True Conviction (19 page)

“So get them back. They’re mine,” he says, bluntly.

“Actually, that land is now the property of the United States Government. I spoke to the Secretary of Defense and he persuaded me to hand the deeds over to a private military contractor called GlobaTech—who Ted Jackson worked for, in case you’ve forgotten. They’re handling the legalities of it all, but the bottom line is this: let it go—you’ve lost.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line for a few moments.

“Bullshit,” he says, finally.

“I’m afraid not, sorry. See, it turns out that underneath that little plot of land lies the only natural Uranium deposit in North America. I couldn’t let you keep it once I found out, and since then, lots of things have happened that culminated in the Secretary of Defense ordering me to hand the deeds over.”

“You’ve cost me millions of dollars...”

There’s an icy calm in his voice, and I suspect it means he’s so angry right now, he doesn’t quite know how to express it.

“Well, if you’d known about the Uranium and started selling
that
as well, you could argue I’ve probably cost you billions, if I’m honest. If it’s any consolation, you did manage to get away without paying me for the Ted Jackson hit. Although, I did kinda screw you over and frame Jimmy for that, didn’t I? Huh… how about we call it even?”

“You’re a fucking dead man, you hear me, kid?” says Pellaggio. “Dead!”

“I think not, actually, Bobby old buddy. See, you’re now a member of an exclusive club for people who I’ve warned more than once. There are two members. One of them has just been arrested for a murder we all know he had nothing to do with. His nose is broken, his pride is hurt and he’s fully aware that if I see him again, I’ll put a bullet in his head. The other is you. So listen up and listen good: if you ever see me again, you run. If I catch you, the last thing you will ever see will be the image of my gun pointing at your face. I’m not threatening you—I’m simply stating an irrefutable fact. Take the hit on this one, walk away, and fight another day.”

“You talk a lot, kid. And you seem to forget exactly who the fuck I am. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble and there are countless bodies buried in the desert that can vouch for the fact that I don’t take too kindly to people fucking with my business. You’re one man, and you’ll soon be a dead one.”

He hangs up before I have chance to say anything else. I look at the phone for a moment and sigh. To be fair, I’ve probably said enough. He’s likely on the phone to everyone he knows right now, rallying his troops, and showing them my picture. I suspect things will get interesting real soon.

So much for getting out of Heaven’s Valley…

I sit in silence for a moment, thinking things over. I re-dial Josh.

“Hey, quick question—you got a number for Robert Clark?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’ll text it you now,” he replies. “What’s up?”

“I need a favor from our new best friend.”

Josh sighs heavily on the other end of the phone. “What have you done, Adrian?”

“Josh, I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about...”

Silence.

“Okay, fine. Pellaggio just called me and demanded I give him the deeds. I told him about the Uranium mine and that the U.S. Secretary of Defense ordered me to give them to GlobaTech. He advised me I won’t be alive for long, apparently.”

“To which you replied…?”

“I may have suggested that I was going to shoot him in the head if I ever saw him again.”

“So, not only did you essentially commit treason by divulging classified military information, you succeeded in pissing off one of the biggest mob bosses on the West Coast?”

“He was already pissed at me.”

“Yes, but
now
he’s gonna be pulling together his vast array of resources and dedicating his every waking moment to killing you.”

“Well, there is that, I suppose.”

“You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

I pause. “Maybe...”

“I swear, sometimes I think you’re suicidal.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine, stop being such an old woman about it. We’ve dealt with worse.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Can you get me his address?”

“Pellaggio’s? Why? Do you intend knocking on his door and saying ‘Hi’?”

“Something like that.”

“Can I have all your guns and money when you die?”

“Knock yourself out, but I’m being buried with my Berettas.”

“I can live with that. When this goes wrong and you’re buried in the desert, where you’ll be heading you’ll need all the help you can get.”

I’M ON MY way back to the hospital to check on Clara one last time before I leave. I’d talked through with Josh what I had planned for Pellaggio before setting off. He was skeptical to say the least, but he texted me Robert Clark’s number a few moments ago, as well as Pellaggio’s address and directions. I figure I’ll pop over on my way out of here and see if we can’t sort this whole thing out like gentleman…

This car is one of the best I’ve ever driven. The roar of the engine, the speed, and the acceleration feels like someone tried to tame nature itself—and struggled. For a true sports car like the Viper, you have to drive it straight, drive it fast, and have a helluva soundtrack in the background.

I’m messing with the radio to find something suitable. There are a couple of local radio stations playing up-to-date chart music, which is no good at all. After another moment or two of fine-tuning, I stumble across a station with an older-sounding guy talking, introducing three tracks to be played back to back, all classic rock.

That’ll do nicely…

I crank up the volume as the opening riff to
Since You’ve Been Gone
by Rainbow starts. This song is what I like to call ‘hundred-mile-an-hour music’… I put my foot to the floor and blast down the street; windows down, music loud. For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I feel relaxed and free—away from all the burdens and bullets that this city has thrown at me. It’s just the music, the open road, and me.

