Vampire "Unseen" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 2) (24 page)

“Yes, I did.”

“That town was destroyed in the 1960’s. Something happened that has never been explained. The source. It moved amongst the people there and turned all of the men. There was a massacre. So the town was razed and the area evacuated and a lid put on the whole history. But what if it were to happen again? What do we know about it? How would we protect ourselves?”

“Noica is exposing men to this thing? Experimenting?”

Bogdan nodded. “Convicts mostly. But not always. The facility is a combination hospital, prison and scientific research centre.”

“Jesus wept.” Corneliu slumped slightly. “What the hell am I involved with.”

“You’re involved in a line of defence,” Bogdan said. “Our job is to minimize and contain the problems and buy time for the researchers. The aim is to understand and end this thing. It wasn’t always like that, in fact back in the 80’s they actually tried to weaponise the source. I think the idea back then was to drop vampire bombs on Western armies and watch them tear one another apart. A lot of money was invested into that stupid plan. From ‘89, the whole thing fell into disarray until Lucian came along as a young neuroscientist with fresh ideas and enough political savvy to get the whole thing back on track.”

“To weaponise it?”

“No. That’s all finished. Lucian is a caring kind of guy. I think he convinced the politicians and bureaucrats that we should care for those infected, have a response for whenever the source moved outside of the facility and finally have plans drawn up in case the source caused another vampire massacre like it did in the 1960’s.”

“And you are part of that response?”

Bogdan nodded. “I became involved in the early 90’s. I did extended military service and joined the Gendarmerie. I was only there for a few months when Oleksandr Chanov happened. Chanov was a drug dealer, part of a Ukrainian cartel that moved into the Black Sea resorts after the fall of communism. He was a ruthless guy to begin with but then something happened to him. Somehow he was exposed to the source and he started losing his mind. He killed twelve people that we know of before we cornered him at a drug deal that went very wrong. He killed three gendarmes and wounded thirty people in a nightclub before I put him down by shooting him through his knee.”

“Good shot.” Corneliu said.

“I was aiming for his chest... He jumped.” Bogdan swirled his drink around. “Chanov is the baddest I’ve ever seen. These things move fast and I mean lightning fast. You back a vampire into a corner and you’ll see that they can move faster than you can blink. It’s like they anticipate your movements and are just one split second ahead of you. You just can’t train a gun on them.”

“Lucian mentioned something like that. He said their nerves and thinking worked faster to speed up their reflexes.”

“At least he told you something. But this what I’m telling you, this is supposed to be their physical peak, that is supposed to be as capable as they get and it doesn’t last very long. Vampires can think faster than you and they can anticipate your actions, their reflexes do speed up but eventually those reflexes become uncontrollable, they degenerate into a painful shaking that never ends. It’s as though their nerve impulses speed up beyond what the nervous system can handle. It’s like overclocking a computer. You can make the chips work faster than they were designed but eventually they heat up and fry. That is what happens in ninety nine percent of these things. They end up with scrambled eggs for brains. Except in some cases, the brain function stabilizes and the vampire becomes very thoughtful and capable whilst still retaining the level of violence.”

“Do you think that’s what happened to McGovern?”

“It sounds that way. The only high functioning vampire we have alive is Chanov so there isn’t much to compare it to. Having McGovern as well would be quite valuable. This is what Lucian is wanting and it’s the reason I’m here.”

“You want to catch him, that’s the plan isn’t it. You want to catch him and take him back.”

Bogdan shrugged. “We’re hoping the Brits arrest him and we get a successful extradition for McGovern to face murder charges in Brasov. That would be the best outcome. But I don’t think the Brits can take him alive because they don’t know what they’re up against. Like I said, I’ve hunted and caught six of these things. Chanov was taken alive only because he became wedged in a mass of bodies in a blocked corridor, he was unlucky and we got him alive almost by accident. The other five I had to put down in self defence. But I’ve got to tell you, none of those things had the wherewithal to get on a plane, change their identity, or to evade police using self-made electronic warning systems. Even Chanov can barely speak beyond simple grunted sentences and we consider him to have kept his mind fairly intact. If Paul McGovern can do all the things you say he can, then there’s never been a vampire like him.”

