Deadly Intent: An Action Thriller (Adrian Hell Series Book 4) (10 page)

I hope there’s something useful on this laptop. As it stands, we’re still none the wiser as to who this Armageddon Initiative really is; what they want, or who’s working with them. We need a victory and fast, as, after today, they know I’m on their trail.

I can’t help but think about Tori, back home in Texas… I need to stop these assholes before they get the urge to retaliate.

14.

12:09 EDT

I arrived at the secondary safe house about fifteen minutes ago. I ditched the car a couple of blocks away and approached on foot—taking an indirect route to make sure no one followed me.

Once inside, I handed the laptop I’d taken over to Clark, and he’d set about hacking into it. I’m standing behind him, watching him work.

“Do you mind?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder.

“Sorry,” I say, realizing I’m probably putting him off. “I always used to watch Josh do this kind of thing, because he’d talk me through it as he went along…”

I trail off, seeing the look on his face. Thinking about it, I’ve compared him to Josh a lot in the last few hours, and he’s probably pissed at me. I hold my hands up in apology and step away, pacing aimlessly around the room.

The safe house is an apartment in a run-down tenement block in Brooklyn. The neighborhood isn’t the best advertisement for living in New York, purely based on the aesthetics—graffiti riddles a lot of the apartment buildings, and they look abandoned. And the people walking the streets all look like they’re affiliated with a local gang. You can’t deny it’s a great location for a safe house, but I have to smile at the irony, as the place itself looks anything but safe.

The apartment is on the third floor of the building, and is a simple three-room place. The main living room is spacious—mostly due to the fact it’s got very little furniture in it—with a kitchenette built into one side of it. There’s a table against the opposite wall with two chairs tucked under it. Clark’s currently sitting in one of them, working away on the laptop.

But that’s it, really. The carpet’s worn and discolored. There’s no TV, and only a battered sofa against the far wall, facing the door. There’s also a faint stale odor in every room, a smell of damp and neglect.

On either side, as you enter the apartment, is another door. On the left, it takes you to a small, barely-practical bathroom, complete with stained tiles, a toilet that’s not seen a cleaning agent in decades, and a shower stall that Norman Bates would’ve been ashamed of. Opposite, on the right, is the bedroom. There’s a single bed, unmade, in the center of the room, but otherwise it’s empty.

“Anyway, are you alright?” asks Clark after a few minutes of slightly awkward silence.

I shrug. “I’m fine. I’ve been in far worse situations than that.”

He nods to signify he’s listening, but doesn’t look up from the screen. “You don’t need to tell me,” he says, sounding distracted. “Anything more come to mind about who was there meeting with Hussein?”

I must admit, that’s had my spider sense going haywire. Yalafi Hussein is your typical terrorist, by all accounts. He has a superior; he has armed men from all over the world—though from what I’ve seen so far, they seem to predominantly come from Middle Eastern countries. The powers that be seem to be as aware of him as I am, but no one in the intelligence community seems to have any idea what this Armageddon Initiative is actually planning.

Which is what’s baffling me… Especially with all the funding these people have nowadays, how can no one have any solid intel whatsoever on a terrorist organization seemingly as large as these guys?

And, in addition to that, for him to be meeting someone who is almost certainly American, dressed in military garb, and surrounded by American-looking, military-trained men in suits, with earpieces…
and
on American soil… something isn’t right.

“There’s something seriously wrong with all of this,” I reply. “I only got a quick look at the guy, and he wasn’t immediately familiar to me or anything. But I’m pretty sure he was a four-star general, and the men he brought to the meeting all looked suspiciously like government agents.”

Clark finally looks up from the laptop, concerned and surprised. “Are you sure?”

I nod. “No other explanation I can see as to who the muscle was. And as for him, he was definitely a high-ranking U.S. military official. Either that, or he was really committed to his fancy dress outfit.”

He looks back at the laptop, shaking his head slightly. “Christ… this just keeps getting better,” he mutters.

I continue to pace around the room for a moment, feeling restless.

“I’m just gonna check in with Josh,” I say. I take out my phone and dial his number.

He answers on the second ring. “How’s it going, Boss?” he says, chuckling. I’ve missed his British accent and constant, unwarranted happiness.

