The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake 2)

by David Leadbeater

  “Not convinced the cops are a good idea,” Drake said. “They’re have no training in-”

  Kennedy cut him off. “Cops are better than you give ‘em credit for, Matt. Don’t spin that inter-agency superiority crap. I’ve heard a lifetime of it.”

  “I was just trying to protect them.” Drake saw it was no use. “Fine. Ok. I doubt we could stop them anyway.”

  He ducked back out of the room, leaving Hayden to get on with it. At the far end of the corridor Mai and Wells had called the lift and were staring at something. Alicia was watching, her face a mask of stone. He heard nothing from Kinimaka, so had to assume the stairways were quiet.

  He walked down quickly to Alicia. “I didn’t realise,” he said in a low voice. “About Hudson and you. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I never knew how much you cared for him.”

  “He kept them at bay,” Alicia said with a faraway look on her face. “You know what I’m talking about Drake. You know.”

  “That I do. But you can find happiness, Alicia. You know that now.”

  Alicia’s face turned stormy. “Don’t patronise me, Drakey. No way have you found eternal happiness with that fucked-up cop. Not a chance in hell.”

  “I didn’t mean-” Ah, what was the point? he thought. Everyone was always misunderstanding him.

  Mai and her shadow, Wells, came trotting back. “I ripped out the control mechanism,” Mai reported. “Should slow them down a little, if they were ever dumb enough to consider using the lift in the first place.”

  “They were,” Drake said. “And not because they’re dumb but because the man driving them is insane.”

  “Boudreau’s beyond certifiable,” Alicia said. “He’d send a hundred men over the barricades just to check if it was raining on that side.”

  “I meant the Blood King,” Drake said. “But I guess they’re both crazy.”

  Kinimaka popped his head around the corner. “Incoming,” he breathed as quietly as he could and then started blasting away with his weapon.

  Drake smiled. “Levity even in a fire-fight,” he said. “Nothing like it.”

  He raced across to back up the big Hawaiian. There were men flooding the stairwells, trying to gain a foothold by sheer force of numbers. Kinimaka would run out of ammo before he stopped them all.

  Doors were cracking open up and down the corridors. Drake roared at them all to get inside and stay there until the cops arrived. Most complied. Those few that didn’t might well be on their own.

  “Fall back,” Drake signalled Mai and Alicia to cover them as they flew up the corridor. “We’ll man this corner too. Make every step as costly for them as possible.”

  Mai smiled sweetly. “That’s what we do.”

  Drake raced on, dragging the Hawaiian with him. Hayden was stood half-way out the door. “Progress?”

  “Cops are imminent. I can hear the sirens. We need to see what goes down.”

  Drake indicated the other two rooms they had purchased. “They overlook the front and left-hand sides.”

  Hayden took off, motioning that Kinimaka should keep watch. They unlocked the furthest room and moved cautiously towards the windows. Even from half-way Drake could see the flashing lights. They seemed to fill up half the roads in Miami.

  “My God,” he breathed.

  Hayden sucked in a breath. “There’s no way this can end well. No way at all. Drake, we need to get this controller out of here. Now.”

  Drake was thinking hard. “How many civilians do you reckon are staying here, Hayden?”

  “Drake!”

  “What?”

  “Do you want a madman calling the shots? Plundering the economy? Setting impossible goals?”

  “Would we notice the difference?” Drake couldn’t resist. “Sorry, just kidding. I know, I know. No time for it. I can’t leave these people to face that madman’s army, Hayden, so make your own choice. Look, I know I’m not your boss, but it could be more dangerous out there than if you stay here. For you and the controller.”

  Hayden’s face revealed her uncertainty. For once, the CIA agent seemed at a loss.

  “There are some major players here,” Drake pushed a little. “Mai’s the best. Wells, he’s ok and could bring an army of his own in about thirty minutes. And Alicia, she’s pretty formidable when she’s on our side.”

  “That depends on what colour pants she’s wearing, if any.” Hayden flashed a weak smile.

  “We do have the high ground,” Drake assured her as they exited the room. “Technically speaking.”

