“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.”