McCormick was expecting Oliver Roth to laugh. He wouldn’t even have minded: he was sure to go through worse that night. But instead, the teenager gave a curious nod. Perhaps his prisoner was offering him conversation that Grant, Marshall and Pearce could never hope to provide.
‘Is that what you’ve been telling your retard army?’ asked Roth. ‘Was it you who turned Ewan West from a school-hopping violent-minded moron to the sweet little do-gooder who thinks he killed me?’
‘Hey, you leave Ewan alone. He’s a good lad.’
Roth gave a confused face, as if wondering whether to laugh or fall silent. McCormick smirked, aware that he’d just tried to break up the war’s bitterest rivalry with a fatherly voice of reason, as if it were a playground argument between two young children.
‘Whatever,’ said Roth, ‘let’s be honest here. You don’t seriously believe people like me – the kind of guy you pray your kids don’t turn into – can be turned by anything you say? Do you honestly believe bad people can turn good?’
‘Why not? It’s as easy as good people turning bad.’
Roth smiled: a reaction McCormick did not expect.
‘It’s far easier for someone to turn bad than turn good,’ said Roth. ‘It’s human nature. We’re all crap people deep down.’
‘That’s just your own experience with corrupted people.’
‘No, it’s my experience with humans. Nobody’s truly good. If you don’t believe me, spend half an hour in rush hour traffic and watch how people act. Or even better, put a million of them in a giant walled prison and see what they’re like a year later.’
McCormick looked to the floor, unable and unwilling to hide the sadness in his face. It was difficult to argue against Oliver Roth, even taking his own helplessness out of the equation.
His sadness appeared to spread to Roth. When the teenager spoke again, he spoke in a sombre voice.
‘One second,’ he muttered, ‘I just need to do your face and then we’re done.’
Roth took a step forward, and only then did McCormick realise how long had passed in conversation. For much of their time together, Roth had not even been searching him.
Roth started to run his fingers around McCormick’s head, obviously just going through the motions rather than performing a genuine search. With the top of his body reached, McCormick knew how little time he had to complete his own personal mission.
‘All those youngsters from difficult backgrounds who I’ve helped over the years,’ he said, ‘most of them had something in common. It was their expression. Their eyes. Something in their brains showed in their faces – depression, self-pity, isolation… they all held something in their eyes that other people didn’t. But you know what’s strange, Oliver? I don’t see it in you. I see nothing negative in your face at all. Maybe you weren’t affected by your background, but experience tells me that’s impossible. I think you’ve grown used to hiding the hurt in order to look normal, and can pull off Oscar-worthy performances when important people are around.’
McCormick held his breath. All he had done was describe the Oakenfold students’ habit of masking their difficulties, but he wondered whether he had struck a hidden, vulnerable nerve with Oliver Roth. He had momentary visions of Roth losing his cool, and storming outside to grab a gun and shoot him in the head.
Instead, Roth did not react. He withdrew his fingers from McCormick’s head, his inspection over.
‘Actually,’ came his answer, ‘my upbringing was fine. Boring, actually. No hidden childhood abuse, no teenage depression, nothing. I had a good education, I was the smartest guy in school, and had a nice secure family life. But thanks for assuming I’m some kind of screw-up who went off the rails.’
A few minutes ago you were boasting about how many of my friends you’ve killed. But let’s ignore that for now.
‘You say you had an average upbringing,’ McCormick answered, ‘but something has always been missing from your life. You’ve never placed your trust in anyone, have you?’
Roth could have sent McCormick’s nose through the back of his head. Instead he maintained eye contact, and held a worried expression on his face.
‘You may never have been abused, Oliver, but you weren’t loved either. That’s why you don’t have the expression I was talking about. It’s not carefully hidden fear. It’s nothing.’
McCormick imagined that Roth had spent very little of his life in tears, of pain or joy. The teenager would not know how to deal with the sudden tightening of his throat, or the rippling of his exhaling lungs.
I’m the leade r of this boy’s arch – enemies , and in one conversation I must have offered him more compassion than any of the men he fights for.
‘You taught yourself that look of indifference,’ McCormick continued, ‘and you kept yourself cold and emotionless until you didn’t know anything different. But there’s help out there. You just need to start hanging with the right crowd.’
The portable lamps on the floor began to dim. There would not be much more time for conversation.
‘You must think I’m a terrible person,’ Roth muttered.
‘Terrible does not mean unreachable, Oliver. The only thing that could ever make you unreachable is your own choice to never be reached.’
Roth looked away from McCormick, as if he had been staring into the sun. McCormick was surprised when his captor picked his shirt and trousers off the floor, and offered them back to him. He had imagined being led to Floor B in his underwear, but perhaps this was Roth’s way of showing sympathy or respect.
‘You can put these back on if you like,’ said Roth. ‘We’re ready.’
McCormick slipped on his shirt and his trousers in turn, and when he looked up again he saw Roth’s fingers on the door handle.
‘You’re a fine man, McCormick,’ he said. ‘One of the best I’ve ever known. But if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll gut you myself.’
McCormick laughed, as if his captor were joking, and followed him back to Marshall and Pearce.
Chapter 24
As he was led through the security door on the stairwell between Floor C and B, McCormick wondered how his friends could ever hope to reach the higher floors themselves. Even if all their enemies vanished into thin air, the mazy corridors and security provisions would make it virtually impossible.
Nonetheless, the others were coming. Ewan, Kate and Alex would not abandon him, nor would they be able to rescue him. McCormick’s biggest hope was that they just didn’t get themselves killed.
At the top at the stairwell, he was met with an electromagnetically sealed door. It was secured shut; his power cut had not disabled the magnet or made the door slide open like in the movies.
‘You use fail-secure locking devices?’ McCormick asked Pearce at his side. ‘Not fail-safe?’
‘What’s the difference?’ asked Roth.
‘Fail-safe electromagnetic seals unlock themselves in a power cut. Fail-secure ones don’t. You’ve chosen the dangerous one.’
‘So?’ spat Pearce.
‘What happens if you need to evacuate?’