underneath them. His pupils were wide but the whites bloodshot. He was reminded of someone else. It took him a moment to think of who. That was it. He looked like Richard Hulme. He took off his ball cap, reached up and rubbed at the stitches in his scalp. Maybe they’d all end up looking like Richard Hulme before Josh was found.
He took three steps into the foyer.
‘Excuse me, sir, who are you here to see?’
It was one of Brand’s team. A baby-faced former Marine who went by the name of Hizzard.
Lock glanced at the bulge under the guard’s overcoat. ‘Hizzard, it might be freezing out there, but it’s eighty degrees in here. You look like a moron.’
Hizzard reluctantly took off his coat to reveal a Mini Uzi with what Lock guessed from first glance was a fifty- round mag.
‘Jesus, second thoughts, put your coat back on before someone sees that thing. What the hell is this?
Hizzard looked sheepish.
‘Listen up, Fiddy,’ Lock said, ‘you pick a weapon based on its suitability for the job. No other reason.’
Footsteps echoed on the marble floors behind them. Lock looked over, pleased to see Ty loping towards him across the lobby.
‘They want you up on twenty-five. We can talk on the way up.’
‘Damn straight,’ said Lock, glancing from Hizzard to Ty.
Ty directed a ‘kids these days’ shrug at Lock as they headed for the first bank of elevators that would take them as far as the twentieth floor. They got in and Ty pressed the button. The doors slid shut. A camera concealed in the front right corner of the elevator was on them. Lock turned so his back was to it and counted to ten.
‘What’s with all the hardware, Tyrone?’
‘I told you, man, with you out we got the mother of all pissing contests here. Brand’s marking his territory.’
The doors opened on twenty. Waiting for them were two more members of Brand’s CA team. This time they were minus overcoats but both with the same model of machine pistol the boys downstairs were sporting.
Lock and Ty shared a look. The lunatics had clearly taken over the asylum.
Twenty-one
Walking into the boardroom on the twenty-fifth floor, Lock felt about as much at ease as a crack-head crashing the Rainbow Room. Not that anyone said anything — far from it. No one commented on his appearance. Or asked how he was. Or enquired as to how he was getting on as ‘official’ Meditech point man in the search for Josh Hulme. Instead, they all studied whatever pieces of paper they had in front of them and waited for their boss, Nicholas Van Straten, to start.
Nicholas Van Straten sat at the head of the table. Stafford was directly to his father’s right, Brand to his left. Not a good sign. Ty took a seat next to Lock, a few seats down. Scattered around the other chairs were five or six other employees. Some of them Lock could put a name to, some he couldn’t. It was a big company.
Stafford looked Lock up and down. ‘I didn’t realize it was dress-down Friday.’
The woman from the media relations department tittered like a schoolgirl.
Lock stared at Stafford. ‘My tux was at the cleaners.’
Nicholas Van Straten closed a thin manila folder with an expensively manicured hand and looked down the table, meeting Lock’s gaze for a second. ‘Thanks for being here, Ryan. I certainly appreciate it. How are you feeling?’
Lock directed his answer to Brand. ‘Ready for duty.’
Brand smirked.
Lock took a breath, and did his best to centre himself. ‘I apologize for my appearance. It’s been a hectic day or two.’
Lock could see Ty studying the table, trying hard not to laugh.
‘Quite,’ said Nicholas. ‘Now, shall we discuss where we go from here?’
The woman from public relations, who it transpired was the Missy of ‘outside press conference’ legend, launched into an enthusiastic pitch as to how best to handle the Josh Hulme kidnapping situation from a public relations perspective. Like the true professional she was, she started out with a little light ass-kissing. ‘Well, Mr Van Straten, with your brilliant intervention we’ve made a great start at wresting back control of this very delicate situation. Clearly our initial lack of involvement did some damage, but that shouldn’t last too long now that we’re being seen to help.’
The ‘being seen to’ jarred with Lock but he remained silent. The terrain had clearly changed a lot in a very short space of time and he needed to get an overview of it before he said anything.
As Missy continued, using words of three syllables or more when two would have been sufficient, Lock studied Brand. A square head on an equally square torso, he was sitting ramrod straight, staring directly at the woman speaking. His hands were folded on the conference table, his fingers interlocked. He gave the appearance of someone listening intently when, in fact, Lock knew from his experiences with him that he had pretty much no idea what was being said. Still, he looked impressive. Calm and in control.
‘So, in summary,’ Missy was saying, ‘I think this is, in fact, an excellent opportunity to not only build brand awareness but reposition our company as one which truly cares about the wider community.’
Holy shit. Only in corporate America could a child abduction which had already yielded one dead body be seen as a way to make a business appear warm and cuddly.
‘I’ve an idea,’ Lock said.
All eyes swivelled round to him.
‘Maybe if we get the kid back in one piece we could do a tie-in with one of our drugs. You know, like Ritalin, or something.’
No one laughed. Or looked pissed. Missy jotted something down. ‘Or perhaps set up some kind of foundation?’
‘I think you’ll find Mr Lock was being facetious,’ Nicholas Van Straten said, drily.
‘Oh,’ she said, looking at Lock like he’d just taken a leak in the corner of the room.
‘If I may?’ Stafford interjected.
‘If you must,’ said his father.
Stafford pressed the palms of his hands together in apparent supplication and paused for a moment. ‘I don’t think we have a problem here. This is a public relations snafu, nothing that’ll affect us. And certainly nothing that’ll worry our shareholders. The animal rights protestors, now
Lock shifted uncomfortably, his recurring headache beginning to gnaw away again at the front of his skull. As he watched Stafford drone on, his mind drifted back three months, to the first time he’d run into the man.
Lock had been supervising a sweep of the upper floors of the building, taking the newly recruited Hizzard through proper civilian search procedure of a location while the place was quiet. Even those employees desperate to avoid returning to an empty apartment, or clocking up unpaid extra hours to impress their line manager, had long gone.
Lock had left Hizzard to check one half of the floor while he did the other. Lock had one office to try. Stafford’s office. A floor down from his father’s, Stafford’s was close enough that he could feel important, but not close enough that his father had to see him all that much. The door was slightly ajar, and as Lock pushed it open he saw a woman bent double over the desk. In Stafford’s right hand was a hank of her hair; his left hand was working its way up between her thighs. The woman was doing her best to fight him off, clawing at Stafford’s face with a free hand.
‘Shut the hell up, bitch,’ Stafford growled, sharply yanking her head back.
‘You’re hurting me,’ she pleaded.
Stafford’s face moved closer to hers. ‘Bet you like it rough, don’t you?’ he whispered.
