And she wouldn’t be, if it wasn’t for me.
I’m a real piece of shit sometimes, aren’t I?
I’m like a cancer to the people around me, bringing danger and death to their doorsteps.
Well, I promise you this—when all this is over, I’m going to remove myself from the rest of the world. I’m going to find a quiet little corner where no one knows me and stay there, so I never endanger anyone again.
But first…
“Are you ready?”
She nods. “I think so.”
I smile, trying to reassure her. “You’re gonna be fine. I’ve got your back, okay? Don’t worry. This is what I do.”
We stand, poised just out of sight behind the corner. After a moment, I can feel her staring at me. “Adrian, what are we waiting for?”
I hold up my right arm and listen...
…
…
…
I hear a small explosion somewhere behind us, followed by muted bursts of gunfire.
I turn to her. “That! Come on!”
We run toward the Range Rover. I quickly try the door, but it’s locked. I take Kaitlyn’s gun from her, hold it by the barrel, and smash the butt into the bottom corner of the driver’s window. I quickly hand it back, yank the door open, and lean in and down to hotwire the car and disable the alarm before it goes off.
It’s… ah… It’s not that easy… with… one… hand…
And…
The engine splutters and surges into life.
Got it!
I stand up and take her gun from her one more time. “Get in!”
I aim at the far end of the parking lot as I move around the hood of the Range Rover. The team of men is disappearing toward the main entrance, which is good, but we need to be quick, otherwise Lily will be overwhelmed.
I jump into the passenger seat. “Go! Go!”
Kaitlyn hammers the gas, the tires screech, and we speed forward. There are two stragglers, who both stop and turn to look at us, moving to raise their rifles.
“Kaitlyn, don’t stop!”
She locks her arms and grips the wheel until her knuckles turn white. She grimaces and half looks away as she lets out a scream, venting against every natural instinct she has to hit the brakes. “Oh my God!”
The men don’t get a shot off. She bulldozes straight through the pair of them. One was sucked beneath the vehicle, and we bounced over his body. The other ricocheted off the hood and disappeared out of sight to the left.
She slams on the brake and makes a hard left, sliding out of the parking lot to the ambulance approach at the front. The six other men from the team are hustling inside, but the back three guys stop and turn to face us.
“Stop here!”
We come to an abrupt halt. I throw the door open, put one foot down on the ground, rest my left arm in the angle between the chassis and the open door, and empty the full mag of Kaitlyn’s gun into the three guys. I see numerous small splashes of blood from the impact of each bullet finding its mark.
I quickly look inside the car. “You okay?”
She doesn’t reply, but nods hurriedly. Her lips are pursed together, and I think she’s fighting against the onset of shock and tears.
“You’ve done good. Just wait here a sec. I’m gonna go—”
“Let’s go! Let’s go!”
I turn and see Lily running toward us, firing blindly behind her.
I lean back and open the rear door, jump back inside, and slam mine shut. I look at the main entrance as she reaches the car, seeing at least ten more men filing through, shooting from the hip, desperate to hit her.
Shots pepper the hood, though none of them are accurate enough to hit anything important.
“Kaitlyn, go!”
Lily closes her door, lying flat on the back seat as Kaitlyn shifts the car into reverse, flooring the gas pedal, and kicking up smoke as we speed out onto the main road. She slams it in gear, makes a U-turn as fast as she dares, and we speed away. The hospital quickly fading away in the rearview.
I shift in my seat and look behind me. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Lily’s laughing to herself, gasping for breath. “That… was… fun!”
I raise an eyebrow. She looks at me and smiles. “Sorry. I headed for the supplies closet and found lots of cleaning products. I made a small explosive cocktail and threw it down the corridor past your room. It got their attention. I took a few of them out and muscled my way through in the confusion.” She lifts her head slightly and turns to Kaitlyn. “Nice driving, sister!”
Kaitlyn doesn’t respond.
