Deadly Intent: An Action Thriller (Adrian Hell Series Book 4) (24 page)

“Just get me out of here,” she says.

I smile and nod. It’s a weird feeling… my Inner Satan is in full-on survival mode right now, but the usual thirst for violence that goes with that isn’t there. I just feel a need to do what I have to, nothing more. It’s quite liberating, if I’m honest.

I put my gun in her hand.

“Wait here,” I say to her. “If anyone comes near you, shoot them.”

Her eyes are wide, betraying a mixture of fear and lack of understanding. It’s a lot to ask someone who’s normal to take a life. I look her in the eye, so she can feel reassured and safe—so she can believe that it’ll be okay.

She purses her lips and nods rapidly.

I smile. “That’s my girl.”

I stand and run to the right, keeping low. The remaining men are spread out and taking cover behind partitions and desks. I doubt the idea of me being unarmed at any point would’ve crossed their minds, which buys me some breathing space. But I know the guys on the perimeter will still be there, covering the exits, and they’ll see immediately that I don’t have my gun. I need to act quickly.

I make my way around the outer wall of partitions, counterclockwise, and soon meet the first two guys, who are guarding the way I came in. They have their guns drawn, but aren’t expecting me to run at them, as they’re standing quite relaxed and facing forward, into the middle of the room.

I reach them and deliver a kick to the first guy’s gut at full speed, sending him flying backward. I use the impact to take away my momentum, stopping to throw three punches in quick succession at the second guy—one to the gut, one to the side of the ribs, and a third to the jaw, starting with my right hand and alternating. He crumples to the floor and drops his gun, which I pick up in time to fire at the first guy, who’s back on his feet and taking aim at me. I hit him twice in the chest and then immediately duck back down as someone in the middle shoots at me.

I wait a moment, and then put a bullet in the second guy’s head, who’s lying at my feet. I quickly continue my circuit, firing into the middle every time I come up to a gap in the walls. I don’t have eyes on Clara from my position anymore, but I can still spot where most of the men from the group are.

I see an opportunity for a shot, so I step inside the first layer of wall and crouch by a desk. I line up my shot and fire twice, hitting one of the guys in the neck, which is visible, despite his cover.

I carry on, and see my weapons just ahead of me. Keeping my gun aimed ahead, I slow down and crouch, eager to get hold of some real firepower. I reach my Berettas, but bullets immediately pepper the ground around me, forcing me to duck back behind cover.

I look at my babies as the wooden partitions splinter around me, desperate to feel their comforting weight in my hands once more. I’m biding my time, waiting for a pause in the onslaught before I can make a dash for them again.

After a few moments, the firing stops and I seize the opportunity.

Got them!

I scoop them up and take cover on the opposite side of the gap. I put both Berettas in my holster and pick up the Ithaca, chambering a round and hearing the comforting double-crunch of a shotgun ready to fire.

I take a breath and close my eyes.

Showtime.

I spin round the corner and stride purposefully toward the center; the Ithaca aimed straight and low. I see movement in the corner of my eye on the left, so I turn sharply and fire.

The great thing about a shotgun in this kind of situation is the damage it’s capable of. The buckshot sprays out in a conical arc in front of me when I fire, and the closer the target is, the more chance of them being blown in half. Right now, at this range, I don’t even need to be accurate—if someone’s within ten feet of me, I can aim loosely in their direction and they’re dead.

The shot cuts through the table and hits the man hiding behind it in the chest. Just behind him, another man appears and I fire again. He flies backward from the impact, dead before he hits the floor. I flick to the right in time to see another man peek around the side of a partition. A shot in his direction blasts through the wall and rips through his torso.

That’s three more down… can’t be many left now, surely?

I reach the middle, where the original group is standing with Clara. I can’t see her anywhere. I do a slow circle, turning clockwise. The trick when doing this is to point the gun in front of where you’re looking, so the weapon completes the turn before you do. That way, when you see something move, you can take it out straight away, instead of having to readjust your angle first, which would cost you valuable seconds.

