Lockdown rl-1

by Sean Black

  There was a searing pain in her left side. She tried to reach a hand down to touch where it was tender but her hand wouldn’t move. The tightness around her wrists and ankles told her that she was shackled.

  Not blind, only hooded. Not paralysed, merely shackled. And, miraculously, she could hear. Over the past few weeks, when she’d been moved from one location to another ear defenders had been placed on her head so she could only sense the loudest of noises, more through vibration than anything else. Being able to hear meant that she knew she was on an aircraft. It also meant she could hear the guards, even over the sound of the engines. She recognized their accents from the movies. They were American. She could hear two of them talking.

  ‘Man, it’s good to be home.’

  ‘How long of a layover you have?’

  ‘Week, maybe. Depends on how this goes. You?’

  ‘About the same. Let me tell you, I’ll be glad to get off this thing. These guys creep me out.’

  ‘Relax, they’ve got enough shit in their system to flatten an elephant.’

  ‘What’re they being moved back here for, anyway?’

  ‘Dunno. I heard something about a trial.’

  ‘Good. Hope they smoke ’em.’

  ‘I’d stick a bullet in them, save on the energy.’

  The Gulfstream taxied to the end of the runway and turned right, heading for a remote hangar no more than five hundred yards away. The doors of the hangar were already open and more than a dozen men were inside, along with six SUVs. Like everyone onboard, all of the men were masked.

  The aircraft inched its way inside the hangar and the vast metal doors were rolled closed behind it. A few seconds later the aircraft door opened and the steps were unfolded and lowered to the ground. One of the men walked up them and disappeared inside the aircraft.

  Only one of the detainees had been unshackled. The woman. One of the guards unholstered his sidearm and passed it to his partner. He helped her off the gurney and on to her feet. She struggled to stand and it was as much as he could do to prevent her keeling over. They lumbered down the steps of the plane like lovers stumbling from a bar.

  As she stepped on to the concrete, she sank down on to her knees.

  ‘She OK?’

  ‘Be careful, she might be faking it.’

  ‘Dude, you’ve got an overactive imagination.’

  ‘You read that bitch’s file? She’s snuffed more people than Bin Laden.’

  Forty-five

  ‘This is bullshit. I didn’t take any kid!’

  ‘Then what were you doing there, Cody?’

  Frisk was facing Cody Parker and his court-appointed attorney, a Hispanic woman in her late twenties, across a table in an interrogation room on the third floor of Federal Plaza.

  ‘I told you. I got a phone call.’

  ‘That’s very convenient. From who?’

  ‘I don’t know. They said they knew who killed Gray Stokes and that if I wanted to know I should meet them at that address.’

  ‘They didn’t give you a name? You didn’t recognize the voice?’

  ‘Nope. Look, if I kidnapped this kid then where’s the money, huh? Or did you plant it in my truck?’

  ‘Why don’t you tell us where it is.’

  ‘Someone set me up.’

  Frisk rocked back in his seat, stretched out his arms and yawned. ‘Go on, then, I’m prepared to explore alternative scenarios.’

  ‘It was that company. They were looking to get back at me.’

  Frisk laughed. Unprofessional, but he couldn’t help it. ‘They arranged a kidnapping of the child of one of their employees in order to exact some kind of revenge against you personally? OK, it’s certainly an interesting hypothesis. But it still doesn’t speak to motive. Why you?’

  ‘What do you mean, “why me”? I’ve been taking them on. And why aren’t you out there trying to catch whoever killed my mom?’

  ‘Because we don’t have any evidence that she died from anything other than natural causes. But it does bring us neatly to another event. Digging up Eleanor Van Straten’s corpse. That what you mean by “taking them on”?’

  Cody glanced up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Except we’ve found particles of soil on your boots which match the soil from Mrs Van Straten’s grave.’

  Cody’s jaw tightened. He gave his attorney the briefest of looks. ‘OK, so that was me.’

  ‘Finally,’ Frisk said. ‘And who was with you?’

  ‘I was alone.’

