Authors: Sean Black
He looked again at the note, took another sip of juice. It said nothing about what would happen if the demands were not met. If it was aimed at reassuring him, it was having the opposite
effect. First chance he had, he planned on getting out of this place.
He sat back down on the bed. His body felt heavy, especially his legs. The horror of Natalya’s visit was receding. He felt safe again somehow.
Sinking back down on to the bed, he closed his eyes. Within a few seconds he was asleep again.
Lock, Janice and Don grabbed a table near the rear of the bar next to an old Wurlitzer jukebox. Ty stayed outside, chasing up a Yukon to take Janice and Don home. It would take twenty minutes to get there, which gave Lock just about enough time.
The bar smelled of stale beer and old men’s farts – an unfortunate side-effect of the state’s smoking ban. Lunchtime trade was sparse, but the barflies seemed to compensate for their lack of numbers by drinking industrial quantities of beer and whisky chasers.
Predictably, Lock took the chair facing the door and studied Don as he got their drinks at the bar. If he was directly involved in Josh’s disappearance he was doing a very good job of covering it. Even the more disengaged criminals Lock had encountered in his previous professional incarnation had given away something, some tiny ‘tell’, as poker players liked to call it. Nor had he gone out of his way to convince Lock of his innocence – something else the guilty were fond of doing when faced with an authority figure bearing down on them with awkward questions.
When everyone was properly settled, Lock raised his glass – Coke in his case. ‘What should we drink to?’
In the present company, a thornier topic was hard to imagine.
‘How about survival?’ offered Janice.
‘And those who didn’t make it,’ Don added.
Lock didn’t have a problem with reflecting on either of those. They clinked glasses, earning a few watery-eyed glances from the men at the bar. Lock found himself studying Janice’s face as she sank her bourbon in one and stared into the bottom of the glass as if some secret might be engraved there. He wondered how much her current composure was a result of having had to face her own death.
‘What about those we can still save?’ Lock asked, directing the question to Don.
‘What I said back there, about the kid.’
‘Emotions are running high on both sides right now.’
‘There’s no way anyone involved with us would do something like this.’
‘So who would?’
‘How would we know?’
‘So who’s Lone Wolf?’
Janice and Don shared a blank look. But not before both of them had glanced down at the table for a split second. It was the first false note Lock had detected.
‘Gimme a break.’ Lock had dropped his voice so it was barely discernible. ‘Who’s Lone Wolf?’
He uncrumpled the copy of the email he’d printed from Richard Hulme’s computer and spread it out flat on the table.
Another glance between the siblings.
‘We don’t know who you’re talking about,’ Don said.
Lock slammed his glass down on to the table with enough force to get the whole bar’s attention. ‘Stop lying to me or, so help me God, I really will do you some damage this time.’
Don drained his glass of beer. ‘It’s not any one person. I mean, it’s like Spartacus or something. People in the movement adopt the name.’
‘When they want to make a death threat?’ Lock asked.
‘When they want to make a stand,’ Don said.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Don, stop this,’ Janice said. She turned her face so she was looking directly at Lock. ‘Lone Wolf is a man called Cody Parker. He was the one who had the idea of digging up that old lady and dumping her in Times Square.’
‘And he took Josh Hulme?’
Don was on his feet. ‘There’s no way, man, no way Cody would do something like this.’
Lock stared at him. ‘And how would you know?’
Don looked away, answering Lock’s question for him.
Lock flipped back to Janice. ‘What do you think?’
‘Don’s right. He wouldn’t have done something like this.’
‘OK, then let’s go ask him.’
Don threw his head back and laughed. ‘And how are you going to do that? The government’s been looking for him for years and they’ve never even got close.’
Lock thought it over for a moment before speaking again. ‘Have you got a quarter?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘For the jukebox.’
Don looked at Lock like he was nuts, but dug out a handful of quarters and handed them over.
‘Ladies’ choice. Any preferences?’ he asked Janice.
She shrugged, as confused as her brother.
Lock took the coins and pumped them into the Wurlitzer. He selected something by a band with the word ‘death’ in its name. Then he crossed back to the bar and slapped a hundred dollars down on the counter. ‘Drinks are on me, but I need you to max the volume.’
