One Last Bullet: An Action Thriller (Adrian Hell Series Book 3) (22 page)

I reach the bottom and stand over Trent, looking down at his battered body. His face is a crimson mask, with blood flowing freely from a gash he’s sustained on his forehead from the fall. It looks like he’s broken his ankle too, given the shape of it, and from the quick, ragged way he’s breathing, I suspect he’s got a couple of busted ribs on top of all that.

He’s done.

I reach behind me and draw my remaining Beretta. I take aim at his head and feel every ounce of pain and guilt that I’ve carried on my shoulders for so many years just… float away. He looks up at me, and I see regret in his eyes. And fear. Wilson Trent is afraid of me.

“Any last words?” I ask him. “Any more insults you want to throw at me? Do you want to brag some more about killing my family, perhaps?”

He closes his eyes slowly, taking as deep a breath as he dared.

“Go to Hell… Adrian,” he rasps.

I smile. “Been there, bought a holiday home…”

My finger tightens on the trigger as I prepare to end this miserable bastard’s pathetic life, but I feel a hand on my shoulder that stops me. I spin around to see Josh standing there. He visibly winces with every deep breath he takes. His right arm is hanging loose, close to his side, which looks to me like a dislocated shoulder. He has blood around his mouth too, and coupled with his painful breathing, I suspect he also has busted ribs and some internal bleeding to go along with it.

“Christ, you look like shit,” I say.

“Thanks,” he replies with a weak smile. “Listen, Adrian… you can’t do this here.”

I shake my head. “This ends right here, right now, Josh. Everything we’ve been through has led me here. It’s over.”

“And I completely agree—this
is
over. But you can’t blow his fucking brains out while you’re on TV…”

He points over to the big screen that, sure enough, is still broadcasting the drama and giving the security guards my exact location. Outside the ground, over the screams of the crowd, a cacophony of sirens grows louder by the second.

I sigh and curse to myself. I’m
this
close, but I still can’t end the prick.

I look down at Trent, who’s slowly crawling back up the steps, pausing every few seconds to cough up some blood. The crowd has given us a wide berth now, and I know that the stadium security isn’t far away, with the cops close behind.

I walk over to him and crouch down over him, pressing my gun to his temple as he lies face down on the steps.

“Open your mouth,” I say to him.

His eyes widen in horror, as he realizes what my intentions are.

“Oh, Jesus…” I hear Josh whisper behind me.

But I don’t care. I can’t fire my gun? Fine... But Wilson Trent is dying before I leave this stadium, one way or the other.

“I said, open your fucking mouth!” I repeat.

Reluctantly, he does, closing his eyes tightly. I stand up and take a look around. People have fled the immediate area, but the rest of the crowd are on their feet, trying to see what’s happening while security do their best to usher them away to safety. On the field behind me, even some players have stopped their pre-match training, wondering what all the commotion is.

My eyes meet Josh’s uncomfortable gaze. We stare at each other for a moment, and then he slowly nods, giving me his unspoken blessing before walking off up the steps.

I take a deep breath. An image of Janine and Maria flashes into my head. They’re running together in a park. The sun’s shining and they’re laughing together. They both look so beautiful. But the image soon disappears and everything is black and empty.

I step forward and, without breaking stride, bring my boot down hard on the back of Trent’s skull, the force driving his head forward. With his mouth open, the step splits his head horizontally, taking his jawbone almost clean off and killing him instantly.

There are no screams of shock and horror around me. No mad rush or panic to flee the area. There’s just… silence. Every person in the crowd who just witnesses Trent’s demise is standing and staring at me.

I have no idea what I thought I’d feel like when I finally killed him. I guess I figured I’d feel relief, or happiness maybe… But I feel nothing.

I walk up the steps toward the exit, where Josh is waiting for me.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod silently as a wave of numbness slowly wash over me.

“You feel you got the closure that you wanted though?”

I regard him for a moment, trying to thinking of the honest answer. But I come up with nothing. There’s just an empty void where my soul should be. No closure, no celebration, no regret… nothing. I just feel dead inside, and for the first time in my life I’m afraid. Without saying anything, I simply walk off, leaving Josh standing there, surrounded by the carnage I’ve created.

33.

20:05

I quickly retrieved my other gun from Trent’s box, and then we managed to make it back out to the parking lot and into the Winnebago, where Frank was waiting, with minimal fuss. We’d navigated the panic-stricken hordes of fans rushing to the nearest exit simply by feigning the same fear, blending into the masses and easily dodging any security guards.

The real police are arriving just as we’re driving off. We sitting in a queue, anonymous, like any other vehicle scrambling to get away from the horrors inside the stadium, so no one gives us a second thought as we drive past.

“Is it done?” Frank asks after a few minutes of silence, fighting through the traffic and anxious to put some distance between Heinz Field and us.

“Yeah,” I reply, sounding vacant.

“And did everything go down like you’d planned?”

