by Sean Black
A few yards back the red Hummer was drawing up. Lock could see one of Brand’s men in the front seat raising a gun, an M-16, by way of deterrent. Sighing, Lock keyed his radio again, waiting a beat to make sure that the start of his transmission wouldn’t be cut. ‘Brand from Lock. Tell that moron sitting in front of you to put the showstopper away. In case he hadn’t noticed, we’re in Midtown, not Mosul. If I see it again, he’s gonna find it doing double duty as a butt plug.’
Lock breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the M-16 popping back below the dash.
‘What’s your boss doing? Get him inside that freakin’ building before we have a riot on our hands.’ Caffrey had ambled his way across the street and was talking to Lock.
Static in Lock’s ear, then a message from Ty: ‘He wants to talk to them.’
Lock passed it on, and Caffrey’s expression shifted from disgruntlement to apoplexy.
By the time Van Straten had reached the barrier, Stokes was no more than five feet away. Silence descended as the taunting and threats fell away, the demonstrators thrown by the proximity of their chief hate figure. A cameraman from CNN tried to elbow his way in front of Lock.
‘If you wouldn’t mind stepping back please, sir,’ said Lock, trying to keep his voice even.
‘Screw you, dickwad.’
Lock raised his hands, palms open in placation. ‘Sir, I’d really appreciate you moving back,’ he added, simultaneously raking the inside of his right boot all the way down the guy’s shin.
As the camera operator hobbled a retreat, cursing under his breath, Lock turned to watch Van Straten confront Stokes at the barrier.
‘I thought a delegation from your group might like to meet with me this morning,’ Van Straten was saying.
Stokes smiled. ‘You got my message, huh?’
By now, the media had begun to cluster round. A blonde reporter, Carrie Delaney, was first to be heard above the rapid-fire burst of questions. ‘Mr Van Straten, what do you plan on discussing inside?’
Lock caught her eye for a split-second. She made a point of looking away.
A preppy-looking correspondent, with frat boy features and a footballer’s physique, broke in before Van Straten had a chance to answer. ‘Is this a sign that you’re giving in to the extremists?’
Carrie shot the guy a look.Asshole. Lock noticed the guy smiling back.Right back at ya, babe.
Van Straten held up his hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have after my meeting with Mr Stokes.’
More bodies pressed in. A man behind Lock was pushed forward by a surge of the growing crowd. He pushed him back.
Lock glanced around. It looked like every single assassination attempt ever witnessed, five seconds before it went off. A chaotic scrum of bodies, security caught flatfooted, then, from nowhere, someone making their move.
Three
As Lock stepped out of the elevator, Van Straten’s bodyguard, Croft, was stationed at the door which led into the boardroom.
‘Who’s inside?’
‘Just the old man and Stokes.’
‘You check on them?’
Croft shook his head. ‘The old man didn’t want to be disturbed. Don’t worry, I made sure he sat at the top of the table before I left.’
Lock relaxed a notch. There was a panic button fitted directly under that section. Not that he thought even Stokes would be dumb enough to try something here.
‘Any idea why the boss wanted a sit-down?’
Croft shrugged. ‘Nada.’
‘He didn’t say anything in the car this morning?’
‘Not a word. Just sat in back going through his papers, same as always.’
To be fair to Croft, Lock had found Nicholas Van Straten a tough man to read. Not that he was taciturn or impolite. Far from it, in fact. In contrast to his son, Nicholas Van Straten always seemed to make a point of being overly polite to those who worked for him, sometimes in almost inverse proportion to their seniority in the company.
‘So no one knows what this is about?’
Croft shook his head.
Lock turned to walk back to the elevator as the door to the boardroom opened and Van Straten stepped out.
‘Ah, Ryan, just the man,’ Van Straten said, turning his attention to Lock.
‘Sir?’
‘First of all, I owe you and the rest of your men an apology. I should have given you some warning of my plans.’