  Gunfire echoed along the corridor. Something even louder rocked the night around the front of the hotel.

  Drake headed back into the room.

  It was going to be a long night.

  *****

  The scene outside the hotel reminded him of war zones he’d visited. Miami P.D. had barricaded the streets as far as he could see. Hundreds and hundreds of black-and-whites and police vans were cordoning off the area. Figures dressed in bullet-proof vests were approaching the ‘hot’ zone even as Drake watched with a shiver of trepidation running down his spine.

  Boudreau would have expected the law.

  When the police advanced to within ten metres of the hotel grounds the seemingly impossible happened. Half a dozen car bombs exploded, traps that the cops had walked right past. At the same time shooters hidden in nearby buildings opened fire, picking off cops like plastic ducks at a fairground shooting gallery.

  Fire and metal bloomed high into the air, crashing down amidst panicked men.

  Drake watched the horror and the slaughter for another minute. If this was the force that Boudreau and the Blood King were willing to bring to bear then that changed his outlook somewhat. Maybe Hayden had been right. Maybe it was time to get out of this death-trap.

  Time for Plan B.

  He ran out of the room, relaying to Hayden what he’d seen and telling her to mobilise. When he reached the corridor junction he paused. Kinimaka and Alicia were keeping the enemy at bay with sparse covering fire, but when Drake risked a peek around the corner he saw something that made his blood run cold.

  Boudreau’s men were starting to drag people out of their rooms. They were herding them into a group and were clearly going to force them forward and use them as cover.

  Kinimaka stared at Drake with frantic eyes.

  This wouldn’t stand.

  Drake stepped into the open and began to advance. In full sight he breathed deeply, took careful aim, and began squeezing shots off. One shell whizzed through the curls of a blonde-woman’s hair to smash through the forehead of the mercenary behind her. The second shell grazed past a man’s neck and destroyed the throat of his aggressor. The third found an enemy who popped his own head up in shock.

  Drake continued forward, calm, focused. One of the enemy soldiers hit the deck and fired a shot off. The bullet tugged at Drake’s jacket but he only needed a millisecond to readjust. His fourth bullet sent the man spinning against the corridor wall, painting the blue wallpaper in crimson whorls.

  He reached the group. The hotel guests ducked as he went by. He took a brief moment to fire off more shots until his clip ran empty before herding the shell-shocked people into the nearest room.

  He studied them for the one who looked most capable.

  “That’s all I can do for you. Now you have to help yourselves.” He’d addressed a tough dude who looked like a biker and had been sheltering his wife with his own humongous arms. “Barricade the door after me. Make it hard for them to get in here and they won’t even bother trying. And find something you could use as a weapon. Anything.”

  Drake exited the room, confident that both Kinimaka and Alicia would be laying down enough covering fire to facilitate his escape. He left the empty gun with the guests. Last resort kind of thing.

  “How’s the ammo?” he asked Kinimaka when he reached the junction.

  “Low. Maybe half a dozen shots left.”

  Alicia nodded grimly. “Three.”
r />   “We’re getting out of here. Conserve what you can.”

  He entered their room. Ben was sitting with the desk-clerk on the leather sofa, making eyes at her and trying to lighten her fear. It was never going to work, but Drake thought it was a good way to occupy the kid’s time. Kennedy, Mai and Wells were staring out of the big windows. This part of the hotel was around the corner from the entrance but they could still see part of the fire-fight going on out there. Flames and bullet traceries and the screams of sirens still tore holes through the night.

  Alicia leapt through the door behind him. “I’m out.”

  “Time to go,” Drake told them. “Move.”

  Ben and the desk-clerk were up and past him quickly, his words music to their ears. The other three started to walk towards him and at that moment there was a terrible noise as if the very fabric of the hotel had shattered.

  The room’s windows exploded. Fragments of glass burst across the room. Kennedy lost her footing and fell face first across the sofa. Mai and Wells staggered but bounced off each other after a momentary embrace.

  In all this bedlam why on earth was Wells smiling?

  Got some Mai-time, he mouthed at Drake.

