Sean Black: Deadlock

‘Ken did mention you more than once,’ Coburn said.

Jalicia ran the tip of her right index finger over the touch pad of the laptop computer. Lock tracked the cursor’s progress on screen towards the pause button.

‘No,’ Lock said. ‘I want to see it.’

‘Don’t do this to yourself, man,’ said Ty.

Lock turned to him. ‘Stay out of this, Tyrone.’

The next few minutes disintegrated into a series of bloody snapshots on screen as Ken Prager’s wife and son were dragged from the van. Prager’s son, Aaron, whom Lock had last seen as a sweet-natured, boisterous seven-year-old, was forced at gunpoint to cut the swastika from his father’s back as Prager’s wife, Janet, choked back sobs.

Lock fought the urge to vomit as bile burned the back of his throat. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands so hard that they broke the skin.

Lock had witnessed many terrible things in his life: roadside bombs that sprayed flesh into the air like so much confetti; innocent women and children needlessly mutilated; an endless parade of depravity. Sometimes he’d been able to intervene, sometimes orders from above had meant all he could do was bear witness. His training as a military close protection operator was specifically designed to force him to react but also to analyze situations as they developed. The rules of engagement were simple: if you saw something which didn’t impact on the immediate security of the person you were guarding, you noted it but did not get involved. This was different though. Very different. Although they hadn’t seen each other in years, Ken Prager had been like a brother to Lock, as Ty was to him now. Lock didn’t forge many close friendships, but when he did they were unassailable.

The images stacked up. The cold disposal of Janet and Aaron by means of a single gunshot to the back of their heads. By the time Ken Prager was dispatched, Lock could sense his old friend’s relief. After all, who would want to live after witnessing the murder of his wife and child?

When the footage came to an abrupt cut-off, no one spoke. Lock’s shock had given way to a cold rage.

Jalicia snapped the laptop shut, and Coburn got up and opened the blinds. Watery San Francisco sunlight seeped across the conference table and splashed against the far wall, which only seconds ago had been bloodier than a butcher’s block.

Lock glanced at Jalicia and Coburn. ‘Would you give us a moment alone?’

Without a word, they got up and left the room, closing the door behind them.

Ty spoke first. ‘You have to do this job now, don’t you?’

Lock nodded.

‘Then I’m coming with you.’

‘It’s too dangerous,’ said Lock.

‘Exactly,’ said Ty. ‘That’s why you need someone watching your back. Listen, Ryan, half the kids in my neighbourhood graduated to one prison or another. I know the turf.’

Lock hesitated. There was nothing he could do now to help Ken Prager. He hadn’t even known he was undercover with the ATF. But if something happened to Ty, that would be different.

‘I’m not letting you walk into that place on your own, brother,’ Ty persisted.

‘I really don’t want you to feel you have to do this,’ Lock said, studying Ty’s look of concern.

‘But you feel you have to because he was your friend, right?’ Ty asked him.

‘Of course.’

Ty reached out and put a hand on Lock’s shoulder. ‘Then you’ll understand why I can’t let you walk in there on your own.’

Clad in the standard blue uniform of a California Department of Corrections prisoner, Lock peered out of the porthole window as the twin-engine Cessna light aircraft dropped rapidly on its final approach, breaking through a low bank of coastal cloud to give him his first clear view of where he was about to spend the next five days. At first all he could see were vast tracts of redwood forest, which encircled the facility on almost three sides. To the east, the ancient trees climbed to a barren range of mountains, and to the west lay the Pacific Ocean. Then it was there below him, modern America’s answer to Alcatraz: Pelican Bay Supermax.

Nothing had prepared him for the sheer scale of the place. Two hundred and seventy-five acres in the middle of nowhere, about as far north as you could venture in California before you slipped into the state of Oregon. Even if a prisoner made it out past the plethora of electric fences, razor wire and gun towers, where would he go? Sure, there was nearby Crescent City, but that was where the guards lived with their families — hardly an ideal place to hide out.

Lock sank back in his seat and ran through the cover story Jalicia had furnished them with. A high-net-worth client in Los Angeles whom they’d been guarding had fired them on some dubious pretext and then refused to pay them. When they’d gone to collect the money, there had been an altercation with several members of his new security team, during which one of them had been killed. They had both received fifteen-year sentences for manslaughter. In the cauldron of sex, violence and celebrity that constituted Los Angeles, it would come as no surprise that a story like this had stayed broadly off-radar. By the time any prisoners got suspicious and started to ask questions of their contacts on the outside, Lock and Ty’s mission should be complete.

Coburn had also told them that a decision had been made to keep knowledge of their task within as small a circle as possible. Not even the Marshals team transporting them had been informed of their true status. The only person within the prison who had been told was the warden, Louis Marquez.

Lock sat back up and craned his neck a little further, the cuffs digging into his wrists, the chain round his midriff, which linked to his cuffs and leg restraints, biting into the side of his abdomen. Straining like this, he could glimpse the huge purpose-built buildings where the inmates lived, and where three-quarters of them were destined to die. On one side of the prison lay the gigantic X-shaped Secure Housing Unit, four arms moving out from a central spur. Beyond that, Lock could see the equally vast rectangular blocks of general housing units, with the grassy recreation yards in the middle. This was where he and Ty would be. With Reaper. And a few thousand potential assassins, all of whom had been hardened by years of incarceration.

In the most obvious way it made the challenge seem next to impossible, but in another it made it easier. When escorting a high-ranking army general through a street bazaar in Baghdad, or ushering the British Prime Minister into a hotel in Belfast, the challenge was to stay alert because you never quite knew where the threat was coming from. Or whether it would come at all. But down there, Lock could safely assume everyone to be a threat, up to and including the man whose life he was charged with guarding.

He was set for an exhausting five days. But if that’s what it took to bring to book the men who had ordered the murder of Ken Prager and his family, then so be it.

As the plane banked hard to the left, the ocean replaced his view of Pelican Bay Supermax, crests of white waves slamming into steep, perilous cliffs. Lock sank back into his seat.

The pilot’s voice crackled over the tannoy, a robotic delivery not without an undercurrent of humour. ‘Two minutes to landing, gentlemen. And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for flying the unfriendly skies with JPATS, America’s least favorite airline.’

A few minutes later, they ducked in low under the clouds and slammed down hard on the runway. Lock lurched forward in his seat, the huge, bear-like Marshal sitting next to him putting out a beefy arm to prevent Lock’s head from banging the seat in front. The plane taxied to the far end of the runway and juddered to a halt.