Lock bit back his irritation. ‘That’s quite alright, sir.’
‘It was something of a last-minute decision to open direct discussions with Mr Stokes and his group.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Now, in ten minutes or so Mr Stokes and I will be going back outside to make a joint announcement.’
‘Sir, if I might make a suggestion.’
‘Of course. Please do.’
‘Perhaps if we found somewhere inside the building where you could—’
Van Straten cut him off. ‘Already thought of that, but Missy thought it would be more visual to be out on the steps. Oh, and could you arrange for some coffee to be sent in? No milk. Mr Stokes doesn’t take milk. Something to do with cows finding the process emotionally unsettling.’
‘Right away, sir.’
Van Straten stepped back inside and closed the door, leaving Lock alone with Croft.
‘Who the hell’s Missy?’ Lock asked.
‘Some gal in the public relations office. The old man put a call in to her about two minutes before you got here.’
‘Terrific,’ Lock said, trying hard to keep the exasperation from his voice. Now security strategy was being dictated by someone who probably thought an IED was a form of contraception.
‘Dude, relax,’ Croft said. ‘Looks like the war’s over.’
Lock stepped in close to Croft. ‘Dude, don’t ever use language like that in my presence again.’
Croft was puzzled. ‘What? I didn’t cuss.’
‘In my book, “relax” beats out any cuss word.’
Back outside, word of the sit-down between Gray Stokes and Nicholas Van Straten had got out, drawing even more news crews to the scene. Bystanders and protestors filled the gaps, pilot fish waiting to snatch at whatever morsels of information might float their way.
Lock finished briefing his team stationed on the steps just as Gray Stokes emerged from the entrance, his clenched fist raised in imitation of the black power salute. Next to him, Nicholas Van Straten stared at his feet. A chastened Croft stayed within touching distance of his principal.
‘We did it!’ yelled Stokes, his voice sounding hoarse in the chill air. ‘We’ve won!’
Two protestors whooped as the pack of reporters surged forward. Lock noticed that Croft and Ty, who were flanking Van Straten, were looking nervous as the reporters pushed up against them, jockeying with one another for position.
Lock stepped between Janice in the wheelchair and a reporter squeezing in next to her, worried that she’d be toppled over by the crush of bodies. ‘Folks, if you could give everyone here some space,’ he shouted.
Knowing what Lock had done to the cameraman, those nearest to him hastily made some room.
Van Straten cleared his throat. ‘I’d like to make a short statement if I may. As of midnight tonight, Meditech and all its subsidiaries, alongside those companies we work with in partnership, will no longer engage in testing on animals. There will be a fuller statement released to all media outlets later.’
Before Stokes had the chance to have his say, a volley of questions came at Van Straten. Even in victory, Van Straten was stealing his thunder, and Stokes didn’t seem to be enjoying it one bit. He shifted from foot to foot. ‘I have a statement as well!’ he shouted. But the reporters ignored him, continuing to throw questions at Van Straten.
‘What’s behind your change in policy, Mr Van Straten?’
‘Have the extremists who desecrated your mother’s memory won here?’
Another question, this one mo
re pertinent to a broad section of the audience at home: ‘What do you think this will do to your company’s share price?’
Van Straten stretched out his arms. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please. I think it would be rude if you didn’t at least listen to what Mr Stokes has to say on the matter.’
Struggling to keep his cool, Stokes took a single step to the right. Now he was standing directly in front of the Meditech CEO. Now it was his face filling the screens directly behind him, and the millions more around the country.
He raised a bunched right hand to his mouth, theatrically cleared his throat, and waited for silence to descend.
‘Today has been a momentous one for the animal rights movement,’ he began.
But before he could finish the sentence, his neck snapped back. A single .50 calibre bullet had vaporized his head.
Four
Lock placed himself in front of Croft and drew his weapon, giving Croft time to spin and sling Van Straten so they were back to back. With his left hand, Croft clasped the collar of Van Straten’s shirt, which allowed him to return fire with his right, all the while backing up as fast as he could. Lock remained steadfast among the scrum of bodies as between them Ty and Croft moved Van Straten back inside the building.
