The Matt Drake Series Books: 7-9 (The Matt Drake Series Boxset 2)

by David Leadbeater

“Dunno. Eight maybe.”

  “That does qualify as a shitload. Get your foot down, driver.”

  Dahl sat back, stroking his chin. Drake shook his head. “From now on you should start all your sentences with ‘I’m sorry, I’m Swedish, but . . .’”

  “Only if you start yours, ‘I’m a dumb Yorkshire knob’.”

  The Sikorsky continued to descend. All eyes were fixed to the hovering chopper and its vague, indistinct payload. Team Bravo had hands on every door, weapons ready, and total focus. Their driver squealed to a stop at the top of 23rd Street outside an orange-signed Burger Tap and Shake, on the crosswalk between black iron glass-topped signal poles. The seven-story brick edifice of the George Washington University Hospital stood to their left, identified by its big black signage and fronted by holly trees and planters. The Washington Circle was empty of traffic, a surreal sight even at the quietest of times, but the park inside the sizeable roundabout was anything but.

  Drake leapt out of the vehicle, chasing the first two teams who were already pounding across the road and through the nearest wide entrance. Broad grass strips and big sycamores and oaks stood all around, barren but still hampering their efforts and obstructing their vision. A four-foot-tall, chain-link fence ringed the interior of the park. Drake saw the usual water fountains, black trash cans, and black iron benches as he rushed along, all apparently designed to complement the tall broad-based street-lights that had colonized most of central DC.

  Gunfire erupted ahead, bullets flying in all directions. Drake doubted it was the attacking force and flung himself behind the nearest waste basket. When he chanced a momentary glance, a scene of bizarre and deadly chaos met his eyes.

  The chopper rested on its skids, its rotors spinning at full speed, the resulting wash buffeting hard at anything nearby. The horsed bronze statue of George Washington stood just behind, sword bared, the horse’s green nostrils barely out of rotor range. Six men knelt in a circle around the chopper, guns raised, firing indiscriminately. Four more men stood by the open chopper door.

  Everyone wore identical black suits, gloves and balaclavas. It was impossible to tell who was who. The shooters might be prime targets, but Drake knew it would be a brave man who fired on them for fear of a luckless ricochet or even a through and through that might strike Coburn.

  Before the attackers had time to settle or take stock, a shout went up from one of the men surrounding Kovalenko, maybe even the Blood King himself. Instantly, the whole contingent started to run.

  “What the—” Alicia blurted.

  But Drake was watching carefully. The four men nearest the chopper were joined by one shooter and broke to the south, the closest point to his position. Two other men broke to the northwest, and the remaining three to the southwest. All ran for park exits, firing hard as they went. Two unlucky soldiers took bullets, folding where they stood. In each fleeing group one man did not fire. Even now, they couldn’t tell each man apart. Would the techs at command be able to pinpoint the President’s signal?

  “Hold fire!” the call screamed through the comms. “Hold yer damn fire!”

  Fleet of foot, the Blood King and his men disseminated through the park. Reports came in through the comms from all surrounding areas, between the snipers and spotters on the roofs and the teams on the ground, the FBI trackers and the countless army patrols. It was more a case of too much information than too little.

  Drake watched the craziness unfold, making a fast decision. “That group.” He indicated the cluster of five men, but looked to the Team Bravo leader before moving. The man nodded quickly, not consulting his comms. It was fast becoming clear that someone’s decision-making capabilities were somewhat lacking.

  “Trust the goddamn suits,” he muttered as he pushed past Drake. The team crossed a paved area and ran onto a concreted exit path. Bullets slammed into a man’s vest, sending him to his knees with a grunt. Drake understood it was an unusual situation. No one could fire on Kovalenko’s men, but at the same time Kovalenko couldn’t directly threaten the President. What the hell else did the man have up his sleeve?

  Choppers thundered overhead. Army vehicles screeched to a halt at hastily erected police barriers all around the Circle. Like gasoline on fire, this was a situation fast raging out of control. Drake pursued the fleeing group, Dahl and Alicia at his side. When he turned to them he noticed, for the first time since she’d returned, the fresh scars on Alicia’s face.

