The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake 2) (18 page)

“Sir?” The trepidation in that one word was enough to put the Blood King in a better mood.

“Truth is, Mr Boudreau, I also thought Alicia Myles was an asset. So we are both fools. But we will learn from that?”

“Yes.” The flood of relief was obvious.

“Now. Did my techs give you the coordinates of the computer hacker?”

“Yes. I suspect they have an amateur working for them.”

“In fact, this person is good. World class, I am told, even to get as far as he has. But my people are better.”

“Of course.”

“Get to those coordinates, Mr Boudreau, with overwhelming force. And
get me the controller.
Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Blood King severed the connection. The naked prisoner trussed up at his feet stared up at him with wet, desperate eyes.

“Did you lure them with the blood trail?” the Blood King asked his men.

“Several sharks are now following us, sir.”

“Excellent.” The Blood King bent down and drew a knife across the prisoner’s wrists and thighs. He took a moment to watch the life-blood begin to pump and then kicked the trussed-up man overboard, taking care to hold the rope that attached him to the ship. “Stop the boat and inflate his life-jacket. The ocean sport is looking good today.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It was late in the afternoon when Hayden called Drake’s mobile. The ex-soldier glanced at Kennedy before he answered.

“This must be important.”

Kennedy nodded and looked away. Truth be told, her mind was elsewhere. Her boss, Captain Lipkind, had called about thirty minutes back. The questions he asked were questions she had been avoiding for a while now.

How are you really feeling? Have the nightmares subsided? When are you coming back?

And Drake’s reply when she finally mentioned her misgivings?
Then we need to get some things out in the open. There are some things you don’t know . . . that you really need to know.

What the-?

That was when Hayden called. Drake was agreeing to drop everything and head right over. Of course he was.

“Be right behind you.” She waved him on ahead, taking a moment for herself and a moment for all those who had died at the hands of Thomas Kaleb. She would never forget them. Not for one day. She still had a purpose to fulfil, somewhere.

She just didn’t know here yet.

*****

Drake didn’t want to push Kennedy too hard, so he high-tailed it over to the other hotel. The room was full, with only Kinimaka standing watch. Drake pushed to the front.

“What’s the score, guys?”

Hayden was almost grinning. “Listen.”

Hudson was leaning back and cracking his fingers one by one. “That last one was a hard bastard to crack. Feels like I took the skin off my fingers. Anyhow, in this age of digital information and electronic eavesdropping nothing is secret.
Nothing.
The trick is to know where to look. I started by writing a simple program that
collects
information. A gatherer, if you will. I sent it trickling through the-”

“Ok, dude,” Hayden rounded on him. “Just tell us what you’ve got.”

“It starts a long time ago. A figure called the Blood King first rose in Russia in the late ‘80s. There’s nothing but snippets, and most of those appear to have been erased.”

“Erased?” Hayden repeated. “How? And by whom?”

“I have no idea. But to get rid of that much information must have taken someone a very long time. Or a lot of people a long time. Or-”

“So he has a team of techs erasing his very existence,” Hayden nodded. “Makes sense.”

“But no one can erase
everything.
Traces will always remain. Tiny titbits will always be missed. It’s just common sense, you know?”

“I get it techno-boy. Get on with it.”

“Well, blah, blah, a figure called the Blood King definitely existed in Russia around the late 80s, early 90s. It took me eight hours to confirm just that. But when you get a starting point, that’s when you can start digging in earnest. By piecing together various obscure articles I think the man got mega-rich and decided to vanish.”

“Mega-rich?” Drake said. “Through crime?”

Hudson smiled at the computer screen and gave it a loving pat. “Ever hear of Southern Cross Vodka?”

Drake blinked and Ben said, “Well, yeah, it’s everywhere.”

“The Blood King
owns
Southern Cross.” Hudson looked pleased.

“So you’re saying our man’s a Russian vodka millionaire.”

“Not quite.”

Hayden almost reached for her gun. “Then
what?”

“He also owns
Stryanka.
And
Russian Best.
And
Vlodsko
. Get the idea?”

“Explain it to me.”

“The Blood King is actually a
vodka
king. Officially, a man called Dmitry Kovalenko owns Southern Cross Vodka, but this man, Kovalenko, appears to be the undisputed number one on
every single
ownership agreement I come across.”

“So our Russian millionaire is-”

“Actually a Russian
multi-billionaire.
A literal king of his country. I got one passage of juicy information. Just one, mind, in two days of searching. Dmitry Kovalenko lives at sea.”

“Like-” Ben struggled to speak. “Like a pirate?”

“Just like a pirate. Like Blackbeard, I suppose. His ship is his castle and yet there is no record of it ever being built. He owns and runs a huge empire from his ship, a floating office and home, always moving.”

Drake whistled. “And puts
figureheads
in place to run his companies which he controls like puppets.”

“Did you get anything else?” Hayden asked. “Not complaining, but-”

“Just a crumb. The word
Stormbringer.
More recent, a few years ago actually. It came up through an American back-channel, was even reported to the CIA, but nothing ever came of it.”

“So why is it even linked to Kovalenko?”

“His Southern Cross vodka company copyrighted it as the title of their signature bottle. And I mean
signature.
It sold for 1.4 million per bottle.”

There was a dumbstruck silence. Drake contemplated the arrogance and ignorance of the people out there willing to pay such a sum for a bottle of vodka. “Interesting, if appalling, fact,” he said. “But so what?”

