I start to fall. Looking up again, the cable whips and lashes toward me, being chased by a cloud of fire. The blast must have snapped it…
Thankfully, I don’t have that far to fall, but it’s still close to two floors. I land heavily on the roof of the elevator, pain instantly shooting through my entire body. I wince, but I know I have very little time to get out of here. I scramble to my feet and stomp on the security vent on the roof. It takes me three kicks, but it eventually falls into the elevator. Quickly, I jump into it, diving through the open doors and into the lobby. As I land, the explosion completely engulfs the elevator shaft and billows out behind me.
There’s a loud roar as the flames rush over me. I cover my head with my hands and make myself as flat as possible. The heat scorches my skin, and the stench of burnt vodka and flesh stings my nostrils.
After a few seconds, it’s over.
I push myself up and rest on all fours, catching my breath. My arms are burning from the workout of climbing down the cable. It seems I’m not as light as I used to be…
I look up at the front door as it opens, and to see the large twins both standing with their mouths open, in complete shock.
Speaking of not being as light as we used to be… They must’ve ran when they saw the Triad approaching.
I stand up, dust myself down and stretch to crack my neck and back. I draw Soo Yung’s gold Browning and level it at the pair of them.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” I say. “I’ve had a really bad day. I’ve just killed Joseph Turner and most of the Red Dragon Triad — including its boss, Jak Soo Yung. Before that, they killed the majority of Turner’s men. I’ve also just blown up probably the top three floors of the building, hopefully killing any stragglers. I can’t be bothered fighting with you two, and trust me, you two don’t wanna try to fight with me, either. What say we all forget we saw one another, and we live to see another day?”
They look at each other, and then throw their guns down, turning and running for the main doors. Well, I say ‘running’… it’s more like an awkward waddle, but you get the idea.
I breathe a sigh of relief and walk slowly out of the main doors.
13
I’m sitting in the conference room in the FBI Field Office, at the head of the table at the far end, with the TV behind me. To my immediate left and right are Agents Wallis and Johnson respectively. At the opposite end of the table is Agent Chambers.
The mood is… tense, shall we say.
I’d walked out of Turner’s apartment building and seen bodies — and bits of bodies — littering the sidewalk. I looked up and saw the top of the building on fire. Must’ve been the top three floors easily.
I smiled to myself, walked back to the car, climbed in the back beside Johnson, and we’d sped off as fire crews and local police began showing up.
We made our way back to the Field Office and I was ushered into this room with very little interaction from anyone. The three of them disappeared for a while and only came back a few minutes ago.
Chambers stands and leans on the desk, looking at me with disappointment in her eyes.
“Adrian, we trusted you,” she says. “What the hell happened in there?”
I shrug. “It went south,” I reply. “It started off alright — Jak Soo Yung arrived just as I was conducting the deal with Turner. I managed to plant the file on Turner’s laptop, and Soo Yung found it like I’d hoped he would.”
“So what went wrong?” asks Wallis.
“The Red Dragon came a little more prepared than I anticipated. They brought a goddamn army with them — must’ve taken out nearly all of Turner’s men and were coming for me. I had no choice but to fight my way out.”
Chambers sits down again and massages her temples, struggling to get her head around what’s happened.
“Adrian, you killed one of the largest black market weapons dealers in the country and single-handedly destroyed an entire Triad operation,” she says. “The repercussions this will have on the streets doesn’t bear thinking about. What have you got to say for yourself?”
I shrug. “I don’t know… you’re welcome?”
She shakes her head and leans back in her chair and the room falls awkwardly silent.
“Did you find anything out from Turner about Pellaggio?’ asks Wallis after a moment”
I reach down and take off my shoe, sliding the heel back and taking out the USB drive. I slide it over to him.
“What’s this?” he asks.
“I found it on his laptop,” I say. “Well, on an external server. It’s a rather long shopping list of disturbingly high-quality weaponry and tech — including a Remington — from a few days ago, along with an address where Turner delivered them.”
The agents exchange looks and Wallis gets up and leaves the room.
“At least you did something right,” mutters Johnson, a little too loudly.
“Hey, it was either that or die in there,” I say. “Sorry I chose not to sacrifice my life for the sake of your bureaucracy.”
“Cut it out, the pair of you,” says Chambers. “This isn’t the time. We need to focus on finding Pellaggio and stopping him before anyone else dies.”
Wallis re-enters holding a laptop. He sits back down without a word and opens the lid, connecting it via a cable that allows his screen to be displayed on the TV behind me. He connects the USB drive and opens up the file it contains.
Silence falls as the three of them stare at the screen behind me, reading through the list. I watch Chambers. I see her expression change, as mine had when I read it.
“I don’t even know what half of this stuff is,” she says.
“It’s all bad, trust me,” I explain. “Especially in Pellaggio’s hands.”
They all finish reading and look at each other, worrying as the numerous possibilities of what this stuff could be used for crosses their minds.
“Right, Johnson, I want eyes on that address,” says Chambers after a moment. “Get me a real-time feed, plus still images going back seven days at thirty minute intervals. If he’s there, I want to see what he’s doing. If he’s moved on, I want to know when, and where to.”
“On it,” he says, standing and leaving the room, breaking into a run as he crosses the office floor outside.
“Wallis, I want you to work on this list of weapons. Where could Turner have gotten his hands on all this to sell it in the first place? This is all military-grade, so start there. We want to know about any missing shipments, serial numbers — the works. If we can find out where it came from, we might be able to get some help from the real owners in getting it all back.”
“No problem,” he says, standing and racing out of the room as his colleague had just done.
She turns to me and gives me another disapproving look.
“What?” I ask, innocently.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe I’m a little annoyed about the fact you blew up half a tower block and killed God knows how many people? How do you do such things so frivolously?”
I take a deep breath and sigh. “Grace, it’s not like I do things like this for fun, or take them lightly,” I say, finding myself trying to reassure her in some way that I’m not a psychopath. “I was defending myself, that’s all.”
She looks away, resigning to the fact that she’ll probably never understand what it’s like to have to deal with that kind of situation.
“Hey, on the bright side,” I continue. “At least you’ve got one less arms dealer in your city. Look at it as an opportunity.”
“How can I possibly do that?” she asks.
“You talk about the repercussions on the street… when the Red Dragon was in charge, they dictated what happened and you guys let them. Be it out of fear or diplomacy or whatever you want to call it. But now, there’s no one in charge. Nobody was big enough to take over before, which means they won’t be big enough to do it now. They’ll fight among themselves first. This is your chance to step in and put them in their place, let them know there’s nothing to take over — that the law is back in charge.”