  “Looks like you put up a major battle.”

  Alicia’s eyes were windows looking onto a black death. “These,” she said, rubbing a hand across her cheeks. “I’m proud of.”

  Drake jumped off a curb, now crossing the road. The fires of dread burned bright in his heart. They couldn’t care for all of their people right now. He couldn’t care for them. Not even Mai. Sometimes silence was seen as inaction, but today it was an imperative.

  The five-man terrorist group ran carefully but quickly alongside buildings. If the President was one of them, then he was under a constant threat of some kind. Drake rounded a corner, ducking back as gray stone exploded where bullets struck. Another team member went down, wounded.

  “Orders?” the team leader repeated into his comms. “What are my orders?”

  Kovalenko’s men slowed alongside the big hospital building and threw a grenade at a shop front, blowing out the doors and proving they had more than just guns in their arsenal. The team charged inside. Drake pulled up close by, noticing the green Starbucks sign.

  “This part of their plan?”

  “Good friggin’ idea,” Alicia said. “An extra-hot latte might just save my bollocks from freezing off out here.”

  One of the other team members studied her strangely, as if wondering whether to call her on that one. Wisely, he held his peace and looked away. Drake listened as the team leader consulted a digital blueprint on his handheld scanner.

  “Shop exits onto a parallel street,” he said. “Yeah, they planned this one.”

  The soldiers dashed inside, knocking over chairs and metal tables. Almost without thought, Dahl grabbed a handful of caramel waffles as he passed a big brown wicker basket, throwing one each to his colleagues. The mirror-clean pastry case was empty. Once through the café they exited onto a narrow street just in time to see Kovalenko’s men blowing their way into another shop.

  “We have them,” the team leader reported. “They’re not exactly trying to hide their movements.”

  Drake glanced at Dahl. This wasn’t right. Kovalenko’s men couldn’t do this all day. It felt more as if they were waiting for something to happen.

  Something big.

  Drake entered the next shop on the escapees’ boot-heels, surprised to find it was a large bookstore. They quickly crossed the open-plan area where big publishers paid small fortunes for their books to be stacked on tables designed to attract the eye and the wallet of incoming, unwitting consumers—the nearer the door the more expensive the table—and started to thread through the high stacked shelves beyond. With a high-pitched whistle, bullets began to thud and fly into the bookshelves, shredding wooden surrounds and paper pages alike. Drake hit the deck as books fell and spun all around him. One of the larger cases, shredded, collapsed into a tumbling pile, shedding heaps of mashed up books like trickling sand. The team leader muttered into his headset.

  “Keep ‘em in sight,” came through the comms system.

  “Taking heavy fire!”

  “All these freakin’ books,” Alicia put in. “Don’t they sell Kindles in Washington?”

  “Apparently,” Dahl said, inching forward on his elbows. “Some people still prefer paper.”

  “Dinosaurs in a digital age,” Alicia said.

  Dahl laughed. Drake peered around the edge of a sturdy looking bookcase. Paper still fluttered all around, fighting clouds of dust for airspace. The rear of the store was empty.

  “Go.”

  Running again, Team Bravo was now down to a total of five. None of the men they had l
eft behind were seriously injured, but all had sustained some kind of wound. The damaged bookshop exited through a constricted back door which led to an alleyway, still within the shadow of the George Washington University Hospital building. The Blood King’s men were already racing along the alley’s length, heading for the sliver of daylight that beckoned from its far end like the exit of a tunnel. Drake could see men running parallel along the rooftops above, tracking the runaways.

  The team took off in pursuit, using dirty doorways and grimy dumpsters to duck behind when they came under fire. Bullets clanged and fizzed from every surface. At one point they were forced to take cover behind a big Dodge truck. Drake shook his head sadly as gunfire riddled its front end.

  Alicia noticed the gesture. “For fucksake, Drake. Don’t worry. It’s not one of those Cobra things.”

  “You mean an AC Cobra.” Drake glared. “Like the one you shot up in Hawaii.”

  “Whatever.”

