True Conviction

by James P. Sumner

  I get out and walk in through the main entrance. I take the elevator up to the fourth floor. The doors ding open and I step out into the waiting area. One of the nurses behind the desk looks up and smiles. I recognize her from when GlobaTech brought me here in the early hours of this morning. I smile back as I walk past the desk and down the corridor toward Clara’s room. The doors with the keypad are standing open, which is helpful, as I don’t have a keycard.

  It’s a little unsecure though…

  I walk through and knock on the door to Clara’s room. There’s no answer, so I open the door slowly and look inside, in case she’s sleeping or getting changed or something.

  The bed’s empty.

  For crying out loud… I wish she’d stop doing that! The woman can’t stay still for more than a couple of minutes, let alone be trusted to seek medical attention when she needs it.

  I walk back out to the waiting area and speak to the nurse who smiled at me.

  “Excuse me,” I say. “Can you tell me where Clara Fox is? She was in Room Five, down the corridor.”

  She checks the computer in front of her for a moment.

  “I can see she discharged herself a couple of hours after she came in,” she says, apologetically. “We cleaned the wound and stitched it back up, then she insisted on leaving almost immediately afterward.”

  I take a deep breath, sighing heavily. “Okay, thanks for your help.”

  I take the elevator back down to the ground floor.

  Where the hell is she now? Why would she have checked herself out? There’s nothing left for her to do. GlobaTech will handle Dark Rain, and Pellaggio was never her problem to start with. Where could she be?

  I step outside and take my phone out, dialing Clark’s number.

  “It’s Adrian,” I say as he answers. “You got a minute?”

  “I don’t know where she is either, if that’s what you’re calling to ask?” he says.

  “How do you know Clara’s not in the hospital?”

  “I came by a couple of hours ago, hoping to run into you, funnily enough. I went to check on her while I was there and the nurse said she’d checked herself out.”

  “Well, with a bit of luck, she’s left town with Jackson’s money, like I told her to.”

  “Ah, I did wonder where his briefcase was. Technically, you should return that to me, y’know?”

  “Sorry. I gave it to Clara not long after taking out Jackson. She was worrying about trying to leave Dark Rain, so I told her to take the money and run. I think she’s resourceful enough to disappear for a while.”

  “How noble of you. Well, I’ll consider it an investment for the future.”

  “How diplomatic of you. What did you want me for, anyway?”

  “I wanted to thank you again for giving up the deeds to the Uranium deposit earlier today. Thanks to you, GlobaTech have strengthened their delicate relationship with the U.S. military. Moving forward, we’ll be working closely with them on a number of projects both domestic and overseas.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  “Did you want me for something?”

  “Yeah, I was going to ask you for a favor but, seeing as though I’ve just helped you secure lots of business and money, it’s probably more like a commission payment.”

  Clark laughs. “Go on, what do you need?”

  I spend a couple of minutes running through a comprehensive list of things I want, as well as details of what I intend to do with them. Under the circumstances, I figure he deserves full disclosure.

  He’s silent for a few moments afterward. Then he says, “Well, you’re officially certifiable. You do realize that, right? I mean, I wouldn’t send an entire unit to do that.”

  “So, can you help me?” I ask.

  “For what it’s worth, yeah, I can get you what you need. I’ll text you an address to go and pick it up. I can get it ready for you in a few hours.”

  “I appreciate that, thank you.”

  “Adrian, are you serious about this?”

  “Completely.”

  “And you think you can pull it off?”

  “No doubt at all.”

  “When all this has blown over, if you ever want a job, you call me, okay? I could use someone as clinically insane as you.”

  “I’ve got a job, but thanks for the offer.”

  I hang up and walk over to the parking lot. It still isn’t very busy, despite there being a few more cars here now compared to when I arrived five minutes ago.

  I see Clara’s Dodge Viper up ahead. It’s maybe twenty-five feet away. Suddenly, the air fills with a deafening roar and the last thing I see is the car disappearing in a ball of smoke and fire.

  14:47

  I open my eyes. I can hear a loud ringing sound and I seem to be lying on the floor, looking up at a large, dark gray cloud of smoke in the sky. There’s a voice in my head telling me not to move, so at least I know I’m alive and my brain’s working.

  My entire body feels hot, like I’m on fire or something…

  What the hell just happened?

  I cautiously try to move my arms, one at a time.

  They hurt, but they’re attached and functioning, which is something.

  I move them, checking the rest of my body instinctively to make sure I’m in one piece… There are no protruding bones, but my chest is wet. I feel around and realize I’m bleeding from my mouth and it’s dripping down my front. I use my tongue to feel around inside, but a blinding white pain surges through my face so I stop.

  This sucks…

  I try to move my legs, one at a time.

  Yup, they work.

  Okay, I’m going to try to stand…

  I put my arms out behind me and bring my knees up to my chest. I take a few deep, painful breaths then try to push myself upright.

  Oh… no—this isn’t going to work!

  I fall slowly and pitifully over on my side—my equilibrium seems to be all over the place. I look around but my vision’s blurry and I can’t focus on anything nearby.

