True Conviction (15 page)

So, who have we here?

The soldiers look at each other, unsure how to react. Natalia and her brother stand close by Ketranovich, who hasn’t moved or said anything. He’s just staring at the night sky.

It only takes a few moments for the three black helicopters to reach us and hover overhead, forming a triangle above our little showdown. The noise is deafening and everyone, including me, has to shield their eyes against the dust that the rotor blades are kicking up.

Inside the helicopters are soldiers, all dressed in black with a red trim, aiming their guns at Dark Rain. There’s also a mounted mini-gun on one side, with a single soldier manning it, covering the whole area.

The chopper nearest to me drops lower and a rope ladder falls down, stopping a couple of feet from the ground next to me. I have no idea who they are but, let’s be honest, going with them can’t possibly end worse than if I stayed here with a bunch of psycho-Ruskies…

I step on the ladder and hook my left arm through the rungs.

I shout over to Ketranovich. “Hey, Colonel—you know what they say about people who piss into the wind: they always get their own back!” I flip him my middle finger. “Be seeing you soon, you Commie bastard!”

I smile as the helicopter ascends and we fly off, followed closely by the other two in a loose formation. I carefully climb up the ladder, making sure I don’t look down—I’m not a massive fan of heights.

One of the soldiers reaches down, extending their hand to help me up into the back of the chopper. I take it gladly and climb aboard as we race across the sky.

I look around at the expressionless faces all staring at me. I smile at them.

“My parents always told me not to get in cars with strangers,” I say. I get no reaction.

“No?” I let out a low whistle. “Tough crowd.”

Well, these guys seem like a friendly bunch… I wonder who my new friends are?

August 23
rd
, 2013

THE SILENCE IN the chopper is borderline awkward. I’m sitting in a seat flanked by two men with guns. I look around, trying to find out as much as I can about who these guys are, but I’ve got nothing. Their uniforms are devoid of markings, so I’ve no idea who they work for. I’m guessing they’re friendly… or, at least, not trying to kill me—but my spider sense is still tingling.

Outside, the other choppers peel away, flying off in different directions. We carry on straight for what feels like another ten minutes or so before I feel us begin our descent.

I can see landing lights below us and realize we’re setting down on the roof of a building. It’s dark and there’s minimal lighting, so I’m not sure what the building is, or even where I am.

Everyone files out and I jump down, flanked again by two armed men. There are five guys in total—one leading us across the roof, one on either side of me and two behind. Keeping low, we hurry over to a fire escape and walk down three flights of metal stairs.

We stop at a door on what I assume is the fourth floor of wherever we are—judging by the large sign on the wall next to it. The guy in front opens the door and holds it for the rest of us to go through.

We come out in a reception area of what I’m now certain of is a hospital. The familiar, sickly smell of disinfectant that you only ever get in a hospital stings my nostrils. It’s eerily quiet and our footfalls echo on the permanently waxed tiled floor. Nobody is offering any conversation and we’re just standing in a conspicuous huddle in the middle of the waiting area.

There’s a front desk on the right, with two corridors running away to the right on either side of it. There are two nurses busying themselves behind it. They look up curiously for a moment, but say nothing and soon resume their duties.

On the left, facing the desk is an array of chairs with two more corridors disappearing out of sight, mirroring the ones on the right.

“Wait here,” says the guy at the front. He walks off down the nearest corridor to us on the right, leaving me surrounded by the other four.

After a few minutes, the guy re-appears with another man I’ve not seen before. He’s wearing a nice navy blue suit, with his white shirt un-tucked and no tie. He has thick, dark hair parted to the side and is clean-shaven. I figure him for early forties. He heads straight for me, smiling. He extends his hand and, given the circumstances, I shake it firmly.

“Adrian,” he says. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Not as glad as I am,” I reply, courteously. “If it weren’t for your boys, I’d have been cut to shreds back there. I owe you my life.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m actually hoping you can do me a favor in return?”

“You have me at a disadvantage… Who are you, exactly?”

“Forgive me. My name’s Robert Clark. For the last…” he pauses to check his watch, “… twenty-seven hours or so, I’ve been acting Head of Finance and Development for GlobaTech Industries.”

I fail miserably to hide the look of surprise on my face.

GlobaTech? I didn’t expect that…

Why are they helping me?

