April 17, 1945: Hellsing Manor, 8:45 PM
Dark clouds hung low in the night sky, fat with rain as the black government car made its way through the winding path towards Hellsing manner. At 2100 hours the limit broke and rain poured from above making an already difficult road harder to follow. Had it not been for the fact that the cloud cover made it impossible for the Germans to bomb Lionel Dawkins would have been annoyed. As it was, the rain became a small price to pay for security. Being a government driver, he never did know when the fancy name chauffeur became popular to use for a rather simple job, he had to be thankful for the small window of stress free driving the cover entitled him. Unfortunately the rain changed all that, making the winding, maze like, road more difficult to follow.
Not that the Jerrys can spare a bomb on us anymore. Lionel thought with some satisfaction, yet the blackout rules still applied for government vehicles, except for overcast days such as this. Inside the car a tense silence ruled, with only the sound being the heavy pattering of rain upon the roof, and the whop-whop . . . whop-whop. . .whop-whop of the windshield wipers battling against the downpour. The passengers in the backseat, three stone faced gentlemen, represented the unseen backbone of the war effort, the civil service and military intelligence. On each man's lap was a leather bound folder, at their feet three black briefcases. No one spoke, or even dared to look at each other, and despite being on the highest levels of government, tonight they knew their rank would mean nothing. The three were the Head of MI-10 code named Danial Berkly, The head of MI-5 code named Alexander R. Finch, and The Representative of the Prime Minister code named Sir. Roger Hammilton. In the career of each man they had witnessed events which could arguably boggle the imagination,yet tonight the territory they had stumbled into was so beyond the imagination they could scarcely believe it to be true and one of them still didn't. Yet once the information had been placed on the desk of the Prime Minister earlier this evening, Churchill instantly ordered them to see Arthur Hellsing. A close friend of the Prime Minister, and reportedly an associate of the King himself, though none had ever seen him in person and his privacy was so total that no known photograph existed.
A flash of lightening illuminated the area suddenly and a flash of movement jolted through the trees on the side of the road causing Lionel to slam the breaks. The violent stop almost caused the three file folders to fall onto the floor of the car, and the three men to almost slam their heads on the glass seperation between the front and back seat.
"Bloody- What in the world are you doing!?" shouted Danial Berkeley after he regained his composure, "You almost had us killed."
"Sorry sir it's just that a child almost ran into the road." Richard said, his eyes wide as he searched for the figure he had seen just a moment ago.
"What in blazes are you talking about?" asked Finch, what child could possibly be out here in this weather?"
"I'm sorry sir, but I am certain I saw a child standing on the edge of the road. A female child, a girl. I -I know I saw her . . . "
"A girl? That impossible Mr. Blake. It's a flood outside and there are no houses nearby. Now please if you would we don't have time for these games." Finch said.
"Yes Sir, sorry sir." Lionel said quickly and began driving again, yet as he moved passed the tree where he'd seen the white clad figure he could see nothing, until another flash illuminated the landscape and he saw her, near the manor, leaping onto the roof, five floors up.
-xxxx-
"How can this be!" shouted Richard Hellsing a tall thin man with light colored hair and eyes the colour of tropical waters. He reminded the three officials of a film star, and a successful one at that, with hansom sharp features and a silky smooth voice which promised a swoon from women. It was unfortunate then that his reputation did much to destroy the image before them, at least because the officials knew more about Richard Hellsing that anyone else, save his own brother. Had he been wiser, the official wisfom was behind his back, Richard would have lead a more private life like his brother did. Yet he seemed absolutely allergic to the concept, being more inclined to live in the limelight of the socialite upper class, and this gave him the reputation of a high tempered womanizer who was just as quick to throw punches as he was to bed women. To make matters worse, his friendship with Edward VIII had been legendary, at least during the former King's youth, and rumor held that Richard had been the one to introduced the troubled former King to Wallis Simpson which had ended thes royal career; though he denied this was true. All this just made the nature of his older brother Alexander more mysterious, since while his brother had a long biography from the domestic intelligence his brother's folder contained almost nothing. Just his date of birth, place of education – Imperial College, and family background, yet both brothers were talked about in equal measure within the halls of the British government.
Standing now, near the fireplace, Richard leaned against the mantle and glared at the visitors. His blue green eyes were livid and fury burned at the government officials with and intensity which caused the three men to shrink into their seats.
"You assured us that they were gone for good, the Kraut bastards had been ripped to shreds, that's what your intelligence men stated isn't that so?" Richard asked, sticking the cigarette into his mouth and lighting it. "Now you crawl to us, reporting that you have discovered a new base of operation. " he said after taking a drag, causing smoke to curl from his lips as he spoke. "This is bad enough, as it is but to make matters worse, you also report that they have succeed in creating a vampire. I guess no one had the mind to keep a close eye on the Fritz's labs. After all, that might have helped in then catching and stopping them." He took another puff before speaking, "At least that's what I thought, but it seems I was mistaken since keeping a close eye on Millennium was not the top priority for the intelligence agencies!"