Lock sat back down next to Don and Janice as the first few bars of distorted guitar and pounding drums drowned out everything else. He leaned in closer so that his face was inches from theirs. ‘All that concerns me right now is the safe return of Josh Hulme to his family. Just so you’re both clear on my personal position, I don’t really give a shit about furry little bunnies having shampoo poured into their eyes, and presently I don’t give much of a shit about Meditech either. So I’m going to give you both a choice. It’s entirely non-negotiable, and you have until this song ends to make your decision. With what you’ve already told me I can hand this to the FBI and you’ll both face conspiracy charges. Janice, you’ll die in a correctional facility, probably before you reach trial. Don, with the way child abduction’s viewed by the courts, not to mention guards and inmates, so might you. In fact, I’ll take the stand to maximize the chances of that happening. That’s option one.’
The song was building, the lead guitarist working his way down the fretboard to find notes discernible only to dolphins. At the bar, a shoving match had broken out between two guys over who was to be served next. A glass smashed on the floor.
‘What’s our other option?’ Janice asked.
‘You take me to Cody Parker.’
Don rocked back in his chair. ‘What happened to the dog?’
The question threw Lock. ‘What dog?’
‘Your friend in the car. His dog.’
‘The dog attacked Tyrone’s cousin, and, see, Ty’s real sentimental when it comes to children,’ Lock said, reaching over and grabbing Don’s sore wrist. ‘More sentimental than he is about animals. So you want to know what happened to that dog he loved so much? He shot it dead. And if you dick us around, I’d say there’s a good chance he’ll do the same to you.’
‘I bet you follow round comedians shouting out the punchlines before they can get to them,’ Ty said, tossing Lock his keys.
‘Hey, it worked. They’re gonna help us out.’
Ty stared at Don, who was busy getting his sister back into Lock’s Toyota. ‘They’d better,’ he said, clambering up into the cab of the Yukon.
‘You know what to do, right?’ Lock asked him.
‘Roger that.’
As Ty pulled out of the bar’s parking lot, Lock walked back to see if Don needed any help.
He had to admit, they made for one hell of a strange-looking search party: a girl in a wheelchair with a left leg prone to random spasms, a young man pushing her with one hand while massaging his wrist with the other, a guy with a patchy buzz cut intersected by a nearly new six-inch scar, and a six foot four African American with no hair and a lot of tattoos.
As Lock pulled his car out of the lot, the black SUV holding the JTTF surveillance team was waiting for them. To ensure that Janice and Don Stokes’ choice of option two didn’t bleed into option one,
his first task was to lose the tail. Seeing as the Royal Military Police had been the branch that taught the rest of the British military defensive and, when the need arose, offensive driving techniques, the prospect didn’t overly worry him.
His phone chirped. He flipped it open, driving with one hand.
‘Hey, cowboy.’
‘Carrie?’
‘How many other hot blondes who just scored a thirty-five share of the audience do you have calling you?’
‘Thirty-five’s good?’
‘Ten years ago it was good. These days it’s spectacular.’
‘Should Katie Couric be worried?’
‘Peeing in her pants.’
‘Listen, can you do some digging for me? But I need an embargo on it.’
The request for an embargo was met by silence.
‘Carrie?’
‘Yeah, OK. What is it?’
‘The lowdown on a gentleman by the name of Cody Parker.’
‘You got it.’
‘Thanks,’ Lock said, ending the call.
Turning to Don, he asked a question he already knew the answer to: ‘So, where first?’
Don gave him an address. It wasn’t the one he had given him a few moments earlier.
Don glanced over his shoulder at the JTTF SUV. ‘Won’t they be able to hear us?’
‘Nah, they’re too far back,’ Lock lied, punching on the radio and turning up the volume as an apparent afterthought.
In the back of the black SUV, the comms member of the three-man surveillance team smiled broadly. ‘We got an address.’
The driver glanced back at him. ‘For what?’ he asked.
‘Find out when we get there, I guess. You might as well ease back. This is gonna be easy.’
Don glanced nervously over his shoulder as they stopped at a light.
