The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake 2) (5 page)

The Hawaiian made the water surge as he negotiated another chicane. The airboat clipped the head of a small island and skipped free of the water for a second before landing with a crash and powering on. Hayden and Kinimaka made big eyes at each other.

“
Shit!”

Hayden determined she should stay quiet and took a fleeting look back. She had decided that, unless their pursuers got any closer, she wasn’t going to waste ammo on speeding targets.

Three airboats were tailing them, packed with bad guys. Trouble was, they knew the waters. Kinimaka didn’t. It was only a matter of time before one of them recognised a short cut.

Even now she could hear Boudreau’s voice, manic, a banshee chasing her along the dark and bloody byways of hell.

Then Mano hit a partially submerged island. The airboat took flight, engine roaring. Water slewed from its side and rudders in white sheets. Hayden had half a second to hear cheering from behind and then the airboat struck the shallows like a pregnant hippo.

Hard.

She was instantly propelled forward and tucked her head and limbs in as best she could. Still, when she hit the ground the jolt jarred every bone in her body.

For a moment she was stunned. Then Kinimaka splashed down beside her like Shamu and drenched her with half the local water table.

She struggled onto her knees, partially submerged. The machine-gun was nowhere to be seen. She clapped Kinimaka about the ears, knowing she could never drag him up the sloping banks. After a moment his shaggy head came up, gasping for air.

“Thank God.”

Amazingly, they were both intact. The airboat was roaring crazily, lying on its side nearby and completely unusable. Hayden surveyed the reeds and the bank. Their only hope was to climb.

At that moment the three chasing airboats came into view. One of them hit the same island that fooled Kinimaka. The vehicle took off. Men and weapons flew into the air. Hayden scrambled out of the way, yelling at Kinimaka to follow. As she scooted clear she heard splashes all around her.

Machine-guns dropping. Kennedy reached for one and prepped it. Kinimaka made ready with another. Men were now dropping all around them. Splashes and grunts and the sound of breaking bones filled the air. When a man showed more signs of life than feeble movement Kinimaka fired a bullet into him.

Hayden turned and started to scramble through the shallow water. She sloshed among the weeds, tramping desperately upwards towards the drier bank. At that moment there was a huge eruption of water and one of Boudreau’s men rose up before her. His small revolver was levelled between her eyes and his twisted smile showed he had gotten lucky with the crash and decided to lie in wait.

Time stopped.

Kaleidoscopic images of stolen moments and regrets flashed through her brain: an old picture reel of a life of never-ending experiences. The man’s finger tightened on the trigger . . . Kinimaka was a world away, and screaming in frustration . . .when the fifteen-foot-long gator struck the man mid-torso.

His scream was high and insanely comical. His gun spiralled away. The man disappeared in less time than it takes to blink, leaving behind him the ghost of a scream and only a hint of spilled blood.

Nothing compared to the nightmare he was now enduring as he was dragged to the bottom of the river.

Violence saturated the air.

Hayden brought every ounce of her will to bear and collected herself. It took every memory of every good thing her father had taught her. Every hard lesson and proud moment. She focused on the moment when she learned of his death, his cold murder, and remembered the life changing vows she had made right then and there.

It was all she had to spur herself on, to forget the carnage and advance. One step at a time.   She reached the bank. She dug her fingers into the earth and pulled. She climbed. Then her stomach clutched with dread as she heard another enormous detonation of water behind her and out of her peripheral vision saw the nightmarish shape of the gator as it twisted and lunged for her.

In that moment of utter hell she witnessed a massive blur shooting past. It was Mano Kinimaka, roaring like a man possessed and tackling the gator around the exposed belly with a crunch they probably heard in Disneyland. The gator, no doubt in shock at being tackled by
anything,
let alone this man-mountain, was tipped over and thrown, back-first, into the shallows. Kinimaka landed atop it, arms encircling its body, gripping tight as if his life and the life of his boss depended on it.