I quickly assess my options. There are five men with guns surrounding me, and I’m in a hospital, probably on CCTV. There are nurses nearby who are witnesses. I have my guns at my back, but there’s zero chance of success if I pull them.

They must be friendly, because they’ve made no attempt to disarm me…

So, violence isn’t the answer... What a strange concept! I guess I have to settle for talking. At least for the time being.

“GlobaTech?” I ask. “As in the same GlobaTech who’s funding Dark Rain and selling land to them so they can mine Uranium and make nuclear weapons?”

Clark smiles, slightly embarrassed. “That’s us, yeah.”

“You’ll have to forgive my hostility. It’s just I’ve spent the last few days getting my ass kicked all over this city by pretty much everyone I’ve come into contact with. I came here on business and I ended up being either shot at or tortured almost hourly...”

“Yes, I’m well aware of what your ‘business’ is, Adrian,” says Clark. “I guess I should thank you for killing of Ted Jackson—aside from the fact he was nothing but a greedy, selfish sonofabitch, his job pays much better than my old one did.”

“You’re welcome, I guess?” I shrug.

The nurses who are looking at us find something to do elsewhere, and leave hurriedly.

“Listen, Adrian, you’ve had a rough couple of days and obviously have a lot of questions. I completely respect everything you’ve done so far, and you absolutely deserve some answers. But before we get to that, I want to show you something.”

“Well, you certainly seem nicer than Ted was, and I appreciate everything
you’ve
done for me, but that’s a little forward, don’t you think? Maybe a drink first?”

Clark smiles. “I see you’re a fan of using humor as a defense mechanism. It’s nice to know that the money we spent compiling a psychological profile of you was a sound investment.”

“You spent money on what?”

“I like to know everything I can about the people I do business with. I’m sure you of all people can appreciate that? What with your history of paranoia and borderline obsessive/compulsive behavior.”

“Okay, stop talking like you know me—it’s freaking me out and it’s liable to get you shot.”

He smiles a company smile and holds his hands up, as if conveying his apology and explaining he meant no harm. He turns and walks back the way he came from. When I don’t follow, he looks over his shoulder at me.

“Come on,” he calls back. “It’s fine. You can trust me. If I wanted you dead, you already would be.”

While trusting him is a little optimistic on his part, he does have a point about me not being dead... I guess it can’t hurt to see what he’s selling.

I follow him and we walk down the corridor to the end and turn right. Ahead of us is a set of secure double doors with a keypad on the wall for access. Clark produces a card from his pocket, swipes it down the side of the machine then enters a code. The doors click and hiss open automatically and I follow him through.

This corridor isn’t as brightly lit as the others and is actually quieter, if that’s even possible. It’s a dead-end, with three doors on either side. We walk to the second one along on the left and stop level with the door. He knocks once as a courtesy and opens it without entering, holding it as an invitation for me to go through.

I stand in the doorway and look around the room. There are no windows, but a nice air conditioning unit is humming in the background, keeping it nice and cool. There’s a TV mounted on the wall to my right and a couch against the far wall, opposite the door. On my immediate left are two chairs, presumably for visitors, and against the left wall is the bed.

I raise an eyebrow, which is the only reaction I have the energy for. Lying there, hooked up to monitors and IV drips, is Clara Fox. She looks at me and smiles.

“Hey,” she says.

I’m confused…

“I’ll give you two a minute,” says Clark, who closes the door, leaving me alone with Clara. Neither of us speaks until the sound of his footsteps has faded away.

She looks good, considering. She seems a bit out of it, but for the most part, she looks well.

“You alright?” she asks.

“Never mind me,” I say, fighting to keep the surprise and confusion out of my voice. “What the hell happened to you?”

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes momentarily. I pull up a chair and sit beside her, resting my elbows on the edge of the bed. She looks at me and smiles again. She seems happy to see me. I’ve not seen anyone happy to see me in a long time. It’s nice.

Not being great in these kinds of situations, I hesitate for a moment before grabbing her hand and squeezing it gently, as a gesture to show that I’m glad she’s alright. She squeezes back in appreciation.

“After I left through the cellar in the bar, I climbed out of the loading dock around the other side just as the shooting started,” she explains. “I took a quick peek around the corner and saw Natalia unloading at the police. That’s when they split up and one of them came after me. I turned and ran, but the guy was too quick and he soon caught me. Long story short, I shot him a couple of times and he died.”

