sir?” asked Harker, peering at the sheets.
“Some of the pockets of land that my family has managed to hold on to,” smiled Holmwood. “I have a suspicion that our Department is going to outgrow this house rather quickly. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I would,” said Harker. “My vision is of a secret military unit. And military units operate from military bases.”
“Precisely,” said Holmwood. “So why don’t you take a look through these and see if there’s anything you think might be suitable for such a purpose? Perhaps the area marked on the second sheet?” He clapped Harker hard on the back, and strolled out of the sitting room.
Quincey watched him go, then returned his attention to the maps. He lifted the first one carefully, set it aside, and felt a smile rise on his face. The second sheet illustrated a section of East Anglia, with a large area highlighted: it stood in the middle of dense forest, miles from anything in every direction. Quincey traced the circular shape with his finger, and began to smile.
Lieutenant Andrew Thorpe was only one of more than eight million combatants to die during the four years of the First World War. In Britain, as in many other nations, the heart and soul of an entire generation was torn out, as the survivors, the so-called ’lucky ones’, returned home to a country whose innocence was lost forever.
In the long years that followed, Quincey Harker led a silent crusade, keeping the public safe from a threat they did not know existed. He did it because it was in his nature to do so, because heroism came naturally to him, and because he believed in the value of service, of fighting to protect others. He rarely spoke of Andrew Thorpe, but the many friends and colleagues who fought alongside him, sharing in his triumphs and tragedies, knew that his old friend was never far from his mind.
As the British government was reorganised in the aftermath of the First World War, a shorthand was implemented inside the corridors of power in which each governmental department was given a number. The office of the Prime Minister was, naturally, described as Department 1.
By the end of the long, bloody twentieth century, there were twenty-three permanent departments, each assigned a number. Only one remained classified, a long-established black hole in the centre of the country’s administration, and one which generations of civil servants, intelligence operatives and military commanders have known better than to enquire about.
Department 19.
Don’t miss the previous two ebook adventures of Quincey Harker:
THE DEVIL IN NO MAN’S LAND: 1917 and UNDEAD IN THE ETERNAL CITY: 1918
Copyright
First published as an ebook in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2013
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Text copyright © Will Hill 2013
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007522255
Version 1
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