Lockdown, page 3
part #4 of Liars Series
TACTICAL UNIT MOVING IN
By the time former Constable Irena Blanco reached East Kelton, the Magnotech factory was surrounded. Two police vehicles blocked the front gates. More cop cars were parked around the back in case anyone tried to escape that way. Police snipers were visible in the windows of a three-storey office building nearby. It looked like every cop in Kelton was here. The falling rain sparkled in all the flashing lights.
A police negotiator was talking into a megaphone. ‘The building is surrounded,’ he said. ‘Come out with your hands up.’
There was no movement from beyond the fence.
The factory had been evacuated. No smog was pouring from the smokestacks today. A safe distance away, under a temporary shelter, six workers in high-vis vests were being interrogated by Detective Zee Arno.
Blanco climbed out of her car and pulled the hood of her raincoat low over her eyes. She didn’t want Arno to see her.
She walked past a row of parked cars which probably belonged to the factory workers, although one of them—a gleaming green Fiat—looked too expensive. Blanco checked the numberplate, and her worst suspicions were confirmed. Dana Reynolds, the reporter from Nationwide, was here somewhere. So that was two people Blanco had to avoid. Reynolds knew she had been suspended, and why.
Blanco reached the edge of the car park and walked across the muddy grass towards the nearest police car. The officer in the driver’s seat was a man she didn’t know. He must be new. That would explain his boring role—waiting. He would have been told to chase anyone who came through the gates. As long as none of the criminals tried to leave the factory, he had nothing to do.
Blanco rapped on the window. The officer jolted out of his trance, and rolled down the glass. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m with local law enforcement,’ Blanco said carefully. She didn’t want to set off his lie-detector app. ‘I’m not on duty right now—I just wondered what was going on.’
The officer looked doubtful until she flashed her deactivated security pass, too quickly for him to read her name. Then he puffed up his chest. ‘Something big,’ he said. ‘But I can’t talk about it right now. You’ll find out all about it on your next shift.’
‘I heard—’ Blanco stopped herself, and rephrased: ‘Is it true that there’s an escaped animal in there?’
‘What?’ The officer shook his head. ‘No. Viper is just a codename.’
Blanco breathed in sharply. So it was true. No wonder the entire Kelton police force had turned up. Catching the elusive crime lord had been their top priority for almost a year now.
Two days ago, Blanco had received an email from a witness. The witness claimed Kellin Plowman had told him Viper’s real name. Suspiciously, the name wasn’t in the email. This could mean that Viper was monitoring email communications, and the witness hadn’t wanted to trigger any alerts. Or it could mean the email itself was a TRAP.
Either way, the witness had then gone dark. Blanco hadn’t been able to contact him, or Plowman, to confirm this story. If Viper was here, at a factory owned by Plowman, then—
‘Hey!’
Blanco turned around and saw Detective Arno storming towards her, oblivious to the rain. Her shiny black hair was plastered all over her sweaty face. She marched through the mud like a robot. A terminator.
‘What are you doing here?’ Arno demanded.
‘Just having a look around,’ Blanco said.
Arno jabbed a finger at the officer in the car. ‘Did you tell her anything?’
The officer turned pale.
‘Go home,’ Arno told Blanco. ‘Before I arrest you.’
Blanco couldn’t imagine anything worse than going back to her empty duplex, watching TV and trying not to wonder what her former colleagues were up to. ‘For what?’ she said. ‘This is a public space.’
‘You’re under investigation for connections to Viper. It’s extremely suspicious that you’re here. And if I ever find out who in this department is keeping you updated on cases—’
The officer’s eyes were going wider and wider. ‘Wait. You’re Irena Blanco?’
‘I have nothing to do with Viper,’ Blanco said. ‘I assume your phone is running Truth Premium. You can easily check that I’m not lying.’
Arno said nothing, but the look on her face told Blanco that she knew Truth Premium was compromised. Interesting, Blanco thought. Had Arno switched to Jarli Durras’s original app? Or was she was sticking to the rules? It was department policy not to use open-source software.
