Her words trail off and she falls silent, seemingly hesitant to continue. Everyone looks at each other in confusion.
“What’s wrong?” asks Wallis.
She looks quickly at Josh, then focuses on me. “Adrian… Gregovski’s wife had a brother who had two children. Twins…”
I shrug and shake my head, failing to see her point.
“Her brother,” she continues, “was also a well-known mercenary — Nikolai Salikov.”
I sit up straight in my chair, my mind rushing into action like I’ve trained it to do upon hearing certain keywords.
Salikov.
Images come flooding back to me from Heaven’s Valley. The compound. The furnace. Natalia and Gene.
I look over at Josh, who’s staring at me with a worried expression on his face.
“I killed Gregovski’s niece and nephew?” I ask, rhetorically.
Chambers nods. “This whole thing seems to keep linking back to you and what happened last year in Nevada,” she says.
“Bloody hell!” says Josh, making everyone stare at him. “Danny’s basically recruited the remnants of Dark Rain to come after you, hasn’t he?”
“Looks that way,” I reply, half distracted. My mind’s still working on the word association. Salikov. Dark Rain. Nevada. Uranium. GlobaTech. Jackson… Clara!
Josh comes to it the same time I do. He reacts before I have chance to move — something he's had to become very adept at to keep me calm, free and alive over the years. He almost jumps out of his seat as he rushes round as best he can to stand between the door and me.
“Adrian, we don’t know that she’s involved, okay? Just take a breath and think this through before you, y’know, go all ‘Adrian Hell’ on us.”
“What’s going on?” asks Wallis. “Who are you talking about?”
“Clara Fox,” says Clark, breaking his silence. “You think she could be involved?”
I sigh. “No, I don’t think she’s involved,” I say, regrettably. “If she was, we’d have known about it before now. She has a bigger grudge against me than Pellaggio does. But I think we were right to rule her out of this one the other day.”
Chambers closes the file and stands up. “Well,” she says. “As nice as it is to stand around and discuss all the people who want you dead, we actually have work to do.”
Her short tone takes everyone a little by surprise — including me. I regard her for a moment, and then nod.
“I know,” I say. “And your priority is getting to the Jeremiah and alerting whoever you need to in order to stop the parade going ahead.”
“And what do you intend doing?” she asks.
“I’m gonna go to Alcatraz and stop Pellaggio and Gregovski before they can launch their attack.”
“I think you should leave that to the FBI and local authorities, don’t you?”
“And what are they gonna do, Grace?” I ask. “You’re gonna have Secret Service all over that ship. NCIS will likely be on their way to investigate the murders of their dead sailors. The Police Department will be on standard security duty anyway and will need to know of your involvement. Everyone is gonna be stretched thin and on high alert. You can’t even look at Alcatraz without Pellaggio seeing your move coming a mile away.”
“Okay, so what do you intend doing that we can’t?”
I turn to Clark. “I need a favor,” I say.
“Name it,” he replies without hesitating.
“I need a gun and a speedboat.”
Wallis raises his eyebrows and looks at Chambers, who doesn’t look impressed but remains poker-faced and silent. Josh shakes his head and smiles. Clark doesn’t look particularly fazed by the request either, although he’s had experience of helping me out before. I look at them all one by one.
“Pellaggio’s got at least one Stinger missile and God knows how many more RPG’s,” I explain. “Any approach by air will end badly, as we’ve already seen.”
I look at Chambers, who clenches her jaw and momentarily glazes over. I suspect she’s having a flashback to the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday.
“I can’t exactly swim there,” I continue. “But if I can get in a speedboat, I can loop round in a wide arc and hopefully stay out of sight. Even if I’m spotted, I’ll be harder to hit than a helicopter, and he won’t risk wasting too much ammunition on me. By the time I’m close enough to hit with bullets, it’ll be too late for them anyway. Plus, I know there’s all kinds of stealth technology nowadays… I’m sure you can come up with something that might help?”
Chambers and Wallis look at each other. They know I’m right, even if they don’t want to admit it. Clark stands up.
“I’ll make preparations at once,” he says. “GlobaTech will be happy to help in any way they can.”
He walks purposefully out of the room.
“Josh,” I say. “You’re going to stay here and be my eyes and ears, yeah?”
“Business as usual, Bossman,” he says without a second thought.
“I’ll show you where you can work from,” Wallis says to him. “I’m gonna sit in on Agent Green's interrogation, so I’ll take you on my way there.”
He leaves the room and Josh follows, leaving me alone with Chambers.
“Grace—” I begin, but she cuts me short.
“Adrian, it doesn’t matter. You have nothing to apologize for. I just don’t like hearing about what you do for a living and what you’ve done in the past. It’s easy to put it out of your mind when you’re actively fighting on our side, but it’s still hard to picture you being that person.”
I smile and look at her for a moment. “I wasn’t going to apologize,” I say. “I was gonna tell you to get your head in the game, because tonight is where all this ends. I can’t guarantee the safety of everyone on that ship, so I need you to handle that while I stop Pellaggio.”
She’s visibly taken aback, but soon smiles at my directness.
“I believe you,” she says. “And I can guarantee the safety of that ship and everyone aboard.”
I nod and walk toward the door, but she steps in the way, blocking my exit. We’re standing inches apart from each other. She’s looking at me, her eyes searching mine for a sign I want what she does. She moves her face closer to mine and steps up on her tiptoes.
My heart’s beating so fast, I’m worried it might burst through my ribcage. Not because of nerves or excitement. There are no butterflies like two young lovers realizing their mutual attraction for the first time. Right now, I’m absolutely terrified! She wants me to kiss her, and part of me wants to oblige. But I can’t betray the memory of my wife. I’m not ready to put her to rest. Not just yet.
I take a deep breath and a step back — a subtle gesture that I don’t wish to meet her advances. She immediately senses my body language and backs off, too.
“I’m sorry,” we both say simultaneously. We laugh, awkwardly.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just… I shouldn’t have tried to…”
“Hey, I’m sorry too,” I reply. “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything. I’m just not ready to…”
“It’s okay, really. Let’s just forget about it, alright?”
She smiles, but it looks forced. I think she’s either hurt, embarrassed or both.
I nod, but I feel awful. “Yeah, sure,” I say, smiling to offer a little comfort. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
It’s my turn smile without looking awkward. She turns and leaves the conference room. I stand alone for a moment, taking a slow, deep breath in and exhaling heavily.
“Christ…” I mutter to myself, before following her across the office.
The last few hours passed slowly. I spent most of the time pacing aimlessly around the office, as Josh and Wallis monitored Alcatraz Island and came up with a bunch of scenarios for me to figure out how to deal with without getting myself killed. Chambers wasn’t around much, as she was liaising with people on board the Jeremiah and trying to convince them to search the ship for explosive devices. As expected, it was proving harder to do than we’d hoped. I think she was right — there’s no way anyone will agree to postponing the celebrations later tonight. The best we can hope for is that the Secret Service realizes we’re not trying to interfere and actually listens to us.