The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake Book 10)

by David Leadbeater

  Without a moment’s hesitation she elbowed him in the throat, jabbed at his eyes, his throat again, and then his ribs until his larynx was totally unprotected.

  Then she crushed it.

  Hikaru died before her, choking. Mai didn’t have the will or strength to watch. Instead she looked to the fallen figure, to Hayden’s grief-stricken, wide-eyed face, to Yorgi who stopped fighting with his opponent; both men taking a step back.

  To Sakurai and Eto and Tanji—the only remaining Yakuza warriors, who became suddenly inert. Affected by the death of their boss, they now bowed slightly toward Mai.

  Hayden grabbed the fallen man, took hold of his big shoulders, and rolled him over, instantly knowing he was already dead.

  Karin’s screams filled her ears. “Komodo! Komodo! T-vor. Is he okay? Oh, no. Please no! Pleeeeeaase—”

  *

  A heavy silence descended over the alley, broken only by the sound of Karin’s sobbing and Hayden’s choked, emotion-filled tones. “I . . . I’m sorry. I—”

  Kinimaka came over and held her, falling to his knees beside the lost soldier, tears streaming from his own eyes. In the gentlest gesture Hayden had even seen the big Hawaiian make, he leaned over and hugged his friend for the final time. Smyth too dropped beside Komodo, resting a shaking hand against the man’s head and holding it there.

  Mai staggered to her feet, hand across her wound, blood dripping through her fingers. “We should kill all of you murdering bastards.”

  Sakurai didn’t move a muscle. “We’re all warriors here. Believe me, we have earned our place.”

  Mai did not doubt it. “We’re not trying to avenge a mere insult any more. We’re trying to prevent a disaster from which even the Yakuza would be affected.”

  “I have orders from my Kumicho. This death,” he indicated the fallen soldier, “cannot be altered and neither can the deaths of our fellow warriors. But it may be enough.”

  “Enough? Is it? You mean if we let you walk away?”

  Sakurai looked to his fellow combatants. “In war there is always death. Hikaru is gone, but we have been avenged. We will not keep fighting without our leader. On my honor I will take this to the Kumicho. It may be enough.”

  Mai waved them away, thankful that Karin hadn’t been able to hear their words. Unable to remain upright any longer, she too fell in the dirt and the dust, sitting alongside Komodo’s body with her friends; guardians, sentinels to the memory of their lost companion; protecting him in death where they had not been able to do so in life.

  *

  Karin Blake threw the comms device across the room, standing, fists clenching, fighting every instinct in her body that made her want to destroy and crush and even kill. She pounded her fists on the table, struck the concrete wall until bloody imprints remained. The monitor before her never changed—stuck with an image she would never, ever forget.

  The site of her fallen, unmoving boyfriend and the team sat around him, heads down, hands touching, custodians in shared loss.

  Chika sat rigid, unable to process the death. Only Grace could console Karin and the young girl crept over now, crying herself, encircling Karin’s body with caring arms and hugging her close.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I’m just so sorry.”

  All Karin could do was hold on.

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  Drake ran straight across Gloucester Road, leaping over the iron railing that separated the carriageways without touching it. Dahl tracked him, sliding over the front of a parked car, staying hard on Dudley’s tail. The Irishmen veered right around a hoarding and suddenly a stretch of water was in sight beyond a row of white stone pillars and a locked gate. Yellow cranes and rigs sat just beyond, reaching for the skies. Dudley dashed through a confluence of roads, finally hitting what Karin had called Hung Hing road, its expanse full of flashing yellow lights and traffic cones—roadworks. A gleaming white yacht passed to the left, sat high on a frame, its keel exposed so men could work freely. Around a blind corner and Dudley ran through a wide entrance. Drake, gaining slowly, read the name of the place on a narrow, white, polished sign.

  “The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club.”

  “Seems that he is heading for a boat,” Dahl commented.

  “It’s not right,” Drake panted. “He’s leading us into something.”

  Alicia snorted. “Duh.”

  As they passed the spotlessly white entrance building, leaping the red and white barriers, as they pounded beneath overhanging trees, as they dashed through an empty car park, now bathed in the club’s bright lights, Karin’s heart-wrenching scream cut across the airwaves. Drake stumbled and slowed, Dahl imitating him. Alicia took a breath that lasted almost half a minute.

