“Hello?”
“Ben? Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry, sir. This isn’t Mr. Blake. This is Chief Inspector Mills of the West Yorkshire Police. Who am I talking to?”
The world swayed, but Drake clung to hope. “This is Matt Drake. I’m Ben’s friend. I currently work for the US government. Is Ben okay?”
There were a few seconds of silence. “Right, sir. You’re in Mr. Blake’s contacts and I can see old text messages and calls made between you. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Drake, but Ben Blake was murdered a short while ago. He was killed alongside his parents and two other men, who we believe were active members of the British Army. Do you have any knowledge of this?”
Drake didn’t even feel his legs give way as he crashed to the floor.
CHAPTER TEN
Drake became aware that he was crawling through the wreckage, looking for his cell phone. In another second, Dahl was there with him.
Drake swiveled his head, believing he couldn’t feel any worse, but suddenly became heart stricken as he looked into the Swede’s face. “Your . . . your kids?”
Dahl swallowed hard. A cop came up to them and ordered them to get up. A man dressed in an army uniform backed him up. One look at the two men’s faces and both officials backed away.
Dahl breathed low. “They’re fine. So’s the wife. Special Forces are with them as we speak, taking them out of the country.”
“Thank God. Ben’s . . . dead. So are Sam and Jo. Fuck me.”
Dahl sat down hard, deflated. “The Blood Vendetta. Kovalenko must have reactivated it. Do you think he escaped this morning?”
“Shit. I do now.”
Dahl glance around the devastated restaurant, taking in the haunted eyes of a dozen law enforcement officers looking back at him. “This is like the scene of a national disaster. Nobody knows what’s happening.”
Drake looked up. “If Kovalenko is free, it’s only gonna get worse.”
Dahl flipped his phone open again. “Where the hell are Hayden and the others?” Desperately, he hit the speed dial.
“Try everyone,” Drake said. “Try—” Suddenly he shot up. “Fuck!”
“What is it?”
“Alicia!”
Drake dialed and held the phone close, certain that he couldn’t handle another tragedy. When the familiar crazy-ass tones filled the phone with life he felt utter relief.
“The Drakester! What the fuck do you want, man?”
Again, he went through the story. “You need to get the hell out, Alicia. Leave and run, right now. All of you.”
“That bastard Kovalenko ordered all that? I wish I was with you right now, Drake. I really do.”
“Don’t worry. Just get to safety. And stay off the radar and out of contact, Alicia. We don’t know how far Kovalenko’s claws reach this time, but you can bet your arse it’s pretty damn deep.”
“I always bet my arse, Drake. And I’ll do it again now. We’re out of here, and once we’re safe I’ll come to you.”
“No. Don’t—”
“Fuck you.”
The line went dead. Drake closed his eyes. He couldn’t think about that right now. Alicia would do as she pleased no matter what he said. For once, he allowed Dahl to help him to his feet and take charge without comment.
“There’s an RV point near the hotel.” The Swede pointed to the building where President Coburn had been in the throes of an after-dinner speech. “We need to go there now. I just heard something about the President.”
Drake stared. “No.”
“It’s not good.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Blood King, with Gabriel and several other men at his side, walked calmly into the lobby of the Hotel Dillion and fanned out. Many were looking disheveled and, feigning distress, threw themselves into easy chairs and began talking loudly about the death of the Secretary of Defense. Kovalenko and Gabriel approached reception, joining the largest of the queues which had formed for late rooms in the wake of the President’s departure. The demand for rooms would only grow as word about Gates’ demise got out, and when the world learned of what was about to happen.
The Hotel Dillion, closely guarded and practically locked-down, continually swept and searched during the President’s brief tenure, had instantly reverted back to a well-run, well-organized business upon the departure of the last Secret Service agent. It was all part of the hotel’s policy with the White House.
As he waited, the heavily bundled-up Blood King fielded a number of calls. The first was to inform about the demise of Ben Blake and two other men who had defended him. Kovalenko’s mouth stretched into a wide, satisfied grin but his words didn’t reflect the pleasure he felt.
“And the parents?”
“The same, sir.”
A pleasant metallic taste filled his mouth as he bit his inner lip in happiness.
“And so to the next. This cursed Ninth Division, where Drake ‘earned his stripes’, as they say. Let their blood wash the streets clean.” Kovalenko knew, though Wells had died, many more of Drake’s respected superiors and team mates were controlled by the well-established British secret ops’ fully deniable asset they called the Ninth Division.
“Yes, sir. In particular we’re going after Crouch and Cohen.”
“Good.”
The next call was more local.
“DC team here, sir. Jaye is at least badly injured, possibly dead. The Hawaiian, Smyth, Karin Blake and Komodo are with her. We have a fix on their new position.”
“Do not fail me this time.” Kovalenko jabbed the end button, seething. There should have been no mistakes. His men had recruited the best mercenaries out there for this wild, audacious coup. Hard, fresh, unconscionable men at the top of their game. The Blood King would brook no slip-ups.
