Uprising

Chapter Thirty-Three

Terzi Pharmaceuticals Fabrication Complex, the Italian Alps 3.12 a.m. local time

A chill wind was blowing down off the distant mountains. The sky was clear and the stars were out in their countless millions over the still landscape. Nestling in the foothills, the large modern steel and glass building was the hub of the two-acre site of the fabrication complex. Terzi was one of Europe’s smaller pharmaceutical companies, its manufacturing output almost entirely focused on one specialised type of diuretic drug for the medical industry. It had plants in three other locations across Europe, each chosen for its cleanliness of environment. But this particular facility was different from the others, for a very special reason that very few people knew about.

Enrico, the night security guard posted at the front gates, was numb with cold, and his mind had been drifting from tiredness until he’d spotted the faraway headlights winding their way towards the plant. Looked like two medium-sized trucks. As they came closer, lighting up the steel mesh fence and the concrete compound beyond, Enrico stepped out of his hut and walked towards the vehicles with a hand raised. The company took security pretty seriously, and the Heckler & Koch 9mm machine pistol slung across his body slapped against his side as he walked. It was loaded and he’d been trained to use it.

Not that there was anything necessarily unusual or sinister about the appearance of two trucks in the middle of the night. Enrico had been working at Terzi long enough to know two things: one, that even though there was usually a smattering of late-shift personnel about the fabrication plant and labs, the upper east wing in particular never went to sleep at night; and that two, you didn’t ask too many questions about went on in that part of the building. He’d often seen the labcoats walking about in the third-floor windows. Some of the girls were pretty hot too. But, just like everyone who worked there, they kept themselves to themselves. Word among the maintenance staff and the drivers was that they were involved in some kind of experimental research programme that Terzi was keeping under wraps pending patent. That seemed to explain the strange hours, and the secretive way that unmarked trucks would often turn up to collect unmarked crates of stuff from the delivery bay in the rear.

But Enrico still had to make sure the paperwork was all in order, secrecy or no secrecy. As the lead van pulled up at the gate and its window whirred down, he put out his hand and asked to be shown the documentation authorising him to open up.

‘Cold night,’ the driver said, and Enrico grunted in reply as he scanned the papers.

Wait, this was wrong.

‘This isn’t—’ he started.

But didn’t finish.

Enrico was a young man, fit and strong and at the peak of his physical shape.

But he was still just a man, and none of his human senses were honed enough to have picked up the silent approach of the figure that had slipped out from behind the van and moved towards him through the shadows. Less than a second later, Enrico’s neck was broken.

The van driver watched impassively as the dead guard was dragged into the hut.

His killer let the body slump to the floor, then turned to the computer console. A few clicks of the keys, and the gate was automatically unlatched and began to open. A few more clicks, and the security cameras throughout the facility were simultaneously deactivated.

The vans growled slowly through the gates and into the dark compound. Their back doors opened, and eight figures in black tactical clothing spilled out. They stole swiftly and silently into the facility, breaking up into pairs and working their way methodically from room to room, floor to floor. First clear the rest of the building, then move on to the east wing. Those were their instructions, and so far the operation was going perfectly according to plan.

Marta Tucci was sitting at her desk in her ground-floor office, the glare of the laptop shining off her glasses and the front of her labcoat. The screen was covered in technical data, but this late at night she couldn’t deal with it. Two years out of university and she already felt jaded with her biochemistry career. She hated working shifts. She should be at home, close to Franco and baby Renata. Sometimes she just wanted to—

That was when the door of her office crashed in and the two men in black burst inside, waving guns at her. She screamed. One of them strode up to her and grabbed her by her long blond hair. He yanked her brutally out of her seat and sent her tumbling to the floor. He fell on her like an animal. Her screaming became a tortured wail as his teeth crunched into her throat. Blood welled up in thick spurts, soaking the carpet as he sucked and gorged on her torn flesh. With an effort he stepped away from her, wiping his bloody mouth with his sleeve and letting his colleague drink from the dying woman.

Between them, the two intruder vampires drank Marta Tucci dry until her body was a pallid husk. They moved on to rejoin the team.

Eight more chemists and two more security men died the same way, bloodily and in terror, as the team swept the Terzi building. Each member had his fill. It was part of their reward for the night’s work.

In under five minutes, the figures in black had regrouped outside the security doorway leading into the east wing. The leader stepped up to a wall console and punched in a twelve-digit number. The code was changed daily, but their information was good. The steel doors whooshed open. The team slipped through into the corridor that lay beyond.

The east wing was staffed that night by a group of five white-coated chemists, three males and two females. The team of armed intruders came bursting into the complex of glass-walled rooms that comprised the secret Federation laboratory and brought mayhem. As one of the females ran for cover, a swathe of gunfire punched into the back of her white coat. She fell sprawling on her face, screaming, clawing, dying in agony and bursting apart.

The others stared in horror.

Not just because their colleague had just been gunned down. But because normally, vampires didn’t just fall down dead when you shot them. And the chemists working in the upper east wing were all vampires — vampires who knew all about the effects of Nosferol-tipped ammunition, because the production of the poison was one of their key jobs. Suddenly nobody was trying to escape or resist.

Only one of them, a portly male with a blond ponytail, seemed less scared than his colleagues. Nobody noticed, though — they had other things to worry about.

The tactical team worked fast. With the chemists held at gunpoint, the rest of them swept through the lab and found what they’d been sent to find. At the far end of the wing was a vast storage room with steel shelves from floor to ceiling, stacked with hundreds of crates containing litre-sized Perspex jars. Separated into sections, the crates were labelled ‘Solazal’, ‘Vambloc’ and ‘Nosferol’. It was the latter that the team leader was interested in. He pointed a gloved finger.

‘Load those up,’ he commanded. ‘The rest stays.’

While half the team started grabbing the Nosferol crates and carrying them to the lift in the corridor, others began attaching blocks of C-4 plastic explosive from their tactical vests to the shelving. In minutes, the whole storage room was rigged for destruction.

‘You bastards,’ one of the male vampire chemists spat at them.

The team leader grinned behind his mask. ‘Wait till you see what we’ve got in the van.’ And soon afterwards, when the lift returned from taking down the first batch of crates, two of his team brought in a massive holdall that even vampires struggled to carry. Inside was enough explosive to take out the whole building.

When the lab had been emptied of every drop of Nosferol, the leader signalled to his men to start evacuating the place. It was at that point that the chemist with the ponytail stepped forward, as if he thought he was going with them. The leader hit him hard across the face with the butt of his gun. The blond vampire went sprawling to the floor.

‘I gave you what you wanted,’ he whined in protest. ‘You told me you’d spare me.’

‘You piece of shit, Vernon,’ his surviving female colleague yelled at him, horrified.

‘What the fuck have you done? You gave them Nosferol?’

‘Shut up,’ the team leader said, and shot her.

‘Now it’s your turn, Vernon,’ he said over her dying shrieks. He raised his gun again.

‘But you promised…’

‘I lied.’ The leader shrugged, pointed his weapon in Vernon’s face and pulled the trigger. His team followed suit, opening fire on the two remaining Federation chemists.

They were still in their death agonies as the team swept back out of the lab as fast as they’d arrived.

Less than two minutes later the vans stormed out of the gates, their headlights sweeping the empty road. In the front passenger seat of the lead vehicle, the team leader took out a small remote. Without pausing a beat, he hit the detonation button.

The gigantic explosion filled the night sky behind them as they sped away with their cargo.