by Sean Black
Footsteps thumped above him. Whoever it was, they were in a hurry. He crouched down, his back to the wall, his 226 aimed at a gap between the iron spindles of the railing on the third floor.
There was a sudden movement as someone broke cover above him, the person a blur. Before Lock could get him in his sights, he was gone.
Slowly, he began to edge his way up the final flight of stairs, the Sig out in front of him, index finger resting lightly on the trigger. At the top of the stairs there was a single door, offset six feet to the left. To the right, another door, this one ajar.
He went right first, down the corridor, pushing the door open with the toe of his boot. The room smelt musty and damp. Inside was a desk. Next to that was a solitary filing cabinet. The window was open. It faced on to the back alley. A metal pin was hammered into the frame; a length of blue climbing rope looped through it snaked out into thin air. Lock crossed to it and leaned out, glimpsing what he suspected were the backs of the sniper team as they ran.
He keyed his radio. ‘Ty?’ he whispered.
‘I’m here.’
‘Korean deli half a block down. Second floor.’
‘OK, man, I’ll pass it on.’
With any luck the SWAT team could throw up a four-block perimeter and find them before they had the chance to slip away. New York might provide the ultimate urban camouflage environment for crazies, but even here a heavily perspiring assassin carrying the tools of his trade just might stand out.
Lock walked back down the corridor, stopping at the closed door he’d seen. He took a single step back and lifted his right leg. The door flew open under the impact of his boot.
There was a deafening boom as a shotgun, rigged to the door handle with a length of fishing line, went off. The force of the impact blew Lock back over the railing. He landed heavily on his back, his head smacking off the wall, leaving a dent in the plasterboard. Then everything went black.
Six
A cluster of town cars skulked outside the up-scale apartment block. Engines running, they chugged out a mini smog bank that rolled across the FDR Driveway to the very edge of the East River.
Next to the green-canopied entrance, Natalya Verovsky sheltered under a golf umbrella embossed with a Four Seasons logo. Standing apart from the other au pairs and nannies waiting to collect their charges from the Christmas Eve party, she glanced at her watch. They should be coming out any minute now.
After what seemed an eternity, a gaggle of excited children began to emerge clutching bags of party favours. Last, as usual, was Josh, a loose-limbed seven-year-old with a mop of brown hair. He appeared to be engaged in a comically earnest conversation about the existence of Santa Claus with one of his friends.
Spotting Natalya, Josh broke off mid-conversation with a fleeting ‘Gotta go’ and made a dash towards her.
Normally this was the signal for Natalya to sweep Josh up in a big hug, lifting him off his feet and matching the embrace with a sloppy kiss, which Josh pretended to think was gross, but which she knew he secretly relished. Today, however, she took his hand without a word, even though she knew he disliked having his hand taken more than being kissed.
‘Hey, I’m not a baby,’ he protested.
Natalya said nothing, prompting Josh to look up at her, this faintest of blips on his radar registering immediately. ‘What’s up, Naty?’
Natalya’s voice sharpened. ‘Nothing. Now come on.’ She hurried him towards a town car parked across the street.
As the back door swung open, Josh held back. ‘Why aren’t we walking?’
‘It’s too cold to walk.’
A lie. It was cold. Freezing in fact. But they’d walked home in colder.
‘But I like the cold.’
Natalya’s grip tightened around Josh’s hand. ‘Quick, quick.’
‘Can we have hot chocolate when we get home?’
‘Of course.’Another lie.
Josh smiled, a victory seemingly won. Natalya knew that his dad hated him having anything sweet before dinner and generally she sided with him, only allowing Josh to sneak some candy as a special treat on Friday afternoons when he’d finished all his homework.
He climbed into the back of the town car. ‘With marshmallows?’
‘Sure,’ said Natalya.
Inside the car, the driver, his face obscured by the partition, pressed down on the horn with the palm of his hand before easing the Mercedes out into traffic. At the end of the block, he made an immediate right down 84th towards 1st Avenue.
Natalya stared straight ahead.
Josh looked at her, his face a pastiche of adult concern. ‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there?’
A dull clunk as the doors either side of them locked. Natalya could see the beginnings of panic in Josh’s eyes now. ‘It’s just so you don’t fall out.’A third lie.
‘But I’m not going to fall out.’
The lights ahead flipped to green. Natalya reached over to secure Josh’s seatbelt as the car lurched forward to beat the next set of signals. The park was on their right now, the trees barren and stripped of their leaves. They passed a lone jogger, his face set as he leaned into the biting wind.
At 97th, they turned into Central Park, cutting across towards the Upper West Side. By now any pretence that they were heading home was gone.
Josh unclipped his seatbelt and scrambled up on to the seat to stare out of the back window. ‘This isn’t the way,’ he protested, his voice pitching high with concern. ‘Where are we going?’
Natalya did her best to shush him. ‘It’s only for a little while.’ This part, she’d been promised, was true.
‘What’s only for a little while? Where are we going?’ He paused and took a shaky breath. ‘If we don’t go home right now, I’m telling Dad, and he’ll fire your ass.’