  Their world quaked.

  Dahl brought his hands up to his scalp, scratching furiously. Drake saw it as a gesture of terrible stress and forced his own attention back to their situation.

  “Let’s finish up here,” he said quietly. “And then go see our friend.”

  Hibiki had caught up to them. He raced on, face set, as they crossed the car park and turned toward the doors to an inner sanctum that held a heart-shaped pool, a bar and other luxuries. Dudley smashed through an obviously already unlocked door and disappeared. Drake powered after him, close now, spurred on by the heartbreaking news and the Irishmen’s own smirking faces.

  Skirting the pool, they hurdled a fence and were then running along a causeway, alongside the water and a line of bobbing yachts, the open sea right in front of them at the causeway’s end.

  More boats were moored there.

  “Stop and fight you cowardly arseholes!” Dahl cried at the top of his voice.

  “Oh yeah, dude, that’ll do it.” Alicia sighed.

  But the four Irishmen then leaped unaccountably to their right. At first Drake thought they were jumping into the calm waters but then their boots came down on the deck of a yacht and they set off running again.

  “Balls,” he said. “Not another freakin’ obstacle course.”

  From deck to deck, prow to prow, Dudley ran and jumped. The yachts were set relatively close together, making progress easier, but the row stretched for as far as he could see ahead, maybe twenty to thirty vessels. What is this guy’s plan?

  “Twat it,” he shouted. “When in Rome.”

  He jumped to the side, both feet slamming onto a yacht’s deck and then continued to run. Similar noises at his back attested to the other three doing the same. His expensive shoes didn’t afford him the best grip, but he wasn’t about to go barefoot. He vaulted a ship’s rail, bridging a wide gap where water churned below, and hit the deck of the next yacht at full speed. Alicia yelped as she skidded behind, but quickly righted herself. Another polished white deck and another leap and then another until only a dozen remained.

  Ahead, Dudley turned around, hand held high.

  “Now, soldier boy. Now it’s time to die.”

  There was no time to think, no time to adjust their course or even slow down. Drake spied a black object in Dudley’s hand, possibly a cellphone or transmitter and, for better or worse, was instantly reminded of the man’s role in the destruction of Mu.

  Daisy chain bombs. Oh shit!

  Dudley pressed a button. The roar of an explosion shook the night. Drake staggered as the very deck of the yacht he was crossing heaved up and splintered. Timber blew apart beneath his feet. Spars shifted and exploded. Metal, carbon fiber and glass convulsed under intense pressure.

  But he did not stop running, and neither did his teammates. Their pace took them beyond the bomb’s initial range of damage and then they were jumping high, airborne as debris swirled at their back, and then landing again at full sprint onto the next yacht.

  Which exploded.

  The deck shattered, the sound of the bomb filling their world. Solid ground fell away before Drake’s shoes. A blast furnace shot through the air at their backs. Mustering every ration of speed, he sprinted on, not seeing them but knowing
his team sped along beside him, still alive, still fighting with every ounce of their being. Again they cleared the destroyed vessel, pushed toward the next by a not so gentle hand, the blast hot on their heels. Another landing and another explosion, the whole row of yachts daisy chained by bombs and blasting apart in rapid succession.

  Dudley landed on the far causeway when Drake still had four yachts to go.

  Dahl reached his shoulder, urging him with competitiveness, with sheer spirit. Alicia panted a string of curses at his back. Hibiki was head down, his clothes spiked by debris. All around the sprinters a blizzard of shattering fragments raged; decks heaving, hulls reeling and prows sinking. The one thing that saved them was that the bombs had been secured inside the yacht’s cabins, not where they ran. Still, a flurry of lethal carbon fiber shards pursued them, nicking at their necks and faces. An intact steering wheel whickered by at incredible speed, passing inches in front of Drake, an object that might have taken his head from his shoulders. Dahl glanced across as they leaped to another deck, the mad Swede’s eyes alight with exhilaration. Another lurch and another blast, Drake almost stumbling to his death. With only two yachts to go the explosions were coming quicker, timed to take them all out at the end, but the SPEAR team would never give in.

