by Sean Black
Lock reached past Stafford for the phone. He was pleased to see a flicker of panic in Stafford’s eyes.
‘Hey, wait a minute.’
Lock pressed nine to get an outside line. He could see that Stafford was desperate to make a lunge for the handset, but too much of a coward to go for it. He cradled the phone between his shoulder and chin. ‘What you gonna tell me? Rough was how she liked it? She’d been coming on to you for weeks now? Why else would she have stayed late on a Friday night with just you and her left in the building?’ He pressed down on another nine.
‘Lock? That’s your name, right?’ Stafford said, his voice suddenly falsetto with panic.
Lock hit a one. Only one digit to go.
‘Look, man, I’m not going to make any bullshit excuses. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve got a problem.’
‘You do now,’ Lock said, pressing down on the final one. ‘Police department, please.’
A second passed as he was put through, Lock perched casually on the edge of the desk, enjoying Stafford’s obvious discomfort. In his gut he knew one thing for sure: this might have been the first time Stafford had been interrupted, but it sure as hell wasn’t the first time it had happened.
‘The hell with you, man,’ Stafford blurted. ‘What you saw adds up to nothing in court. It won’t even go to trial. It’s her word against mine.’
Lock replaced the handset. What Stafford had read as a scare tactic on Lock’s part was far from it. Lock had put down the phone not because he’d scared Stafford enough but because Stafford was right. A call to the police would change nothing.
He removed his Sig and levelled it at Stafford’s bloodied face. The movement was relaxed to the point of casual. ‘You like guns?’
Stafford’s face was white with shock now. ‘I was in the ROTC at college,’ he stammered.
‘Remember the first thing your firearms instructor told you? The cardinal rule?’
Stafford swallowed. ‘Never point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them.’
‘Very good. Ten out of ten. Now, outside.’ Lock waved Stafford over to the door.
There are lots of ways a man might think he’ll react when a gun is pointed at him. In combat, Lock had known blowhards lose control of their bladders, and cowards find a relative calm in which they could fight back. But the first surge of emotion is the same for everyone. Fear.
Stafford walked meekly to the door. In the corridor, Lock holstered his gun but made sure that Stafford was ahead of him and didn’t look back. Behind them, Hizzard stood sentry outside the ladies’ washroom.
Lock guided Stafford to the elevator. Confirmation that they were being watched came in the form of a voice from the control room in Lock’s ear.
‘We’re fine. Just taking a little night air,’ Lock replied.
They got out on the top floor. From here they could access the roof. Lock punched in a key code and pushed Stafford through the door with a shove.
Outside it was dark. High forties at best. A sensor light snapped on, throwing both men’s shadows to the very edge of the roof.
The walk appeared to have given Stafford the opportunity to compose himself a little. ‘So what now? You gonna shoot me?’ he asked.
‘No,’ replied Lock, ‘you’re going to jump.’
‘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.
Twenty-two
‘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.’
Twenty-three
‘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.’
‘Point taken. My ride, your music.’
‘Calling your vehicle a “ride” is stretching it.’
‘So’s calling the shit you listen to music.’
Forty minutes later they pulled up at the gates of the cemetery, still debating the pros and cons of Lock’s car and Ty’s taste in music.
Ty scanned the other arrivals. ‘Don’t these folks look in the mirror before they leave home?’
At the top of the hill a Who’s Who of the animal rights crowd were gathering to watch Gray and Mary Stokes being laid to rest, alongside their long-deceased pets, dogs, cats, rabbits, and even a donkey.
‘Not an animal lover?’
‘Had a pit bull once. Loved that dog, man.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘Tried to eat my little cousin Chantelle. Had to shoot the asshole. I mean, she was pulling its ears and shit, so it wasn’t entirely unwarranted biting her, but family’s family.’
‘Ty, I get a lump in my throat listening to stories about your upbringing. It’s like the Waltons on crack.’
Ty smiled. ‘Screw you, white boy.’
‘Listen, you stay here with the car.’
‘Aw, man. Do I have to?’
‘What’s the problem now?’
Ty regarded the interior of Lock’s Toyota with a look of repulsion. ‘Someone might think this piece of shit’s mine.’
A familiar face greeted Lock as he started up the hill. The sergeant voted ‘most likely to be high on cholesterol but low on patience’ lifted a fillet o’ fish with extra cheese in greeting. Who the hell puts cheese on a fillet o’ fish? Lock wondered.