“It’s like you never left…” I laugh. “Just checking in.”

“You get Hussein?”

“No, the whole thing was a train wreck,” I say. “Too heavily defended. All I managed to do was steal his laptop as I jumped out the window.”

“You jumped out the… wait, never mind—of
course
you jumped out the window… So, what’s on the laptop?”

“Don’t know yet. Clark’s working on it as we speak.”

“Be patient with him, Adrian. He’s not me, but he’s a good man.”

I glance over at him and smile to myself. “I know.”

“So, what about the meeting? Who was there with Hussein?”

“That’s what’s bothering me the most. I was just saying to Bob, I didn’t recognize the guy, but he was a four-star general, Josh. U.S. military. And he was protected by some very well trained guys. I don’t know if they were secret service or something, but they were definitely G-men.”

“Holy shit…”

“Indeed.”

“Adrian, this is getting worse by the minute.”

“Tell me about it. Where are you, anyway?”

“Me and Schultz flew back to HQ in California after we dropped you off at the jet. Just scanning through our intel, planning the next move.”

Clark abruptly stands at his desk, pushing the chair backward and knocking it over.

“Fuck me…” he says in a disbelieving whisper.

“Josh, hang on a sec, I think we might have something,” I say, before holding the phone against my chest and looking over. “Bob, what is it?” I walk over and look at the screen.

“I’ve got in and decrypted the information Hussein had,” he explains. “A lot of it is useful, but not groundbreaking—financials, locations of safe houses and the like. But then I find this…”

He leans forward, tapping a few keys and bringing up something that looks like a blueprint of some kind.

I shake my head and shrug. “Looks impressive, but means nothing to me,” I say.

Clark points at the phone. “You got Josh on the line?”

I nod.

“Put him on speakerphone—he’ll want to hear this.”

I do, resting the phone on the desk next to the laptop. I say, “Josh, you’re on loudspeaker. Bob’s here and looks distressed.”

Before he could say anything, Clark started talking. “Josh, we have a serious problem. Yalafi Hussein has the schematics for Project Cerberus on his computer.”

Silence descends, and after a few moments, I begin to feel awkward, like I should say something, but don’t know what.

“Fuck me…” says Josh.

“Okay, that’s what Bob said,” I say. “Everyone’s doing that thing where they all talk in some sort of code, and everyone seems to understand it except me. And you all know how that pisses me off. Somebody start talking—in Adrian language.”

“Adrian, Project Cerberus is a government-funded program for NASA,” explains Josh. “It was one of the first things the new president invested in.”

“NASA? So it’s a rocket or something?” I ask.

“It’s a satellite,” he continues. “A very powerful satellite. Its primary purpose is to act as a roaming firewall, protecting all the important information the U.S. government doesn’t want falling into the wrong hands.”

“Like…”

“Like information for the Department of Treasury, military strategies and programs, nuclear launch codes…”

I raise an eyebrow. “Fuck me…”

“Exactly!” says Josh. “Cerberus is basically a large, floating, un-hackable computer in space, looking down and protecting all the important data the U.S. has.”

I massage my temples, trying to process the information. I’m far from computer-illiterate, but I’m not technically-minded like these two. I prefer paper, a pen, and a gun. I see absolutely no reason to put more and more information on smaller and smaller computers.

“So, the fact a terrorist has the blueprints for this satellite is a very bad thing, right?”

“Bob?” Josh says, as if prompting him to add to the conversation.

“That’s… not
all
the satellite does,” he says, somewhat reluctantly.

“Oh, great—there’s more…” I say, despairingly.

“Everything Josh just said is accurate, but that’s only what the official statement to the media said about the program.”

“And you’re about to tell me the unofficial statement, correct?”

Clark sighs, and I hear Josh shuffling on speakerphone, which I take as a sign of discomfort.

“Cerberus is also capable of monitoring and recording… well, everything,” Clark says. “Every phone call, e-mail, text message, photo, video, camera feed… literally everything.”

“Not wishing to state the obvious moral and legal arguments of what you just said, but whose bright idea was
that
?”