  As Alicia tripped—a guard-rail rapping her shins—Dahl reached down in mid-sprint, yanked at her arm and dragged her along through the continuing detonations, moving so fast she couldn’t quite regain her feet. Drake bounded and soared, bouncing from one point to the next until the causeway lay dead ahead and if it had been any narrower he would have hurdled right off the far end.

  Still, he hit hard, tumbling across the concrete and tearing most of his clothes, smashing his head against the ground. Blood flowed but it was a mere trickle, a graze across his forehead. Hibiki came down in front of him; Dahl and Alicia behind, the Englishwoman forced to cry out as her knees struck first.

  Dahl remained standing.

  Faced off by four angry Irishmen. Dudley stepped forward as Drake struggled upright. Malachi crouched as Dahl grinned. McLain and Byram gave surly acknowledgements to Alicia’s obvious pain. Hibiki pulled a splinter the size of a dagger from his arm.

  A strong sea breeze cooled their skin for one moment as the dying echoes of the final explosion rang across the bay and clouds of exploded debris floated down from the skies, gliding and spinning, hanging and twisting all around them.

  “This is the last of the 27-Club,” Dudley growled like a hurt but terribly dangerous lion. “Givin’ yer some payback.”

  Then Dudley ran in, bounding through a cloud of swirling debris and draped in sharp slivers and shards. Alicia stepped before Drake, in the same cloud, taking on the leader of the 27-Club as she had done once before, determined to defeat him again. Drake faced off with Malachi. Dahl and Hibiki shared McLain and Byram. The combatants came together, trading blows, knuckles finding flesh and boots striking bone, foreheads smashing down into noses.

  Drake glanced behind Dudley at the fast-looking motor launch at anchor. Chances were the Z-box was hidden in there. Now that Dudley’s explosive plan with the yachts had failed, he was defending it. When Malachi lunged at him he gave the man a double blow to the side of the head. Anyone else would have fallen, reeling, but this man danced back up, clearly agonized but grinning through bloodied teeth.

  “Feckin’ pussy man,” he grated. “How ‘bout throwing a real punch?”

  A haymaker missed Drake by millimeters. Drake caught the arm and bent it until it snapped. The expected scream didn’t come, only a hiss like steam venting and then a new attack. Malachi swung around with his good hand, a shard of timber clasped between thumb and first finger. Drake saw it coming, threw an arm up to block and felt it rip through his jacket, shirt and skin. The point sank deep enough so that the improvised weapon stuck. Malachi fell away, good hands scrabbling for another deadly fragment. Drake plucked the timber away then threw himself at Malachi’s chest, feet first. The blow smashed the air from him. Gasping, he threw gathered debris at Drake, temporarily blinding him, then plucked a bouncing trash can from the air. Catching it he swung it at Drake’s head and though it was plastic the Yorkshireman still saw stars.

  Stepping away, taking stock, still squinting through drifting particles of demolished yacht, he eyed Malachi.

  “Never been good at givin’ up.” The Irishman inhaled deeply. “Not us. We’ll die and then take yer to Hell with us.”

  “Been there,” Drake said. “Done it. Even got the bloody T-shirt, Hawaiian print. Didn’t like it.”

  When his opponent scooped up another, even more-wicked looking splinter, Drake jumped in, launching several incapacitating blows, but still Malachi fought and tried to rise despite wrenching his broken arm still further. The Yorkshireman then snapped the other one. What these guys lacked in skill they sure made up for in madness and tenacity. Lifting his foot, he brought a polished Valentino down on Malachi’s neck, ending the fight.

  Alicia jabbed and punched at Dudley, allowing him to speak before striking, watching his moves and awaiting her moment. She could tell he was wary, having lost to her before.

  “Damn it, bitch. When are yer gonna lie down and die?”

  “Not whilst I’ve got legs and can keep moving ‘em forward, boy. Not whilst there’s a horizon in front of me.”

  “Then I’ll take it away. I’ll feckin’ kill yer.”

  Alicia sidestepped his lunge, delivering a heavy blow to his temple. “Not a chance. It’s easy to take you down, Dudley. Just takes a slap to the nutsack.”

