“Flynn?”
“Nothing this end… wait, nope, scratch that. We’ve got action here too, Yol. And they’re moving in.”
“Wait out. Remember this is recon only. We are not to engage, repeat, not to engage unless absolutely necessary.”
Micky Cox’s voice chimed in. “And by absolutely necessary, boss, you mean…”
“If they clamber on board and start eating commuters, what the bloody hell do you think I mean, Mick?”
“Judging by the amount of eyeshine out there, that’s a deffo probable in the very near future, Yol. Twelve o’clock. I count at least five, possibly six.” All the earlier brevity had evaporated from Colby’s gravely voice, replaced by a much more serious tone.
“A minimum of six here too, boss.” Gary glared out into the darkness.
Yolanda cursed. “Oh, bollocks! I bloody knew this was gonna go sideways. Wait out.” She slid her right hand slowly back underneath her jacket, and her fingers curled around the butt of the adapted Glock. The object of this operation was to assess a possible nest and see just how close they were willing to get to the trains as they passed through the tunnel. Okay, it meant using a train full of commuters as bait, but it was a necessary part of the operation.
And now it looked like they had their answer.
Bloody close.
A scrabbling outside the doors made Yolanda tighten her grip on the Glock and flip the safety catch to ‘off’.
Okay. Make that too fucking close.
A swarm of hungry and emboldened Taints were now just inches away from the commuters, separated from ‘lunch’ by nothing but a flimsy metal door. The genetically enhanced vampires with a less-than sunny disposition and a voracious appetite were single-minded, relentless and fearless. Their exceptional strength and speed meant the doors on a thirty-year-old tube train would pose no problem for their venom-tipped fingers. If one of them got purchase on a gap and put their shoulder into it, they could have the doors open in a heartbeat.
So effectively, all that stood between biblical carnage and a tube full of commuters was a thin metal shell, four Special Ops soldiers with a very limited supply of ammo, and the good will of the Northern Line gods.
Yolanda prepared to repel borders by shooting an organophosphor round into the face of the first bastard that came through the door. That would definitely catch the commuters’ attention, and would instantly turn what was supposed to be a low-key surveillance operation into a Twitterverse ‘trending’ topic. And that would not please the Colonel. It pretty much defeated the whole ‘black ops’ ethos if the damn thing immediately got its own hashtag and went viral.
Further up the carriage, Flynn had eyes-on with a Taint of his own. The drooling, snarling mutant was worrying away at the outside of the carriage. The scrabbling of talon against metal caught the attention of a young woman and she looked up from her smartphone. Colby gave her a friendly smile and nodded towards the door. “Rats.”
The girl shuddered. “Ugh. I hate rats.”
“Don’t worry. They can’t get in.”
“Oh. Good.” The girl immediately lost interest in the rat-slash-slavering, ravenous, genetically altered vampire, and went back to playing a game. Micky craned to look at the girl’s screen and then shook his head. She was playing ‘Vampire Hunter’.
Yolanda had seen enough. “Micky, I think about now would be a good time to restore power and get both us and these nice, vulnerable commuters the hell out of here, don’t you?”
“Copy that.” Micky stabbed at the screen.
The lights flickered on and off again.
“Um, Micky?”
“Trying, boss. Bear with me…” There was a waver of anxiety in Micky’s voice.
“Tell that to Bitey McBiteface out there, Cox. These fuckers are working to their own timetable, fella, and it’s deffo on the hurry-up!” Gary’s hand tensed around his own Glock. “Boss…”
“I said wait out!”
“Yol, I’ve got a damn talon here…” Colby put the sole of his boot against the needle-sharp talon that protruded through the gap in the door, and crunched down hard. The resulting yelp made the girl look up again, and Colby did a quick impression of a buck-toothed rat, complete with ears and comic-effect “Eek!” for emphasis.
The girl rolled her eyes, muttered a quick “Weirdo!” at Colby, refocused on her screen and updated her status.
Flynn threw a look to the heavens in thanks, and then double-checked the venom-filled talon had withdrawn. He peered into the darkness and watched the Taint scuttle back into the shadows, cradling its hand. They were getting much, much too bold. He glanced down the carriage towards Yolanda. She was eyes-on and totally focused, but he could see the tension in her face even at this distance. This was bad. This was very bad. His own spidey-senses screamed blue bloody murder. He reached back to where his adapted Glock sat in its holster and unclipped the retaining catch.
Halfway down the carriage, Yolanda stared out into the tunnel, watching the Taints move into position for a full-on attack. The onslaught was imminent. The muscle in her jaw twitched. “Micky? I hate to rush you, fella, but now would be good. I would be really very pleased with now!”
“Damn it, boss, I’m trying!”
“Try harder!”
“Wait, wait, yep, okay, I got it!” Micky stabbed at the screen and the train’s lights blazed once again. The carriage jerked forward, accompanied by the traditional ‘About bloody time!’ round of tutting from the commuters. Not one of them had any idea they’d been just seconds from the worst start to a Monday anyone could possibly have.
The train finally pulled into Archway station and screeched to a stop. The doors hissed open and the team surfed the wave of humanity out onto the platform. They reconvened in the centre, letting the commuters flow around them.
Yolanda ignored the swirling and buffeting as the whole in/out/shake-it-all-about commuter dance played out once again. The four of them stood just to the side of the entrance to the carriage so they could assess and do a field debrief without interruption. “Well, that was a hoot and a half, wasn’t it? Right then, opinions and options, please.”
“We’ve definitely got a problem, Yol. And sooner or later someone who isn’t us is gonna notice there’s something distinctly moody going on down here. Then there’s going to be full-on panic. Cop an eyeful.” Colby nodded at the side of the carriage. Tramline scrapes were etched deep into the metal around the door, and a streak of black blood where Flynn had given the Taint an impromptu manicure was obvious. Thankfully, to the untrained eye it simply looked like a smear of oil, and none of the commuters were close enough to notice the acrid chemical tang either.
“Bugger. That was close.” Yolanda pointed her phone at the door and snapped a succession of photographs. The Colonel would need documentary evidence if they were going to risk going into the tunnels for a seek-and-destroy op, but she didn’t want to alarm any of the commuters still milling around. Sneaky-peaky. Keep it off the radar and don’t alarm the herd. The last thing they wanted was a stampede. “I need to get a swab of that for the forensics team before this train buggers off. Gentlemen, would you mind awfully giving me a bit of cover, so the civvies don’t get freaked out by the crazy lady taking DNA swabs off a train carriage door, please? Thank you.”
The team moved to shield Yolanda from view as she took a swab of the blackened blood. She stood, dropped the cotton-tipped bud into a plastic tube and snapped on the lid. The tube was deposited into a plastic zip bag and secreted into a jacket pocket with all the dexterity of a street magician pulling a card trick. Not a single ‘civvy’ noticed.