Simon Toyne - The Key

He pulled his phone from his pocket and used the light to locate the gun. It was a Beretta PX4 — not exactly standard police issue. He picked it up, checked the safety and slipped it into his waistband. Then he turned to the still figure of his mother on the bed. The thing that had been troubling him was her silence. She hadn’t moved or said anything since he had flown across the room and knocked away her attacker.

‘Hey,’ he said, leaning in close. ‘You OK?’

He shone the light of his phone into her face. She looked deathly pale, but her eyes were open. ‘Gabriel,’ she said, smiling up at him. ‘I knew you would come.’

He took her hand and held it in his. Her eyes seemed to look straight through him.

He noticed something on her neck and moved the light over for a closer look. Blood leaked from a small, ragged puncture wound. Too small to be from a knife. The jagged edge suggested that whatever had made it had been torn free when he knocked the cop to the floor. He swept the light over the room and saw the syringe sticking out from under the bed, the plunger pushed most of the way in. He picked it up, sniffed it. There was no odour. The liquid inside was clear. It could be anything, anything that would render an adult instantly immobile.

He looked into his mother’s face holding up the syringe. ‘He injected you with something. I need to get a doctor. Find out what it is. See what they can do to flush it out. You just hang tight, OK?’ He made a move to leave but Kathryn gripped his hand. ‘Stay,’ she said. ‘It’s too late. You’ll never find anyone in time. I can already feel it working.’

Raw anger boiled inside him. He knew she was right. Even if he managed to find a doctor, the chances of persuading him to run an emergency tox test in time to administer an antidote were slender. But he refused to give in. There had to be a way. He was standing in a hospital and somewhere in this building there was something or someone that might save his mother’s life. Then he realized exactly what it was.

He thrust the gun into her hand. ‘If the cop, or the priest, or anyone else comes back to do you harm, then use this. I’ll be right back. I promise.’

Then he kissed her on the forehead and darted from the room.

Gabriel knew that every mission relied on two things: objective and solution.

The first part he had already worked out. He needed to know what poison was coursing through his mother’s veins and the only person who could tell him was the cop. The second part of the problem was finding him.

Casting ahead, Gabriel tried to anticipate the cop’s next move so he could get there quicker. He would avoid the more populated areas so no one saw him, but he would also want to get out of the building as fast as possible before the main power came back on. The lifts were out, which left the stairs, and the first flight he would come across were the ones Gabriel had used, leading down to the underground car park — the perfect place for an ambush. If he could get there first.

He moved down the corridor and ducked through a door into a deserted ward room. Inside, the floor was littered with workmen’s tools and materials, scattered by the earthquake. He spotted a pair of heavy-duty gloves amongst the mess and picked them up as he made his way to the window. It was sealed by a single piece of board that split with a single, sharp kick.

The cold night air hit him as he stepped on to the scaffold platform he had seen from the street. The whole thing rattled as if the earthquake had shaken it loose from the building. But now was not the time for caution.

He unhooked one of the lengths of coiled rope from the scaffold and dropped it over the edge of the platform. It was too dark to see but he heard it patter on the pavement, four storeys down. The other end fed through a pulley and was secured to the platform. Gabriel leaned back on the rope to test it then stepped over it, feeding it round his right leg, over his back and round his left arm.

Part of his special forces training had included hours of abseiling — down buildings, from helicopters, off bridges. Usually this was done with a full kit of harnesses and descenders, but he had also done it with just a rope, using his bodyweight as the brake. It wasn’t comfortable but it was effective, and right now it was all he had. He jammed the gloves on to his hands, leaned back to create tension, and stepped off the platform.

The rope creaked and stretched as he started to descend. It was rough nylon cord, perfect for hauling up buckets of cement but not so great when it was digging into your flesh. With the correct gear he could rappel down four floors of a building in seconds, but if he tried that now he would take the skin off his hands, gloves or no gloves.

Gabriel turned his mind back to the cop, trying to gauge where he would be. Probably at ground level by now. He continued his careful descent, feeding the rope round his body as quickly as he dared until he sensed the pavement was near. He let go of the rope and dropped the last couple of metres, landing in a controlled crouch. He shook himself free, flicking the end of the rope out to see how much he had to play with.

Moving quickly to the ramp leading to the car park, he threw one end of the rope round the upright of the barrier-lifting mechanism and caught it with his free hand. He pulled it back across the space between the barrier and the wall, laying both lengths of rope flat to the ground and squatting by the outside wall where he couldn’t be seen from the car park. The whole thing had taken only a few seconds.

Now he just had to wait.

All around were the sounds of a city in distress: distant screams, raised voices, sirens of all kinds. He tried to zone it out and tune his hearing to the one specific thing he was seeking — the sound of someone running.

He wrapped both lengths of rope tight round his forearms to improve his grip.

Time stretched out. He thought of his mother lying alone in the dark, the poison spreading through her with every passing second. Leaving had been the only way to save her. He hoped to God he had made the right choice.

There was the crash of a door bursting open in the darkness of the car park and the hollow sound of boots pounding the concrete floor and heading his way.

Gabriel tensed. He replayed his own journey so he could judge the best moment to strike. He could picture the cop, his pace slowing slightly as he hit the upward slope of the ramp. He imagined his stride length. Gauged the number of steps it would take to reach the top.

Three.

Two.

One.

He yanked the rope upwards as a figure flashed into view. The cop’s legs hit the rope and he tipped forward, hitting the ground hard, his arms shooting forward just in time to stop his face from breaking his fall.

Gabriel was already on him.

He jumped on to the cop’s back, knees first, knocking the wind from him. Grabbing a handful of hair, Gabriel cracked his head down hard on the flagstones — too hard maybe — and had to stop himself from doing it again. Rage burned inside him now for what he had done to his mother, but he knew that killing the cop would be no kind of revenge: first he needed answers.

He shifted position and drove his knee into the small of the cop’s back, grinding it against his spine until his hands reached back to stop him. Looping the rope round them, Gabriel pulled it tight then reached into his pocket and brought his mouth close to the cop’s ear.

‘You forgot something,’ he said, holding the syringe in front of his face so the cop could see it. ‘You want to live?’ He jabbed the needle into the cop’s neck, making sure it hurt, and pushed the plunger all the way in. ‘Tell me what this is and I’ll get you the antidote.’