Lockdown rl-1

by Sean Black

He watched as his father tried to wipe away the blood seeping down into his right eye. ‘Then get out of here.’

  ‘Like a coward?’ Stafford spat. ‘Prove once and for all what a screw-up I am?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You’ll never understand, will you? This isn’t about money. It was never about money.’ Stafford fell to his knees so that he was at eye level with his father. Outside, he could hear small-arms fire still echoing round the compound. ‘This is about history, and our family’s place in it. My place in it.’

  Eighty-three

  Caffrey had just dug a plastic fork into his Holy Molburrito when he saw the woman struggling towards him, a crutch under one arm, a cooler in her other hand. ‘Shit.’

  He stepped from his cruiser, drew his weapon, an old-school stainless-steel Smith and Wesson 64 revolver, and levelled it at the centre of her chest. ‘Stop right there.’

  She kept coming.

  He’d heard something at one of the briefings about a woman. He knew she was foreign. Someone had said something about her not speaking English. Or was it that she could speak it? Damn. He should have been paying more attention, instead of texting one of his patrol guys to swing by Burritoville.

  ‘Lady, stop right there.’

  He looked around for back-up but everyone seemed to be pouring, like flies to shit, through the gates towards the buildings.

  Still she kept coming. Utterly calm. No sign on her face that she even saw his gun.

  A woman. Fresh off the boat. Who maybe didn’t understand what he was saying.

  Then she stopped. Maybe ten feet from him. Maybe less. Never breaking eye contact. Never looking at his gun. Tuning it out.

  ‘OK, that’s good. Now, stay there and don’t move.’

  But move she did, placing the cooler on the ground. One hand reaching across her chest.

  ‘I said, don’t move.’

  She was wearing a padded man’s ski jacket, or at least that was what it looked like to Caffrey. Her hand wrenched at the zipper.

  He’d have to wait to see a weapon. Couldn’t shoot someone for unzipping their jacket.

  ‘OK, that’s far enough.’

  She kept going, yanking the zipper free at the bottom.

  ‘Lady, I don’t have time for games.’

  ‘Neither do we.’ A man stepped from the shadows. White. A young guy. Covered in a thin layer of grey dust that made him look like one of those human statue guys who hung out in Midtown making money from tourists. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Show him.’

  Slowly, deliberately, the woman pulled the jacket to one side, and the hand holding Caffrey’s gun stopped working. The Smith and Wesson tumbled to the ground.

  Twenty-four years of jumpers, jackers, slashers, stoners, rapists, recidivists, baby killers and crackheads. Twenty-four years of witnessing what was very often the lowest point in someone’s life. Over and over again. A never-ending loop of human failing, which occasionally seeped into evil. Caffrey was sure he had seen, smelled, tasted, heard, touched and, yeah, even sensed it all. But this, this went way further.

  She held the jacket open with a stage magician’s flourish and Caffrey stood there, half expecting her to take a bow. But all that happened was that the guy who was standing behind her ran forward to retrieve Caffrey’s service revolver.

  Still transfixed, Caffrey didn’t try to stop him.

  ‘You have a cell phone?’

  ‘What?’ said Caffrey.

  The guy pointed the gun at Caffrey. Caffrey barely registered it.

  ‘Do you have a cell phone?’ the guy asked again.

  ‘In the car.’

  ‘Go get it,’ he instructed. ‘I need the number.’

  Eighty-four

  Smoke rose from every building in the compound. In two, fires still burned, the foam pumped into them by fire crews wearing respirators and bio-suits seemingly doing little to dampen the flames. Between buildings, bodies lay scattered. The detainees had put in a good shift resisting the assault, taking with them at least half a dozen JTTF and other personnel.

  In the Center for Disease Control trailer, Lock was losing patience as he waited for his test results. ‘How many times? Right now I might be one of the safest people in America.’

  His pleas cut no ice. There was procedure, and it was going to be followed. Outside he could hear the chatter on the radios was accelerating rather than diminishing. Not a good sign after an assault. Then, as one of the CDC techs made her final checks, he heard Ty giving someone some serious shit right outside the door.

  ‘You lost her? You assholes!’

  That was it. Lock was on his feet and out, brushing aside the thick-necked twat on the door with an open palm.

  The guy followed him out, drawing his weapon. ‘Sir, step back inside.’

  ‘I’ve met meter maids that were more intimidating than you, bud, so put away the pistol while your hands still work.’

  The confrontation was cut short by the CDC tech. ‘It’s OK, Brad, he’s clear.’

  Lock joined Ty. ‘The Ghost done it again?’

  ‘Looking that way.’

  Lock glanced back to the smouldering ruins as an NYPD Bomb Squad bulldozer trundled past them. ‘Hell, she’s probably halfway to South America with what’s left of the family fortune by now. What about everyone else?’

  ‘Richard’s safe, back with his boy. Hey, we did what we set out to. Just have to tie up the loose end.’

  ‘I’d say that crazy bitch rigged to two kilos of C4 is more than a loose end.’

