Authors: Sean Black
Frisk followed as Ty was led to a white Winnebago. Three steps and he was inside. It was kitted out as a mobile lab. Two more people in bio-suits greeted him.
‘I told you, I’m clear.’
‘We need to make sure.’
Ty offered his arm. ‘How long will this take?’
‘Thirty minutes.’
One of the bio-suits took a blood sample. ‘This will tell us if you have one of the ten main viral haemorrhagic diseases.’
‘And what if I do?’
‘You’ll be quarantined and treated.’
‘You can treat this stuff?’
‘Most of it. Apart from the Ebola variant. We don’t have a vaccine for that yet.’
Ten minutes later, Frisk stepped into the trailer, also in a bio-suit.
Ty greeted him with a nod of the head. ‘Pretty fly for a white guy,’ he said, ‘although you might want to think about getting the pants taken up an inch or two.’
‘Might have known you and Lock would be in the middle of this. What the hell’s going on in there?’
‘Short version or long version?’
‘Short.’
Ty told him. With each new piece of information, Frisk grew paler. All he’d known was that a major firefight had broken out at a Level 4 Bio Facility.
‘So why’d they send you out?’ he asked Ty.
‘Messenger boy.’
‘And what’s the message? What do they want?’
‘A signed undertaking from the President guaranteeing their status as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, along with an undertaking that they won’t be deported. Oh yeah, and a signed picture of Will Smith.’
‘That all, huh?’ Frisk asked.
‘The last part’s negotiable. I think they’d settle for Eddie Murphy at a pinch.’
‘Nice to see you find this all so amusing, but I’m about six levels down from being able to start offering signed executive undertakings.’
‘Then you’d better start moving it up the chain.’
‘Even if we get agreement, they’ll all be going to jail for the rest of their natural lives.’
‘They know that.’
‘OK, I’ll pass it on,’ said Frisk, stepping back out of the Winnebago. ‘But that’s it, right? There’s nothing else.’
‘That’s it.’
Ty watched Frisk exit the trailer. He uncrossed his fingers and let out a sigh. Mareta had had one other demand but Lock had told him not to mention it, although Ty hadn’t needed telling. Soon as he had the all clear, Ty was going to take care of it himself. In fact, he was looking forward to it.
Ty found Carrie among the lines of news trucks which had been pushed to the very edge of a service road. The good news was he was clear of any infection. The bad news was that he was going to have to convince her to assist in something that could see them both spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
As soon as she spotted him, she rushed over. ‘Where’s Ryan? What’s going on in there?’
‘You’re slipping, girl. Aren’t you supposed to reverse the order of those questions? With you being a member of the press ’n’ all.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘He’s inside. I wouldn’t say he’s safe exactly, but he’s in fair shape considering.’
‘Considering what?’
Ty pulled her to the rear of the truck. ‘He needs our help.’
Carrie took a breath and centred herself. ‘OK. What kind of help?’
Ty had already decided to feed it to her piece by piece. ‘You have a car here?’
‘No.’
He produced a set of keys. ‘Damn, have to use Lock’s then.’
‘Ty, what’s going on?’
‘Where’s the dumb dog he left you with?’
‘In the truck, asleep.’
‘We’ll need to take her with us.’
‘Where? Where are we going?’ She glanced back at the news truck. ‘I’m on duty here. I can’t just pick up and leave.’
‘Ryan needs you to do this.’
‘You still haven’t told me what it is he wants me to do. And I’m not going anywhere until you do.’
Ty rested his hand against the spare tyre on the back of the news station’s RV. ‘Second thoughts, we can use this too. Kill two birds with one stone. You can get your story while I make my pick-up.’
‘Are you deaf? I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me why.’
‘Then a lot of people are gonna get killed.’
‘Fine, but you at least have to tell me where we’re going.’
Ty waved over Carrie’s camera guy. ‘Saddle up.’ Then he turned back to Carrie. ‘We’re going to enforce some corporate accountability.’
Mareta watched the dark shapes flitting periodically across the wall of monitors with about as much interest as a retired cop relegated to the graveyard shift at an out-of-town mall. She palmed some painkillers, checked the time-code running at the bottom left of the nearest screen, swivelled on her chair, and shot the guard nearest to her in the face.
