The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake 2)

by David Leadbeater

  By now the cold dread Drake had been experiencing, an emotion quite alien to him, was turning into something icier. “Who in God’s name is this Blood King?”

  “It’s an ongoing op, old pal.” Wells had waved the question and its sentiment away, clearly either not understanding or not wanting to hear the undertone in it. “Now look, . . . me and my Mai time refuse to be kept waiting much longer. How’d you like some company?”

  “You?” Drake coughed. “Why?”

  “Umm, expertise. Moral support. General fatherly brilliance. You know.”

  Drake was going to offer the standard Brit reply up yours, but their situation and what he already knew about the two devices gave him pause. “Do it,” he said after a moment. “Contact me when you get to Miami. I’ll let you know where we are.”

  “Excellent.” The connection went dead.

  Drake stared hard at the mobile, throat suddenly dry. He scrolled down and again clicked ‘return’.

  “I take it you are alive then, soldier boy.” The voice was like a feather’s touch on soft skin.

  “It’ll take much more than a rag-tag army to kill me.”

  “Your . . . friends?”

  He knew she meant well, but also knew the focus of her question revolved around Kennedy. “All good,” he said. “Any news?”

  “The Bermuda Triangle op . . . ” she launched straight into her spiel, “. . . was carried out by the CIA after an unidentified box was uplifted from the ocean depths. You know all the pirate details, I am sure. This op was sanctioned by the Director and classed as a Special Operation. Six of their best agents were teamed together.”

  She didn’t have to say four of whom are now dead.

  “The box was examined and classified as a ‘time displacement device’. Origin unknown. It was thought it could cause critical anomalies at random intervals, most likely when triggered by a chain of events.”

  “I know all this, Mai-“ Drake said gently.

  “The second device,” Mai went on, “and don’t interrupt me, Matt. Only the rude and the ignorant and the uneducated interrupt. The second device is a controller. It is believed it could actually dictate a time when the box could be turned on. The second device looks like a clock. An ornate clock.”

  Now Drake took notice. “An expensive-looking clock? It makes sense. Blackbeard might have traded it for a fortune, intending to reacquire it later. Thank you, Mai. Anything else?”

  “Nothing that is clear, Drake. I am currently inside the States myself. I will still be able to use my contacts though.”

  “One other thing,” Drake said. “One of the surviving agents is a man by the name of Mano Kinimaka. Maybe you could help us understand why the Blood King wants him captured alive.”

  “Ah, the Blood King,” Mai breathed as if savouring the name and the myth. “He is next on my list. I will let you know the results of my search, my friend.”

  “Ok,” he hesitated. “Mai? I know I don’t need to tell you this, I really do. But, please be careful. The Blood King seems to have more resources than God. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way again. For me.”

  “Again?” Mai laughed, the sound high and sweet.

  “Again. Never again.” Drake broke the connection and placed his head against the cold metal wall. Times were hard enough without resurrecting what had gone before with Mai.

  Things that should never be spoken about again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  After the metaphoric dust had settled, Drake and his friends sought out Justin Harrison and told him what they were planning.

  “We’re going down to Miami,” Drake said. “This whole thing’s Caribbean-related. We can work from there and see where the research takes us.”

  Harrison looked preoccupied. “Yes, yes. Do whatever you must. Just, please-” he met Drake’s eyes. “Do it fast.”

  Dry land beckoned and forty minutes later they were ensconced in a big station-wagon courtesy of the U.S. government, taking a last look through darkened windows at the U.S.S. Port Royal and its shattered hull. The authorities still didn’t know how Boudreau and his army had pulled it off, but meticulous planning, advance knowledge, and major inside help were being blamed.

  “Jesus,” Hayden said as she ended yet another call. “It wouldn’t surprise me if there were public executions when this thing comes out!”

  “We all love a conspiracy,” Kennedy said. The New Yorker was sitting beside Drake in the front, squirming around as she tried to tug the waist of her jeans a bit higher.

  “They ain’t gonna fall off,” Drake frowned at her. “At least, not until we find a hotel.”

