I’m genuinely stunned. I can feel my jaw physically drop open in surprise, but I’ve not got the awareness right now to close my mouth and stop myself from looking like an idiot.
“As you can see, Adrian Hell,” says Ketranovich. “Your military does not concern me. In fact, I’m rather looking forward to their attempted intervention.”
Underneath the tarpaulin, hidden from satellites by the camouflage tent are two MIM-23 mobile surface-to-air missile launchers.
They’re more commonly referred to as SAM sites. They’re mobile launchers primarily used for defense against airstrikes. The MIM-23’s payload is three mounted Hawk missiles, each around five meters in length and weighing a hundred and twenty pounds. They travel at two thousand meters per second, using radar-assisted tracking to target and destroy enemy aircraft up to sixteen miles away.
The airstrike isn’t going to get anywhere near us…
I turn to face Ketranovich. I knew Dark Rain was well funded, but this kind of hardware is on a whole other level.
“You know about the airstrike…” I say. It’s more of a statement than a question. I’m thinking out loud, piecing it all together, as the full gravity of the predicament I’m in starts to dawn on me.
He smiles back, smugly.
“We got a lot of useful information from our Clara,” he says, turning to her. “Didn’t we, my dear?”
He grabs her chin between his thumb and index finger in a condescending gesture, like he’s addressing a small child or a pet. She snatches her face away from him and spits at his feet. He laughs and turns back to me.
“We are Dark Rain,” he says, holding his arms out to the side, gesturing to the entire compound. “And soon the world will know what we’re capable of.”
I raise my gun again, aiming at him.
“You’re just like every other crazy ex-soldier with delusions of grandeur,” I say, stubbornly. “You think you’re the next big thing and that your idea of a new world order is so much better than the one the last fucking idiot thought of. But the truth of the matter is you’re nothing. And you’ll never be more than that. You’ll get squashed like everyone else does, and the world will go on having never heard of you. You’ll die and you’ll take your hollow legacy with you.”
“You have it all figured out, don’t you, Adrian Hell?” he replies. “Well, you know nothing! You think you’re this smart, unstoppable killer. But the truth is, you’re just like everyone else. You’re small and you fight battles you have no hope of winning, fuelled by nothing but pride and a misplaced sense of right and wrong. I know everything about you, your little computer friend, those cowardly, treacherous, backstabbing bastards at GlobaTech Industries and your government, with all their plans for saving the day!”
He turns to Clara, who’s still staring at the floor. He puts his hand on her arm and shoves her forward. As she stumbles front and center, she looks up at me. Her eyes are full of apology, full of regret. I feel so sorry for her. She wouldn’t have had any choice but to tell them what she knows, and in a way I’m glad she did. At least she spared herself any torture.
“Clara, it’s okay,” I say. “As long as you’re not hurt, that’s all that matters, alright? But I need to know, how much did you tell them?”
She takes a deep breath.
She moves her arms from behind her to her sides.
What? I thought she was tied up…
There’s a gun in her right hand. She raises it slowly and takes aim at me.
I don’t understand what’s happening… Nothing makes any sense. I look into her eyes, searching for answers and see a void — a black hole where humanity had once been. A smile creeps across her face. I just saw the same smile on Natalia’s face a moment ago.
When she speaks, her voice sounds more Russian than it has done previously, and the hatred in her tone is obvious.
“Oh, I told them everything.”
28
I feel like someone’s punched me in the stomach.
I’m genuinely speechless. And that never happens to me. Ask Josh. I have an answer for everything. But not right now. Even after the mother of all shitty weeks, which left me feeling incapable of experiencing shock ever again, this is one helluva curveball.
My head’s spinning, and I feel sick. My body gives up and I drop my gun, sinking to my knees. I’m unable to take my eyes off Clara, much in the way you can’t drive past a car crash without slowing down to look at the carnage with sick fascination.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “I don’t… I just… What the fuck is going on?”
Clara laughs. “Poor Adrian,” she says, patronizingly. “Finally lost for words?”
Behind her, Ketranovich and the Salikovs start laughing. She walks toward me, aiming her gun at my head unwaveringly. My eyes flick between the barrel of her gun and her venomous green eyes.
“This has been the longest week of my life!” she continues. “Having to listen to you go on and on with yourself. Watching you skate around what’s going on right in front of you, too stupid to figure anything out yourself. I almost wanted you to work out our plans sooner — at least then I’d have an ounce of respect for you as I watch you die.”
I can’t honestly describe how I feel right now.
Heartbroken? Maybe.
Betrayed? Definitely.
An idiot? Arguably.
My mind’s working overtime, not just playing out every outcome ahead of me, but also piecing together everything that’s happened, that’s led me to this very moment.
Clara’s been playing me right from the start… That much is now clear. But how? And why? I grimace at my own ignorance. I hate not knowing everything.
I see her watching me struggle to put it all together in my head.
“Get up,” she says, laughing. “You pathetic little man. The mighty Adrian Hell, helpless in front of me.”
I slowly get to my feet, brushing the dust off my knees. I bend down to retrieve my gun, but I don’t get chance to pick it up.
“Ah, ah, ah,” says Clara. “Don’t even think about it. In fact, you can toss the other one down as well.”
I don’t move.
She takes a step closer, re-emphasizing the gun she has pointed at my head. “Now.”
I sigh and reach behind me to un-holster my other Beretta. I look at it in my hand for a moment. I reckon I could get three shots off before she fires at me. I wouldn’t be able to move, as accuracy would be the priority, so it’s almost certain that she’ll shoot me. But… I could put one between her eyes and two in Ketranovich before I hit the ground. That would be enough.
But, what use am I dead? The Salikovs could potentially carry out their endgame on their own, in which case I’ll have died for nothing.
Fuck.
I’m not happy.
I throw it to the ground and it lands next to its counterpart.
We stand in silence for a moment, regarding one another. Her eyes show no sign of the person I believed I knew well only a few hours ago. A gust of wind picks up and swirls dust around us. It feels like there’s nothing except her and me. My gaze shifts from her eyes to her gun, then back again. My anger is rising quickly, bubbling away at the surface.
When I look back on this in years to come, I’ll know it was this moment right here, right now when I decided Clara was going to die. She was going to suffer, and she was going to know that death would be a welcome, sweet reprieve compared to the pain I’d make her experience.
“Walk,” she says, gesturing with her gun.
We walk over to Ketranovich, who’s smiling from ear to ear. A smug look of triumph on his face that says he knew all along it would end like this, and that I was a fool for not realizing it.