Blanco said, ‘If this is the chump you got to replace me—’
The officer frowned. ‘Hey!’
‘Then you’re never going to catch Viper,’ Blanco finished.
‘I expect to have him in custody within minutes,’ Arno said. ‘And when I do, I look forward to hearing about all his accomplices.’ With a meaningful look at Blanco, she raised her radio to her lips. ‘Tactical unit one. What’s your status?
Her radio crackled. ‘Good to go, Detective.’
‘Move in.’
‘Copy that. Tactical unit moving in.’
Near the front gate, three men and two women leapt from the back of a van carrying stun guns and wearing bulletproof vests. They ran towards the factory gates, holding their heads low to keep the rain off the mirrored visors of their helmets.
‘This is a bad idea,’ Blanco said.
‘We’ll see.’ Arno raised her binoculars. The tactical unit pushed through the gates and headed for the factory, running through a field of solar panels. The unit sheltered in the doorway for a moment while one of the women pressed a lock-release gun against the factory’s main door. The gun whirred until the lock clunked and the door creaked open. The tactical unit disappeared inside. Blanco wondered why the door was locked, if everyone had just evacuated through it.
The radio crackled. ‘Hudson, you go upstairs. Vasquez, head left, Spunkmeyer, head right. Hicks, you check out the basement. I’ll take this corridor here.’
There was a chorus of Yes, sirs, and then silence.
‘You can’t even be sure Viper is in there,’ Blanco told Arno.
Arno didn’t take her eyes off the entrance. ‘He made a phone call ordering an operative to abduct Kellin Plowman from his residence and take him to a scrap yard. We traced the call to a mobile phone, and traced the phone to this factory. According to satellite surveillance, other than the six workers who we’ve already identified and checked, no-one has left the building since that phone call. And before you ask, no—none of the old coal mining tunnels go anywhere near this factory. He’s in there.’
‘Wouldn’t the solar panels interfere with the sat surveillance?’ That had been a problem when Blanco investigated this factory months ago. The reflected sunshine had dazzled the satellite.
‘Not in this weather,’ Arno said.
‘Plowman owns the factory, right?’ Blanco said. ‘What does Viper want with him?’
‘I’ll be sure to ask that when we catch him.’
‘Wouldn’t Viper know you can track phone calls?’
Arno said nothing. Maybe she had remembered that she shouldn’t be telling Blanco any of this.
Blanco stared at the factory. Despite her sense of dread, she was excited. Maybe Viper had gotten sloppy. After all this time—all the mysterious disappearances—was it possible that they were about to catch him?
‘I found something,’ said a voice on the radio. ‘In Section Six.’
Another voice came in. ‘What is it?’
‘Mystery box. Opaque plastic, a little over a cubic metre. Right under the gas pipe. You want me to open it?’
Blanco snatched the radio out of Arno’s hand. ‘Wait!’ she said. ‘Under the gas pipe is the perfect place to put a bomb.’
Arno grabbed the radio back. ‘You’re on suspension,’ she hissed. ‘You shouldn’t even be here. You can’t interfere with—’
‘Whoa! Stop. She’s right,’ the radio said. ‘The hinges are wired. If I open it, it’ll trigger something.’
There was no time for an ‘I told you so’ moment. Blanco hadn’t seen many bombs in her career, but she knew from her training that a demolition charge the size of a brick could bring down a building. She couldn’t imagine how much damage a cubic metre of the same stuff could do.
‘No sign of Viper?’ Arno asked.
‘None,’ the voice on the radio said. ‘The building’s clear except for the box.’
‘Then get out of there. I’m sending in Bomb Disposal.’
Arno signalled to another nearby van. Two men clambered out the back of it, their whole bodies covered in bulky armour. One of them was carrying a small robot. The bulletproof vests and helmets of the tactical unit looked flimsy by comparison, but Blanco knew that no amount of armour would save them if the bomb went off.
The five members of the tactical unit emerged from the building as the bomb disposal unit went in. Blanco couldn’t see their faces through the helmets, but she was sure they were relieved. Every time she had kicked in a door with an arrest warrant, she had been terrified of getting shot, or worse, having to shoot someone else. An empty building was always a relief.