  “Damn things are cut so low I keep showing my damn ass off.”

  “Well, if we find ourselves chasing the enemy on bicycles your ass crack will make a nice bike park, love.”

  Kennedy swatted him and finally managed to tug the material where she wanted it.

  “Now that’s done,” Drake sniffed, “maybe we can get back to that what we do best, eh?”

  “Saving the world?” Ben read his mind.

  “You got it.”

  The station-wagon cut through the encroaching night with Drake following the SatNav directions to Wilmington International airport. The early November cold snap, so apparent back in the U.K., hadn’t made it to this part of the States yet - if it ever did - so Drake drove with the Air Con cranked high. They made one stop to load up on service-station food, Mountain Dew and hot coffee before hitting the road in earnest.

  “So,” Drake said after a while, “Mano. What did Boudreau want with you, my friend?”

  Kinimaka shifted uncomfortably and Drake actually had to make a correction to the car’s course. “Beats me,” he rumbled. “Far as I know I’m a pretty normal guy.”

  Hayden had squashed herself in beside him, with Ben to her right. “Trusting, supportive, effective. Is that normal for a guy, Kennedy?”

  The only answer was a chortle.

  “People you’ve hurt. Arrested. Places you’ve been. Men you’ve crossed. Any stand out at all?”

  “Usually, I’m the second, or third in a team. None of the bad guys even know I’m there,” he paused. “Unless I hit ‘em, I guess. Never had a threatening letter. Lived all my life in Hawaii, north shore Oahu.”

  “His name in Hawaiian,” Hayden said with glint in her eye. “Means ‘passionate lover’.”

  Now Kennedy did turn around. “You’re kidding?”

  Kinimaka shuffled again, looking embarrassed. “Or ‘shark’.”

  “Or what? I mean, can’t they decide?”

  Kinimaka shrugged. “Never knew.”

  “I think we’re getting off track,” Drake said more gruffly than he wanted to. “You say you’re a nobody, a back-up man from hang-loose Hawaii. What the hell would Boudreau want with you?”

  “Or more than likely his boss,” Kennedy put in. “Boudreau’s just a mercenary.”

  “True.”

  “So,” Ben interrupted, “this convo’s getting us nowhere. Are we gonna find this bad-boy controller down in Miami or what?”

  “That’s the idea,” Drake grumbled. “Who rattled your cage, anyway?”

  “No one. It’ll be fun.”

  “Nothing about this is fun,” Hayden snapped. “People have died.”

  Ben stared at the floor. “Yeah. Umm, sorry. I didn’t mean anything.”

  The uncomfortable silence stretched until Drake broke it. “Either way, we need this controller. We know the bad guys are after it, and that they’re after Mano. Let’s keep it frosty out there.”

  In the darkness next to him he felt Kennedy smile, then giggle. Ben whispered ‘frosty?’ with exaggerated surprise. Even Hayden let out a little chuckle.

  Drake gave them a grumpy look. “Just stay alert.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  For the second time in three days they landed at Miami International, sleep-deprived, shaken and starting to smell a little. The first thing they did was book back into the Font
ainbleu, on the Agency’s dollar.

  “Six hours,” Drake told them. “Meet at our room. We’ll formulate a plan.”

  Kennedy and he, alone for the first time in days, entered their room and took a quick look around. All was well. Drake locked the door and set up a booby trap in the form of folded towels to hinder door movements and glasses to give warning whilst Kennedy drew the curtains.

  “Normally I like to make love with the curtains open,” Drake said in mock complaint. “Whenever I’m in Miami.”

  “Yeah?” Kennedy came over and threw herself on the deep, plush mattress, fully clothed. “Believe me, you ain’t gettin’ any until I’ve had some sleep, soldier-boy.”

  She turned her back on him. Drake breathed a sigh of relief. The only thing he wanted to do now was to sink into oblivion.

  Lights out.

  *****

  When does six hours feel like six minutes? Drake thought. When you’ve flown from the U.K. to Miami, landed yourself in the middle of a fire-fight and then flown back to Miami. That’s when.

