Lockdown

Fifty-four

Lock sat on the floor with his back against the cell wall. All he was missing to complete the Steve McQueen look was a baseball.

‘So, what do you think we should call the kids?’

Mareta, who was on the bed, pointed the knife in the direction of his face again. ‘You talk too much.’

‘Just trying to pass the time.’

‘You should be thinking of how we get out of here.’

‘I thought you’d have that covered.’

She looked straight at him. ‘And why would that be?’

Damn. Nothing Lock had said since he’d entered the cell had in any way suggested that he knew her by reputation, and that was too close. ‘You said you’d escaped twice after being captured, didn’t you?’ he countered, thinking quickly.

She sneered, swung her legs over the edge of the bed frame. Jabbed the point of the knife gently against his arm, like a housewife checking the chicken to see if the juices are running clear. ‘You’re not a journalist,’ she said.

‘And why do you say that?’

‘I’ve met many of them.’

Lock flashed back to another story that Mareta had reputedly featured heavily in. Six pro-Kremlin reporters dispatched from Moscow to show how well the war effort was going in Chechnya. The first head arrived back in their Moscow office in a large brown box a week later. A day later, a second head. Within the week all the heads had been returned. Then the hands started to arrive. That took two weeks. In all, it was a three-month process. A constant drip of gruesome detail. Only their hearts didn’t make it back. Presumably they left them in Chechnya.

‘Most journalists are fat,’ Mareta continued. ‘From sitting on their backsides and sticking their noses in the government trough.’

‘Not here they ain’t, lady,’ Lock said. ‘We have freedom of the press.’

‘So does Russia. They’re free to say or write whatever they like. But somehow what they write is what the people who pay them want to hear. Big coincidence.’ She kept staring at him. ‘So, who are you?’

She didn’t look like she was about to give up this line of questioning any time soon.

‘I told you already.’

‘You mean you lied already.’

‘Listen, if we’re going to get out of here in one piece, we’re going to have to trust each other.’

‘Trust requires honesty.’

Lock conceded that point. He was about to break the primary rule of capture: pick a cover story and stick to it. But this wasn’t a regular situation. For one thing, Brand wouldn’t hesitate to break his cover, especially if he thought it would get him killed.

He examined Mareta. In a straight fight it would be no contest, despite her reputation. But she had the knife. Guys who watched the Ultimate Fighting Championship might talk about knife ‘fighting’, but in reality there was no such thing. There was only getting stabbed. Quickly followed by bleeding to death.

‘OK, you’re right,’ he said.

She listened calmly as he told her about working for Meditech and filled in the details leading up to his being taken prisoner at the facility. She said nothing, remained resolutely expressionless, only occasionally stopping him to seek clarification of a word or phrase she didn’t understand. The only time she reacted to Lock’s story was when he mentioned the animal rights activists and their cause. The very idea seemed absurd to her. Lock understood her scepticism. For someone who’d witnessed and enacted the slaughter of human beings, it must have seemed a foreign concept. He considered repeating the Gandhi quote that Janice had fired at him from her hospital bed, but thought better of it.

He finished, and waited for Mareta to say something. Silence filled the space between them. Normally he would have been content with that, but what was needed now was rapport. Storytelling was about as good a way to establish that as he knew.

‘So, what about you? Why are you here?’

‘You already know who I am,’ Mareta replied.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘But you don’t seem scared.’

‘Should I be?’

‘Everyone’s afraid of ghosts.’

Lock mulled it over. ‘Maybe I’m different.’

Mareta studied the walls of the cell, equally reflective. ‘That’s true,’ she replied. ‘You’re still alive. And if you want to stay that way you might want to think about how we can get out of here.’