Sean Black - Deadlock

Reaper kicked out at him but Lock ducked out of the way. Still, Reaper’s knee glanced against the side of his head. The Marshal in charge pulled his baton. Lock grabbed it from him and swung back with it, bringing it down hard against Reaper’s kneecap. Reaper’s scream was muffled by the tape covering his mouth, but his eyes crinkled shut and he stopped fighting.

A moment later, Lock slammed the gate shut and sealed it with a large padlock. He stepped back to admire his work. Reaper stood there, his arms splayed out from his body in a crucifix pattern.

‘You really think he’s what they want?’ Carrie asked.

‘I don’t think,’ said Lock, ‘I know. Now, let’s get the hell out before Delta Force get here.’

Dead bodies littered the corridor behind Chance and Trooper as they made their way to the secure holding area, alternating who took point, folding in front of each other at every doorway, working their way quickly but methodically towards their target. Anyone they saw, they shot, including a woman dressed in civilian clothes who had pleaded for her life on bended knee, old-school style. Chance, wishing to conserve ammunition, had cut her throat with a Bowie knife.

‘Let’s hope they ain’t moved him,’ she said to Trooper.

She peered through a mesh-reinforced glass panel in a door that led into the holding area. The door was locked but the room beyond looked empty. She placed a charge and scuttled back, her face kissing the floor as the charge detonated. A few seconds later, the door came to rest at a forty-five-degree angle on its sole remaining hinge. Chance pushed it aside and stepped into the anteroom. A desk ran the length of one wall, its end section lifted up to allow access to another door. This door was also locked.

Chance checked her watch. The digital display was set to count down from five minutes, which was the time at which she’d estimated they’d have to start moving back to the RV point on the roof. Two minutes of the five remained.

She checked the door in front of them. Judging by the hinges, it opened inwards. She flicked her M-4 on to fully automatic, hefted it to her shoulder, fell into a modified Weaver stance and let loose with a burst of gunfire aimed at the lock. Trooper stepped forward, and each gave it a kick. The door flew open and they walked into a much wider corridor. Three doors faced them. One in the middle. One to their left. One to their right.

‘Eeeny, meeny, miney, mo.’

The left. Chance nodded at it. She moved off to one side as Trooper tried the handle. It was open. They stepped in.

Reaper met her gaze. He was locked inside a steel-barred holding cage, each of his limbs double-cuffed to the bars. His mouth was covered to prevent him speaking.

On the front of the cage was an envelope secured in place with gaffer tape. Chance ripped it away with a gloved hand and tore it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper. On it, scrawled in black marker pen, was a message. Good luck getting him out of here, assholes.

It was signed Ryan Lock.

For a moment Chance just stood there, staring into the eyes of the man in the cage. He stared back at her. His expression was of a kind no one had seen in ten years. A softness came into his features and his eyes glistened with yearning. Chance felt a rock lodge in her throat, making swallowing painful.

Disregarding the seconds ticking away on her wrist, Chance reached in at the top of the cage and touched his hand in a gesture of comfort. Then she stepped back, freezing the man out and focusing on the task in hand.

She couldn’t use explosives, that was for damn sure. Blow the lock on the door and she’d blow him up too. She sank down on to the floor and checked the bolts that anchored the cage to the floor. She wouldn’t be able to shoot through them without a serious risk of catching a ricochet, but she had to weaken them somehow.

She turned to Trooper, who was gazing at the cage and its occupant with a world-weary ‘What the hell do we do now?’ look of defeat, and pushed his shoulder, snapping him out of it. ‘Get back up on the roof. Get the ropes, all the ropes, and tie them to the skids on the Little Bird. Then get up in the air.’

There was a slow-dawning realization in his eyes. ‘Are you crazy?’ he said to her.

‘Just do it. And tell Cowboy I’m going to need two more minutes.’

As Trooper ran out, Chance fired into the floor, exposing the joists beneath her feet. Then she jogged out of the room, working her way as fast as she could to the floor above.

On the stairs she had to stop to catch her breath, as she felt a fluttering inside her. The embryonic life inside her was urging her on, she told herself, giving her the kick in the pants she needed to finish the job she’d started.

She hauled herself up the stairs and tracked back, counting the same number of paces she’d taken on the floor below. She’d have to get the charge right. Get it wrong on the high side and Reaper would die. Use too little and there would be a mess but no hole.

In the end, the decision was made for her. There was only one charge left. She placed it, and hooked up the detonator. She spooled out several lengths of det cord, her thighs aching as she scuttled back in a permanent crouch. The clock was ticking though, and they were stealing time they didn’t have.

Lock led the way out into the lobby, a marble-floored area with two banks of elevators. All the mayhem seemed to be contained above them. Explosions. Gunfire. A regular riot. He crossed to the smoked-glass windows that led out on to the street where EMS ambulances and cop cars crowded and confusion reigned. Local law enforcement wasn’t trained or prepared for an all-out airborne assault, especially somewhere like Medford.

Looking over his shoulder, Lock glimpsed the Marshal in charge in a heated discussion with a local cop sporting sergeant’s stripes. Lock ignored them and pushed past, out on to the street. Carrie was on his heels, directing her cameraman to snatch some footage of the building as smoke billowed from the upper floors and flames spat from the windows.

Lock could just about glimpse the tail fin of the helicopter rising above the roof. He strained to see how many people were inside the cabin. It looked like someone was getting out of the building — empty-handed, he guessed. He crossed his fingers.

‘Bye bye, assholes,’ he said.

From inside the building there was another massive boom, and the windows that hadn’t already been blown surrendered the glass from their frames. Lock ducked under a car, taking Carrie with him, as crystal splinters rained down on them from above, rendered invisible by the rain.

‘You OK?’ he asked her.

She exhaled, her cheeks flushed with blood, her blonde hair pasted against her face by the downpour. ‘How come Katie Couric never has to deal with this shit?’

Lock smiled. ‘Hey, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies for her either. She had to interview Sarah Palin, remember.’

‘Fair point.’

Lock backed out from under the car. The helicopter was still there. For a second, he thought there must be a problem with it, that maybe it had taken a hit from the couple of sheriff’s deputies who, rather optimistically, were taking aim at it with handguns from the street. Then he noticed the ropes slinking their way down towards the roof.

He backed away from the building, distance giving him a better angle. The ropes were breaking-point tight — tighter, it seemed to Lock, than they would be with someone hanging from them. As the helicopter rose, inches at a time, they strained and twisted round on themselves, rolling the body of the helicopter from one side to the next. Any minute now, thought Lock, those ropes are going to snap and the sudden loss of tension is going to bring the whole thing crashing down.