Hunter's Games (35 page)

“Not spoke to him—I lost comms when I got blown up earlier.”

“Blown up? Jesus Christ! Are you alright? What happened?” she asked, full of concern as she races over to me.

She smiles, and it makes me feel better. And even more so, the fact she has my back. I can feel myself beginning to trust her.

As she’s walking toward me, she shouts, “Adrian, look out!”

A hail of bullets streams down, narrowly missing us both. I look up and see Pellaggio screaming from the top floor, leaning over the balcony, and firing down at us.

No rest for the wicked...

“Grace, find cover!” I yell as I pick up my back holster containing both Berettas and sprint as fast as my broken and beaten body will allow over to the far wall underneath Pellaggio, to limit his visibility.

I have to find a way up those stairs so I can stop him.

“I’ll cover you!” shouts Chambers, who’s picked up my MP5 and moved behind the doorway outside. She leans in and fires off a couple of bursts at Pellaggio, forcing him to duck away for cover.

I take my Berettas out of the holster, tucking one in the back of my waistband and keeping hold of the other. I take a couple of deep breaths and look over to the door, to make sure she’s okay. She breaks cover and unleashes another burst of fire at Pellaggio.

Yeah, she’ll be fine.

I set off running for the stairwell on the back wall, which immediately draws more fire from above. I glance behind me, seeing Chambers move back behind cover. I keep my head down and make it to the stairwell, ducking down at the side of it. It offers precious little cover, but it allows me to squeeze off a couple of rounds in his general direction, buying me some more valuable seconds.

I hold out until Pellaggio pauses to reload, then set off up the stairs as fast as I can, taking two at a time. Every inch of my body aches from the explosion earlier, and both my arms are throbbing as blood continues to stream out of the flesh wounds caused by Manhattan’s blade and Gregovski’s bullet. But the pain can wait—I have to stop Pellaggio, that’s all that matters.

Another hail of bullets shreds and splinters the wooden staircase as I come up on the first floor and race around to begin the ascent to the top. I hear Chambers fire a few more short bursts, buying me a little more time. I hold my gun out in front of me, ready to fire as I dash up the final flight of stairs, coming out on the makeshift walkway at the top. I aim my gun at Pellaggio, who’s leaning over the balcony firing at Chambers below.

“Danny!” I yell. “It’s over. Drop your gun step away from the edge.”

He stops firing but doesn't move, keeping his gun trained on Chambers. I look down and see she has her gun pointed at him too, the scene frozen in a deadly stalemate.

“Throw your gun over the side, Adrian, or I’ll cut her in half!” he shouts back.

“You won’t get chance, and we both know it. Just give it up. You’ve lost.”

In the blink of an eye, he snaps round and levels his rifle at me.

“No, I’ve not,” he says with a wicked smile.

I heard a muffled cry below, and I flash a look back down to the floor. Gregovski is back on his feet and is standing behind Chambers with one hand over her mouth, and the other holding her right arm out to the side—her gun on the floor a few feet away from them.

“Now, throw your fucking gun over the side, or he’s gonna snap her pretty little neck!”

I sigh and lower my gun, pausing a moment before reluctantly throwing it over the side.

“Adrian, don’t!” yells Chambers as she struggles to get her mouth free from Gregovski’s grip.

Pellaggio smiles. “Touching,” he says. “Now, how’s this for real power, Adrian? I’m not even gonna keep my gun on you. You stay right there, or your little FBI bitch will die. Understand?”

Arrogant bastard… But I have little choice if I want to keep her alive. I nod reluctantly.

He puts his weapon down, turns and walks a little further down the walkway. There’s a sniper rifle leaning against the wall, and as he gets level with it, he pauses—his gaze alternating between the rifle and back over his shoulder at me.

“Well, this brings back some fond memories,” he says, picking it up and holding it in his arms like a new father would hold his baby for the first time.

“This... this is what I used to shoot your friend. How’s he doing, by the way?”