Josh stirred in his sleep as Richard handed him to Lock and rushed towards the dying man. A spurt of blood covered Richard’s face – unfair reward for an act of compassion.
Lock put his hand behind Josh’s head and pressed the little boy’s face tight to his chest. Even with children’s seemingly endless capacity for absorption, there were some things better left unseen.
Lock could feel Josh’s arms and legs stiffening as he watched Richard tend to the dying guard. He stretched out as best he could, catching Richard’s eye as he did so.
‘Let the kid go, Mareta. He’s been used enough already.’
‘I won’t harm the boy.’ Mareta paused. ‘So long as my demands are met.’
‘This country doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.’
‘Correction. It’s not seen to. There’s a difference.’
‘Look, you have me, you have him,’ said Lock, indicating Richard.
She swivelled round on the chair, the suddenness of the movement leaving Lock’s heart in his mouth. ‘This situation is not of my making,’ she said.
There was movement outside the control room. One of the detainees, a young Pakistani the others called Khalid, led in three of Meditech’s guards at gunpoint. Their uniforms were torn, and one of the men’s eyes were closing from the beating he’d taken. Mareta buzzed the door open and they were pushed inside, forced to sit on the floor.
‘OK, I make you a deal,’ Mareta said. ‘Once your friend delivers his cargo to us, the boy can leave. But in the meantime, for every hour that passes, one of these men will die.’
Lock knew that arguing would get him nowhere. ‘I already explained to you that this would take at least two hours. The travel time alone will be that, never mind the actual extraction.’
Mareta seemed to mull it over. ‘Then only two of these men will die.’
Two German Shepherds prowled the fence surrounding Nicholas Van Straten’s Shinnecock Bay estate, white teeth bared. Ty reached down into a brown paper bag, came up with half a dozen hamburger patties they’d picked up on the way from a bemused fast-food operative, stepped back and lobbed them over the fence. The dogs sniffed at them suspiciously. Then one of them, presumably the alpha male, cocked his leg and took a leak on them. The other one followed suit a second later.
So the dogs had been trained to eat only what they were given by their owner, usually achieved by a rather crude form of aversion therapy involving beating them with a stick any time they got close to food not delivered by him.
‘Plan B it is then,’ Ty said, walking back to the car. He opened the back door and Angel bounded out.
Carrie followed. ‘Whoa, where are you taking her?’
‘Oldest trick in the book. Don’t worry,’ he said, patting Angel on the head, ‘she likes bad boys.’
Carrie folded her arms. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Well, she followed Ryan, didn’t she?’
Carrie looked around. ‘I shouldn’t even be here.’
‘Price of getting the scoop of the century.’
He took Angel off her leash and she wandered over to the fence. ‘Go on,’ Ty whispered, before turning back to Carrie. ‘What’s the way to a man’s heart if not through his stomach?’
‘That’s so disgusting.’
‘Hey, it was your boyfriend’s idea, not mine.’
The Shepherds were frantic now, wet black noses pressed against the fence. Bared teeth and barking had given way to quivering tails and yelps of desire. Much to Ty’s relief, Angel reciprocated, seemingly pleased with the attention from not one but two strapping Germans. One of the Shepherds began to paw at the ground near the fence, clods of earth flying up. The other joined it, and soon both dogs were engaged in a race to see who could tunnel their way to Angel first.
It took the two dogs just under ten minutes to dig a hole under the fence big enough so that they could squeeze through to the other side. They didn’t even give Ty or Carrie a second look as they sniffed around Angel.
Ty set to work cutting a hole in the fence with a pair of wire cutters, then turned back to Carrie. ‘You clear on what you have to do now?’
Carrie started the walk back to where the news truck was parked short of the compound’s gates. ‘It’s hardly rocket science,’ she said.
The two dogs snarled and Ty glanced over his shoulder, worried that they’d lost interest in Angel. He was relieved to see that they were facing off at each other, presumably to see who got the first shot. Angel sat watching them, wagging her tail. Ty left Carrie to enjoy the live show and slipped out of sight into the undergrowth.