  She feigned a kick, following it in with a body barge, slamming her elbow as hard as she could into his chin. Dudley shook it off, a rabies-infested mad dog, and tried to bite her. Alicia spun him around and threw him over the fallen body of his brother, Malachi. Dudley hit the causeway, head cracking against the concrete. To his right lay a thick timber spar. He snapped back to his feet in a single movement, waving the spar around his head and screaming. Alicia ducked it twice, jabbing hard both times, then broke it in half. Still the remaining piece looked deadly and hurt when Dudley breached her defenses and smashed it against her ribs. Alicia flinched, but never stopped moving.

  Dudley riled and insulted her, dropping the spar and plucking a floating wooden dagger out of the air. He took a moment to wipe his brow, fragments and shavings falling from his hair. Alicia felt yacht ruins landing on her own head and shoulders, clinging to her spoiled golden dress, and brushed what she could away. She found a dagger of her own and when Dudley lunged with his she deflected it away and came up under his belly with the three-inch shard, burying it deep.

  The Irishman flinched, eyes suddenly wide as he fell away. Staggering, he caught himself, back to snarling already and ignored the wound. Alicia sidestepped to his right.

  She heard Dahl telling Hibiki he looked tired out and to take a break as he dealt with McLain and Byram. Somewhere along the journey Dahl had heard that McLain liked to hurt security guards and that knowledge was now taking a heavy toll on McLain’s limbs. The last of the 27-Club were falling to pieces.

  “You wanna die at twenty seven?” Alicia asked the straining Dudley. “I’d be happy to oblige.”

  The Irishman came at her, snarling, all in for the last skirmish. He caught her around the waist, lifted and carried her backward several feet before her elbows jabbed down hard into his shoulders, staggering him still further. She skipped away, careful not to fall off the causeway and into the rolling harbor waters. He leaned over, swaying, blood pouring from many wounds, but he would not go down.

  “Yer gonna have to kill me, bitch.”

  “Y’know what?” She eyed him dangerously. “That just ain’t a problem for me.”

  He lunged, stance wrong, arms swinging, and she jabbed at his eyes and throat, then his ribs, finishing him with a sharp kick to the nose. Prone on the floor, he coughed blood, still jabbering, still crazy.

  Alicia turned away, ignoring the blather.

  As the la
st vestiges of the explosion floated down to earth his scrabbling hands found one that had landed earlier. A thick piece of metal railing, it was heavy, long and jagged—a deadly spear. Without thinking for one moment, the Irishman summoned every last ounce of strength, twisted his broken body and stabbed upward toward her lower spine.

  Alicia never saw it coming. Her eyes were on Drake, fixed, perhaps even already wondering where she might go next. The fatal spear punched through the air, powered by the last strength of a madman. Alicia saw Drake react, then reach around her . . .

  He grabbed the spear with his hand and arrested its thrust only a centimeter from her body.

  Dudley screamed and wrenched at the weapon, but to no avail. Drake held on, gripping it tightly and holding Dudley’s eyes with his own. After a few seconds he pulled it free, then reversed it and plunged it down into the man’s chest.

  The Irishman breathed his last.

  Alicia stared at Drake, knowing full well how close she had come. “Y’know what?” she said. “Here’s a slogan for you—no guns were used in the harming of these murderers.”

  “Aye, love. I know.”

  “Thank you for my life.”

  “Any time. You know you’re worth it.”

  Dahl sauntered up. “Nice workout.” He nodded the way they’d come, all the way to the shadow of the hotel where they’d started.

  “Komodo,” Alicia breathed, a break in her voice.

  The pall of misery redressed them. The blackest of shadows hung back there, a dark, endless gloom that would never be pierced.

  Drake had never been more aware of a silent comms.

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  In the aftermath, Drake found the Z-box in the motor launch whilst Dahl and the others trussed up the surviving Irishmen, an insane, spirited gift for the Hong Kong authorities. It was true the 27-Club had crimes to answer for back in the States, but the team were realistic enough to know they would never get them out of the country—or even away from the yacht club—unseen. It was a quick job, they had to be out of the area before the police arrived, and their legs were aching as if they’d all run a marathon, but slipping along in the shadows had never been a problem for a Special Forces team. No words were exchanged as they retraced their steps back to the alleyway where their comrade had fallen.