The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake 2) (3 page)

She turned to Kinimaka. “Any ideas?”

The giant shrugged, displacing dust from his shoulders in a mushroom cloud. “Everglades. Trees. Water. Gators. The four airboats we all arrived on.”

It had taken four airboats to carry the members of their enemy squad. When they arrived at their destination Hayden had seen nothing but derelict walls and overgrown doorways, but inside, the place was a veritable, if untidy, shopping mall of advanced machinery.

Hayden stared at Kinimaka. “Airboats.” She repeated. He nodded.

The bars rattled. Hayden spun to see the devil responsible for the murder of three CIA agents pressing a leering face between the narrow gaps. “Ed Boudreau,” he thrust a gloved hand through and made a play of shaking thin air. “Pleased to kill you.”

“Likewise,” Hayden whispered, knowing she shouldn’t but unable to stop herself. Her father had been better than that, had taught
her
better than that.

“You look quite a mess, my dear,” Boudreau said. “Oh, my, is that
brain
in your hair? Who’d have thought an enemy agent would actually have one and then lose it, eh?”

Kinimaka used the wall to stand up behind her. She didn’t see him, she felt the rumbling and the shaking.

“Hey, hey big boy,” Boudreau laughed. “Calm down. I’m not going to start with either of you two.” His gaze fell upon Wyatt Godwin. “Hi there.”

“So what do you want?” Hayden continued to evaluate their surroundings, as she knew the other two were doing.

“You touched on the subject briefly, remember? Back when your friends were painting the walls? It’s a local phenomenon known as the Bermuda Triangle. Been around a few years. Tell me what you know.”

“Alright, alright,” said Hayden looking away. “It’s a song by Barry Manilow. Early ‘80’s, I’m guessing. Did we win?”

“He
did.” Boudreau motioned at Godwin. Guards appeared, levelling lethal-looking weapons at Kinimaka and her. “Don’t move.”

Hayden sucked in her lips. They were dead anyway. Why not try their luck now, when there were three of them? Why wait?

Survive as long as you can.
The old Jaye creed had been all but branded into her.
One minute, to the next, to the next. Don’t provoke. Every next moment might bring you the chance you need.

Godwin struggled hard, giving one guard a bloody nose, but he was no match for three. They manhandled him out of the cell and threw him to the ground before Boudreau. “Nothing fancy,” the leader said, taking out his field knife. “Tell me what you know, and it’s quick. Dick me about and it’s choppy choppy time.” His grin left no doubt in Hayden’s mind which scenario he favoured.

“Listen!” She hoped the desperation didn’t show too much in her voice. She couldn’t bear to watch another member of her team murdered before her eyes. Commonsense and training urged her to shut the hell up. Heart and mind said otherwise.

“We don’t know much. What we learned, well, we only learned yesterday.” Was it really only yesterday that her team had been laughing, excited, looking forward to their futures? Was it really only yesterday that she’d been talking to Ben Blake and torn between two minds about what to do with him?

“It’s something to do with the Queen Anne’s Revenge,” Hayden blurted. “You know, Blackbeard’s ship?”

If her father could see her now . . .

“The pirate?” Boudreau smiled condescendingly.

“Yes! They found it in ’96 off the North Carolina shore and have been excavating and salvaging it ever since. And, well, pirates . . . well they tend to hoard a lot of . . . umm . . . treasure.”

Surprisingly Boudreau wasn’t laughing, only appraising. “You’ll be telling me the Bermuda Triangle is naught but pirate booty next! Aarghh!”

With the last exclamation Boudreau sank his knife to the hilt into Godwin’s thigh. The shock was so sudden that even Godwin just stared for a second. Then Boudreau twisted the hilt and ripped the blade back and Godwin started to twist and scream. Blood pooled rapidly through his trousers and across the floor.

“Anything else?”

Hayden stayed quiet.

“Tell me about the Blood King?” Boudreau all but bellowed.
“Tell me about the Blood King!”

