He smiles faintly. “Ever the white knight, eh, hero? But this isn’t a discussion. Collateral damage isn’t your concern. You work for The Order — don’t forget that. I saved your ass because I was told to. Now, don’t be a dick. Don’t stop using your brain after what we just went through. Get… the fuck… out of here. Re-group and come back stronger. As things stand, you’re in no position to take her out, so don’t try. If you turn cowboy, everything I just did for you will have been for nothing, and that’ll really piss me off.”
I take some deep breaths and stare at the ground. My vision blurs slightly as I consider my options. There aren’t many…
I re-focus and look at my arm. WWJD. Yeah… Josh would tell me that, as much as I hate it, Pierce has a point. I need to get Kaitlyn out of harm’s way and get back to full strength before I try to do anything else. I’m sure The Order can clear up this mess — it’s not my problem.
I move over to Kaitlyn and sit beside her. I nudge her gently with my elbow. “Hey. You alright?”
She turns to me.
Oh, man, she looks pissed!
“No, I’m not okay, Brad… Adrian… whatever your name is!” She points to the smoke billowing in the air from her office building. “That was my life! I moved here to start over. To start up a private business, which I did, quite successfully, I might add. And you’ve just reduced it to dust! I have nothing now!”
She lashes out and hits me twice in the chest. Compared to all the shit that hurts right now, her strikes don’t even register. But I let her hit me, and I’ll keep letting her for as long as she needs to. She has every right to be pissed at me. I brought this on her. Like an idiot, I thought I could offload the emotional crap from my life onto her without consequence.
This is me. There are always consequences.
She hits me maybe five times before she runs out of steam and simply starts crying. I put my arm around her and she falls into me.
“I’m gonna keep you safe, okay? You have my word. But we gotta get out of here, alright?”
I stand, and a moment later, so does she. I look at Pierce and hold out my good hand. “Gimme the keys to your SUV. You’re right. This is gonna take some time.”
He nods and throws them to me. I catch them easily. “Thanks for this. I know what my job is, and I’ll do it.”
He stands tall. “I know you will. All this…” He shakes his head. “…doesn’t change shit, Adrian. The Order understands that sometimes a job isn’t straightforward. Sometimes, things go wrong, and sometimes we have to react, as opposed to being the pre-emptive machines we’re all trained to be. For those times, people like you have people like me. Now get the fuck out of here.”
I nod once, take Kaitlyn’s hand, and set off walking along the street as quickly as we can without drawing attention to ourselves. The SUV is parked one street over, maybe a block away. It’s a black Suburban. I throw the keys to Kaitlyn. “You need to drive.” I hold up my right hand. “I doubt I’ll be able to steer with this.”
She nods and climbs in behind the wheel. I get in beside her and slam the door closed with my left hand.
“Where to?” she asks.
I shrug. “Not sure. Just get us away from here. Head out into the desert. It’s away from the city, away from people, and the open terrain will make it easy to spot anyone following us. I’ll make a call once we’re out of Abu Dhabi and we’ll go from there.”
She takes a deep breath and seems to compose herself. She doesn’t question me. She just guns the engine, quickly spins the car around, and hits the gas as we drive away, leaving the carnage in the rearview.
19
Kaitlyn and I are sitting side by side, leaning forward, and resting on the bar in a small restaurant. It’s a discreet little place just off the main strip running through the center of Doha. The décor is shiny black, with a blood-red trim all around. It’s filled with the low noise of multiple conversations from the modest crowd as they finish their meals. Families, couples, large parties… all sitting together, laughing without a care in the world.
We got here about ten minutes ago. As soon as we hit the city limits, we found an underground parking lot and ditched the Suburban. They’re not exactly the subtlest of vehicles, and from this point on, we need to be keeping a low profile. We both loaded up with as much weaponry and ammunition as we could carry between us without it looking obvious, and set off on foot through the center of the city. This is the first place we came across that looked quiet. We told the waiter who greeted us that we weren’t hungry, but needed a drink. I ordered a beer and Kaitlyn a large glass of red wine.
I glance sideways at her. She’s vacantly staring at the counter. She hasn’t said anything since we sat down. We didn’t speak much on the journey here, either. We chased the sunset all the way along E11 until we reached Qatar. Credit where it’s due, she’s been a real trooper — she drove all the way here without any questions or hesitation, and we only stopped once for a bathroom break. We were pretty lucky with traffic, and it took a little over five hours.
I take a sip of my beer. “How you doing?”
She doesn’t reply.
I let out a long, heavy breath, which hurts more than it should. “Look, I know you’re angry. I know you’re afraid. But we need to be on the same page if we’re going to survive this. I can protect you. I can take Lily out. But I need your help. I need you—”
She snaps her head round to look at me. “You need my help? How can I help you, exactly? By carrying around your…” She pauses and leans in closer to whisper. “…your guns? Or maybe you need my help making someone disappear, or whatever you people call it? Or how about…”
She trails off. She’s breathing fast and not blinking. I can see the resentment in her eyes, which I completely understand.
I nod. “It’s okay, Kaitlyn. You have every right to be mad at me. I blame myself for everything that’s happened to you.”
“Good. I blame yourself, too.”
I look away for a moment. This is turning into one of those times where, despite agreeing with the person who’s pissed at me, I’m starting to lose my patience with the whole ‘blame Adrian’ thing. I’m trying to remember that she’s not like me. She’s… normal. She won’t understand my frustrations. She won’t think I’m entitled to them.
I look back at her. “Okay, look. I understand you need to be angry at me. But you need to start moving past that. Now. We have bigger problems to deal with than whose fault this is. Do you get that? We have somebody…” I lower my voice. “…We have somebody trying to kill us. Normally, that wouldn’t bother me all that much, but this person knows exactly where we are at all times, which means we don’t get to rest. We don’t get to recharge and regroup. It means we have to keep running until we’re in a position to fight back.” I hold up my right hand, which I crudely bandaged using the medikit from the SUV on the way here. “Which might be a while… And it’s not just anyone who’s after us, either. Lily’s an assassin good enough to be recruited by the organization responsible for recruiting the deadliest killers the world has ever known. The same organization that recruited me.”
Kaitlyn’s eyes grow wide as my words slowly start to sink in. “I don’t understand… What do you mean? What does any of this mean?”
I sigh. “I know this is a lot to process. But I need you to understand the very real danger we’re both in right now. I’m essentially one-handed, and I have to focus on protecting you as well as figuring out how to take someone down who has the distinct advantage of knowing where I am at all times. We’re pretty much swimming into a shit tsunami, and I don’t need you being mad at me while I’m trying to save your ass, okay?”