Lockdown

Eighty-one

Mareta sat in a chair, her bad leg propped up on the control desk. Both the Van Stratens and all the former guards who remained had been given the Ebola variant and returned to their cells. Mareta had decreed that an hour should elapse before they were given the vaccine. Nicholas Van Straten, having received both vaccine and agent, would act as some kind of mid-point control, with Lock and the former detainees at the other end of the spectrum. Only Richard, Ty and Mareta were wholly unsullied.

‘Should have brought some playing cards,’ Ty said, to no one in particular, as they watched the security monitors suddenly go blank.

Khalid, who was sat next to the control desk, experimentally tapped one of the screens, first with his hand and then with the business end of an M-16.

‘Hey, Fonzarelli, that won’t work. They’ve cut the power,’ said Lock.

Mareta shrugged, unfazed. A second later, the lights went out. The darkness was total. Then the beam of a Maglite search lit everyone’s face, bar Mareta’s.

There was a staccato exchange between Mareta and Khalid, then the light went out again and the door slammed.

‘Who’s here?’ Lock asked, moving two paces right.

‘Yo!’ Ty shouted.

‘I am,’ said Richard.

‘OK, Ty and Richard. Anyone else?’

Nothing. He listened again, the darkness blanketing them in paranoia.

‘Have they gone?’ It was Richard asking.

The answer came as another flashlight beam emanated from the control desk. Khalid was shining the light straight at Lock.

‘Listen, we can’t stay here. You understand?’

Khalid didn’t answer. He probably didn’t speak English, although given Mareta’s record Lock was taking no chances.

‘If you understand us, Khalid, say something, you dumb-ass mother-loving camel molester,’ Ty said.

Nope. Not even a guy who’d picked up a few key phrases from rap records.

‘Don’t think he speaks English, Ryan.’

‘Thanks for clarifying that for me, Tyrone.’

‘Welcome. You still armed?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Me too. Homeboy’s outnumbered.’

‘That’s what I was thinking. Richard?’

‘Yes?’

‘You ever play murder in the dark when you were a kid?’

‘Sometimes with my cousins. They always won.’

Great, Lock thought.

‘OK, in a moment I need you to move. Make some noise doing it. And stay low.’

‘I can’t.’

‘How come?’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Would it help if I told you I am too?’

‘Not really.’

The chatter of light-arms fire struck up outside. Then the boom of what Lock guessed was a thunder flash going off. Or some spare C4. Whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t the sound of the President putting pen to paper on any guarantees.

Richard’s voice: ‘Lock?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m ready now.’

‘OK, in your own time.’

Richard’s chair skittered across the floor. The beam snapped from Lock’s face and to his right. Where Khalid should have found Richard, there was only glass.

Lock made his move, launching himself across the room on the line Khalid had established a moment ago with the Mini-Mag. It was as existential a moment as stepping off a cliff.

Lock caught the butt of the M-16 with his stomach, but his momentum carried him forward, tipping Khalid from his chair. A starburst of light broke in front of him as he caught the butt again, this time on the face. He tried not to fall back, to stay as close as he could. He drew back his right hand and short-punched Khalid, glancing off a jut of bone and finding what he guessed from the sudden wheezing was windpipe. Then he did it again, and again, until the wheezing gave way entirely.

He rolled off Khalid’s limp body, and grabbed the Maglite. He used it to locate the M-16, which had spun away a short distance. He kept the light moving, finding Ty gun-facing him and Richard huddled into a ball in the corner of the room.

Richard peered out from between his fingers as the wave of a blast rolled through the room from outside. Mareta? Lock doubted it. You didn’t walk out of all the situations she had just to go meekly to God when there was a chance of escape.

Lock crossed the room and helped Richard to his feet. He clapped him on the back. ‘You did good. Now, let’s get out of here.’

‘Wait.’ Richard crossed to where Lock was. ‘Give me that,’ he said, taking the flashlight. He shone it on Khalid, who was laid out on the floor. ‘Is he dead?’

‘I very much hope so,’ said Lock. ‘Now, let’s move.’