Disclaimer: This is getting really old, really fast.

Authors Note: Thanks to all of you for the positive feedback, it really helps to know that I'm not mucking up too badly with this. I've tried to get technical details as close as possible, and I'm sure that my browser history has flagged somebody somewhere. But if there are errors, be merciful.

Chapter 8

The wire was there, right in front of her, now all she had to do was cut it. She looked up at the earnest face of the young man crouching down next to her, holding up the floor panel that she was reaching under. Sweat beaded his brow and he was as pale as the moon.

"Don't throw up on me here, okay son?"

"Y..yes ma'am." he whispered.

"I'm going to pull this buggers teeth and then we'll go get a drink. So keep those hands steady."

As she reached in with her clippers, the man jerked the panel involuntarily, pulling the wire loose from the device that had been concealed in the floor.

"Fuck!"

She was already rising to her feet and body slammed her partner backwards as hard as she could. Landing heavily on top of him, she hoped that her suit would shield both of them.

The explosive device went off with a roar that scattered bits of floor tile all around them. Sitting up, she undid her helmet and grinned down at the wheezing man that she was nearly sitting on.

"That wasn't so ba..."

A concussive wave from a second hidden device drove the air from her lungs, she had a moment to register what felt like a hot gust of air mixed with gravel on her face before she was flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She hadn't heard the detonation, and all she could feel was a warm wetness trickling down the sides of her neck and from her nose.

The young man loomed over her, his mouth moved but she couldn't hear him, she heard nothing.

Jane slammed into full wakefulness and opened her eyes to pitch darkness. Using the display on her watch, she could see she had been asleep for nearly six hours. It was now just after five the following morning. Swinging out of the bed, she shuffled over to the bathroom and flicked on the light. She rubbed her left ear absently.

* Sly old git. * she thought. *put something in the food. *

Finishing in the bathroom, she turned on the room light and was mildly horrified to see that her dinner tray had been taken away and her work overall had been washed, pressed and put back on a hanger. The thought of someone poncing around her room while she was sleeping did not sit well with her.

Retreating back into the bathroom with her overall, she took a quick shower and dressed. Taking a brief look in the mirror she pulled a face at the lurid purple discoloration on her jaw.

Making the bed took a mere moment and then she put the chair in the same position as the night before and sat looking at the door, waiting for her fate.

Integra crunched down on the last of her toast and tossed the morning paper across the table. Within a moment, Walter appeared and asked:

"More tea?"

"Please. I have a feeling that today is going to be very trying."

She watched impassively as he poured the tea and took away her used plates. Sipping the fragrant brew, she exhaled and then made an impatient noise as her glasses fogged up. She slipped them off and lay them on the table in front of her.

Walter appeared again and twitched up the paper, folded it precisely and then said:

"I've put the files that you asked for in your office. They are as comprehensive as I could make them."

"Thank you Walter."

She finished her tea and settled her glasses back on her nose. Standing up, she looked at him and said:

"When you're finished with the morning tasks, meet me in the office. I'd like you to give me a rundown on those files." with a sly smile, she added "Knowing you, they're more like biographies than files."

Walter shrugged with a little self consciousness and said:

"I like to be thorough."

Integra left him to his tasks and made her way to her office. She would have read those files by the time Walter got to her. But she valued his opinion and he had a way of ferreting out bits of information that added a much better picture.

Walter let himself into Peter Wiggins' room with the breakfast tray, only to be met with a barrage of verbal abuse.

"You cannot do this to me! I demand to see Integra at once! The board will hear about this!"

He was drawing in breath to continue shouting when Walter placed the tray on the table and turned to him with a grim look:

"Sir Integra will be speaking to you at her own convenience and so I suggest you save your breath until then. I'd hate to have to find a way to keep you quiet."

His words dripped with unconcealed menace and he had placed extra emphasis on the word Sir. Peter hastily swallowed his upcoming outburst and nodded rapidly. He watched the butler leave the room and heaved a large sigh, he was very sure that for a moment, he had been in considerable danger.

Opening the next cell, Walter wasn't surprised to find Jane standing and waiting for him.

"Good morning Miss Smith. I trust you rested well."

"Good morning Walter. I did thank you." she said stiffly.

He could tell that she was less than pleased with him, but he said nothing as he deposited the tray.

"Sir Integra will be meeting with you sometime today. I'm sure all of this will be sorted out."

She nodded silently at him and then asked:

"Could a message be sent to my brother that I'm at least okay, not dead in ditch somewhere?"

"We've already told him that you are safe and for the moment, unavailable."

"Thank you."

He left her staring at the breakfast tray with obvious mistrust. Going straight upstairs, he set the rest of the household to work and then went to see Integra in her office.

A few hours later.

"I just cannot see anything in Peter's file that indicates that he is incompetent in his job."

The frustration crackled in Integra's voice as she stabbed a finger at the file on her desk.

