“Whatever,” I say, choosing to remain skeptical following recent events. “Put him on.”
The line falls silent for a moment, and then another voice speaks. “Adrian?”
I frown. I know that voice. I scratch my head trying to remember where from.
“Adrian, it’s Special Agent Tom Wallis, FBI.”
There it is!
“Tom?” I say, unable to hide the surprise in my voice. “Jesus! How are you doing? It’s been a long time.”
Close to three years, to be exact. I worked with Agent Wallis when I agreed to help the FBI, back in San Francisco, when I had that thing with Danny Pellaggio. My God, that was a lifetime ago…
“I’m good, considering. You’re a hard man to get hold of.”
“I know... What can I do for you?”
“I’ll cut straight to it,” he says. “A couple of local agents came to see you over a week ago about the murder of three men who were found in a car near where you live in Texas.”
It was more of a statement than a question, but I felt obliged to confirm it all the same. “That’s right,” I say.
“Adrian, I’m now working on a Counter-Terrorism taskforce for the FBI. As part of my job, I have to liaise with other agencies regarding any issue pertaining to suspected terrorist activity. As I’m sure you can understand, I’ve been hearing your name a lot recently.”
I shrug. “Is there such a thing as bad publicity?”
He chuckles for a moment then falls silent. “Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asks.
“Not really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You mind if I ask why?”
“No, I don’t mind. Me and you go back a little ways, Tom, and I’ll admit I think you’re a good guy. At least you were when I knew you. But in the current climate, I hope you won’t take offense if I tell you that I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”
“No offense taken,” he says. “In fact, that’s exactly the reaction I was hoping for. I’d be worried if you trusted me, given what I know.”
I shift in my seat. “You have my attention…” I say.
“Josh, are you still on the line?” asks Wallis.
“Yeah,” he replies.
“Okay. So, Adrian’s currently sitting atop the CIA’s most wanted list, and GlobaTech are the only focus of the NSA right now… anybody wanna tell me why?”
“I would if I knew,” I say. “A lot of things don’t make much sense at the moment, if I’m honest.”
“I’m gonna level with you,” says Wallis. “I’ve got a pretty good idea what you and GlobaTech have been doing. While it’s not a matter a private military contractor has any jurisdiction over, or any right whatsoever to be involved in, that’s not to say we’re not glad of the help. In fact, on behalf of a government agency who is essentially trying to do the same thing, I want to thank you for your efforts so far.”
“You’re welcome,” says Josh. “Just a shame no one else seems to be so grateful.”
“And why is that, do you think?”
“No idea,” I say. “But it’s getting real old, real fast. I’m involved in this whether I like it or not. It just so happens that GlobaTech has had an eye on things for a while, so I decided to help them out where I can.”
“I wanted to get in touch with you to propose the same thing.”
“What, you want my help?”
“I’d like to compare notes, yeah.”
“Remember when I said I didn’t trust you?”
“Yeah…”
“I still don’t. Everyone else is trying to kill me, what makes you think I’ll believe you aren’t as well?”
“They’re not trying to kill you, Adrian. They’re just trying to stop you from interfering in an inter-agency investigation.”
I glance at Collins, who is driving quietly and now looking a little confused.
“Is that what they told you? I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure they’re trying to kill me, Tom. In fact, scratch that—I am an expert, remember? My first clue was the special ops team that the CIA sent to hijack and blow up my plane…”
Wallis says nothing.
“Then there was the twenty-man NSA squad, all armed to the teeth, who stormed a GlobaTech safe house and opened fire on me without any provocation,” I continue.
Still nothing.
“Tom, if they want me to stop, they just need to ask. I’ll gladly step away from all this if they’re willing to take over. But I don’t think they are. I think, for whatever reason, myself and GlobaTech are being set up. Whether the acronyms are being fed bullshit information, or whether they’re running the show themselves—I dunno. But what I do know is that it’s me against them, whether I like it or not. And I’m sure you can’t blame me for assuming your acronym isn’t any different.”
I hear Wallis sigh heavily on the line. “Just out of interest,” he asks after a moment. “What happened to all these men that were sent to kill you?”
I massage my forehead as I stare out of the window at the desolate landscape passing by, remembering everything I’ve been through recently.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t wanna know the answers to, Tom.”
He sighs again. “Shit. Okay… I’ve made contact and asked for your help, so my job’s done. After everything me and you went through back in ’Frisco, I hope you can see past whatever’s going on here and trust me long enough to accept my help. I’m not asking you to trust the FBI. I’m asking you to trust me. Josh has my number if you change your mind.”
He hangs up, leaving Josh and myself on the line.
“What do you think?” he asks me.
“I think I’m about twenty minutes from Pripyat and need to focus on getting Tori back. You?”
“I think we should trust him. He stuck by you back in the day, despite everything they knew about you. Forget who he works for, for a moment. I don’t think he’d have made contact with you to set you up.”
I shrug. “Fair point. Okay, you have my blessing to call him back and give him as much or as little information as you see fit. If it helps us, or them, then that’s a good thing.”