‘What do they manufacture here these days?’ Blanco asked.
‘They recently switched from making electromagnets to making optical lattice clocks,’ Arno said. ‘Why?’
‘If the bomb goes off, what’s going to be coming down on us?’
Arno quickly typed something into her phone. After a second, she swore and started waving her hands to get the attention of the other police officers. ‘Back up, everybody! Safe distance has increased to a hundred metres.’
Blanco peered over Arno’s shoulder at the phone. She could only make out a few phrases on the screen: atomic clocks . . . strontium-87 . . . highly radioactive . . .
Even an accidental explosion at a factory like this could be devastating. A deliberate one would be like judgement day. A rain of fire.
The police and the tactical team hustled the workers away from the factory. The snipers disappeared from the windows of the office building. Arno and Blanco climbed into the officer’s car. He started the engine and drove up the road, out of debris range. Blanco felt bad for calling him a chump. He didn’t seem to be panicking.
‘What’s your name, mate?’ she asked him.
‘Rodney,’ he said.
‘Sorry about before, Rodney,’ she said.
‘‘Sokay,’ Rodney said. ‘Tensions are high.’
‘Detective?’ It was the radio again. The bomb disposal unit this time. ‘I’m looking at the hinge triggers through the robot camera. There’s something funny about them.’
‘Define funny, officer,’ Arno snapped.
‘They’re glued in place rather than soldered.’
‘Maybe Viper didn’t have time to solder them.’
‘Current doesn’t flow through glue,’ the man said.
‘Meaning the robot can open the box?’
‘There could be a real trigger on the inside of the lid. But these ones on the outside aren’t connected to anything. They’re fake.’ He paused. ‘The robot isn’t dextrous enough to open the box, though. I’d have to do it.’
Arno hesitated. Blanco knew what she was thinking. Unless she gave the order, there was nothing the bomb disposal man could do. But sometimes it was easier to risk your own life than someone else’s.
‘Open the box,’ she said finally.
The officer didn’t make her repeat the order. ‘Copy that.’
Blanco turned her eyes to the factory and waited for it to explode. She wanted to plug her ears, but that would have felt disrespectful to the bomb disposal men risking their lives inside. She gritted her teeth instead.
Nothing happened for a long moment. Sweat glistened on Arno’s brow.
‘The box is open,’ the bomb disposal man said.
Blanco exhaled, dizzy with relief.
‘We’ve got a body,’ the man continued.
Arno’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Say again?’
‘It’s not a bomb. There’s a person in the box . . . unconscious. Stand-by.’
‘Could be Viper,’ Arno said. ‘Be careful.’
Why would Viper be unconscious? Blanco wondered. Unless it’s a trick. Maybe he’s—
‘Oh my God,’ the bomb disposal man said. ‘It’s Alex! Alex is in the box!’
‘That’s impossible,’ Arno said. ‘Alex is out here, with us.’
‘Who’s Alex?’ Blanco whispered.
‘The leader of the tactical unit,’ Rodney replied. ‘But all five of them made it out.’
‘Get a paramedic in here,’ the bomb disposal man replied. ‘Alex is out cold.’
Arno and Blanco both turned to look at the tactical unit, who were removing their helmets. There were only four of them. One had disappeared.
Arno leapt out of the car. ‘Secure the area!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t let anybody leave!’
Blanco scanned the horizon through the car windows. There were plenty of buildings and vehicles, as well as access to the forest. Plenty of ways to escape.
It was too late. Viper—or whoever had made that phone call—was gone.
He knew we could track his phone, she thought. He led us out here deliberately.
Why?
INTERNAL BLEEDING
The doctors worked on Plowman, ignoring the threat from outside the door. Plowman already had so many stitches that he looked like a scarecrow. Hayes was hovering anxiously, ready to assist, but so far the doctors hadn’t needed him much.
‘I’ve stopped the femoral bleed,’ Vorham was saying. ‘But his BP is still low.’