“The primary function of the program is to safeguard all top secret and critical information in a place no one could break into, that much we all know. But the secondary function is to protect the nation as a whole from any potential threats. To do this, it monitors
everything
, all the time. It searches for certain parameters and records everything to do with what it finds, storing it on its servers for up to seven years, and transmitting anything that falls within certain pre-set boundaries directly to the Pentagon. As you say, Adrian, there’s a very obvious moral issue, to say nothing of the legalities of the technology. Even President Cunningham couldn’t have sold such a massive invasion of privacy to the American people.”

That’s a lot of information to take in, and I move over to the window and look out to the street below, gazing aimlessly as I wrap my head around it. This Cerberus thing isn’t a computer or a shield for the American people—it’s a goddamn weapon! And Hussein has the blueprints for it… so this must be the Armageddon Initiative’s goal—to somehow gain control of this satellite! Christ, they’d be able to hold the country to ransom…

I walk back over to Clark. “Okay, here’s a question: how do you two know all this top secret shit that no one else does?”

It’s Clark’s turn to walk off and pace the room.

Josh clears his throat on the line. “Adrian, we know because… we built it.”

15.

12:22 EDT

“What?” I ask.

“NASA’s budget has always been unjustifiably large,” explains Josh. “But most of that is for research nowadays, not production. The project was outsourced to GlobaTech for us to physically build the satellite. We had a hand in the design, as NASA wanted our opinion on certain things, then once it was completed, they launched it and took the credit.”

I shake my head. I’m genuinely shocked and borderline offended by what this country’s become in recent years.

“And you didn’t think to question all of these little extras they asked you to put in?” I ask.

“Adrian, I know where you’re coming from, I do. But it doesn’t work like that. GlobaTech is a worldwide company who make weapons and technology, as well as contract out their own private army to countries around the world to solve problems. We’re not here to debate the moral implications of what people pay us billions of dollars to do.”

I look at Clark, who seems to be doing his best to avoid my gaze. “And what happened to the ethical reign of the mighty Robert Clark?” I clench my fists as I fight to retain control of my, typically short, temper, enraged by my own helplessness.

He turns and glares at me, a flash of anger in his eyes. “Hey, don’t lecture me on ethics, you self-righteous sonofabitch!” he yells, with a distinctly confrontational tone to his voice that takes me by surprise. “All day you’ve been insinuating I’m not good enough to help you, and I’m sick to death of it! Then you have the audacity to question
me
on a morally-gray business venture that the U.S. government paid me a small fortune to be part of? Don’t you dare start pointing the finger at me and mine over this!”

Still on speaker, Josh takes in a breath and holds it, the shock of Clark’s outburst stunning him into silence. He knows as well as anyone that there aren’t many people alive today who can say they’ve spoken to me like that and have gotten away with it. I take a couple of deep breaths, finding it very hard to resist lunging for his throat.

“I’m not pointing the finger at anyone,” I reply, as calmly as possible. “I’m merely questioning how anyone in their right mind could agree that making something this powerful and this… invasive… could possibly be a good idea. But to call me self-righteous? Bob, I’m only here because you asked for my help. And being honest, the more I find out about this whole thing, the less I feel I can actually do anything. Shouldn’t you be calling the Pentagon? Or the White House?”

Silence descends once more, which Josh breaks after a few tense moments, sounding eager to resolve the situation. “Okay, Bob, send everything you have on that laptop to one of our secure servers. I’ll copy it onto my personal computer as well and set to work trying to figure out how Hussein intended using this information. Adrian, get your ass back home to Tori. I’ll contact you if I find anything out, or if I need your help any further, okay?”

I notice he said I, not we, just then. Probably thinks it’s best to disassociate himself from GlobaTech when talking to me for the time being, which is a wise decision.

I nod. “Sounds like a plan. Josh, I’ll call you when I get back to Texas anyway, just to see how you’re getting on.” I turn to Clark. “Bob, if you still want my advice, once you’ve given all the information off that laptop to Josh, I’d destroy it. Just in case Hussein sends anyone to retrieve it.”

Clark nods, which to me looks intended as half a thank you and, I think, half as an apology. I hang up the phone, pick up my shoulder bag, and walk out of the room.