The anger erupts inside me, coursing through my veins and consuming me. But as pissed as I am right now, I’m smart enough to see the opportunity I need to stall him.

“Oh, yeah—you won’t have heard, will you?” I say. “With us finding your inside man at the FBI, you won’t be in the loop anymore. Josh is fine. In fact, he’s watching all this unfold via a satellite feed at the FBI Field Office right now.”

Pellaggio’s face drops, but he quickly recovers. “No matter,” he says, dismissively. “There’s nothing anyone can do to stop this happening. And then we will watch as a brave new world blossoms in the aftermath.”

“You’re a fucking idiot, do you know that?” I ask. “Why do you think I’m here? We figured most of what you were doing out on our own, and your old pal Jimmy Manhattan filled in the blanks. As we speak, the FBI and Secret Service are clearing that boat so all you’re gonna do is play a really expensive game of Battleship on your own.”

I know that’s not strictly true, but he doesn’t. He looks quickly in every direction, like he’s trying to follow a fly. His eyes are wide as he seems to teeter on the edge of control, about to lose it completely and snap. I can handle whatever he comes at me with, as long as he isn’t focusing on firing at the Jeremiah.

But he doesn’t snap. He doesn’t come at me. He struggles, but he exercises restraint and simply smiles back at me. An evil, twisted, intelligent smile.

“Nice try, Adrian. I don’t care if anything you just said is true or not. I’ve been planning this for a year, and nothing’s gonna stop me from succeeding.”

He drops the sniper rifle and continues along the walkway, stopping beside a large, black box that looks like a huge briefcase. He crouches down and opens it, lifting the lid and resting it against the wall. He reaches inside and takes out an FIM-92 Stinger missile launcher.

I quickly look at Chambers. She isn’t afraid, but she’s panicking. She can see how close we are to failing. Gregovski is staring up at me with menace in his eyes, his hand holding her steady by the side of her neck. He dwarfs her, towering a good foot over her. She struggles against his grip, but it’s more of a futile gesture than a serious attempt at escape.

I look back at Pellaggio, who’s hefted the launcher up on his right shoulder. It’s a tube about a meter and a half long—just a bit longer than the missile itself. His left hand is supporting the end, in the way you would a regular assault rifle. The butt and trigger are close to the shoulder, and his right arm bends as he grips it, finger on the trigger guard. On top of the tube, coming out at roughly a forty-five degree angle, is a thin piece of metal similar in size to a computer keyboard. Along the top edge of it is the sight, which he’s looking through now, out the window and across the Bay, lining up his target.

The way the targeting system works is that you look through the scope and see a computerized telescopic sight. Once you get the target in your sights, you hold it there while the on-board computer locks onto its position, based on GPS location and distance, which it measures via a laser fitted just underneath the sight. The screen confirms the target’s locked, and then you fire.

The missile is propelled out of the launch tube by a powerful stream of argon gas, which is kept cool by a battery pack fitted into the butt of the launcher. It travels at around nine hundred miles per hour and will penetrate its target before exploding like a very powerful fragmentation grenade, causing an insane amount of damage.

I’m screwed if he fires that missile, but if I move for him, Chambers is dead.

I clench my jaw muscles, running through every outcome in my head—what might work, what wouldn’t. There are no perfect endings.

Except one. Maybe.

I move my left hand slowly to my side, thinking about the Beretta I still have at my back. It’s risky, but it’s the only option that stands even a remote chance of working. Pellaggio is about to fire his missile, and if he does, everything we’ve done would've been for nothing.

I take a deep breath.

Fuck it.

26.

20:48

I’M VERY FORTUNATE to have some level of natural ability when it comes to what I do for a living. I've received a lot of training during my time in the military, but—and I say this with no ego at all—to get to the level that I operate on, you have to have some natural talent to begin with. It has to be in your blood.