‘If it ain’t Jack Bauer,’ said Caffrey, swiping at a smear of mayonnaise, which slicked under one of his chins.
Lock was as pleased to see some variation in Caffrey’s diet as he was to hear that the cardiac time bomb’s sarcastic repartee extended to both sides.
‘How’s that sandwich?’
‘Food from the gods,’ Caffrey mumbled, mid mouthful.
‘You really get around, don’t you?’
‘JTTF seconded me,’ spat Caffrey.
‘That a new tactic? Al-Qaeda attack, we Spurlock them till their livers burst.’
‘Spurlock?’ Caffrey asked, missing the reference.
‘Guy who made the movie about eating nothing but burgers for a month.’
‘A month?’
‘Yup.’
‘Lucky bastard.’
‘Well, it’s been nice chatting.’
Lock started past, but Caffrey blocked him. ‘Don’t go upsetting any of these folks, Lock. I’ll be lucky to finish the last set of paperwork you generated by the time I retire.’
‘I’m just here to pay my respects.’
Caffrey stepped out of his way, and took a sloppy bite of mystery fish. To a man who’d missed breakfast, it looked pretty damn good.
Lock carried on up the slope towards a spot where he could see a couple of blacked-out SUVs. As subtle as a brick, the decals on the numberplate might as well have read ‘FBI Surveillance’. Then again, maybe that was the point: the FBI letting the stragglers of the animal rights campaign know they were being watched.
As he passed the FBI vehicle, Lock narrowly resisted a juvenile temptation to tap on the windows. He stopped fifty yards back from the funeral party as it gathered around the plot. Two graves. Side by side.
As Lock got closer he realized that he shouldn’t have worried about his attire. He was about the best-dressed person there. The mourners were a rag-tag mixture of decaying hippies and twenty-something New Agers. One kid in his early twenties had turned up in blue jeans and a brown faux-leather jacket, presumably hand-crafted from tofu. Lock would have forgiven him black, but brown?
A few of the mourners turned their heads at Lock’s approach but no one said anything. At the centre of the group he glimpsed Janice sitting in her wheelchair, staring into the void as the two coffins were simultaneously lowered into the earth.
A man in his sixties with an ashen pallor and long greasy hair stood, hands clasped and head bowed, and said a few words. As Lock stepped closer, he caught the last of it.
‘Gray Stokes goes to his grave a hero. A martyr for the cause of animal rights. He was a man who saw genocide where others chose to look away. A man who chose to confront those who ran the death camps. A man who chose to speak up for those who have no voice. But his death will not be in vain. The movement to liberate animals from suffering and torture will go on. And his spirit will travel with us on our journe
y.’
Martyrdom, sacrifice, struggle. Lock wondered where he’d heard all those words before. Maybe John Lewis, the FBI’s deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, had it right when he’d warned a Senate committee a few years back that animal rights extremists were becoming a real threat. But then al-Qaeda had leapt straight to the top of the terror charts with a boxcutter rather than a bullet, and most everyone had forgotten that terrorism wasn’t restricted to guys with a penchant for virgins in the hereafter.
People on the fringes of the group began to drift away back down the slope once the man had finished his eulogy. Lock approached Janice, a couple of the remaining mourners shooting him a dirty look as they passed him. The younger man in the brown jacket was speaking now, head tilted in defiance. ‘They’re gonna pay for this. You’ll see. They’ll be filling whole graveyards by the time we’re through.’ His dire predictions were aimed at everyone and no one. Janice shushed him as Lock came closer.
Lock reached out and touched her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ The words seemed inadequate. He braced himself for another outburst from the uber-casual hothead, maybe even a punch, but the young man drifted off as well.
Janice kept her eyes on the two coffins. ‘Why did you come here?’
‘To pay my respects.’ Lock flicked his head in the direction of the hothead. ‘Who’s he?’
Janice’s eyes flicked from Lock to the two hulking JTTF SUVs. ‘Why don’t you ask your friends?’
‘Don’t you think things have gotten too serious for us to be playing any more games?’
‘Why are you really here?’
‘Answer my question and I’ll tell you.’
‘That’s Don,’ Janice said. ‘He wasn’t really part of our group. He didn’t agree with our way of protesting.’
‘More of a direct action kind of a guy?’
‘He’s been involved in some liberations.’
‘Liberations’ was the term used by the activists to describe their forcible entry into labs that used animals, in order to free those animals. Occasionally they’d hit farms as well, usually ones with vast sheds of battery chickens.
‘So what’s he doing here?’