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
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.