Hayden stepped back despite herself. Boudreau had gone red in the face and was sending spittle flying in her direction. Christ, even the very mention of the Blood King sent this American bad-ass into seizures.

How could that be?

“We know nothing, Boudreau. Beyond his name, and that he is looking for the item we confiscated from the Queen Anne’s Revenge. That’s it.”

She turned a regretful gaze towards Godwin. The man’s eyes had rolled up into his head. A guard was kicking him, another stabbing him. Inside five minutes one more CIA agent lay still and bleeding at Boudreau’s sin-stained hands.

Hayden met the eyes of Mano Kinimaka. It was a look of finality and goodbye. A look that said ‘don’t judge me on how I die, judge me on how I’ve lived.’

Kinimaka’s heavy brows raised in an open expression of sorrow. The Hawaiian was a very open man, not used to concealing his feelings.

Boudreau was already at the cage and tapping the bars with his knife, sending rivulets of blood spattering across the floor.

“You ready?” He grinned at Hayden.

Then someone shouted, a scared holler that seemed completely out of place coming from the rough brawler who stood clutching a sat-phone.

“Boudreau!
”

The leader’s face showed anger. “What?”

“It’s
him! It’s him!”
The phone was being brandished as if it were ablaze.

Hayden watched closely as Boudreau’s face adjusted instantly from confident fury to abject terror.

Instantly.

Hayden stared in utter amazement. Whoever was on the end of that sat-phone had one of the scariest and most capable enemies she had ever known almost pissing his pants in fear.

It beggared the obvious question –
who?

The Blood King?

Hayden sank back against the far wall, grateful for the respite and for the various trackers that some geek had sewn into her clothing a couple of weeks ago.

CHAPTER FOUR

As soon as the plane landed at Miami International, Drake, Ben and Kennedy were up and out of their seats with the masses, waiting to disembark. The journey had been long and strained, not helped by the fact that they had been unable to glean any more useful information. Drake was hopeful that as soon as he hit U.S. soil his previous phone calls might bear fruit. He had a nasty suspicion that Justin Harrison might not provide them with as much help as he was promising.

Through customs and past the carousels they went, on edge every step of the way. Into the bustle of the airport and scanning the crowds. Ben saw the man first.

‘Drake party!’ his card yelled in big, black letters.

The three of them hurried over, Drake worrying about how to keep his best friend’s spirits up. Banter was pretty much out of the question. Support was always good, but the lack of news and contact was making them all fretful.

Their chauffeur drove in silence, taking them through Miami and across one of its sweeping bridges that led to the beach, and pulled up outside a big white hotel called the Fontainbleu. Drake pinched his nose as they drove, partly to alleviate the tension and the tiredness, but also to pause and come to terms with the utter vastness of this city compared to the one they had left behind.

He took the quiet time to run a few things over in his head. The past six weeks, since the end of the ‘Odin thing’, had been quite a ride. Kennedy and he had developed feelings for each other, but both knew they were skirting around the more profound problems in their lives - his wife, Alyson’s terrible car crash and the memories of his days in the SRT, and Kennedy’s dreadful memories of Thomas Kaleb, both before and during the arena battle.

And again he had been trying to get the soldier out of his head, stubborn in the belief that he would never need that part of him again.

It never ends, Matt Drake. It never ends for people like you and me.

He still had feelings for
her.
Mai. And right now he was closer to her than he’d been for many years. He wondered if their paths would cross.

Within minutes they were being shown to their rooms. Drake stayed True Brit and forgot to tip. Ben walked over to the room’s oak-stained desk and plonked himself down.

The kid looked around. “Laptop?”

Drake felt a bit of
deja vu
left over from the Odin adventure, but gave him the big Sony without comment. He walked over to the rectangular windows and stared at the hotel opposite before turning his glance down the long straight road known as Collins Avenue.

The sudden silence was oppressive. Energy gnawed at him, a caged lion desperate for release. To hell with the mirror-clear, blue-and-green patchwork ocean; to hell with the bikini babes and Miami Beach. What they needed now was information about Hayden and her team.

