Best friends Michael and Jack are detective sergeants in a murder squad.

Jack's getting married to Kirsty, a teacher. On Jack's stag night, one of his informants is murdered and Jack goes missing. Best man Michael is left to pick up the pieces of the wedding - including Kirsty, a woman he's been carrying a torch for ever since Jack met her.

The informant's body is found but Jack has vanished. Wedding nerves, or corrupt cop? Two members of CIB join the inquiry, Angie and Vaughan. They get short shrift from a loyal Michael. He doesn't trust them an inch.

Jack shows up at Michael's. He says Angie and Vaughan are part of a government-sanctioned death squad who are after him. It's up to Michael to find out why. Michael chases up an old intelligence contact, ex-girlfriend Frances, and asks her to check out Vaughan and Angie. Frances discovers Vaughan used to be a soldier, Angie a cancer specialist. They're not CIB and yet their cover story is backed up by all Michael's superiors.

Michael tracks the informant's murder suspect himself and witnesses a cold-blooded execution by masked men - Vaughan among them. He steals Vaughan's gun: it has a specially adapted video sight and shoots carbon bullets. He subsequently follows Angie into a church - where Vaughan is waiting for him. Michael's taken in for interrogation. Does he know what Jack is? Michael's silent. He's released.

Michael meets up with Jack. Jack fails to register on the gun's video sight. Michael's worst fears are confirmed: his best friend is a Code V. Exposed, Jack maintains the situation hasn't changed, the squad is out to execute him. He demands Michael continues the investigation inside the Church. It's a place where Jack can't go. Or any of his kind. They want the name of the priest who leads this new squad.

When Michael refuses, Jack attacks. He bites Michael on the neck before Michael reduces him to ashes. Is Michael infected? The next day he finds the daylight painful. There's nothing else for it, he gives himself up to the squad. Angie cures Michael with laser treatment. Michael's one of the lucky ones, most of those infected by Code Vs never find out and live their lives as occasional fuelling stops for the undead. Michael hands over Jack's ashes and they're put in an incarceration chamber. Code Vs can be regenerated, though no human knows how.

Priest Pearse, who heads the Squad, fills Michael in. It's a war and the squad is our last line of defence. Michael reluctantly agrees to join.

< back  |  episode 02 >