“Agreed. Listen, keep your earpiece in and the line open. I’m watching you via satellite, and I’m here if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
“Watch your back, don’t do anything un-necessarily stupid, and get your girl back, okay?”
“Fuckin’ A.”
He hangs up, and I look at Collins. “What do you think?” I ask him. “Should we trust the FBI?”
He glances at me briefly, maintaining focus on the road ahead. “Man, I don’t trust anybody.”
“Good answer. How far out are we?”
“As you say, it’s a little over quarter of an hour before we reach the city limits. I’ve got a face mask you can use in the trunk. It covers your nose and mouth. It’ll give you that extra bit of protection against the low-level radiation, just while you’re finding your way around.”
“Thanks, Collins. You’re a good man.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “I’m many things, Adrian, but I’m not a good man.”
“Well, you’re helpful at the very least. Sure you won’t join me? There’ll be lots of terrorist types to kill… it’ll be fun.”
“Ya really are fuckin’ crazy, aren’t ya?”
“Insanity is very much a matter of opinion,” I say casually. “I’d say I was… driven.”
He laughs. “Wait ’til I tell the boys about this one… No, as soon as your ass is outta my car, I’m heading back over the border. I’ve got a job to do.”
“Understood.”
We cover the rest of the journey in silence. I try to steel my mind, focus on the task at hand, and forget about the million things that could go wrong. I’ve got my Berettas, which are all I need. I’m trying hard not to keep thinking about Clara Fox, too. I’d buried Adrian Hell, along with his demons, and his shit list, when I left Pittsburgh. T
hanks to her, they’ve all been dug up, and I’ve made a conscious effort not to let them take control of me again. But as I look out the window and see the haunting skyline of the abandoned city of Pripyat, I can’t help but think I could probably do with a little controlling right now…
We enter the city limits and blast through the empty streets. It’s a very strange feeling, driving through a completely deserted city that used to be home to nearly fifty thousand people. When Chernobyl happened, back in ‘86, the entire city was evacuated within a couple of days. Radiation levels have dropped way below fatal in the thirty-one years since then, but it’s still uninhabitable long-term.
“Slow down a bit,” I say to Collins. “Stick to a speed limit or something. We don’t want to attract any attention.”
“Okay,” he replies, slowing to a steady cruise at forty.
I look around, seeing the decaying buildings, the occasional abandoned car, and broken windows in storefronts along each side of the street.
“Welcome to Terroristville…” I mutter quietly.
“Ya think they’ve got eyes all over the city?” asks Collins.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, but I doubt it. Not practical or necessary. They’ll have set up a perimeter around their underground lab, but that’ll be it. The place is a ghost town—they’ll see or hear people coming from miles away.”
Almost subconsciously, he slows to thirty as we take a left, passing by a school on the right hand side. I reach in my bag and retrieve my earpiece. I sync it with my phone and put it on, dialing Josh.
“We’re here,” I say as he answers.
“I’ve got you,” replies Josh. “Tell Collins to take the next right and pull up.”
I do, and he does.
“The underground facility is a couple of klicks east of your location,” he says. “You’re better off on foot from here.”
“Copy that,” I say, grabbing my bag and getting out of the car. Collins follows suit.
“End of the road,” I say to him as we stand side by side at the trunk. I extend my hand. “Thanks for the ride.”
He shakes it. “It was an honor,” he says. He pops the trunk and gestures inside. “A parting gift.”
He leans in and lifts up the floor, revealing another hidden compartment underneath. He takes out the mask he told me about and hands it to me. It’s a wraparound that covers the bottom half of the head. It’s black and elasticized, with hard plastic at the front to cover the nose and mouth. On the front of it is the bottom half of a skull, crudely painted on. I look at it for a moment and smile, feeling my Inner Satan stretching and cracking his knuckles, like a beast awakening from his hibernation.
“This is cool as fuck,” I say to him. “Thanks.”
He smiles. “Thought ya might like it. There’s this, too.”
He hands me a body harness, designed for tactical operatives to carry their weapons and tech in the lightest, most maneuverable way possible. I rest my bag at my feet, and then put my arms through it, fastening the clasps down my side. The front and back has holsters and pockets for a variety of different things. The straps are a thin, flexible carbon fiber, running vertical over each shoulder and down to another strap that fits around the waist. There are two more diagonally across the front and one horizontally across the back. After some minor readjusting for comfort, I stretch and quickly get accustomed to it.
“You’ll need this to go at your back,” he continues, handing me a pump-action Ithaca shotgun. I take it in my right hand, feeling the weight. It’s an impressive weapon. Good for crowd control and close quarters combat.
I suspect I’m about to see quite a lot of that…
“Jesus… this is like Christmas,” I say. “Thanks, Collins. If I get out of here alive, I definitely owe you one.”
He smiles. “I’ll hold you to that. Good luck.”
He turns and gets back in the car, reversing down the street, and then turning back the way we came. I watch him go for a moment, then re-focus. I take my holster out of the shoulder bag and strap it to my back. I slide both Berettas in place, storing every spare mag I have in the various compartments of my harness. I slide the Ithaca over my shoulder and down my back, slotting it in place. Finally, I take the remaining proximity mine from my shoulder bag and clip it to my hip. I then throw the empty bag to the side of the street and take a deep breath, before sliding the half mask over my head, adjusting the front so it fits comfortably over my nose and mouth.