  Great—another concussion…

  I’ll settle for sitting up for now. I resume the position of arms behind me and knees to my chest and start looking around, taking slow, deep breaths to try to calm myself. My bruised ribs and back are hurting again with renewed vigor. I feel sick, too.

  Definitely a concussion.

  What’s that? Two this week, so far?

  For fuck’s sake.

  I look ahead of me, staring for a moment so I can focus. There’s a blazing wreck in the parking lot; what remains of the bodywork is red with patches of white.

  Jesus, the Viper blew up? How?

  In the distance, I can hear lots of commotion: sirens wailing, people screaming and running in all directions. I look, however, and realize all that’s happening all around me.

  I guess I’m quite fortunate, in a way, because I’ve been blown up in a hospital parking lot. At least I don’t have far to travel.

  Shit, who’s that?

  I feel hands on my shoulders. Immediately, I try to fight them off, but as I look down, I realize I’m not thrashing my arms and twisting my body violently to escape their grasp, like I was trying to do. In reality, I’m hardly moving.

  How embarrassing…

  I give up. I let the hands guide me backward so I’m lying on the ground again. A face looms into view above me. I recognize the nurse from the fourth floor who smiled at me. She’s saying something to me, but I can’t really hear her.

  This is all getting a bit much, if I’m honest. I have no idea how the car exploded, or why. I can’t really move, besides sitting upright, which isn’t going to get me anywhere… I might as well get some rest. This nurse looks friendly, so I doubt she’ll try to kill me or anything. I just need a bit of peace and quiet for a moment...

  ??:??

  I open my eyes again and see long, bright lights rushing past above me.

  How long have I been out?

  I try to lift my head and
around. There’s a person either side of me, walking quickly and looking ahead.

  Oh man, my head feels like it’s been split in half.

  The person on my left looks down, clearly noticing me moving. They say something to me that I can’t hear, but they don’t look frightened, angry, or concerned.

  Whatever they’re saying can’t be too bad then...

  I’ll just close my eyes for a moment.

  21:27

  I open my eyes slowly. A heavy mist slowly lifts, revealing my surroundings. I’m lying in bed in what looks like a hospital room. Directly opposite my bed, mounted high on the wall is a clock.

  Christ, I’ve been out well over five hours…

  I blink a few times, urging my brain to start functioning properly again.

  I definitely feel a lot better than I did the last time I was awake.

  I look around the room. There’s a window on my right, overlooking some trees and, I’m guessing, the parking lot—I can see lots of flashing lights reflecting in the window and a thin plume of smoke rising into the night sky. At the bottom of my bed against the far wall is a TV, with the clock above it. Next to that on the left is a man dressed in black with a balaclava on, standing to attention and holding an automatic submachine gun. There’s the door on the left, which is closed, and there’s a metal stand next to my bed with an IV drip hanging on it. I follow the tubing and realize it’s feeding into a nozzle that’s sticking in the back of my left hand. On the table next to my bed is a...

  Hang on.

  Window. TV. Man with gun. Door. IV drip.

  That’s not right.

  I look over at the man in black. I can only see his eyes, which are brown. He relaxes his stance as he sees me looking at him, holding his gun loose—not primed for action. He waves at me.

  What the hell’s in this IV?

  I slowly wave back with my right hand.

  I’m not convinced that this isn’t a hallucination of some sort…

  He walks over to the door and opens it. He sticks his head out to the left and whistles, then holds the door open. After a few moments, Robert Clark enters the room.

  “Hey there, sleeping beauty,” he says.

  I sigh and roll my eyes. That’s something Josh would’ve said.

  “Come over here so I can hit you,” I reply, groggily.

  “How you holdin’ up?”

  “Been better. Let me ask you: is that guy over there with the gun real?”

  Clark looks over his shoulder at the guy standing guard by the door.

  “He’s as real as it gets,” he replies.

  “That’s alright then. Thought I was going strange for a minute.”

  “Adrian, what the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know. I got off the phone with you, walked over to Clara’s car and it exploded. My guess would be that Pellaggio’s got a head start on trying to make me dead.”

  “That was a serious explosion, Adrian. You’re lucky you're alive. I’ve got a couple of guys working on the car now. Or, what’s left of it at least. We’ve managed to keep the local authorities away for now. It’s a shame—that was a sweet ride.”

  “It really was…” I agree, fondly. “Clara’s gonna kill me.”

  “Not if someone else beats her to it... We think the bomb was C4, intended for remote detonation from somewhere nearby. It was underneath the car near the driver’s door. From what we can determine after our preliminary investigation, whoever did this configured the device to detonate via a cell phone transmission. My personal guess is that for some reason, our conversation triggered the explosion early. Your phone must’ve used the same frequency as the device programmed to detonate it.”

  “Well, they do say cell phones will kill you...”

  “Look, if this was Pellaggio, you need to proceed with caution. He clearly has the means to get to you whenever he wants. And he definitely seems intent on killing you. Maybe you should—”

  “Let me stop you right there,” I say, interrupting him. I reach over and take the IV out of my hand, causing a thin trickle of blood to drip down on to the bed sheets. I throw the covers back and swing my legs over the side. I put my feet flat on the floor, tentatively at first, and put my weight on them.