"I don't think that its incompetence in his duties that he's guilty of." Said Walter who was seated opposite her. "Rather a failure to act because of a personal prejudice."

"You think he's against the idea of a vampire working for Hellsing?"

"That is my impression, yes"

"We'll see when I speak to him. Meanwhile, this Smith girl? Summarise for me please Walter."

Integra leaned back in her chair to ease her lower back and lit a cigar. She closed her eyes and listened as Walter spoke:

"Miss Jane Smith, 28 years old. Joined the army straight out of school at 18, went through basic training and met the requirements to join the engineers and pursue a career in the EOD unit."

"EOD?"

"Explosive Ordinance Disposal."

"Ah." Integra waved her hand for him to continue.

"Military career spanned seven year from start to finish before she was medically discharged."

"She was injured?"

"An incident in the field caused her to lose 90% of her hearing and as such, could no longer perform her duties. After discharge, she used her knowledge of munitions to apply to Hellsing for employment. Her twin brother followed. He had also been in the military, infantry division."

"And how did they even know that Hellsing existed?

"Their father was one of our primary weapons specialists. I believe that he designed Alucard's first gun, naming it after his son."

"So they would be on the legacy list then."

"Yes. The son, Joshua took over as chief weapons specialist and she moved into ammunition design and development."

Walter cleared his throat and then went on:

"Captain Jones has added a personal note to her file."

"Yes?"

"She regularly passes the annual Hellsing troop fitness test, hearing aside, and often trains with the troops in the urban combat facility. She claims it helps her design better ammunition and also she 'likes to keep her hand in' as she puts it. Her nickname is Post."

"Post?"

"As in, deaf as."

Integra snorted in amusement and then asked:

"What happened to their father"

"Cancer. A few years into their military service. Their mother died in their childhood in a car accident."

"And so she's been with us for a little over three years?"

"Something like that, yes."

"And the reports that she claims were buried and ignored?"

"They were there, all with the note that she was mistaken and that no such damage existed."

"And yet I've seen it with my own eyes." she murmured.

She glanced down at the clock on the desk and sighed.

"It's lunchtime. As soon as we've all eaten, I'll start with Mr Wiggins."

"Very good sir."

Deep in the basement cell, Jane had finished her lunch and was fiddling with her single hearing aid. Normally she took it out at night and switched it off, but last night she hadn't and she could hear that the battery was running low. She didn't want to be halfway through the interview with Sir Integra and suddenly have to start lip reading.

* Better leave it off until the last minute.* she said to herself.

Mr Wiggins was a rather corpulent individual with a tendency to sound querulous when he was scared or upset. And right now he was seated in front of a very scary Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing, bleating like Mary's little lamb.

"I just don't think that its right. We're supposed to eradicate them, not use them. Not keep them in the basement."

"So you don't agree with the use of Alucard or Seras?"

"No Sir, I do not. It just isn't right."

"So you deliberately ignored information that could have caused a tactical disaster in the field. Putting my agent at risk, as well as the human soldiers that work alongside him?"

Mr Wiggins goggled at her for a moment and then a deep red suffused his face.

"They should know better than to consort with those things!" he spat, anger starting to rise in his voice. "This job is for men, human men. Not demons and women."

Integra lifted and eyebrow but said nothing, allowing his diatribe to gain momentum.

"If this organisation was being run properly, we'd had consigned those two foul creatures to hell years ago. In fact, when I leave here I'm going straight to the knights council to denounce you and your filthy undead killers!"

"And who said you'd be leaving here?" asked Integra mildly.

He gaped at her and started screaming, spittle flying from his lips.

"You cannot keep me here! I have rights, I have people who will back me up on this and you cannot incarcerate me. If you do that, then my people will go public with the entire existence of Hellsing and its dirty secrets!"

"You would expose us and everything we do here?" she asked, deep sadness entering her tone.

"Yes! Expose you, denounce you and make sure that you are shut down!"

"Then you leave me with no choice."

Integra stood up from behind her desk and stared at the man threatening to destroy everything she had worked for. Deep pain and steely resolve coalesced in her eyes and she said calmly.

"Peter Wiggins, I hereby give the order for you to be sanctioned with extreme prejudice."

He turned pale at her words and started to stammer out a retraction, which she cut off.

"You cannot be trusted. You have betrayed my faith in you and you have placed too many lives at risk. You have brought this upon yourself."

Looking up at Walter, she ordered:

"Take him back to his cell."

Wiggins was speechless as he left the room, his shoulders slumped and his feet shuffling as he went. Integra sat down and put her head in her hands.

"Don't tell me you feel bad for that cretin?"

Alucard rose up through the floor in front of her desk and leaned against her desk, looming over her.

Integra's head snapped up as her hand slammed down on the table.

"Of course not! I will not tolerate anyone undermining this organization and everything it stands for."

The towering vampire grinned and said proudly:

"That's my master."