Hunted Blood II: Dark Reign Ch. 6

“I suspect we’ll meet someone named ‘M’ once we stop,” Smith said. Stone smiled. He had to admit, it did appear somewhat James Bondish.

The elevator stopped. They were now deep underground. They emerged into a whitened corridor, with a red runner carpet down its floor. There were many rooms off to the sides, and the group noticed several intersecting corridors.

Stone spoke as he led them, “No one has ever been down here before.”

“You mean none of our kind,” McKay stated.

Stone nodded. He stopped at the end of the hall. The two sliding doors parted for him, and the group followed him into the chamber.

There was a large table with many men seated around it. They were all dressed in business suits. There were all of different nationalities. One of the men, a large man with a smiling, Slavic face stood and walked to Stone.

“Mikhail Ivanovich,” the man said, holding Stone by his shoulders, “it is good to see you.”

“And it is good to see you, Yuri Pavelovich,” Stone said, returning the hug. Yuri had called Stone by his Russian name; Michael, son of John.

The story of these two went back a few years. Michael had made a cloaked insertion into Soviet Russia to track a dangerous vampire. His contact was then KGB colonel Yuri Pavelovich Rustov. The two made friends quickly. After the iron curtain fell, Yuri was appointed to The Organization’s council.

Yuri looked Stone’s accompanying vampiric horde over, and returned to his seat. The man that sat at the table’s head spoke next.

“Welcome, Master Hunter Stone. And we welcome your comrades. Please sit and we will call this meeting to order.”

They did as Shultz instructed.

“This is a waste of time,” Wu Sing stated. Shultz looked at the Chinese member and shook his head.

“We will hear him,” Shultz ordered. He then looked down the table at Stone. “Please, Herr Stone.”

“You have all read my reports,” Michael began, “so you know the substance of what I have been doing. We come now to an important decision, one that will affect our future work with serious precision.” He had practiced these opening words over and over. He was doing pretty well so far, he though.

“In order to fight this battle against Akuma, and win, we will find it necessary to enlist help. It has been discussed, and I am sure you have made research based on my reports, that there are too many of Akuma’s people for us to deal with ourselves. We need intelligence that only vampires can provide.”

“If I may interrupt,” Yuri spoke, “we have done research. It is as you say, this Akuma appears to have vampires in different areas all over the globe.”

Stone nodded. “They are like terrorist cells awaiting activation.”

“But what you propose,” Sir John Gallow said, “is absolutely absurd. Allying ourselves with vampires? Have you gone mad?”

“There has been numerous occasions when Hunters have made use of them,” Stone stated. “Its not like-“

“Your lust has blinded you, young man,” Gallow said. And with that, the room literally burst forth in confusion. They were all talking at once. Michael was afraid of this. He didn’t know what to do now. He looked to Anita, who silently shook her head.

A loud voice boomed over them, silencing them at once. “If I were you, I’d listen to what he has to say.”

The entire room turned to see who had walked through the doors unnoticed. John Stone stood at the table, directly behind his son.

It would have been expected. No one would have questioned John Stone. Everyone seated at the table knew him. Everyone respected him.

Shultz took John’s hand and shook it. He then pulled out a chair for him. Once John was seated, the discussion began again, but this time with a more civilized tone.

“Are you proposing an open alliance?” Sir John Gallow asked.

“Precisely,” it was Smith who answered. “We do not wish to remain silent any longer.”

“But,” Shultz questioned, “how exactly will you aid us?”

Anita turned her pretty head and smiled. “We have ways of keeping touch with the vampire that you do not. There are many instances where you only find that some revenant of our kind has killed after the fact. Many times we know where they are before they kill.”

“How?” Wu Sing questioned.

“It is in our best interests to be aware of these vampires, so that we may stay away from them,” Nera answered.

“They don’t like them,” John Stone offered. “And they don’t like to be associated with them.”

“That is correct, Senor Stone,” Anita said, smiling at him. The other vampires nodded. They too saw that, like his son, John Stone could tell the difference between good and evil.

“So you propose to openly give us information? And what do you want in return?” Shultz questioned further.

“Trust,” Anita answered. “We don’t kill, unless it can’t be helped. We do not invade the sanctity of life, human or otherwise. We respect all life, and as such, we wish to be respected as well. The world is not ready for the truth of our existence, but until it is, we wish to be left to our own.”

John Stone nodded his head. Michael looked at him, nodding as well, knowing that over the centuries, The Organization had hunted all vampires, evil or otherwise.

“That is acceptable,” Shultz said. “It requires a vote,” he added.

Wu Sing spoke up. “It seems fairly sensible to me. I don’t see where a vote is needed.”

Shultz looked around the table. No one disagreed.

The group moved into another corridor, walking briskly to a plain, polished steel door that had a sign that read “Operations Center”. Once Stone had placed his palm against a black plastic screen on the wall, the door slid open. The vampires, Stone, and the rest walked into the room.

