The corridor behind us is a dead end. We’re standing level with the door to my room, which is slightly ajar. I shuffle to my right and fall in line with Chambers, who’s still aiming her gun at the three guys. They stop a few feet in front of us. We’re at a standoff.
The old guy steps to the front and points his finger at me.
“I told you, you fucking dead man!” he yells.
“What have I ever done to you?” I ask.
“You beat up two of my guys,” he says. “You disrespect the Red Dragon!”
Chambers looks at me. She seems concerned. “You did what?” she whispers.
“It’s nothing,” I say, trying to reassure her. “Two assholes tried to mug me last night and I put them down, that’s all.”
“You broke my guy’s nose!” yells the old man. “You put them both in hospital! You disrespect the Red Dragon. You die!”
“Will you quit going on about that? What the fuck’s the Red Dragon?” I ask, getting frustrated.
“It’s the gang that runs Chinatown,” says Chambers with a heavy sigh.
“Oh…” I turn to look at her.
“They’re extremely violent,” she continues, “and the local PD kind of have an understanding with them that they keep their own house in order and stop any disputes spilling onto the streets, and they leave them be.”
“I see…” I say, nodding.
“And it would appear you’ve just started a war with them single-handedly.”
I smile. “Whoops…”
Chambers doesn’t look happy.
“I didn’t even do anything,” I say, protesting. “They started it, completely unprovoked.”
“That doesn’t matter so much to them,” she explains, angrily. “It’s about respect.”
The old man steps closer to us and looks at me.
“FBI bitch is right,” he says smiling as he turns to her. “Now drop your weapon. If you lucky, we might just shoot you,” he says.
“Hey, Mr. Miyagi—watch how you’re speaking to her, alright?” I say.
The two guys with guns behind him are looking restless, like they really want to start shooting at someone. I need to take them out.
The old guy keeps smiling but doesn’t respond. He looks back at Chambers.
“Put… your gun… down…” he says again.
He’s within arm’s length of me and his men are maybe three feet behind him. He’s short and looks like he doesn’t weigh all that much. I’m far from a hundred percent, but I reckon I’ve got enough in me to take these guys out before it’s too late. Bottom line, if they’re Triad, they’re likely to take the both of us hostage—torture me and do God knows what to Chambers… neither of which I care to think about.
“Do as he says,” I say to her. “Trust me.”
“Adrian, I’m a federal agent…” she begins, but I shake my head.
“It doesn’t matter, do as he says. It’ll be fine.”
She sighs and gives me a frustrated look before crouching down and placing her gun on the floor. Just as I’d expected, all three of them watch her do it. With legs like hers, they’d have to be blind not to watch her.
Her gun makes contact with the floor.
I step forward, quickly grabbing the old man by his throat and launching him, with all my strength into the guy on the left behind him. I was right—he is pretty light, and he crashes into his man, sending them both sprawling to the floor.
Without hesitating, I quickly close in on the remaining guy, grabbing his right wrist with my left hand and pointing it to the floor, controlling his weapon. I swing my right hand round and connect with the side of his head. I’m nowhere near full strength and he takes the blow and replies with one of his own, slicing his left hand across my face, causing me to lose my balance. I let go of his hand and I see out of the corner of my eye that he’s raising his gun toward me. I bring my left forearm across, knocking his aim off to my left. I jab him with my right, hitting him hard in the face.
He takes a step back, slightly dazed. I move in and, without breaking stride, slam my right foot into his left kneecap, pushing through, and breaking his leg in half. He goes down screaming, dropping his gun.
“Adrian!”
I look round to see Chambers fighting off the old man. She takes a decent punch and gives him the same back...
She can handle herself; I’ll give her that.
The remaining gunman is getting to his feet, so I walk over to him and slam his head into the wall as he stands. It leaves a dent in, what I’m guessing is, thin plaster. He collapses to the floor and I retrieve his gun, turning and aiming it at the old guy.
“Hey!” I shout.
He turns and freezes. Chambers steps to the side, picking her gun up and aiming it at him.
“Okay, listen up,” I say.
He ignores me, more concerned with Chambers. I don’t know whether that’s because she’s an attractive woman or because she’s an FBI agent with a gun on him.
“Hey, don’t look at her—look at me,” I say.
He turns to me, glancing at the gun in my hand.
“Now pay attention. I meant no disrespect to your organization, alright? I was simply defending myself against those two pricks that came at me. I have no idea who you are, and you really don’t want to know who I am. So let’s just chalk this up to experience and move on.”
The old guy looks at Chambers, then at me.
He shakes his head.
“You… fucking… dead man!” he says, slowly and deliberately. And a little condescendingly, I think.
I sigh. “Fine, let’s try this a different way,” I say, gesturing to his men. “Look at these two pricks, all broken and beaten on the floor… now, go and run back to your boss and tell them this is what happens when people come after me. Consider it a warning.”
He looks at me blankly, like he can’t comprehend why anyone would think it’s okay to talk to him like that.
“Go on,” I continue. “Off you fuck.”
