Sean Black: Lockdown

Carrie reached over and touched his hand. He withdrew it with a word: ‘Later.’ Then, to soften the blow, ‘OK?’

She sighed. ‘OK.’

Down the gallery, Ty was taking a more robust approach with his supervising producer. ‘No, that one, asshole. That one!’

Even a short time with Ty had left the producer, a man clearly more accustomed to being barker than barkee, watery-eyed and with a distinct quiver in his lower lip.

‘Now, go in. Zoom, baby. Zoom.’

A moment later the subject of his interest turned to reveal a thick goatee perched above a prominent Adam’s apple.

‘Damn,’ he groaned.

Frisk paced the length of carpet behind them. ‘Any luck?’

Lock shook his head. ‘At least when you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, the haystack doesn’t keep moving.’

A voice from further down the gallery: ‘Those assholes.’

Heads rotated and eyes swivelled to a monitor at the far end, live feed of the revelry in Times Square. In the foreground the same frat boy correspondent whom Carrie had jousted with back at the Stokes/Van Straten press conference was on camera. At chest height a rolling banner of bad tidings: Major Security Breach at Bio-Terror Facility. . Ebola Virus Missing. . Times Square Believed Target.

The door opened, and a wall of perfume with more knock-down power than any bio-weapon preceded Gail Reindl into the trailer as cell phones chirped to life. ‘OK, Carrie, cat’s out of the bag, let’s get you in front of that camera.’

As the TV people headed out, Lock’s gaze fixed on the monitors as, slowly, the news began to filter through to the vast crowd. Cell phones jammed to their heads, some people were already on the move, heading out of the square, pushing their way if they had to. The collective result of so many individuals trying to break away from the crowd was to channel it in great funnels of humanity. They looked like plankton surging in every direction to escape an unseen predator.

Frisk stood behind him. ‘Ah, shit.’

Then Lock spotted something. A closer shot of a small section of the crowd. A few isolated figures. Maybe two dozen. He got to his feet, trigger finger pressed to the screen. ‘There. Top left edge of the frame. Get closer on her.’

One of the remaining techs whispered into his microphone, and the image reframed.

A few seconds later, the woman was caught in the centre of the frame. She was wearing a heavily padded ski jacket. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

‘Closer. The face. The face.’

The woman half turned, and from the screen, Mareta Yuzik stared back at them.

‘Southeast corner of 41st and Broadway,’ Frisk shouted as they bolted down Broadway, knocking aside anyone who didn’t get out of their way fast enough.

Two blocks.

‘We have men there now.’

‘OK,’ shouted Lock, already out of breath. ‘They know the drill?’

Dealing with what was known in the trade as a BBIED, or body-borne improvised explosive device, was the same as dealing with a regular IED or any other type of bomb. Confirm. Clear. Cordon. Control. Except, with a bomb strapped to a human being, there was one hugely unpredictable variable involved: the human being.

The closer they got to the location, the stronger the current of people rushing in the other direction. From the snatched comments, it seemed like most of them didn’t even know why they were running, except that everyone else was. Herd instinct kicking in.

A man was pushing his ten-year-old daughter in front of him. Ty saw her trip and go down under a flurry of feet. No one even looked down to see what or who they were standing on. Her father was dragged past her. Ty, with a Marine’s determination, forced his way to her, elbows prominent. He pulled her back on to her feet, battered and bruised. She was crying. Shouting for her father to follow, he pulled her into a storefront doorway where they were reunited, and then ran on.

Lock had lost sight of Ty. And Frisk. But he was almost there. Not that he had to check any signs or get on his radio. He knew because the crowd was thinning out. And then, as if he’d pushed through a paper wall, he was standing in the middle of clear street.

The woman stood with her back to him. A blue line encircled her, weapons drawn. A couple had ballistic shields, most didn’t.

‘Mareta?’

The woman turned round. It was her. She stared at Lock with a look that betrayed nothing. Not even whether she recognized him or not.

One of the men behind the shields shouted over to her. ‘OK, hands up, where we can see them!’

Mareta complied, stretching her arms out, crucifix wide.

‘OK, with your right hand, I want you to open your jacket.’ Slowly, taking her time, and with no sudden movements, her hand fell to the zipper and she started to lower it.

‘What the hell is that?’

Ty and Frisk had caught up and were standing next to Lock. They could see the suicide belt, but at the front, tucked in among the shrapnel, were six stainless-steel vials. Whether they literally did or not, Lock could sense everyone around her taking one very big step back.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ said Ty.

‘Could be a bluff,’ said Frisk, clutching.

‘It’s no bluff,’ said Lock. ‘How many people did Richard think that amount of bio-material could take out?’

‘The whole city.’

The Bomb Squad officer continued with his instructions, only the occasional crack in his voice betraying him. ‘OK, keep lowering that zipper. One hand. No sudden moves.’

The slider caught on one of the teeth. Mareta tugged down, freeing it, and pulled the slider all the way down to the box at the bottom. The jacket was open all the way.

‘OK, now shrug the jacket off,’ said the officer, stepping from behind his shield for a moment to mime what he wanted her to do.

She mirrored him perfectly. The jacket tumbled to the ground.

‘Why’s she cooperating?’ asked Frisk.

‘I don’t know,’ was all Lock could say.

Then his eyes fell to her waist.

‘That’s not good,’ he said.

‘What?’ Frisk asked.

Clipped to her waist, and gaffer-taped in place, wires snaking up from it into the explosive charges, was a cell phone.

‘The phone. Last time I saw her she had hand-held contact wires. Now there’s a cell phone.’

‘Which means-’

Lock hushed Ty with a raised hand. ‘Frisk, who else was missing when you did your final tally back at the research facility?’

‘We had one of the other detainees still outstanding, but we’ve located him.’

‘Anyone else missing? Think.’

‘Only Stafford Van Straten.’

Stafford pulled the Blackberry from his pocket, thumbed across the screen to his address book, clicked it open and thumbed down again to a single name: Mareta.

Below it was another single-word entry: Nicholas. He thought about giving his father a final call. But what did he have to say to him other than goodbye? So the dark band on the screen stayed where it was, a click on the wheel away from history.

A call to the phone clipped to Mareta’s belt and everyone within a half-block radius would be toast. Those not killed by blast wave or shrapnel would be the lucky ones. The vials packed round her would spread the Ebola variant far and wide, open wounds ensuring effective and deadly transfer of the virus into the survivors. Who knew how many might die in the end? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? A cool million? He smiled. Enough for him to be remembered.

Stafford was steeling himself, his thumb a tenth of an inch from pressing down on the wheel of the Blackberry, when the screen lit up with an incoming call.