Dammit!
If Josh were here, he’d have sorted this by now…
I glance around again one last time. In the corner along the north wall, I notice something flashing on one of the screens. Clutching at straws, I head over and look at the computer terminal. It looks like a communications system of some kind. The screen says satellites are offline and that there’s an active signal emanating from the compound.
That must be why there’s no cell phone signal in the area — they’re manually jamming it!
I look around the room at all the doors to make sure I’m still alone before I sit at the console. I’m not exactly a complete beginner with computers, but I’m not exactly Josh either. I click through the various menus and, after a couple of minutes and a bit of luck, I manage to find a way to disable the jamming signal. I check my phone and see that it’s re-established contact with the cell phone network and I’m getting a signal again.
Jackpot!
I quickly ring Josh.
“Adrian!” he yells as he picks up. “Where the hell have you been? It’s all gone to shit up here!”
“I don’t have time to explain right now,” I reply urgently. “Just listen to me. We’ve been played from day one — this whole thing is a set-up for GlobaTech and we’re playing right into their hands.”
“Yeah, we figured something was up when the airstrike failed. What the hell happened?”
“They had SAM sites armed with Hawk missiles.”
“Jesus! Where did they get that kind of hardware?”
“I’m guessing with the funds they got from GlobaTech, before Clark did the internal re-shuffle and cut off their allowance.”
“But how did they know about it in the first place?”
I pause and take a deep breath, knowing that saying it out loud for the first time is going to hurt. “It was Clara,” I say. “She’s been with Dark Rain this whole time.”
Josh falls silent. I make a note of the time and date, as this doesn’t happen often…
“Well,” he says, finally. “What a fucking bitch!”
“My thoughts exactly. But listen, you have to get GlobaTech to call off the ground assault. If they come in here, they’re all going to die!”
“No can do, Boss. It’s already underway. In addition to Clark’s little army, Secretary Schultz has brought in more official troop support too. Because the assault on the F-22s took place on U.S. soil, it’s being treated as an act of domestic terrorism. Gives them just cause to intervene and make this more than just a private matter.”
“Shit. How many soldiers?”
“You’ve got a hundred and fifty GlobaTech personnel, plus another two or three hundred U.S. military troops.”
“Holy mother of God…”
“What?”
“Josh, they don’t have any nukes here. They don’t have missiles of any kind. They don’t even have any soldiers. Everything you know about Dark Rain is a lie. It’s just Ketranovich, Clara and the Salikov twins. Everyone else, they kill after they’ve served their purpose.”
“So, what exactly do they have, besides themselves?”
“What they have, are five rooms, each of which has a furnace the size of a house, which were apparently used for disposing of chemical weapons fifty years ago. Each room also has about three hundred pounds of C4 attached to the ceiling. The particular section of the compound that’s rigged is directly under the main yard. You can probably see where this is going…”
“Christ almighty!”
“I know.”
He starts thinking out loud, piecing things together as I did earlier. I let him come to it on his own.
“Blowing the entire compound like that would leave a crater a mile wide and eviscerate everyone who was in the area — no question! But when it was just GlobaTech troops, it would all be looked at as a minor conflict that could be explained away by the media spin-doctors with no problems. But if the U.S. army is sending men in and they die, then we have a much a bigger problem than that. Adrian, this could cause a war!”
“Hence the urgency of me contacting you. You need to do something — anything. Just stop them coming in here, Josh. Whatever it takes.”
“I’ll get on the line to Clark right away.”
As he says that, the main entrance door opens and Gene Salikov walks in.
I turn and our eyes meet. He stops in his tracks, clearly confused. I can see him working it all out in his head. His sister, Natalia, was sent to kill me, yet here I am, and she’s nowhere to be seen. He’s staring at me, free as a bird, talking on the phone. Logic would therefore dictate that his sister is injured or worse, and that it’s my doing.
After a few seconds of silence and confusion on his part, he screams something incomprehensible at me in Russian and reaches for his gun.
“Josh, I gotta go,” I say, as the first bullet whizzes past my head.
I duck behind the desk, throwing my phone down and pulling Natalia’s gun out, instinctively checking the magazine. It’s practically full, which is helpful. I reach up and blind-fire one round in the direction of the main door, just to try to get an idea of where he is.
There’s a moment’s silence before he stands and resumes screaming, squeezing off round after round in my direction. He starts walking toward me, firing, and yelling. I stick my head around the corner of the desk and catch a glimpse of him. His eyes are wide with rage. He isn’t thinking about anything other than putting a bullet in me. Which I can understand, given what I’ve just done to his sister…
However, he has me pinned down and I can’t stay here without increasing the risk of getting shot. I fire another round blindly, trying to make him hesitate, buying me some valuable seconds. I look around the room at my options.
None present themselves.
Shit.
His gun clicks on an empty chamber.
I breathe a small sigh of relief. I don’t know how many spare magazines he has, but I have no desire to find out. Straight away, I stand and walk toward him with my gun aimed squarely at his chest.
“Put your gun down,” I say. “It’s over.”
I have him dead to rights, and he knows it. He stops where he is, on the other side of the center console about thirty feet from me. He tosses his gun down on the floor, seething with rage and staring at me with an unblinking gaze of hatred on his face.
He stands casually; seemingly oblivious to the fact I have a gun on him.
“Why don’t you throw your weapon down too?” he asks me in a slow, thick Russian accent. “Fight me like a real soldier!”
He cracks his knuckles and smiles, before switching into a fighting stance, similar to that of a boxer. Left foot forward, up on the balls of his feet. Hands high, guarding his face.
Despite my occupation, the concept of honor and tradition isn’t lost on me. I understand that sometimes you just have to prove who’s best. Anyone can pull a trigger, but it takes a true warrior to fight it out with someone, unarmed, to the death.
I look him up and down. He has a good, solid stance. He’s light on his feet for a guy as muscular as he is. He seems to subconsciously put more weight on his front leg, which makes me think he has an old injury of some kind on his other, which could be useful. He’s right-handed and holds his backhand slightly lower than his front, which means he favors a strong right knockout blow. Easily avoided, but deadly if it found the mark.
I look into his eyes. That rage is still burning bright. Ultimately, I all but killed his sister about ten minutes ago, and he knew it. Someone in a fight to the death, with hate as their fuel and revenge as their motive, would be capable of immense things.