----- X -----

Paul flattened the two knives under his jacket before going for breakfast. He was planning ahead, thinking things through. Today he would apply for a passport in the name of Alan Jay and have it delivered here to the bed and breakfast. If the passport agency realised he was McGovern they would send policemen. To minimize the risk he would move to new lodgings whilst he waited for the passport to arrive. If the police came he didn’t want to be here. He would return at a time of his choosing after surveying the area, but he was under no illusions of what could happen. When he returned to Wendy’s guesthouse there could be police waiting for him. He would kill them.

“Oh, Wendy,” he said as he dropped in for breakfast. “I will be going away in a few days to see clients in Manchester and I may be staying there for a short while. Is it possible I can pay you for a few more weeks in advance. I may not be here, but things are a little up in the air for me at the moment and it would be really helpful if I could rely on having a fixed address.”

“Things up in the air?” she asked.

Paul nodded and tried to show a sadder face. “Yes. My girlfriend, ex-girlfriend and I, we have a business, but it’s all coming to an end.”

“I wondered what you did. What is your business?”

“Statistics. She does statistics and data analysis. Businesses with huge product lines ask us to analyse their structure. She does the maths and I write up the findings into easy to read reports... arghhh... I don’t want to go into it if you don’t mind.”

“No, no, of course, I wasn’t prying.”

“Anyway... It’s not easy to just break up when we’ve got contracts to finish. So I need to visit clients in the North and I may be there for a few nights but I won’t know exactly what’s happening until I get there. So is that OK? I’d like to pay in advance for a few weeks but I might not be here?”

Wendy chuckled. “You want to pay me not to stay in the hotel? My Dear, you can pay me for as many non-stays as you like.”

----- X -----

Bogdan looked seriously jetlagged, almost to the point of being drugged. He wore sunglasses in the breakfast room of the hotel. His head would fall back like he was looking at the ceiling then he would pull it forward with effort to rest his chin on his chest.

“Perhaps you should stay in bed for a few hours,” Corneliu suggested.

Bogdan nodded with a yawn. “I will,” he agreed, “but I’ve got an appointment right now. Embassy Man is coming. I want you to be here too.”

As they left the restaurant a man in jeans and a denim jacket waved to Bogdan. He was unshaven, rough looking, dirty. Corneliu found it hard to imagine he was an embassy employee.

Bogdan spoke to the man alone and took a parcel from him that looked like a mail delivered package. Cardboard and bubble wrap, a printed address label, barcodes and delivery stickers. Embassy Man left the building and Bogdan ushered Corneliu to follow him to the elevators.

“Are you telling me that guy works in diplomatic relations?”

Bogdan smirked. “Him? No... Of course not. But to get in touch with him you need to know a man in the embassy.”

They went to Bogdan’s room, two floors above Corneliu’s. Bogdan placed the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door and began pulling the package apart.

Corneliu watched.

He saw what was in the parcel.

Bogdan laid the contents on the bed.

“Oh, Jesus Christ. You know that’s totally illegal in Britain?” Corneliu asked. Bogdan nodded. He had two guns, one was a gas powered pistol, the other was an ominous mini revolver with a sound suppressor.

“OK. Let me show you this,” Bogdan said taking the gas pistol. “This is an animal control injector, it fires thirteen millimetre darts and can deliver three millilitres of whatever you want. We will be using this stuff,” he held up a small dark bottle, “it’s called etorphine, M99, it’s an opiate about three thousand times more potent than morphine, strong stuff, normally used for tranquilizing elephants.”

“I’m sorry... are you expecting us to find and catch McGovern?”

“No. This is just a precaution.” He scratched behind his ear and motioned the small revolver, “Actually, this is for precaution, the tranquilizer is only if we get close, not for defence. You only get one shot and you’ll probably miss, so if you come up against McGovern and you only have that, just run the other way.”

“Tell me about that one,” Corneliu nodded at the other gun. “Do you know that in Britain you get ten years in prison for just having a gun?”

“Yes, I do,” Bogdan said with a nod. “Let me worry about it. I don’t want you to use either of them. By the way, the M99 for the injector is a controlled drug in Britain too so you don’t want to get caught with that either. Leave this stuff to me.”