The interior of the room resembled the United States Aerospace Command facility inside Cheyenne Mountain. There were several large projection screens on the walls, showing the detail of a global map. There were computers sat at various workstations, and a large flat-screen table monitor in the center of the room. People sat at their terminals, punching keys and speaking into headset microphones.

Yuri spoke for the vampires’ benefit. “We use technology to keep track of vampires these days. Much unlike so long ago.” He then walked over to a computer workstation where a technician was working. Stone joined him there.

“You see,” Yuri said, pointing to the monitor. “We have done a little investigating indeed. Most of these businesses are in some way connected with Akuma. It is easier now that we know his real name.”

Michael nodded. He noticed several highlighted businesses that actually had some part of “Akuma” in it. What an arrogant son of a bitch, he thought.

“Where is Akuma now?” Stone asked.

The technician spoke. “We don’t know. We know he left Japan, but we don’t know how. I have a list of every ship and aircraft that left since you reported in. Nothing fits.”

Michael picked up a print out and scanned it quickly. He came to a nautical registration that he didn’t recognize. Also, the type listed didn’t come to memory. He showed it to the technician.

“It’s a submarine. A Russian Foxtrot. Owned by El Cid Shipping, Madrid.”

Michael smiled. No shit. He then turned to Yuri.

“Selling your hardware nowadays?”

Yuri shrugged. “The Foxtrot as you call it is an old diesel boat. Many were decommissioned and sold not long ago.”

“Perfect way for a vampire to move,” Stone reasoned. Michael told the technician to search for the sub. After a few minutes of checking registrations with various ports, the sub’s course was located.

“It should be somewhere in there,” the technician said, pointing to a highlighted area of ocean on the global map.

John Stone was looking at it as well. “The only way to track a sub,” he said, “is with a sub. Let me make a phone call.”

--

Aboard theUSS Montpelier, SSN-765, it was business as usual.Montpelier was a 688-i Los Angeles class fast attack submarine. She was based out of Norfolk, Virginia. At present, she was on routine maneuvers in the Atlantic Ocean, traveling just South of the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap. Her captain, Commander Matthew Sullivan, had just ordered her down from periscope depth, whereMontpelier’s secure satellite transceiver had just downloaded tasking orders from the Commander, Submarines, Atlantic (COMSUBLANT).

“Leveling at one five zero feet,” the diving officer reported.

“Very well,” Sullivan acknowledged. “Steer course two one zero, ahead one-third.”

The helm responded, and the submarine banked slightly to the right as it’s rudder brought the nose of the boat around to two hundred ten degrees. Sullivan handed the printed sheet of paper in his hand to his XO, Lt. Commander Don Gibbs.

Gibbs scanned the paper, then raised his eyebrows. Sullivan shrugged. Gibbs turned around and took a few steps to the sonar station. He transposed a set of numbers onto a notepad for the sonar chief. The sonar chief looked at them, then he typed the numbers into the terminal of his BSY-Q1 sonar station.

“It’s entered in the computer,” Gibbs reported. “If she’s out there, we’ll find her.”

Sullivan nodded his head. For the next three hours, they would wait patiently asMontpelier,/I> reached her newly assigned patrol zone. Once there, they would settle into an act of looking for a needle in a haystack.

The Soviet built diesel sub would be easy to find, especially with the 688’s highly sensitive sonar array. However, to find one sub in a two-hundred nautical square mile section of ocean was no easy task. To accomplish the hunt,Montpelier would begin a tracking method known as “sprint and drift”. She would make a fairly fast run for a few minutes, then cut back and drift, while the sonarmen used the forward, aft, and lateral sonar arrays to listen for the diesel boat. She would continue these maneuvers until the target was located.

“Coming into patrol sector now,” Gibbs reported.

“Conn, aye,” Sullivan responded. “Sonar, report all contacts.”

“Conn, sonar,” Chief Bulloch replied, “I have one contact bearing one nine zero, range is four thousand yards. Contact identifies as a biologic.”

“Conn, aye,” Sullivan acknowledged. A ‘biologic’ meant a whale, dolphin, or some other sea-dwelling creature. The sensitive sonar on the sub picked them all up. Whale songs were a favorite past time of the sonar crew. Some had even claimed to be able to identify familiar whales in their patrol areas.

Sullivan issued orders to begin the sprint and drift runs. They were well into the first half-hour of the patrol when sonar picked up the Russian boat.

“Conn, sonar, possible submerged contact bearing zero six five. Range is twelve thousand yards.”

“Conn, aye,” Sullivan said. He waited. He did not need to tell the sonar chief to identify the contact. His people knew their jobs.

“Conn, sonar, submerged contact identifies as a Russian Foxtrot. Engine tonals and flow noise match exactly. This is our boat, sir.”

