Deadlock

17

A chilling breeze cut across the yard as Lock and Reaper set back to work marking each piece of metal in the chain-link fence with a slash of purple paint. With Phileas’s ultimatum still ringing in his ears, Lock was thankful that, like the day before, they had been released last from their cell in the unit.

Reaper dabbed a splodge of purple on to his brush. ‘Today’s the day, huh?’ he said to Lock.

‘What day’s that?’

‘Day you pop your cherry inside here.’

Lock rolled up his cuffs. ‘We’ll see.’

‘Listen, man, I’m sorry about Phileas, but you talk to a toad on the yard, this is what happens.’ Reaper ran his brush across a metal end wire secured to one of the posts. ‘And you can’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘I’m not laying a finger on Ty.’

‘Then you’re gonna have to face the consequences, my friend,’ Reaper said, reloading his brush with paint, then sketching the outline of a man’s face in the dirt.

Lock paused for a second to study the outline, picking out a strong chin, aquiline nose and hooded eyes — the unmistakable features of the current President.

‘Didn’t think you’d be a fan of his,’ Lock said.

Reaper stopped to admire his handiwork. ‘I ain’t,’ he said sourly, ‘although he’s done great things for our movement, that’s for sure.’

Lock didn’t stop to dispute that with Reaper. Ever since the country elected its first African-American President there had been a surge in two things: gun sales and membership of white supremacist groups.

Seemingly lost in thought, Reaper dabbed a little more purple on to the end of his brush and drew a circle round the President’s head, then painted in a couple of lines to form crosshairs.

‘Nice touch,’ Lock said, grabbing the white plastic handle of the paint tin and holding it up. ‘We’re out. You want to go see if you can get us some more?’

Reaper took the tin and got to his feet. ‘Sure thing. You don’t want to come with me?’ he added sarcastically.

‘Not this time,’ Lock said, watching Reaper swagger across the yard.

As soon as Reaper was out of sight, Lock walked to the end of the fence they’d already worked on and pretended to be checking over each purple slash. At the same time he angled his body so that he had his back to the guard in the gun tower.

He hunkered down on his haunches and with his paintbrush in his left hand set about unhooking and then twisting off a piece of wire connected to the terminal post. After what seemed an eternity it came away in his hand, and he pocketed it. Then he dabbed at where the chain-link had been with his brush and set to work on another piece. By the time Reaper emerged from the unit building with more paint, Lock had managed to prise away three pieces.

He turned and walked back along the fence towards Reaper, who raised the tin of paint in salute before looking from Lock to the far end of the fence.

‘What you doing down there, soldier boy?’

‘Just making sure I hadn’t missed anything,’ Lock said. ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, right?’

Reaper smirked and tugged at his walrus mustache ‘If you say so.’

They set back to work. Now all Lock could do was pray that one of the guards noticed the missing pieces of the fence before it was too late.