“Leave it to you? Then why are you showing me it?”

Bogdan shrugged. “Precaution. Full disclosure.”

“Can I see that gun,” Corneliu asked. Bogdan checked to make sure it was empty and handed it over. It was very small. “Why is there no hammer to pull back and cock?”

“There is a hammer, but it’s encased inside the handle. It’s a clone of a concealed weapon system called a Colt Bodyguard.”

The chassis was smoothed so there was nothing to snag if you pulled it from your clothing. The suppressor made it unwieldy and stopped it from being used as intended. Corneliu could see exactly what it was; the tool of a professional assassin. Small, silent, easy to conceal. Being a revolver it kept spent cartridges with the gun rather than ejecting them onto the crime scene. Corneliu handled the weapon carefully.

“Bogdan,” he asked earnestly. “What is the intention?”

“Kill or capture. From what we know it seems McGovern has no regard for human life anymore. If he is backed into a corner he is going to unleash the fury. Hopefully, if he’s discovered then the British armed police, the SCO19 will attend and they will put him down. That will be the end of him.”

Corneliu handed the weapon back. “I want no part in this.”

Bogdan went quiet. “I want you to have no part in it. Leave this side of things to me. Like I said, I’m showing you this just as a precaution. Full disclosure. In the off chance we get eyes on McGovern first I will try and capture using the M99. Embassy Man will arrange for McGovern to be collected, stored and shipped to Romania.” Bogdan changed tact, smoothing the situation. “Don’t worry, Corneliu. It’s just a precaution. The only reason I’m here like this is because you almost stumbled on to him. You weren’t supposed to find him, you were supposed to be digging up his history and nothing else. On that subject, how is the networking?”

Corneliu shook his head. He felt weak. He wished Bogdan had not arrived. “I didn’t find McGovern by networking.” He sat on the edge of the bed, his legs weakening. “I haven’t even done any networking. I didn’t find him at all. It was the British police, they tracked his internet use and the girl’s mobile phone to within a few meters from where he had the girl. I stumbled onto it.”

“Are you going back to networking?”

“I assume so. It feels kind of redundant. I barely started it.”

“Well, get back to it, but don’t share any information with the Brits. If you think you have a lead on where McGovern might go, let me know about it. After that, you don’t need to be involved.”

----- X -----

Paul moved to a hostel filled with migrant workers and rented a single room to hide himself away. He spent the morning in a sleepy café trying to read the papers, but the stories were making him rage on the inside. 

He was still the main headline but today the papers had more information and a huge admiration for Detective Corneliu Latis. Paul read a panel that called him Romania’s Robocop.

“You’re no Supercop, Latis,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “I could fucking snuff you with a single cut… I will kill you if you come close enough.”

In the newspaper résumé, Latis rescued girls from forced prostitution. He was a crusader, a man who gets things done, a force for good. The tabloid falsely claimed that Paul was a frequent user of online S&M dating sites and had an interview with a lying woman titled ‘My lucky escape from madman’.

“I’m vilified,” Paul whispered. “They’re talking shit about me. Making me a crass pervert. I should go to their newspaper office and fucking kill them. Liars. It’s bullshit, every word they print is a fucking lie.”

Latis was under his skin. He wanted to slit his throat every time he saw his face. Wanted to stab knives between his ribs every time he read his name. The bastard had looked unsure and uncomfortable sitting at the table on the television news, yet when he was asked to comment, he cleared his throat, straightened his posture and spoke with gentle confidence. This was the man they’d sent to find him.

He put the paper down and picked up a more serious broadsheet. Reading was hard; he was arguing with sentences and assertions in his head and could barely absorb the information. Another picture of Latis. Paul gripped the handle to a knife under his jacket. “You found Nisha and fucked everything you cunt. I should find you and kill you.”

There was a panel of information with the picture. Detective Corneliu Latis. Nineteen years with the Brasov Police Department. Specialist Liaison Officer with Interpol. Recently ended his police role to work with The Institute of Psychopathological Research which specialises in handling and managing the most violent criminals. Is an expert at analysing criminal networks.