I pull into the hospital parking lot and turn the volume down to a reasonable, boring level. There aren’t many cars parked nearby, considering it was a hospital. I don’t want to get out of the car… but as the saying goes: there’s no rest for the wicked, I guess.

I get out and walk in through the main entrance. I take the elevator up to the fourth floor. The doors ding open and I step out into the waiting area. One of the nurses behind the desk looks up and smiles. I recognize her from when GlobaTech brought me here in the early hours of this morning. I smile back as I walk past the desk and down the corridor toward Clara’s room. The doors with the keypad are standing open, which is helpful, as I don’t have a keycard.

It’s a little unsecure though…

I walk through and knock on the door to Clara’s room. There’s no answer, so I open the door slowly and look inside, in case she’s sleeping or getting changed or something.

The bed’s empty.

For crying out loud… I wish she’d stop doing that! The woman can’t stay still for more than a couple of minutes, let alone be trusted to seek medical attention when she needs it.

I walk back out to the waiting area and speak to the nurse who smiled at me.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Can you tell me where Clara Fox is? She was in Room Five, down the corridor.”

She checks the computer in front of her for a moment.

“I can see she discharged herself a couple of hours after she came in,” she says, apologetically. “We cleaned the wound and stitched it back up, then she insisted on leaving almost immediately afterward.”

I take a deep breath, sighing heavily. “Okay, thanks for your help.”

I take the elevator back down to the ground floor.

Where the hell is she now? Why would she have checked herself out? There’s nothing left for her to do. GlobaTech will handle Dark Rain, and Pellaggio was never her problem to start with. Where could she be?

I step outside and take my phone out, dialing Clark’s number.

“It’s Adrian,” I say as he answers. “You got a minute?”

“I don’t know where she is either, if that’s what you’re calling to ask?” he says.

“How do
you
know Clara’s not in the hospital?”

“I came by a couple of hours ago, hoping to run into you, funnily enough. I went to check on her while I was there and the nurse said she’d checked herself out.”

“Well, with a bit of luck, she’s left town with Jackson’s money, like I told her to.”

“Ah, I did wonder where his briefcase was. Technically, you should return that to me, y’know?”

“Sorry. I gave it to Clara not long after taking out Jackson. She was worrying about trying to leave Dark Rain, so I told her to take the money and run. I think she’s resourceful enough to disappear for a while.”

“How noble of you. Well, I’ll consider it an investment for the future.”

“How diplomatic of
you
. What did you want me for, anyway?”

“I wanted to thank you again for giving up the deeds to the Uranium deposit earlier today. Thanks to you, GlobaTech have strengthened their delicate relationship with the U.S. military. Moving forward, we’ll be working closely with them on a number of projects both domestic and overseas.”

“Glad I could help.”

“Did you want me for something?”

“Yeah, I was going to ask you for a favor but, seeing as though I’ve just helped you secure lots of business and money, it’s probably more like a commission payment.”

Clark laughs. “Go on, what do you need?”

I spend a couple of minutes running through a comprehensive list of things I want, as well as details of what I intend to do with them. Under the circumstances, I figure he deserves full disclosure.

He’s silent for a few moments afterward. Then he says, “Well, you’re officially certifiable. You do realize that, right? I mean, I wouldn’t send an entire unit to do that.”

“So, can you help me?” I ask.

“For what it’s worth, yeah, I can get you what you need. I’ll text you an address to go and pick it up. I can get it ready for you in a few hours.”

“I appreciate that, thank you.”

“Adrian, are you serious about this?”

“Completely.”

“And you think you can pull it off?”

“No doubt at all.”

“When all this has blown over, if you ever want a job, you call me, okay? I could use someone as clinically insane as you.”

“I’ve got a job, but thanks for the offer.”

I hang up and walk over to the parking lot. It still isn’t very busy, despite there being a few more cars here now compared to when I arrived five minutes ago.

I see Clara’s Dodge Viper up ahead. It’s maybe twenty-five feet away. Suddenly, the air fills with a deafening roar and the last thing I see is the car disappearing in a ball of smoke and fire.

I open my eyes. I can hear a loud ringing sound and I seem to be lying on the floor, looking up at a large, dark gray cloud of smoke in the sky. There’s a voice in my head telling me not to move, so at least I know I’m alive and my brain’s working.

My entire body feels hot, like I’m on fire or something…

What the hell just happened?

I cautiously try to move my arms, one at a time.

They hurt, but they’re attached and functioning, which is something.

I move them, checking the rest of my body instinctively to make sure I’m in one piece… There are no protruding bones, but my chest is wet. I feel around and realize I’m bleeding from my mouth and it’s dripping down my front. I use my tongue to feel around inside, but a blinding white pain surges through my face so I stop.

This sucks…

I try to move my legs, one at a time.

Yup, they work.