  They were barely awake when the first knocks sounded at the hotel room door. Drake yelled a warning, coming awake fast, like he used to in a previous life.

  Poised like a cat, eyes searching for prey.

  Kennedy grunted and turned over. “Christ, man. What the hell ya doin’?”

  He jumped out of bed without answering. The tatters of a hard dream still spun through his subconscious. Nothing he wanted to talk about.

  Or remember.

  A few minutes later and the hotel room was crowded. Coffee was percolating loudly and happily, but no one held out too much hope for the hotel brand.

  Ben sat at the well-polished desk and opened his laptop. “We should start with Google,” he said. “And work our way around.”

  Drake leaned against the wall, switching his attentions between Ben and Collins Avenue, thirty floors down. How many were going about their daily business below him, knowing nothing of the time-displacement device? How many had ever heard of Ed Boudreau and the Blood King?

  “So Blackbeard was pretty much a sailor until sometime around 1716,” Ben finally spoke up after a lot of tapping and clicking. “Then he met a man called Benjamin Hornigold. After a short time the two began to commit serious acts of piracy. Later, their fleet was boosted by the arrival of another pirate, called-” more tapping. “Umm, Bonnet. Some kind of gentleman pirate. This guy owned extensive lands but chose to become a pirate. Crazy loon.”

  “Once a scallywag,” Drake intoned.

  “Shut it, crusty. It goes on . . .” Ben rattled the keyboard happily.

  During all this, Drake noticed, Hayden had fielded two calls. Judging by her words and reactions he guessed neither one was good. So, whilst Ben continued his search, Drake wandered over to her part of the room.

  “They find out where all those soldiers disappeared to yet?”

  “Boudreau’s men? They sure didn’t vanish into the dang Triangle. He left them. We’ve picked up many stragglers. To a man they swear Boudreau’s their boss. No knowledge of any Blood King.”

  “It’s what I’d say. It’s also how I’d operate if I were the Blood King and wanted to stay a myth. Who got away?”

  “Boudreau took the device and a few hand-picked men. They left the rest floating to face the music.”

  Drake whistled. “Man’s a total whack-job. Obviously he doesn’t care about making enemies.”

  “I doubt he sees much beyond his own psychotic ego,” Hayden looked away for a moment.

  “Anything else?”

  “My boss,” the CIA lady admitted. “Wants me on trauma counselling or sick leave or something. He agreed to let me continue when I told him I was engaged in research and, after all, we are in the middle of a crisis.”

  Hayden pinched the bridge of her nose. Trauma counselling or not, the deaths of her colleagues would haunt her until her dying day.

  Ben started up again. Drake turned to listen. Several things quickly became apparent. All three men had worked the pirate trade routes consistently between 1716 and 1718. They had murdered, plundered and bartered thousands if not hundreds of thousands of articles between them, and no doubt with many others like them. Then Hornigold retired, Bonnet was killed, and later so was Blackbeard himself.

  Ben spent some time delving into the odd anomaly of Blackbeard’s apparent salvation - the time he accepted a royal pardon only to return to piracy soon after.

  “That one’s hidden deep,” Ben said. “Or not here at all.” He switched his attentions around, now bombarding the internet with queries and flashing off one Web site and on to another faster than Drake could even read. Some of the cleverer links were embedded near the bottom of the pages, a trick Ben already knew, but something that might have fooled someone just a bit older.

  Blackbeard, or Edward Teach, came by the ship he re-named Queen Anne’s Revenge when he broadsided a French merchant vessel. Later, he equipped her with 40 guns, turning her into a vessel fearsome enough to match its leader.

  An image of Blackbeard flashed up on screen. The blurb described him as immensely tall and wide, and said he was known to place live fuses or matches underneath his hat and then light them when he went into battle, creating a most ferocious spectacle indeed. Edward Teach clearly understood the value of an intimidating appearance.

  Kinimaka was reading over Ben’s shoulder. “Throw into the mix his right-hand man, the claw, and you have the makings of a legend that lives strong to this very day.”