Whilst waiting for more teams to check in—notably the Kitano and Myles units—he took a few minutes to evaluate and memorize the area around him. Right now the hotel was buzzing: a bustling enterprise where businessmen and tourists, and even the staff, passed through without taking the time to appreciate the history that nestled all around them. Built in 1850, only fifty years after the completion of the White House, the Scotch and Champagne Bar had been a sparkling meeting place even back in the days of Abraham Lincoln. Kovalenko eyed the entrance to the bar just off the reception area. If he had time and the right plan he would have liked nothing better than to simply plant Coburn’s head in there, but more complex strategies had been drawn up to ensure exit routes and the future prospects of his men. With that particular thought in mind he turned briefly to Gabriel, the tall African, by his side.
“Our man on the inside. What’s his name again?”
Gabriel grinned widely in that unnerving way of his. “Marnich. Agent Marnich.”
“They should be here soon.”
“An’ we be ready fo’ dem.”
Kovalenko again blessed his good fortune in running into Mordant and Gabriel. Two lieutenants who could facilitate such dazzling havoc as this were invaluable.
With no more calls coming in, Kovalenko pocketed the phone. He didn’t know and wasn’t worried that some kind of authority might be monitoring the calls. They would be late.
And then, as if in answer to his thoughts and wishes, the front door of the hotel slammed open.
The Blood King smiled, a gifted predator in his element.
Coburn.
CHAPTER TWELVE
President Coburn waited restlessly as his four Secret Service agents came to a decision. In real-time, it didn’t actually take long but Coburn was already feeling an old instinct kicking in—that of self-preservation.
At last, Marnich nodded at Franks. “Gridlock’s impassable both ways. Back to the hotel?”
Franks hesitated, glancing through the rear window at the other two Escalades and the snarled traffic behind them. “No way back by road. We’re going to have to hump it.”
Marnich made a show of struggling between dilemmas. �
�Hotel’s the most secure place around. We just left it.”
“More secure than the White House?”
“Too many people and variables between us and it. Not as many behind us. An adversary would expect us to go forward. Who knows what might lie ahead? The hotel is secure, it was checked an hour ago, and the area is now crawling with every authority from the cops to the FBI and the army. My call is the Dillion.”
“Agreed.” Franks spoke into his wrist mic. “We’re sitting ducks out here. Prepare to fall out to the Dillion. Eagle One will be with us.”
Coburn leaned forward. “Won’t we be more vulnerable out there?” he asked. “The Escalade’s armored.”
Franks met his eyes. Marnich spoke up. “Trouble is, we don’t know if anyone’s out there, sir, and we don’t know what they’ve got. There are plenty of weapons these days that can pierce our armor.”
“In Washington?”
“Maybe not,” Marnich conceded, but left the sentence hanging.
Franks took the bait. “The Dillion is one block back, and crawling with authorities investigating the Secretary’s death. It’s three minutes away.” He glanced at the President. “You ready for a brisk run, sir?”
Coburn nodded, conceding to their decision. A President rarely questioned the Secret Service, ex-military or not. They paused for six more seconds as Franks again spoke into his comms system.
“Alpha Bird One. Alpha Bird One. We need first-class extraction outside the Dillion. ETA—four minutes.”
The answer made Franks smile. “All good.” Coburn assumed he had called in one of the military choppers housed close by, making it their exit strategy or, he stared cannily at Franks, a diversion. He really should learn all these multiple code words by heart.
Marnich cracked the door open first, beckoning the President over. Instantly, the crazed din of an unthinkable amount of traffic chaos blasted into the car. Horns blared and metal still crunched. Men and women yelled in anger, and from overhead came the heavy thunk of rotor blades. The news services hadn’t wasted any time in getting airborne.
“Shit,” Franks said, eyeing the air. “They’re even quicker than we are.”
It was meant as a joke, to lighten the tension, but Coburn couldn’t help but shrug it away, staying frosty. There were too many bright glaring lights around, especially on the higher floors of surrounding buildings, and more than enough hotel rooms, empty offices and apartment blocks to house an army of assassins.
Take it easy, he thought. The Secret Service have this.
Coburn stepped into the road. Instantly, agents from the other two cars surrounded him. Franks shouldered in and pushed his head down. Coburn had no choice but to suffer the indignity of staring at his feet whilst his protective detail made their way a few hundred yards back to the Dillion. His only link to the real world was the noise—a woman trying to calm her crying baby protesting as she was moved aside by the agents, a voluble older man demanding that the agents stop and immediately sort the stoplight situation out, a man arguing forcefully with someone about whose fault it was that his brand new Jaguar had suffered damage—one of the agents having to step in and diffuse the situation before it came to blows. Coburn became acutely aware that his protective detail was undermanned—he had sent two of his best to oversee the Gates investigation, but as the seconds and minutes passed and nothing happened, he began to breathe more easily. Maybe the stoplight disruption had been a glitch; a snag thrown up because, quite frankly, it was barely ever used.
Franks put pressure on his shoulders, slowing him down. “Dillion is ahead,” he whispered, then louder. “You four go in first.”