As he made his way towards the mansion, he ran through in his head the security systems in place. The dogs were the most
noticeable and in all likelihood the most effective deterrent, especially to the casual intruder. Mounted on the exterior of the house were motion sensors. Infrared lights and CCTV cams allowed a three-sixty view of the area surrounding the house to the member of the security detail in the ops room, a converted space next to the utility on the ground floor. Anyone escaping detection on their approach would then face wireless contacts on all points of entry, and further motion sensors in every room, except the four bedroom suites and hallways. No one wanted Van Straten getting up to take a leak in the middle of the night to the whoop of a hundred-fifty-decibel alarm.
Ty got within fifty yards of the front of the house and stopped. Lights were on in two of the rooms. He made a quick mental adjustment about the time he’d have once he was in place.
He skirted the motion sensors and headed for the garage. It was adjacent to but separate from the house. No cameras here. No motion sensors either. He forced open the side door and stepped inside. The place smelled of motor oil and detergent. There were three cars parked inside a space which could easily accommodate twice that number. The first was a Mercedes 500 SLK, a smooth ride. Ty immediately discounted it. The second was Stafford’s. This just got better and better. But he wouldn’t be using that one either.
Next to Stafford’s vehicle squatted the up-armoured Hummer. It was black rather than the fire engine red he’d seen previously. With fresh paintwork. He guessed this had to be the one they’d used to try to clip Carrie with. She’d told him all about it on the drive over.
He dug out his cell and texted four letters to Carrie’s number: C-A-L-L. Then he climbed under the Hummer and set to work.
*
‘It’s that dumb bitch from NBC,’ said Stafford, holding up the phone for his father, who was already deep into his third Scotch on the rocks.
‘What does she want?’
‘Something about a breach of security at the naval yard site.’
Van Straten snatched the handset from his son’s grasp. ‘This is Nicholas Van Straten.’
‘Mr Van Straten, where are you?’
‘Why?’
‘Have the FBI spoken to you?’
‘No, why would they have?’
‘Because wherever you are, you have to leave there, immediately. There’s a grave threat to your life and that of your son.’
‘Ms Delaney, I can assure you that we’re quite safe where we are.’
‘Mr Van Straten, do you have a television in the room?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then switch it on to NBC.’
Nicholas clicked his fingers towards the remote on the bed. Stafford picked it up and tossed it to his father, who caught it and thumbed down to the channel. The screen was split. On the right side was a mass of emergency response vehicles shot from a distance but recognizably parked near to the Meditech facility. On the left side of the screen was a static shot of the front gate of their house.
‘Mr Van Straten?’
‘I’m here.’
‘And Ryan Lock will be joining you shortly. I received a call from him an hour ago to say that he was on his way to speak with you. He sounded pretty angry—’
Carrie didn’t get to finish the sentence before Nicholas Van Straten hung up. Satisfied that she hadn’t told a single lie, she
turned back to her cameraman. ‘OK, let’s get back to the naval yard.’
‘He won’t do an interview?’ asked her cameraman.
‘He’s not even there,’ she lied.
The guy shrugged and began hastily packing up his gear as Angel trotted back to them, covered in dirt and wagging her tail.
‘Slut,’ said Carrie, reaching over to open the rear door of the truck for her.
Ty tensed as the side door into the garage opened. A pair of boots made their way across to the Hummer. They stopped at the driver’s door, right next to where Ty’s head was. Ty could have reached out and touched them.
He waited for the boots to walk round to the other side and start the vehicle inspection. Or for the driver’s face to appear at his eye level so he could shove a gun in his face. Or for the mounted mirror to appear so he could grab it, drag the guy under and choke him out with the rag tucked into his shirt.
But none of this happened. Things had gotten sloppy real fast since he and Lock had been relieved of their duty. Or the driver was in one holy hell of a rush. Maybe both.
The Hummer chirped as the driver hit the clicker, disabling the alarm and unlocking all four doors. Ty watched as a boot lifted on to the running board, the door opened and the other boot followed. The driver’s door thunked shut.
Ty pushed back with his hands, crawling backwards, emerging just to the right of the Hummer’s tailgate. He unholstered the Glock, ready to go, and hunkered down, duck-walking the few steps round to the right rear passenger door. His next action called for one solid component: speed.