The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3) (13 page)

Hayden was already dialing her boss. Gates answered immediately. She recited in a few short sentences the information they had gleaned from Danny.

Mano listened to Gates’s reply by speakerphone. “Hayden, I’m inbound. A few hours and I’ll be there. The Police are leaning very heavily on all known criminals to get a location for the ranches. We’ll have it soon. I’ll alert the relevant bodies about this alleged attack, but keep digging.”

The line went dead. Hayden exhaled in quiet surprise. “He’s coming here? He can hardly cope as it is. What good will he do?”

“Maybe the work will help him cope.”

“Let’s hope. They think they’ll get the ranches location soon. We’re on terrorist watch. It’s positive, direct people we need now. Hey, Mano, you think this terrorist thing is a part of the Blood King conspiracy?”

Mano nodded. “It crossed my mind.” His eyes were taking in the breathtaking view as if storing it to help fight against the coming dark.

“Speaking of direct people, Drake and his two cronies still haven’t returned my messages. And neither has the HPD.”

Her cellphone sang out, startling her. It was Gates. “Sir?”

“This thing just went apeshit,” he shouted, clearly alarmed. “The Honolulu cops just got three more legitimate terrorist threats. All on Waikiki. All happening soon. There are links established to Kovalenko.”

“Three!”

Gates suddenly went offline for a second. Hayden swallowed as she felt the pit of her stomach churn. The fear in Mano’s eyes made her start to sweat.

Gates came back on the line. “Make that
four.
Another piece of intel just got authenticated. Contact Drake. You’re about to be in the fight of your life, Hayden. Get mobilized.”

*****

The Blood King stood on an elevated deck, the briefest glimpse of a wintry smile on his face, a few of his trusted lieutenants stood before and below him. “It is time,” he said simply. “This is what we have been waiting for, what we have worked for. This is the result of all my endeavors and all your sacrifices. This”—he paused for effect—“is where it all ends.”

He surveyed faces for any signs of fear. There were none. Indeed, Boudreau looked practically ecstatic at being allowed back into the bloody fray.

“Claude, destroy the ranch. Kill all the captives. And…” He grinned. “Let loose the tigers. They should keep the authorities busy for a while. Boudreau, just do what you do, but more brutally. I invite you to fulfill your every desire. I invite you to impress me. No, shock me. Do that, Boudreau. Go to Kauai and shut down the ranch over there.”

The Blood King gave one last glance at his few remaining men. “As for you… go unleash hell in Hawaii.”

He turned away, dismissing them, and cast a final, critical eye over his transport and the hand-picked men who were to accompany him into the death-defying depths below Diamond Head.

“No man has done this since Cook and lived to tell the tale. No man has seen beyond the fifth level of hell. No man has ever discovered what the trap system was built to conceal.
We will.”

Death and devastation were both behind and before him. The onset of chaos was imminent. The Blood King was happy.

*****

Matt Drake walked across the parking lot that fronted Exoticars, arm in arm with his ‘girlfriend,’ Alicia Myles. A basic Dodge rental was the only car parked there, probably belonging to a tourist couple who had rented one of the new Lamborghini’s for an hour. By the time Drake and Alicia had entered the fancy showroom, a thickset man with a crew cut was already in their face.

“Good afternoon. May I help you?”

“Which one of these is the fastest?” Drake put on an eager face. “We have a Nissan back home and the girlfriend here wants to appreciate some real speed.” Drake winked. “Might get me some bonus points, if you know what I mean.”

Alicia smiled sweetly.

Drake hoped Mai was currently skirting around the back of the big showroom, keeping out of sight of the rear garage and making her way toward the fenced-off side compound. She would try to gain entry from that direction. Drake and Alicia had about six minutes.

The man’s smile was big and not surprisingly, false. “Well, most folks choose the new Ferrari 458 or the Lamborghini Aventador, both of which are fine cars.” The smile actually broadened as the salesman pointed toward said vehicles, both positioned in front of the full-length showroom windows. “But, in terms of legendary accomplishments, if that’s what you’re looking for, I might recommend the Ferrari Daytona or the McLaren F1.” He waved a hand toward the rear of the showroom.

