Brothers In Arms (Matt Drake 5) (19 page)

“
I’m pretty sure that’s the Korean dude. Yeah.”

Lauren stared. “Yes. That’s him. Is he important?”

“General Kwang Yong, of the Korean People’s Army, is leader of the Special Operations Force. The KPA consists of five branches, with this being the most obscure. Naturally.”

“What’s he doing in the U.S.?”

“Well,” Dahl said, “he’s the leader of an important branch of the largest military organization on earth. Take a bloody guess.”

*****

Drake watched as Zanko waved one of the dull, galvanized nails before his eyes.

“
Hold still, Mr. Drake. The first nail? It will only tickle.”

The point dug into Drake’s palm. Zanko fumbled with the hammer, his outsize, fleshy hand too big to
maneuver it quickly and hang onto Drake at the same time. “Vladimir!” he cried. “
Bystro!”

Zanko nodded at Drake. “Just be moment, my friend. Did you know. . .
?” His voice took on a matter-of-fact tone. “That I once did smother a man to death using my armpits?”

He twisted his body so one was revealed. Drake
almost gagged at the sight of thick locks of matted hair, glistening with sweat and hanging from his arm like a gelled-up sheepdog.

Drake felt the pain of the nail being placed in the
center of his palm. Vladimir pulled back the hammer. Romero rose behind him, shaking his head. The marine stared blankly, looking confused.

But his presence dist
racted Zanko. Vladimir struck with the hammer. Drake shifted his hand aside as Zanko looked to the side, conscious of the enemy at his back. As the hammer hit Zanko’s smallest finger, Drake struck like a snake, grabbing its handle and twisting away, turning, and in one complete move buried the claw in Vladimir’s shoulder.

The man screamed. Zanko grunted
. Romero’s eyes began to clear. Drake might be a battler, but he knew a bad fight when he was in the middle of one.

“Go!” He
swore when Romero, still slightly befuddled, ran in the direction of the back office, toward even more trouble. Using every ounce of energy, he leapt free of the corner and put a precious few feet between himself and Zanko. The mountainous Russian roared at his heels.

Drake ran hard for the office door and then suddenly stopped, flinging himself to the side. Zanko, fast but still unable to stop
his freight train body fast enough, hit the frame like an elephant hitting a brick wall. The entire cabin shuddered, its far end disturbed so much it fell entirely off its brick supports, crashing to the ground and upending everyone in the office.

Romero shouted. “Window!”
Drake paused though, just for a second. A sixth sense told him a minute spared here might save them hours or even days of trouble later. He looked at the walls, really looked at them, trying to digest and divine some kind of meaning.

A more recent map showed Iraq and its borders, its roads and towns. An older one showed ancient Babylon, mapped out by historians and experts, with several areas highlighted. Drake could make out the word
s
“gate,”
and
“swords”,
with the rest being obscured by a garish Post-it note covered in Russian scribble. A place called the
Ishtar Gate
was circled.

Still another picture was an ancient representation of something called
The Tower of Babel,
an old legend Drake was barely aware of. Far back in time, didn’t the people and the priests try to construct a tower of stone high enough to reach God?

Romero’s shouting and crashing tore his attention away.
Zanko was already picking himself up off the floor, but his body was currently blocking the office door. The old Russian boss just knelt among his men, fixing Drake with an emotionless stare that made the Englishman shiver.

Such detachment in this situation was unreal.

Then Romero smashed the window and Drake dived out after him, bullets strafing their heels.

*****

“So, the five of you stumbled across a Korean general on U.S. soil. The man never appeared dressed as a soldier to you, Lauren, giving you no reason to question him. You shouldn’t have mattered. That changed after Stevens and the other victims saw him. A decision must have later been taken to tie up all loose ends.” Hayden glanced from eye to eye. “Sound about right?”

“It most certainly does.” Dahl clicked his fingers. “But who’s the American?”

“His host.” Hayden turned briefly to the hidden eye. “An influential man, I presume.”

The conference phone rang immediately. Hayden answered and Gates spoke. “
Time is of the essence, Jaye. Get them to make a photo fit of this guy. If the Koreans are here on U.S. soil trying to make a deal. . .”

Hayden flashed back to Dai Hibiki’s original message.
“This could be all about arms, sir. Futuristic weapons.”

“It usually is, Jaye
. It usually is.” Gates signed off, sounding weary. Hayden tapped the desk. “Lauren. Stevens. We need a picture of that American and we need it last week. Ben will help you with the photo fit. The rest of you—the Korean general clearly gives us a link to the island, but what about the strange assassins? They’re American—no doubt. And how does it fit in with Drake’s kidnapping ring? If it is somehow tied to the Koreans then why draw attention to themselves?”

“The deal on the table
,” Kinimaka offered. “Might be humongous.”

“Then God help us.”

*****

Outside,
Romero threaded between big packs of timber. Hundreds of cubes of the stuff sat in the Russian yard, waiting to be picked over and sold, and the marine used the bulky, piled-high pallets as cover. Drake followed a step behind. Bullets sent wood chips flying in all directions; sharp splinters littered the ground.

“Go left!” Drake cried.

Romero ducked down an aisle, heading around the back of the big office now and toward their car. The shooting had momentarily stopped as men piled out of the broken window behind them. Romero jumped through the open car door without touching the sides. Drake looked up to see Vladimir, hammer still hanging from his shoulder, pushing out of the cabin door.

Just got time. . .