‘Don’t worry about them,’ Lock said. ‘While we may be in a twelve-thousand-dollar Toyota compact and they’re in fifty thousand dollars’ worth of specially modified government-issue steel, we have a few things in our favour.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Well, for starters, I’m driving a stick,’ Lock explained, banging it into gear and accelerating away as the lights turned green.
Don glanced over his shoulder again to see the SUV also lurching forward. ‘I don’t think that’s going to be enough somehow.’
‘You didn’t let me finish,’ Lock said, continuing to accelerate as they reached the next intersection. ‘More importantly, the problem with what they’re driving is that not only is it an SUV, it’s also uparmoured. Which means . . .’ He concentrated hard on his next manoeuvre, changing down as he came into the corner, braking at the apex and accelerating out again. ‘That it corners like a rubber brick.’
Behind them, the black SUV had dropped back. Too far back. As Lock had predicted, the driver sped up when he should have slowed in an attempt to reel in his target. He took the corner too fast and the wheels of the heavy high-sided vehicle lost traction. As the SUV lurched from one side to the other the driver eased down on the brakes to bring the vehicle back under control.
Behind them, Ty, driving the Yukon, took his opportunity, braking a second too late and rear-ending the FBI vehicle. It lurched forward suddenly, both front airbags deploying. Both vehicles came to a halt.
Ty made his way over to the FBI vehicle, pulling open the
driver-side door as the driver pushed the airbag out of the way.
‘Sorry, man,’ Ty said, ‘you kinda slowed down too fast for me. Braking distance on these things is a bitch, ain’t it? Listen, you want to take down my insurance details?’
Ty peered yokel-mouthed into the back where the comms guy was pulling off a set of headphones while simultaneously trying to extract the front seat from his mouth.
‘Ah, shoot, you fellas ain’t cops, are you?’
Lock took a deep breath and charged through the apartment door. A blast of a very different kind almost knocked him off his feet. The air reeked of death and decay. His stomach lurched as he stepped down the narrow hallway, matted with old newspapers and other, less salubrious organic matter.
Outside, at the bottom of the stairs, he could hear the homeless man he’d passed on the way in, engaged in a one-sided philosophical discourse. ‘Damn bitches. Draining a nigga dry. Where’s the justice, brother?’
Don and Janice were in the car, Janice exhausted by the day’s events and Don unwilling to face Cody.
If Cody was here.
Lock toed open an already semi-open door leading into a living room area. An elderly woman, sat in an armchair, the TV still on, the volume turned down. She wasn’t breathing. Her eyes were closed.
A big ginger tom cat sat on her lap, gnawing away at her hand. From the scratches on her face, it was obvious her hand hadn’t been the only part of her body to get attention.
Lock stepped towards it. ‘Get.’
The cat waited long enough to show who was boss, then jumped back down on to the floor.
Lock left the body and checked the other rooms. Even with a Vicks inhaler up each nostril, a trick employed by cops and emergency medical technicians, no one could have borne the stench for more than a few minutes.
Back out on the walkway, his body got the better of him, and he threw up. Black shapes swam in front of his eyes. Here it comes, he thought. The first blackout. But it didn’t. His stomach stopped rolling in on itself and his head cleared enough to enable him to dial 911.
In this part of the Bronx, Lock guessed that a dead body alone in an apartment didn’t merit a dash to the scene, and the cops took their own sweet time. If the authorities didn’t care too much how this woman had lived, why would it change now that she was dead?
He walked back down to the car. Janice blanched when she saw him. ‘Are you OK?’
Concern from a dying woman made him feel worse. Don got out of the car and Lock told him what he’d found inside.
‘That’ll be Cody’s mom.’
Lock got Don to give him a quick description. It checked out. He didn’t want to ask Don to go inside and take a look. Not today.
‘Listen, Cody might be a little crazy, but there’s no way he would’ve—’
‘I know.’
There had been no sign of any major trauma, stabbing or bullet wounds.
‘Were Cody and his mom close?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
‘She involved in the movement?’
‘That’s what got Cody started.’
Perfect. Lock reached into his jacket for his cell and handed it to Don. ‘Start putting the word out. But don’t say anything to anyone about her being dead, just say that something’s happened. That she’s in a bad way. Oh, and get back in the car, we need to keep moving.’