I look over at her and place a hand on her shoulder. “We’re clear. You can ease up off the gas a little. We don’t want to attract any attention, alright?”
She slows down a little, and after a moment, I see her visibly relax. Her shoulders drop, and her grip on the wheel loosens.
She’ll be fine.
I look back at Lily. “What about Pierce? Did you see him?”
“See him? I shot him!”
“Really? Is he dead?”
She shakes her head. “No, but he’s really pissed.”
I frown. “Where did you shoot him?”
“In the shoulder. I couldn’t really stop to aim or anything, but at least he’s having as bad a day as we are, which is something.”
I smile and turn back around, settling into my seat and staring at the road ahead. We have maybe a six-hour drive ahead of us. We need to get back to Abu Dhabi, find Kaitlyn’s neighbor, and convince him to help us hack The Order’s network and see if we can deactivate the signal that controls the bombs in Lily’s neck and mine.
I just hope we can make it before it’s too—
“Oh my God…”
I snap back into the moment and turn to Kaitlyn. “What’s wrong?”
“Behind us.”
I glance over my shoulder, out the rear window, and see a fleet of Suburbans following us. There are five vehicles in total, all with tinted windows, all identical. Just like the one Pierce gave Kaitlyn and I yesterday, back when he was on my side… Or, at least, back when I didn’t know he wasn’t on my side.
“Shit. Okay, Kaitlyn, you have this. Just focus on driving and not crashing, alright? Let Lily and me worry about them.”
I throw the empty gun in the foot well and take out mine from behind me. Lily’s crouching low on the back seat, reloading hers.
This is going to be a long ride.
23
13:19 AST
The sun is bright, its glare reflecting off the windows of the cars around us. Now the adrenaline’s subsided, I’m starting to feel a little nauseous and groggy again. The after effects of anesthesia, I’m guessing. I’m struggling to focus my mind, because it’s desperately trying to shut off.
No time for that though.
I look across at Kaitlyn. She’s squinting as she stares ahead, trying to position the visor to shield herself from it, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I open the glove box. This is Qatar—there’s no way people don’t keep sunglasses in their cars! I rummage through the papers and the CDs inside and… I think… Bingo! There’s a pair right at the back. I take them out and hand them to her. She glances sideways and smiles, takes off her own glasses, fumbles for the shades without taking her eyes off the road, and slides them onto her face.
She takes a deep breath. “Better… thanks.”
“No problem.”
I watch her for a moment. She’s doing a great job of driving under pressure. I can’t imagine how hard all this is for her. She weaves in and out of the slow-moving traffic. It’ll be difficult for Pierce and his men to follow us effectively and get close, which is good. But if they decide to stop playing nice and open fire anyway, we’re screwed.
I look down and rest my gun against my cast as I check the mag… It’s half-full, which isn’t ideal, but it’s the only one I have. Kaitlyn’s gun is empty now, too. I glance over my shoulder at Lily. “How much ammo
you got?”
She quickly checks her gun. “A few rounds, that’s it. No spare mags left, either. Why?”
“Because I’m starting to get tired of running.” I turn in my seat. “What about you?”
She’s sitting low in the seat. “I thought my days of running from anyone were over. But there are too many people around. This is a busy road. We can’t engage them here.”
I nod. “Agreed. But the problem is, it’s unlikely to stop them engaging us. Besides, I don’t want to lead them all the way to Kaitlyn’s place. I know they can track us, but if they’re watching remotely, it at least buys us some time to get away from there afterward. I don’t want them to know what our plans are. I need them to think we’re just running from them, not to somewhere else.”
“Maybe we can lead them away from the city… Out into the desert?”
“No… it’s too far. But a wide open space is a good idea. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to get boxed in… We need—”
We’re heading south along Al Matar Street, and we’ve just past a sign that flicked on my lightbulb. I turn to Kaitlyn. “Take the next left up ahead.”
She doesn’t respond. She just positions herself so she’s ready to turn as we approach the exit.