  They seem to be working fine, so I commit fully and push myself off the bed and stand up, turning to face Clark.

  “In the last two days, I’ve been shot at, mildly tortured, shot at again and now blown up. I’ve been thrown through a mirrored wall and I’ve had to see innocent people die horribly because of me.”

  I walk toward him. He looks a little uncomfortable, which is fine by me. He needs to know who he’s talking to. He needs to know what’s going to happen now.

  “Do you know why they call me Adrian Hell?” I ask him.

  “Ah, no… No, I don’t,” he replies, even more uncomfortable now I’m standing almost nose to nose with him. The man in black at the back doesn’t move toward me.

  “I live with a daily struggle to keep all my anger, and hatred, and horrible thoughts behind a locked door in my head. Occasionally, if people push me hard enough, they run the risk of that door opening. And if it does, what they find behind it is their problem to deal with. And God help them. Dark Rain is your problem now. And, frankly, you’re welcome to them. But Pellaggio has just blown my door off its hinges. Literally, as well as figuratively. So now…”

  I pause as I clench my jaw muscles, fighting to keep the burning rage inside of me in check. I can feel a lust for violence coursing through my veins, touching every part of my body and filling it with a dark energy that’s bursting at the seams, desperate to be unleashed.

  “Now,” I continue. “Roberto Pellaggio will know what it’s truly like to feel the wrath of my inner Satan. I’m going to rip his whole world apart. I made him a promise not so long ago, and I aim to come good on that. I appreciate you helping me out, but if you want some free advice, Robert—stay the fuck out of my way.”

  23.

  21:59

  CLARK AND HIS bodyguard quickly left my room. I got dressed and discharged myself from the hospital. The nurses strongly objected, but they weren’t going to stop me. I took some painkillers to help with my ribs and my back and then made my way outside.

  I’m standing in the doorway, looking at the front of the hospital. It’s still a goddamn circus out here. It’s been a little over four hours since the car exploded. They’ve put out the blaze, but there’s a still a fire truck on site. The police are there, along with a forensics team and a bomb disposal unit. They’ve cordoned off the area, but some members of the public are moving around in front of the police tape, trying to see what’s happened. Off to the right of the scene, spilling out onto the street, a crowd of journalists and local media are trying to describe the scene to the curious masses.

  I want to avoid any kind of attention, so I duck away to my right and work my way around the back of the hospital, onto the next street over that runs parallel to the building. I use side streets and alleyways where I can, keeping my exposure to prying eyes down to a minimum.

  My hearing is almost completely back to normal and my tongue has stopped bleeding, although it still hurts to talk. Luckily, the time for talking has long since passed.

  Wars aren’t won with words…

  I have no idea at this stage whether Pellaggio’s aware I’ve survived the blast. Ideally, he’ll think I’m dead. That way, he’ll forget all about me and absolutely won’t expect me to show up on his doorstep, giving me a huge advantage.

  However, I think we all know I’m not that lucky.

  Working on the assumption he knows I’m still alive, I figure I should try to keep a low profile until I’m ready to make my move.

  As we agreed, before I was blown up, Clark has arranged a little care package for me on behalf of my new friends at GlobaTech. He’s texted me the address—the drop point is a storage locker at the main bus terminal. He’s given me the combination to the lock and confirmed it’s access
ible twenty-four hours a day.

  I know what I need to do. I’ll admit, I usually like to take more time to plan an operation—especially one like the one I’ve got planned for Pellaggio—but I can’t afford to wait any longer. I’ve finished trying to do the right thing and play the diplomat between everyone. The door’s open and the Devil inside is hungry for blood…

  I find the bus terminal easily enough and quickly locate the locker. The combination works first time. Inside is a black sports bag. I remove it, putting my shoulder bag in there in its place. I walk over to an empty bench and quickly open it to check everything I need is in there.

  Holy shit… Clark delivered and then some!

  Everything’s there. It’s all high-end equipment—perfect for what I’m going to do next…

  I zip the bag back up and walk out of the bus terminal, carrying it by my side as I keep to the alleys and the side streets like before. I instinctively touch my Berettas at my back. I’m glad I didn’t leave them in the car, and I’m very fortunate the nurses kept them with my belongings. I suspect that particular hospital benefits from some extra funding, courtesy of GlobaTech. They all seem perfectly comfortable with the comings and goings of guns and bullet wounds.

  My phone starts vibrating in my pocket. I take it out and see Josh’s name on the screen. I’m not in the mood for talking, but I should probably answer it.

  “Yeah?” I say.

  “Whoa, you alright big fella?” asks Josh, immediately picking up on my tone.

  “Aside from being blown up by a car bomb, I’m peachy.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Clara’s Dodge Viper was blown to shit in the hospital parking lot as I approached it. I think Pellaggio’s started his campaign to kill me. Dunno if he knows he failed or not.”

  “Jesus! You alright?”

  “I’ve got a helluva headache and my ribs and back have taken another pounding, but I’m fine. I was blown clear by the blast. Any closer and I’d have been evaporated.”

  “This has gotta be one of the shittiest weeks ever! Listen, have you spoken to Clara yet?”