With this explosion of rage he pushed himself away from the mantel and the three men were sure that he would personally attack them. After all, each one could see murder in his eyes and had it not been for the calm voice of the elder Hellsing brother they were sure Richard would have taken a chance at it.
"Brother, please," Arthur Hellsing said stopping Richard in his tracks, "There is no reason to blame the intelligence community for this. It was our job to root out Millennium and we were the ones who failed."
Richard blinked and a slow smile spread across his lips, his expression turned from rage into a sickly sly look of pleasure as he faced his elder brother.
"Ah-ah-ah," he said wagging his finger "Not we, brother, but him. Your so called "Angel of Death" is at fault." He took another quick puff, "I for one was against sending him in from the beginning." he continued, "A mere boy can not be expected to the work of men."
Arthur sighed, "Now Richard, I understand the frustration you feel. I assure you we all feel it too. The war is almost over. Berlin will fall to the Soviets in a matter of days and our boys are already cutting deep into German territory. To let Millennium succeed this late in the game will be disastrous, but I assure you that it will not come to that." He cleared his throat. "Now gentleman, if you would be so kind as to please explain the situation in more detail so that we can create a plan of action to deal with this menace." Arthur said, turning his attention to his visitors, while Richard spat and began to slowly pace the room.
Danial Berkeley cleared his throat and gestured to Alexander Finch. The two men spread out a large map of Germany on the coffee table in front of them. "Yesterday at 0600 hours London Time a week ago, our Nordic agents intercepted a transmission originating east of Berlin, more precisely here." Alexander as he circled an area of land some 50 kilometers east from Berlin. "It lasted for a short amount of time and because it was deep in the Soviet zone we assumed it must have been from them. The code was new and-"
"You assumed it was the Russian?" He hissed "You assumed? Are you running your entire agency on assumptions and guesswork?! Are you even trying to win this bloody war!"
Alexander swallowed, "Well, with the Reich barley standing we didn't really think that it could be anything important. The code was not the usual German codes used by the government."
"And what if the German's had changed it? This is what happened yes?"
Daniel Berkeley cleared his throat, "There was no reason for us to think that codes had been changed, the Germans do not know that we cracked the latest codes. Why change it then, at least that was the thinking at the time."
"Yes, exactly." Hamillton nodded, "Now if you would allow I will go on with my explanation."
"Please do." Arthur said calmly as he steepled his hands.
"Right, the signal was sent to us by the Nordic agents and was filed away in the Soviet portfolio. This morning it was finally decoded and we discovered that it was in fact German, sent to Berlin." Daniel pulled out a slip of paper from his leather bound folder. "I have here: 'To my Glorious Fuhrer. You secret weapon is here. Millennium project: Reporting success. We have vampire. Come at once.'" He folded the slip of paper and swallowed. "As you can see this is a bad turn of events."
Richard Hellsing whirled around from the window he had been looking out of and began to laugh, a long wild laugh which sent a chill down the spine of the three men.
"A bad turn of events? Are you serious? This is a bloody disaster! You have allowed the Nazis to create vampires!" He ran a hand through his hair and made his way to the liquor cart in the far corner of the room, where he grabbed the bottle of scotch and filled the tumbler to the brim.
Arthur Hellsing sighed, "Please forgive my brother's reactions, he is known to be. . . dramatic during times of stress." he said with a slight growl through his teeth before gesturing towards the map on the table. "Please continue."
"Well," said Danial Berkly, "I sent out a reconnaissance mission this morning and they returned with photographs of what seems to be some sort of small military base. My best bet is that the lab is underground." He laid out the fuzzy black and white photos on the map. Arthur picked them up, looking them over one by one, and passed them on to his bother who had sauntered to stand behind him.
The elder Hellsing leaned back in his armchair and steepled his hands again. "Well, it is obvious that we will be sending our agent into the fray once again." He said softly, as regrettable as that is. "I'm sure our AOD will succeed this time."
"I must protest! He is only a child. Not to mention he has just return from a dangerous mission no less then a month ago." Sir Hammilton exclaimed.
Arthur chuckled, "You civil servants don't understand, A.O.D. has abilities you can only dream of and is fully capable of dealing with this mess."
Behind Arthur, Richard scoffed, "How can you say such a thing? He has already failed his most important mission and the evidence is laid out right here before your eyes. I say we wipe this Kraut laboratory off the face of the earth, make it another Dresden. With nothing but dust and blood there the problem no longer exists."
Arthur exhaled deeply, ignoring his younger brother. "As I was saying we shall send our agent to the lab where he will be able to do his work," He grabbed a small black book from his desk. "Lets see here..." He muttered as he flipped through the pages. "Ah! Here we are. The RAF is scheduled to bomb Berlin in three days, Our agent will be on a plane of our own, and using the bomber squadron as a cover will drop into this lab and take care of it."
He smiled and closed the book with a snap, seemingly satisfied with the meeting, at least more so than his brother. "Now then, is anyone in the mood for refreshments?"