“You totally think you’re Rambo right now, don’t you?” says Josh in my ear.
“I feel like him,” I say.
“You look like him!”
“How do you know? Your satellite feed isn’t that good, is it?”
“GlobaTech’s is close to it, but I’m in the Winnebago and my shit’s better. It’s a Hi-Def, grayscale, real-time feed of your exact location. Look up and wave, honeybunch!”
I frown for a moment, and then gaze upward to the sky, flipping my middle finger at the clouds.
“Asshole.”
“Love you too, man.”
“So where am I heading?”
“At the end of the street, take a left, then a right. You should see a hospital in front of you.”
“Copy that.”
I set off in a light jog, taking the directions Josh is relaying to me on comms.
“I see the hospital,” I confirm after a couple of minutes.
“Good. On the other side of that building, half a klick northeast, is a medical research facility. That’s where the underground lab is.”
“What’s the best approach? I must admit, I’m feeling skeptical about just walking up to the front door and knocking…”
“That’s not like you,” says Josh. “You’re normally about as subtle as a—”
I turn right with the hospital in front of me, seeing a parking garage next to it. It has three levels—one ground and two up. I stop for a moment, staring across the street at the structure.
“Tank?”
“Yeah… that’s you alright.”
“No, Josh… I can see a tank.”
“Are you sure?”
I frown with slight frustration. “What kind of a question is that? Of course I’m fucking sure… it’s a tank!”
There’s silence on the line for a moment. “Where is it?” he asks.
“It’s inside a parking garage on the ground floor,” I reply.
“Hmmm…”
“What?”
“Oh, shit!”
“What, Josh?”
“I just completed a sweep of the area and came back with nothing—no signs of life anywhere. Then I thought, they know you’re coming, so they can probably hazard a guess as to the kind of support you have. They would’ve parked the tank under the cover of the garage to remain out of sight from any satellites or drones.”
I step back around the corner and drop to a crouch. “Well, that’s just cheating…” I say. “Any signs of life nearby?”
“I couldn’t see anything initially, but then I did a second sweep looking at buildings and structures nearby.”
“And?”
“And… there are four bus shelters near the entrance to the facility. Except they aren’t bus shelters—they’re just made to look like they are, so someone like me wouldn’t think twice when they see them looking down from a satellite feed.”
“So, what are they?”
“My guess is they’re makeshift tents or covered guard posts. They’re about twenty feet long, maybe six feet wide. You could easily stand five guys under each one side by side and be hidden from view. There’s no way you’re getting inside that facility through the front door, Adrian. They’re too well prepared for you coming. This is really bad.”
“No shit, Einstein.”
“Sherlock.”
“What?”
“The saying is: no shit, Sherlock.”
I sigh. “You can be a real pedantic sonofabitch when you want to be, you know that?”
&nb
sp; “Yup!”
I take a moment to think. I don’t have eyes on any patrols or sentries, so I’m happy that as things stand, they don’t yet know I’m here.
“Any other way into the facility?” I ask.
“Not unless you can find a way to the roof without being seen,” he replies.
“Shit.”
I instinctively look around, second-guessing myself and thinking I’m surrounded and just haven’t noticed. My gaze rests on the tank. It’s a state-of-the-art combat vehicle, green and black. It’s only been in circulation twelve months. The sides, and back, consist of several thick, angular, metal plates that are welded to the basic frame, providing unrivaled protection on three sides. It’s concerning that a relatively new and unknown terrorist network is able to get its hands on tech like this.
From my current position, I can’t see the head and long barrel of the attached cannon, but I’m pretty sure I know which model it is, so I know what the gun will look like. There’ll be a hatch on the top with two men inside.
After a few moments, I’ve pretty much figured out how I’m going to get Tori back.
“Josh, I take it you already have schematics of this place?”
“Of course!” he scoffs, as if the notion he hadn’t already thought of that was borderline insulting.
“Good. Work on finding the quickest way inside the facility and to the underground labs.”
“And what are you gonna be doing?” he asks.
I look across at the tank and smile. “I’m gonna go work on my subtlety.”
28.
21:04 EEST
Keeping low, I dash over to the garage, approaching the tank from behind. It’s a Goliath-class assault vehicle, which I know uses a system of cameras to offer the two-man crew inside something close to a three-sixty view of the surrounding area. Pretty hard to sneak up on someone that basically has eyes in the back and sides of their head. But, if I can get close enough without anyone seeing me, I can rush the tank before they have a chance to react. It’s a big and powerful machine, but it’s slow and currently in a confined space, so that’s advantage me, in terms of maneuverability.
Careful not to get too close to the parking garage, I cross the street and plant my back against the wall of the building next to it, in a small alcove. I lean against the side and slowly edge forward, just enough to glimpse up and down the street.
Deadly Intent: An Action Thriller (Adrian Hell Series Book 4) Page 20