Kennedy stared at him from across the room. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Hope not. Cos that’d make you a lesbian.”

“Quit it for a second, soldier boy. You know what I mean.”

“We’re being compartmentalised. Kept out of the loop. They don’t want us here, and they don’t want us interfering.”

“Like we
interfered
with Abel Frey.” Ben mumbled.

“Governments don’t think that far back,” said Drake walking over to his friend. “Or forward for that matter.”

Ben had typed ‘Bermuda Triangle’ into his laptop and was studying the returns. “Plenty here. Flight 19 was the first loss in the ‘50s. Woah! Listen to this, the flight leader was heard to say-
‘
We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white.’
His last words. It’s claimed that, ever since, there has been an unknown pattern of random, supernatural events in the region.”

“And who knows, maybe before,” said Kennedy shrugging.

Drake grunted. “There’s nothing supernatural about it. I bet, if you check, random events happen all over the ocean. The Bermuda Triangle’s just got a better PR team.”

At that moment there was a knock at the door. Drake scooted over and Kennedy pulled Ben over to the curtains, partially hiding him. Drake didn’t peer through the keyhole, instead he shouted in broad Yorkshire. “Who’s there?”

“Justin Harrison,” an impatient voice answered. “Open up!”

Drake did as requested. Jonathan Gates’ secretary minced in through at the speed of sound, huge briefcase slamming around his legs. The guy must end up bruised all over by the end of that day and probably wondered where the hell he got half of them.

Ben met him head on. “Where is she?”

“We’ve found them. Well, we’ve found the general area using trackers. Then they stopped working. But we know within a few miles’ radius.” Like bullets, Harrison’s words ripped through the air at the speed of light. “Teams are being prepped. They’re going in.”

Ben thought about all that. Drake tapped the aid on the shoulder. “You’re sending in
teams
to rescue her. Just like that?”

“Yes. Very important we get her back. Huge case. Just huge. Might be the CIA’s biggest case ever. She - Hayden - has information. Also, we think two other agents might be alive. Massive Mano and Godwin.”

“What case?” Ben was asking as Drake evaluated his next move. Time was key here.

“The Blood King. Some huge underworld figure everyone thought was a goddamn myth. Turns out, he’s real. He’s tied to Blackbeard’s ship and the salvage operation through the object we found.”

“The one that explains the Bermuda-”

Drake shouted. “Let’s go hitch a ride!”

Before even Justin Harrison could utter another word they were racing down the corridor.

*****

Drake hit speed-dial in mid-flight and got hold of Wells. “There’s at least one Delta Force or SEAL team mobilising right now for an operation in the Florida Everglades. We need to be on that flight.”

He snapped shut before Wells could speak. The lift plummeted at high speed. “Hope they’re inbound from Miami,” he said and shrugged. Time would tell.

Outside they flagged a cab and told it to head for the nearest Helipad.

“Ocean Beach or the Dade county airport?” the lazy drawl came back.

“Dade county,” Drake urged and the cab shot off.

Busy roads and busy shops surrounded them. Palm trees swayed this way and that as if leaning into a lovers’ embrace. The hot glare and shimmer of the sun made him wish he’d remembered to pack a pair of sunglasses. Just one pair. Sherlock, he wasn’t.

Within ten minutes his mobile belted out an old Dinorock tune. “Wells?”

“A private helipad on the Rickenbacker Causeway. Signs say it’s an animal sanctuary or something. It is, but it’s owned by the government. Get me?”

“Got you. Speak soon.”

Drake relayed their new destination to the taxi driver who grunted and shook his head. The word
tourists
probably crossed his lips. Drake’s mobile rang again.

“Yes?” He answered shortly without thinking.

“Be nice, my friend, you might like what I have to offer.”

The cultured tones again made him boomerang back in time. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Well, you actually sound disappointed.”

“Listen, I can’t speak right now.” Drake was uncomfortably aware of the cab’s close confines. “Call you back later.” He jabbed at the disconnect button, inwardly disgusted with himself.