I have to smile. Clara and I have bonded very well in a short space of time, and she has a very similar approach to conflict as I do. It’s refreshing.

She continues…

“I avoided the YouTube vultures on the main street out front and made my way to your hotel. I got there and found two guys in suits I’d never seen before searching your room. I was exhausted and completely unprepared, so they got the drop on me. One of them shot me and I went down. I must’ve blacked out, but the last I thing I remember seeing was one of them lifting your mattress. I’m sorry, Adrian, but whoever they were, they took the deeds.”

I squeeze her hand gently again, offering reassurance.

“It’s okay,” I say, reaching into my back pocket. “I got them back.”

I wave them at her, smiling. She breathes out a heavy sigh of relief, wincing slightly as she does.

“How’d you manage that?” she asks.

“It was Pellaggio’s men who raided my room. I had another run-in with Jimmy Manhattan.” I point to the cut running down my cheek. “We had a disagreement.”

“Ouch… Is he dead?”

“He’s not, no. I left him unconscious on the floor of a portable cabin on the construction site above our favorite Uranium mine.”

“Oh, fair enough.”

“So, come on—what happened after the hotel? I asked Josh to search for you, but you weren’t registered as being admitted to any hospital nearby.”

“Yeah, I came round in the ambulance. There were two nurses patching me up, a guy dressed in black with a gun and Bob.”

“Bob?”

“Yeah, the GlobaTech guy.”

“You mean Robert Clark.”

“He said to call him Bob.”

“Uh-huh...”

She struggles and sits up a bit in her bed, giggling to herself. “Adrian, do I detect a hint of jealousy in your voice?” she says, mocking me.

“Me? Jealous?” I scoff, trying to hide my embarrassment. “Of course I’m not!”

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow, but says nothing.

“I’m just highly skeptical of the new, overly friendly Ted Jackson replacement who works for the people funding the terrorist organization who’s been trying to kill us both all day.”

Clara rolls her eyes and pulls a silly face. “Well, when you put it like
that
...”

I shake my head in comical disbelief. “Anyway, you were saying?”

“Yeah, so I woke up surrounded by these guys and Bob…
Robert
, said he was going to make sure I received the best medical care available. I’ve been resting up here ever since.”

“You spoken to this guy since you came round?”

“Not really. He came in to see how I was about an hour ago, but that’s been it.” She shifts in her bed again, trying to get comfortable. “How did you get here anyway?” she asks.

“After we got to the Uranium mine, Dark Rain showed up in force. Ketranovich and Natalia were there… I met her brother too. He needed to calm her down after she went all psycho.”

“Yeah, that’d be Gene. They’re twins.”

“I thought they might be. Ketranovich said her brother’s the only one she’ll listen to when she goes a bit crazy... That’s a family in need of some serious therapy.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“I bet. So, The Colonel and I had words, which didn’t go very well.”

“Let me guess, he offered you a job and you openly antagonized him?”

“I’m hurt you would even think such a thing,” I say, innocently.

She raises an eyebrow and stares at me again.

“Okay, yes, I might have poked a little fun at him,” I concede, prompting her to smile.

“Anyway, just as I was about to get gunned down by fifteen armed soldiers, three blacked-out helicopters show up out of nowhere and give me a lift out of trouble. Dark Rain didn’t try and stop them either—they just stood there as stunned as I was.”

She shakes her head, laughing. “You’re one lucky bastard, do you know that?”

I smile. “I’d hardly call myself lucky, given how my visit to this city has gone so far.”

She laughs again and the conversation dies down. We sit in silence for a few moments. I’m genuinely glad she’s alright. Despite what Josh had said earlier about me doing the right thing, I know I’d have struggled to forgive myself if anything had happened to her because of me.

The door opens, interrupting the silence, and Robert Clark walks in.

“You guys all caught up?” he asks, pulling up a chair next to me and sitting down.

“Yeah, we’re good,” I reply, smiling at Clara.

“Excellent. Now, down to business.” He looks me right in the eye, his jaw set and his brow furrowed. “I need your help, Adrian,” he says, solemnly.

I exchange a quick glance with Clara.