The Key

15

Officer Lunz jackknifed forward in his chair. He’d been daydreaming about fishing in his favourite pool in the Taurus foothills when the clanging bell had snatched him back to the control room. He scanned the bank of monitors, his heart thumping in his chest, looking for signs of what might have tripped the alarm.

The images were fuzzy at the best of times but with the sprinklers now filling the corridors with a fine spray, they revealed almost nothing. He could hear the muffled sound of banging and roars of complaint from the twenty or so inmates now being soaked in their cells. At least he hoped that was what the noise was about. He wondered how long it would take for the backup guards to get here. The system was always tripping itself, so response times had been getting slower. The cameras had started shorting out too. The whole system needed replacing, but the city didn’t want to pay for it. Maybe the fact that the sprinklers had gone off this time might make them reconsider.

He reached over to silence the alarm then stopped when he saw a dark shape appear on one of the screens. It was a man stumbling through the spray, an arm covering his face. He was in D section, at the far end of the complex. Lunz pushed his glasses up on his nose and leaned into the screen. The figure left one screen and appeared on another, making its steady way towards him.

He glanced over at the closed door of the control room. Beyond it a gate of steel bars stood between him and whoever was now approaching. He unlocked a drawer in the desk, pulled it open and fumbled his holstered gun from inside. He felt its comforting weight in his hand and continued to watch the dark figure moving from screen to screen, drawing ever closer, while he waited for backup to arrive. The other screens remained empty. It obviously wasn’t some kind of breakout. The figure was also dressed in dark clothes which meant he must be a guard. All the inmates were given light olive army surplus T-shirts to wear. He must have got caught in the spray. Lunz checked one last time that the other screens were empty, then rose from his chair and headed out into the corridor, taking his gun with him — just in case.

Outside, the hiss of the water was much louder. He squinted through the bars at the indoor rain until a uniformed figure appeared at the end of the corridor, stumbling towards him through the water haze. The man shouted something, but his voice was muffled by hissing water and the arm clamped across his face.

Lunz felt there was something wrong. He popped the thumb strap and slid his gun clear of the leather holster. ‘You OK?’ he shouted.

The figure continued to bump its way blindly along the wet walls, one hand feeling the way, the other rubbing his face. ‘Pepper spray,’ he shouted. ‘Someone jumped me — grabbed my keys.’

Lunz stared past him towards the closed door at the end of the corridor.

They had his keys.

They’d attacked him with pepper spray.

It wasn’t a false alarm — it was the real deal.

He gulped damp air, trying to clear his head. He pictured arms reaching through the bars of a cell at the far end of the block, fumbling various keys into the outside locks. How long before they found the right one?

The staggering guard stumbled the last few metres of corridor and banged heavily into the gate, doubling over in a spasm of coughs. Even if they were out and already surging along the corridor, he would have time to open the gate, get him out and lock it again. He could do it. But it had to be now. He ducked into the control room, hit a button on the desk and was back out in the corridor as the gate slid open. The guard was still doubled over, coughing and wheezing, both hands on his face rubbing furiously at his burning skin. Lunz grabbed his arm and heaved him backwards as another loud noise rang in the corridor and a voice from behind made him jump.

‘What happened?’

The backup team had arrived.

‘Breakout in D block,’ Lunz said, adrenalin running things now.

The two cops pushed past, guns drawn, but stopped short of where the water was coming down. ‘Switch the sprinklers off, would you!’

Lunz dived back into the control room and hit a button to cut the sprinklers. He picked up the desk phone and punched a number. ‘We got a casualty coming up from the cells,’ he said, watching the two cops tearing along the dripping corridor on the monitors. ‘Guard got a face-full of pepper spray. I’m bringing him up now.’ He put down the phone just as the two guards passed into the main corridor. Still no movement on any of the other screens. Whoever had jumped the guard hadn’t managed to break out of their cell yet. Lunz started to relax a little. He didn’t see the figure rise up behind him or notice the faint smell of pepper until a jet of it squirted into his mouth and wrenched the breath from his lungs.