“Where are we going?” asks Lily.
I look back at her. “To the nearest wide open space there is.”
The road ahead leads all the way to Al Wakrah, which is roughly ten miles from Doha, and sits on the shores of the Persian Gulf. We could try losing them there, or try outrunning them through the city, all the way back to Abu Dhabi. But the chances of either of those things happening are slim at best. So our only real option is to fight. Worst case, there’s twenty of the bastards following us. I’ve been in similar situations before on my own, but not against men of this caliber. I have Lily, which evens things up a little, but it’s still not ideal.
Which is why we’re heading left… toward Hamad International Airport.
Kaitlyn accelerates and makes the turn just as the lights change. I look behind me and see the five Suburbans frantically trying to navigate their way through the long line of stationary vehicles and jump the red light to follow us.
We speed along the F Ring Road and exit left onto the Ras Abu Abboud Expressway. Pierce and his men are still behind us, but farther back than before. Kaitlyn’s driving has bought us some time.
Lily leans forward and looks through the windshield as the outline of the airport takes shape in the distance to the right of us, just beyond a large construction site. “I don’t know if this is genius or insanity…”
I smile. “Story of my life. Way I see it, we get them out of their vehicles, we can pick them off on foot among the crowds in there.”
“Yeah, if we can get in there…”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Adrian, there’s no way Horizon didn’t start putting another seven contingency plans in place the moment we left the hospital. That’s what he does. And I can guarantee his first thought will be that we’ll run. He would’ve locked down every airport in this time zone the minute he tracked us leaving Doha.”
I shrug. “Maybe you’re right, but staying visible is the only chance we’ve got of surviving this long enough to get back to Abu Dhabi.”
She gestures to the tracking device in her neck. “We’re nothing but visible. How does that help?”
“The Order’s existed for as long as it has because the people in charge have ensured it’s stayed hidden, right? It’s like society’s guilty secret. They’re not going to risk everything they’ve built just to kill the three of us. I doubt very much we’re the only people who ever went rogue on them. They’ll have their ways of handling shit like this quietly. What they won’t do is remotely blow our heads off in front of thousands of witnesses.”
Lily looks at me and smiles. I see a flicker of life in her eyes, as if, for the first time since all this started, we might finally have a plan that gets us all out of this. “It’s still a little insane…”
I smile back. “The best plans always are. If people think something’s too stupid to do, they’re less likely to be prepared when you actually do it.”
Kaitlyn chuckles. “My God, I’ve created a monster!”
I laugh. “My mind’s always worked this way. It’s who I am. It’s what makes me as good as I am at shit like this. I just forgot for a while, that’s all. All the loss and guilt distracted me. I mean, it’s still there, and it’s still hard, but remembering who I am—finding my own identity again… it’s helped. So it’s not that you created a monster, Kaitlyn, you simply helped remind the monster how fucking scary he is, and for that, I’m forever grateful.”
Kaitlyn smiles. “You’re welcome.”
Lily rolls her eyes. “Oh, would you listen to yourself…”
I hold my hands up. “What? I’m just saying, what makes me a good assassin is the fact I don’t think like other people do.”
“Such modesty…”
“I’m not modest, I’m… complex. Tell her, Kaitlyn.”
Kaitlyn glances over her shoulder at Lily. “Oh, he’s complex alright, I can vouch for that.”
She scoffs. “Complex? He’s the simplest man I’ve ever met!”
I frown. “Hey! Simple?”
“Hell yeah! Just like every other man… Seriously, Kaitlyn, you should’ve seen him trying to flirt with these two young blondes the other night…”
Kaitlyn giggles, and her eyes go wide, feigning shock. I shake my head. “I was not flirting with them! They were flirting with me. I was trying to put them off!”
“Oh, whatever. You were—”
Lily slumps forward heavily as a thick splash of blood explodes across the windshield.
Fuck me!
