Paradise Burns (11 page)
TWENTY-THREE
The van was
speeding down the road, erratically weaving in and out of the traffic. It was a
six-lane freeway, three in each direction. Thankfully, there wasn’t any heavy traffic.
We followed as closely as we could.
‘Try and get alongside him,’ I said to
Clara.
She was in a far superior car, so
catching Jones wasn’t the problem. The problem was staying close to him,
because he was swerving left and right whenever we approached. We didn’t want
to risk a crash, so had to keep dropping back.
Clara was focused on the road. I was
trying to plan how to stop him without killing him. There aren’t too many
options when you’re racing down a reasonably busy road chasing a van who’s
driver is panicking.
‘Where’s he likely to be heading?’ I
asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Clara. ‘I doubt he’s
going to run straight to their main base knowing we’re following him. There are
a couple of other locations Dark Rain use - weapons drops and safe houses.’
I frowned.
‘We need to get him before he reaches
somewhere we can’t follow.’
I leant out of the window and drew one
of my guns.
‘What are you doing?!’ yelled Clara.
If I was being honest, I had no idea
what I was doing. It’s a near-impossible shot to hit a tire in this situation.
I figured if I could at least hit the van, he might slow down or make a
mistake.
‘Tell you in a minute,’ I said.
I squeezed off two rounds. I’ve no idea
where the first one went, but the second one hit the back door of the van. The
noise was very high-pitched, and Jones swerved left and right out of instinct.
He suddenly took a sharp left, narrowly
missing the oncoming traffic he cut across. Clara saw it, but knew she wouldn’t
have made it across the junction.
‘Take the next left, we’ll catch up to
him,’ I said.
We did, and we saw the van go across the
end of the road. We turned right and were luckily back on his tail in no time.
Clara pushed forward and was drawing
level with him on the inside. He saw the move and edged to his left to close us
down. We dropped back and fell in behind him again.
He tried to take another sharp turn, to
the right this time, but he was going too fast. He turned too early and clipped
the curb. He was doing at least sixty when he turned and he started to slide as
his front right wheel went up. The momentum made the van tip over onto its left
side and he went across the road and into a parked car that was on the opposite
side.
Clara saw it and slowed down. The crash
was deafening, and people screamed and ran from the scene. It was a miracle
no-one was seriously injured.
We pulled up just before the right turn
and waited. The van had skidded to a halt, writing off the car it collided
with. People were gathering around the accident now.
‘Jesus,’ said Clara. ‘This is all my
fault.’
‘How do you figure that?’ I asked.
‘He only ran when he saw me. If I’d let
you go in alone, you might have been able to talk to him and stop him from
running.’
‘Look, neither of us were to know he was
going to bolt the moment he saw you. No-one’s been injured - except him, and I’m
okay with that.’
She forced a smile.
‘But we’re still at square one. We didn’t
get anything out of him, and now Dark Rain will know we’re onto them.’
‘Hold up,’ I said, looking over at the
crash.
Marcus Jones was climbing up and out of
the passenger door window. He looked relatively unhurt, apart from some cuts
and bruises. He jumped down to the road and bent over, resting his hands on his
knees. He looked around at the people staring.
He saw our car. His gaze met mine. He
set off running down the road, out of sight.
‘Oh, no you don’t, you slippery bastard!’
I yelled, getting out of the car and setting off after him.
I rounded the corner and barged through
the crowd of slack-jawed onlookers. Jones was just ahead of me. I sprinted on
after him.
I didn’t know where Clara was, but I realized
after a couple of hundred feet that my body really wasn’t in any condition to be
running. I was breathing heavily already, despite usually being in excellent
physical condition, and the deep breaths felt like a knife stabbing my chest.
Goddamn cracked ribs.
I couldn’t maintain this pace for long.
I had to catch him. He was just up ahead, and was heading into an alleyway in
between two buildings on the left hand side of the road. He glanced behind him
to see where I was and nearly ran into a trashcan. He jumped over it, but it
bought me a couple of seconds.
‘Marcus!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t you be
making me run, you asshole!’
I entered the alleyway. He was nowhere
to be seen. It was a dead end, with large dumpsters on either side. On the
right was a fire escape. I looked up and saw Jones climbing the metal stairs up
to the roof.
Shit.
I took a couple of steps back, then
sprinted toward the ladder that led up to the fire escape. I jumped and just
managed to grab a hold of the bottom rung. I can’t describe how excruciating it
was to try and pull myself up that ladder with cracked ribs and a mild
concussion, but take my word for it - it was painful.
I made it onto the fire escape and
started running up the stairs, taking two or three at a time. But by the time I
made it onto the roof, he was almost at the other side. I set off after him
again, but was too late. As he approached the ledge, he jumped and landed on
the roof of the next building.
You gotta be fucking kidding me?
Without thinking - because, let’s face
it, if I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t have done it - I ran and jumped.
I was surprised at how small the gap was
between the two buildings, and I covered it easily enough, landing and rolling
on the neighboring roof. As I stood up, wincing at my ribs, I saw Jones ahead
of me. He was at the edge of the roof again, but this time he wasn’t moving. I realized
that we were on the edge of the block. Nowhere left to go.