  Drake didn’t move as glass shards rained around him. Bullets now fizzed and rocketed through the empty window panes. The bad guys below had found their room and were making life even more difficult.

  Boudreau’s evil voice drifted up. “Come out, come out little pigs!” Then he started to squeal like a pig being slaughtered, his screaming louder than all the bullets and the explosions and even the random gunfire coming from the hallway.

  The madness had taken him completely. It had never been far away.

  Drake ushered Kennedy out the door, shielded by Kinimaka’s bulk, and down the dog-leg towards the far room. He started to follow when there was the shocking sound of close-up gunfire behind him.

  Just one shot.

  He turned instantly. The scene that greeted him numbed even his jaded battleground emotions. Wells was lying on his side, twitching slightly, a red pool spreading from the side of his head. Both Mai and Alicia were stood watching him, guns lowered, showing no sign of concern or offering any assistance whatsoever.

  Drake stared from one woman’s eyes to the other. “What happened?”

  Alicia jerked a hand towards the window. “In case you haven’t noticed, Drakey, there’s bullets flying everywhere. Poor old bastard got clipped.”

  Drake stared at Wells’ motionless body, finding it hard to weigh his feelings for the old man, his Commander, a man of unspeakable secrets.

  There wasn’t time now.

  Mai stared Drake right in the eyes. “The secrets that man kept,” she shook her head a little. “I can’t say that I mourn his passing.”

  More bullets shattered through the walls and ceiling of the hotel room.

  Drake had no time to consider what had really happened in the room when his back was turned. Chief problem being - if one of the women had killed Wells why were they both keeping quiet about it?

  Kinimaka looked relieved when they came running out and immediately abandoned his post. “One round left,” he breathed.

  As he ran, Drake wondered about that. Alicia had said she was out. That left Mai with the smoking gun. But then, the ex-SAS Englishwoman could hardly be taken at her word could she?

  Hayden had prepped the room. The method of egress they had decided days ago was simple enough, if a little time consuming. One of the small bedroom windows exited upon the tiled roof of a generator building. That roof led to a shed that housed the air-conditioning units which, in turn, led nicely to terra-firma. In addition, the whole area was shrouded by palm trees, clearly an effort made by the hotel management to hide the offending utility buildings.

  Plan B.

  Of course, Drake knew it wasn’t perfect; even by David Beckham’s standards it was a long shot from a guaranteed escape route.

  Alicia and Mai went first, two deadly combatants leading the way. Hayden followed with the controller under her jacket and then came Kinimaka and Kennedy. Drake supervised Ben and the desk-clerk and brought up the rear. By the time he climbed out of the window he had heard no sound of pursuit and allowed himself a brief sigh of relief.

  The balmy Miami air struck his skin with a welcome touch. An intense din - the sound of combat - assailed his hearing. Being cynical, the din would help mask their movements. Truly, it was horrifying.

  With shoes slipping and squeaking across the hard tile roof the seven escapees made their way to solid ground. The branches of the palm trees around them swayed eerily, their hard, thin, resolute trunks standing watch like soldiers guarding a frontier. Drake trusted Mai and Alicia to sniff them a way out.

  It occurred to him then, with quiet revelation, that he didn’t have as much belief in anyone else he knew, including Kennedy. More baggage to overcome.

  Mai paused at the tree-line. Beyond that Drake could see a dimly lit parking-lot, jam-packed with vehicles but devoid of life.

  Mai spun around. Drake read her mind. Risky, but worth it. A typical Plan B.

  The Japanese agent went first, skipping lightly over a flagged path into the lot, disappearing between cars. No shouts of alarm went up. Alicia followed next, just as graceful. They both crouched beside a gigantic Dodge Ram and signalled to the others to wait.

  Mai edged close to the front of the Dodge and surveyed the area for a second before beckoning the rest over. Drake brought up the rear. To the left, a horde of mercenaries milled and glared up at the hotel room they had blasted apart, the hotel room where Commander Wells of the SAS lay dead. Boudreau was among them somewhere, but Drake could not see him. To the ex-SAS man’s right the few mercenaries he saw were concentrating their attentions towards their outskirts, rather than on anyone sneaking about in their midst.