And now, as Hayden balanced and rose to her feet, the men from the other two airboats began to open fire. Bullets thwacked and thudded the greenery around her, and kicked up sprays of water. Kinimaka thrashed with the gator. Hayden fell back against the muddy bank, exposed.

Brought her machine-gun around and opened fire.

And that was their last stand. Hayden, half buried in mud and muck and dripping wet, firing from the hip and felling the bad guys with every bullet. Kinimaka subduing the gator that writhed at her feet, screaming with the effort it took to hold on, eyes wild as he searched for a way to let go in relative safety.

The bad guys were advancing slowly. Boudreau was partially hidden behind his men, alternately shouting instructions and then laughing maniacally when a man right in front of him pirouetted bloodily and fell off the boat.

At that moment there was a scrambling sound behind her. Before she could turn, someone encircled her throat with a grip of iron. A cheer went up from the airboats. Hayden felt herself hauled to her feet.

The man’s grip was death. Kinimaka was in dire straits below. He saw what was happening but daren’t loosen his grip. Hayden fired down and back, turned the man’s foot to bloody mush. He fell away, screaming soundlessly. Hayden turned and fired a burst through his chest.

Then, under fire and dead on her feet, she dragged the dead man down into the churning shallows.

“Do it!”
She screamed at Kinimaka. The huge Hawaiian let go and the gator surged. Its tail whipped, sending sheets of bloody water high into the air. Its questing jaws locked on to the dead man and tasted blood. With another flick of its giant tail it was off.

Kinimaka sat in the water, strength sapped to the last ounce. Hayden put an arm around his shoulders. Together they ignored the enemy for a few seconds.

Then, Hayden lifted her machine-gun again. The bad guys were about to disembark, leaving them fully exposed.
Click.
The weapon was empty.

Her head went down. For one second she felt utter despair and rage that she had not been able to live up to her father’s dreams. That she hadn’t excelled his marvellous legacy.

But no one could say they hadn’t given it their all.

Boudreau was gesticulating. The knife he had used to kill her team reappeared in his hands and chopped at the testosterone-charged air.

Then came the sound of hope, of potential reprieve. The
thud, thud, thud
of heavy machinery. Choppers, fast approaching.

Big, black, and unmistakably military, they came swinging around a bend in the channel like a motorcyclist takes the last bend in a race.

Boudreau screamed, and suddenly his voice was high-pitched with fear. “Move out! Move out! Now, you assholes! Now we’ll have to go into hiding!”

Yes,
Hayden thought.
You failed, you bastard. Try explaining that to the goddamn Blood King.

CHAPTER EIGHT

When Matt Drake first clapped eyes on Hayden Jaye he thought she was already dead. His heart froze in fear, throat tightening as he envisaged what Ben’s reaction would be, and then she moved. There was a huge mass beside her and it too was moving. Drake could hardly believe it was a man; its size dwarfed Hayden, but she appeared to be happy sat right next to him.

“The fuck’s that?” One of the SEAL team guys said. “A hippo? In the Everglades?”

“That’ll be Mano,” Ben spoke up for the first time, his eyes and heart alight. “She mentioned he was pretty huge.”

“Huge, yeah,” came the reply. “Pretty? Nah.”

The chopper hovered low whilst men leapt out. Their mission was to reclaim Hayden Jaye, not pursue the enemy, so they showed no interest in the fleeing band of murderers. Ben jumped out too, landing face-first and spluttering and thrashing in the shallow water whilst everyone watched in amusement.

But he wasn’t fazed. As soon as he’d planted his feet he used them to forge a path to Hayden’s side. Drake was a step behind and heard the words they said to each other.

As did Mano Kinimaka.

Drake and the outsize Hawaiian shared a brief smile and then Hayden was back to business.

“We need to get back to that HQ of theirs. And fast. They cleared out so fast they probably left something behind.”