I’ll make my own way to the goddamn airport…

22:04 EDT

I decide instead to head back to the safe house on 55
th
Avenue in Queens first. Initially I just wanted time with my thoughts, but I ended up catching some sleep. I woke about an hour ago, and flagged a cab just down the street from the safe house to drive me a half hour down Atlantic Avenue, onto the Nassau Expressway and finally into JFK.. Thankfully, GlobaTech’s hospitality hadn’t expired, and the plane was still waiting for me. After minimal fuss getting back on board, our takeoff was given priority clearance, so I was in the air within twenty minutes, heading back home.

There’s no stewardess on the flight this time, so I’m sitting alone in the cabin, staring out the window with my bag at my feet. The co-pilot had seen me on board and shown me to my seat, before disappearing into the cockpit and locking the door behind him.

I’m staring into space, trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happening. I think it’s a fairly safe bet to assume that Hussein and his Armageddon Initiative intend getting access to this Cerberus satellite. God only knows what they’re going to do with it, should they succeed, but whatever it is can’t possibly be good.

On top of that is their recruitment drive, which I have to assume is still ongoing. I doubt they’d stop just because they couldn’t get me. Then there’s our mystery four-star general, meeting with Hussein… in New York, of all places. I don’t know who he is, but if Hussein’s managed to negotiate getting a man on the inside, especially one that highly ranked, then they’re an even bigger threat than anyone realizes. The FBI is investigating, but they aren’t going to know as much as I do right now.

Maybe I should go to them with all this? I think back to my argument with Clark. I know my opinion isn’t everybody’s, but surely, I’m not the only one who thinks GlobaTech’s involvement in this is questionable? And for Josh to be front and center… I know he was just doing a job, but I don’t want anything coming back on him. Or Clark, if I’m honest. He’s always been straight with me in the past and has had my back when I needed him.

I sigh heavily. I can feel a headache coming on.

Oh, and let’s not forget Clara fucking Fox! I’ve got at least one bullet with that bitch’s name on it.

I look back out the window, my vision having glazed over as I was thinking about everything. As I focus more on the world outside, something strikes me as strange. New York to Texas is a fairly straight line, going over West Virginia, Tennessee, and finally Mississippi, before reaching San Antonio. I’ve been in the air, what, forty minutes already? Why am I seeing water below us?

I’m a reasonably well traveled and well-educated man, and I call on my middle school-level geography from the dark recesses of my mind, just to make damn sure I’m not mistaken. But there’s definitely no water between New York and Texas.

I take out my phone, using a compass app on there to see which way we’re traveling. I look out the window again, then back at the direction. Using my middle school math as well, I reckon I’m somewhere over the North Atlantic ocean, approaching Bermuda… which, being in a relatively small plane could pose its own set of problems, I guess.

I get up, walk over to the cockpit, and knock on the door. “Hey, you got a sec?” I shout.

I hear movement from inside, but almost a minute passes before the door unlatches and opens. The co-pilot stands in the doorway, holding it ajar just enough for his body to fit. I can’t see past him into the cockpit itself.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.

He’s a tall guy, almost my height. Looks in good shape physically, dressed smart, with some designer stubble. Maybe late-thirties, with, I would guess, at least six years’ experience, to land this kind of gig. But there’s something in his eyes. Something not quite right. I make a mental note and carry on regardless.

“Yeah, no, everything’s fine. Just a question, really… and I’m the first to admit I’m no expert here, but I’m pretty sure we don’t need to fly over any water to get to San Antonio from JFK…?”

There’s a split second flash in his eyes, suppressed as quickly as it appeared. I didn’t expect it, but I saw it, and I’d recognize it anywhere.

It was fear.

Beads of sweat form on his forehead. He hesitates for a moment, but replies calmly and professionally.

“We had to divert via Florida,” he explains. “The airspace isn’t clear for a private plane, due to a buildup of commercial flights coming out of Tennessee, so we have to fly around them.”

I’m impressed with his answer—very technical, and extremely plausible. However, I can smell bullshit a mile away, and coupled with everything else I’ve noticed, I’m now convinced something’s not right here. Question is what do I do? I’m probably seventeen thousand feet up, and with guns not being an option, I’m left depending on my skills in diplomacy and tact to deal with whatever happens next.