I step aside and motion him past me. Reluctantly, he walks off. I watch him go through the waiting room and over to the elevators. He presses the button and steps inside without looking back.
I turn to Chambers. “You okay?” I ask.
She holsters her gun. “You’re an idiot,” she says, walking past me to greet the security guards who are approaching. She produces her badge and starts explaining what’s just happened.
And here’s me thinking I handled that rather well…
So I have a Triad gang who run Chinatown called the Red Dragon gunning for me now… well, they can get in line. My priority is The Shark. And if I’m going to get the FBI on my side, I need to be honest with them.
I look at Chambers, taking control of the situation with ease.
I sigh.
This is going to need a beer.
9.
22:23
IT DIDN’T TAKE long for Chambers to explain what had happened. Content to leave it in the hands of hospital security and local PD, we made our way downstairs and out of the hospital.
We’re standing outside the main entrance. The temperature’s dropped and there’s a chilly breeze. She’d spoken to Wallis and Johnson, and they were on their way to pick us up. I’d promised her the truth and I made her promise me I could have a beer while I tell it to her.
A few minutes pass with a somewhat awkward silence before the car pulls up in front of us. We climb in the back and Johnson, who’s driving, sets off again. We travel in silence for about five minutes before coming to a stop outside a bar. We get out, and I stand looking at the place. It looks very run down, with a faded green theme to it. The three agents walk in like they’re going home, so I’m guessing they come here a lot.
I follow them inside and stand in the doorway, looking across the bar. The interior keeps with the green from outside and has an old-fashioned Irish theme to it. It’s more long than it is wide, with the bar talking up most of the right hand side. It’s reasonably
busy, but not packed. There are no empty tables, and each one is occupied by a group no larger than three. A few singles are propping up the bar on worn stools. There are neon blue signs dotted around the walls.
A few of the patrons glance over with a look of vague recognition at my companions. I eye each of them for a moment.
All cops.
They’ve brought me to a goddamn cop bar…
Well, this makes me feel much more comfortable about spilling my guts to these people!
We order our drinks at the bar. The barman’s slightly overweight and losing his hair on top. I’m guessing he’s been here half his life—probably owns the place and knows all the local cops and G-men.
We take our drinks and sit in a booth at the back of the room. Wallis is next to me, against the wall. Johnson’s opposite him with Chambers adjacent, facing me.
I’m nursing my two fingers of single malt. My mind is racing, trying to figure out what I can and can’t say. I need to give them enough that they’ll agree to work with me, but not too much that they’ll place me under arrest on the spot.
What would Josh do?
I smile to myself. I think he’d be pleased that he’s had such a positive impact on me. Not that I’ll ever admit that to him.
“So,” begins Chambers, talking to the table as a whole. “Where are we?”
There’s silence for a minute. I look at Wallis and Johnson, who look like they’re trying to decide what information’s worth sharing.
“We’re still getting details through from the forensic teams working the scene,” says Wallis, finally. “We know the bomb under the school bus was a decoy.”
“Clearly he wanted something authentic to get us there,” chimes in Johnson.
“Exactly. They’ve found traces of C4 on the SWAT truck. It was remotely detonated, probably using a cellular signal. God knows how he got close enough to plant it. Nothing yet from the chopper. It was a local media station covering the scene.”
“He had the whole thing planned meticulously...” says Chambers. “He knew which vehicles to rig, and clearly had line of sight, as he knew exactly when to detonate.”
“What about the bullets?” I ask.
It goes quiet again, with both agents exchanging glances.
“Nothing’s come back yet from the ballistic tests we’re running on the bullets they removed from your friend,” says Johnson regretfully. “Once we know what the bullets are, we can work backward and find the rifle, then hopefully where it came from and who bought it.”
I sip my whiskey, feeling the comforting tangy burn slide down my throat.
“Well,” I say. “There’s no way he was within eight hundred meters of the Academy, which rules out anything smaller than a .300 caliber bullet. Which, in turn, narrows down the list of possible rifles. He’d also have needed to be close enough to get a decent view of what was going on, so I’d put him within twelve hundred meters, which narrows things down even further. I heard the gunshots, and there was enough of a delay between them that they had to have come from a bolt-action rifle, which means he was probably using a Remington XM2010. It fires .300 caliber Winchester Magnum rounds. The weapon basically replaced the old M24, and is currently the weapon of choice for the U.S. Army. It wouldn’t be too hard to get your hands on one, if you knew where to look.”
Everyone exchanges wide-eyed glances with each other before looking back at me.
“What?” I shrug. “I know things…”
“You clearly know quite a bit,” remarks Chambers, still unimpressed. “You’ve admitted you know who’s behind all this, so spill. Help us, Adrian.”
I sigh.
What am I meant to say?
I sit in silence for a few moments, weighing up the best approach. Judging what their reaction would be to every level of detail I choose to divulge.
I’m going to have to go for full disclosure. I reckon I’ve done too much to help them already that they’ll at least postpone any pursuit of an arrest. If I don’t tell them everything, I can’t see any way of them giving me the freedom or the help I need to go after The Shark. They have to know everything.