  ‘Moving a body, even a little old lady, is a two-man job. Minimum.’

  ‘I told you. I was alone.’

  ‘So this friend of yours, he the one who blew up the car, get rid of any forensics?’

  ‘You got me blowing shit up to get rid of forensics and sitting across the street from that boy?’

  ‘Well, you have to concede you were there. I mean, no one teleported you or anything.’

  ‘I was there. And I told you why. Check the phone records at the house if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘We already did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You received a call when you said you did.’

  ‘Then I’m telling the truth.’

  ‘Records don’t say anything about what was being said. And as for telling the truth, how many times were you questioned about Mrs Van Straten?’

  ‘Don’t rightly remember.’

  ‘Three times. And three times you denied having any involvement. So allow me some scepticism when it comes to your record on honesty.’

  Cody stretched his arms towards the ceiling. ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘You’re arraigned. You wait to go to trial. You’ll have plenty of time to think about whether or not you want to plead guilty.’

  ‘You can’t put this on me. Or anyone in the movement.’

  ‘That so?’ Frisk said, getting up from his seat and crossing to a plastic storage box in the corner of the room. He removed the lid and pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside there was a photo album with a red spine and a plain grey cover. He brought it back to the table. ‘Go ahead.’

  Cody opened the bag like something might leap out from the album’s pages and bite him. ‘This is mine. So what?’

  ‘Oh, we know it’s yours. It’s got your prints all over it.’

  ‘So why are you asking me then?’

  ‘Because it was with Josh Hulme when he was found. Someone dropped it at the exchange point. And it has your prints all over it as well as those of Josh Hulme.’

  ‘I had a bunch of shit taken in a robbery,’ Cody said flatly.

  ‘You report it?’

  ‘No,’ Cody answered, shaking his head.

  ‘Josh Hulme told us that this album was in the room where he was kept after he was abducted.’

  Frisk reached over and opened the album to a random page. The eyes were big, brown and familiar to Frisk and Cody. So was the red raw flesh on top of the dog’s skull.

  The door opened and a uniformed officer walked in. He bent down next to Frisk, lowered his voice. ‘There’s a Ryan Lock demanding to speak to you.’

  Frisk got up. He picked up the album and held it up to Cody’s face. ‘Pretty sick thing to expose a child to, wouldn’t you agree, Mr Parker?’

  Forty-six

  ‘You want me to one-eighty this investigation on the word of a teenage hooker you found in a strip club? Which, incidentally, you entered carrying a firearm. You keep going the way you are, Lock, and we’re gonna have to get some new felonies on the books just to keep up.’

  ‘But you’ll look into it?’

  Lock had known Frisk would be a hard sell. Hell, he wasn’t even sure that Carrie believed him. But here he was in Frisk’s office asking the man for a favour.

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ Frisk said.

  ‘All I’m asking you to do is keep an open mind.’

  ‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with Brand replacing
you as Meditech’s head of security, would it?’

  ‘I’m convalescing.’

  ‘Most people do that at home in bed with a nice bowl of chicken soup.’

  Lock smiled. ‘I didn’t say I was any good at it.’

  Frisk opened the bottom drawer of his desk and dug out a plastic Tupperware container. ‘The wife makes me lunch. You know, try to ensure I eat my greens.’ He took the top off and held it up for Lock to inspect. ‘I mean, seriously, would you eat this shit?’

  Lock waved it away.

  ‘You’ve had a boner for Brand since the first time I met you,’ Frisk continued.

  ‘He’s had a boner for me.’

  ‘Volunteering to testify against one of your own guys? Wouldn’t that usually get you fragged in the military?’

  ‘Not where I served. Not if someone had crossed the line.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I forgot you served with the Limeys. That why you and Brand don’t get along?’

  ‘Head over to Scotland. Try calling them Limeys and see what happens. I served in the same branch of the military as my father. I served his memory. Took a lot of shit from both sides for being a mutt while I was doing it. But I’ve never felt the need to wrap myself in any flag in order to prove my patriotism.’