Back there and to the right were the offices. To the left were a series of secluded booths where credit card details would be taken and keys handed over. The office was windowless, but Drake heard figures moving around.

He counted down the seconds. Mai was due in four minutes.

“Are you Mr. Scarberry or Mr. Petersen?” he asked with a smile. “I saw their names on the sign outside.”

“I’m James. Mr. Scarberry and Mr. Petersen are the owners. They’re out back.”

“Oh.” Drake made a show of looking the Ferrari and the Lamborghini over. The showroom’s air-conditioning blasted down on his back. No noise came from the far office. Alicia stayed apart, playing the easy-going wife and at the same time creating space.

One minute until Mai was due to come through the side doors.

Drake readied himself.

*****

Time was passing them by at an alarming rate, but Ben was hopeful that Karin’s crazy idea would bear fruit. The first step had been to find out where the original logs of Captain Cook where being stored. This proved an easy task. The documents were kept in the National Archives, near London, a government building, but not exactly as secure as the Bank of England.

So far so good.

The next step was to enlist Hayden. It took a long time to get their point across. At first, Hayden seemed hugely distracted without being rude, but when Karin, backed up by Ben, presented their plan, the CIA agent went deadly quiet.

“You want to
what?”
she asked suddenly
.

“We want you to send a world-class thief into the National Archives at Kew to
photograph
—not steal—and then email me a copy of the relevant part of Cook’s logs. The part that’s missing.”

“Have you been drinking, Ben? Seriously—”

“The hardest part,” Ben pressed, “will not be the theft. It will be making sure the thief finds and sends me the right part.”

“What if he’s caught?” Hayden fired off a question without thinking.

“That’s why he has to be a world class thief the CIA might own through this deal. And why he ideally would already be in custody. Oh, and Hayden, it all has to be done in the next few hours. This really can’t wait.”

“I’m aware of that,” Hayden snapped, but then her tone softened. “Look, Ben, I know you two have been stuffed away in that little office, but you might want to stick your head out the door and get some up-to-date intel. You need to be prepared in case—”

Ben glanced worriedly at Karin. “In case what? You sound like the world’s about to end.”

Hayden’s silence told him all he needed to know.

After a few moments, his girlfriend spoke up again, “How badly do you need these records, these logs? Is it worth pissing the Brits off?”

“If the Blood King reaches the Gates of Hell and we have to go in after him,” Ben said, “they’re likely to be our only source of navigation. And we all know how good Cook was with his maps. They might save our lives.”

*****

Hayden laid her cell on the hood of the car and tried to calm her turbulent thoughts. Her eyes met Mano Kinimaka’s through the windshield and she clearly sensed the horror churning through his mind. They had just received the most terrible news, again from Jonathan Gates.

Not that terrorists were about to strike multiple points in Oahu.

Now they knew it was much worse than that.

Mano climbed out, clearly shaking. “Who was that?”

“Ben. He says we need to break into the National Archives in England to get him a copy of Captain Cook’s logs.”

Mano frowned. “Do it. Just do it. This fucking Kovalenko is trying to destroy everything we love, Hayden. You do everything you can to protect the things you love.”

“The British—”

“Screw ‘em.” Mano forgot himself in his stress. Hayden didn’t mind. “If the logs will help us kill this bastard, get ‘em.”

Hayden sorted through her thoughts. She tried to clear her mind. It would take several calls to the CIA offices in London and a big shout from her boss, Gates, but she thought she could probably get the job done. Especially in light of what Gates had just told her.

And she knew quite well there was a particularly charming CIA asset based in London who could pull the job off without breaking a sweat.

Mano still stared at her, still in shock. “Can you believe that call? Can you believe what Kovalenko is about to do just to divert people’s attention?”

Hayden couldn’t, but stayed quiet, still preparing her speech for Gates and the London office. After a few minutes, she was ready.

