The Key

17

Police Headquarters

The stairwell leading to the cell block echoed with the thundering boots of cops responding to the alarm. Gabriel met them on the way up. Nobody gave him a second glance. They’d all caught the message that a guard had been sprayed in the face, so when they encountered one — struggling to breathe, eyes swollen shut, another guard helping him — they hurried on past to get at the bastards who’d done it.

Gabriel helped the guard along, his arm wrapped round him, his hand out of sight against the wall, pointing the man’s own gun directly at his crotch to keep him quiet. Gabriel’s other hand held a walkie-talkie that he’d grabbed from the control room and into which he maintained a one-sided dialogue to stop anyone striking up a conversation with him and also to cover up a good portion of his face.

They reached the top of the stairs as another pair of cops burst through the fire doors and started heading down. Gabriel slipped through the door after them into a short corridor. Ahead of him, through a square window set into a door, he could see the reception area. He kept the guard moving, jamming the gun harder into his pelvis to remind him it was there.

When they were a few metres short of the door he crooked the walkie-talkie under his chin, snatched the spray canister off his belt and gave the guard another blast full in the face. He slipped the gun under his shirt and into the waistband of his trousers then burst through the door and into a room full of cops.

All heads turned as they entered the hall, drawn by the fresh coughing fit that accompanied their entrance. The two nearest uniforms rushed forward and took hold of the convulsing guard. Gabriel let them take him and spun away towards the exit. ‘I’ve brought him up to the lobby,’ he barked into the walkie-talkie. ‘Where the hell’s that ambulance?’ Then he stepped out of the front door and was free.

He had no idea how long the guard’s seizure would last, but he wouldn’t have long. The cops in the basement must have worked things out by now. The road he was in was thinly populated, but the street ahead was busier. If he could make it to the corner and into the crowds he’d stand a chance. The corner was maybe six metres away. He kept the walkie-talkie clamped to his face and his eyes forward, resisting the urge to run.

He weaved in and out of what foot traffic there was, putting as many bodies between himself and whoever would shortly be following. The ground was wet from the recent downpour though it was no longer raining. It wasn’t much of a break, but he’d take what he could get. It made his clothes, still drenched from the sprinklers, seem slightly less unusual.

He made the corner just as a siren started up behind him. Squinting against the glare of the bright sky, he matched his pace with the evening crowd and dropped the walkie-talkie into a bin. He had to get off the street as soon as possible. A wet cop wasn’t the best disguise for a fugitive.