He hangs up, leaving Josh and myself on the line.
“What do you think?” he asks me.
“I think I’m about twenty minutes from Pripyat and need to focus on getting Tori back. You?”
“I think we should trust him. He stuck by you back in the day, despite everything they knew about you. Forget who he works for, for a moment. I don’t think he’d have made contact with you to set you up.”
I shrug. “Fair point. Okay, you have my blessing to call him back and give him as much or as little information as you see fit. If it helps us, or them, then that’s a good thing.”
“Agreed. Listen, keep your earpiece in and the line open. I’m watching you via satellite, and I’m here if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
“Watch your back, don’t do anything un-necessarily stupid, and get your girl back, okay?”
“Fuckin’ A.”
He hangs up, and I look at Collins. “What do you think?” I ask him. “Should we trust the FBI?”
He glances at me briefly, maintaining focus on the road ahead. “Man, I don’t trust anybody.”
“Good answer. How far out are we?”
“As you say, it’s a little over quarter of an hour before we reach the city limits. I’ve got a face mask you can use in the trunk. It covers your nose and mouth. It’ll give you that extra bit of protection against the low-level radiation, just while you’re finding your way around.”
“Thanks, Collins. You’re a good man.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “I’m many things, Adrian, but I’m not a good man.”
“Well, you’re helpful at the very least. Sure you won’t join me? There’ll be lots of terrorist types to kill… it’ll be fun.”
“Ya really are fuckin’ crazy, aren’t ya?”
“Insanity is very much a matter of opinion,” I say casually. “I’d say I was… driven.”
He laughs. “Wait ’til I tell the boys about this one… No, as soon as your ass is outta my car, I’m heading back over the border. I’ve got a job to do.”
“Understood.”
We cover the rest of the journey in silence. I try to steel my mind, focus on the task at hand, and forget about the million things that could go wrong. I’ve got my Berettas, which are all I need. I’m trying hard not to keep thinking about Clara Fox, too. I’d buried Adrian Hell, along with his demons, and his shit list, when I left Pittsburgh. Thanks to her, they’ve all been dug up, and I’ve made a conscious effort not to let them take control of me again. But as I look out the window and see the haunting skyline of the abandoned city of Pripyat, I can’t help but think I could probably do with a little controlling right now…
We enter the city limits and blast through the empty streets. It’s a very strange feeling, driving through a completely deserted city that used to be home to nearly fifty thousand people. When Chernobyl happened, back in ‘86, the entire city was evacuated within a couple of days. Radiation levels have dropped way below fatal in the thirty-one years since then, but it’s still uninhabitable long-term.
“Slow down a bit,” I say to Collins. “Stick to a speed limit or something. We don’t want to attract any attention.”
“Okay,” he replies, slowing to a steady cruise at forty.
I look around, seeing the decaying buildings, the occasional abandoned car, and broken windows in storefronts along each side of the street.
“Welcome to Terroristville…” I mutter quietly.
“Ya think they’ve got eyes all over the city?” asks Collins.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, but I doubt it. Not practical or necessary. They’ll have set up a perimeter around their underground lab, but that’ll be it. The place is a ghost town — they’ll see or hear people coming from miles away.”
Almost subconsciously, he slows to thirty as we take a left, passing by a school on the right hand side. I reach in my bag and retrieve my earpiece. I sync it with my phone and put it on, dialing Josh.
“We’re here,” I say as he answers.
“I’ve got you,” replies Josh. “Tell Collins to take the next right and pull up.”
I do, and he does.
“The underground facility is a couple of klicks east of your location,” he says. “You’re better off on foot from here.”
“Copy that,” I say, grabbing my bag and getting out of the car. Collins follows suit.
“End of the road,” I say to him as we stand side by side at the trunk. I extend my hand. “Thanks for the ride.”
He shakes it. “It was an honor,” he says. He pops the trunk and gestures inside. “A parting gift.”
He leans in and lifts up the floor, revealing another hidden compartment underneath. He takes out the mask he told me about and hands it to me. It’s a wraparound that covers the bottom half of the head. It’s black and elasticized, with hard plastic at the front to cover the nose and mouth. On the front of it is the bottom half of a skull, crudely painted on. I look at it for a moment and smile, feeling my Inner Satan stretching and cracking his knuckles, like a beast awakening from his hibernation.
“This is cool as fuck,” I say to him. “Thanks.”
He smiles. “Thought ya might like it. There’s this, too.”
He hands me a body harness, designed for tactical operatives to carry their weapons and tech in the lightest, most maneuverable way possible. I rest my bag at my feet, and then put my arms through it, fastening the clasps down my side. The front and back has holsters and pockets for a variety of different things. The straps are a thin, flexible carbon fiber, running vertical over each shoulder and down to another strap that fits around the waist. There are two more diagonally across the front and one horizontally across the back. After some minor readjusting for comfort, I stretch and quickly get accustomed to it.
“You’ll need this to go at your back,” he continues, handing me a pump-action Ithaca shotgun. I take it in my right hand, feeling the weight. It’s an impressive weapon. Good for crowd control and close quarters combat.
I suspect I’m about to see quite a lot of that…
“Jesus… this is like Christmas,” I say. “Thanks, Collins. If I get out of here alive, I definitely owe you one.”
He smiles. “I’ll hold you to that. Good luck.”
He turns and gets back in the car, reversing down the street, and then turning back the way we came. I watch him go for a moment, then re-focus. I take my holster out of the shoulder bag and strap it to my back. I slide both Berettas in place, storing every spare mag I have in the various compartments of my harness. I slide the Ithaca over my shoulder and down my back, slotting it in place. Finally, I take the remaining proximity mine from my shoulder bag and clip it to my hip. I then throw the empty bag to the side of the street and take a deep breath, before sliding the half mask over my head, adjusting the front so it fits comfortably over my nose and mouth.
“You totally think you’re Rambo right now, don’t you?” says Josh in my ear.
“I feel like him,” I say.
“You look like him!”
“How do you know? Your satellite feed isn’t that good, is it?”
“GlobaTech’s is close to it, but I’m in the Winnebago and my shit’s better. It’s a Hi-Def, grayscale, real-time feed of your exact location. Look up and wave, honeybunch!”
I frown for a moment, and then gaze upward to the sky, flipping my middle finger at the clouds.
“Asshole.”
“Love you too, man.”
“So where am I heading?”
“At the end of the street, take a left, then a right. You should see a hospital in front of you.”