box.
They can’t fly. Surely they can’t. They’re too big. Then a new thought occurred to him. What the hell goes in there? Sixty men won’t fill half of one of them.
Behind him in the main hangar, the Blacklight officers shouted at their men to form up. Jamie turned and watched the squads line up into four neat lines, evenly spaced, facing out toward the waiting helicopters. Light blasted out of the bellies of the helicopters, and his shadow raced away in front of him, reaching the feet of the motionless soldiers.
“Jamie!” shouted Frankenstein. “Get out of the way! Next to me!”
Covering his eyes with his forearm, Jamie squinted up at the huge transports. The near sides of both vehicles had lowered, meeting the tarmac as wide ramps. Inside, beyond the blinding white lights, he could see hulking shapes at the top of each ramp, then he was grabbed by the arm and pulled to the side as the squads of Blacklight operators marched forward and upward, disappearing into the cavernous interiors.
Frankenstein loomed over him.
“Are you going to make this difficult?” he asked, leaning down so his eyes were level with the teenager’s. “Or are you going to stay out of the way and let us do our job? Tell me now, so I know.”
Jamie stared up at him. Frankenstein was looking at him with no compassion, no pity; he was all business.
OK. Have it your way. If it brings my mom home, have it your way.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” he answered. “I won’t get in the way.”
Frankenstein smiled at him. “Thank you,” he replied.
They ran out to the nearest helicopter, crouching low beneath the screaming rotors. They climbed the ramp and headed to the right, where two of the Blacklight squads were sitting, in eight rows of heavy-duty flight seats. Frankenstein and Jamie sat down alongside them and strapped themselves in. Jamie looked around the enormous interior of the helicopter, his eyes widening.
In front of him were two jet-black armored vehicles, huge and heavy-looking, with two enormous wheels on each side, the kind of wheels that looked like they belonged on a monster truck. Guns bristled from a turret atop each vehicle, and a purple spotlight sat on a swiveling arm at the front. Beyond the two vehicles were four more lights, three times the size of the ones on the armored cars, lashed safely to the floor and walls alongside racks of beam guns and UV grenades.
The rotors rose to a whining scream, and the seat beneath Jamie shook and rattled as the huge helicopter lumbered into the air. The exhaustion he had been battling all day returned with a vengeance, and he shut his eyes as the strike team headed north.
He was woken by the sound of Frankenstein’s voice ordering the operators to carry out their final checks. The men, who looked to the half-asleep Jamie like rows of black robots in their identical uniforms and anonymous helmets, pulled their weapons from their belts, unloaded and reloaded them, and replaced them in their loops and holsters.
“Absolute silence until we reach the go point,” said Frankenstein, looking around at the men. “No one moves until the UV cannons are in place and all four squads are in position. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” chorused the soldiers.
“I want this to run smooth and simple,” Frankenstein continued. “I don’t want any heroics. We go in, we eliminate the targets, we bring the package out. Understood?”
The package? Is he talking about my mother?
“Yes, sir.”
The helicopters landed a mile away from the target, sending cut grass spinning into the air and startling a herd of grazing cows. The ramps lowered and the Blacklight team deployed, the four armored cars rolling silently down into the field, their wheels propelled by engines that were surrounded by sound-dampening ceramic plates. The UV spotlights came next, attached to purpose-built housings at the rears of the vehicles. The squads of operators followed them, their purple visors lowered, their T-Bones held loosely across their chests. The men climbed into the vehicles, and Frankenstein called for a readiness report over the closed-circuit radio system that linked them together. The four squads reported back ready, and Frankenstein ordered the driver of his vehicle to proceed. The armored car moved smoothly across the field and out onto a narrow country road. Jamie sat next to Frankenstein, his visor raised, his weapons checked and rechecked, his leg bouncing nervously up and down as they neared their destination.
Light blazed from the windows of the estate’s main house, and the sounds of music and voices floated out on the night air.
The Blacklight team brought the vehicles to a halt in the trees at the bottom of the driveway, where they would be invisible from both the road and the house, and the operators disembarked. Frankenstein and Morris directed them into position, giving their orders via a series of complex hand signals that Jamie found utterly impenetrable. The first squad, Morris’s squad, took one of the UV spotlights, flanked the house, and took up a position at the rear, covering the back door and the outbuildings that stood in a loose semicircle around it. The second and third squads took a spotlight each and positioned themselves at the sides of the building. Frankenstein waited until he received silent confirmation that each of the teams were in position, then led his own team slowly forward toward the house. He turned to Jamie as his men started to move through the trees.
“Stay here,” he whispered. Then he smiled.
Jamie stared, unsure how to respond, and then the monster was gone, just another shadow moving through the black columns of trees. Jamie stared after him for a few seconds, then climbed back into the armored car.
Suddenly, the estate was filled with purple as the UV spotlights burst into life, covering the doors and windows. Jamie heard the bang from a hundred yards away as one of the operators kicked the front door of the house in, then a millisecond later saw it happen on one of the monitors on the vehicle’s control console. A moment later, he heard the first shouts and screams as he watched the Blacklight squads pour into the house.