I look past the large monitor and see two men side by side, who must’ve been following me. As I see them in my peripheral, I fire on instinct, knowing the barrel of the shotgun is aiming in the right place. I catch them both in the stomach with one shot.

I hear movement behind me, so I spin faster and drop to a crouch, lining up the shot. However, as I look round, I freeze. In the gap is the last remaining man, aiming his gun at me. Next to him is Clara Fox. She’s got a gun in her hand too, and it’s pointing at Tori.

I let out a heavy sigh.

Shit…

30.

21:49 EEST

“Drop it,” says Clara, slightly out of breath. “Or I drop your girlfriend.”

Man, she looks
really
pissed off… I must’ve done a good job winding her up before. It’s worrying that she appears so unstable, given she’s holding Tori, but at least I know she’s unlikely to be thinking clearly. I’ll use that to my advantage, when the time’s right. For now, I’ll do as she says. She nods at me, looking at my body harness.

“And those custom pieces of shit you’re in love with.”

Reluctantly, I remove both Berettas from their holster and drop them next to the shotgun. She leans toward the man next to her.

“Go and secure him,” she says. “But be careful.”

I look at Tori. I hold her gaze so she can see into my eyes—see the confidence in them. I want her to believe this will all be okay. Because it will be. I’ve already won. Clara has messed up, and it’ll cost her, her life. She just hasn’t realized it yet.

But she will.

The guy approaches me on my left side. He’s tall, maybe my height. He looks like he works out—he has a big frame, but he’s an amateur. The guy’s arms are fully extended, meaning his gun will be within reach of me long before his body. I almost feel bad; it’s
that
easy…

With a quick movement, I grab his gun hand by the wrist with my left hand, pushing his palm toward him with my thumb. This puts a strain on the tendons, causing an involuntary reflex that straightens the fingers, which consequently forces him to loosen his grip on the weapon. As it falls from his hand, I lean left and catch it with my right. Then, I turn his wrist away from him, forcing him to follow it with his body to relieve the pressure. As he does, I whip my left leg across and kick him hard in his right knee. With his body going left and now his legs going right, he quickly falls to the floor.

In the same motion, I raise the gun and point it at Clara.

“Step the fuck away from her, now!” I shout.

“One more move and she’s dead!” she screams back at me.

I smile and shake my head. “No, she’s not. You’re a mercenary, Clara, not an extremist. You’re not willing to die for this cause and, right now, she’s the only thing keeping you alive. You’re not going to kill her, no matter what I do. Not until you’ve gotten out of here. Which isn’t happening, by the way.”

I casually lower the gun and aim left, firing three times at the guy on the floor without looking. All three bullets hit him in the chest. His body jerks from the impact and then slackens in death. I re-aim at Clara.

“See?”

I look in her eyes. Panic is setting in. It’s just her and me now. Yes, she has a hostage, but she knows me, and she knows there’s no way out of this that doesn’t involve her dying. Is she spiteful enough to kill Tori anyway, knowing she’d die but making sure as her final act that I suffer regardless?

Of course she is.

But that doesn’t mean she will. The Armageddon Initiative will have paid her a significant sum of money for helping them put this attack together. She won’t want to risk losing that if there’s a chance she can get out of here. No matter how small the odds.

“It’s over, Clara,” I say, more calmly now. “Let her go, and maybe you get out of here.”

“How’s that?” she snaps back—her gaze darting around the room, as if looking for a new solution.

“You help me get to El-Zurak and stop the hijacking of the Cerberus satellite, and I’ll do what I can to make sure your help is taken into account when this is all handed over to the FBI.”

She laughs loudly, exaggerating it to show she’s actually insulted. “Fuck you, Adrian. Fuck
you
! Do you think anyone would be lenient with me if all this failed?”

“Honestly? No. I think they’d give you the chair. But I said I’d do what I could for you, and I mean that. Just let Tori go.”

