Sean Black - Lockdown

‘No chance. Way too risky. Carrie’s not setting foot in here.’

‘But this way people will know the truth.’

‘The truth? The truth is that someone importing terrorists to use as guinea pigs in a drugs trial aimed at neutralizing their biological capabilities would get a ticker-tape parade in every state in the nation.’

‘Excepting maybe Vermont,’ interjected Ty. ‘They’re commies.’

Mareta clapped her hands together. ‘Enough. I didn’t ask to plead for my life. But this new method’ — she turned to Richard — ‘this I like. Bring in the next test subject, give him the live agent too. Then we see if this vaccine really works.’

Mareta sat in a chair, her bad leg propped up on the control desk. Both the Van Stratens and all the former guards who remained had been given the Ebola variant and returned to their cells. Mareta had decreed that an hour should elapse before they were given the vaccine. Nicholas Van Straten, having received both vaccine and agent, would act as some kind of mid-point control, with Lock and the former detainees at the other end of the spectrum. Only Richard, Ty and Mareta were wholly unsullied.

‘Should have brought some playing cards,’ Ty said, to no one in particular, as they watched the security monitors suddenly go blank.

Khalid, who was sat next to the control desk, experimentally tapped one of the screens, first with his hand and then with the business end of an M-16.

‘Hey, Fonzarelli, that won’t work. They’ve cut the power,’ said Lock.

Mareta shrugged, unfazed. A second later, the lights went out. The darkness was total. Then the beam of a Maglite search lit everyone’s face, bar Mareta’s.

There was a staccato exchange between Mareta and Khalid, then the light went out again and the door slammed.

‘Who’s here?’ Lock asked, moving two paces right.

‘Yo!’ Ty shouted.

‘I am,’ said Richard.

‘OK, Ty and Richard. Anyone else?’

Nothing. He listened again, the darkness blanketing them in paranoia.

‘Have they gone?’ It was Richard asking.

The answer came as another flashlight beam emanated from the control desk. Khalid was shining the light straight at Lock.

‘Listen, we can’t stay here. You understand?’

Khalid didn’t answer. He probably didn’t speak English, although given Mareta’s record Lock was taking no chances.

‘If you understand us, Khalid, say something, you dumb-ass mother-loving camel molester,’ Ty said.

Nope. Not even a guy who’d picked up a few key phrases from rap records.

‘Don’t think he speaks English, Ryan.’

‘Thanks for clarifying that for me, Tyrone.’

‘Welcome. You still armed?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Me too. Homeboy’s outnumbered.’

‘That’s what I was thinking. Richard?’

‘Yes?’

‘You ever play murder in the dark when you were a kid?’

‘Sometimes with my cousins. They always won.’

Great, Lock thought.

‘OK, in a moment I need you to move. Make some noise doing it. And stay low.’

‘I can’t.’

‘How come?’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Would it help if I told you I am too?’

‘Not really.’

The chatter of light-arms fire struck up outside. Then the boom of what Lock guessed was a thunder flash going off. Or some spare C4. Whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t the sound of the President putting pen to paper on any guarantees.

Richard’s voice: ‘Lock?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m ready now.’

‘OK, in your own time.’

Richard’s chair skittered across the floor. The beam snapped from Lock’s face and to his right. Where Khalid should have found Richard, there was only glass.

Lock made his move, launching himself across the room on the line Khalid had established a moment ago with the Mini-Mag. It was as existential a moment as stepping off a cliff.

Lock caught the butt of the M-16 with his stomach, but his momentum carried him forward, tipping Khalid from his chair. A starburst of light broke in front of him as he caught the butt again, this time on the face. He tried not to fall back, to stay as close as he could. He drew back his right hand and short-punched Khalid, glancing off a jut of bone and finding what he guessed from the sudden wheezing was windpipe. Then he did it again, and again, until the wheezing gave way entirely.

He rolled off Khalid’s limp body, and grabbed the Maglite. He used it to locate the M-16, which had spun away a short distance. He kept the light moving, finding Ty gun-facing him and Richard huddled into a ball in the corner of the room.

Richard peered out from between his fingers as the wave of a blast rolled through the room from outside. Mareta? Lock doubted it. You didn’t walk out of all the situations she had just to go meekly to God when there was a chance of escape.

Lock crossed the room and helped Richard to his feet. He clapped him on the back. ‘You did good. Now, let’s get out of here.’

‘Wait.’ Richard crossed to where Lock was. ‘Give me that,’ he said, taking the flashlight. He shone it on Khalid, who was laid out on the floor. ‘Is he dead?’

‘I very much hope so,’ said Lock. ‘Now, let’s move.’

Too soon. The words had clambered into his mind and refused to vacate. It wasn’t that he’d die alone. Or in agony. No, the worst thing about how this had turned out, the ultimate ignominy, was that he’d die a footnote.

Then, with a loud thump that shook the walls either side of him, he was given a sign that maybe all was not lost. The light went out. A puff of dust caught at the back of his throat, and he coughed. More powder sucked into his nostrils.

He lowered himself down on to the floor and crawled to where he thought the door might be as another explosion shook the concrete floor. His hand slid out from under him and he fell, face first.

He took a moment to right himself, then started to edge along again, using his fingertips to navigate. Cold metal. The door.

He felt his way to its edge. It was at an angle. He could get his hand round the side of it. More than his hand. His arm. Both arms.

He squeezed his way through and into the corridor. The dust had begun to settle back to ground level. The door at the far end was open, light seeping in.

Tentatively, he got to his feet. The door next to his cell had been damaged too, wrenched away from its frame. He pushed at it, and it fell in. He almost fell in after it.

He could make out a man lying on the bed. Stafford Van Straten stepped through and stared down at his father. Two deep cuts bisected the old man’s face in a bloody cross.

‘Stafford?’

His father reached out a hand, but Stafford chose not to see it.

‘The vaccine. You have to find the vaccine,’ he whispered.

‘And then what?’

Nicholas tried to raise his head, but the effort was too much. ‘If you don’t, you’ll die.’

‘Die in prison, don’t you mean?’

He watched as his father tried to wipe away the blood seeping down into his right eye. ‘Then get out of here.’

‘Like a coward?’ Stafford spat. ‘Prove once and for all what a screw-up I am?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’ll never understand, will you? This isn’t about money. It was never about money.’ Stafford fell to his knees so that he was at eye level with his father. Outside, he could hear small-arms fire still echoing round the compound. ‘This is about history, and our family’s place in it. My place in it.’

Caffrey had just dug a plastic fork into his Holy Mol burrito when he saw the woman struggling towards him, a crutch under one arm, a cooler in her other hand. ‘Shit.’