Coburn looked up. A wash of golden light flooded across the sidewalk where the Dillion proudly stood. The ring of agents steered him toward the gold-paneled, wide-open front doors, passing underneath the blue-and-white-striped ornate canopy. Tourists and civilians stood about in comical poses, gawping. Cameras flashed and cell phones took video, annoying the agents no end. Every flash made a trigger finger twitch and gave the periphery agents a vital moment of focus turned away from the President.
“Alpha Bird One ETA two minutes,” Marnich said.
“Inside.” Franks pushed them toward the well-lit lobby. As soon as they pushed through the doors his men began to yell.
“Clear the lobby! Clear the lobby now!”
The President would be fully secured and guarded inside here. Coburn slowed and began to think about the cell phone in his pocket, wondering if a call to his wife was in order. He was reaching for the device when Franks’ soft growl stopped him cold, freezing the marrow in his bones.
“It’s a fuckin’ trap.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mai Kitano paced the floor of her hotel room, frustrated that she would have to wait four more hours before her meeting with the master assassin, Gyuki.
Her old clan, the organization which had bought her from her destitute parents, wanted her back, and Gyuki, their most formidable hitman among hundreds, had all but demanded she meet with him in Tokyo at 1300 hours today.
Men like Gyuki, she mused, were not real men. Born in bloodshed, ripped from their families at a young age by warfare, strife or murder, they were trained to hunt and kill from the time they could walk. They knew no luxuries, no worldly trappings or any other life. This was all they had ever known, and thus they could maintain a focus no other fighting man in the world was capable of.
Ninjas? They might be. The old concept of the word had been lost through time. Mai herself was one of them, but even she conjured up images created by the Hollywood studios whenever she heard the word. But such fantasies did not bother these men, having no real concept of the outside world. They knew only what they were told and moved through the night, cloaked in shadows, except under extreme circumstances.
Such as Mai. For Gyuki to demand a meeting in broad daylight in a public place was unheard of. The master assassin would be as distracted as he was ever going to get.
Mai’s thoughts slipped back to Matt Drake. She hesitated even to think the word boyfriend. It was a somewhat alien concept to her, too permanent for their line of work. If she allowed herself to be drawn into an easier life, to relax for even a minute, she knew she would die. Just look at what had happened to Drake back in DC when she had momentarily let down her guard.
Now as she paced, the phone rang, and she shook her head to see it was Drake calling. He hadn’t wanted her to come alone to Tokyo, and in his desperation had forgotten the etiquette that had built between them, trying everything short of handcuffs to make her stay. Now she considered ignoring the call to teach him a lesson, but the gracious and respectful part of her won through.
“Hello?”
She listened as Drake talked fast. Hot anger and apprehension stole over her as he spoke. “Oh, my God. Poor Jonathan. But I have to warn Chika and Dai. I have to go. Matt, thank you, but I have to go.”
Mai jabbed at the phone, twice hitting the wrong button before calming her inner self and taking a deep breath. After that she depressed Chika’s speed-dial button and, with a huge effort, forced herself to wait patiently for an answer.
“Please. Please, Chika, my sister.” She had already saved Chika from the Blood King once back in Miami.
The tone chimed monotonously, every double ring adding a weight of worry to her heart. Mai made an instant decision and, tucking the phone between her neck and shoulder, grabbed her keys and exited the hotel room. Her rental was parked right outside. By the time she wrenched the door open and jumped inside the empty ringing of the phone was enough to destroy her composure.
“Come on!” Mai slammed the steering wheel with both hands and started the vehicle. She tore out of the car park, narrowly missing an oncoming Pepsi wagon, almost drowned by the tones of its blaring air horns. Her hotel was in the heart of Tokyo, not far from Chika’s apartment.
“Chika,” she said aloud. “Oh no.”
Within minutes she had crossed two junctions and caused a fen
der-bender. She cut off a boy racer in a black Evo and slung the little rental across two lanes onto the street that led to Chika’s.
Only then was the call answered. “Yes?”
Mai almost swooned with relief, but didn’t let it show in her voice. “Get out. Now. I’ve just had it confirmed that Kovalenko escaped. It’s almost certain he’s sent men after you.”
“I did tell you about the men who have been watching me,” Chika said matter-of-factly. “I’m surprised your other people haven’t noticed.”
“They probably have. Now get out.”
Mai had just enough time to contact Dai Hibiki before she shot to a stop outside Chika’s. Dai answered with his customary curt effectiveness.
“What’s up?”
“The Blood King is free. He targets family and friends, Dai. If I were you, I would get safe.”
“Shit. Understood. And Chika?”
“Here now.” Mai rolled the rental up over the curb and jumped out, leaving the door open. Chika ran to meet her, pouncing from the shadows of the arched entryway to her apartment block. Mai quickly scanned the area and wasn’t shocked to see three shadowy figures staring down at her through Chika’s apartment window.
So close . . .
Chika reached her. Mai nodded and, as she turned, saw a fourth man standing by her car, leaning over the top and lining her up in the sights of a big Desert Eagle. The man was European, well groomed, and wore a sports jacket over a casual open-necked shirt. His lips curled as he spoke.
“The Blood King sends his regards.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Could a person dodge more than one bullet? More significantly, could a person raised and trained as a Ninja dodge more than one bullet?
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