She glances at Tori and smiles that sick, evil, emotionless smile I remember seeing years ago. I clench my jaw muscles as I sense what’s about to happen.

“So, explain to me how the brooding, tormented soul of the legendary
Adrian Hell
has found it within him to get himself a girl,” she says. “What about your dead wife? Huh?”

There it is...

Bitch!

The ‘Try To Make Tori Hate Me’ card.

And not only that, but she said my name like she was air-quoting it, which is infuriating on a whole other level.

I see Tori’s eyes widen, before narrowing as she frowns with confusion. She stares at me in silent enquiry, and then turns to look at Clara, scornfully.

“Oh, did you not know?” asks Clara with feigned innocence, before looking over at me and smiling. “Adrian, does she not know
anything
about you?”

I feel my finger involuntarily tighten on the trigger as I fight the urge to risk shooting her while Tori’s so close.

“She knows everything about who I am,” I say, feeling the need to justify myself. “She doesn’t need to, or want to, know anything about who I
was
.”

“It looks to me like she’s very curious…”

With the gun in her right hand, aimed at Tori’s body, she puts her arm around her, and pulls her close like an old friend.

“How about us girls have a nice talk about our man over there? Eh?”

Tori turns to her and looks her dead in the eye. “Go to hell,” she says.

“Oooo, feisty!” She turns to me momentarily. “I can see why you like her. But seriously, Tori, there’s so much you should know about Adrian… Like, for example, did you know he’s one of the greatest assassins ever to pull a trigger? Did you know he killed my father?”

Tori’s livid with Clara, staring a hole through her with wild eyes, and she must be frustrated knowing there’s little she can do to stop her. But, to be honest, I wouldn’t want her to try. Clara’s a trained killer, and very capable of hurting her, or worse. I’m just grateful Tori and I have already had the conversation, and she’s said she understands why I don’t want to talk about it and accepts that. She’s always said she loves me for who I am, so anything Clara says won’t have the intended effect on us. It’ll just make me want to shoot her more.

“And another thing,” continues Clara, oblivious to Tori’s stare. “The thing that made Adrian tick all those years he spent alone… the guilt of being to blame for the death of his wife and daughter.”

That makes Tori look at me, her eyes asking me a thousand questions all at once. I look at her apologetically; genuinely sorry she has to go through all this. But I take exception to Clara’s statement.

“Hey, I wasn’t to blame for their deaths, and I’ve since killed the guy who was! Don’t…”

I stop myself as I see the sick smile creep across her face. She just suckered me into that exchange and got a reaction out of me that I shouldn’t have allowed. The look on Tori’s face confirms it.

Shit.

Josh was right—I allow myself to get too emotionally involved in a situation, and it sometimes clouds my judgment. That wouldn’t have happened if he’d been here.

Let’s not mention it, though, eh?

“Well played,” I say, trying to recover gracefully. “I know what you’re trying to do, Clara, and it won’t work.” I look at Tori. “Sweetheart, if you have any doubts or concerns about me, or us, after this, I completely understand. I swear to you, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But can I please ask that, for the time being at least, you trust me and let me get us out of here?”

If ever I needed more proof that Tori is my ideal woman, she struggles to suppress a smile and winks at me.

“Lead the way, Action Man!”

Clara’s face contorts with disgust. “Oh my God, really?” she says. “I think I just threw up in my mouth.”

Still holding Tori with her left hand, she points her gun at her mouth and makes the vomiting gesture, doing her best to ridicule us both and get more of a reaction out of me.

I’ll give her a fucking reaction…

Without thinking, I whip the gun up and fire in one movement. The bullet catches Clara at the bottom of her neck on the left, where it meets the trapezius muscle. Tori jumps out of her skin in surprise as a thin spray of blood hits her face. Clara is equally caught off-guard, clawing at thin air with both hands as she tries to stop herself from falling backward. Not wasting the opportunity, Tori quickly puts some distance between them. I dash over, kicking the gun out of Clara’s hand the second she hits the ground, before taking aim and covering her.