I’m so screwed…

“That makes sense… fair enough.” I pause, making like I’m about to walk back to my seat, but I’ve just thought of something else to say. “Is everything alright?” I ask him, trying to sound innocently concerned. “You don’t look so good.”

Before he can answer, I hear movement behind him, and then the co-pilot grunts as he’s struck on the back of his head. His eyes roll up in his skull, and he wobbles momentarily before falling heavily and landing at my feet.

I knew something wasn’t right, but I didn’t expect that. I take a couple of steps back, surprised enough that I’m momentarily distracted from reacting how I should’ve done.

Another man steps out from inside the cockpit, striding over the body and standing in front of me. He’s pointing a gun at me, which looks like a Glock. He’s aiming right between my eyes. His arm is steady, his breathing is normal, and his stance is relaxed and comfortable… definitely well trained. He’s about my height, with an average, but well-built, frame. He’s wearing unmarked, black and gray camo overalls and thick work boots. He’s got thick stubble, and his dark eyes stare at me, not blinking and not interested.

I take a deep breath, preparing myself for a fight that I hope won’t happen. Too many things can go wrong when you’re on a plane. I stand my ground, but don’t make any movement.

When in doubt, antagonize and capitalize…

“Just for my own peace of mind, before we go any further… there’s still someone flying the plane, right?” I ask him.

His gun doesn’t move an inch. He smiles. “Yeah, the pilot’s fine,” he replies and then shrugs. “For now.”

He’s got an American accent, and my spider sense is telling me he’s not with Hussein… I wonder if he’s with our mystery four-star general?

“That’s a relief,” I continue, genuinely unfazed. “So, you gonna introduce yourself?”

He shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Oh… okay. Well, I’m Adrian Hell.”

“I know who you are.”

“Of course you do. Or do you simply
think
you do? I mean, no offense, but let’s be honest here—you’re still vertical and awake purely as a courtesy, because I want to know what’s going on. Should I deem it necessary, you’ll very quickly be laid out on the floor.”

He smiles at me again. “I know
exactly
who you are. But you seem to be missing the point. You don’t know who I am, or why I’m here. You’re also approaching your third year of retirement, am I right? You’re not a threat to me. And,
no offense
, but you’re only alive because my orders are to ensure you stay that way until we land. But make no mistake—you
will
behave, as my orders
don’t
specify whether you need to be conscious when we land, just breathing.”

“Nice speech.”

I stand in front of him a few moments longer before I turn my back and walk over to my seat. I want him to know I’m sitting down because I choose to, not because he ordered me to. I sit casually in the seat and stretch my legs out, crossing my ankles and resting my arms across my chest.

“So, where are we really going?” I ask.

He says nothing.

“Okay, how about telling me who you work for?”

Still, he remains silent.

“Well, the rest of this flight isn’t going to drag at all…”

I close my eyes and let my head relax. I doubt he’ll move from covering me. The pilot can’t do anything—he’s going to fly where told. I suspect any communication with people on the ground is out of the question as well. But, we’re on a plane in a pressurized cabin, so there’s no way he’s firing his gun at me, which means I can simply dismiss him as a threat until we land. The total lack of respect and credibility I’m affording him, as my apparent captor, will likely start to eat away at him before much longer. Then he’ll get all emotional and make a mistake. Then I’ll pull his arm off and beat his brains out with the wet end.

But until then, I might as well get some sleep.

APRIL 11
TH
, 2017

00:16 CDT

I wake up, sitting in the same position as when I dozed off. I glance out the window and gather my senses, gently rubbing my eyes and coming round. My body clock says I’ve been out nearly three hours.

Across the aisle from me, slumped in the chair with his wrists and ankles bound together, is the co-pilot. He seems to be alive, but I’m guessing he’s taken at least one other blow to the head since I last saw him, because I doubt he’d still be out after all this time from that initial blow to the head.

The cockpit door is closed again. I’m guessing our mystery guest is in there, probably pointing his gun at the pilot. I look down, and see my bag’s missing, which has my phone in it.