I have two main strengths when it comes to shooting: speed and accuracy. If we lived in the Old West, I’d have been a quick draw champion—no doubt about that. Hand-to-eye co-ordination has always been something that’s come naturally to me. Which obviously has a positive effect on my level of accuracy.

You can train people to shoot the wings off a fly at a thousand yards and that’s great. But I can take one look at my target, instantly shoot from the hip and hit it—every single time. I don’t aim with my head. I aim with my eye. My brain then tells my hand to point at what my eye’s looking at and it does, like an instinct… a reflex. There’s no logical thought process involved. I just point and fire. And I never miss.

It’s quite a handy skill to have when you kill people for a living.

I look down one last time at Chambers. We lock eyes and time slows down around me. All noise disappears, leaving nothing except the two of us, staring at each other for what feels like a lifetime. I can see the panic in hers. She’ll be able to see the killer in mine.

I wink at her and take one last breath…

My left hand disappears behind my back, re-appearing a moment later and whipping my second Beretta around to aim at Pellaggio. I arc the swing of my arm out over the balcony as I do, and fire once. The bullet hits Gregovski in the center of his forehead, narrowly missing Chambers by a few inches. She screams as Gregovski shudders and falls heavily to the floor, a spray of blood catching her down her left side.

As confident as I was of making that shot, it’s always harder when there’s someone you care about in the way.

I save the sigh of relief for later. I know Chambers is okay, and there’s no time for celebrating.

I continue the swing, bringing my gun level with Pellaggio. But I hesitate. I can see his finger tensing on the trigger and, if I shoot him, it will likely cause him to twitch and get the shot off anyway. In a split second, I change my mind and drop my gun, racing toward Pellaggio as time resumes its normal speed. I can hear the launcher start to bleep as it acquires its target.

Goddammit, come on, Adrian—faster!

With gritted teeth, I approach him at full speed, jumping and aiming my right elbow at his head. I smash into him, catching him flush on his right temple at the exact moment he squeezes the trigger. He collapses to the floor, falling left with me on top of him.

But I’m too late…

The loud whoosh of the missile firing fills the building.

“No!” screams Chambers as she spears at the top of the stairs and starts running toward us along the gantry.

“Fuck!” I shout, punching the floor with frustration. But I shake my head. “No, this isn’t over!”

I’m Adrian Hell... I don’t fail, and I certainly don’t miss!

I scramble to my feet and lunge for the Remington sniper rifle that Pellaggio taunted me with earlier. The same rifle that put two bullets in my best friend. I pick it up and use it to smash the glass right in front of me. I quickly chamber a .300 round, drop to one knee, and line up my shot through the scope.

The Stinger missile is moving at around nine hundred miles an hour in a straight line. The bullet I’m about to fire will move at over twice that speed. The downside is, the range of my bullet is over half that of the Stinger, so the timeframe I have to work with is measured in split seconds at best.

I look through the scope and track the missile. It’s a very small target already, but I’m pretty sure that if I can just hit it, that’ll be enough to knock it off course at very least—or, ideally, detonate it early.

To my right, I hear Chambers approach me.

“Adrian, you could’ve shot me back there!” she says. “I can’t believe you would…”

She stops mid-sentence as she looks at me. I’ve not acknowledged her, but her silence tells me everything I need to know.

“Adrian, you can’t be serious?” she asks, seeing what I intend to do.

I don’t respond, focusing completely on this shot. Probably the biggest shot I’ve ever had to take—not wishing to add more pressure to myself or anything.

My whole body aches, and my arms are screaming as I try to hold the rifle steady. But this is it. I look through the scope at the missile, knowing that if I miss and it reaches the Jeremiah, the consequences will send shockwaves felt the world over.

I take a deep breath, and another, and then hold it. Everything around me fades away and I breathe out slowly, squeezing the trigger as the breath leaves my lungs. The sound of the shot echoes around the hollow interior of the building. I immediately throw the rifle down and look through the window. I feel Chambers’ hand on my shoulder. I reach up and grip it.