we were led to believe.” I was completely lost, weapons, angry Korean, Mongolia, Brisbane, condo, what strategy could I have, what credentials did I have? I hadn't been an operative of any sort since 2003, all I had now was... I live in Brisbane, I knew the layout… that’s it.
“I am.” Why did I say that!?
“Good, dismissed.” I felt like I was going to be sick. We stood in oddly formed unison, starting toward the door in a similar fashion.
Gregorvich walked next to me and leaned in, “You’re scared shit-less aren’t you?” I looked up at him in surprise and slowly nodded to which he chuckled while clapping me on the shoulder, “Do not worry friend, you’ll do fine. We’re all here to help you, just because you’re the leader doesn’t mean we can’t help, da?” I looked up at him, the man was huge, at least 6’8, his eyes a deep brown, his ridiculously clean and managed teeth revealed as he smiled, no, beamed at me, even his vampiric teeth were clean and undamaged. I smiled back weakly.
We continued on into a short hallway, its walls a bright white, “I take you to cafeteria, get you something to eat?”
I immediately felt unbearably hungry, I laughed to myself for not knowing I needed food until I was told, “That would be great.” I said with a much stronger smile than before.
We turned into a room with three circular tables, a tinted window and a counter. The room immediately reminded me of the small take away shops that I'd enjoyed over the years. “Take a seat, I’ll get the food.” I nodded and walked over to the table closest to the window while Gregorvich walked over to the counter, I sat down and watched out the window. I allowed myself to go blank, just let everything go, I let myself believe that all this was completely reasonable and made complete sense. It was something that I'd learned to do many years ago as a coping mechanism.
Getting turned into a vampire and having to become a nomad with a passive aggressive five hundred and something year old. After spending the better part of my formative years in splendour, you know, other than the war, well… wars. It was all somewhat perspective altering.
Gregorvich walked over holding a folded newspaper while balancing a container of gravy on top. He sat across from me and ripped the top of the newspaper to reveal a large pile of chips. “Dig in.” I slowly ate the chips in front of me, “Dig in, go nuts, you must be hungry. You’ve no one to disgust here.” He flashed me another of his huge smiles.
I was hesitant at first, then I doused the chips in the gravy and began to shovel them in. “I am so hungry.” I said through muffled mouthfuls,
“You would be, I don't know how I'd go without food or drink for four days.” I processed what he said while continuing to shovel food.
“You mean to tell me you didn't have me on some sort of drip while I was out?” Gregorvich pulled a face as if he were thinking about the question and began shaking his head.
“No, can’t say we did, sorry, we were kind of… we were exhausted, sorry.”
I think I would’ve had a panic attack if I weren’t so intent on forcing as much food into my body as possible, I could’ve died because these guys were tired. “So what exactly is it that we do here?”
Gregorvich shrugged, “Bit of this, bit of that. We specialise in… suicide mission. We do what others cannot; we are much more suitable for missions when they would have to send in twenty regular soldiers.”
I finished the chips and wiped my mouth with a napkin, “Were you a soldier before you were recruited?”
He shook his head and smiled, “No, not at all, I was mortician, southern Russian. I served in World War II, but that’s it.”
I decided to go a bit more personal. “When were you changed?”
His face drooped slightly, “Seventy three years ago, I was twenty seven, I was dying, frostbite, had gotten lost and walked for hours before I found a cottage, that’s all I remember, I woke up in a dirty hotel room in Moscow with a note pinned to my pillow, 'ty vampir seychas, pit’ krov’, vyzhit’, says I am vampire now, and I need to drink blood to survive. Roughly,” He smiled again, “but hey, if not for it I would not have seen you decimate the chip and gravy population.” Holy crap this guy smiles a lot.
Then I had it, a plan, “I have a plan, for the mission.”
I was so excited, and from the look on his face, so was Gregorvich, “I get the team, you wait right here.” I’ve never seen a man shoot from a chair that fast before, and I've seen men tied to chairs and had cannons fired at them. My chest flushed with pride, I don’t know where it came from, it must've been something to do with him bringing up the second World War, some kind of stratagem sent off through my brain by a simple set of words that ended up kick starting memory association, one minute completely blank the next I was developing a plan.