I reach into my left pocket and pull out a small box, no larger than a USB pen drive, with a switch on it. I hold it up for him to see. “Like a charm.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “I still don’t get how it worked…”

“They’re basically an EMP over Wi-Fi,” I say, explaining absently. “I bought a handful of them from Oscar Brown. They’re the size of a button and very expensive. A standard EMP will let out a blast that disables all electrical equipment, but is essentially harmless to humans. These things are black market, designed by some tech firm in Japan. They emit a small pulse as normal, but at a higher amp, causing it to affect the human heart. When Josh frisked the bodyguards, he slipped one into each of their pockets, and then all I had to do was flick this switch, and all their hearts stopped simultaneously.”

“So, to Trent, it looked like you just clicked your fingers and killed them with your mind or something?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“You should’ve seen him,’ Josh shouts from the back. “It was beautiful!”

Frank smiles to himself as he looks ahead at the road. I don’t think he’s smiled once since he walked into my hospital room yesterday evening. I guess a lot’s changed in those twenty-four hours…

We fall silent as we head into the center of the city, toward Trent’s penthouse. The second part of the plan involves taking control of any physical assets on the premises, ensuring Trent’s legacy is completely buried. It’s not going to be easy—aside from the few legitimate businesses that occupy the first couple of floors, the rest of the thirty story building houses several illegal enterprises run by many of Trent’s less-than-reputable employees. Getting to the top floor from the bottom will be close to impossible, so we need patience and discretion if we’re to make it undetected.

Sadly,
I’m
involved…

We pull up across the street and look over. The entrance to the lobby has guards either side of the door, and a front desk just visible through the glass. I can just about see three men around the desk, but there will likely be more inside.

Darkness has descended, and the rain has started to fall at a steady rate. High above us, clouds rumble in preparation for a storm.

“So what’s the plan?” asks Josh. “Basement? Service entrance? Disguise?”

“I was thinking front door,” I say.

“You mean the well-guarded, very public, glass front door over there?” he counters. “Of course you do…”

I shrug. “They’ll already have received word about their boss’ demise, if not from one of their own, then from the national news. They’ll be disorganized and running scared, which means they’ll be easy prey.”

Frank taps my shoulder and points down the street at two black vehicles approaching the building. “Who’s this?” he asks.

We look on as the doors open on the first vehicle and four men step out. One of the guys who were traveling in the back looks like a prisoner. I’ve never seen him before. They escort him over to the entrance to Trent Towers and stand, waiting. After a moment, the doors on the second vehicle open. As before, four men step out.

“Shit,” says Frank, pointing to one of the men who have climbed out of the back. “That’s Duncan, one of Trent’s two personal bodyguards.”

I look over at him. He’s a big guy, very well built and he certainly looks intimidating. Not someone you’d take for granted in a fight. I watch as he walks around the vehicle and opens the back door nearest the curb.

“Is that…?” asks Josh, looking on.

“Sure looks like him…” I confirm.

We watch as Duncan grabs Jimmy Manhattan by his arm and leads him to the front door. But before he gets chance to open it, another man comes out to meet him. He’s of similar build and height, and judging by his tense and nervous body language, I figure he’s heard about his boss.

“That’s Bennett,” Frank informs us. “Duncan’s partner in crime, and Trent’s other personal muscle.”

“Those two guys are enormous,” Josh observes.

“I did some research on them—both former cage fighters who got banned from the independent MMA circuit for excessive violence and persistent breach of health and safety regulations. They went from working the doors to protecting Trent pretty quickly.”

I study them both with a professional eye. I’m no slouch in a fight, but I know I can’t take any chances with these two, should I ever confront them.

They talk for a moment, and I watch as Duncan’s body language changes to match that of his colleague’s. Then they both drag Manhattan and the other prisoner into the building and out of sight.

“What you wanna do, Boss?” asks Josh.

“We wait.”

“For what?” Frank asks.

“Just playing a hunch. Give it half an hour, and then we’ll make our move.”

20:38

I hate being right. Not all the time—especially when I’m arguing with Josh. But when I trust my gut about how bad I think a situation might get, I definitely don’t like it when I’m dead on.

As the rain pours down, and the night sky periodically lights up with lightning, the loud wail of police sirens drifts across the city, gradually getting louder like a crescendo of broken justice. After a few minutes, pretty much the entire Pittsburgh Police Department descends on the building. There must be over twenty cruisers, blue lights flashing, blocking the road and the entrance to the building. Cops pour out, covering the street outside the entrance and blocking the road off, side arms in hand, taking up position behind the cover of their open car doors.

“Shit,” I say.

“You figured they’d call in every corrupt cop they’ve got?” says Frank, more of a statement than a question.

I nod silently, formulating a plan in my head that would get me to the top floor without getting shot. Or, at least, I’m trying to…

“We need to get rid of them if we’re to stand any chance of getting inside there,” says Josh.

“What you thinking?” I ask.

“Well, those cops might be more bent than a boomerang factory, but they’re still cops… If there’s a big enough crime reported, they’ll have to respond, surely?”

I shake my head. “No one would dare commit a crime that Trent didn’t orchestrate himself in this town, and all those cops know it… No, we need something else.”