  ‘She’s Chechen. Thought they had a beef with the Russians, not us.’

  ‘They didn’t, until now,’ said Frisk, coming up fast behind them. ‘And she’s not the only thing that’s unaccounted for.’

  ‘Care to elaborate?’

  ‘The entire stock of Ebola variant’s gone too.’

  Eighty-five

  High above the Manhattan skyline, night-time and a set of rolling winter clouds rendered four Air Force F-15s invisible as they threw a wide loop around the island. Below, the skies were empty, save for the NYPD’s fleet of seven choppers which buzzed briskly around Midtown. All other commercial aircraft had been grounded, Kennedy closed; ditto La Guardia and Newark.

  Beneath them, the chopper pilots could trace a red pulse of brake lights snaking along the full length of the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Sitting next to the pilots, sharpshooters, ready to dispense retribution from on high, checked and re-cheked their weapons, waiting for the call.

  The same red points could be glimpsed in the far distance on the Queensboro Bridge, and at the entrance to the Queens Midtown Tunnel. On the other side of the island the traffic waiting to enter the Lincoln Tunnel seemed to back up all the way to some distant New Jersey exit ramp even Springsteen hadn’t heard of.

  From up in the gods, the city seemed to be enjoying a sudden spike in popularity at the very moment it had finally maxed out its capacity to contain any more human beings. The sky, finally, appeared to have a limit.

  Underground was a different reality. Four hundred passengers sat in the carriages of the A-Train, and didn’t move. Tense. Silent. Further down the track, people being ushered from the platforms and back out on to the street. Iron grilles being pulled across. The city’s veins snapping shut one by one.

  It was the same story with the Holland Tunnel. Same story with every tunnel leading into the city. Car engines switched off. Angry drivers exchanging less than pleasantries with stony-faced cops.

  ‘I got my daughter to pick up from a party. She called an hour ago. She was crying.’

  ‘But my apartment’s flooded. The super called me. I’ve had to drive here all the way from Maine.’

  ‘What difference is it gonna make letting one car through, officer?’

  Every plea, exhortation and bribe met with the same response. No dice. The city’s closed. No one’s getting in, and no one’s getting out.

  Manhattan’s locked down.
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  Eighty-six

  ‘So who d’you think’s gonna take the bragging rights?’ asked Ty as the chopper cut low and left across the East River towards Manhattan.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about? What bragging rights?’ Lock asked, struggling to be heard above the thud of the rotor blades.

  ‘Judgement Day, fool. The Jews think they’re the lost tribe, right? And then you got the Protestants. They’re the elect. Ditto the Catholics. Mormons think it’s them. Muslims. Damn, wouldn’t that be a kick in the nuts after all the shit they’ve pulled recently? Hindus? Can’t see it myself. Jehovah’s Witnesses? Hmm, done some hard lobbying. Gotta factor that in. Buddhists think they’re gonna be coming back as butterflies or some shit. But it stands to reason, they can’t all be right. Wanna know who my money’s on?’

  ‘Nation of Islam?’

  ‘Nah, the hell with them, never been the same since they lost Farrakhan. My money’s on the Irish.’

  ‘Being Irish isn’t a religion.’

  ‘You try telling them that. No, something big as Judgement Day is gonna come down to dumb luck. And you don’t get any dumber or luckier than the Irish.’

  Ty sat back, apparently content with having slammed the world’s main religions and the homeland of at least a tenth of the country’s population in one burst.

  Frisk swivelled round in his seat. ‘Is he always like this?’ he shouted to Lock.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes. You get used to it.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s just a little disrespectful?’

  Ty looked hurt. ‘You think of a more appropriate time to ask this stuff, let me know. Oh, and before you get into any 9/11 guilt trip bullshit, I lost a brother in Tower Two.’

  Ty’s brother had been in the Fire Department, one of the guys who was walking up when everyone else was walking down. He and Ty had been close. Ty had joined the Marines in response, judging action more productive than mourning. Now, in the back of a chopper, flying into a city where any sensible person would have been flying out, Lock hoped history wasn’t about to repeat itself.

  ‘So can we return to the matter at hand?’ Frisk said as the copter made its final approach to the landing pad.

  ‘Let’s,’ said Lock, the pilot signalling for them to stay put for the next few seconds.

  ‘If your hunch is right, and we haven’t stopped her getting inside the cordon, she’s going to head for where she can do the most collateral damage.’

  ‘Which, in her head, is going to be here,’ said Lock as they unbuckled, got out, and two JTTF snipers took their place.

  Lock started towards the edge of the building, Ty on his shoulder, both clicking back into their respective roles of team leader and second-in-command.

  ‘So how many people we got down there?’ Lock asked, reaching a three-foot-high concrete plinth which demarcated roof from air.

  ‘I’d ball-park it around eight hundred thousand.’

  ‘No, not in the city, down in the square,’ snapped Lock.

  ‘Look for yourself if you don’t believe me.’

