Lockdown

Eighty-two

Too soon. The words had clambered into his mind and refused to vacate. It wasn’t that he’d die alone. Or in agony. No, the worst thing about how this had turned out, the ultimate ignominy, was that he’d die a footnote.

Then, with a loud thump that shook the walls either side of him, he was given a sign that maybe all was not lost. The light went out. A puff of dust caught at the back of his throat, and he coughed. More powder sucked into his nostrils.

He lowered himself down on to the floor and crawled to where he thought the door might be as another explosion shook the concrete floor. His hand slid out from under him and he fell, face first.

He took a moment to right himself, then started to edge along again, using his fingertips to navigate. Cold metal. The door.

He felt his way to its edge. It was at an angle. He could get his hand round the side of it. More than his hand. His arm. Both arms.

He squeezed his way through and into the corridor. The dust had begun to settle back to ground level. The door at the far end was open, light seeping in.

Tentatively, he got to his feet. The door next to his cell had been damaged too, wrenched away from its frame. He pushed at it, and it fell in. He almost fell in after it.

He could make out a man lying on the bed. Stafford Van Straten stepped through and stared down at his father. Two deep cuts bisected the old man’s face in a bloody cross.

‘Stafford?’

His father reached out a hand, but Stafford chose not to see it.

‘The vaccine. You have to find the vaccine,’ he whispered.

‘And then what?’

Nicholas tried to raise his head, but the effort was too much. ‘If you don’t, you’ll die.’

‘Die in prison, don’t you mean?’

He watched as his father tried to wipe away the blood seeping down into his right eye. ‘Then get out of here.’

‘Like a coward?’ Stafford spat. ‘Prove once and for all what a screw-up I am?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’ll never understand, will you? This isn’t about money. It was never about money.’ Stafford fell to his knees so that he was at eye level with his father. Outside, he could hear small-arms fire still echoing round the compound. ‘This is about history, and our family’s place in it. My place in it.’