Will Hill - Battle Lines

For Sarah,

who knew what writers were like, but managed to look past it

The earth had a single light afar,

A flickering, human pathetic light,

That was maintained against the night,

It seemed to me, by the people there,

With a Godforsaken brute despair.

Robert Frost

We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things.

Jonathan Harker

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication For Sarah, who knew what writers were like, but managed to look past it

Epigraph The earth had a single light afar, A flickering, human pathetic light, That was maintained against the night, It seemed to me, by the people there, With a Godforsaken brute despair. Robert Frost We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things. Jonathan Harker

Memorandum MEMORANDUM From : Office of the Director of the Joint Intelligence Committee Subject : Revised classifications of the British governmental departments Security : TOP SECRET DEPARTMENT 1 Office of the Prime Minister DEPARTMENT 2 Cabinet Office DEPARTMENT 3 Home Office DEPARTMENT 4 Foreign and Commonwealth Office DEPARTMENT 5 Ministry of Defence DEPARTMENT 6 British Army DEPARTMENT 7 Royal Navy DEPARTMENT 8 Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service DEPARTMENT 9 Her Majesty’s Treasury DEPARTMENT 10 Department for Transport DEPARTMENT 11 Attorney General’s Office DEPARTMENT 12 Ministry of Justice DEPARTMENT 13 Military Intelligence, Section 5 (MI5) DEPARTMENT 14 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) DEPARTMENT 15 Royal Air Force DEPARTMENT 16 Northern Ireland Office DEPARTMENT 17 Scotland Office DEPARTMENT 18 Wales Office DEPARTMENT 19 CLASSIFIED DEPARTMENT 20 Territorial Police Forces DEPARTMENT 21 Department of Health DEPARTMENT 22 Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) DEPARTMENT 23 Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)

Prologue

52 Days Till Zero Hour

1. The Next Generation

2. Lazarus Revamped

3. Slow News Day

4. The Desert Should Be No Place for a Vampire

5. Everything Heals, in Time

6. Civilised Men

7. Sink or Swim

8. The Lost Harker

9. The Shock of the New

10. In Conversation

11. Time to Go Home

12. Ready to Roll

13. Social Networking

14. Girls vs Boys

51 Days Till Zero Hour

15. One of Our Own

16. Classified Means Classified

17. Old Scores

18. The Most Important Meal of the Day

19. The War on Drugs, Part One

20. The Sleep of The Just

21. The War on Drugs, Part Two

22. On The Trail of the Dead

23. Truth or Consequences

24. The War on Drugs, Part Three

25. From Beyond the Grave

26. Too Close to Home

27. Dormant for Too Long

28. Where It Hurts

29. Drowning Out

30. Preliminary Conclusions

31. From Ancient Grudge Break to New Mutiny

50 Days Till Zero Hour

32. Closing the Net

33. Playing with Fire

34. The Sum of Our Parts

35. Going Underground

36. Sin City

37. By a Thread

38. Joining Up the Dots

39. Prime Suspect

40. Paved with Good Intentions

41. Undercurrents

42. Fathers4Truth

49 Days Till Zero Hour

43. The Dark Horizon

44. Three Musketeers

45. Final Edition

46. It Never Rains…

47. Time Waits for No Man

48. Behind the Curtain

49. Pieces of the Puzzle

50. Deadline

51. … It Pours

52. Headlong

53. Leaving on a Jet Plane

54. Guilty Parties

55. Hold the Front Page

56. We Take Care of Our Own

57. Hot Off the Press

58. After the Horse Has Bolted

59. What Might Have Been Lost

60. Homecoming

Two Days Later

61. Post-Mortem

Epilogue: Three Farewells

Epilogue: Two Prisoners

46 Days Till Zero Hour

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

From : Office of the Director of the Joint Intelligence Committee

Subject : Revised classifications of the British governmental departments

Security : TOP SECRET

In the village of Crowthorne is an alarm.

A direct copy of a World War Two air-raid siren, it is bright red, and sits atop a pole two metres above the ground.

The alarm is connected by an underground network of wires to Broadmoor Hospital, the sprawling estate of red-brick buildings that sits above the village, and which is home to almost three hundred of the United Kingdom’s most dangerous, damaged citizens.

It is designed to alert anyone within a twenty-five-mile radius to an escape from the hospital, and has been sounded only five times in earnest in more than fifty years.

Ben Dawson had been asleep for about forty-five minutes when the siren burst into life. He jerked up from a dream about sleep, the kind of long, deep, uninterrupted sleep that had been impossible in the six weeks since Isla was born, and felt his wife raise her head slowly from her pillow.

“The baby OK?” she slurred.

“It’s not Isla,” he replied. “It’s the siren.”

“Siren?”

“The bloody Broadmoor siren,” he snapped. It was deafening, a two-tone scream that made his chest tighten with anger.

“What time is it?” asked Maggie, forcing her eyes open and looking at him.

Ben flicked on his bedside lamp, wincing as the light hit his eyes, and checked the clock.

“Quarter to four,” he groaned.

Not fair, he thought. It’s just not fair.

Then he heard a second sound, in between the peals of the alarm; a high, determined crying from the room above their bedroom. Ben swore and swung his legs out from under the duvet.

“Stay there,” said Maggie, pushing herself to the edge of the bed. “It’s my turn.”

Ben slid his feet into his trainers and pulled a jumper over his head. “You see to Isla. I’m going outside, see if anyone else is awake.”