“Well let’s follow one of the worst calls of our lives with one that’s gonna help us turn the tables,” she said and jabbed in a speed-dial number.

Even as she spoke to her boss and arranged help from overseas to break into the British National Archives, the previous words of Jonathan Gates scorched her mind.

It’s not just Oahu. The Blood King’s terrorists are about to hit multiple islands at once.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Drake took a breath as Mai slipped through a side door, in full view of the salesman.

“What the—”

Drake smiled. “It’s Mai-time,” he whispered, and then broke the man’s jaw with a haymaker. Without a sound, the salesman spun and hit the ground. Alicia strode past the Lamborghini, readying her weapon. Drake leapt over the motionless salesman. Mai stepped quickly along the rear wall, passing behind the pristine McLaren F1.

They were up against the office wall in seconds. The lack of windows worked both for and against them. But there would be security cameras. It was just a matter of—

Someone came running in from the back, overalls smothered in oil and grease, long black hair tied back in a green bandana. Drake pressed his cheek right up against the thin plywood partition, listening to the sounds coming from within the office as Mai took the mechanic out with practiced movements.

Still they hadn’t made a sound.

But then more men burst through the door, and someone inside the office let out a yell. Drake knew the game was up.

“Let ‘em have it.”

Alicia growled “Fuck, yeah” and kicked the office door in just as it opened, sending it slamming against a man’s head. Another man stepped out, eyes widening in shock as they locked on to the beautiful woman with the gun and the fighters poise waiting for him. He raised a shotgun. Alicia shot him through the stomach.

He collapsed in the doorway. More shouts came from within the office. Shock was beginning to turn into understanding. Soon, they would figure that it might be wise to phone a few friends.

Drake fired at one of the mechanics, hitting him mid-thigh and taking him down. The man slid full-length down the McLaren, leaving a bloody smear in his wake. Even Drake grimaced. Mai engaged the second man and Drake turned back to Alicia.

“We need to get inside.”

Alicia inched closer until she had a good view of the interior. Drake crab-walked along the floor until he reached the door. On his nod, Alicia fired a few shots. Drake almost dived in through the doorway, but at that moment half a dozen men came bursting out of it, weapons up and firing hard.

Alicia spun away, taking cover behind the Lamborghini. Bullets pinged off its flanks. The windshield shattered. Drake slipped away quickly. He could see the hurt in the man’s eyes as he fired upon the supercars.

Another saw him too. Drake opened fire a split second before he did and saw him drop hard, taking one of his colleagues with him.

Alicia popped up from behind the Lamborghini and laid down a couple of covering shots. Drake ran for the Ferrari, ducking behind its huge tires. Every bullet counted now. He could see Mai, hidden from view by the corner of the office wall, peering into the back where the mechanics had come from.

Three of them lay at her feet.

Drake cracked a little smile. She was still the perfect killing machine. For a moment he worried about the inevitable meeting of Mai and Alicia, and the reckoning to come over the death of Wells, but then he locked his worry away in the same remote compartment as the love he felt for Ben and Hayden and all his other friends.

This was not a place to let his civilian emotions thrive.

A bullet slammed into the Ferrari, flying through the door and out the other side. With a deafening crash, the front window exploded, glass raining down in a mini waterfall. Drake used the distraction to pop up and shoot another of the men who was bunched up around the office door.

Amateurs, for sure.

Then he saw two hard-looking men exit the office holding machine-pistols. Drake’s heart skipped a beat. He had a brief image of two
more
men behind them—almost certainly Scarberry and Petersen being protected by hired mercenaries—before he made his body as small as possible behind the massive tire.

The sound of bullets spewing forth blasted his eardrums. This would be their strategy then. Keep Alicia and him grounded whilst the two owners made their escape through the back.

But they hadn’t planned for Mai.

The Japanese agent scooped up a couple of discarded guns and came around the corner, blasting at the men with the machine-pistols. One flew backward as if he’d been hit by a car, firing his pistol crazily and making confetti of the ceiling as he fell. The other herded his bosses behind his own bulk and switched his aim toward Mai.