Stafford was steeling himself, his thumb a tenth of an inch from pressing down on the wheel of the Blackberry, when the screen lit up with an incoming call.
‘Yo, Staff. It’s Tyrone.’
‘I can just hang up on you, Tyrone.’
‘I know you can, Staff. But it’s only going to take one clean shot for us to end you.’
‘Good luck with that. If you knew where I was, you’d have taken it already.’
‘Good point. One more thing though, Staff. Lock and I never got a chance to discuss our severance package with the company.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that now,’ said Stafford, terminating the call.
Lock was on the move, one hand on Mareta’s shoulder, hustling her down the street towards the entrance of the subway a half block away. A small crowd of people were gathered at the top of the steps. Some moved, others just stared as Lock barrelled towards them, pushing Mareta ahead of him.
Some assumed she was injured and he was trying to get her to safety, but one woman caught sight of the rig around Mareta’s chest and started screaming. ‘Oh my God! It’s a bomb! She has a bomb!’
Lock shut out all of them, his vision blurred and narrow. He was way too tired to breathe it clear. A jolt, a fall, and the belt could detonate. No need for the cell to trigger it.
‘Get out of the way!’
Stafford speed-walked parallel to the subway, people running past him in the opposite direction, no one sure of where they should be, the situation unfolding fast enough to make panic total.
He could see Lock pushing through the people clustered near the entrance to the subway. Maybe a hundred of them, the timing perfect.
Stafford had the Blackberry in the palm of his hand. The whole city, for that matter.
‘Coming through!’
Stafford looked up a second too late to avoid being shouldered out of the way by a thick-necked Guido in a satin Giants jacket with matching ball cap.
He regained his balance, clicked down on the wheel. A second for the screen to read
Lock raised his Sig, and pushed Mareta behind him. Wrenching open the shutter blocking the turnstiles, he pushed Mareta on and through the safety barrier, a lone transit worker’s complaints quelled by the sight of the gun.
Down some steps. Towards the platform. Each step taking them deeper into the earth. Deeper and, he hoped, safer.
Stafford resisted the temptation to dash the Blackberry on the sidewalk. Instead, he took off for the subway entrance.
On to the platform. Lock stopped to catch his breath. The irony suddenly hit him. He was now the bodyguard of a suicide bomber. That was one for the resume. If he lived.
A tunnel either end of the platform. Deeper into the bowels. Safer. No coverage in the tunnels. He took a big gulp of air and propelled Mareta down the platform towards it, away from the steps.
Stafford had it figured. Plan B. He didn’t need to call the cell. They needed one clear shot? So did he. A single round to anywhere on Mareta’s chest would do the trick.
He was at the top of the steps now. A middle-aged woman in a Transit Authority uniform stood at the bottom, unbelievably having to repel a knot of people headed down into the subway, New Yorkers’ sense of entitlement and an open gate having done the trick. ‘Folks, step back. The subway isn’t open.’
A fat man in a suit asking, ‘So why’s the gate like that?’
Stafford edged his way through the crowd.
The woman lowered her arm across his chest. ‘Subway’s closed.’ Stafford produced Caffrey’s revolver, shot her in the head at point-blank range, then vaulted the turnstile. Screams filled the air, followed by a mad rush to regain the street. Looking back, Stafford saw Ty taking the main entrance steps three at a time, gun drawn, looking ready to dish out his very own severance package. Stafford kept running.
The end of the platform for Lock and Mareta. The reek of stale urine and a single rat splayed dead between the rails.
‘What happens if I live?’ Mareta asked.
Lock had no energy to lie. ‘You die in jail.’
Mareta’s hand went up and she broke free, jumping down on to the track. The electrified rail was inches from her feet. Lock’s heart shuddered almost to a halt as she reached down, half lifted her injured leg over it and kept going.
Lock jumped down after her, losing his footing in a slick brown puddle of water. By now Mareta was pulling herself up on to the other side with a grunt. Stranded between the uptown and downtown tracks, Lock heard a clatter of feet down the steps at the far end of the platform. Then Stafford Van Straten appeared.
Hidden from Ty but visible to Lock, Stafford ducked behind one of the grimy white-tiled pillars.
Stafford saw Mareta on the other side of the platform and raised the stainless-steel revolver, tracking her with metal sights. Best shot in the ROTC. Four years straight.
Lock raised his Sig, punched it out with his right hand towards Stafford. He didn’t track. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was pull the trigger.
The round caught Stafford in the face, pulling up through his right cheek before carrying on through his back teeth, splintering enamel and root, then moving up through his cheekbone and out.
Before Stafford hit the ground, before the revolver clattered on to the platform, Lock gave him the good news twice more.
Tap. One in the throat — a hint of luck to that shot. Lock in the zone.
Tap. A final round in the sternum.
As Ty’s boots hit the platform, Stafford Van Straten’s dead body met concrete.
Mareta had taken off, running back towards the steps. Lock made to go after her, signalling to Ty to go the other way and catch her coming out the other side.
As Lock struggled to climb up off the tracks there was suddenly a hundred yards of platform between them, Mareta limping the whole way but somehow finding speed. The air ahead raged black in Lock’s eyes. His body calling time. Too much time spent on red alert.
Ty shouting his name from what seemed like a million miles away. Confusion. His mind willing his body to work. Willing itself to explain what was happening to him. The vaccine. The bomb. A flip book of possibilities.
Then, a sudden change of direction from Mareta. Away from the steps. Away from the light. Towards the tunnel at the other end of the platform. Lock snapping back inside himself, inside the zone, as Mareta disappeared into the maw of darkness.
Determined to stop the Ghost from performing one last vanishing act, Lock ran down the track.
Ninety-two
A hand clamped down on to Lock’s shoulder. He spun round.
‘Chill,’ said Ty. ‘It’s me.’
‘You see her?’
‘Can’t see shit down here. Got some good news, though.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘They’ve switched off the juice to the third rail and we’ve got JTTF making a push on up from 34th Street. She’s got nowhere to go.’
‘Remember who we’re dealing with here. You got a flashlight?’
‘Yeah. Hang on.’
Ty pulled a Mini-Mag from his belt and rotated the end ring. He shone it down the tunnel, but the beam died ten yards out.
