Lockdown

Fifty-one

Carrie slept late. Her late unscheduled appearance the previous evening meant she wasn’t due in to work until lunch. Usually she jumped straight into the shower but this morning she could smell Lock on her skin and she didn’t want to lose that. In the kitchen, she made breakfast for herself and Angel. They both cleared their plates in record time.

She wandered through into the living room and flicked on the TV. A few of the other networks had picked up the Meditech story. They were following in her wake, and had been since Gray Stokes’ assassination. The next month would be a good time to ask for a move into the studio. She liked the buzz of chasing stories, but she also knew that people doing her job were likened to sharks for a reason: you kept moving forward or you died.

On the kitchen counter her PDA blinked red. She picked it up and scrolled through the emails. There was a fresh one from Gail Reindl giving her the overnights. Gail wanted to congratulate her in person when she got into the office. That anchor job was getting closer.

Angel had taken up position at the door and was barking. Carrie went back into the bedroom, threw on some sweats and tied her hair back in a ponytail. She grabbed Angel’s leash from the closet next to the door, along with a jacket, and headed downstairs. In the lobby, the doorman greeted them both.

Outside it was still cold, but the sky was bright blue and the sun was shining. The weather reflected Carrie’s mood. She half walked, half jogged to the end of the block. Angel trotted alongside her, occasionally outpacing her and straining on the leash, desperate to get to the park.

Carrie gave the leash a sharp tug as they reached the crosswalk. ‘Hey, easy there.’

The dog stopped and looked up at her. The sign flashed WALK.

‘Now we can go.’

Carrie stepped off the sidewalk. She didn’t even see the Hummer as it ran the light and barrelled straight towards her, ten thousand pounds of chaos doing forty miles an hour and picking up speed with every foot of blacktop rolling beneath it. She looked up at the last minute, and hauled herself and the dog back up on to the sidewalk as the vehicle’s rims scraped the concrete at the top of a drainage hole.

An old man in his sixties, milk-bottle-thick glasses, touched her arm. ‘Are you OK?’

Her heart was drumming against her chest. Her whole body seemed to be vibrating. It was coming straight for me! she thought.

‘Those damn things don’t belong on the roads!’ the old man shouted after the receding Hummer as it ran the next lights, slowed, and swung left out of sight.

Fifty-two

‘Man, we should have popcorn for this.’

Brand was like a guy who has to go to work at the start of the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl and decides to TIVO the whole game to watch later. As soon as Lock was inside the cell he’d radioed the CCTV operator to make sure to dump the footage from Mareta’s cell on to hard drive.

‘You got it cued up?’

The operator nodded. ‘All ready to go. This one here,’ he said, pointing to the centre screen in a bank of monitors.

The image was frozen: Mareta, the grieving widow, staring down at the wounded soldier as he crawled his way towards her.

‘Man, when this is over, I’m uploading this shit on to Live Leak. Come on, lemme see.’

The operator hit play, and Brand leaned forward to enjoy the action.

Lock had had a few things already worked out before the door into the cell had opened. It was clear that Brand was enjoying himself immensely and in a manner that went way beyond the satisfaction he would have gotten from just locking him up. Something lay on the other side of the door that was giving Brand one hell of a woody.

From the design of the building, both inside and out, Lock was clear it hadn’t been built just to prevent escape, but also to limit and contain movement to the nth degree. That meant the occupants were deemed dangerous to staff.

Lock had readied himself for a fight. To the death, if necessary. His or the other guy’s. Then Brand had dropped the bomb about Carrie. Brand had obviously expected the news to cut Lock off at the knees, but it had had the opposite effect. He’d felt a surge of energy, and with it a surge of adrenalin. Even in his diminished physical state he’d felt that the raw anger would carry him through.

When he looked up from the floor of the cell to see a woman, the decision had been simple. Natalya dumped in the East River with her brains blown out. Carrie, the victim of an unfortunate ‘accident’. Two dead women was enough.

He lay still and waited.

‘You sure this thing’s working?’ Brand asked, slamming a meaty hand down next to the keyboard.

Lock and the detainee had hardly moved on the tape. Just remained where they were, watching each other in some goddamn Mexican stand-off.

‘Yes, sir,’ the operator replied.

‘Move it on. Let’s get to the action.’

The operator moved his mouse, pulling the slider along. The woman jerked forward as Lock lay on the floor.

‘OK. There.’

On screen, Mareta laid the knife down on the floor. Still within reach should she need it. Then she knelt down next to Lock and helped him to his feet.

‘What the hell?’ Brand exploded. He’d got halfway through the first quarter only to find one of the defensive linesmen break through and start waltzing with the opposition quarterback.

Mareta had heard the men approaching. Even after all this time she hadn’t been able to escape the low dread that clouded her mind as the cell door opened. She’d tensed and then relaxed each part of her body. Less chance of breaking a bone if you were relaxed. Bruises and lacerations were one thing, but she’d spent three months in a prison in Moscow with a fractured fibula and no medical attention. The bone had healed on its own but left her with a limp and the memory of the intense pain.

They’d rushed in, one at a time. The biggest of them had dragged her off the bed and pinned her shoulders against the wall. The other man had reached down to her waist and grabbed her wrists with one hand while his other hand fumbled in his pocket. There was a click and one of her hands was free. She’d waited for him to uncuff her other hand and scratched at his face. She’d felt his skin wedging in a strip under her nails. She’d tried to get hold of his hair but it was too short. He’d shouted at her, calling her a bitch, and punched her in the face.

She’d gone down under the force of that punch. One man had sat on her chest and the other on her legs, sending a shard of pain shooting up her left leg, the one that had been broken back in Moscow. She’d heard the shackles clanking against the concrete as they too were taken off.

The men had then retreated from the cell, and she’d run at the door as it closed. Slamming her fists against the steel. She’d heard a door open and slam shut. Then they’d come back, her cell door opened again, and another man was thrown inside.

He was dressed normally. He looked American, or at least how she imagined Americans looked when they weren’t in uniform. His hair was shorter than the guards’ and he had a fresh scar that ran along the top of his head. He’d looked from the knife to her but made no move towards it, not even when she bent down to pick it up.

His gaze had met hers. There was no fear in his eyes. She’d held the knife in a hammer grip like she’d been taught by her husband. Still he hadn’t moved. They’d stayed that way for what seemed like an eternity. She’d sensed he was conscious of the knife but he never looked at it. Not once.

Then, finally, he’d spoken. ‘I’m not going to fight you. So if you’re going to do it, then let’s get it done.’

She’d looked from the man to the unblinking eye of the camera mounted in the corner, put down the knife,