Lock looked around for Brand and the rest of the CA team but they were nowhere to be seen. Backing up, he shouted over to Ty, ‘Get him upstairs!’
In front of him, people were scattering in all directions, the crowd parting in a V directly in front of the building as another round was fired, this one catching a male protestor in the chest. He fell, face first, and didn’t move.
A breath of relief for Lock, as out of the corner of his eye he saw the journalist Carrie Delaney hightailing it for a news van parked on the corner.
Turning to his right, Lock saw Janice Stokes sitting in her wheelchair, her mother struggling to get it to move. At the same time, he saw an additional reason for the collective panic.
A red Hummer was careering towards the front of the building at full tilt, its trajectory an unswerving diagonal towards the one person incapable of getting out of its way. Even if the brakes were applied at that instant, the vehicle’s momentum would carry it onwards for at least another two hundred feet. Janice was well within that range.
Lock sprinted forward, his left foot slipping under him as he struggled for traction on the icy steps. Another round flew in, taking out what was left of the glass frontage. Desperately, he tackled Janice from the chair, his momentum carrying them both skidding across the polished stone.
Behind them, the Hummer had started to brake, the wheels locking, its sheer weight carrying it inexorably towards the front of the building and up the steps. Janice’s mother stood motionless as it rolled across Stoke’s body and slammed into her. She flipped into the air, a spinning tangle of limbs, and landed with a thud between the Hummer’s front wheels.
Janice opened her mouth to scream as the Hummer ploughed into the reception area. ‘Mom!’ she yelled, as Lock pulled her under him, his body covering hers.
He twisted his head round to see one of the Hummer’s doors open and Brand emerge. Brand hefted the M-16 in his right hand. He looked around at the devastation wrought by the vehicle and strolled calmly towards Lock, glass crunching under his boots, rifle raised.
Lock rolled away from Janice as a paramedic ran over to them and knelt down next to her. The CA team clambered one by one from the Hummer and took up position in the lobby, guns drawn.
Brand reached Lock. ‘I’ll take it from here, buddy.’
Lock felt a surge of anger manifest as bile at the back of his throat. A young woman had just seen her father’s head blown clean off and her mother run over by Brand.
Brand smirked. ‘Relax, Lock, she was a freakin’ tree hugger.’
Lock drew back his right arm and stepped forward. Before Brand had a chance to duck Lock’s right elbow connected squarely with the side of his mouth. There was a satisfying crunch as Brand’s head jolted back and blood spurted from the side of his mouth.
‘She was a human being,’ said Lock, hurrying past.
Five
Suddenly aware of his laboured breath, Lock took cover behind a Crown Vic parked fifty feet from the front of the building, making sure to stay a good five feet behind the bodywork so that any fragments of shrapnel zipping off were less likely to find him. Getting too close was called hugging cover. Hugging cover got you killed.
Only ninety seconds had passed between Stokes being hit and him making it here. In a one-sided contact like this, it felt like an eternity.
What was it his father had told him as a ten-year-old when explaining the job of a bodyguard? Hours of boredom, moments of terror.
He glanced over to see Sergeant Caffrey squatting next to him, tight to the cruiser. Lock grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back a few feet.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘You’re too close.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You want a lecture on appropriate use of cover right now? Just do what I tell you, and stay the hell there.’
Caffrey grimaced, his pasty complexion hued red by a freezing wind and sudden exertion. ‘Man, I’d be working the Bronx if I’d wanted to sign up for this kind of shit.’
‘I think they’re up there,’ Lock said, nodding towards a three-storey redbrick with a ground-floor Korean deli which squatted among its more refined office block neighbours.
‘They? How’d you know there’s more than one of them?’ Caffrey asked, peeking out.