The partition window slid down and the driver swivelled round. His hair was cut military-short and flaked with grey at the temples. The black suit he’d been crammed into, to lend the appearance of a chauffeur, looked in danger of tearing under his arms.
‘Take us home!’ Josh screamed at him. ‘Now!’
The driver ignored him. ‘Either you get the little brat to sit down or I will,’ he said to Natalya, pulling aside his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster with a Glock 9mm pistol tucked into it, the handle showing black against his white shirt.
Josh stared at him, the sight of the gun quietening him, boiling down panic to a silent rage.
Beyond the driver, through the clear glass of the windshield, he could see a trademark blue and white NYPD cruiser driving towards them. In a few seconds it would be parallel with them. A second after that it would be gone.
Sensing that this was his one chance, Josh made a sudden lunge towards the front seat. The driver’s right elbow flew up, catching the top of his forehead with a crack and sending him spinning back into the footwell. ‘Sit the hell down,’ he said, pushing a button on the console, the partition gliding back into place.
Natalya pulled Josh back up on to the seat. A welt was already starting to rise where the driver had caught him. An inch or two lower and he would have crushed the bridge of his nose. Fighting the tears was futile.
His eyes burned into Natalya’s. ‘Why are you doing this?’
As Josh’s sobs came, raw and breathless, Natalya closed her eyes, the knot of quiet dread that had been growing in her stomach for the past few weeks solidifying. Knowing now what she’d denied to herself all this time. That she’d made a terrible mistake.
Feet away from them, the police cruiser sped past. Neither cop gave the town car a second glance.
Seven
Ten minutes after the driver had struck Josh, the partition lowered again and he tossed a backpack in Natalya’s general direction. She opened it with trepidation, even though she’d been told what would be inside.
First item out was a plastic bag emblazoned with a trademark Duane Read blue and red logo. Digging a bit deeper, she retrieved a set of children’s cloth
es, brand new and in Josh’s size: blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a navy sweatshirt. No cartoon characters, no brand names, no slogans, no distinguishing characteristics of any kind. Plain. Generic. Anonymous. Chosen precisely for those qualities.
‘Look, new clothes,’ Natalya said, doing her best to coax Josh from the far corner of the back seat.
Josh turned his face to Natalya, half-dried tears like glycerine on his cheeks. ‘They suck.’
‘Let’s get you changed, yes?’
‘Why? What for?’
‘Please, Josh.’
Josh glanced towards the partition. ‘Forget it.’
Natalya leaned in closer to him. ‘We don’t want to make him angry again, do we?’
‘Who is he anyway?’ Josh asked. ‘Your boyfriend?’
Natalya bit down on her lip.
‘He is, isn’t he?’
‘It doesn’t matter who he is.’
‘Why are you doing this to me?’
Natalya lowered her voice. ‘Look, I made a mistake. I’m going to try and get you out of this. But right now, I need you to cooperate.’
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘Because you don’t have any choice.’
Finally, after more stalling, Josh got changed. Natalya jammed his party clothes into the backpack, the easy part out of the way. Next, she picked up the bag from the drug store, steeling herself, then put it back down. Unless she was going to pin Josh to the ground to do what she had to do, and risk injuring him in the process, this was going to take careful handling.
‘You look nice in those,’ Natalya said.
‘No I don’t.’
‘They look good.’
None of this was cutting any ice and Natalya could see that Josh was getting jittery again.
He shifted position on the back seat. ‘Can we go home? Please? If you want money my dad can give it to you, but I want to go home.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Why not?’
Natalya pulled a pair of hairdresser’s scissors from the drug store bag.
Josh’s hand shot to his scalp. ‘No. Not my hair.’
The car slowed and pulled to the side of the road, as a car behind blared its horn. The partition fell. This time the driver had the gun in his hand. He pointed it directly at Josh. ‘If I have to pull over one more time, you’ll regret it.’
Shaking, Josh turned his back to Natalya. Legs crossed, she sat behind him, and set to work.
Barely five minutes later the back seat was festooned with long strands of dark brown hair. Josh reached his hand back, ran it through the uneven spikes.
Natalya took Josh’s hand and squeezed it. ‘You can always grow it back. Now, let me tidy it.’
She made some more tiny adjustments, momentarily getting caught up in the task.
‘There. Now you know what would really suit this style?’
‘What?’
‘A different colour.’
‘I guess so,’ Josh said, sounding utterly defeated.
Natalya rummaged in the bag again, sighing as she came up with a plastic bottle of hair dye. Quickly scanning the directions on the back of the bottle, she tutted loudly, then leaned forward and rapped on the partition. ‘I can’t use this now.’
The driver stared at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘Why not?’
‘It needs water. It’ll have to wait.’
‘You sure?’
‘You think I’m stupid?’
She thrust the bottle through the partition, two fingers covering the part of the label which read ‘unique dry application’. The driver grunted, tucked the bottle into his jacket and restarted the car.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t let anything bad happen to you,’ Natalya whispered, putting her arm around Josh.
‘This isn’t bad?’ he demanded.
Natalya pulled him closer and he finally relented, snuggling in to her.
Fifteen minutes later he was beginning to doze off, his head resting against Natalya’s shoulder, as the car came to a stop and the driver opened the door, pulling them both out into the cold.
