Freefalling through the air, I counted to six and pulled the cord, deploying my ’chute and settling into a nice, almost peaceful glide.
And so, here I am. I’m currently… I don’t know, maybe four thousand feet above the ground, making my way slowly down to earth via a parachute, thinking about how much I hate flying.
I hate terrorists and I hate flying.
I hate not knowing what the hell is going on, I hate terrorists, and I hate fucking flying!
26.
17:31 FET
I’m lying on the ground, looking up at the sky and watching the fireball that used to be my plane descend out of sight. The parachute is covering me almost completely—just my head and left arm are exposed. I’m aching all over, and I have no issue admitting I’m a little shaken up after the experience of jumping out of a plane.
You know how, in the movies, the hero always lands in a field, on a farm, or something? Somewhere out of the way where the good-looking woman can find him? Well, that’s bullshit… In real life—in my real, shitty life—you land in the middle of a busy street, surrounded by people and cars.
I take a few moments to compose myself, and then prop myself up on my elbows as I take a look around. Horns are sounding from angry drivers, and there’s a small crowd of people gathered around me, curiously looking at me as I lie in the center of the road.
I slide my bag off my chest and rest it next to me. I run through a quick mental check of my vital limbs and organs, coming to the conclusion I’m still in one piece. I scramble to my feet, shake the parachute off my back and pick up my bag. I jog to the sidewalk, dragging the ’chute behind me as I hold my hand up in silent apology to the cars that have been delayed as a result of my unexpected appearance.
I take a proper look around as people start to go back about their business. I’m on a busy street in a one-story high, industrial-looking city. There are no tall buildings, no designer outlets… no modern or expensive cars on the road. The whole place seems to have a perpetually gray hue to it. I could be anywhere east of Germany. But I know we passed Minsk before the plane blew up, so I’m hoping I’m somewhere near where I need to be.
I step into a doorway and crouch down, opening my bag and putting my holster on. I’ll definitely feel better with my babies at my back. I take out the phone and put it in my pocket. I’ll call Josh in a minute, once I’ve figured out where I am.
I carry on down the street, trying to look like I know where I’m going. But I come to a crossroads and stop on the corner, searching around for a clue as to which direction is best.
Yeah... I have no fucking idea where I am…
I step to the side and take the phone out of my pocket. I dial Josh’s number, hoping he’s done something technical so that no one knows I’m using it.
“It’s me,” I say as he answers.
“Have you made contact with our operative yet?” he asks.
“Not exactly... There was a slight problem on the way here that delayed me.”
“What happened?”
“The plane exploded.”
“What?” he exclaims. “Your plane blew up?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah. Just the cockpit, and it was ten hours into the flight, so I’m pretty certain it was sabotage,” I explain. “If I had to guess, I would say it was the guy who was refueling the plane when we arrived.”
“Jesus… Adrian, this means the bad guys must know you’re there. Watch your back.”
“Copy that. And I’m fine, by the way…”
“Sorry, yeah, I mean… I figured, so I didn’t… y’know?”
“It’s fine. The main problem is, which bad guys are after me? The terrorists? The CIA? The NSA? It could be anyone.”
“I think we can rule out the NSA for this—not really their thing. Could feasibly be the CIA, but I don’t see the logic.”
“No, me neither. Plus, they’d have sent the D.E.A.D. unit after me again, and I’d never seen the guy at the airfield before, so I think the safe bet is El-Zurak’s band of merry men are coming my way.”
“I guess they figured you’d work out Tori was in Pripyat with Clara and head there?”
“Sound thinking, but how did they know where I’d be flying from? Even though we were hacked by the NSA back in Arkansas, that doesn’t explain how the Armageddon Initiative found out about the flight.”
“Still no clue on that one, but we’ll get there. You just focus on getting Tori back, okay?”
“I will. Which reminds me, where the hell am I? I jumped out of the plane and landed in the street, but I don’t know how far I am from the rendezvous point, and there are no signs.”
“Let me ping your signal from the nearest cell tower and pinpoint the location of your phone…”
There’s a moment or two of silence while he works his magic. As I stand there, holding the phone to my ear and absently gazing at my surroundings, I feel a sharp prod in my back. Without reacting, I casually look over my shoulder and see a man standing behind me, holding a gun two-handed, leveled at the center of my back. He’s a rough-looking guy, dark stubble and tired eyes beneath a baseball cap. He’s about my height, dressed in scruffy jogging pants and a sweater with a sleeveless jacket over the top. My initial thought is that he’s a terrorist, but I dismiss it almost as quickly. There’s no way they’d send one guy after me.
“Adrian?” he asks. His voice is deep and coarse, like he’s smoked twenty a day for the last decade.
Keeping the phone to my ear, I slowly turn around and face him, raising a quizzical eyebrow. I glance at the gun, and then back at him. I look at his professional, trained stance, his body language, the confidence… definitely not a terrorist.
“Josh?” I say into the phone, ignoring the new arrival. “What’s the name of the operative I’m meant to be meeting?”
“His name’s Collins. Ray Collins,” he replies.