Lock hauled him back in. ‘A lone sniper is either a college kid gone wild who can’t shoot for shit, or someone in the movies. A professional works with a spotter. And these guys are professionals.’
‘You saw them?’ Caffrey asked.
Lock shook his head. ‘Take my word for it. It’s about the only place they can be. The angle of the first shot would have given him the right elevation to take out Stokes above the crowd.’
Lock keyed his radio. ‘Ty?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Where’s Van Straten?’
‘Tucked up with milk and cookies. What’s the count?’
‘Three down.’
A middle-aged man in a suit broke cover to Lock’s left. Clutching his briefcase, he ducked out from behind a parked car, only making it a few feet before being blown off his feet by the sniper.
‘Correction. Four.’
Automatic rounds chattered from inside the lobby as Brand and his CA team returned fire.
‘OK, so, Ty. You leave Croft with Van Straten and get downstairs. Make sure Brand and the rest of his complete asshole team don’t light up any more of the citizenry.’
‘Will do.’
Lock turned back to Caffrey. ‘What’s the SWAT team’s ETA?’
‘They’ll be here in five. Let’s just sit tight until then.’
‘When they get here, make sure you tell them that I’m on your side.’
‘Where the hell are you going?’
‘To give these douchebags the good news,’ said Lock, making for the nearest doorway.
He tucked in tight to the entrance of the building directly opposite Meditech headquarters. Now he was on the same side of the street as the shooters he could inch his way up, building by building, all the while narrowing any possible angle. His only real fear was being taken out by friendly fire from Brand’s trigger-happy cohort.
The sign on the door of the deli had been switched to ‘Closed For Business’. This store didn’t even close for Thanksgiving. Lock now knew for definite that he was in the right place. He tried the handle. It was locked. With the butt of the Sig, he punched out the glass-panelled door and stepped through.
Inside, there was no sign of life. The relative calm was unsettling as sirens whooped and screamed in the street beyond. He walked slowly towards the counter, the fingers of his right hand wrapped around the Sig’s grip, his left hand cupping the bottom.
Behind the
counter there was a young woman crouched beneath the register, her hands cuffed with plastic ties, her mouth sealed with gaffer tape. The space was narrow: these places tried to use every available inch for product. As he knelt down, his hand brushed her shoulder, making her jump.
‘It’s fine, you’re gonna be fine,’ he whispered.
He found the edge of the tape with the nail of his thumb.
‘This is going to hurt a little but, please, try not to scream, OK?’
She nodded, her pupils still dilated in terror.
‘I’m gonna pull it off real fast, just like a Band-Aid. One, two, three . . .’
He tore the tape up and right, a yelp half catching in the woman’s throat.
‘My dad’s through there,’ she said, her words coming in short gasps. She nodded towards the corridor, which snaked off from the front of the store to the back. ‘He has a heart condition.’
‘Who else is here?’
‘Two men. Upstairs.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes. They haven’t come down yet.’
‘Where are the stairs?’
She jerked her head back down the corridor towards a brown wood-panelled door.
Lock reached for his Gerber, flipping out the knife into a locked position with a single motion. The woman winced.
‘I’m going to free your hands.’
She seemed to understand, but her body remained tense and stiff as he reached behind her to cut through the plasti-cuffs. At first he thought whoever bound her up must have improvised using some plastic ties they’d found lying around, but now he saw these were the real deal. Military issue of the kind used in places like Iraq where you might have to detain large numbers for a short period. Still, the thin edge of the Gerber’s blade made fast work of cutting through the thick white plastic band.
‘You take care of your father. If you hear shots, get out, but stay on this side of the street.’
Lock stood up and made his way to the door leading to the stairs. He opened it, stepped through, and glanced up. Dust caught at the back of his throat as he moved up the stairs, careful to keep his weight even on each tread. He focused on slowing his breathing as his field of vision, which had unconsciously tunnelled, started to clear again. By the time he reached the second floor his heart rate had dropped by twenty beats a minute.