Hunter's Games (29 page)

“I agree,” I say. “Pellaggio’s going to make a big, loud, bold statement with this attack, because he wants the whole world to sit up and take notice so he can then blame the Russians.”

“Will the world’s governments buy that Russia actually did it, though?” asks Josh. “I mean, just because one guy goes on TV and says he did, it doesn’t mean we’ll all instantly believe him, does it?”

“It’s difficult,” replies Chambers. “Worst case scenario and we lose Secretary Schultz tonight—the people are going to want someone to blame. They won’t care what makes sense and what doesn’t. They’ll see someone own up and they’ll cry for blood.”

“The White House will have to respond quickly with a big, decisive move,” adds Clark. “I know how these things work. They’ll need to make sure they look strong, so they’ll lash out at the person the public is begging them to blame.”

“I won’t let that happen,” I say, clenching my jaw muscles in an effort to restrain my anger.

Too many times in the past week, someone or something has come a-knockin’ on my door, asking my Inner Satan to come out and play. And too many times, he was held back or distracted. But as things stand, the path to my door is finally clear. No more games, no more secrets. Directly in front of me is the finish line. The only thing stopping me reaching it is Pellaggio. He has blood on his hands and he’s begging me to come after him.

And I’m going to give him exactly what he wants.

“You’ve got access to satellite imaging here,” I say, more a statement than a question.

“Yeah,” replies Wallis. “Only what we used to look at Pellaggio’s warehouse the other day though—it’s pretty basic.”

“Maybe I can help?” says Clark. “Wallis, if I can get access to your servers, I can get some of my guys to link up and give you access to
our
satellite network. Josh, I believe you’re familiar with the interface?”

Josh smiles. “I’ve used it before, yeah,” he says, looking at me with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Good,” I say. “I want to see exactly what we’re dealing with.”

“I’ll leave you boys to your toys,” says Chambers. “I’ll follow up on Gregovski and see what I can find. We’ll meet up in an hour in the conference room down the hall, agreed?”

We all nod and Chambers heads off, leaving the four of us huddled together. Wallis moves over to one of the desks further down the room. It has three monitors and two keyboards set up on it. He pulls the chair out and gestures to Clark.

“Do what you need to do,” he says.

Clark sits down without a word and takes out his phone. We all step away, leaving him to work his magic, and congregate around another unoccupied desk nearby. Wallis logs onto the computer and starts typing.

“So, what are you thinking?” asks Josh.

“I’m thinking, if I was going to mount an attack against an old warship docked in the San Francisco Bay, how would I do it?” I say.

“Do I
wanna
know how you’d do it?” asks Wallis, looking up from the screen.

“I doubt it. I just hope Pellaggio doesn’t think the way I do.”

“Well, he’s certifiably insane,” says Josh. “So if he does, it says more about you than him.”

Wallis laughs. “Yeah, I‘ve got his medical records right here from when he got shot,” he says, reading from the screen. “After his wounds healed, he showed signs of post-traumatic stress, so they referred him to a psychiatrist following his discharge from hospital. He only went twice, and the notes from those sessions detailed, and I quote, a rapid decline in mental stability.”

“So you shot him and made him crazy?” says Josh to me. “Nice going there, Chief!”

Before I can respond with something equally sarcastic, Clark shouts over to us.

“Guys, we’re hot.”

Josh practically runs over to the computer, barely giving Clark chance to stand up before sitting down in front of the screen, tapping away on the keyboard.

I smile to myself. He looks like a kid at Christmas.

“How does it feel?” I ask, walking over to join him.

“Ah, man—I’ve missed being part of the team,” he says.

“Well, you can start making up for lost time right now,” I say, standing behind his chair and leaning on the back of it. Clark’s on my right and Wallis has joined us, standing on my left. “Get me a live feed of the Jeremiah.”

“So, what are you looking for?” asks Clark, as Josh does what he does best.

“Not sure yet,” I say. “But I’ll know it when I see it. Wallis, have you got that shopping list of hardware I took from Turner’s laptop?”

He fumbles around with the few papers he has with him, and then hands a sheet to me.

“Here it is,” he says.

I scan down the list, hoping I won’t find something in particular. But I do.

Shit.

“Okay,” I say, looking at Clark. “The bad news is that Pellaggio has one of your FIM-92 Stinger missiles.”

“Christ...” he mutters, mostly in disbelief.

“What’s the range on one of those things? About three miles, isn’t it?”

“That’s about right, yeah.”

“Okay, Josh—can you give me a three-mile radius from the ship on the screen? If I’m right, Pellaggio is going to fire the Stinger missile at the ship, but he’ll have to be within that radius to do it. At least we might be able to narrow down our search; try to find where he’s going to be.”

“Is that what you’d do?” asks Wallis, curiously.

“Absolutely. A big target needs big firepower to damage it. And he’s not going to be able to get close enough to set any charges or anything physically on board, so a ranged assault is the only real option.”

“I’d hate having the ability to think the way you do,” Wallis says, his slight laugh humorless with disbelief.

I simply shrug. “It’s not my job that makes me think this way,” I say. “It’s my military training. I’m no different than any other soldier.”

“Here you go,” interrupts Josh, pointing to the screen.

We all lean forward and look at the monitors. A blue circle, like a radar screen, is visible over the top of the live feed.

“That’s a three-mile radius from the Jeremiah,” he continues. “Not much to go on, as the ship is mostly surrounded by water. Looking at what land there
is
, there aren’t many viable options for a strategic ranged assault.”

I sigh. “There’s one,” I say.

I hate being right sometimes. But logically, it makes perfect sense. I point to the screen and everyone groans and sighs as they see what I’ve just seen.

