Cowboy spun the helicopter back round and let loose a fusillade of. 50-mil rounds towards a SWAT sniper position on the building opposite, which lay to his immediate right. That done, he took the helicopter down on to the roof. By the time they’d organised another effective firing position he’d be long gone.
He checked his watch. Ten minutes past midnight. At seventeen minutes past midnight he’d take off again. Anyone who wasn’t on board by then was staying behind. That was the deal.
Chance and Trooper clambered down the stairwell, a couple of the higher treads blown away by the charge she’d planted. Lights flickered overhead.
A solitary jail guard ran towards them through the dust. ‘Stop where you are!’ he shouted, with all the authority of someone used to dealing with the unarmed.
Chance raised her M-4, found his outline easily with her night sights, and dispatched him with a single round, his anti-stab vest no match for a sub-sonic CQB round. His chest opened up, his intestines spilling out over his utility belt.
Lock and Reaper had reached the one-man cage where Reaper had been spending his downtime. Thirty seconds earlier there had been another two explosions, both of which had sent plaster dust cascading down on them. One of the guards opened the door.
‘I’m going to need at least two more pairs of cuffs, and two more sets of leg restraints,’ Lock barked.
‘But he’s already double-cuffed.’
‘Just get me what I need.’ Lock turned to the cameraman. ‘You have gaffer tape on you, right?’
‘Somewhere,’ the cameraman said, digging into a bag slung over his shoulder and pulling out a thick roll of the silver insulating tape he normally used to secure cabling to the floor.
Lock took the roll and tore off a strip, cutting it away with his Gerber. He smiled at Reaper.
‘What the hell you doin’ with that?’ Reaper asked.
‘Giving you a taste of what Jalicia Jones had to endure just before your buddies out there snuffed her.’
‘Paranoid, Lock?’ Reaper sneered.
‘Why didn’t they kill you back at the airfield when they had the chance? Answer me that.’
Reaper clammed up, then another explosion rocked the building and light arms fire chattered above them. ‘You can’t leave me in here,’ he said, looking around him at the metal cage.
‘If they want you alive, they’re gonna have to work for it,’ said Lock, slapping some gaffer tape across Reaper’s mouth and setting to work securing each of Reaper’s hands to the top of the cage with the cuffs, and his feet to the bottom with the leg restraints.
Reaper kicked out at him but Lock ducked out of the way. Still, Reaper’s knee glanced against the side of his head. The Marshal in charge pulled his baton. Lock grabbed it from him and swung back with it, bringing it down hard against Reaper’s kneecap. Reaper’s scream was muffled by the tape covering his mouth, but his eyes crinkled shut and he stopped fighting.
A moment later, Lock slammed the gate shut and sealed it with a large padlock. He stepped back to admire his work. Reaper stood there, his arms splayed out from his body in a crucifix pattern.
‘You really think he’s what they want?’ Carrie asked.
‘I don’t think,’ said Lock, ‘I know. Now, let’s get the hell out before Delta Force get here.’
Dead bodies littered the corridor behind Chance and Trooper as they made their way to the secure holding area, alternating who took point, folding in front of each other at every doorway, working their way quickly but methodically towards their target. Anyone they saw, they shot, including a woman dressed in civilian clothes who had pleaded for her life on bended knee, old-school style. Chance, wishing to conserve ammunition, had cut her throat with a Bowie knife.
‘Let’s hope they ain’t moved him,’ she said to Trooper.
She peered through a mesh-reinforced glass panel in a door that led into the holding area. The door was locked but the room beyond looked empty. She placed a charge and scuttled back, her face kissing the floor as the charge detonated. A few seconds later, the door came to rest at a forty-five-degree angle on its sole remaining hinge. Chance pushed it aside and stepped into the anteroom. A desk ran the length of one wall, its end section lifted up to allow access to another door. This door was also locked.
Chance checked her watch. The digital display was set to count down from five minutes, which was the time at which she’d estimated they’d have to start moving back to the RV point on the roof. Two minutes of the five remained.
She checked the door in front of them. Judging by the hinges, it opened inwards. She flicked her M-4 on to fully automatic, hefted it to her shoulder, fell into a modified Weaver stance and let loose with a burst of gunfire aimed at the lock. Trooper stepped forward, and each gave it a kick. The door flew open and they walked into a much wider corridor. Three doors faced them. One in the middle. One to their left. One to their right.
‘Eeeny, meeny, miney, mo.’
The left. Chance nodded at it. She moved off to one side as Trooper tried the handle. It was open. They stepped in.
Reaper met her gaze. He was locked inside a steel-barred holding cage, each of his limbs double-cuffed to the bars. His mouth was covered to prevent him speaking.
On the front of the cage was an envelope secured in place with gaffer tape. Chance ripped it away with a gloved hand and tore it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper. On it, scrawled in black marker pen, was a message. Good luck getting him out of here, assholes.
It was signed Ryan Lock.
37
For a moment Chance just stood there, staring into the eyes of the man in the cage. He stared back at her. His expression was of a kind no one had seen in ten years. A softness came into his features and his eyes glistened with yearning. Chance felt a rock lodge in her throat, making swallowing painful.
Disregarding the seconds ticking away on her wrist, Chance reached in at the top of the cage and touched his hand in a gesture of comfort. Then she stepped back, freezing the man out and focusing on the task in hand.
She couldn’t use explosives, that was for damn sure. Blow the lock on the door and she’d blow him up too. She sank down on to the floor and checked the bolts that anchored the cage to the floor. She wouldn’t be able to shoot through them without a serious risk of catching a ricochet, but she had to weaken them somehow.
She turned to Trooper, who was gazing at the cage and its occupant with a world-weary ‘What the hell do we do now?’ look of defeat, and pushed his shoulder, snapping him out of it. ‘Get back up on the roof. Get the ropes, all the ropes, and tie them to the skids on the Little Bird. Then get up in the air.’
There was a slow-dawning realization in his eyes. ‘Are you crazy?’ he said to her.
‘Just do it. And tell Cowboy I’m going to need two more minutes.’
As Trooper ran out, Chance fired into the floor, exposing the joists beneath her feet. Then she jogged out of the room, working her way as fast as she could to the floor above.
On the stairs she had to stop to catch her breath, as she felt a fluttering inside her. The embryonic life inside her was urging her on, she told herself, giving her the kick in the pants she needed to finish the job she’d started.
She hauled herself up the stairs and tracked back, counting the same number of paces she’d taken on the floor below. She’d have to get the charge right. Get it wrong on the high side and Reaper would die. Use too little and there would be a mess but no hole.
In the end, the decision was made for her. There was only one charge left. She placed it, and hooked up the detonator. She spooled out several lengths of det cord, her thighs aching as she scuttled back in a permanent crouch. The clock was ticking though, and they were stealing time they didn’t have.