“Thanks,” I say, before putting the phone against my shoulder and looking back at the man with the gun. “Ray Collins?”
He regards me for a moment, and then slowly holsters his gun, extending his hand. I nod and put the phone back to my ear.
“Josh, never mind—he’s just found me. Call me if you find anything more out.”
“Oh, good. Yeah, I will do. Watch your back, Boss.”
I smile and hang up, putting the phone back in my pocket before shaking Collins’ hand. “How’d you know where I’d be?” I ask. “I don’t even know where I am.”
“Ya fell from the sky in a ball of fire,’ he replies casually. “Ya weren’t exactly hard to fuckin’ miss.”
I shrug. “Fair point. Where are we?”
“This… is Gomel,” he says, gesturing around us at nothing in particular. “Ya were lucky—the wind must’ve carried ya farther south, so ya landed just a couple of miles short of our rendezvous point.”
“First bit of luck I’ve had in a while,” I say with a humorless smile. “So how quickly can we get over the border?”
“Follow me, my car’s nearby.”
He walks past me and crosses the street, heading over to the other side. I follow him, taking a quick look around out of habit. We walk for a few minutes before turning right onto a side street, where a battered, rusted European sedan last sold in the 80s is parked against the curb. Collins walks round to the driver’s door and climbs in. Somewhat skeptical of the safety risks potentially involved in traveling in this thing, I climb in the passenger side.
Without a word, he drives off, turning right at the end of the street.
“In the glove compartment are fake papers for the border patrol,” he says. “If ya reach behind ya, the back seat will lift up. Use the space to hide your bag—they’ll check it otherwise, and I’m guessing ya don’t want what’s in there being seen?”
I look behind me and do as he says, putting my guns and holster in my bag and hiding it in the seat.
“You done this before?” I ask.
He smiles. “Once or twice, yeah.�
��
“Where are you from, Ray? Your accent is distinctive.”
“I was born in Northern Ireland,” he says. “But I’ve lived between the U.S. and Eastern Europe for the last thirty years, so my twang has faded a little.”
“A good friend of mine is from London—always corrects me on my allegedly poor use of the language.”
He laughs. “Yeah, you Yanks sure ruined that over the years!”
“Oh, Christ, don’t you start…”
We follow the M-10 road for about half an hour, before turning left on the P-33. It’s another forty minutes of fairly straight, unadventurous road before we veer left onto the P-35.
“Okay, it’s about an hour’s drive along here ’til we hit the P-56,” says Collins. “That’s the road that will take us over the border and into Pripyat. Once we cross, it’s about thirty klicks into the city itself. If ya wanna rest up, now’s the time.”
I shake my head. “I’ve slept enough,” I say.
I stare out the window at the foreign land passing us by. It always feels strange, being somewhere new. You forget you’re still on the same planet as home sometimes. The landscape looks and feels so different from Texas. Even the sun is colder here—the heat not quite reaching as far as the light. Fields and trees run off to the horizon in every direction. It’s actually quite a beautiful place. Just a shame I’m here under such ugly circumstances.
“What exactly do ya plan on doing in Pripyat?” asks Collins after a few miles of silence.
“I’m going to kill the person who’s kidnapped my girlfriend,” I reply, matter-of-factly. “And with some luck, I might take out a terrorist or three along the way.”
Collins lets out a whistle. “Sounds heavy,” he says. “I guess the rumors are true.”
I turn to look at him. “Rumors?”
“About you. Most guys who work for GlobaTech’s PMC have heard of ya, because we know your best friend is one of our top boys now. A lot of what people say about ya I’ve dismissed as campfire stories, but looking at ya, seeing how ya got here, and the belief ya have in what you’re gonna do next… maybe there’s something to those stories after all. I’m glad you’re on our side.”
“I’m not on anyone’s side,” I say. “I just want to do what’s right. I hung up my guns a couple of years back, but some radical pricks tried to lure me out of retirement. And now I’m balls deep in God knows what, trying to outrun the U.S. Government and stop a bunch of terrorists doing something bad with a satellite that no one’s meant to know about.”
“I’ve only got a few hours before I have to get back to my assignment,” he says regrettably. “Otherwise I’d offer to help. Sounds like ya need it.”
“Thanks,” I say. “But you’d just get in the way.”
He laughs, shakes his head, and silence falls inside the car once more.
19:56 FET
It doesn’t take long to reach the border to Ukraine. We slow to a stop as we join a short queue of traffic waiting to get through the checkpoint. The sun is disappearing behind the trees that line either side of the narrow strip of road. The surrounding terrain couldn’t be traversed in any vehicle. And if you approach on foot, you’ll be picked up anywhere within five miles in a matter of minutes. It’s a pretty secure checkpoint—one road in or out of the country.
There’s a low concrete wall running away to the sides, with a large barrier covering the only gap in it that I can see from the car. There’s a guard’s hut to the right, housing three men in military fatigues—all armed. There are two more men either side of the barrier and at least four patrolling the queue of cars on the road.
