Hunter's Games (34 page)

He crumples to the ground, unconscious and broken. I take a couple of hurried steps back, narrowing my angle to the other two guys, who are standing in shock, yet to react to what’s happened. I look at each one in turn.

“Who’s next?” I ask casually, trying to hide the pain I’m feeling from all this moving around.

They look at each other, panic and confusion present on their faces. As they’re about to make a move, a gunshot sounds out from further up the East Road. I look over to see a figure walking toward us. They both look, and then turn back to me and smile.

“Enough!” shouts the man as he approaches us.

I relax my stance, sensing my little rebellion is over, for the time being at least. The new arrival walks up to the guy on my left.

“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice loud and angry and Russian.

Hello, Gregovski…

The guy’s huge! I’m no slouch; don’t get me wrong—I’m about six feet tall, maybe just over. I’m around the two hundred pound mark. I’m a pretty powerful guy when I need to be. But Gregovski has a good five inches on me, easily. And probably a good fifty pounds. And it’s all muscle. He looks younger than he is. He could comfortably pass for early forties, despite his FBI file confirming he’s approaching fifty. He’s got a shaved head and dark eyes, too.

“We, erm...” the guy hesitates, intimidated by Gregovski. “He tried to escape, so we surrounded him, tried to teach him a lesson.”

Gregovski looks over at me. I simply shrug at him. He then looks at Pritchard, unconscious on the floor with a busted nose and broken leg.

“You didn’t teach him very well, it would seem...” he replies, unimpressed.

He moves next to him and nudges him with his boot. Getting no reaction, he aims his gun and fires once, putting a bullet in the back of his head. He then turns and puts another bullet in the guy he's just spoken to, right between the eyes. No emotion, no hesitation.

I like his style.

He turns to Jones, who’s standing on my right shitting himself—his eyes are wide and his body language is tenses.

“Get his bag,” he says. Jones obeys without hesitation. Finally, he turns to me. “So, you’re Adrian Hell?”

“Last I checked, yeah,” I reply.

In a flash, he raises his gun and squeezes the trig—

25.

20:17

A HEAVY BOOT to my stomach wakes me up, causing me to cough. Not the nicest alarm call I’ve ever had. I slowly open my eyes as I try to lift my head and look around. My vision’s blurry and my body feels like it’s on fire.

I’m sitting on the floor with my back to a wall. I’m inside a large, dilapidated building that resembles a warehouse. The Quartermaster building. It’s long and narrow, with pools of water on the floor. It’s mostly hollowed out inside, except for two rickety, wooden staircases running up the far side of the building opposite me. The wooden gantries above look equally decayed from this angle.

I can hear some faint movement coming from the top floor, but can’t see anything. Looking around, I seem to be sitting against a wall at one end. On either side of me are three rows of windows stretching up. Out of the left side, I see the dusk fading into night; the skyline of the San Francisco Bay lighting up as daylight fades.

I must’ve been out well over an hour… shit! I can’t afford to keep losing time. I have to stop Pellaggio before he fires on the Jeremiah. I quickly run through a self-assessment. My right arm is throbbing and burning. I slowly put my hand on my shoulder, feeling the wet, blood-soaked material of my shirt and jacket. I look down, blinking rapidly to clear my vision and focus. The bullet Gregovski put in me went through and through the fleshy part of my arm, on the outside, below the shoulder. It hurts like hell, but it hasn't caused any permanent or troubling damage.

Just to the right of me, looking down with a mixture of anger and disgust on his face, is Gregovski. My God, the guy’s a monster! There’s no sign of anyone else with us. I guess they’re either upstairs or outside.

It’s just him and me.

He takes a step forward and kicks me once again in the stomach, just below the ribcage. I crease over and fall to my right, coughing up more blood.

“Okay, okay!” I wheeze. “I’m awake already!”

“Your pain has only just begun, Adrian Hell,” he says, in a slow, deliberate, and dramatic voice.

I manage to push myself back upright into a sitting position, hugging my knees to my chest as I look up at the menacing beast looming over me. This situation is going to get worse before it gets better. That’s assuming it actually
does
get better…

“Wonderful,” I say. “Is this because you’re pissed at me for killing your niece and nephew last year?”

Without a word, he leans down at full speed and punches me across the face, sending me down to my left.

Christ, that one’s going to leave a mark! Good job I can take a hit. But this guy is going to kill me if I let things carry on as they are. I need to do something to take this guy out, and I need to do it soon. I’m honestly, not sure how much more of this I can take…

I push myself back up to a sitting position, once again, and look up at him. His eyes are wide and he’s snarling through gritted teeth like a wild animal. He looks barely in control, and I’ve not even started trying to piss him off… I can see why Pellaggio wants this guy as the poster child for his attack on the Jeremiah. He’s a very convincing terrorist-slash-psychopath.

“So is this anger you’ve got going on for yourself all about me? Or is there any truth to the rumor you hate Russia, America and everyone else as well?”

He doesn’t answer me. He still looks incensed with rage—I can see it in his eyes, which are burning with hatred. He reaches down, grabs my throat with both hands and heaves me off the floor to my feet.

My eyes go wide as I balance on my tiptoes, trying to keep the ground beneath me as he lifts and squeezes, restricting my ability to breathe. I grab his wrists with both hands, frantically trying to loosen his grip.

That doesn’t work.

I start hammering down on his elbows, trying to force his arms to bend and take some of the pressure out of his vice-like grip.

That works a little, but he’s not letting up that easily.

