Sean Black - Deadlock

‘Your concern’s touching, but I can handle myself.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Reaper.

An hour later, he and Reaper were out on the basketball court. Lock looked around at his companions. With their low brows, dumb-muscle bulk and yellowing, crank-rotten dentistry, Lock wasn’t sure this was what people meant by the term ‘master race’.

Behind them, the black inmates, Ty among them, had taken the benches in an orderly handover. Distance was maintained between the two groups as they did so. It occurred to Lock that every group on the yard operated as its own personal escort section. If these guys hadn’t been such lousy criminals, they might have made halfway decent close-protection operatives.

The whites had divided into two teams, Lock finding himself on the same team as Reaper but up against Phileas. Not ideal. It would have been easier to keep an eye on Reaper if he’d been up against him. The court, mid-game, would be a good place for a hit too. Lots of movement buying vital seconds before any guards on the yard or, more crucially, in the gun tower noticed anything was happening.

At first all went well, the mid-afternoon heat ensuring that a brisk pace, with lots of baskets and fouls that bordered on common assault, quickly slowed the game to a walking pace. Lock went up against Phileas, dribbling the ball round him and catching an elbow in his abdomen for his trouble. As Lock doubled over, Phileas stole the ball and headed for the basket. Reaper stuck out a foot to trip him but Phileas feinted left and scored a deft two-pointer which sparked whoops of delight from his team-mates.

After fifteen minutes of barely contained mayhem, Phileas, the gnarled leader of the Nazi Low Riders, called a time-out and both teams gathered under the basket to catch their breath. Reaper scraped a hand across his stubble, then grabbed the ball and was off, moving down court at a steady clip. Lock jogged after him, as did Phileas, the proper game seemingly over.

Reaper passed the ball to Lock, then started to wander back down towards the inmates.

Phileas caught up with Lock. ‘Come on then, soldier, let’s play a little one on one.’

Lock bounced the ball, eyes flicking back down the court to Reaper.

‘Don’t worry about your cellie,’ Phileas said. ‘He can take care of himself. Believe me.’

‘I never doubted it.’

Phileas lunged for the ball, but Lock shifted back, keeping it just out of his reach. Phileas narrowed his eyes and half-turned so he was focused on the group of black inmates moving slowly from the benches, ready to head back into the unit.

‘The toad you came in with,’ Phileas said.

Lock’s hackles rose as he heard his friend being abused for the second time that day. Under any other circumstance, Nazi Low Rider shot caller or not, the guy would be choking to death on his own tongue. ‘His name’s Tyrone.’

Phileas shrugged. ‘You name your pets?’

Lock tensed as Phileas dived in again, taking the basketball with the tips of his fingers, dribbling it four more steps, setting up for the shot, then stopping, both hands on the ball.

‘We want him dead. And we want you to do it.’

‘Forget it,’ Lock said, moving round so his back was to the hoop and he had a clear view all the way down the court to Reaper, and beyond to the black inmates and Ty.

‘Time to wet your steel, soldier,’ Phileas said as Lock watched Ty bumping fists with the other black inmates. ‘Next yard, Lock. You kill him or we kill you.’

It was early morning when Chance once again shuffled through the metal detector in the lobby of the Federal Building. This visit, she’d still worn an underwire bra but also a crop top, which emphasized the fact she was pregnant. The metal detector beeped and she was asked to stand to one side. It was a different female guard this time, which came as a relief. The woman wanded Chance with the handheld detector, which sounded as it passed over Chance’s chest and lower abdomen. Then she moved on to patting her down.

As the female guard moved her hand over Chance’s belly, Chance winced.

‘You OK?’ asked the guard.

‘Sorry, I’m just a little tender there.’

Chance could read the female guard’s discomfort. She finished the search by moving her hands away quickly down Chance’s legs and checking the soles of her shoes.

‘OK, ma’am, you have a nice day.’

Chance slipped away towards the bank of elevators and headed up to the tenth floor. There, she walked briskly towards the disabled bathroom. She locked the door behind her, pulled off her jeans and panties, lowered the toilet seat and set about retrieving the package of cellophane-wrapped C4 explosive and detonator cap from inside her vaginal cavity. She placed the package in the sink, pulled her panties and jeans back on, and slipped off her bra. In less than ten seconds she had pulled the length of wire from her bra, which she now stuffed into her bag, taking out a newly bought cell phone as she did so.

With all the components in front of her, she set to work. In less than five minutes the IED was assembled and placed behind the toilet. She crossed to the sink and carefully washed her hands, using a brush she’d brought with her to remove any remaining residue from under her fingernails.

She left the bathroom, caught the elevator back down to the lobby and left via the revolving glass door on the opposite side of the building from which she’d entered.

A few blocks from the courthouse, Chance clambered into the cab of her red pick-up truck. Her old friend Cowboy was driving, his trademark black-velvet-brimmed Stetson pulled down low, obscuring emerald-green eyes. Next to him sat Trooper, two hundred pounds of muscle topped off by a mane of long blond hair which always reminded Chance of the actor Mickey Rourke in that movie about the down-at-heel wrestler.

Trooper put an arm round her shoulder. ‘You OK?’

‘Fine,’ Chance said, enjoying having them both near her again.

Cowboy signaled before pulling out into traffic. ‘You get it placed?’

Chance smiled across at him. ‘Sure did. Now all I have to do is make a phone call.’

A chilling breeze cut across the yard as Lock and Reaper set back to work marking each piece of metal in the chain-link fence with a slash of purple paint. With Phileas’s ultimatum still ringing in his ears, Lock was thankful that, like the day before, they had been released last from their cell in the unit.

Reaper dabbed a splodge of purple on to his brush. ‘Today’s the day, huh?’ he said to Lock.

‘What day’s that?’

‘Day you pop your cherry inside here.’

Lock rolled up his cuffs. ‘We’ll see.’

‘Listen, man, I’m sorry about Phileas, but you talk to a toad on the yard, this is what happens.’ Reaper ran his brush across a metal end wire secured to one of the posts. ‘And you can’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘I’m not laying a finger on Ty.’

‘Then you’re gonna have to face the consequences, my friend,’ Reaper said, reloading his brush with paint, then sketching the outline of a man’s face in the dirt.

Lock paused for a second to study the outline, picking out a strong chin, aquiline nose and hooded eyes — the unmistakable features of the current President.

‘Didn’t think you’d be a fan of his,’ Lock said.

Reaper stopped to admire his handiwork. ‘I ain’t,’ he said sourly, ‘although he’s done great things for our movement, that’s for sure.’

Lock didn’t stop to dispute that with Reaper. Ever since the country elected its first African-American President there had been a surge in two things: gun sales and membership of white supremacist groups.