Okay, I’m going to try to stand…

I put my arms out behind me and bring my knees up to my chest. I take a few deep, painful breaths then try to push myself upright.

Oh… no—this isn’t going to work!

I fall slowly and pitifully over on my side—my equilibrium seems to be all over the place. I look around but my vision’s blurry and I can’t focus on anything nearby.

Great—another concussion…

I’ll settle for sitting up for now. I resume the position of arms behind me and knees to my chest and start looking around, taking slow, deep breaths to try to calm myself. My bruised ribs and back are hurting again with renewed vigor. I feel sick, too.

Definitely a concussion.

What’s that? Two this week, so far?

For fuck’s sake.

I look ahead of me, staring for a moment so I can focus. There’s a blazing wreck in the parking lot; what remains of the bodywork is red with patches of white.

Jesus, the Viper blew up? How?

In the distance, I can hear lots of commotion: sirens wailing, people screaming and running in all directions. I look, however, and realize all that’s happening all around me.

I guess I’m quite fortunate, in a way, because I’ve been blown up in a hospital parking lot. At least I don’t have far to travel.

Shit, who’s that?

I feel hands on my shoulders. Immediately, I try to fight them off, but as I look down, I realize I’m not thrashing my arms and twisting my body violently to escape their grasp, like I was trying to do. In reality, I’m hardly moving.

How embarrassing…

I give up. I let the hands guide me backward so I’m lying on the ground again. A face looms into view above me. I recognize the nurse from the fourth floor who smiled at me. She’s saying something to me, but I can’t really hear her.

This is all getting a bit much, if I’m honest. I have no idea how the car exploded, or why. I can’t really move, besides sitting upright, which isn’t going to get me anywhere… I might as well get some rest. This nurse looks friendly, so I doubt she’ll try to kill me or anything. I just need a bit of peace and quiet for a moment...

??:??

I open my eyes again and see long, bright lights rushing past above me.

How long have I been out?

I try to lift my head and around. There’s a person either side of me, walking quickly and looking ahead.

Oh man, my head feels like it’s been split in half.

The person on my left looks down, clearly noticing me moving. They say something to me that I can’t hear, but they don’t look frightened, angry, or concerned.

Whatever they’re saying can’t be too bad then...

I’ll just close my eyes for a moment.

I open my eyes slowly. A heavy mist slowly lifts, revealing my surroundings. I’m lying in bed in what looks like a hospital room. Directly opposite my bed, mounted high on the wall is a clock.

Christ, I’ve been out well over five hours…

I blink a few times, urging my brain to start functioning properly again.

I definitely feel a lot better than I did the last time I was awake.

I look around the room. There’s a window on my right, overlooking some trees and, I’m guessing, the parking lot—I can see lots of flashing lights reflecting in the window and a thin plume of smoke rising into the night sky. At the bottom of my bed against the far wall is a TV, with the clock above it. Next to that on the left is a man dressed in black with a balaclava on, standing to attention and holding an automatic submachine gun. There’s the door on the left, which is closed, and there’s a metal stand next to my bed with an IV drip hanging on it. I follow the tubing and realize it’s feeding into a nozzle that’s sticking in the back of my left hand. On the table next to my bed is a...

Hang on.

Window. TV. Man with gun. Door. IV drip.

That’s not right.

I look over at the man in black. I can only see his eyes, which are brown. He relaxes his stance as he sees me looking at him, holding his gun loose—not primed for action. He waves at me.

What the hell’s in this IV?

I slowly wave back with my right hand.

I’m not convinced that this isn’t a hallucination of some sort…

He walks over to the door and opens it. He sticks his head out to the left and whistles, then holds the door open. After a few moments, Robert Clark enters the room.

“Hey there, sleeping beauty,” he says.

I sigh and roll my eyes. That’s something Josh would’ve said.

“Come over here so I can hit you,” I reply, groggily.

“How you holdin’ up?”

“Been better. Let me ask you: is that guy over there with the gun real?”

Clark looks over his shoulder at the guy standing guard by the door.

“He’s as real as it gets,” he replies.

“That’s alright then. Thought I was going strange for a minute.”

“Adrian, what the hell happened?”

“I don’t know. I got off the phone with you, walked over to Clara’s car and it exploded. My guess would be that Pellaggio’s got a head start on trying to make me dead.”

“That was a serious explosion, Adrian. You’re lucky you're alive. I’ve got a couple of guys working on the car now. Or, what’s left of it at least. We’ve managed to keep the local authorities away for now. It’s a shame—that was a sweet ride.”

“It really was…” I agree, fondly. “Clara’s gonna kill me.”

“Not if someone else beats her to it... We think the bomb was C4, intended for remote detonation from somewhere nearby. It was underneath the car near the driver’s door. From what we can determine after our preliminary investigation, whoever did this configured the device to detonate via a cell phone transmission. My personal guess is that for some reason, our conversation triggered the explosion early. Your phone must’ve used the same frequency as the device programmed to detonate it.”