  Lock peered over, a sudden heart jolt almost taking him, head swimming, over the lip. Ty grabbed at Lock’s jacket, pulling him back. Still Lock stared. Frisk wasn’t lying. Times Square was crammed with a mass of humanity that stretched as far as the eye could see.

  ‘What the hell are all these people doing here?’

  Times Square was busy late at night, always had been, even after its sleazier residents had been pushed out, but this was insane. It wasn’t just the sidewalks, every single inch was occupied.

  Frisk gave him a puzzled look. ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘That’s why I’m asking.’

  ‘You don’t know what date it is?’

  Lock didn’t. And then, as he stared across at the gigantic crystal ball standing ready to descend from atop the One Times Square building, and the television gantries with their brown dots of celebrity presenters, alien from the masses even at this height, he did. He knew exactly what day it was. Or rather, what night.

  ‘It’s New Year’s Eve.’

  Eighty-seven

  ‘How many people did you say again?’

  The three men were standing on the concrete plinth, Ty with his hand poised behind Lock’s back lest his friend suffer a blackout.

  ‘In this immediate vicinity, we estimate eight hundred thousand,’ said Frisk.

  ‘Evacuation?’ asked Ty.

  ‘Not an option.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You want to tell just short of a million folks we have one of the world’s most notorious terrorists on the loose with a bunch of explosives strapped to her chest, go right ahead. We’d probably lose a few thousand in the crush alone.’

  Lock knew that Frisk was right. This was every jihadist’s wet dream made flesh. Perfect for a suicide attack. Lots and lots of people crammed into a small space. Beyond that there was infinite scope for the creation of panic. And, as Frisk had already pointed out, panic might just take out more people than the bomb. Although if Mareta was here somewhere and she did detonate the device, panic would prove an ideal secondary device.

  ‘People are used to seeing this kind of law enforcement presence on New Year’s Eve,’ Frisk pointed out.

  ‘What about closing the bridges and tunnels?’

  ‘We’ve been as non-specific as possible and so far the news people are helping us out with the embargo.’

  Lock thought suddenly of Carrie. He flashed back to what Brand had said, how she’d been hit by an SUV, and how relieved he’d been when Ty told him that she was alive and well.

  ‘You think Mareta’s here?’ Frisk asked.

  Lock climbed back down off the plinth, then leaned over for one final look at the huddled masses below. ‘Yeah, she’s here,’ he said, turning for the stairwell.

  Eighty-eight

  Soaked in sweat, Stafford clambered from the police cruiser, moved to the rear of the vehicle and flipped the trunk. He stepped back, Caffrey’s revolver in hand, and waved for Mareta to get out.

  She climbed out stiffly, her jacket riding up to reveal a cell phone clipped like a radio microphone to the back of her belt. Wires trailed from the phone up her back and out of sight.

  ‘Date with destiny time, sweet cheeks.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ she told him.

  ‘Say it with a bit more conviction, then. You sound like you don’t want to cement your place in the history books. I thought that’s what you people were all about.’

  When he came across Mareta in the smoking ruins of the compound, having shaken off his armed escort, Stafford had quickly realized the secret of Mareta’s success. She possessed the ability to embrace martyrdom in others, without welcoming the opportunity itself. The Ghost. Yeah, right. The Mother of all Cowards would have been more apt. Shock with none of the awe. This time, though, he was going to make sure that the Ghost went out with a bang.

  Having somehow missed out on ‘The Construction of Body-Borne IEDs 101’ when he was at Dartmouth, Stafford was happy when he realized that Mareta had already done most of the hard work on his behalf. All that had remained for him to do was ice the cake and light the candles.

  ‘You think your kids’ll be waiting for you when you make it up there, Mareta?’

  ‘Don’t talk about my children,’ she said, taking a step towards him.

  He allowed the gun to drop to his side, moved back and pulled his Blackberry from his pocket. A number was pre-dialled on the screen. His thumb hovered over the call button. ‘Now, now, let’s not be premature, shall we?’

  He prodded her forward. Behind them, Caffrey lay slumped in the back seat of the cruiser, his mouth open, blood seeping from his eyes.

  Eighty-nine

  Lock had never known the members of the Fourth Estate so subdued. Even in the middle of a war zone the media could be relied on to leaven the darkest moments with a gallows humour to make the most cynical special ops soldier discover his inner sense of political
correctness. This was different, though.

  They’d convened in a broadcast unit, rigged to take up every separate camera feed. On air, the folks at home were viewing crowd shots from the previous year’s festivities with colour commentary to match. No one had called in to complain. Either America was too toasted or the networks needed to find a new angle.

  Lock sat next to Carrie and scanned the screens, occasionally prompting her to ask if a camera operator could take a closer look at an area of the crowd. Other than that, Lock was silent, focused. Concentrating on seeing rather than just looking. Men who did his job, and did it well, knew that most people walked around eyes open, wide asleep. They also knew it wasn’t a luxury afforded to them.

  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.