Lockdown

Fifty-nine

Stafford stood at the end of the corridor, Brand’s Glock warm in his hand. Three doors down, Lock’s cell door opened and a broadly spherical object rolled out. It took a second for him to register what it was. The eyes blindfolded. The scalp shaved. A jagged wound snaking down the skull. It was Lock’s head. That crazy bitch had butchered Lock and tossed his head out into the corridor like a bowling ball.

Stafford’s stomach lurched, and a two-hundred-dollar dinner spattered over five-hundred-dollar split-toe Harris brogues.

A figure stepped from the cell, face obscured by his riot visor, pushing Mareta forward at knife point. Her face was a mess, her own hair matted slick with blood.

‘Well, screw me,’ Stafford said, gesturing for the two guards with him to open the door. ‘He did it.’

The figure gave Mareta another shove. Hard. The momentum carried her through the open door and into the two guards. They scrambled to get a grip of her.

As they did so, the figure reached out a hand and took the Glock from Stafford. Awed, Stafford didn’t even try to stop him.

‘You did it, Brand! You did it!’

The figure pointed the gun at his head.

Stafford stumbled over his words. ‘Listen, there’s no need to be sore. I knew you would. Lock was never any match for you.’

The visor tilted up.

‘That so?’ said Lock, grabbing Stafford and pressing the barrel of the Glock into his temple.

A scream went up from one of the two guards as Mareta fastened on to him, trying to prise away his throat protector. He raised his hand to ward her off and she bit down on it. As his sidearm clattered to the floor, Mareta’s other hand, which held the knife, crept towards the man’s face, ferreting out a gap in his body armour and driving home the point of the knife straight into his carotid artery. A jet of blood pulsed out irregularly and ran thick down the wall as his partner tried to wrestle her off.

Lock shoved Stafford out of the way, levelled the Glock downwards, and picked his spot as best he could using iron sights at close range. He squeezed off a single round into Mareta’s leg. She released her grip, her hand reaching down to where she’d been shot. The uninjured guard pulled her to the floor, wresting the knife from her and jamming his knee into her back.

A second too late, Lock caught sight of Stafford reaching down to retrieve the dying guard’s sidearm. He spun round, levelled his Glock at Stafford, but not before the guard kneeling on top of Mareta had managed to point his weapon straight at Lock’s unprotected face.

He sensed the red dot of a laser sight tracing a pattern from his mouth to his face and up to a spot directly between his eyes. Slowly, he took his finger from the trigger of the Glock and laid it gently on the floor.