My lungs start to burn as I gasp for oxygen, not getting anywhere near the amount that I need to stay awake. My arms are throbbing in agony from the wounds inflicted on both my shoulders now, so I can’t get as much power behind the blows as I need to.

When in doubt, go low.

I position myself as best I can and without warning launch my right foot into his balls, like I’m kicking a fifty yard field goal in the Superbowl.

That
loosens his grip.

He yells as he lets go and staggers back, clutching his groin. I take a few paces back myself, putting some distance between us while I recover. My throat’s sore and feels like it’s starting to bruise already from where he’d gripped me. I look around the expanse of the old Quartermaster building, trying to find my equipment. Where the hell are my guns?

Oh,
there
they are… in the middle of the room next to a couple of upturned crates on the floor. Behind Gregovski…

Fucking brilliant.

I guess I’m going to have to fight this sonofabitch, aren’t I…

He looks up, shaking the effects of my kick away. He runs at me with a speed not befitting a man his size, arms wide and high, ready to slam down on me. The guy’s big. Like, really big. He looks like a Neanderthal on steroids—a big, thick brow and long arms the size of my legs. He’s definitely strong as well. But he’s slow—hindered by his size and weight. I haven’t been a hundred percent for a few hours and I’m certainly nowhere near that now, but I figure I’m still quicker than he is. And that’s my only advantage. That’s how I’m going to beat him. I’m faster than he is. And I can guarantee I’m better trained and more violent than he is too.

As he comes at me, I quickly play out every possible defensive technique in my head—what if I move left? What if I duck and feint right? Everything. I consider what could work and what definitely won’t.

Ah, when in doubt…

I let him get maybe five feet away from me, and I jump forward, snapping my forehead toward him in an arc, as if it were a dead weight. I time it perfectly with the jump, and I connect with the bridge of his nose, where it angles out in between the eyes. It’s like he'd run into a wall. The impact takes away all his momentum instantly, and he stops dead, stunned by shock and pain in equal measure.

His arms are by his sides, so his face was unprotected. I stare at him for a moment, frowning to ignore the throbbing pain in my head, seeing what he’s going to try next. He’s just standing there, eyes still wide, but confusion replaces the anger. I prepare to launch a right elbow at his head, but a shout from above distracts me.

“What the fuck is going on?”

It’s Pellaggio, who’s on the top floor, looking down over the railing. I look up and we lock eyes for a moment, then he disappears out of sight.

“Shoot him!” I hear him shout.

I can hear footsteps along the gantry as his two remaining men set off running for the stairwell at the far end.

I should probably get my guns…

I take a step toward the MP5 but Gregovski cuts me off, blocking my path having made good use of the small reprieve and recovered.

“I’m looking forward to killing you, Adrian Hell!” he says with an evil smile.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t believe how many Russians have said that to me... And every one of them is dead from trying,” I reply.

“Not all of them,” he says cryptically, smiling before swinging for me once more.

I duck under his right hand, but catch his follow-up left on my ribs. I see him go for my throat again, and I block his hand and duck down to deliver a left hook to his right kidney.

It knocks him back a little, so I roll under and do the same on the other side—right hook to the left kidney. Again, it sends him back again and looks like it hurt him a bit more this time. Regardless, he remains stubbornly upright in front of me, his large arms held high in a loose fighting guard.

The magical thing about a blow to the kidney is that it has a devastating effect on the body, causing pain, nausea, and loss of balance. But it has a delayed reaction. It takes your body roughly ten seconds to process the impact and react accordingly. He just took two very nasty punches to his kidneys, one to each side, so he’s about to have a very bad day…

We stand looking at each other as the seconds pass. He bares his teeth again, like a caged beast taunting its prey. I simply stand and smile.

Three... Two... One...

Gregovski’s eyes go wide as he keels over and drops on all fours, vomiting profusely before falling over into a fetal position—his body going into something similar to shock as his brain finally registers the shots to his kidneys.

Goodnight sweetheart!

Satisfied he’s down for the count, I make my way over to my guns, crouch down, and take a Beretta from the holster. As I’m drawing it, I hear the familiar sound of a gun being cocked behind me.

No…
two
guns.

I look up and see two guys standing over me. My friend, Jones, is on the left, with someone else next to him. They must’ve made it down the stairs quicker than I thought they would. They’ve both got me dead to rites, and I doubt very much they’re going to hesitate for one second.

Shit!

The one on the right smiles, and I see his finger tense on the trigger.

“So long, asshole!” he yells.

I can’t believe they got the drop on me like that. I didn’t give them anywhere near as much as credit as I should’ve done. I was too busy focusing on Gregovski.

Shit, shit, shit!

I close my eyes and take a long, deep, painful breath as I wait for the inevitable.

Two gunshots sound out, making me flinch with surprise.

What the…?

I open one eye and look around. Then I open the other, just to be sure. Then I pat myself down as a final check.

Nope—definitely not dead...

I look at the two guys who were about to shoot me. Jones and his friend are lying on the ground with blood pouring from bullet holes in their chests.

Seriously, what the fuck just happened?

I look all around the building, quickly resting my gaze on the main door on the right hand side. It’s open, and Senior Special Agent Grace Chambers is standing in the doorway, gun in hand.

“Hey,” she says, smiling.

“Hey,” I replied, confused. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass, by the looks of it.”

“Yeah, thanks for that. But seriously, why aren’t you on the Jeremiah?”

“Agent Wallis has it covered, working with the Secret Service. Obviously, they remained steadfast in their stance that nothing will change, so I figured I was more use to you. I took a speedboat over here, then spoke to Josh to find out where you were.”