“Well, I could use your help finding them,” I reply.
“Are you as good as the stories say you are?”
“Stories?” I ask, innocently.
“Come on, you must know what I’m talking about? You’re Adrian Hell!”
I swear to God, she just air-quoted when she said my name!
I say nothing. I know what she meant. I know why there are stories about me. I’ve done a good job of keeping my emotions in check so far since arriving in Heaven’s Valley. But Clara’s referring to the times when I’ve not been able to do that — the results of which have never been pleasant for anyone involved.
I look at her, taking a deep breath and fixing her with a reassuring and earnest stare.
“You have my word,” I say. “I’ll burn the bastards to the ground. Every last one of them.”
She stands quietly for a moment, looking into my eyes and deciding whether or not she believes me. Then she smiles, lighting up her entire face and making her eyes sparkle. “Good,” she says. “Now go have a shower. I know exactly how we can start.”
I showered and changed my clothes and took some painkillers. I’m standing by the door, waiting for Clara to put her boots on. I feel slightly more human than before. A moment later, she stands.
“You good?” I ask.
She nods, and I open the door, holding it for her. I step out into the hall after her and close it again and we walk side by side down the corridor and out the main entrance to the parking lot.
The sun is bright and it’s hot as hell outside. I squint until my eyes adjust and the painkillers kick in. I follow Clara over to her car, which is a bright red Dodge Viper GTS with a vertical, white double stripe down the middle.
“I’m impressed,” I say, genuinely surprised. “That’s a nice set of wheels.”
“Sure is,” she replies. “It’s a classic — a V10 engine pumping out four hundred and fifty brake horse power. Zero to sixty in four seconds.”
I look her up and down, admiringly. Not in a physical way as such, I’m just impressed that someone who looks as good as she does, and is as physically capable as she is, also happens to own a muscle car. To many men, she’s the perfect woman.
She sees the look on my face.
“What can I say?” she says. “We all have our toys. You have your guns, I have Princess here.”
I raised my eyebrow, questioningly. “Princess?”
“What?” she shrugs, smiling.
I shake my head and duck into the passenger seat. She climbs in gracefully next to me and fires up the engine, revving it and savoring the noise of a tamed beast.
“So, where are we going?” I ask.
She pulls out of the parking lot and turns right, stopping at the set of lights.
“I clearly don’t know as much as I thought about Dark Rain,” she says. “We need to prepare if we intend going up against them by ourselves. I figure we can do some recon, ask around and see what we can find out about their intentions. I know a good place to start.”
I admit I like the way she’s talking as if we’re a team. I’ve never really had a partner. Well, not out in the field anyway. Josh is my go-to guy — always has been, always will be. But Clara’s operating on the same wavelength as me down here on the front line and it feels pretty good not going it alone for once.
“Okay, let’s go,” I say.
We drive mostly in silence and I take in some of the surroundings that whizz by outside. I’ve only seen a small part of Heaven’s Valley so far, and wherever we’re heading seems to be taking us all round the center of the city. We briefly pass through the business district, where I first saw Clara with Ted Jackson a couple of days ago. I see the large fountain where I sat waiting. We take a left turn and shortly afterward hit the freeway, settling into nice, steady eighty miles per hour cruise.
“There’s a courier service with a depot on the other side of town,” she says. “Dark Rain has a guy on the inside who helps them transport weapons and money around when they need it.”
“They seem pretty well organized,” I observe.
“They really are. GlobaTech have given them a lot of money and they’ve invested it well. The Colonel is a smart man and they’re well rooted in the city. They’ve got contacts and safe houses all over the place. It’s strange to think that the people who live here have no idea that their entire city is being used to organize an operation like this.”
“Yeah, it’s not a pleasant thought. When I spoke to Manhattan yesterday, I told him then that he was in way over his head and had no idea who he was dealing with. I’m starting to think I don’t, either.”
“We just need to know exactly what their plan is, and how they’re carrying it out. Then we can figure out how to stop them. Simple.”
I have to smile. “Your optimism is encouraging, I’ll give you that.”
“I feel better now that I’m doing something positive. I felt so bad the other day when I realized what I’d gotten mixed up in. I’ve done some questionable things in the past, don’t get me wrong, but for the most part I have no regrets. But this is off the scale. I mean, Uranium? We could be talking about black market nuclear weapons. It’s insane.”
“I completely agree. What’s worse is we don’t know their endgame. That’s why I’ve been running interference with the mob. Pellaggio’s outfit pretty much owns this city. To be honest, I’m surprised Dark Rain’s been able to do what they have without Pellaggio finding out. But the mob isn’t military, and if they got their hands on either ready-made nuclear weapons or the raw materials needed to manufacture them, that just wouldn’t end well.”
Clara navigates the traffic with ease, taking the left exit just coming up on our left.
“My idea is to scope out the courier’s place, hope to get lucky and see our guy making a delivery. We can then tail him and see what we find,” she says.
“Or we could just go and talk to him?” I suggest.
“Seriously?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t do subtle, do you?”
“She says in a bright red Dodge Viper…”
“Touché,” she concedes, laughing. “But he won’t say anything. Ketranovich has everyone wound up tight. They’d die for his cause, so there’s no way you’d get anything out of him.”
I look at her. “He’ll talk to me.”
Her jaw tightens and she bites her bottom lip, thinking. She knows better than to doubt me, but I think she’s just worrying about how this whole thing will play out.
We turn a corner and she forgets her concerns as quickly as she thought of them.
“We’re here,” she says, pulling up across the street. She points to a building opposite. “That’s the place.”
It’s a generic two story building with a yard to its left that has six vans parked in it. The sign across the building above the main entrance says: EXPRESS COURIER SERVICES. There’s lots of activity, which is to be expected, I guess.
“What’s this guy’s name?” I ask.
“Marcus Jones,” she replies.
“Right, come on then,” I say, opening the door and climbing out.
“You’re insane,” she mutters as she follows me.
We cross the street and walk in through the main entrance. Inside is a small lobby with a worn, blue carpet underfoot. A couple of seats are on the left, and there’s a large plant on the right looking long overdue for some water.
Manning the front desk is a short, portly man with dark hair and a large moustache — both mottled with flecks of gray. His stomach is disproportionately large compared to the rest of his body, hanging low over his belt. I reckon it’s been close to a decade since he last saw his own feet while standing.