Lock rolled away from Janice as a paramedic ran over to them and knelt down next to her. The CA team clambered one by one from the Hummer and took up position in the lobby, guns drawn.
Brand reached Lock. ‘I’ll take it from here, buddy.’
Lock felt a surge of anger manifest as bile at the back of his throat. A young woman had just seen her father’s head blown clean off and her mother run over by Brand.
Brand smirked. ‘Relax, Lock, she was a freakin’ tree hugger.’
Lock drew back his right arm and stepped forward. Before Brand had a chance to duck Lock’s right elbow connected squarely with the side of his mouth. There was a satisfying crunch as Brand’s head jolted back and blood spurted from the side of his mouth.
‘She was a human being,’ said Lock, hurrying past.
Five
Suddenly aware of his laboured breath, Lock took cover behind a Crown Vic parked fifty feet from the front of the building, making sure to stay a good five feet behind the bodywork so that any fragments of shrapnel zipping off were less likely to find him. Getting too close was called hugging cover. Hugging cover got you killed.
Only ninety seconds had passed between Stokes being hit and him making it here. In a one-sided contact like this, it felt like an eternity.
What was it his father had told him as a ten-year-old when explaining the job of a bodyguard? Hours of boredom, moments of terror.
He glanced over to see Sergeant Caffrey squatting next to him, tight to the cruiser. Lock grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back a few feet.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘You’re too close.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You want a lecture on appropriate use of cover right now? Just do what I tell you, and stay the hell there.’
Caffrey grimaced, his pasty complexion hued red by a freezing wind and sudden exertion. ‘Man, I’d be working the Bronx if I’d wanted to sign up for this kind of shit.’
‘I think they’re up there,’ Lock said, nodding towards a three-storey redbrick with a ground-floor Korean deli which squatted among its more refined office block neighbours.
‘They? How’d you know there’s more than one of them?’ Caffrey asked, peeking out.
Lock hauled him back in. ‘A lone sniper is either a college kid gone wild who can’t shoot for shit, or someone in the movies. A professional works with a spotter. And these guys are professionals.’
‘You saw them?’ Caffrey asked.
Lock shook his head. ‘Take my word for it. It’s about the only place they can be. The angle of the first shot would have given him the right elevation to take out Stokes above the crowd.’
Lock keyed his radio. ‘Ty?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Where’s Van Straten?’
‘Tucked up with milk and cookies. What’s the count?’
‘Three down.’
A middle-aged man in a suit broke cover to Lock’s left. Clutching his briefcase, he ducked out from behind a parked car, only making it a few feet before being blown off his feet by the sniper.
‘Correction. Four.’
Automatic rounds chattered from inside the lobby as Brand and his CA team returned fire.
‘OK, so, Ty. You leave Croft with Van Straten and get downstairs. Make sure Brand and the rest of his complete asshole team don’t light up any more of the citizenry.’
‘Will do.’
Lock turned back to Caffrey. ‘What’s the SWAT team’s ETA?’
‘They’ll be here in five. Let’s just sit tight until then.’
‘When they get here, make sure you tell them that I’m on your side.’
‘Where the hell are you going?’
‘To give these douchebags the good news,’ said Lock, making for the nearest doorway.
He tucked in tight to the entrance of the building directly opposite Meditech headquarters. Now he was on the same side of the street as the shooters he could inch his way up, building by building, all the while narrowing any possible angle. His only real fear was being taken out by friendly fire from Brand’s trigger-happy cohort.
The sign on the door of the deli had been switched to ‘Closed For Business’. This store didn’t even close for Thanksgiving. Lock now knew for definite that he was in the right place. He tried the handle. It was locked. With the butt of the Sig, he punched out the glass-panelled door and stepped through.
Inside, there was no sign of life. The relative calm was unsettling as sirens whooped and screamed in the street beyond. He walked slowly towards the counter, the fingers of his right hand wrapped around the Sig’s grip, his left hand cupping the bottom.
Behind the counter there was a young woman crouched beneath the register, her hands cuffed with plastic ties, her mouth sealed with gaffer tape. The space was narrow: these places tried to use every available inch for product. As he knelt down, his hand brushed her shoulder, making her jump.
‘It’s fine, you’re gonna be fine,’ he whispered.
He found the edge of the tape with the nail of his thumb.
‘This is going to hurt a little but, please, try not to scream, OK?’
She nodded, her pupils still dilated in terror.
‘I’m gonna pull it off real fast, just like a Band-Aid. One, two, three. .’
He tore the tape up and right, a yelp half catching in the woman’s throat.
‘My dad’s through there,’ she said, her words coming in short gasps. She nodded towards the corridor, which snaked off from the front of the store to the back. ‘He has a heart condition.’
‘Who else is here?’
‘Two men. Upstairs.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes. They haven’t come down yet.’
‘Where are the stairs?’
She jerked her head back down the corridor towards a brown wood-panelled door.
Lock reached for his Gerber, flipping out the knife into a locked position with a single motion. The woman winced.
‘I’m going to free your hands.’
She seemed to understand, but her body remained tense and stiff as he reached behind her to cut through the plasti-cuffs. At first he thought whoever bound her up must have improvised using some plastic ties they’d found lying around, but now he saw these were the real deal. Military issue of the kind used in places like Iraq where you might have to detain large numbers for a short period. Still, the thin edge of the Gerber’s blade made fast work of cutting through the thick white plastic band.
‘You take care of your father. If you hear shots, get out, but stay on this side of the street.’
Lock stood up and made his way to the door leading to the stairs. He opened it, stepped through, and glanced up. Dust caught at the back of his throat as he moved up the stairs, careful to keep his weight even on each tread. He focused on slowing his breathing as his field of vision, which had unconsciously tunnelled, started to clear again. By the time he reached the second floor his heart rate had dropped by twenty beats a minute.
Footsteps thumped above him. Whoever it was, they were in a hurry. He crouched down, his back to the wall, his 226 aimed at a gap between the iron spindles of the railing on the third floor.
There was a sudden movement as someone broke cover above him, the person a blur. Before Lock could get him in his sights, he was gone.
Slowly, he began to edge his way up the final flight of stairs, the Sig out in front of him, index finger resting lightly on the trigger. At the top of the stairs there was a single door, offset six feet to the left. To the right, another door, this one ajar.
He went right first, down the corridor, pushing the door open with the toe of his boot. The room smelt musty and damp. Inside was a desk. Next to that was a solitary filing cabinet. The window was open. It faced on to the back alley. A metal pin was hammered into the frame; a length of blue climbing rope looped through it snaked out into thin air. Lock crossed to it and leaned out, glimpsing what he suspected were the backs of the sniper team as they ran.