“In the blurb they wrote that the owner of their company held the name ‘dear to his heart’. That phrase, coming from Russians, well maybe it’s nothing. Just thought you should know.”

“Couldn’t that be the name of the artefact?” Ben said. “A very similar name was mentioned by Calico Jack’s scribe.”

“This is real news,” Hayden looked like she wanted to lean in and kiss Hudson. Alicia quickly perched herself on his knee. In another few seconds she had already started to wriggle suggestively.

Outside the windows, darkness was starting to fall.

Hayden hadn’t looked happier since Drake last saw her on a night out in York shooting chocolate vodkas in the Slug.

“Let’s leave the lovebirds alone,” the CIA agent said. “And go make some calls.”

CHAPTER TWNETY-NINE

Alicia Myles squirmed a little more before turning around to face Hudson. “Damn, Huddo, you’re good.”

With a practised movement she manoeuvred both legs so that she straddled him and began to grind her bottom into his crotch.

“I know that. Is there something else you want?”

“I don’t ask, Hudson. You should know that by now.”

Alicia nodded towards the bed. Hudson grabbed her by the waist and carried her over before falling unceremoniously among the covers, tangling them in a heap. Alicia laughed and fought her way on top.

“You did a good job today, lover.”

“It’s why you keep me around.”

“Well . . . you have other uses too.” Alicia pulled her tight T-shirt off over her head and flung it into the air. Hudson’s eyes glazed a little as she reached beneath herself and started to unbuckle his trousers. Within minutes they were both naked, sweat slicking their bodies. Alicia rode him wildly, letting the moment take her away.

It was in these moments that she felt free.
Only
in these moments.

When Hudson started to strain too much or got a bit too carried away she plucked another short hair from his beard to keep him in the game. Useful things - beards.

The nightmares she lived with, day to day, began to fade as the pleasure took hold. The release she craved from the things she’d done grew a little less important. With Hudson, maybe she had found someone with which to make a fresh start. Maybe.

With a fluid movement she flipped herself over and scrambled onto all fours. Hudson took up position behind her, his eyes ablaze with lust as they ran over her naked, waiting body.

“Get stuck in, Huddo,” she breathed. “Stop tossing it off.”

He thrust forward, making her gasp. She threw her head back, hair whipping her own spine. The feeling of pleasure and lust inside began to mount. There was the urge, the overwhelming feeling, the bliss and nothing else.
At last.

Freedom.

The noise of the hotel-room door being barged in cut right through her cravings. It was harsh, sudden, shocking.

Then, as she twisted her body around, Hudson’s head exploded above her, showering her and the bed and the windows with blood and other matter. Her lover’s headless body slumped beside her before the sound of the gunshot entirely died away.

With his heat still inside her.

Alicia leapt off the bed to face her attackers. Three men stood there, guns in hand, pausing to stop and smirk now as they saw the fully naked woman defenceless before them.

“Look all you want,” Alicia Myles hissed. “It’s the last eyeful any of you will ever get.”

She bounded at the nearest, springing like a cat, and slamming her hard body into his chest. The man staggered back into the wall but kept hold of his weapon. Alicia was on her knees. Within seconds her stiffened palm slammed into his testicles, crushing them, making him double over and making him scream. Alicia spun across the floor, using her bare knees to pivot and gain speed, and crashed into the legs of the second man just as he fired his semi-automatic. Bullets stitched across the hotel-room’s ceiling, digging gouges out of the plaster and spraying dust everywhere.

Alicia wrenched the gun from his hand.

“Stare at this shitsack!” Spinning the weapon she fired before her adversary could even gasp. He shot backwards, dead already. From her kneeling position Alicia sent quick eyes at the third man. He was focused on her, gun raised, squeezing the trigger, a hair’s-breadth from firing . . . her shot destroyed his knees a millisecond before he fired. The man slammed to the floor in a bloody tangle, his bullet zinging harmlessly into the carpet.

Alicia turned, glimpsing the man she had de-balled desperately trying to bring his weapon around.

Sensing victory she stood up, unashamed. With a slow, deadly deliberation she glided to his side and twisted his wrist so that his own gun barrel stared him in the eyes.

“Eyes that have seen too much,” she whispered. “Need putting out.”

She squeezed the trigger and turned away. That left one man, the one with the mangled knees. “Who sent you?” she tried. “Was it the Blood King? Did he find us?” She squatted beside him. “Tell me, arsehole. Or I’ll start with your bollocks, and work my way up. You know I can do it.”

He knew alright. His eyes showed that he was aware of her reputation. And yet still all three of them had hesitated when they saw her naked. Behold the simplicity of men.

She dared not glance at the bed. Dared not think about her lover. The harsh reality might tear her to pieces.

“Boudreau. It was Boudreau. He sent us.”

“For me?” Alicia pressed.

“For all of you.”

The words sent a black wave crashing through her.
For all of you.
She smashed the man’s face until it bled. “How many? How many has that maniac sent?”

“So many . . . so many . . .” the words were punctuated with agonised gasps. “I couldn’t count.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Without looking back, Alicia Myles flung on trousers and a T-shirt and sprinted away from the only man she had ever contemplated a future with. The mellowness that had started to eat away at her bitter edges, the laughter that had started to soothe her soul, disintegrated like so much confetti in the rain, leaving nothing but the razor-edge mind of a stone-cold killer.