We fall silent again, and I lean against the window and look up at the building that towers over the street. We need to get to the top floor, and the only way in or out has the entire police department guarding it. If only we can…

“Sonofabitch…” I say, piecing together a new game plan in my head, somewhat annoyed at myself for not thinking of it sooner.

“What?” asks Frank, skeptically.

I smile. “We need to think bigger.”

21:00

I’d called Oscar Brown, to make sure he was still in the city. Luckily, he was. He’d been surprised to hear from me again so soon after my last purchase, but said he was happy to help.

Frank’s driving. I’d told him to head back over to Oscar’s place and asked Josh to pull together some of our newfound fortune, ready to spend. As we approach Oscar’s warehouse, Josh appears behind me.

“I’ve moved one point five million into one of our accounts,” he announces. “I’ll move more if Oscar applies any insanity tax—which I’m sure he will, because this idea of yours is fucking crazy, Adrian. Even for you.”

“Just playing another hunch is all,” I reply.

We arrive at the warehouse facility, screeching to a halt in front of the entrance. I step out into the pouring rain and glance around. The other buildings are all quiet and look completely deserted. Only Oscar’s has a light on in the main office, which floods out through the open door, where he’s standing, leaning against the frame waiting for us.

“Back again?” he shouts over to us. “I could get used to this—you’ll be putting my kids through college at this rate!”

“Hoping I’m about to give you the means to buy your own damn college,” I reply, smiling.

Josh and Frank appear next to me, and we all stop just outside Oscar’s door.

“Guns all you got?” I ask.

He goes to reply but stops himself, taking a moment to regard me with more curiosity than usual. He shifts almost nervously on the spot before answering. “What makes you ask that?”

“Just the fact that all those warehouses over in Allentown, and those two of there, appear empty—but if they were, and you were the only show in town, you’d have moved into one front and center by the entrance, not tucked yourself away in the corner. Also, I say
appears
because there are fresh tire tracks in the mud by those two units, so there’s definitely something inside them. I figure, seeing as you probably own this entire estate, you got more than guns in some of these other warehouses.” I look behind me and gesture at them with my thumb. “I’ve got close to two million dollars to spend on what I hope you’re hiding over there.”

Oscar eyes each of us in turn before stroking his chin, as if in deep thought. He bursts out laughing.

“You ain’t as dumb as you look!” he says. “Just like ol’ Jimmy told me. Lemme just get my coat and I’ll give you the tour.”

As he disappears into the office, Frank nudges my arm. “What’s going on?” he asks. “What do you think he’s got over there?”

“Something much bigger than a few racks of guns,” I reply.

Oscar re-appears and leads us all across the complex to the first of the two hangar-sized warehouses. The rain’s coming down hard, and more thunder rumbles in the dark clouds overhead. Time’s running out if I want to get to Manhattan before what’s left of Trent’s organization decides it’s simply easier to kill him than question him.

As we near the warehouse, I see there’s no front office—it simply has two large hangar doors padlocked shut. He stops just short of the doors and spins around to face me with a serious look in his eyes.

“Now… a betting man would wager his annual salary that you fellas are fixing to do something real stupid… am I right?” he asks.

“Stupid’s a pretty broad term,” I say. “I prefer to think of this as necessary insanity.”

He smiles and walks over to the doors. He unfastens the padlock and heaves both doors wide open.

“Insanity’s right…” he says.

As the fluorescent lights flicker into life, illuminating the hangar interior, I hear Josh and Frank both audibly gasp in shock. In front of us is a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter, painted jet black.

“Holy shit…” mutters Josh.

It looks in amazing condition, considering they’ve been out of active service in the military since ‘89. I walk inside the warehouse and slowly circle the helicopter.

“Somewhat of a collector’s item, I admit,” Oscar explains. “But she’s in perfect working order. I’ve had a few enquiries about her over the years, but never could bring myself to part with her.”

“Well, I don’t want to buy it,” I say. “Just borrow it.”

“Mind if I ask what for?”

Josh and Frank gather around too, eager to hear my plan.

“There’s a tower block in the city that’s surrounded by cops, and I need to get to the top floor. The way I figure it, it’s easier to go in from the roof than it is from the ground, under the circumstances.”

“Genius…” says Josh. “Except you can barely walk straight, let alone fly one of these things… What about you, Frank? Don’t suppose you’re a helicopter pilot are you?”

He shakes his head.

“Josh, will you just relax? Ol’ Oscar here’s gonna fly it,” I say, turning toward him. “Aren’t you?”

“Well, I… I mean, I
can
fly it, don’t get me wrong…”

“Good. I’ve got a million dollars to rent your machine, and half a million for your time and risk. Can you be ready to take off in fifteen minutes?”

Everyone exchanges looks of shock and concern, but says nothing.

“I’ll take that as a yes… c’mon, let’s get ready.”

I walk quickly back to the Winnebago, leaving the rest of them standing inside the hangar. The rain’s getting worse by the minute, and as a flash of lightning illuminates the industrial estate, it looks like the storm that’s threatened for days is finally unleashing its fury on the city of Pittsburgh.