  The alley gave onto another wide thoroughfare. By the time Team Bravo reached daylight, Kovalenko’s men were over a hundred yards ahead, but it was immediately apparent where they were heading.

  “Metro,” someone said. “Shit.”

  “Metro’s closed,” the team leader said. “Don’t worry.”

  Drake raced on. Something was coming and rushing headlong toward them at a terrible pace, but what?

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Kinimaka knew instantly that Hayden was dying, bleeding to death, and that he only had one chance to save her life. Everything came down to this. All his training, every scrap of his experience. Act fast. Push everything else aside and work like he’d never worked before.

  He would still have to go through the motions, but following those procedures saved lives more often than not. The new gunshot wound underneath Hayden’s heart was a through and through; it appeared not to have rattled around inside her body since the entrance and exit wounds were in perfect alignment, but sometimes even that assumption had been proved to be a mistake. Kinimaka had known bullets chew people up inside, bouncing from bone to bone, and still line up when they came out.

  Her airway was fine; she was breathing raggedly and even muttering. Her eyes were bright, so bright they made his heart lurch and his nerves rattle. Kinimaka felt such a rush of anxiety and love he began to doubt his ability and almost stopped what he was doing to call Smyth to take over. But no, this was Hayden. His boss and his friend for so long, now his lover.

  But battlefield medicine was about as precise as the name suggested. He recognized she was strong enough to place her hands over the wound to control the bleeding, and laid her out in the back seat.

  “Drive steady,” he told Smyth.

  Then he turned back to Hayden. “Hold your hands tightly here. I know it hurts. Press, Hay, just press.”

  As she groaned, Kinimaka looked around for something to make a seal. The first thing he saw in the rear footwell of their stolen car was a CVC plastic bag—not good enough, but inside it were several items. Quickly he tore open a package and grabbed the plastic, placing it over the wound. There was no tape around so Kinimaka forced Hayden to hold it in place. Using a plastic seal this way slowed the bleeding and helped prevent the development of a collapsed lung. It would ensure that, if she came out of this okay, she would have every chance to get better without some kind of disability. He wrapped her up warm, minimizing any exposure, and let her lie in the most comfortable position.

  Karin stared over the back of her seat. “Don’t elevate her legs, Mano. She’ll bleed easier.”

  Kinimaka bit his tongue. He knew that, but Karin was only trying to help. “Thanks.”

  Smyth swerved around a slower car. “Sorry,” he said through gritted teeth. “How’s she doin’?”

  “I can’t tell. We need to get her to that safe house.”

  “Doin’ my best.”

  With no pursuit and quiet roads the Suburban made good time. Once they entered the restricted area, using their SPEAR IDs, the roads truly opened up and Smyth soon powered down the street where their old safe house sat. Komodo called ahead, using an old CIA code that Kinimaka remembered, and forced a laugh.

  “Looks like they sent everyone here. Place is gonna be crowded.”

  “Never mind,” Kinimaka said. “So long as we can make her comfortable.”

  Hayden’s eyes fluttered. Her breathing came in shallow gasps, but even that was better than it had been before. Kinimaka had done all he could for her, short of finding a surgeon and an ER. Contrary to popular TV, the bullet didn’t need to be removed straight away. To do that would only increase the blood flow.

  What remained of their team climbed wearily out of the black Suburban, taking a second to bask in the rays of the rising sun, then positioned themselves to help extract Hayden from the car. It was a slow process and risky, but she couldn’t stay there. By the time they approached the door it was already open.

  Lauren Fox greeted them, “Hey.”

  Smyth made eyes at her. “Hey.”

  “We cleared a room for her.”

  Kinimaka moved slowly, taking every ounce of Hayden’s weight and trusting Komodo to protect the area around her wounds as best he could. They moved through a dimly lit room and paused.

  “In here.” Kinimaka recognized the Russian thief, Yorgi, standing waving in a doorway. As he started to move again he saw Sarah Moxley sitting in a cloud of depression on one of the sofas.

  “Sarah?”

  The woman barely looked up, her thoughts still dwelling on the dreadful scene that had started this night off— the murder of Jonathan Gates.

  Kinimaka moved on, addressing Lauren, “You three don’t seem like the likeliest of roommates.”

