7:31 P.M.
Derek was feeling restless, to the point of maybe just punching something. Across the operations table, Jason took a good look at him. "Calm down, man, everything's going to be okay." His friend nodded. "I know, I know … it's just all so sudden, you know?" The others still around to work on operations nodded. Lan and Chloe were already there; the final member of the team, Special Agent Ben Carroway, had also been called in, but to the FBI's Los Angeles office. For all intents and purposes, the complement of Code Black had been depleted of all its government officers, which was probably what was making Derek restless.
Although myself, Weiss and Carroway were employed government agents, our second job by night was as officers of Code Black, the special strike team I had formed almost seven months ago. As one of two people London's CIB trusted to deal with the possibility of a U.S., specifically Los Angeles, invasion by Code Fives, better known as vampires, since such an invasion had broken out in England, I had a responsibility. One that had been stepped up when the only other CIB agent and my ex, Michael Colefield, had gone back to CIB London. Thanks to what appeared to be a psychic vision, I knew there was an invasion coming. I'd renovated my apartment into an ops center and formed Code Black to handle the threat. Everything had gone pretty smoothly, with the occasional slay … but that all could change.
"What's our activity map look like?" Derek asked Jason, with this in mind.
"I'll pull it up right now," Lan, resident computer expert, obliged him, bringing up the graphic where we tracked all Code Five activity or suspected activity in Los Angeles with blue markers.
There were about a half-dozen blue markers on the video screen. Some of them were ringed with black, a sign that they were unconfirmed, but there were six of them nonetheless. Standing there, all four of the remaining team members made eye contact, knowing what they had to do and how long they had to do it.
We had devised safeguards and plans as soon as the CIA was given its 48-hour heads-up. Myself, Weiss, Ben, and maybe even Leticia would be all called in to work and God only knew when we would be back, so Derek and his company had to make sure nothing else broke because we might not be able to handle it. They had contact information for some of my network, including Det. Frank Smith over at the LAPD and a contact number for Vaughan Rice back at CIB London, but mostly they were standing on their own.
The communications lines, all of them, rambled through my headset and I had to switch over to the channel that I needed before the strings of commands got to be too much information for me to handle. My base leaders – Lex, Paula and Kevin, each responsible for one or probably more field teams – glanced up at me. "We're ready to go here," I called and Jackson walked over to meet me. I continued, "If and when we assign teams, I've got three points ready to cover."
"Good," Jackson said, "I'll let you know when we send teams out. Keep the information moving and just keep everyone on the ball until you hear otherwise."
"No problem," I said and meant it.
"How's your father?"
I was caught off guard by this question. My father is a military reservist, and I called home when we were put on standby to make sure everything was okay, which, of course, was all up in the air. "He's activated," I said, "But still at home so far." And he still didn't know his daughter was fighting the good fight he was waiting to possibly be involved in.
"That's good news then," Jackson said. "Things should run smoothly."
Yeah, should. As he walked off I exhaled and waited. In my experience – three years, eight months and a week, the last eight months and a week involving a counter-terrorism field operation apprehending a traitor, a missing-persons/attempted murder/invasion case, and a homicide instigated by our own superiors, I knew things hardly ever went the way they should.
I snapped a little harsher than intended, "Kevin, get me another systems backup check."
"On it," he said, thankfully ignoring my tone of voice.
Lex was staring at me. "Everything all right?" he asked softly.
"I … I'm fine, everything's fine," I got out in an uneasy rush. "Just … stay on things."
The paranoia is the hardest part. Derek, Jason, Lan and Chloe were all discussing what they were looking at but they kept going back to the worst possible scenario. You prepare for the worst, and you hope for the best, I used to always tell them, to the point where they could repeat it like a mantra and roll their eyes appropriately.
"It would make sense," Lan was saying patiently. "We're going to go to war. The country will be otherwise distracted."
"How and when would they make a move?" Jason inquired.
"That's what we need to find out."
"Can we even handle this?" Chloe continued. "We're at half strength as it is."
"I don't know," Derek told her, reaching for another map, "but we have to try."
The announcement was all over the news stations: "The campaign to liberate Iraq has begun." Or something like that. The inevitabiity kept me from completely paying attention to the actual words that were said.
It was Jack who moved into action first, giving orders with his usual bullet precision. "All right, I want a team here to respond to any directives coming down … Kevin, Paula, Lex, Matt, Mark, you're here under Brittany, you will be Team Alpha. Two active field teams, the first is with Tony, Team Beta, you know who you are, the second is Team Delta with me, Steve, Chris, I need you with me. We have a set of objectives per each team, and we'll act upon them as appropriate. Any questions as to those orders?"
Silence filled the room.
I locked eyes with the two agents across the floor who were supposed to be on my team and I could see even in their veteran gazes that they really didn't understand what was happening here. I wondered if any of us did or if we were just winging it. Either way we were about to get a pop quiz.
Jack surveyed us all, then gave the final command as I held my breath.
"Let's get to work."
Uneasy silence had fallen over the ops table back at home base. Finally, Derek looked slowly from the table across it at Jason, who noncommittally met his gaze.
"Does this mean what I think it means?" Derek asked, needing to hear it said.
Jason nodded, picking up the phone. "We're going to war."
