Paradise Burns (28 page)

SIXTY-FOUR

The detonator
looked like a gun, but without the barrel. It was a small, silver handle with a
grip and a trigger. It fit nicely in the palm of his hand. His finger was
inside the trigger guard, pressing lightly on the trigger itself.

One quick flinch of his finger and we’d
all the dead.

I looked back and forth between
Ketranovich and Clara. I didn’t want to get blown into orbit, but there was no
way I was letting Clara escape either. Not after everything she’s done.

My hands tightened around the Berettas.
This had to end here. Now. If GlobaTech and the U.S. Army came marching in through
the front door, Ketranovich would happily kamikaze himself to take them all
out. Such an attack on domestic soil against U.S. troops would require a
proportionate response by the government. Their logical target would be Russia,
given that’s where Ketranovich is from.

And we all know how a conflict between
America and Russia would turn out.

So here I stood. The sun beating down on
me relentlessly. The light breeze blowing sand and dust around us, occasionally
stinging my eyes. My mind was working overtime to find an outcome that didn’t
involve a third World War. If Clara got out of here on that bike, I’d never see
her again. If Ketranovich moves his finger two millimeters, bits of me are
going to land in Montana.

As a wise man once said: fuck it.

I raised both Berettas - one aimed at
Clara’s head, the other at Ketranovich’s right hand. For some reason, Ennio
Morricone’s theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly played through my mind.

It all came down to this moment.

‘Drop the detonator,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll
kill your daughter.’

‘Drop your guns,’ replied Ketranovich. ‘Or
I’ll kill us all, right here, right now.’

Well, that worked.

I checked my aim on both guns. I took a
deep breath, keeping my poker face on as much as I could. This was either the
smartest, or the dumbest, thing I’ve ever done. If I get it right, you could
argue I’ve saved the world from war, which would be pretty cool… However, if I
get it wrong, I’ll be dead, so people can think whatever the hell they want to –
I won’t be around to care.

One last deep breath. My heart rate was
nice and steady. The adrenaline was at bay - for now.

I squeezed the trigger in my left hand.
The bullet covered the distance between me and Ketranovich in under a second
and hit his forearm roughly two inches below his wrist. His forearm exploded in
a cloud of blood, nearly severing his hand. The detonator flew out of his grip
and landed off to his right.

A second after the first bullet was
fired, I squeezed the trigger in my right hand. I aimed a couple of feet in
front of the motorcycle, anticipating Clara’s sharp exit. The bullet struck the
motorcycle just above the front wheel, pushing it out to the left. This caused
Clara to lose control and topple of the handlebars and off to the right, her
back and neck crunching onto the desert sand. She rolled a few feet then lay
still, making a low groaning noise that was muffled from her being face down in
the dust.

I breathed a very audible sigh of relief
before I rushed over to Ketranovich – who was on all fours, screaming – and kicked
him hard and flush in the ribcage. He rolled over onto his back, clutching at
his right forearm, which was leaking blood at a steadily increasing rate.

‘That’s for making the last week of my
life as shitty as it was, you piece of shit!’ I yelled at him.

I holstered my guns and looked over to
the detonator. I’ll get that in a minute. I then turned my attention to Clara.

She’d managed to get up to one knee, and
was shaking her head and holding her neck, trying to get her bearings. It
reminded me of the first time we’d met, in Ted Jackson’s hotel suite. I walked
up behind her, and when I was a couple of feet away, I launched a right
roundhouse kick to the side of her head. I turned my right hip over as I swung
it, making sure I followed through for maximum effect. Her body lurched to the
side and she was out cold before she hit the floor.

‘And that’s for betraying me, bitch!’

I was breathing harder now; my
adrenaline was flowing and my anger was gradually rising. I wanted revenge. I
wanted to make them both pay for everything they’ve done and everyone they’ve
hurt. My door was opening and I could feel myself allowing my self control to
leave me, so that nothing remained but my inner Satan.