The Plan
I scooped up my left overs and looked around for a bin, saw one in the far right corner and made for it. I was about a metre from it when I felt a hand fall on my shoulder. I turned to see a man of about 6’1 with a slack jaw, eyes rolled into the back of his head, dirty blonde hair and thick angular features, “You will die in the city…” He struggled with each word.
I looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and fear, “What was that?”
His eyes rolled forward to reveal dark blue eyes, he tightened his jaw into a smile, “I’m just screwing with you, I’m Sergeant Jason Minks, I run Alpha team and I understand you give me my orders.” He thrust his hand out, I looked at it for a moment before I realised what he wanted me to do with it.
“Oh, yeah, two seconds.” I spun around on my feet and threw the scraps in the bin, turned to him once more and shook his outstretched hand, “John Prince. Glad to have you on board.”
I began to walk back to the table with him following, “I’m about to go through the plan with the others if you’d like to have a listen.”
He smiled and nodded as we took our seats. “Better than getting it in the briefing packet, I never can understand those things.”
I nodded, “Yeah, always easier to hear it than to read it, and you can’t ask paper questions.”
We sat in silence for a good five minutes. Damn, Gregorvich was taking a long time. “So what will my team be doing?”
I looked up, “Um, primarily transport, and then support for the majority of the mission...” My team coming through the door interrupted me, “…I’ll explain it in a moment.”
The team pulled up chairs around the table while Wolfgang looked over exceptionally eagerly, “What’s the plan?”
I took a deep breath, “Ok, our first target is the condo, it’s quiet, out of the way.” I gestured to the other vampires in the room, “we’ll be chuting in along with our weapons from a cargo plane toward the pool,”
Jason scratched his neck, “Where do we fit in in this part?”
I smiled lightly, “Don’t worry, I haven’t left you guys out, I’ll need you to come in through his front door shortly after we’ve breached, I’ll signal you when we have.”
Jason nodded, “Yes sir.”
Kate raised her fore finger, “How are going to get to the city after this? Last I checked it’s about an hour and half drive from the beach.”
I couldn't get over how gorgeous this girl was, I nearly stumbled on my words again as I struggled to maintain my commander voice, “We’ll be attacking in the early morning. I noticed that he didn’t have a car anywhere near his house, but there’s an enclosure a few metres from the condo. I’m hoping that’s a garage.”
Gregorvich smiled, “This make sense, there’s still a few days before the meeting, I can do drive by, see if is garage, and what vehicles inside, that way less guessing, less chance for mistake. What you think?”
I nodded at him, “Sounds good. Also, I realise you guys may be worried about being outside during the day. But I figure as long as we have a massive feed the night before and stick to the shade we should be fine. Especially seeing as barely any direct sunlight makes it into the city until midday.”
>
Wolfgang piped up, “Yeah, I’ve made through an entire day just by wearing copious amounts of sun block, and we have blood storage, every living soul on base donates weekly to keep us going.”
“Well that solves the problem of getting the blood. Alright, once we’ve cleared the condo we move to the city, Gregorvich you’re with me, Wolfgang and Kate, you’re with Jason and his squad. Gregorvich, once we’re to the building we’re going to have a briefcase filled with explosives, something that'll make a lot of smoke but have enough force to clear the lobby. You’ll hold a remote detonator, I’ll drop the case at the building entrance and you’ll blow it.” I paused for a moment and looked around at the all the faces around me, they were so intent to hear everything that I had to say.
They seemed to be absolutely absorbed by my words and it felt amazing. “Kate, Jason and Wolfgang, I need you guys to follow us in a van or something of the like, once we’ve blown the case you’ll drive up and give us our weapons. At that point I’ll need Jason and his team to cover the door and layer the ground floor with C4 as a fail-safe, while you two join Gregorvich and myself. We’ll clear the building floor by floor.”
I turned all my attention to Jason, a silent gesture that he needed to focus on this specific part of the plan. Honestly it was more for my benefit than his, “Once we’ve reached the fifteenth floor I’ll call you up Jason,