“Conn, aye. Well done, Chief. Designate contact as Master One.” Sullivan turned to the helm. “Come about to zero six five. Bring us up behind her.”

Montpelier banked again, turning as it steered to zero six five degrees. The sonar chief kept giving Sullivan steerage and ranging information. It was just a few minutes when he announced that they had closed to within 1,200 yards.

Sullivan had already issued the “all quiet” order. No one spoke now, and when they did, it was in hushed whispers. Following standard procedure, the conn had been ‘rigged for red’, in that the normal incandescent lighting had been replaced by red lighting, so that the green displays of the targeting sonars could be easily red.

“Conn, Sonar, aspect change on target. Master One is slowing. Speed dropping rapidly, down to six knots now, sir.”

“Conn, aye. All stop,” Sullivan said.

The only bad thing about traveling with vampires, the human thought, was they tended to leave bodies around. And on a submarine, that didn’t go over very well. So, it was his job to dispose of them. And that, he reasoned, was why this old Russian boat had torpedo tubes.

The man had loaded the tubes with two bodies in each. That was all of them, thankfully. He had just heard the helm controller say that they had slowed enough so that he could jettison the bodies. He turned the lever that would flood the tubes with seawater.

“Conn, Sonar, transient! Sounds like pump noise. Master One is flooding tubes!”

What the hell? Thought Sullivan. The Russian Foxtrot was facing away from them. And there was no way it knewMontpelier was here. But, still…..

“Load tubes one and two with ADCAPs,” he said.

It was just a few minutes when the XO responded with, “Tubes loaded.”

“Flood tubes one and two.”

Now that the Russian sub’s tubes were flooded, and the sub had slowed enough, the man turned the lever that opened the outer torpedo tube doors.

“Mechanical transient!” the sonar chief reported. “Master One is opening outer doors!”

“Conn, aye,” Sullivan responded. “Set ADCAPs tubes one and two for target Master One.”

“Firing solution loaded and locked,” the XO replied.

“Open outer doors, tubes one and two.”

The human pressed a final button, and a charge of compressed air expelled the limp corpses from the submarine’s tubes. They traveled laterally for a few minutes, until ocean currents began to tug them down.

“Conn, Sonar, Master One has launched!”

Sullivan was not going to take chances. He didn’t know what the Russian was shooting at, but he did know that there was a slim chance the target could beMontpelier.

“Match generated bearings and ….”

“Wait a minute, Captain!” The sonar chief yelled. “There is nothing there!”

“What do you mean ‘there is nothing there’?”

The sonar chief shook his head. “Sonar is not picking up anything metallic, sir. There are no torpedoes in the water.”

The XO nodded at the same time the captain did. “He jettisoned something,” the XO said.

“That would be my guess,” Sullivan replied. “Sonar, what did he jettison?”

“Damned if I know, Captain. But it ain’t no torpedo.”

“Very well,” Sullivan stated, breathing a sigh of relief. The Mark 48 Advanced Capability torpedo would have blown the Russian boat apart. “Close outer doors. Maintain course.”

“Sonar confirms, Captain,” the chief said. “Master One is now resuming speed.”

Sullivan breathed. “Very well,” he said. He still didn’t know why the hell he was following it anyway. COMSUBLANT wanted the boat followed, and that was all he knew.

Almost seventeen hours later, Jon Stone, Michael Stone, Manfred Shultz, Anita, Sir John Gallow, and Thomas Smith stood staring at the world map display in the operations center.

“Norway?” Smith asked.

“That is what Admiral Wilkes told me,” John Stone replied. “He said thatMontpelier followed the Foxtrot here,” as he pointed to a spot on the map with a laser pointer, “and then traveled up this river fjord. Now this picture we see here is a thermal image taken by a photosat a few hours ago.” John touched a button on a console and the image zoomed and cleared. “See that?” he said, pointing again.

“A heat bloom,” Shultz stated.

“Exactly,” John Stone agreed. “If I had to guess, I’d say he was in drydock.”

“You mean ‘she’,” Anita corrected.

Michael smiled and leaned close to her, “Russian boats are called ‘he’.”

Anita shrugged, “Oh,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth.

“Well,” Sir John Gallow spoke, “if the photosat says its there, then that is bloody well where it is.”

Shultz nodded. The photosat information was provided by a contact from Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force at considerable expense. It was good information. But, still, in Norway?

“Maybe something left over from World War II?” Thomas Smith offered.

“Quite possibly,” John Stone agreed. “You never know about the Germans.”

Shultz narrowed his eyes at the playful remark. “Ja, or the Americans.”

“So Norway it is, then,” Michael stated. He handed a handwritten note to Shultz. Shultz read it and nodded.

“I will make the calls now,” Shultz said, turning to leave.

--

Within a few days, Akuma thought, he would contact his people. They were scattered throughout Europe and America. But, he would control them all from this secluded sea-side fortress. And, from here, his domination of the world would begin.