They were going to suffer for what they’d
done.

I heard shuffling behind me, and I
turned to see Ketranovich on his feet, slowly moving toward me. His eyes were
wide, with a crazed look on his face. He was screaming at me, half in English,
half in Russian. His arms were raised, ready to attack. I walked over to meet
him, ready to fight. He could barely stand. Half his right arm was blown apart
and he would likely have a few cracked ribs now too.

I was going to make him suffer.

We were only a couple of feet apart now.
I raised my arms to meet his, grabbing his left arm with my left hand and
launching a right hook to his kidneys. I caught him clean and he bent over to
the side as he let out a grunt of pain.

As he doubled over, I moved in for the
kill. My plan was to bring my elbow down on the back of his head toward the top
of his spine. I could hear him coughing blood, and he dropped to one knee in
front of me. I raised my elbow, aiming to finish him off there and then.

But in the blink of an eye, he stood up
and extended his left arm. I felt the blow against the right side of my stomach
– I was exposed due to my arm being raised, ready to drop the elbow.

I stumbled backward a few steps. I
stared at him. It took me a minute, but I realized he was holding a knife in
this left hand. The blade was covered in blood. I looked down at my stomach,
where he’d punched me. There was a dark stain spreading across my top.

I never saw it coming. Never expected he
had enough left in his tank to even lift a knife, let alone use one. I
staggered back a few more steps and dropped to my knees. The pain exploded
across my entire body. The warmth from the blood gushing from the wound
countering the icy shiver I felt up and down my spine. I instinctively clasped
at it with my hands, but the damage was done.

I fell forward and the whole world
turned black.

SIXTY-FIVE

I’m not
religious in any way. It would be a bit hard-faced to say you believed in God
and then went around killing people for a living, I guess. But I’ve never
needed the comfort that religion can bring people. As a result, I’ve never been
very spiritual either. I believe what I see with my own eyes. Anything else is
fiction until its right in front of me.

But I swear to you, right then, I was
floating above that compound. I can remember looking down and seeing myself,
lay motionless and barely breathing on dark, blood-stained sand. Ketranovich
was struggling to his feet, searching for the detonator. Clara was still lying
there, not moving after the kick to the head.

I looked around. There was nothing else.
The world outside the compound was a flat, barren desert, decorated only by
mountains in the distance and the odd rock or bush dotted here and there.

There was no sign of the cavalry,
charging over the hill to the rescue. No sound of trumpets as the soldiers
approached, guns raised and ready for war.

I remember wondering if I was dead.
Rejected by God and Lucifer, left to roam around in my own personal Purgatory
for eternity. Forced to witness my own death over and over again, as penance
for my lifetime of sin.

But then I remembered that I don’t
believe in all that crap… Whatever I was doing right then was a dream, created
by my own mind to show me that this isn’t over. You think because I’ve been
stabbed, my fight is finished? I’m Adrian Fucking Hell, goddammit! I’ll decide
when I’m done fighting – not you, not Ketranovich, not anybody.

The image of my body came flying up toward
me at great speed, and then…

SIXTY-SIX

I opened my
eyes. The world was covered in a light fog all around me as my vision struggled
to focus. My mind was just as clouded. My entire body was screaming at me to
not move. But I had to. I lifted my head slightly and turned to look the other
way. I could make out a figure ahead of me, staggering across the courtyard.

Ketranovich.

Then everything came flooding back to me.

The detonator!

I bent my arms and prepared to push
myself up. I brought my knees up to my chest and in one colossal, painful
effort, I managed to lift my body from the ground and stand up. I couldn’t
straighten my back - the knife wound on my stomach meant I had to bend forward
a little to take some of the pressure off. But I was up. That was the main
thing.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the
haze in front of them. I looked ahead and saw Ketranovich slowly making his way
over to the detonator on all fours.

I tried to walk, which was harder than I
would’ve liked. Everything was unfolding in slow motion.