“This whole thing stems from Heaven’s Valley, twelve months ago,” I say, finally.
“You figured that from when you and Josh worked out the clues from the first two attacks,” replies Chambers.
I take a deep breath. “Tell me what you know about what happened in Nevada.”
“It was a military operation,” she says, shrugging. “So all us lowly government employees officially know is what was on the news at the time: an extremist group called Dark Rain were operating out of an old military base in the Nevada desert. The compound was ultimately blown up, taking their operation with it.”
“Okay. What about unofficially?”
“Unofficially, your name was all over whatever happened there. No one really knows why you were there, but everyone suspects what your involvement entailed. Hence why you’re on everyone’s watch list.”
“You have to understand that I’m telling you what I know because I genuinely want this whole thing to end, and I don’t want any more innocent people getting hurt. Think of me what you will, but I’m not a bad guy and I’m not a monster.”
“You wanna know what I think?” asks Chambers. “I think you have a good heart, but have made some seriously bad career choices.”
“Like the old saying: the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” I say with a tired smile. “But by telling you what I know and why it’s happening, I’ll be giving you details of situations that may cause you to re-think my involvement in all this, and I don’t want that. I have to help and I have to be the one to stop him.”
Wallis eventually breaks the silence.
“Look, I might be way out of line here, but if it wasn’t for you, we’d have forty-three dead kids on top of everything else. Regardless of the fact this guy is doing this specifically to get at you, you’re as much in the line of fire as we are. And you’ve suffered casualties like the rest of us. All due respect,” he turns briefly to Chambers before looking back at me, “I don’t care what you may or may not have done in the past. Right now, I only care about what you’ve done here, and as far as I’m concerned, you’ve proven yourself an asset.”
He turns to Johnson and Chambers in turn.
“Am I right?”
They both shrug and nod; I notice Johnson seems more reluctant to agree than Chambers does.
“I appreciate that, Wallis. Thanks. And I’ll be sure to remind you of this moment when all this is over and you try to arrest me.”
He smiles, but says nothing, which makes me think that prediction might not be too far wrong.
“Okay,” I begin with a heavy sigh. “The Shark’s real name is Danny Pellaggio, and he’s doing this because twelve months ago I killed his entire family.”
Silence.
Wow… you could hear a pin drop at our table right now and I’m very aware I’m sitting with three FBI agents in a bar full of cops. I’ve just admitted to killing someone. Well, lots of people, actually. You could argue this isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but I’ve got no choice.
“I promise I’ll come along quietly if you want to stop this here and now,” I add, trying to ease the tension.
Wallis and Johnson say nothing, but look at Chambers for guidance on how they should react.
“Start from the beginning,” says Chambers, finally. She seems to be going through an internal struggle, trying to ignore the confession and focus on solving the more pressing issues. “Leave nothing out.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m quiet and slightly vague, given you’ve brought me to a bar full of police,” I say, not trying to hide my sarcasm and overall displeasure at the current situation. Chambers nods, understandingly.
“Heaven’s Valley didn’t start out being about Dark Rain. I went there because a mob boss named Roberto Pellaggio had hired me to...” I pause, choosing my words carefully. “...remove a
former business associate from a property deal. It turns out, this former associate was going to sell him some land as an under-the-table transaction, but didn’t realize that some people he worked with at GlobaTech Industries also had plans to sell the land to Dark Rain.”
“Jesus,” says Johnson. “Aren’t GlobaTech one of the biggest defense contractors in the country?”
“They certainly are,” I reply. “Luckily I now count them as friends. Anyway, I removed the associate from the picture, but I couldn’t hand the deeds for the land over to Pellaggio. He was pissed at me and we had a... disagreement, but it was left with me advising him to leave me alone.”
“Which I’m assuming he didn’t do?” asks Wallis.
“I’ll get to that part. Anyway, it turns out GlobaTech as a whole wasn’t aware of this deal with Dark Rain, and they soon had an internal reshuffle and the deal was dead in the water. However, the reason I opted not to give the deeds to Pellaggio was that the land was actually a Uranium mine… which obviously opened up a whole new can of worms.”
“What a minute,” interrupts Chambers, confused and shocked. “Uranium? In the United States?”
“Yup. Long story short, the land and the mine are now property of the U.S. government, following a brief conversation with the Secretary of Defense.”
“Jesus Christ!” says Johnson, a little too loudly.
“Oh, it gets better,” I say, somewhat wearily as I realize I’ve just technically committed treason by telling them this. “Both Dark Rain and Pellaggio’s mafia outfit then started taking it in turns to try to kill me. I got blown up by a car bomb that I thought Pellaggio's men had planted. It turns out he’d not even started trying to take me out—it was Dark Rain. But given how pissed off I was, I went to his house and... explained my unhappiness in short, loud, lethal movements to Pellaggio and the small army he had as protection.”
“Wait, I remember that,” says Wallis. “The Mansion Massacre, right? They said that was a professional mob killing. That was you?”
I nod.
Hunter's Games Page 8