One of the men signals the car in front to move forward. It does, stopping level with the hut. There’s a guy behind bulletproof glass looking at screens inside. I’m guessing there’s some kind of electronic pad underneath the ground measuring weight, maybe even producing an infra-red scan of the vehicle, I’m not sure.
Another man comes out and approaches the vehicle. The driver’s hand appears through the window, passing over his papers for inspection. I can see a muted conversation—short, no pleasantries. The guard makes a quick lap of the car and hands the papers back. He signals to the men by the barrier and, between them, they manually raise it and usher the car through.
The guard from the hut turns to us and gestures for us to drive forward.
“Play it cool,” murmurs Collins. “Don’t say anything ya don’t have to. We’re two guys on a road trip, no business.”
The guard taps on my window, and another appears and does the same on Collins’ side.
He says something that I don’t understand, and I look at him like a confused tourist. Seeing my reaction, he sighs impatiently.
“English?” he asks.
“American,” I say with a smile.
He rolls his eyes. “Papers.”
I hand them over and look around casually as he checks them. Next to me, Collins is doing the same, but he’s showing off and speaking in Russian.
“What is business in Ukraine?” asks the guard.
“Just on a road trip,” I shrug.
He eyes me wearily, but I don’t think he’s suspicious of anything. I think it’s just professional boredom from his mundane job. He glances back at the hut, at the guy looking at the screens. He gives an almost imperceptible nod, which the guard acknowledges before turning back to me. He then looks over the car at the guy on Collins’ side. They start talking in Russian.
“What’s going on?” I whisper to Collins, a little worried now.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he replies. “Something about the car.”
My door opens, taking me by surprise, and the guard leans in. “American—out of the car, now.”
There’s a non-confrontational urgency in his voice, and I comply without resistance. Collins does the same.
“Turn and lean on the car,” he says to me.
I do, and he starts patting me down. I look across at Collins, who’s going through the same thing. I raise an eyebrow, asking a silent question. He replies with a subtle shrug.
Great.
I happen to look down at the ground as the guy moves his hands up and down my legs, and I see a large metal sheet in the dirt, directly underneath the car.
Looks like a scale. Thought so—they’ll measure the weight of the car and passengers. Standard security I suppose, nowadays.
I frown.
I wonder if they’ve weighed the car and thought it’s too heavy for just Collins and me? If they search it, they might find my bag… and that would certainly prompt a few more questions. Questions I don’t really want to answer. I look up again at Collins, concern flashing into my eyes. He sees my look and understands, but shakes his head slightly from side to side, as if to say there’s nothing to worry about, and I absolutely shouldn’t kill every guard here.
I’m not panicking. Panic suggests fear, and I’m not afraid of anything—certainly nothing that springs instantly to mind. What I am doing, however, is expressing concern over the possibility of wasting more of my valuable time. I’ve got less than twelve hours before Clara puts a bullet in my girlfriend’s head. I can’t afford to stand here any longer flirting with these Police Academy rejects.
The look in my eyes tells Collins I’m losing patience. He responds with a look that pleads me to ride things out. Against my better judgment, I stand still and let a random Communist continue to feel my legs.
A few more moments pass, and the guard finishes frisking me. He stands and signals to his friend by Collins to join him. They huddle together over by the security hut without a word to us. We both remain where we are, exchanging silent questions. Then my guard walks back over to us.
“Here are your papers,” he says, handing my documents to me. “Enjoy your trip to Ukraine.”
He spins on his heels and steps away to the side, looking at the vehicle behind, waiting to gesture them forward. The other guy hands Collins his papers without a word, and we both
get back in the car.
“Heh… that was tense!” he says as he starts it up and drives slowly toward the barrier.
“I’m not sure those guards realize how close they were to being killed just then,” I say.
The barrier lifts for us and Collins eases through and builds up speed on the other side.
“So this is it,” says Collins. “The home stretch. Ya have any idea what’s waiting for ya in Pripyat?”
I shake my head but say nothing. I honestly don’t know what kind of presence the Armageddon Initiative has in the deserted city, but I know I’ll find out soon enough.
27.
20:46 EEST
I hear a faint ringing noise, and realize my cell is in my bag, still hidden away under the back seat. I reach behind and retrieve it, dragging it back through to the front. I open it, take out the phone, and answer it.
“Yeah?”
“Adrian, it’s me,” says Josh. “Where you up to?”
I look over at Collins. “Where are we?” I ask as I place the phone on speaker.
“We’re about eighteen klicks out from Pripyat, traveling along the P-56,” he announces.
“You’re making good time,” observes Josh. “And… Hi, Collins.”
“Mr. Winters,” he replies professionally.
I raise an eyebrow. “Mr. Winters?” I ask.
Josh is laughing on the line. “Shut your face. Listen, I’ve got someone on the other line who wants to speak to you.”
“Who is it?”
“He’s an FBI agent.”
My spider sense immediately starts to tingle. “How’d he get your number?” I ask. “What have you told him?”
“Relax,” says Josh, recognizing my concern. “Bob put them in touch with me. They reached out to him. Look, I’ll let the guy explain, but I’m inclined to trust him.”
Deadly Intent: An Action Thriller (Adrian Hell Series Book 4) Page 19