‘This is his second transfusion,’ Lanagan said. ‘You think there’s internal bleeding in his abdomen?’
‘Yes. We need to go in. Ramp up the pain relief.’
Bess guessed that these doctors usually had days to prepare, and more qualified assistance—someone to do the anaesthetic, someone to wipe the sweat off their brows, and probably lots of other people. And she didn’t think Vorham was even a surgeon.
She spoke quietly so as not to distract them. ‘Doug. You think they’ll be able to keep Plowman alive?’
Doug was standing on a table, trying to open the window. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘People can survive all sorts of things. There was this snowboarder who fell out of a plane without a parachute and lived. I saw it on the news.’
‘Yeah, but that’s why it was on the news. It was a freak occurrence. Plenty of people die after falling down the stairs.’
Outside, the rain had intensified. Doug gave up on the window and climbed off the table. ‘It’s not designed to open,’ he said. ‘And the glass is really thick. We’re not getting out that way.’
Bess could hear the bad guys talking outside. They were speaking loudly—they wanted to be overheard.
Mamba’s voice: ‘How long will you put on the timer?’
‘One minute,’ Taipan said. ‘That’s the minimum. If anyone inside wants to change their mind and let us in, they don’t have long to do it.’
Bess squeezed her eyes shut, and focused on the cool floor tile against her cheek.
‘Wait,’ Mamba said.
‘What?’
‘I thought of another way to get them to open the door.’
And then Bess had a thought. Something she should have wondered about much, much earlier.
Where are Jarli and Anya?
‘Anya,’ Jarli whispered. ‘Wake up!’
Her eyelids didn’t even flutter. She looked dead. Jarli cautiously pressed a finger to her neck. Her skin was warm, but he couldn’t find a pulse. He might be looking in the wrong spot, though. He’d never tried this before, and he could only just reach her. His other hand was tied to a bench with a plastic cuff which bit into his wrist when he moved.
He touched his own neck, searching for a pulse.
‘Relax.’ The tall woman with the sword and the accent—Rattler, the others had called her—was looming over him. ‘It was a flash grenade. Non-lethal. She’ll be conscious in a few minutes. I’m surprised she’s not awake already.’
This wasn’t as comforting as she might have intended. And the sword didn’t help.
As she turned, Jarli noticed something under her chin. Her face was smooth and symmetrical, but her neck was a mess of scar tissue. It looked like someone had once tried to cut her throat.
She saw Jarli looking. ‘You should see the other guy,’ she said with a grin. ‘Hey . . . you’re the kid who made the lie-detector app.’
Jarli shrank away. The Truth app had briefly made him a celebrity, which turned out to be horrible. He’d had to change his email address and phone number, and delete his social media profiles. His family and friends had been hassled by the media. Now it seemed that criminals had been paying attention as well.
‘You must be thinking of someone else,’ he said.
Rattler’s phone beeped. LIE She laughed—a short, sharp bark.
‘How much money did you make off that, kid?’ she asked.
‘I released it for free,’ Jarli said quietly.
‘Yeah, but you sell data about the people who use it, right?’
‘No.’
Rattler raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? You’re an idiot.’
This wasn’t the first time Jarli had faced this accusation. He didn’t think being ethical was the same thing as being stupid. But he didn’t want to argue about that with a cutlass-wielding criminal.
‘You’ve interfered with Viper’s plans before,’ Rattler said, her grin widening. ‘I can’t wait to tell him you’re here.’
Jarli’s pulse was easy to find now. ‘Anya needs a doctor,’ he said. ‘Maybe she hit her head on the way down.’
Rattler wiped her hands on her cargo pants and walked back over to the window. ‘Then she’ll wake up with a headache,’ she said. ‘Like I told you, everyone will be fine . . . if they do as they’re told.’
‘But—’
‘Shut up, Jarli,’ said Olivia, the paramedic.
Jarli looked over, shocked. Olivia was cuffed to another bench, out of reach. Her voice had been too loud—maybe her ears were still recuperating after the flashbang. She was blinking furiously, perhaps trying to recover her eyesight.
