“Okay, so that’s not the way to go… Josh, keep working the Cerberus angle. Where would El-Zurak need to be if he was going to hijack the satellite?”
He resumes his pacing, and I let the room fall silent. I walk over to Tori and sit on the desk in front of her. She smiles at me.
“How you doing?” she asks.
“I’m alright,” I say. “Just tired of not knowing what we’re meant to be doing, y’know?”
“You’ll sort it, don’t worry.”
“How are you anyway? You’ve been through some crazy shit recently. How you holdin’ up?”
She throws me a salute and winks. “I can deal, it’s fine.”
I know she’s lying. I see in her eyes that she’s accepting everything that’s happening because her mind isn’t allowing her to believe it’s all real. When all this is over, she’ll sit down one day and it’ll hit her like a freight train, and she’ll really struggle. And when that happens, I’ll wrap my arms around her and tell her it’ll all be okay. But for now, I’m happy to let her show me she’s strong. What’s that saying? Fake it ’til you make it…
“Sonofabitch!” yells Josh behind me. I turn and everyone else looks up at him.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m an idiot! I’m really sorry, Boss — it didn’t occur to me before… Cerberus, like any other satellite, has to be monitored from the ground. Most things like this are run from NASA. We have our own site in Santa Clarita that tracks the satellite network we run. Cerberus is a NASA-funded project, but was outsourced to a few different companies — including GlobaTech. Consequently, the main servers and control hub were housed in an outsourced location.”
I stand, hoping I know where this is going, and failing to contain my excitement.
“Where, Josh?”
He ushers Clark out of his seat and takes his place in front of his laptop once more. A few moments later, he spins the screen round to show the room.
“ComForce Securities, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Looks just like any other office, but there’s a team there who monitor the satellite. They won’t have the codes, but they process the data and feed it back to the CIA if something is flagged up as a potential threat to national security.”
“That’s where El-Zurak is going to hijack the satellite from,” I say. I turn to Wallis. “Tom, take all this information and give it to your superior — someone you trust.”
He’s already on his feet, gathering the files together. “I’m on it,” he says.
“And Tom, make sure you can trust them. I’m not suggesting this is the case, but if the director of the CIA is involved, and he’s been leading the NSA astray to help him assist the terrorists and take us out, there’s no reason why he can’t have compromised another agency as well. Just watch your back.”
He nods. “I’ve got to make some calls, right away.”
He heads out of the room, closing the door behind him. Raynor looks at me.
“Do you trust him?” he asks.
“Right now, yeah, I do,” I reply. “He had my back once before, and I see no reason why he wouldn’t again.”
Raynor nods and stands, pacing slowly around the room. I recognize the look on his face. It’s the one that says you’re trying to wrap your head around something and can’t, and you’re frustrated by it. I’m sure I’ve looked like that many a time over the years.
“Josh, that’s good work,” I say, turning to him. “How quickly can you get me on the road to Atlanta?”
Tori stands and grabs my arm; her eyes are full of concern.
“Ady, you can’t go there alone,” she says. “Let the FBI handle it now. What more can you possibly do?”
I sigh and massage my temples. I’m running on empty, and my mind won’t switch off long enough for my eyes to close for five minutes. But I can’t stop. Not now. Not so close to the end of this thing.
“Babe, I have to. I have to see this through to the end. We’ve all been through so much, and they’ve attacked me too many times for me to just walk away now.”
She punches my arm in frustration, raising her voice to me. “Adrian! I know I wanted you to fix this, but everything you just said is beyond any one man — even you! You’ve just given all the information to the FBI. They’re going to have teams of men equipped to handle this. Why can’t you just walk away from it? You’re not the comic book character you used to be! I don’t want to lose you!”
Her eyes fill with tears and, behind me, I can hear everyone holding their breath, unsure whether I’m going to respect the pleas of my girlfriend.
“Tori, you can make all the jokes you want about me, my name, or the fact I don’t look like a killer to you. But the bottom line is this: I’m probably the deadliest man alive. I say that with no ego, I’m simply stating a fact. I was a very successful and highly coveted hitman for a long time. Gangsters, terrorists, drug lords… they would crap themselves at the very mention of my name. Everybody wanted to hire me, and nobody wanted me coming after them.”
I pause, debating whether to continue, but I figure there’s no point in stopping now.
“I used to lie to my wife and daughter about what I did for a living. I thought it would protect them. One day, I took a contract that incurred the wrath of someone too big for me to handle at the time. They came after me, and when I wasn’t there, they slaughtered my family. I found them, I panicked, and I ran. I ran for nine years with Josh at my side. Over the years, I went through some dark times. You hear people talk about their demons… I used my demons to help me kill better. They made me who I was. If anyone tried to push open my door, what was waiting behind it would annihilate them. That was my life until I decided I couldn’t live with the guilt anymore. With Josh’s help, I went back and destroyed the person who took my family away from me. I took everything he had and killed him with my bare hands.”
Tori’s shaking, staring at me transfixed, as if I’m a stranger standing in her home. But I continue anyway.
“These bastards have spent the last week trying to kill me. They kidnapped you, they destroyed my bar, and they’ve managed to turn every government agency in the country against me and my friends — all because we tried to help. I can’t let that stand, Tori. I don’t know how to just forget about this and walk away, to let someone else finish my fight. I’m gonna find Hamaad El-Zurak, and I’m gonna look him in the eye before I put a bullet in his head. That’s what’s gonna happen next, okay?”
She takes a moment, but seems to unfreeze, nodding before sitting down silently. I take a breath, realizing I might’ve overstepped the mark a little. But I’m tired… no, I’m exhausted… and more than a little on edge because of what comes next.
I turn back to Josh, who is looking at the laptop again. He’s been around me long enough to know that if I have an outburst like that, it’s best to not say anything until I do.
“Josh, how quickly can we get to Atlanta?” I ask him, calmer now.
“It’s an eleven-and-a-half hour drive east, along the I-20,” he says. “If we set off now, we’ll make it by morning.”
“Borrow two vehicles from here if you can. We need to leave in the next fifteen minutes. You’ll come with me and Tori. Bob, you’ll go with the good sheriff and Wallis.”
“What’s the plan when we get there?” asks Clark.
I shrug. “Tell you when we get there,” I say.
Josh smiles and packs up his laptop. Everyone stands, and we file out of the room. I wait for Tori, who walks out without looking at me, and follow her out, turning the light off in the room and closing the door.
One way or the other, Atlanta will be where all this ends. I just hope we can get to El-Zurak before he takes control of Cerberus.