  Hunched down against the Ram, Drake took a moment to think. If they could make it to the exit and find a nearby vehicle large enough, they might all be able to high-tail it out of here before the bad guys cottoned on.

  “Exit?” he whispered along the line to Mai.

  The petite woman nodded and started crab-walking away. In a few minutes they were all threading between the deserted rows with the mayhem receding at their backs. Ben even had time to try and help the desk-lady crab-walk, receiving an unhappy shove in reward.

  Time passed. The night deepened. They spied the big exit sign and Drake spotted a big Chevrolet Tahoe a few bays down. “Who’s got hot-wiring skills?” he hissed.

  At that moment there was a commotion way behind them. From all the shouting it was clear the mercenaries inside the hotel had noticed their escape, if not its route. No doubt they would be communicating straight to Boudreau.

  A squeal went up like an animal in pain. Yeah, Boudreau knew.

  Alicia was already on her way, smashing the Tahoe’s window and climbing inside. Within seconds she had silenced the alarm, but the damage was already done.

  The Blood King’s men were here.

  Vaulting over cars and running between bays, they came at them at pace. Drake, Alicia, Mai, Hayden and Kinimaka stood to face them. The bad guys didn’t even have time to bring their weapons to bear. Drake flew at them, stiff-arming a man in the face, grabbing the neck of another and spinning him so viciously his neck snapped. He took an elbow to the side of the head, turned and snarled at the offender who stepped back in surprise. Drake made a show of lunging for the man and smiled nastily when he shrank away.

  “You be fucked, little man,” Drake hissed and struck out with both hands. The man went down choking, suffocating to death. Drake had a brief moment to realise that that was the old SAS soldier. He was still in there somewhere.

  Maybe the presence of Mai had made the old soldier surface. Or was it Alicia? Damn all these women.

  Speaking of Mai he watched her work. God, the artistry of it. That woman could turn murder into an art form. Blood ran and bones snapped in her wake. Men stared after her, shocked, co
nfused, holding their guts in their hands. Mai was ruthless. Without her, Drake and the rest would have struggled. With her they won the day in five pitiless minutes.

  Only once did she falter. Only once . . . when she fell against Hayden, and Hayden went down. Men landed atop them. Punches flew. Gun barrels were smashed into skulls. Mai took half a second to meet Drake’s eyes . . . and received the nod of approval.

  Hayden never felt it or saw it coming.

  Then, the melee miraculously ended as the tiny Japanese woman came up fighting, adding to her already impressive body count. Even Alicia took a second to watch her.

  Then, there was a moment’s respite. They all bolted for the Chevy. Alicia took the wheel again and resumed her hot-wiring. The Tahoe’s engine caught.

  “Drive!”

  Eight cylinders propelled the Tahoe at a surprising rate, considering its homely looks. The Chevy shot forward and bounced up the slight ramp, out of the lot and onto a wide, uninhabited street.

  From their right came the sounds of gunfire. The cops and ‘whoever else’ - in Hayden’s words - fighting it out with the Blood King’s men. More shots soon came from their rear.

  The Chevy shuddered as several struck home. When Drake glanced out the window to his left he saw men running across the parking-lot, rifles held in front of them, tracking them all the way.

  “Step on it,” he urged.

  “Nooo!”

  Hayden suddenly screamed. “I lost the controller! I lost it!”

  Mai lowered her window, aiming the only rifle they had left. She sprayed the lot with covering fire to gain them more time. Three men went sprawling.

  Hayden was struggling with the door catch. “No. This is so bad. We can’t just leave it.”

  Drake turned a stony glance in her direction. “Stay put. There are too many of them back there and you know it. We’ll come up with something.”

  “Anyway,” Ben said brightly. “They might not find it. Did it just slip out of your jacket?”

  “I don’t know,” Hayden moaned. “One minute it was there . . .”

  “Why do they follow this man, this Boudreau?” Mai quickly spoke up. “Even if they survive the battle he gives them up to assist his escape.”