  ‘Nice speech,’ Frisk said, putting the lid back on his lunch box. ‘Look, I have a perp.’

  ‘Who didn’t do it.’

  ‘There’s evidence you’re not aware of.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Frisk stood up. ‘Who the hell are you anyway, Lock? Just some hired hand.’

  ‘This case is bullshit, and you know it.’

  ‘I know I’ve got a guy who’s now admitted to digging up Eleanor Van Straten’s body, and who was at the handover. All you’ve got is the fact that one of your co-workers was schtupping Richard Hulme’s nanny.’

  ‘Who had to have been involved in the kidnapping.’

  ‘A few months earlier she’d been giving out handjobs in the back of a strip club, so how do you know she wasn’t dropping her panties for more than one guy?’

  Lock flashed back to the minutes he’d spent in Natalya’s bedroom after Richard Hulme had tracked him down. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but he could still see in his mind’s eye the photograph of the young girl with her family. All that optimism, all that promise. He clenched his right fist and started to draw it back, not even fully conscious that he was doing it.

  Frisk watched the blood drain from Lock’s knuckles as he took a step back. ‘That would be an extremely bad idea.’

  Lock was aware of a couple of agents at nearby desks watching him.

  ‘Y’know, when I heard about you running towards that sniper, I thought you just might be crazy. But now I’m positive.’

  Lock took a deep breath and counted to ten slowly.

  ‘Are we done here?’ Frisk asked him.

  ‘Well, seeing as you brought it up. What about Gray Stokes? Anyone going to be charged with his murder?’

  ‘It’s ongoing.’

  ‘What did forensics say about the rifle that killed Stokes?’

  ‘An M-107 fifty cal sniper rifle.’

  ‘Traceable?’

  ‘Missing from a combat unit serving in Iraq.’

  ‘So we’re probably looking at ex-service personnel,’ Lock stated flatly.

  ‘I’d say that would be a fair assumption.’

  ‘And that doesn’t fit any of the animal rights people.’

  ‘They’re not all known to us,’ Frisk objected. ‘Hell, Cody Parker kept a pretty low profile, and look what he was capable of.’

  ‘Listen, when I went in the back of that store, I knew straight off I was dealing with something more than a bunch of people who break out in a rash about a beagle being handed a pack of smokes. If someone was prepared to go to all the trouble of laying their hands on an M-107, and learning how to use it, you think they’d miss Van Straten and get the other guy?’

  Frisk put on his coat and strode towards the door. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lock, next time bring me something more than a grudge.’

  Forty-seven

  Brand stood outside the door with two other members of the team. All of them were dressed in full riot gear: visored helmets, body armour and heavy boots. Now that the Hulme situation was resolved satisfactorily, Brand would be taking personal charge of the day-to-day running of the isolation unit. In total they had twelve individuals to look after, brought in on two separate flights. Each of them deemed to be extremely dangerous.

  In his hand, Brand held a small monitor which was receiving the live feed from the camera placed on the other side of the door. A peep hole, even one using glass or Perspex, would be far too dangerous.

  The woman was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. The other two men would go into the cell, shackle and cuff her, while he stayed on the other side of the door. Any more than two men in the cell along with the trial subject would make movement too difficult. They’d just end up getting in each other’s way. For the same reason no firearms were allowed inside the cell, or the rest of the accommodation block for that matter.

  ‘Ready?’ Brand asked them.

  The men made a final check on their equipment.

  ‘I don’t understand why they can’t be doped,’ one of them said. ‘It’d make this a whole lot easier.’

  ‘Can’t run trials on someone with all that shit in their system.’

  ‘So what do we do if there’s a problem with one of them?’

  ‘What kind of a problem?’

  ‘Like they jump us.’

  Brand lifted his visor and pointed at the monitor. ‘You’re afraid of a woman?’

  ‘I’m asking a question is all.’

  ‘Procedure is you’re on your own.’

  Five minutes later, Mareta was led into the examination room, chained and shackled. She didn’t look frightened. Or defiant for that matter. She looked blank.

