I stare at the wall just behind Josh, my mind flashing back to Philadelphia, eight years ago. Finding my wife and daughter murdered in our family home. The result of a drug kingpin called Wilson Trent taking revenge on me for unknowingly killing his son.
I re-focus my gaze on Josh and smile. This guy is the closest thing I have to family. He’s always had my back, and he’s the only person other than me, that I trust with my life. But right now, I can only think about one thing.
“You have a Winnebago?” I ask, failing suppress a laugh.
“Ah, screw you — I like it, and it beats having to stay in all the crappy motels you sleep in.”
We laugh together again, for a brief moment, before addressing the current predicament I’m in.
“So what’s the score here?” he asks.
“No idea,” I say, quite honestly. “They have my background up until I moved to Philly — they know my real name and apparently, along with every other acronym, know what I do for a living. I think the Secretary of Defense may have started talking after last year.”
“Oh, how thoughtful of him… prick!”
“Exactly. But apparently, the FBI wants my help with something.”
“Okay, well let’s just see what they have to say. The way I see it, if we can do them a favor, it'll buy us a free pass this time and we can get out of here and lie low for a couple of weeks.”
That’s why we work so well together — I’m the impulsive, violent, loud-mouthed, borderline-sociopathic member of the team; Josh is the calm, patient, sensible one. Together, we’re unstoppable.
“Sounds like a plan,” I agree.
Josh stands and walks over to the door. He opens it, sticks his head out, and says something I can’t quite hear. A moment later, Special Agents Wallis and Johnson come back into the room.
Josh closes the door behind them and stands behind me. Agent Johnson sits down opposite me, with Agent Wallis standing behind him. I look up and notice the red light is back on the security camera.
“Are you going to formally charge my client?” asks Josh, back in character as the tough, British lawyer.
Agent Johnson glances behind him then looks at me.
“Despite the circumstances surrounding his arrest, we don't intend to press charges following Mr. Hell’s assault of an FBI agent at this time.”
“Good, then you can take the restraints off him.”
Wallis steps forward and produces a key from his pocket. He unlocks the handcuffs, allowing me to pull my hands free. I massage each wrist in turn, getting the blood flowing back to them.
“Thanks,” I say. “So, you were about to ask me for help?”
“Reluctantly, yes, we were,” replies Johnson.
“So, go ahead.”
“Are you aware of the recent terrorist attacks that have taken place in this city in the last seventy-two hours?”
“Attacks?” I say. “I’ve not heard of anything, no. I only arrived in town yesterday afternoon, and I’m not one to follow the news.”
Agent Wallis steps toward the table with another folder in his hand. This one he opens and turns around for me to read through.
“Yesterday morning, a bomb went off in a restaurant in Chinatown,” he explains. “There were over fifty casualties, with a further twelve fatalities.”
“Oh, wait — I think I saw this on the news. There was a TV with it on in the place I ate yesterday when I arrived here. Looked pretty bad…”
I skim through the folder. It contains lots of photographs, both black and white and color, taken at the scene. It looks like total carnage — worse than the TV had said. Bodies and body parts littered the remains of the annihilated restaurant, and the street outside. There’s a report attached which seems to detail witness statements and forensic information, but I don’t bother reading it.
“Jesus…” I say quietly.
I close the folder and pass it over my shoulder to Josh, who takes it and starts flicking through.
“Two days ago,” continues Wallis, “there was a seemingly random sniper attack outside the Transamerica Pyramid, with two people being shot dead from roughly seven hundred yards away.”
“Seemingly random?” asks Josh.
“I’ll get to that,” he says. “Both victims were shot through their right eye. Whoever pulled the trigger was exceptionally talented.”
I wouldn’t say they were exceptional… Seven hundred yards is a good distance, sure, but it’s not earth shattering. Any half-decent sniper with six months of military training could hit a target at that distance. Admittedly, getting them in the right eye is a little more impressive, but it’s still no cause for concern.
“So, you think there’s a link between the two attacks?” I ask.
Before either of them have chance to answer, the door opens and a woman walks in. She’s an average height, maybe five-six, and is wearing a gray trouser suit and black heels. When she speaks, her voice is a perfect blend of icy authority and warm comfort.
“I’ll take it from here,” she announces.
Agents Wallis and Johnson excuse themselves and leave the room. She sits down opposite me and regards me silently for a moment before speaking. Her jacket’s open, and I see her gun strapped to a shoulder holster over her white blouse.
“I’m Senior Special Agent Grace Chambers,” she says, staring at me with steel-gray eyes that look out of place on her otherwise welcoming and friendly face. “I’m well aware of who you are and what you do for a living.” She glances up at Josh. “Both of you.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. She’s very well informed, that’s for sure. Apparently, more so than her colleagues are, if she knows who Josh is.
“You’re here because we need your help with an ongoing investigation. I believe the other agents gave you the details of what we have so far?”
I nod. “I’ve seen the photos and heard the details,” I say. “I still don’t know what any of it has to do with me. How could I possibly help?”
“These attacks weren’t random. They were meticulously planned with one purpose in mind.”
I frown. “Which was?”
“To send a message to you, Adrian Hell.”
I stay silent, but my mind is racing. Josh starts pacing around behind me. I look up at him and see the look of concern on his face. My face betrays nothing, but this has left me speechless and confused. I’m wracking my brain trying to think of anyone who could hold this much of a grudge against me, and have the means to execute a plan of this magnitude.
After a few seconds, I realize my approach was futile — that list is extensive to say the very least. I re-focused my attention on Agent Chambers.
“What makes you think they’re trying to send a message to me?” I ask.
“Each crime scene has a clue — a message — that leads to you, apparently. We haven’t had time to piece everything together since we received the phone call,” replies Chambers. “We were too busy trying to find you.”
“What phone call?” asks Josh.
“We received an anonymous phone call yesterday morning, which is how we knew where to find you, Adrian.”
“Can we hear it?” I ask.
“I don’t see why not,” she says, before looking at the mirrored wall.
She makes a circular motion in the air with her right index finger, and a crackling sound comes on over a speaker system in the room, followed by the phone call.
The caller’s using a device to mask the sound of their voice, so they sound very low and digitally distorted to a point.
“This is a message for Senior Special Agent Grace Chambers of the FBI. The attacks on this city over the last two days were my doing. I wanted to get your attention. I trust I’ve succeeded? We both want the same thing, Agent Chambers. We both want Adrian Hell. I know the FBI, along with every other government agency in this country, knows who he is. I want him to suffer, and I want him to die by my hand. These attacks are for him. I’ve left a message for him at each scene — a little game for us to play. We shall see if he’s smart enough to figure out who I am. And I have many more of these messages that I’m prepared to send. If you want the attacks to stop, you will detain him for me. I’ll know when you have. Then you will stay out of my way. If you want to catch him, he’ll be coming out of your City Hall tomorrow morning. I’ll be in touch.”