  “I was staying here already.” She shrugged. “Bit of a long story, but let’s just say I ain’t exactly some five-star general’s flavor of the month. Jonathan was going to sort it all out.” She paused. “Shit.”

  “What did you do?” Kinimaka squeezed his bulk through the bedroom doorway and carefully maneuvered Hayden between Komodo and himself.

  “Not me, exactly. Nightshade. My alter ego. We needed information from General Stone but then Jonathan’s good conscience got in the way. By the time he pulled me out we think Stone had gotten wise.”

  Smyth was following hot on her heels. “You’re a hooker aren’t you? We got a hooker on our team. That’s just fuckin awesome.” Then he sobered. “Poor Romero. He would have loved that.”

  Lauren ignored him. “It’s an old story I guess now, involving General Stone. Not worth resurrecting again and again.”

  Kinimaka placed Hayden on the bed and stared down at her with anguished eyes. He thought her breathing had grown even more ragged, but was that just his imagination? Komodo looked over the bed at Lauren.

  “An old story, huh? You mean it’s last week’s news, don’t you? I’ve come to realize that’s how fast this team moves. But Lauren, a five-star general? That ain’t just gonna go away.”

  “I know, man, I know. But I’ve been taking pretty good care of myself all these years. I can sure do it again.”

  “You think just because you’re streetwise you can handle this man’s influence?”

  Kinimaka tuned the conversation out, leaning over the bed, closer to Hayden. Damn, how they needed her expertise and leadership right now. The harsh breaths she took, lying down, told the story of how near death she was. His mind, usually so clear and concise, was in pieces right now. He knew he should be doing something, but couldn’t quite focus on it. Should Hayden’s welfare come first? The team’s? The civilians’? Or should they be trying to help Coburn? What would Kovalenko do next?

  He sat on the bed, wincing as it creaked under his weight. Hayden’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Mano?”

  “I’m here. You’re safe. I’m going to use the tech in here to find a safe hospital and call an ambulance. They can’t follow us everywhere can they? How the hell do they keep on finding us?”

  �
�The . . . the Grid,” Hayden whispered. “I figured . . . it has to be . . . it’s compromised—”

  Her eyes closed again and she stopped talking. Kinimaka leaned in. “The what? The Grid?”

  “It’s the only . . . way—”

  Hayden’s words rattled like a last breath. Kinimaka pulled away, heart flipping, but saw her eyes wide open and staring. The life in them was vivid, the will to live dazzling. Quickly, he checked her dressings.

  “You think the Grid’s compromised?”

  Hayden gave a bare nod.

  “But that means . . .”

  Kinimaka stared around the bedroom and through the door at the other part of the safe house. All seemed well, but an icy sliver of dread slipped down his spine. In that single quiet moment he felt every hair on his body stand on end.

  “Oh no.”

  The safe house door exploded.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Drake pelted along the street, all thoughts of his own safety put aside, as the five-man terrorist team fell into disorder at the top of the Metro steps, right underneath the long metal and glass canopy that curved above the Foggy Bottom GWU Station. Some kind of internal battle was going on. One man tore away from the rest, ripped off his balaclava and started to shout.

  “The President!” the team leader shouted. “Right there! That’s him!”

  Drake took off like a missile, Dahl and Alicia at his heels. The rest of Team Bravo divided around them, spanning the street, and sprinted as if they were inches away from winning gold.

  Which they were.

  President Coburn wrenched himself away from the grip of a man and backed off. Another man ran at him, but Coburn punched him in the nose, stopping his advance with one blow.

  Drake almost cheered.

  The team leader screamed into the comms. “Send everyone! Coburn’s here! Send fuckin’ everyone!”

  Drake raised his rifle. He breathed deeply, letting the habitual custom relax him. He ran at full speed, without compromising his skills, and felt the presence of Team Bravo all around. Ahead, the President swiped at another hooded figure, but this one stepped away and around the blow, showing practiced ability. The figure danced around behind the President and caught him around the throat, halting all his movements, then forced him roughly down the steps. The rest turned, firing a quick burst before following.