As they stood shivering in a freezing mist of rain, the driver produced a brand-new cordless car vac and used it to suck Josh’s hair off the back seat. Someone else would be along later to collect the car.
The area was desolate and semi-industrial, with a road off to the left. They trudged through a sugar coating of powdery snow towards an oversized metal gate which lay smack bang in the middle of a seemingly endless chain-link fence. Cars flitted past in the distance. Other than that they were alone. A man with a gun, Natalya, and the child she’d been charged with looking after and had just so cruelly betrayed.
Natalya looked around, trying to find a point to fix on – a street sign, maybe, or a store – but all she could see was waterfront. Close by she could hear the slurp of waves against a dock.
Everything had changed for her the moment Josh had been hit. Regardless of what was at stake for herself she was determined to make good her mistake. And that meant getting Josh safely home to his father.
She’d have to pick her moment with care, though. There would be no second chance at escape.
They hadn’t driven through any tunnels or over any bridges so she was sure they were still in Manhattan, but it didn’t take a genius to work out that this neighbourhood was a long way from the Upper East Side.
The driver pushed Natalya towards the metal gate with the heel of his hand. ‘Move,’ he grunted.
At the door, a solitary security camera panned round, accompanied by a faint hydraulic whirl. The gate clicked and the driver pushed it open, ushering Natalya and Josh through.
Perched at the end of a pier, a single-engine speedboat was tied up, no one aboard. Painted a dark grey, it sat low in the water. They walked towards it, the driver clambering down into it first, almost losing his footing as a sudden swell rose under the hull. For a split second Natalya considered running, but with the dock stretching thirty feet out into the water she knew they’d never make it in time.
Natalya helped Josh into the boat.
‘Get the rope for me,’ the driver said, pushing Josh down so he’d be out of view of any passing traffic on the river.
Natalya unhooked the stern line from the mooring and threw it back to him. Now was her chance.
The driver waved her forward with his hand as the boat began to inch away from the dock. ‘Quick.’
She hesitated, then caught Josh’s terrified eyes. There was just no way she could leave him. Taking one quick step, she jumped down, the driver catching her hand and half hauling her down into the boat.
The driver gunned the engine and they set off in a wave of spume and diesel oil. Soon the dock was out of sight, a black skyline etched against grey.
Natalya counted off those buildings she recognized. The tower of the Chrysler building. The Empire State. The gaping maw of a breach where the Twin Towers once stood, now replaced by the first nub of the Freedom Tower.
The driver dug into his jacket and pulled out the bottle of hair dye. He squinted at the instructions on the back like they were written in Sanskrit. Finally, he looked up at Natalya. ‘Dry application. Bullshit.’ He threw the bottle at Josh. ‘Make sure you rub it in good.’
Eight
Lock woke in a bed in a small room, hooked up to a monitor and some kind of IV. He prayed for morphine, but suspected saline. If he was still in this much pain, it had to be some weak-ass morphine.
He wiggled his toes and fingers, relieved to find that they seemed to be responding. To make sure that it wasn’t some kind of phantom sensation he flipped back the sheet, surprised that he could move so easily, and amused to find that he had an erection. Maybe it was some kind of evolutionary response to a near-death experience. Either that or a full bladder.
He waited for his excitement to subside, conjuring up the most unerotic of images to hasten its demise. No dice. Not even a yoga-emaciated Madonna could shift it. The blinds weren’t
closed all the way, and he could glimpse the lights of the city that didn’t sleep beyond the window, getting on just fine without him.
Tentatively, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and, with one hand on the bed rail, stood up. For a second or two the room shifted suddenly, but the sensation quickly abated, and he managed to walk gingerly over to the tiny bathroom.
The man staring back at him from the mirror with a deadpan expression was sporting three-day-old stubble and a close-shaven head. Running his fingers across the top of his skull, he found a set of stitches. Whether it was a wound or the result of an incision wasn’t entirely clear. He touched his fingertips to it. No real pain, but definitely stitches.
His face was puffy, especially around the eyes. His eyes were set blue amid the deathly pallor of the rest of his skin, his pupils like dots.
He took a moment to work back to how he got here. Relief. It was all there. The protestors, Van Straten’s unexpected walkabout, then Lock standing on the steps outside Meditech and the bullet. Correction: bullets. His glimpse of Carrie running for cover. More relief at recalling that. Then him taking on the threat, the young Korean storekeeper tied up, then walking up that staircase, a bang, and a sudden cut to black.
Total recall. He allowed himself a smile at that.
He filled the sink and began to splash his face with cold water, freezing mid-splash as the door opened into the main room. Pressing his back against the wall, he peered out.
In the room, a man in a blue windbreaker looked around, like the empty bed was evidence of some kind of magic trick. For a second, Lock half expected the guy to start shining his Mag light under the covers.
He stepped out of the bathroom, and the guy’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘There you are.’
‘Here I am,’ was all Lock could think to say in reply.
Overcome by a sudden wave of exhaustion, he took a step back towards the bed, and stumbled. The man put out a hand, steadying him. ‘Easy there.’