Deadlock

65

The Secret Service had hustled Lock and Ty out on to the back steps of the cathedral, away from the assembled dignitaries. Over the crush, Lock spotted Coburn walking towards the cathedral. His head was down. He looked troubled.

Lock shouted out to him, but Coburn didn’t react.

‘Ask that guy,’ said Lock, pointing towards Coburn, as a burly Secret Service agent stepped in front of him. ‘He’s ATF. He can vouch for me.’

The Secret Service agents gathered round them didn’t move.

‘OK, I’ll ask him,’ said Lock, stepping around them.

‘The hell you will,’ said the burly agent. ‘You still haven’t explained how you came to have explosives residue on a deadly weapon you were carrying in here.’

Coburn was heading up the steps towards them. ‘Coburn!’ Lock shouted. ‘Coburn!’ He turned to one of the agents. ‘Just ask him, would you?’

Coburn pulled out his ATF badge and showed it to someone standing halfway down the stairs. The agent checked it and let him pass.

He was just feet away from Lock and Ty now.

‘Hey,’ said the burly agent, ‘you know these guys?’

Coburn stopped, looked straight at Lock and Ty, and smiled. ‘Never seen them before in my life,’ he said, then ducked past the group and into the body of the cathedral.

Lock and Ty exchanged a look of disbelief.

‘Hey, Coburn!’ Lock shouted. He went to push past the agent, which only signaled to the cops to move in to cuff him.

‘Get this guy the hell out of here before POTUS gets here.’

‘OK, OK,’ Lock said, giving up.

‘Him too,’ said the Secret Service agent, nodding at Ty.

‘What the hell did I do?’ Ty protested.

The second Secret Service agent hitched his thumbs into his belt. ‘We need you both out of here. If everything checks out, you’ll be released later in the day.’

‘Place your hands behind your back,’ said one of the cops to Lock.

‘Fine,’ Lock said, doing exactly as he was told.

‘You have any needles, any other sharp objects in your pocket?’ a female cop asked.

‘No.’

She came up with a comb in the right front pocket of his jeans and his wallet, which she left where they were. Once they were satisfied that they posed no threat, Lock and Ty were perp-walked down the steps of the cathedral.

Ty twisted his head round. ‘Hey, take it easy, I got a bad shoulder.’

His plea was met with a growled ‘And if you don’t keep moving it’s gonna get a lot worse.’

The crowd gathered at the crash barriers jeered as Lock walked down the stairs and across the sidewalk, propelled towards a patrol car parked directly across the street next to the park. He watched as Ty was given the same treatment, the only difference being that Ty wasn’t going quietly. He couldn’t make out the words but he guessed they weren’t pretty.

Lock’s head was forced down and he was placed into the back seat of the cruiser. He checked out the crowd once more: hard faces peering in his direction. The locks on the rear doors thunked shut, and then they were inching forward, away from the cathedral.

From his position on the back seat, he scanned the faces of those gathered at the front entrance but didn’t see Carrie. In a way, he was relieved. He’d go to the station, follow procedure like he’d been asked, and be out again in a couple of hours.

As they inched away from the kerb, he thought frantically about the explosive residue on the tip of his knife. Had it been near his SIG? That way it might have picked up a few specks of cordite. No, the closest the Gerber had been to either live rounds or his SIG was being in the same room. No way would that have been enough to leave a trace.

He glanced back at the cathedral through the cruiser window, across the freshly repaired patch of asphalt and up the steps.

Shit. The road. It had to be! He’d bent down and used the knife to dig a hole into the newly laid road surface.

‘Stop the car!’ he shouted, leaning forward.

The female cop riding up front bumped the brakes, the momentum propelling him forward so that he smacked his head against the hard Perspex divider which separated him from her, then accelerated again.

Unless he acted fast, his next stop was the station house, and the President’s next stop would be the morgue.