It’s roughly one and a half miles away from the Jeremiah. It’s secluded, and it gives Pellaggio perfect line of sight to launch the Stinger.

I
really
hate being right sometimes…

Danny Pellaggio’s on Alcatraz.

22.

11:01

WE’RE ALL SITTING in silence around the big table in the conference room, waiting for Chambers. I’m at one end, with my back to the TV screen, facing the door. Josh is on my right with Clark next to him. Wallis is on the left side, opposite them.

The room is quiet, a palpable tension between us.

I hope Chambers has better news than we do.

Alcatraz is pretty much impossible to approach unseen. I have to assume Pellaggio’s already there and preparing his assault. Josh said there had clearly been some recent activity on the island when he’d looked at the satellite feed. All the regular ferry tours are postponed due to the celebrations on the Jeremiah, so it had to have been him…

It’s not the first time I’ve been up against it. Hopefully, it won’t be the last.

Chambers walks in and closes the door before sitting down at the opposite end of the table to me.

“I’m guessing you have something?” she asks, looking at the subdued expressions on our faces.

“We’re almost certain that Pellaggio is on Alcatraz,” says Wallis. “And he intends firing a Stinger missile at the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien.”

“Christ!” she exclaims.

“Please tell me you have better news?” I say to her.

She has a file in her hand which she puts down on the table and opens. “That depends on how you define
good
news,” she replies, somewhat cryptically.

Everyone looks on patiently as she sifts through the papers in the file to find what she wants.

“I have two pieces of news,” she says, after a moment. “The first didn’t seem that relevant to begin with, but now you’ve mentioned Alcatraz, it makes more sense.”

“Go on,” I say.

“Remember those two naval officers we found murdered near Pellaggio’s warehouse? Well, we ran their names through the system to see what they were doing in the city on active duty. And, you guessed it—they were assigned as security liaisons to the Jeremiah.”

“And you think Pellaggio’s got men on board using their ID’s?” I say, not so much asking, but confirming.

“I think that would be a justifiable assumption at this stage, yes.”

I nod. “If he’s got men on that ship, then there’s every chance he’s got bombs on there too,” I say. “You need to get word to the team you’ve got on the ground there to relay that to the Secret Service. That’s another thing you can use to convince them to call this whole thing off.”

“I agree,” she says. “But it won’t be getting postponed no matter what we do.”

The room falls silent for a moment.

“What else did you find out?” asks Wallis.

“This is where your definition of good news comes into play,” she says, looking at me specifically. “I ran the name Gregovski through every database we have access to,” she continues. “Ivan Gregovski—born 1965 in Nevelsk, Russia. Served eight and a half years in a Siberian prison for war crimes in the eighties. Kept a low profile upon release, married in the early nineties, no children. Became active again in early 2001, working alongside mercenary groups under various aliases...”

Her words trail off and she falls silent, seemingly hesitant to continue. Everyone looks at each other in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” asks Wallis.

She looks quickly at Josh, then focuses on me. “Adrian... Gregovski’s wife had a brother who had two children. Twins...”

I shrug and shake my head, failing to see her point.

“Her brother,” she continues, “was also a well-known mercenary—Nikolai Salikov.”

I sit up straight in my chair, my mind rushing into action like I’ve trained it to do upon hearing certain keywords.

Salikov.

Images come flooding back to me from Heaven’s Valley. The compound. The furnace. Natalia and Gene.

I look over at Josh, who’s staring at me with a worried expression on his face.

“I killed Gregovski’s niece and nephew?” I ask, rhetorically.

Chambers nods. “This whole thing seems to keep linking back to you and what happened last year in Nevada,” she says.

“Bloody hell!” says Josh, making everyone stare at him. “Danny’s basically recruited the remnants of Dark Rain to come after you, hasn’t he?”

“Looks that way,” I reply, half distracted. My mind’s still working on the word association. Salikov. Dark Rain. Nevada. Uranium. GlobaTech. Jackson... Clara!

Josh comes to it the same time I do. He reacts before I have chance to move—something he's had to become very adept at to keep me calm, free and alive over the years. He almost jumps out of his seat as he rushes round as best he can to stand between the door and me.

“Adrian, we don’t know that she’s involved, okay? Just take a breath and think this through before you, y’know, go all ‘Adrian Hell’ on us.”

“What’s going on?” asks Wallis. “Who are you talking about?”

“Clara Fox,” says Clark, breaking his silence. “You think she could be involved?”

I sigh. “No, I don’t think she’s involved,” I say, regrettably. “If she was, we’d have known about it before now. She has a bigger grudge against me than Pellaggio does. But I think we were right to rule her out of this one the other day.”

Chambers closes the file and stands up. “Well,” she says. “As nice as it is to stand around and discuss all the people who want you dead, we actually have work to do.”

Her short tone takes everyone a little by surprise—including me. I regard her for a moment, and then nod.

“I know,” I say. “And your priority is getting to the Jeremiah and alerting whoever you need to in order to stop the parade going ahead.”

“And what do you intend doing?” she asks.

“I’m gonna go to Alcatraz and stop Pellaggio and Gregovski before they can launch their attack.”

“I think you should leave that to the FBI and local authorities, don’t you?”

“And what are they gonna do, Grace?” I ask. “You’re gonna have Secret Service all over that ship. NCIS will likely be on their way to investigate the murders of their dead sailors. The Police Department will be on standard security duty anyway and will need to know of your involvement. Everyone is gonna be stretched thin and on high alert. You can’t even look at Alcatraz without Pellaggio seeing your move coming a mile away.”