  Richard’s stomach did a back flip. He’d known since his conversation with Stafford that they’d be using human test subjects and had rationalized that maybe they were volunteers. The payment for clinical trials could run into thousands. Lots of money to some people. But who would volunteer for this?

  He knew too that research into vaccines against bio-weapons had a chequered history. From soldiers deliberately exposed to high doses of radiation during nuclear testing through civilian drug trials going horribly wrong, live trials were an ethical and legal minefield. Get them right and you could save thousands, sometimes millions of lives; get them wrong and the consequences lingered. Sometimes in the form of birth deformities, for generations.

  This was why Stafford had been so keen to have him on board, whatever it took. His best bet, maybe his only bet now, was to go along with what was happening.

  ‘Why is she restrained like that?’ he asked Brand.

  ‘Don’t worry, doc, it’s for your safety more than anything.’

  ‘Might I speak with you in private for a moment?’

  ‘Sure thing, doc.’

  Richard opened a door at the rear of the examination room and Brand followed him through into a small office space.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he challenged.

  ‘Hey, I’m just here to make sure everyone’s safe.’

  Yeah, right, thought Richard, noticing the look of enjoyment on Brand’s face.

  ‘You think we were going to put an ad in the Village Voice and get volunteers for this, doc?’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Someone this planet won’t miss if it all goes wrong. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘That’s not good enough. I refuse to conduct any tests until someone tells me what’s going on here.’

  ‘Then talk to Stafford. He’ll be here later on.’

  ‘And what if I’m not here?’

  ‘That’s up to you. But right now all you’re being asked to do is check them over and make sure they’re fit for purpose.’

  The door connecti
ng the two rooms was still half open, and Richard could see Mareta with her two guards. She looked tiny in comparison, the difference accentuated by the body armour. Wearily, he walked back through to her, mindful that his son was in the compound.

  Mareta’s body was a tapestry of torture. Richard had guessed as much when he first saw her walking in. Her gait was slow, the length of her stride shorter than it should have been. She walked almost on tiptoes, reluctant to put her heels on the ground — the result of a technique known as falanga. In lay terms it meant the striking of the soles of the feet with a blunt instrument. Repeatedly.

  ‘I can’t examine her properly when she’s restrained like that.’

  Brand traded glances with his two men. ‘She’s too dangerous not to be.’

  Richard had to suppress the urge to laugh. The woman was five feet six inches, no more than a hundred and five pounds, and seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

  ‘She might not look much, doc, but it only takes one blow to your throat or a finger in the right place to snuff someone.’

  Richard pulled the chair from behind his desk and put it down next to the examination couch. ‘At least let her sit down.’

  Mareta was prodded the few feet to the chair. One man supported her under each arm so she could sit down.

  Richard knelt down in front of her so that he was at eye level. She seemed to study him.

  ‘Hello, my name’s Dr Hulme, what’s yours?’ Richard said, in a tone that suggested he was speaking to a child.

  One of the guards snickered.

  ‘No habla anglais, doc,’ Brand volunteered.

  ‘She speaks Spanish?’

  Another snicker.

  ‘No, we didn’t kidnap any beaners,’ Brand replied. ‘Although I wish I’d have thought of it. Could have cut a deal with the Minutemen and saved a bundle on air transfers.’

  ‘Look, I need a name for my file.’

  ‘We have a number for you if that helps. Might make things simpler all round. Specially when it comes time to shoot her up with whatever you’re testing.’

  ‘Thanks, I’m familiar with the theory,’ Richard replied.

  After the first trial of the drug DH-741, a memo had been issued to all employees at Meditech involved in animal testing that all subjects were to be known by a number only, and that under absolutely no circumstances were they to be given a name or referred to by anything other than their number. Anyone referring to an animal by name was to be immediately reported to Human Resources. The ostensible reason was that it would reduce the likelihood of data from subjects being mixed up, but Richard suspected another reason. Give something a name and you give it an identity.