Drake eyed her torn and muddy clothes, the blood that still soaked her hair, the wounds on her face. “Don’t take this wrong, Hayden. I know you’ve just been in a bloody battle. But, are you sure? You look like you’re gonna collapse.”

“Probably will, Drake. Probably will. But those sadists killed four CIA agents and, believe me, they’re after something much bigger. And they work for a guy who’s, possibly, the most evil man in history. And that’s just his reputation. So, yeah, I’m damn sure.”

Slowly, they helped Hayden and Kinimaka towards the thundering chopper. The SEAL team were stationed around the perimeter, keeping watch, but not even the crazy gator showed its head. Within five minutes they were airborne again.

Ben was squeezed as close to Hayden as he could get; his own clothes now wet and dirty. “I feel like I haven’t breathed since I last spoke to you,” he said in a low voice that everyone pretended they hadn’t heard.

Hayden didn’t move. “In a different way,” she said, “so do I. Look, Ben, I can’t do this now. Not yet. They killed my men, murdered them right in . . . in front of me. I won’t rest until I’ve done my best to make sense of their deaths.”

The chopper landed back at Boudreau’s HQ. Drake let Hayden get off first and let her have her head. He motioned to Ben and Kennedy. “Just let this happen,” he told them. “Don’t interfere. Even if she collapses on her feet. She needs to exhaust herself.”

Kennedy nodded. “Clearly.” Ben looked less sure, but agreed when Drake winked. “Best way mate,” Drake assured him. “Give her space.”

They trooped into the shambolic HQ.

Screams echoed from her cell, hitting her with a peculiar
déjà vu.

“What-”

One of the SEAL guys came over to her. “Miss Jaye. We captured one of their operators. He’s back there.” The man inclined his head. “We’re talking to him.”

“Let me-”

“It’s not Boudreau,” Drake stepped up beside her. “Just a geek. A computer guy. Let them work, Hayden.”

“They sent him back to destroy evidence and information,” the SEAL guy was saying. “So
something’s
here. It would help us, Miss Jaye, if we knew what we were looking for.”

Hayden took a moment to catch the man’s eyes. “No offence. I can’t tell you. It . . . it goes so far up the chain you wouldn’t believe.”

“Fair enough.”

Another rough scream rent the air. Despite herself, Hayden shivered. She turned to Ben. “You’re good at this, Blakey. Take a look.”

Ben wandered off amongst the destroyed terminals, kicking debris as he went. Drake and Kennedy stayed with her, silent.

“I’ll be ok,” she said without looking at them. “Not yet. Never the same, probably. But I’ll be ok.”

Drake nodded, saying nothing. Of them all, the ex-SAS man would know best what she was feeling.

“I’ve never seen Ben so worried. Never. You mean a lot to him, Hayden.”

“I know.”

“Might shock you but he’s even taken his Taylor poster down off the wall.”

Hayden smiled reflexively. “Swift? Or Momsen?”

“Need you ask? In the spirit of Dinorock I’ll just quote Motley Crue:
Girls, girls, girls.
I think one of those is you.”

Ben shouted them over. He was kneeling amidst a pile of discarded paper. “I’ve got some random stuff right here. One of these guys must have been a Johnny Depp fan. Look - a history of Blackbeard the pirate. Grrarrgh! Some bumf about a ship called the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Entire reams of shit on the Bermuda Triangle,” he said, winking at Drake. “Know what I mean?”

Hayden looked perplexed. “A device was recently salvaged from the wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s ship, which they have in reality been salvaging for what seems like twenty years. It was broadcast on T.V. We think this so-called
Blood King
saw the broadcast and knew immediately what the device could do, and, more importantly,
how it can do what it does.
” She paused for a moment.

“We don’t.”

Drake waved a hand around. “And I’m just guessing, but after seeing the amount of firepower around here - and the CIA’s reaction to your abduction - that it’s a pretty big thing . . . what it does.”