Drake leapt over the car hood, sliding off the other side and landing right in front of Vladimir. The Russian looked pained and surprised. “Off to the doc were you?” Drake took hold of the man’s jacket and threw him against the car. Vladimir hit the hard metal wing with a metallic
clunk
and screamed. The hammer wavered as blood poured from the wound.

Romero revved the car’s engine.

“Hold yer friggin’ horses.”

Vladimir groaned. Drake punched him in the nose. “I don’t give a shit about this place.” The Englishman hissed. “Seriously.
I have no interest in you or God-Zanko or your creepy bloody boss. But give me the address in Frankfurt. Give it to me now. And I’ll let you live.”

Vladimir looked momentarily confused. “The
traffickers? Your business is with them?”

“Just them.” Drake sounded convincing even to himself.
“Be quick. I still have time to take your Russki head off with that hammer, Vlad.”

“That is small time for us. We don’t need that anymore.”

“Then give me the address.”

Vladimir quickly reeled off an address that sounded German. Drake lingered another moment as Romero started to reverse the car.

“If you’re lying to me. . .”

“Why would I lie?” Vl
adimir shrugged, making the hammer bob up and down. “As you say—you have no interest in us.”

Drake
ran for it. Men wearing leather jackets and lethal-looking frowns were pouring out of the timber aisles. Drake dived headlong into the car as Romero forced it into a yawing one-eighty-degree turn. The second Drake’s head hit the dashboard Romero slammed the accelerator through the floorboard. Tires squealed and the smell of burned rubber stung the air. Sparks flew from the bodywork as bullets bounced off the chassis. One of the wing mirrors exploded. Drake fell back into the passenger seat.

“Nice work.”

“You too.”

The car shot out of the timber yard, slewing dangerously as it joined the main road.
“Close one.” Romero ventured.

Drake shrugged. “
Could’ve been worse. We could’ve both been smothered by that monster’s armpits.”

Romero made a gagging noise.

Drake reached for a cellphone. “You know something? The CIA surely knew that timber yard was a major HQ. And they said nothing.”

“Welcome to the CIA.
If they feel overlooked or ordered around, they ain’t gonna help you, dude. Crisis or not.”

“Hayden was CIA.”

“Nah. Not fully. Hayden Jaye was the CIA liaison to the Secretary of Defense. Different beast.”

“We’ll need to deal with that later.” Drake tapped out a number. “But for now
—I wonder how Alicia’s doing with that gang of bikers.”

Shaun Kingston
had heard and seen enough. “Your ‘sleepers’ failed.” He spoke softly, without the slightest hint of a threat, but still his words were menacing. “Your island has been attacked. It could be compromised. Even now, they don’t know if the enemy have vacated, are dead or are in hiding. This whole operation could be falling apart, General.”

Kwang Yong shrugged.
“Or your propaganda is just that, Mr. Kingston. I have heard nothing so dreadful. The victory will still be ours. The Republic does not fail.”

“It’ll fail if you don’t get my weapons
,” Kingston shot back before he could stop himself.
Goddamn.
Where was his usual reserve?
Blown to hell
, he thought. Along with all his dreams of unlimited wealth. But maybe not yet. And he couldn’t exactly suggest to the general that his own men were probably keeping schtum because of the time honored ‘shoot the messenger’ syndrome.

“You would do well not to threaten me, Mr
. Kingston. We Koreans do not respond well to threat.”

Kingston nodded, accepting the rebuke.
“Window’s short,” he said. “But we still have a play here.” For once, he was glad he’d included his bodyguards in this conversation and in particular his primary muscle—a man called Germaine. Tall, thin, built like a knife and just as sharp and deadly, he was a born killer. Easy to underestimate and almost impossible to hurt, he prided himself on always being that one lethal step ahead of his enemy.

Now
Germaine stood at his side, two other bodyguards by the high set of windows at his back. They faced the seated Kwang Yong and his own assembly of personal guardians. To Kingston it felt like a stand-off.

“A play?”
The Korean chewed on the phrase as if it had been delivered hard-boiled. “What do you mean?”

“A balls-out finale. Anything goes. We have a good team in place
—all ex-military who are willing to kill. We have to accept that since our spotters saw the hooker and that damn truck driver being taken into this new HQ, the team within are well on their way to figuring this whole thing out. Don’t you think?”

“We do have more sleepers.” Kwang Wong grinned. “It is just the matter of a phone call.”

“I know you enjoy destroying these people’s lives with a mere sentence, General, but please…” Kingston faltered. “Things have moved on.”

“We could bring an army of sleepers.
An army of brothers.”

Kingston considered that for a moment. He hadn’t
realized there were so many. An army might be useful one day. “Not now,” he said. “But be ready.”

“Sir.”
Germaine spoke at his side. The whip-thin man wasn’t one to request attention unless action needed to be taken, so Kingston instantly acknowledged him. “Yes?”

“Two of them just left the HQ. The woman, Jaye, and her CIA partner. The Hawaiian.”

It was the first enemy movement since the truck driver had arrived hours ago.

“Shit.
”

“Actually that’s perfect, sir. Divide and conquer.”

Kingston had never been able to think like a killer. He envied Germaine sometimes. “Alright. Time to put our affairs in order. General, this is my game now.” He turned to Germaine once more. “Give the go ahead. Take every last one of the bastards out and destroy everything.”

Hayden felt a sense of excitement as she and Kinimaka left Washington alone. It wasn’t just the investigation or the new se
nse of purpose, or even the recent breakthrough—it was being with Kinimaka.

Alone.

Odd, in a way. They’d worked together for years, mostly alone. But now it felt different. Now it
was
different.

“Wonder if there’s a Hard Rock in Atlantic City.”