One of the remaining techs whispered into his microphone, and the image reframed.
A few seconds later, the woman was caught in the centre of the frame. She was wearing a heavily padded ski jacket. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
‘Closer. The face. The face.’
The woman half turned, and from the screen, Mareta Yuzik stared back at them.
Ninety
‘Southeast corner of 41st and Broadway,’ Frisk shouted as they bolted down Broadway, knocking aside anyone who didn’t get out of their way fast enough.
Two blocks.
‘We have men there now.’
‘OK,’ shouted Lock, already out of breath. ‘They know the drill?’
Dealing with what was known in the trade as a BBIED, or body-borne improvised explosive device, was the same as dealing with a regular IED or any other type of bomb. Confirm. Clear. Cordon. Control. Except, with a bomb strapped to a human being, there was one hugely unpredictable variable involved: the human being.
The closer they got to the location, the stronger the current of people rushing in the other direction. From the snatched comments, it seemed like most of them didn’t even know why they were running, except that everyone else was. Herd instinct kicking in.
A man was pushing his ten-year-old daughter in front of him. Ty saw her trip and go down under a flurry of feet. No one even looked down to see what or who they were standing on. Her father was dragged past her. Ty, with a Marine’s determination, forced his way to her, elbows prominent. He pulled her back on to her feet, battered and bruised. She was crying. Shouting for her father to follow, he pulled her into a storefront doorway where they were reunited, and then ran on.
Lock had lost sight of Ty. And Frisk. But he was almost there. Not that he had to check any signs or get on his radio. He knew because the crowd was thinning out. And then, as if he’d pushed through a paper wall, he was standing in the middle of clear street.
The woman stood with her back to him. A blue line encircled her, weapons drawn. A couple had ballistic shields, most didn’t.
‘Mareta?’
The woman turned round. It was her. She stared at Lock with a look that betrayed nothing. Not even whether she recognized him or not.
One of the men behind the shields shouted over to her. ‘OK, hands up, where we can see them!’
Mareta complied, stretching her arms out, crucifix wide.
‘OK, with your right hand, I want you to open your jacket.’ Slowly, taking her time, and with no sudden movements, her hand fell to the zipper and she started to lower it.
‘What the hell is that?’
Ty and Frisk had caught up and were standing next to Lock. They could see the suicide belt, but at the front, tucked in among the shrapnel, were six stainless-steel vials. Whether they literally did or not, Lock could sense everyone around her taking one very big step back.
‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ said Ty.
‘Could be a bluff,’ said Frisk, clutching.
‘It’s no bluff,’ said Lock. ‘How many people did Richard think that amount of bio-material could take out?’
‘The whole city.’
The Bomb Squad officer continued with his instructions, only the occasional crack in his voice betraying him. ‘OK, keep lowering that zipper. One hand. No sudden moves.’
The slider caught on one of the teeth. Mareta tugged down, freeing it, and pulled the slider all the way down to the box at the bottom. The jacket was open all the way.
‘OK, now shrug the jacket off,’ said the officer, stepping from behind his shield for a moment to mime what he wanted her to do.
She mirrored him perfectly. The jacket tumbled to the ground.
‘Why’s she cooperating?’ asked Frisk.
‘I don’t know,’ was all Lock could say.
Then his eyes fell to her waist.
‘That’s not good,’ he said.
‘What?’ Frisk asked.
Clipped to her waist, and gaffer-taped in place, wires snaking up from it into the explosive charges, was a cell phone.
‘The phone. Last time I saw her she had hand-held contact wires. Now there’s a cell phone.’
‘Which means-’
Lock hushed Ty with a raised hand. ‘Frisk, who else was missing when you did your final tally back at the research facility?’
‘We had one of the other detainees still outstanding, but we’ve located him.’
‘Anyone else missing? Think.’
‘Only Stafford Van Straten.’
Ninety-one
Stafford pulled the Blackberry from his pocket, thumbed across the screen to his address book, clicked it open and thumbed down again to a single name: Mareta.
Below it was another single-word entry: Nicholas. He thought about giving his father a final call. But what did he have to say to him other than goodbye? So the dark band on the screen stayed where it was, a click on the wheel away from history.
A call to the phone clipped to Mareta’s belt and everyone within a half-block radius would be toast. Those not killed by blast wave or shrapnel would be the lucky ones. The vials packed round her would spread the Ebola variant far and wide, open wounds ensuring effective and deadly transfer of the virus into the survivors. Who knew how many might die in the end? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? A cool million? He smiled. Enough for him to be remembered.
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 Calling Mareta.
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.