Time reduces to a crawl. I look behind us. There’s a small, neat hole in the rear window, with thin cracks branching out from it. Beyond that, I see the Suburbans. I see Pierce standing up through the sunroof of the one in front, holding a sniper rifle. Well, it clearly wasn’t a serious gunshot to his shoulder…
I turn back and stare down at Lily, dumbstruck. Her body has sagged against the center console. Half her head is missing, and her lifeless, empty eyes are wide and unblinking, staring up at me.
For what feels like a lifetime, I’m gone. I’m wandering through my own purgatory somewhere far away from here. Every moment I’ve shared with Lily flashes before my eyes. From meeting her for the first time in Kuala Lumpur, when she hit me with the door… How relaxed she made me feel after my first contract in the restaurant… Drinking together in the bar… When she kissed me in front of those blondes… The attraction I felt that I couldn’t explain, vehemently denied, and still feel guilty for… My heartache and anger when I thought she was trying to kill me, and my relief I felt when I realized she wasn’t… To right now, staring at the inside of her head as she’s slumped beside me.
That’s a lot to absorb in what was actually about three seconds.
I snap back to the here and now and look over at Kaitlyn. She’s just beginning to register what’s happened, flicking her gaze between the road and Lily’s corpse. The blood on the windshield has obscured the view in front of her. She’s shaken, panicking. She frantically turning the wheel to her left. I reach over to her, but I’m too late. We’re doing nearly sixty as we approach the exit for the airport’s security checkpoint. The Range Rover doesn’t even slide, it just flips.
Holy shit!
The world barrel rolls outside. I push my left hand against the dash on instinct, bracing against the inevitable impact. Kaitlyn brings both hands up to cover her head, but as time resumes its usual speed, she’s thrown against the wheel and ricochets back hard against her seat.
Uh!
Fuck!
Ah!
Shit!
Uh!
Uh!
Fuck!
The size of the vehicle has helped limit the roll, and we’re sliding across the road on our side as it doglegs right, branchi
ng off toward the main entrance of the construction site. Kaitlyn’s fallen down into me, pressing me against my door as it grinds and screeches along the ground like nails on a chalkboard.
I bring my right arm around Kaitlyn and hold her as tight as I can to my body. I’m trying to protect her as much as possible, but I can already see a thin trickle of blood coming from a head wound. Must’ve banged herself when she—
Shit!
The hood just hit something. The sound of metal twisting and warping from the impact feels like it’s making my ears bleed. We’ve spun around, so I’m now facing right instead of left. I can feel us slowing down, which is something.
We screech to a gradual halt.
I can’t hear much of anything, and I’m too disoriented to check if anything’s hurting. My only instinct right now is to get Kaitlyn and run. Pierce and his men will be on us any second, and…
What’s that smell?
I sniff hard. I’m trying to focus my mind long enough to identify the odor.
What the hell is—
Shit.
That smell… it’s gas. The fuel tank must be damaged. If we’re leaking gas everywhere, we need to get out of here now, before—
FWUMP!
That sounded suspiciously like a fire starting somewhere outside…
Kaitlyn’s laying on her side against my chest. She stirs. “W-what… happened?”
My eyes dart in every direction, desperately searching for a way out. I’m pinned against my door, between my seat and the dash. The window’s all kinds of cracked, but still intact. The driver’s side door is above us. Lily’s body is sagging over the edge of my seat. I can’t see her legs, but her torso and head is resting on Kaitlyn, which is adding more weight on me. My left arm’s trapped beneath me, and my right arm hurts like hell.
Oh, not good… not good…
Pierce and his merry band of assholes will be here any moment. Or maybe not, thinking about it… Our crash would have caught the attention of anyone nearby at the time, so emergency services are bound to be en route. He might want to save himself some time and avoid going through the motions of dealing with the authorities, however it is The Order deals with them in situations like this.
Good Intentions - Adrian Hell #6 (Adrian Hell Series) Page 22