Sean Black - Lockdown

‘What? Are you crazy? You walking me up here is all on disk.’

‘You mean the hard drives that are gonna be accidentally wiped on my command about the same time as you’re hitting the sidewalk?’

‘What about the girl?’

‘You think she’s going to say anything after what you did?’

‘There’s no way you could explain this away.’

‘I was ten years in the Royal Military Police. You seriously think I couldn’t cover my bases?’

Keeping his gun trained on Stafford, Lock paced across to the edge of the roof. ‘I catch you trying to rape a junior member of your staff. I pull you off her. All that’ll be corroborated, right?’

Stafford didn’t answer.

‘There’s no cameras up here, no one to know you’ve admitted to anything,’ Lock continued, moving his gun up a fraction so it was pointing directly at Stafford’s face.

Stafford put his hands up. ‘OK, so I accept that she’d support that version of events. What difference does that make?’

‘Well, I have a duty to report you. You beg me to reconsider. You have an offer for me. We take it up on the roof, where no one can overhear us. All that’s on tape is two guys taking a walk up here. We get up here, under the stars, nice and cosy, you make your offer. But I won’t accept it. In fact I’m going to mention it when the case comes to court. My saying you offered to bribe me makes her story a whole lot more convincing, wouldn’t you say?’

Lock had circled round, so he was facing Stafford and Stafford had his back to the edge. As Lock had been talking he’d advanced on him. Just enough to crowd his personal space. Stafford had instinctively inched back, unaware that he was even doing it. He was maybe six feet from the void now.

‘You’re distraught. Sobbing. Not making any sense. Because you know what happens to rapists in prison. Especially handsome young ones like yourself. You’ll be catching instead of pitching. Plus the shame to your family. So’ — Lock wrapped his finger round the trigger of his Sig — ‘you jump.’

‘No one’ll believe that,’ Stafford said, taking a step back.

‘Oh, some people won’t. It’s a hell of a story, isn’t it? But in a court of law it’ll boil down to my word against yours. And you won’t be doing any talking.’

Stafford glanced over his shoulder. Startled by how close he was to the edge, he took a step forward, but Lock waggled the gun. ‘Wrong direction.’

‘I won’t do it. I’m not going to jump.’

‘Then I’ll throw you. It won’t be the first time I’ve done it.’

Lock holstered the Sig and punched Stafford hard in the solar plexus. As he went down, winded, Lock kicked him in the groin, then in the face. ‘No one’s going to notice a little extra trauma on the body of a jumper,’ he remarked, grabbing the back of Stafford’s jacket and shirt and hauling him to the edge.

‘Help me! Someone!’ Stafford screamed.

‘We’re on our own, Stafford. Not even Daddy can rescue you now.’

There was a concrete lip at the very edge of the roof. Lock pulled Stafford up on to it.

‘Please. Please, don’t do this!’ Stafford begged.

‘Why shouldn’t I? Give me one good reason.’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘You don’t want to die, do you?’

Stafford shook his head, tears streaming down his face. ‘No, I don’t.’

Lock stood back, the gun still on him. ‘OK, so here’s what you’re gonna do.’

Lock briefly outlined Stafford’s obligations and what would happen to him if they weren’t fulfilled. Then he retreated back inside the stairwell, leaving Stafford alone on the roof for the night to think about what he’d done.

A few days later the intern had contacted Lock to thank him. A day after the attack a certified cheque in the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars had arrived in the mail at her apartment. Along with a legal agreement that she would take no further action.

Lock knew that it was a cheap way out for Stafford and he felt bad about that. But he also knew what the conviction rate was in sexual assault cases.

Once again, justice hadn’t come into it.

‘I want Ty to work the recovery with me.’ Lock phrased it as a statement rather than a question. It was quicker that way, and they’d already wasted thirty minutes on bullshit that had zero to do with the safe recovery of Josh Hulme and everything to do with Meditech’s share price and Stafford’s ego.

‘Agreed,’ said Nicholas. ‘What else do you need?’

‘We’ll need someone to liaise with the JTTF.’

‘Wouldn’t you be the best person to do that?’ Nicholas asked.

‘I’m gonna have my hands full. Plus, my being involved hasn’t been a popular move with them.’

‘OK, what else?’

‘We’ll need a team of people to sort through all our previous threat assessments. Particularly those relating to Richard Hulme.’

‘Already done,’ Stafford piped up. ‘And I’ve had a briefing go out to all employees warning them to be vigilant and report anything suspicious to local authorities and our security personnel.’

Maybe Stafford’s midnight sojourn on the roof with him had finally knocked some sense into him, Lock thought.

‘So who’s to hold the fort here while you’re out playing detective?’ asked Brand.

‘By the looks of it, I thought you’d already stepped into the breach,’ Lock fired back.

‘Well, someone had to.’

Nicholas Van Straten rifled his papers, signalling the end of the meeting. ‘That’s everything settled, then.’

Ty and Lock rode back down together in the elevator.

‘You sure about leaving this place to Brand?’ Ty asked.

‘Nope.’

‘Me either. You know, I don’t have the kind of investigation experience you do.’

‘So?’

‘So maybe I’m not the best man to be helping you out.’

‘You fit all three of my main criteria,’ Lock said.

‘Oh yeah, and what are those?’

‘I need someone I can trust. And investigating comes down to one thing those chumps back up there don’t possess. Common sense.’

‘That’s only two. What’s the third?’

‘If there are any more closed doors, I need someone in front of me.’

‘Now, that I can buy. I’m still getting a feeling there’s something else.’

Lock sighed. ‘OK, the political activists we’re going to be dealing with aren’t your right-wing Bill O’Reilly crowd, right?’

‘Meaning it’ll be a hell of a lot more difficult for them to tell a black man to go take a jump.’

‘Got it in one. We need to locate the enemy’s weak spots. If that so happens to be a liberal conscience, that’s what we use.’

‘So you’d use the colour of my skin to game someone?’

‘Absolutely.’

Ty thought about that for a second. ‘OK, I can be down with that.’

The elevator’s floor counter ticked down to single digits.

‘So, what do you think our chances are?’ Ty asked.

Lock thought about it. The doors opened into the lobby.

‘Well, we got no ransom demand, no sightings since the kidnap, and the one person who does know what happened was just confirmed dead. Apart from that, I’d say we’re in excellent shape.’

‘We’ll take my car.’

Ty gave Lock a look.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You got something to say about my car, you’d better say it.’

‘OK, but if we take your car,’ Ty said, pulling out a black i-Pod, ‘we gotta dock my tracks.’

It was Lock’s turn to eye-roll Ty. ‘Maybe I should have picked Brand as my ride-along after all.’

Ty faked outrage. ‘That cracker listens to country. I got stuck in the CAT vehicle with him once. Made me listen to a tune called “How Can I Tell You I Love You With a Shotgun in My Mouth?” And they say rap lyrics are messed up? Damn.’