“Put pressure on the wound so you don’t bleed out,” I say to her. “Both hands. Now!”

She does, probably more because of her own survival instincts than because of my order, but the outcome’s the same. She’s lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling and breathing fast and shallow. I kick her foot.

“I’m a good shot—you won’t lose too much blood if you keep your hands on the wound. You need to stay alive long enough to help me.”

“What makes you think I’ll help you with anything?” she says, coughing and struggling to get her words out.

“Because you hate me. I think you’ll want to tell me the full extent of what I’m up against, so you can watch me realize I’m doomed to fail. I think you’ll get some twisted level of satisfaction from it.”

She smiles weakly as more and more blood starts to spill from her wound. I quickly look at it. There’s a chance I might’ve nicked an artery with the bullet, which means she doesn’t have long. I need to act fast.

I turn and point to all the documents laid out on the table behind us, looking at Tori. “Babe, gather up everything over there—we’ll take it with us. Hopefully they’ll be something useful.”

I look back at Clara. She’s given up putting pressure on her wound. I see the last sliver of defiance in her eyes.

“Clara, listen to me,” I say. “What can you tell me about El-Zurak? How can I get to him in Afghanistan to stop him controlling Cerberus?”

She moves only her eyes and looks at me with a mixture of loathing and defeat and confusion.

“Who… who said he was in Afghanis… tan?” she asks, weakly.

I frown. “We tracked him there via satellite. We found you here, and saw him and Yalafi Hussein in the Afghan mountains. We figured he’d be untouchable there, and impossible to find, so I came after you so I could rescue Tori.”

She struggles to laugh, instead letting out a sickly wheeze, followed by a cough and a wince as more blood oozes from her neck and pools around her on the floor.

“You might want… to check your intel. Hamaad…El-Zurak is… is in the States. You’re too… late.”

I can’t hide my surprise or anger. I don’t know if she’s telling the truth, or just trying to wind me up. I suppose there’s little reason for her to lie at this stage…

Without a word, I turn to Tori, who’s standing by the table with a handful of papers and folders.

“Got everything?” I ask her.

She nods.

I bend down, dropping the gun I had, and pick up my Berettas and the Ithaca, holstering each one in turn on my harness.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say.

We set off walking toward the corridor I came down initially.

“Adrian… wait,” says Clara, weakly.

I stop and turn, staring at her impassively. She looks at the gun I left on the floor, then back at me.

“P-please…” she says.

I know what she’s asking. She doesn’t want to lie on the floor and bleed to death. She wants the honor of going out on her terms. I regard her for a moment and ask myself if I hate her enough to deny her the opportunity to have a warrior’s death. And do you know what? I honestly don’t. My initial anger toward her, when I first found out she was involved, only stayed because she’d kidnapped Tori. I’d have hated anyone who tried to hurt the woman I love. I realize now, that the fact it was Clara was irrelevant. I’m actually surprised at myself for being so rational about it, but under the circumstances, holding a grudge against someone who turned their back on me over four years ago seems kind of… petty. There are much bigger things going on for me to worry about.

I nod and take a step toward her, but Tori grabs my arm.

“Adrian, what are you doing?” she asks.

“It’s okay,” I say, looking at her and placing my hand on hers. “This won’t take a minute.”

She doesn’t understand, but she trusts me and lets me go. I walk over to the gun, taking the magazine out and leaving one in the chamber. Holding the barrel, I crouch down next to Clara and place the butt in her hand. She’s barely breathing now, but her eyes look at me, and for the first time ever, I see honesty in them.

“Th-thank you…” she whispers.

I smile. “You’re still a bitch.”

She smiles a smile that offers no apologies, but, nevertheless, calls a truce between two people who have lived on different sides of the same coin. I stand and walk back over to Tori.

“Come on,” I say, leading her with my arm around her shoulder down the corridor and toward the stairs that lead back up to the street.