A night’s sleep in his own bed, beside the woman he loved more than anything else in the world, had done him more good than he could possibly have imagined; he felt like a new man, as if his depleted batteries had somehow been fully charged, filling him with energy and banishing the exhaustion that had become his constant companion in recent months.
When his driver had picked him up two hours ago to bring him back to the Loop, he had promised Caroline that he would spend more nights at home in the coming weeks and months. The smile that had appeared on her face was worth every sacrifice that had been required of him.
He had returned to find a mountain of new paper on his desk. On the top was a letter bearing the legend OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, congratulating him on his Department’s efforts in Carcassonne and asking him to call Downing Street at his earliest convenience; the Prime Minister was apparently eager to hear his personal account of what had taken place. Turner had put the letter aside, and found similar notes of praise and thanks from the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Japan, the President of Russia and a huge number of other world leaders and dignitaries. He had leafed quickly through them, until he reached a report from the Surveillance Division, stamped with a reference number he recognised. He had read it, read it again, and immediately summoned Jamie Carpenter.
The young Lieutenant pushed open the door and walked into the room.
“Good morning, Jamie,” he said.
“Good morning, sir,” said Jamie. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have to tell you something that came up yesterday. I don’t know if it’s good news or bad, to be entirely honest with you.”
“OK, sir,” said Jamie. “What is it?”
“It’s your father,” he said. “He’s missing.”
Jamie frowned. “Missing?”
Turner nodded. “The Surveillance Division noted some discrepancies in their monitoring while we were in France,” he said. “They sent Norfolk police to check on him yesterday, but they reported no sign of him in your grandmother’s cottage. What they did find in the same village was a teenager wearing your father’s locator chip on a rubber band round his wrist.”
Jamie grunted with laughter. “So he’s gone?”
Turner nodded. “It looks that way.”
“Do we have any idea where, sir?”
“No,” said Turner. “A priority investigation has been opened, but I’d be extremely surprised if your dad left anything for them to find.”
“So would I,” said Jamie, and nodded. “He’s an expert at disappearing.”
“The likeliest result of this development is that Julian will eventually try to contact you,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you what to do if that happens.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Jamie. “And thanks for telling me.”
Turner nodded. “There’s something else,” he said. “Can I assume that you haven’t taken the cure because other Operators got there first and you have to wait until a bed becomes available?”
Jamie didn’t respond.
“You understand that the cure is mandatory for all members of the Department?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you understand that when something is mandatory, that means it applies to you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jamie, and grinned. “I understand that.”
Turner nodded, and smiled at his young Lieutenant. “Good,” he said. “I just wanted to check, given some of the conversations you and I have had in the past. Dismissed.”
Matt and Natalia stood outside the door of the Loop’s infirmary, watching through the window as dozens of Operators recovered from the cure they had helped to make a reality.
The programme of undoing PROMETHEUS had begun as soon as the men and women of the active roster arrived back from Carcassonne, but whereas the turn had been orchestrated on a random basis, the cure was being administered first come first served. Matt had been heartened to see that, despite the exhaustion that every Operator must surely be feeling, there was no shortage of volunteers. During one of their many conversations about PROMETHEUS, the Director had considered the idea of keeping a small number of vampire Operational Squads, an idea that Matt, who had devoted every minute of his waking life for many months to finding a cure, had been profoundly uncomfortable with; he was deeply relieved to see that the Director appeared to have abandoned the notion.
“Let’s go,” said Natalia.
Matt nodded, and they fell into step as they walked back towards the lift.
“It is good to see,” said Natalia. “Everything is very good.”
Matt smiled. “It is.”
“So what happens now?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Soon there will be no more Lazarus Project,” said Natalia. “What then?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and pressed the CALL button as they reached the lift. “Do you think you’ll go back to Russia when the project officially ends?”
“No,” said Natalia, instantly, and Matt felt relief flood his system. “I do not want to go back.”
“That’s great,” he said, and blushed at the enthusiasm in his own voice. “I mean, you shouldn’t go if you don’t want to.”
She smiled at him, her face pale and beautiful, her eyes sparkling under the fluorescent lights. The doors of the lift slid open, and they stepped through them.
“What about you?” she asked, as he pressed the button marked B.
“I don’t know,” he said, and shrugged. “I’ll still be a member of Blacklight when Lazarus is over. I expect they’ll move me to the Science Division.”
“I do not think Major Turner will make you stay unless you want to,” said Natalia. “So what would you like to do?”
Matt smiled. “I’d like to go to university,” he said. “If things had been different, I would have been going in a couple of months. I’d been looking forward to it since I was a little boy.”
“University is a good thing,” said Natalia.
“You should know,” he said, his smile widening. “You graduated from one when you were fourteen.”
She smiled, as delicate pale pink rose into her cheeks. “There is still a lot I would like to learn,” she said. “Where would you go? I do not think you will have a shortage of options.”
“I always liked the sound of Cambridge,” he said, as the lift slowed.
“I am told Cambridge is nice,” said Natalia, and smiled at him.
Matt smiled back, and took her hand as they walked down the corridor towards his quarters.
Jamie sat on the edge of his bed, turning what Paul Turner had told him over and over in his mind.
On the one hand, the thought of his father being on the loose was unsettling; knowing where he was, and that restrictions were in place to keep him there, had provided a welcome certainty to the situation. But on the other, it made the dilemma he had been struggling with for months – whether or not to tell his mother that her husband was still alive – an awful lot easier to resolve. There was now absolutely nothing to be gained by telling her the truth; if anything, telling her his dad was alive without any idea of where he was would be infinitely crueller than not telling her.
She’s been through enough, he thought. God knows she has.
Jamie got up, exited his quarters, and headed for the lift at the end of Level B. As it descended towards the cellblock, he replayed the conversation he and his mother had managed the previous day once they finally stopped crying on each other’s shoulders.
He had disabled the ultraviolet wall of her cell and flopped down on the sofa as his mother set about making tea. The relief and love on her face had disarmed him completely, and made him realise how much of the determination that had kept him fighting in Carcassonne had come from a desire not to let his mother down, not to put her through the unimaginable misery of losing her son less than five years after her husband.
“I don’t want to know what happened in France,” she said, as she tipped water into the pot. “I’ve had more than enough darkness to last me a lifetime, so I don’t want to know any of the details. Just tell me one thing. Is all of this over and done with?”