TWENTY-FOUR
He turned to
face me, his back to the ledge. We were easily five or six floors high. Enough
of a drop that you probably wouldn’t survive it.
I slowed down, catching my breath. I
drew my gun and aimed it at him.
‘Finally,’ I said. ‘It’s just me and you.
Can we talk now please?’
‘I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you,’ he
said.
‘Way I hear it, you got plenty to say.
Just a case of whether or not you choose to.’
‘Who the hell are you, man?’
‘I’m a concerned citizen who wants to
know what Dark Rain is doing.’
I saw the flash of concern on his face,
but he carried on regardless.
‘Never heard of no Dark Rain, man.’
‘Bullshit. I saw the look on your face
when you saw Clara. It’s why you ran.’
‘I ain’t talking to you, and you can’t
make me. We’ll hunt you down and slay you in the street for this!’
I fired once, above his head.
‘Ironically, you talk too much,’ I said.
‘Now, if you’re not going to start talking about things I deem relevant, I
suggest you shut the hell up.’
I stepped closer to him. He looked over
his shoulder, down at the street below, then inched himself backward a tiny
bit, so he was stood right on the edge.
‘Don’t even think about it, Marcus,’ I
said, seeing what he was thinking.
I took a chance and fired, hitting him
in the left kneecap. It’s one of the most painful places you can be shot. I
needed him to lean forward after the bullet hit him so he didn’t fall off, so
the knee was the better option – if I’d shot him in the arm or shoulder, he
would’ve fallen backward over the edge from the impact. The knee made him keel
over and drop straight to the floor.
He fell forward, screaming in pain and
clutching his leg, which was pumping out blood on the ground around him.
I walked over and crouched beside him,
putting my gun to his head. As I was about to speak, I heard a bang behind me.
I span around, gun aimed high. The door leading to the roof of the building we
were on had swung open and hit the wall. Clara was walking toward us.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘How’d you find us?’
‘I was following you in the car,’ she
replied. ‘I could see you on the roof. When we came to the end of the block, I
figured the chase was over, so came up through the building.’
She walked over to Jones. She looked
down at him, then back at me.
‘Can you interrogate anyone
without
shooting them?’ she asked.
‘Not usually,’ I replied with a shrug.
‘Maybe I should handle this?’
‘Be my guest.’
I took a step back and Clara crouched
down next to him.
‘Marcus,’ she said. ‘I need your help.’
He looked up at her, his teeth clenched
in agony.
He said, ‘Screw you, bitch! You’re a
traitor, and you’re gonna die.’
Unfazed, she placed her hand on his
throat.
‘Marcus, did you know about the uranium?’
‘Do you have any idea what they’re gonna
do to you if they find you? Or to me, if I talk to you? Kiss my ass, traitor!’
She squeezed on his throat. His eyes
widened and he gasped for air, to no avail. After a few moments, she loosened
her grip.
‘Do you have any idea what I’m gonna do
to you if you don’t talk? I can make the agony you’re in right now last for hours.
Days, if necessary.’
He started to cry.
‘Please - they’ll kill me!’ he begged.
‘Marcus, you’re dead anyway. You’re
going to bleed out on this rooftop in a lot of pain. But if you help me, tell
me something that we can use against them, you can rest knowing you’ve done the
right thing. I can ease your pain.’
I had to admit, she was good. This was
probably more effective than me shooting him and beating him. I’m not going to
tell her that though.
‘Please, Marcus, did you know about the
uranium?’
‘Yes,’ he said, finally.
‘What’s the big picture?’
‘Once they’d mined it, I was going to
transport it to their lab.’
‘And then what?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Marcus, come on.’
She squeezed slightly on his throat
again.
‘Please! I swear, I don’t know. I heard
talk that they’re holding a scientist somewhere until the uranium’s ready. They’re
going to make them process it into weapons-grade material.’
Clara looked up at me. I wondered what
they had planned once they’d mined the material. Now we know.
‘Marcus,’ I said. ‘Where are they
keeping this scientist?’
‘I sw-swear I don’t know. I just heard a
couple of people talking.’
Clara stood up and motioned me to follow
her. We walked a few paces away from Jones, who was still clutching his knee.
‘I believe him,’ she said.
‘Okay.’
‘Ketranovich doesn’t tell any one person
everything. He tells people only what they need to know to carry out their
assignments.’
‘That’s very smart. So now what?’
She looked over at Jones, then back at
me.
‘Do you want to do it?’ I asked.
She shook her head.
I nodded, then walked over to Jones and
put a bullet in his head.
We had a lot more to go on than we did
earlier. We know they’ve got a scientist somewhere waiting for the uranium. And
it turns out that Dark Rain was going to starting converting it to
weapons-grade material themselves. I bet GlobaTech didn’t know about that!
Christ, you can’t trust anybody nowadays, can you?
If we can get to them before the mining
starts, we can take away their ability to process the material. If they can’t
make weapons with it, we might be able to stop their grand plans before they
even start. Coupled with the fact that I have the deeds to the land, stopping
any mining from starting any time soon, we’ve just bought ourselves a healthy amount
of time.
‘What now?’ I asked her.
She sighed.
‘Drink?’
