Deadlock

30

‘You don’t have the authority to do that,’ the Marshal said.

‘Listen, Sparky, we’re immobile and surrounded by a hostile group of heavily armed combatants. Now, I could go hide under one of the seats if you like. Or I can try to get us all out of this alive.’

Lock looked quickly out of one of the windows. At least three heavily armed individuals, including the woman. He checked his watch. They were five minutes into the contact already. No matter how gung-ho the ambushers were, they weren’t going to be able to stick around indefinitely.

Lock looked at the escort who was with Reaper and jerked his thumb in the prisoner’s direction. ‘Get him on his feet. Whatever anti-ballistic gear we have spare, put it on him.’

‘What are you gonna do?’ he asked.

‘Test a little theory I’ve been chewing over.’ Lock paused, then looked directly at Reaper. ‘It strikes me that if the people outside with all those heavy weapons wanted Reaper dead, then right about now they’d be filling the fuselage with a lot of holes. Which means they want him alive.’

‘So why does he need the body armor, then?’

‘You’ll see,’ said Lock as the Marshal hauled Reaper to his feet.

‘Got it all figured out, don’t you, Lock?’ Reaper sneered.

‘You tell me. Are they here to kill you or help you escape?’

Reaper fell silent.

‘Yup, thought as much,’ Lock said.

Chance was beginning to worry. There seemed no clear way into the aircraft. She yanked at what she thought might be a baggage hatch, but it wouldn’t budge.

They should have brought tear gas, she thought. Something to flush the Marshals and Reaper out with.

She kicked out at one of the tires, then crouched under the body of the plane and shouted up at the door, ‘You have ten seconds to hand him over. Do you understand?’

The woman’s voice was muffled by the fuselage, but the words were audible.

Reaper was having an anti-ballistic helmet screwed on to his head by one of the Marshals. It was like fitting a baby bonnet on a linebacker.

Lock crossed to the door. ‘OK, but you have to give us more than a ten-count.’

The woman’s reply was curt and to the point: ‘Ten… nine…’

The Marshal suited Reaper up as the countdown continued. When the woman hit zero there was silence. Then a volley of automatic fire burst through the undercarriage, ripping out the stuffing from one of the seats at the rear of the plane. Everyone froze.

‘So if they want him alive so much, what was that about?’ the Marshal asked.

‘It’s called playing the percentages,’ Lock said, grabbing Reaper and frogmarching him towards the door at the front of the plane. ‘OK, no more firing, I’m bringing him out,’ he shouted, jabbing a finger at one of the Marshals to open the door. ‘But you have to move back from the aircraft. Right now.’

‘We’ll pull back, you send him out.’

Lock stayed with Reaper and motioned for the two Marshals to get their weapons and move to the exit-side windows.

‘OK,’ he shouted. ‘As soon as we see you move back, I’ll send him out.’

Chance pulled the patrol car away from the plane. Every second that passed, their options were narrowing.

The door of the plane juddered open, the stairs unfolded, and there stood Reaper in all his glory. It was enough to make Chance catch her breath.

But then, as Reaper took the first step, she saw that he wasn’t alone. There was a man with him. The man produced a Glock, shoved it in Reaper’s face, and with his free hand pushed the cuffed Reaper down the rest of the stairs. At the bottom, he stopped and pressed the gun hard into Reaper’s mouth.

‘You seriously think I’m going to hand you this piece of shit?’ he shouted.

Behind Chance, Cowboy and Trooper had fanned out, trying to find an angle, but Reaper’s sheer size precluded a clean shot at the man who was now propelling him across the runway.

Then the man stopped.

‘You want him so bad, you come and get him.’

Lock had to concede that Reaper made for one hell of a human shield. It was like standing behind a Stryker armored vehicle.

One of the attackers, a man wearing a cowboy hat, darted out from behind the hijacked police cruiser. Lock flicked his borrowed Glock away from Reaper’s mouth and let off a single shot which bounced off the runway three feet to the guy’s left, then put the gun back to Reaper’s head.

‘Come on, you pussies, come and get him. I can do this all day.’

Another male attacker with long blond hair appeared, this time from the other side. Lock hauled Reaper in closer to him, pivoted round and got off a shot which went high and wide.

In the distance, a symphony of sirens could be heard, getting louder.

‘The question is, how long you got?’

Chance could hear the sirens too. She could even pick out the trail of flashing red lights. She clenched her fists, furious. They could stay, fight their ground, but ultimately they’d be overwhelmed, and the mission would be a failure. Or they could walk away now, and try again.

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs. She exited the patrol car, grabbing the grenade launcher on her way out.

Cowboy and Trooper screeched to a halt next to her in the black SUV they’d jacked from the Marshals. They screamed for her to get inside as she raised the launcher and sent a final defiant message roaring towards the JPATS plane.

Lock pushed Reaper down on to the ground as the RPG round whistled over them. A wall of fire soared into the sky as it made contact with the plane, the fuel tank engulfing the entire fuselage in flames. He hated to think what it was doing to the men inside.

Looking up, Lock saw the jacked SUV slamming out on to the service road beyond the perimeter of the airfield. He pulled Reaper back to his feet and smiled into his stony face.

‘Looks like you’re gonna have your day in court after all.’