‘Hey!’ I yelled.

Ketranovich looked behind him, almost
losing his balance as he did, his face a mixture of shock and anger.

‘Is that all you got?’ I asked.

He went to turn away from me, to return
to his quest to reach the detonator. I had to distract him.

‘Hey!’ I shouted again. ‘Don’t walk away
from me, you coward!’

That stopped him in his tracks. He
turned to me once more. He too wasn’t able to stand up straight, thanks to the
damage my kick had done to his ribs. He was holding what was left of his right
forearm in his left hand.

I continued toward him, stopping a few
feet in front of him. We looked the same – hunched over, covered in blood,
barely able to stand, hurting more and more with each breath we took.

‘I am no coward, Adrian Hell,’ said
Ketranovich. ‘I am a hero. I was a great warrior, fighting for my country since
you were just a child.’

‘You’re a maniac,’ I replied. ‘You’d
kill hundreds of good men and women in the blink of an eye. And for what? Some
self-righteous cause you use as an excuse for the fact your country screwed you
over? You’re just an angry old ex-grunt who wants to stomp his feet and relive
the old days of killing without consequence, and you justify it by saying it’s
revenge.’

‘You think your opinion matters to me?
You’re an insect. A parasite of western capitalism who thinks they’re superior
to the rest of the world, just because you sit and talk and offer an opinion about
other people’s problems. You know nothing of true war. Of real struggle. Of
real values. Time and again, people like you use warriors like me for your own
battles, then cast us to one side the moment we’re no longer of any use. Well
no more! Today, I will send a message to the whole world, showing them that
everyone is expendable – not just the men and women who choose to fight for
their people!’

‘Roman, you’re certifiable, do you know
that? This ends now.’

I leapt forward as much as I could,
under the circumstances, leading with my left elbow. He wasn’t expecting it,
and caught it flush on his right cheek. We both fell to the floor – him flat on
his back, dazed; me onto my hands and knees.

I couldn’t let him get any kind of
advantage. I didn’t have much left. I was losing blood rapidly and it was
harder fighting to stay conscious than it was fighting with him. I crawled
forward so I was level with him, and then hammered my right fist down into his
face. Once, then twice. His lip split and blood ran slowly down his chin.

I went to stand, figuring I could stick
the boot in a couple of times. As I stood, Ketranovich’s left hand grabbed my
ankle. I could see what was happening, but was moving too slow to stop it. He
rolled over and slammed his right elbow into my left knee. It immediately gave
way, and my borderline dead weight lost what little support it had. I crashed
to the floor, my left leg throbbing in pain.

I rolled onto my back, bringing both
legs up to my side. I was rubbing my knee to get the blood flowing again, as
well as trying to take some pressure off my knife wound - which wasn’t looking or
feeling too healthy.

I looked over, prepared to defend the
inevitable onslaught from Ketranovich. But there was nothing. He simply
struggled to his feet and slowly set off once more for the detonator.

I rolled over onto my front and reached
behind me for a Beretta. Lay on the ground, as straight as I could with my
right arm outstretched, I closed one eye and took aim. I could see a dark blur,
with a lighter blur either side dancing around. I blinked rapidly to clear up
my vision, but to be honest, right then I could’ve easily just closed my eyes
and lay still.

I took a few deep, painful, breaths and
took aim once more. The dancing blurs were slowly merging into the central one.
He bent down, then stood up and turned toward me. He had the detonator in his
left hand. It was now or never. I only had one shot, and if I missed, he’d hit
the switch and it’d be game over.

I fired once.

The second it took for the bullet to
reach Ketranovich felt like a lifetime. I held my breath and waited.

The gunshot echoed around the compound.

The bullet hit him in the chest, dead center.
He let out a scream of pain as he flung his arms into the air and staggered backward.
The detonator once again flew out of his hand. He took a couple of steps backward
and fell to the floor.

I let out a long breath and dropped my
gun.

It was over.