Lock shoved Stafford out of the way, levelled the Glock downwards, and picked his spot as best he could using iron sights at close range. He squeezed off a single round into Mareta’s leg. She released her grip, her hand reaching down to where she’d been shot. The uninjured guard pulled her to the floor, wresting the knife from her and jamming his knee into her back.
A second too late, Lock caught sight of Stafford reaching down to retrieve the dying guard’s sidearm. He spun round, levelled his Glock at Stafford, but not before the guard kneeling on top of Mareta had managed to point his weapon straight at Lock’s unprotected face.
He sensed the red dot of a laser sight tracing a pattern from his mouth to his face and up to a spot directly between his eyes. Slowly, he took his finger from the trigger of the Glock and laid it gently on the floor.
Sixty
In the hospital block, Lock was staked out on a gurney. Across the room, Mareta was similarly restrained, her left leg a bloodied mess. Richard Hulme, who’d been drafted in as a surrogate ER physician, stood over her.
‘How’d this happen?’ he asked Stafford, who was pacing the room.
‘Ask the Lone Ranger over there,’ Stafford said, gesturing towards Lock.
Lock rested his chin on his chest. His only real injuries were cuts and bruises sustained during the beating he’d taken after he’d put down the Glock. All the guards had been members of Brand’s detail. Grief, in this case, manifested itself in the form of kicking and punching Lock all the way to the medical block.
But, Lock had noted as he was taking his beating, they hadn’t laid a finger on Mareta. She was a woman. She was injured. But he didn’t think that would have stopped them. They needed her. And now, he hoped, they’d need him just enough to keep him alive for a while longer.
‘Well, the good news is I doubt it’ll require amputation,’ Richard said. ‘But we need to get her to a proper emergency facility as soon as we can.’
‘No can do,’ Stafford said. ‘You’ll have to patch her up here. We can get you whatever you need.’
‘It’s been twenty years since I went near anything like this.’
‘Good opportunity to brush up on your skills then.’
‘Dad!’
Josh stood in the doorway of the room, flanked by two guards.
‘Sorry,’ one of them said as the other tried to hustle Josh back out of the room. ‘All we heard was that Dr Hulme was in here.’
Josh broke away from their grip and rushed to his father. ‘What’s wrong with those people?’ he asked, staring at Lock and Mareta over his father’s shoulder.
‘They had an accident. But don’t worry, Daddy’s going to make it all better. Now, why don’t you go back to your room?’
One of the guards came over to lead him out.
‘Come on, son.’
‘No, let him stay,’ Stafford interrupted.
Lock watched as Josh shuttled his gaze between his father and Stafford, unsure who to obey. It was the first time he had seen the boy in anything other than photographs. The anger he felt that he’d been used as a pawn in this whole thing by Stafford acted like an opiate to dull his pain. Damn. He should have shot him when he had the chance and been done with it.
Stafford turned his attention back to Mareta, and grimaced at her leg wound. ‘She still good to go for the trial?’ he asked Richard.
‘Are you out of your mind? Of course not.’
‘You couldn’t juggle the results?’
‘Wait a second. One minute you want me to sign off, now you want me to fake them?’
‘You’re right. But it still leaves us one short. We’ll have to find someone else to take her place.’
Lock watched as Stafford’s gaze settled on Josh.
‘I wonder if there’d be any clinical benefit in seeing how effective the vaccine is with a different age group?’ Stafford mused.
Richard placed himself between Stafford and his son. ‘You can go to hell, Stafford.’
Lock strained to lift his head. ‘You can use me.’
Sixty-one
Carrie full-screened the RealPlayer window on her computer. The screen was black, save for a time/date stamp in the lower left corner. If it was accurate, the tape had been shot at ten minutes to midnight, a month before Gray Stokes had been shot outside Meditech.
White text rolled up the screen. Someone had taken their time putting this together. Carrie pulled a yellow legal pad from a drawer and jotted down what it said.
1st PHASE TRIAL OF DH-741
MEDITECH ANIMAL TESTING ROOM
ANIMAL TRIAL SUBJECT REACTION
POST-VACCINATION FILOVIRUS EXPOSURE
As the text scrolled off screen there was an abrupt cut to video footage — shaky, handheld, snatched. Grey metal filled the frame. A slow zoom out revealed the grey as the bar of a cage. It was joined by another bar, then Carrie could make out a brown rhesus monkey staring out. The monkey’s hands gripped the bars, its mouth opened wider than seemed possible. It screamed. Blood-red tears seeped from its eyes. It shook the bars of the cage.
The camera panned across, picking up its neighbour banging its head against the bars, simultaneously clawing at its eyes with its fingers. Screams came from all sides.
In the cage next to that another rhesus writhed. Its back arched and fell, as if a strong electric current was being passed through it. Near-human features contorted in pain. Then it arched once more, fell back, and didn’t move.
The person shooting the footage moved along the line. One dead or dying animal after another.
There was the clank of a heavy door closing and someone walking in.
‘Dr Hulme?’
Then the screen went black.
Sixty-two
Back in the cell, Lock tried to doze, but sleep was made all but impossible by leg irons, cuffs, an aching body and a bad case of buyer’s remorse.
He’d made the decision to shoot Mareta in the heat of the moment, rationalizing that she wasn’t the best thing to be unleashed on an unsuspecting American public, but not having the guts or the heart to kill a woman. Shooting her kept them both alive, and bought him time, although for what? It had been his best, probably only chance of escape, and he’d screwed it up royally. The monkey might be dead, but the organ grinder was very much alive. And he guessed Mareta wasn’t best pleased either.
The cell door opened unexpectedly and two guards in riot gear stepped inside.
‘Relax. I’m not about to throw down,’ Lock said, rolling over on to his side. ‘Although I may throw up.’
They pulled him to his feet and dragged him from the cell. He waited for the punches and kicks to start again
