Sean Black - Deadlock

Lock twisted round so that he was staring into the saucer-wide eyes of the Marshal, who’d joined him at the window.

‘They’re not our guys, are they?’ Lock asked.

All the Marshal could manage was a slow shake of his head.

Mid-shake, the missile pod mounted at the front of the helicopter lit up with a fiery roar, punching out what Lock guessed had to be an RPG. It whistled downwards, leaving a ghostly yellow blaze burning across Lock’s retina.

Less than a second later, the van holding Jalicia disintegrated in a fiery blaze of distended metal. The blast wave thumped so hard into Lock’s chest that he and the others in the room were momentarily lifted off their feet and deposited ass-first on to the floor. The walls of the courthouse vibrated.

Ears ringing, Lock stood back up and went over to Carrie.

‘You OK?’ he asked her as she struggled into a sitting position.

‘What the hell was that?’

‘RPG.’

She gave him her reporter’s stare. ‘In English please, Ryan.’

‘A rocket-propelled grenade.’

He looked back to the window. Down below, flames licked around the skeleton of the van, and he could see the charred outline of Jalicia’s corpse slumped over what was left of the steering column. He tore his eyes away. By the time he looked skywards again, the light was gone. But up above them, the thump of the helicopter’s blades slashing through the storm grew louder, drowning out the sirens below.

Lock moved fast. Dragging Reaper towards the door with his left hand, he unholstered his SIG Sauer 226 with his right. Carrie had kindly brought it to Medford for him, and it felt good in his hand. Solid. Reliable. Deadly. He pointed forward with it, motioning for the others to follow.

At the door, he turned to one of the younger Marshals who was toting an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. ‘Give me your side arm.’

The Marshal hesitated.

‘Son, unless you can fire both of your weapons simultaneously, hand it over.’

The Marshal in charge shrugged a ‘go ahead’ and the younger man handed over his Glock 40 calibre. Lock took it, business end first, and palmed it off to Carrie.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Hey, what about me?’ grumbled her cameraman.

‘Just because you have a dick doesn’t mean you can shoot for shit,’ Lock said, staring at him.

Carrie set about checking over the Glock with the grace and speed of a career soldier. Lock had always regarded the ability to defend yourself as a more crucial set of skills for women than men, seeing as women were more often prey than predator. Hours on the range with Carrie had transformed her from merely competent to a crack shot who regularly scored higher than Ty — much to Ty’s annoyance.

‘But-’

Lock cut the cameraman off. ‘She knows what she’s doing, so do everyone a favour and get over yourself. Tell you what, you do your shooting with that camera you’re toting. We come out of this alive, you might just snag yourself an Emmy.’

‘What about me?’ Reaper said. ‘I can shoot.’

Lock yanked on Reaper’s restraints, almost lifting the bigger man from the ground. ‘No gun for you, but I’ll give you a bullet any time you want one.’

‘So where we going?’ asked the Marshal in charge.

Lock poked at Reaper with the barrel of his gun. ‘We’re going to make sure that Elvis here ain’t going to be leaving the building.’

The SWAT team sniper posted on the roof tossed his Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee to one side and peered into the blinding spotlight projecting from the front of the helicopter. He readied his weapon, all the while keeping his eyes on the powerful airborne spotlight bearing down on him, God-like, from a storm-ridden night sky.

He raised his assault rifle and leaned out from behind an air-conditioning unit. Still the light kept coming, the thump of the rotor blades drowning out the chaos of noise from the street below. He sighted a point at the very centre of the glare and fired off a round. Nothing. Just the light bearing down on him without mercy, the ever-increasing roar of the blades, and the chop of the air stinging his eyes.

A moment later there was another blast of fire from the helicopter and he was blown off his feet, shrapnel pinballing around him, cutting him to ribbons.

In the helicopter, Cowboy punched the air as beneath them the sniper’s position disintegrated and a big hole opened up in the roof. He keyed his mike, which looped round the side of his face, finishing a few inches from his mouth.

‘He’s second floor, right?’

‘Roger that.’

Cowboy climbed a little, steadying the helicopter over the rooftop. Behind him, Chance, her weapon drawn, clipped on to the ropes that had been slung over the runners, swung out of the helicopter and rappelled the short distance to the roof.

Trooper followed, zip-lining at speed to join her. While he provided cover, Chance placed the first charge next to the locked door of the rooftop stairwell, and ran back.

Cowboy gained some more height. A second later the charge detonated, the shockwave buffeting the helicopter. Spinning the copter round ninety degrees, for a moment he just caught a glimpse of Chance before she disappeared into the building.

Cowboy spun the helicopter back round and let loose a fusillade of. 50-mil rounds towards a SWAT sniper position on the building opposite, which lay to his immediate right. That done, he took the helicopter down on to the roof. By the time they’d organised another effective firing position he’d be long gone.

He checked his watch. Ten minutes past midnight. At seventeen minutes past midnight he’d take off again. Anyone who wasn’t on board by then was staying behind. That was the deal.

Chance and Trooper clambered down the stairwell, a couple of the higher treads blown away by the charge she’d planted. Lights flickered overhead.

A solitary jail guard ran towards them through the dust. ‘Stop where you are!’ he shouted, with all the authority of someone used to dealing with the unarmed.

Chance raised her M-4, found his outline easily with her night sights, and dispatched him with a single round, his anti-stab vest no match for a sub-sonic CQB round. His chest opened up, his intestines spilling out over his utility belt.

Lock and Reaper had reached the one-man cage where Reaper had been spending his downtime. Thirty seconds earlier there had been another two explosions, both of which had sent plaster dust cascading down on them. One of the guards opened the door.

‘I’m going to need at least two more pairs of cuffs, and two more sets of leg restraints,’ Lock barked.

‘But he’s already double-cuffed.’

‘Just get me what I need.’ Lock turned to the cameraman. ‘You have gaffer tape on you, right?’

‘Somewhere,’ the cameraman said, digging into a bag slung over his shoulder and pulling out a thick roll of the silver insulating tape he normally used to secure cabling to the floor.

Lock took the roll and tore off a strip, cutting it away with his Gerber. He smiled at Reaper.

‘What the hell you doin’ with that?’ Reaper asked.

‘Giving you a taste of what Jalicia Jones had to endure just before your buddies out there snuffed her.’

‘Paranoid, Lock?’ Reaper sneered.

‘Why didn’t they kill you back at the airfield when they had the chance? Answer me that.’

Reaper clammed up, then another explosion rocked the building and light arms fire chattered above them. ‘You can’t leave me in here,’ he said, looking around him at the metal cage.

‘If they want you alive, they’re gonna have to work for it,’ said Lock, slapping some gaffer tape across Reaper’s mouth and setting to work securing each of Reaper’s hands to the top of the cage with the cuffs, and his feet to the bottom with the leg restraints.