Lock watched the van from the window of the makeshift TV interview room, then turned back to the Marshal and nodded in Reaper’s direction. ‘Let’s get him back in a cell. Get on the radio and tell the people down there to fall back to the building. Also, get on your cell phone. We’re going to need every single member of law enforcement we can round up down here. Tell them to bring every weapon they have, plus all their ammunition. I want every gun cabinet and rack within a ten-mile radius emptied.’
‘It’s Jalicia in the van, isn’t it?’ Carrie asked. ‘What’s going to happen to her?’
Lock took Carrie’s hand. ‘Dime to a dozen that van is rigged with explosives. There’s nothing we can do for her. Not right now anyway.’
‘But we can’t just leave her,’ she said, defiant.
‘We can and we will,’ Lock said, grimly. ‘It’s a come-on. The guys who’ve rigged the van plan on drawing everyone in. Then they’ll blow it up. That gives them a window to get to their real target, which is this asshole here.’ He hauled Reaper to his feet.
‘And if you’re wrong?’ Carrie asked him, clearly unused to seeing this side of Lock, his ability to choose life for some and death for others.
‘If there are no explosives then she’ll be fine.’
‘But what if they’re on a timer?’ Carrie pressed.
‘Listen to me,’ Lock said. ‘These are classic terrorist tactics. It sucks, but we have to leave her. We don’t leave her, a lot more people die.’
‘OK,’ Carrie said reluctantly.
‘Goddammit!’ the Marshal erupted, staring at his cell phone. ‘I can’t get a signal.’
‘Same here,’ said one of the cops standing at the door. ‘My radio won’t work either.’
‘They’re using a jammer.’
Lock could see the beginnings of panic in Carrie’s eyes.
‘They can do that?’
Before Lock could explain that pretty much anyone with a credit card and an internet connection could purchase the technology to block communications these days, he froze, aware of a sound beyond the keening of the wind and the splashing of the rain outside.
‘Listen,’ he said, and the room fell silent.
Lock concentrated hard, separating out first the atmosphere of the room, then the roar of the storm. What was left was a low, rhythmic thwump that was increasing in volume. Accompanying it in the skies above them was a point of light. The pinprick quickly expanded so that Lock was at first dazzled, then all but blinded by it.
He narrowed his eyes and brought up a hand to shade them from the worst of the glare, which allowed him a clearer view of a black helicopter turning so that it was side on to the building. A man was sitting on the floor of the cabin, his legs dangling out, his feet almost on the blade of the skid. He was clad in full body armor and holding an assault rifle. With his free hand he was feeding out ropes which twisted and dangled in the wind like tendrils of overcooked spaghetti.
Lock twisted round so that he was staring into the saucer-wide eyes of the Marshal, who’d joined him at the window.
‘They’re not our guys, are they?’ Lock asked.
All the Marshal could manage was a slow shake of his head.
Mid-shake, the missile pod mounted at the front of the helicopter lit up with a fiery roar, punching out what Lock guessed had to be an RPG. It whistled downwards, leaving a ghostly yellow blaze burning across Lock’s retina.
Less than a second later, the van holding Jalicia disintegrated in a fiery blaze of distended metal. The blast wave thumped so hard into Lock’s chest that he and the others in the room were momentarily lifted off their feet and deposited ass-first on to the floor. The walls of the courthouse vibrated.
Ears ringing, Lock stood back up and went over to Carrie.
‘You OK?’ he asked her as she struggled into a sitting position.
‘What the hell was that?’
‘RPG.’
She gave him her reporter’s stare. ‘In English please, Ryan.’
‘A rocket-propelled grenade.’
He looked back to the window. Down below, flames licked around the skeleton of the van, and he could see the charred outline of Jalicia’s corpse slumped over what was left of the steering column. He tore his eyes away. By the time he looked skywards again, the light was gone. But up above them, the thump of the helicopter’s blades slashing through the storm grew louder, drowning out the sirens below.
36
Lock moved fast. Dragging Reaper towards the door with his left hand, he unholstered his SIG Sauer 226 with his right. Carrie had kindly brought it to Medford for him, and it felt good in his hand. Solid. Reliable. Deadly. He pointed forward with it, motioning for the others to follow.
At the door, he turned to one of the younger Marshals who was toting an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. ‘Give me your side arm.’
The Marshal hesitated.
‘Son, unless you can fire both of your weapons simultaneously, hand it over.’
The Marshal in charge shrugged a ‘go ahead’ and the younger man handed over his Glock 40 calibre. Lock took it, business end first, and palmed it off to Carrie.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Hey, what about me?’ grumbled her cameraman.
‘Just because you have a dick doesn’t mean you can shoot for shit,’ Lock said, staring at him.
Carrie set about checking over the Glock with the grace and speed of a career soldier. Lock had always regarded the ability to defend yourself as a more crucial set of skills for women than men, seeing as women were more often prey than predator. Hours on the range with Carrie had transformed her from merely competent to a crack shot who regularly scored higher than Ty — much to Ty’s annoyance.
‘But-’
Lock cut the cameraman off. ‘She knows what she’s doing, so do everyone a favour and get over yourself. Tell you what, you do your shooting with that camera you’re toting. We come out of this alive, you might just snag yourself an Emmy.’
‘What about me?’ Reaper said. ‘I can shoot.’
Lock yanked on Reaper’s restraints, almost lifting the bigger man from the ground. ‘No gun for you, but I’ll give you a bullet any time you want one.’
‘So where we going?’ asked the Marshal in charge.
Lock poked at Reaper with the barrel of his gun. ‘We’re going to make sure that Elvis here ain’t going to be leaving the building.’
The SWAT team sniper posted on the roof tossed his Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee to one side and peered into the blinding spotlight projecting from the front of the helicopter. He readied his weapon, all the while keeping his eyes on the powerful airborne spotlight bearing down on him, God-like, from a storm-ridden night sky.
He raised his assault rifle and leaned out from behind an air-conditioning unit. Still the light kept coming, the thump of the rotor blades drowning out the chaos of noise from the street below. He sighted a point at the very centre of the glare and fired off a round. Nothing. Just the light bearing down on him without mercy, the ever-increasing roar of the blades, and the chop of the air stinging his eyes.
A moment later there was another blast of fire from the helicopter and he was blown off his feet, shrapnel pinballing around him, cutting him to ribbons.
In the helicopter, Cowboy punched the air as beneath them the sniper’s position disintegrated and a big hole opened up in the roof. He keyed his mike, which looped round the side of his face, finishing a few inches from his mouth.
‘He’s second floor, right?’
‘Roger that.’
Cowboy climbed a little, steadying the helicopter over the rooftop. Behind him, Chance, her weapon drawn, clipped on to the ropes that had been slung over the runners, swung out of the helicopter and rappelled the short distance to the roof.
Trooper followed, zip-lining at speed to join her. While he provided cover, Chance placed the first charge next to the locked door of the rooftop stairwell, and ran back.
Cowboy gained some more height. A second later the charge detonated, the shockwave buffeting the helicopter. Spinning the copter round ninety degrees, for a moment he just caught a glimpse of Chance before she disappeared into the building.