  Digging deeper now, Ben pursued every trail that promised even a glimpse into Blackbeard’s rich history. It turned out he had many friends, wealthy friends, who owned lands and held influence everywhere. He was well travelled. Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Havana, Florida, South Carolina.

  “Is there no direct information?” Kennedy was asking. “About what he traded? Where?”

  “Pirates didn’t keep records,” Ben said. “The best we can hope for is some reference made in a journal or something. Just a matter of trawling through.”

  Drake got coffee. It was about now in this kind of operation when he started to want to hit bad guys. His military life had taught him to achieve his objective through hard and direct action. Standing around a hotel room - nice as it was, drinking coffee with his friends - pleasant as they were, did nothing to alleviate a rising dread of the consequences of inactivity.

  “Blackbeard certainly had his contacts,” Ben was saying. “Say’s here he spent nights with some of the most notorious boys of the time - Israel Hands, Charles Vane and even Calico Jack. Even I’ve heard of him.”

  “Nothing else?” Drake’s impatience got the better of him.

  “Go take a nap, crusty. Stop hovering or get slapped.”

  Drake smiled. “Hit me with your best shot, Blakey.”

  “Oh, good one,” Kennedy almost clapped. “Pat Benatar. Loved her.”

  “Actually, this is interesting. Calico Jack was a snake even among pirates. He deposed Charles Vane and made off with his ship. Sailed with two women, including the notorious Anne Bonny. Jeez, even married her. He is responsible for the famous Jolly Roger skull and crossed swords design.”

  “Great. Did he carry a time machine?”

  “No. But he did employ a man who took down records of his exploits. A vain pirate, that Calico Jack. Now here, I think, is the passage that Hayden’s geek-squad found: ‘ . . . that Edward Teach brought forth two boxes, one of shiny and magnificent lustre and one of cheap design. But when joined, imagination would struggle to conjure a more Hell-like image. The very ground did begin to swell and shake and with mine own eyes I did see some folk vanish as if they had never existed . . . ’ That’s the pay-dirt the CIA found.”

  “Good,” Drake nodded. “So what does that tell us?”

  “Well, it’s dated early 1716. That’s near the beginning of Blackbeard’s career, my friend, so we start from this point in time. This is before he traded the controller and confirms that he had both devices a
t the same time and that he connected them, somehow. Was he told how? Did he guess? We’ll never know.”

  Ben was still scrolling, still delving, clicking link after link and returning to his original page to start again.

  “Well, this is certainly interesting.”

  Hayden looked up. “What?”

  “Something your boffins didn’t notice. Look here . . .”

  The eighteen-year-old hit a link hidden beneath a highlighted letter towards the end of the passage. The laptop flashed upon a new page. And the headline practically roared at them.

  ‘Read John Bostock’s full account of the meeting of Blackbeard and Calico Jack! Visit the Pirates Museum of Nassau, off Bay Street. Closed Public Holidays.’

  “Full account?” Hayden repeated. “Are you saying that this isn’t a full account, then? I wasn’t told about that.”

  “Because they don’t know. They didn’t dig far enough.”

  Drake stared at the screen. “I’m lost. How do you know it’s not the full account?”

  “Positively? I don’t. But look at it. Jeez, it’s just a few lines long. You think the meeting of two of the most infamous men who ever lived is worth a crappy half-dozen lines? I don’t.”

  “Munchkin’s got a point.” Drake conceded, almost unaware he’d spoken aloud.

  Mano Kinimaka pricked his ears up. “Nassau? They have a Hard Rock Cafe there don’t they?”

  Hayden stared at him, clearly trying to make sense of it. “What?”

  “I collect shot glasses. We go . . . I get a two-for . . .”

  Drake shot him down. “You been pondering my question?”

  Kinimkaka looked hurt. Hayden frowned at the Englishman. “Back off, Drake. Mano’s the real thing. I vouch for him.” Her eyes met Drake’s, resolute.

  “Fair enough.” Drake switched the subject instantly. “Look, it’s one in the afternoon. My suggestion - let’s see if we can get on the last ship to Nassau, sleep on board, and be fresh by morning.”