Lockdown

Seventy-two

Mareta watched the dark shapes flitting periodically across the wall of monitors with about as much interest as a retired cop relegated to the graveyard shift at an out-of-town mall. She palmed some painkillers, checked the time-code running at the bottom left of the nearest screen, swivelled on her chair, and shot the guard nearest to her in the face.

Josh stirred in his sleep as Richard handed him to Lock and rushed towards the dying man. A spurt of blood covered Richard’s face — unfair reward for an act of compassion.

Lock put his hand behind Josh’s head and pressed the little boy’s face tight to his chest. Even with children’s seemingly endless capacity for absorption, there were some things better left unseen.

Lock could feel Josh’s arms and legs stiffening as he watched Richard tend to the dying guard. He stretched out as best he could, catching Richard’s eye as he did so.

‘Let the kid go, Mareta. He’s been used enough already.’

‘I won’t harm the boy.’ Mareta paused. ‘So long as my demands are met.’

‘This country doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.’

‘Correction. It’s not seen to. There’s a difference.’

‘Look, you have me, you have him,’ said Lock, indicating Richard.

She swivelled round on the chair, the suddenness of the movement leaving Lock’s heart in his mouth. ‘This situation is not of my making,’ she said.

There was movement outside the control room. One of the detainees, a young Pakistani the others called Khalid, led in three of Meditech’s guards at gunpoint. Their uniforms were torn, and one of the men’s eyes were closing from the beating he’d taken. Mareta buzzed the door open and they were pushed inside, forced to sit on the floor.

‘OK, I make you a deal,’ Mareta said. ‘Once your friend delivers his cargo to us, the boy can leave. But in the meantime, for every hour that passes, one of these men will die.’

Lock knew that arguing would get him nowhere. ‘I already explained to you that this would take at least two hours. The travel time alone will be that, never mind the actual extraction.’

Mareta seemed to mull it over. ‘Then only two of these men will die.’