Theatre of War (Matt Drake 28) Tenth Anniversary Novel

by David Leadbeater

  Bryant shifted in his seat. “She’s right.”

  Alicia stared at him with a pained expression. “You’ll get used to that,” she said. “And I always wondered—how the hell do men sit with their legs crossed like that? Is it a bad case of miniature nuts? Maybe Mai could answer that. Hey, Sprite—”

  “Can we focus?” Mai turned away from the window and the busy, deep night beyond. “The third attack could happen at any moment. A plan would be nice.”

  “It ain’t gonna happen when Wall Street’s closed,” Alicia said. “But I guess it might happen at first bell tomorrow. And speaking of bells.” She turned back to Bryant. “How’d you get on?”

  The American didn’t react to her vague insult. He might not have even understood it. “Sutherland is gaining some headway,” he said. “He’s working with a kind of underground network of trusted colleagues and soldiers.”

  Alicia stared. “You mean like a fucking resistance. As in war. Shit, I didn’t think we were there already.”

  “It has to be that way,” Bryant said. “He’s struggling to—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Who do we trust? I guess it’s a classic tactic in war. Nobody knew that Coburn’s death, his shooting so long ago, would lead to this.”

  “The Devil did,” Mai said. “He engineered it all for the Scourge.” She paused as her cellphone rang. The number calling, she saw, belonged to Dai Hibiki. A spear of worry lanced through her chest. “Dai? Is everything okay?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not.”

  “Is Chika okay? What’s happened?”

  “Your sister’s fine and worried about you. The problem, I’m afraid, is Zuki.”

  Mai closed her eyes. “Don’t tell me. They lost her.”

  “Good guess. And it was as bloody as it comes. Zuki isn’t the kind to slip away quietly.”

  “That was part of the reason I assumed we’d be able to keep tabs on her,” Mai said. “Find out where she went. She’s incredibly arrogant, egotistic and unlikely to silently flit away into the night.”

  “Well, she didn’t. She used a team of samurai to put an end to her captivity and surveillance. She’s gone, Mai.”

  The Japanese woman ended the call with a heavy heart, feeling sick for those who’d lost their lives, and fury at the woman who’d so casually ordered the murder of people just for doing their jobs.

  “That woman,” she said. “Zuki. She’s another level of danger. I have no idea what she’ll do next.”

  “Some of the pictures I saw,” Bryant said without thinking. “I’d know what to do with her.”

  Mai ignored the comment, but Alicia jumped on it. “Are you serious? Weren’t you listening? She just ordered people killed.”

  Bryant looked up as if his mind was entirely elsewhere. “Oh, what? Sorry. Spoke without thinking again. Sometimes my mind just reverts to the crass version of myself.”

  Alicia glared at him as if trying to weigh him up. The ability to hop around between personalities was not necessarily a good thing, and very difficult to trust.

  “Zuki will go straight to the Scourge,” Mai said. “I’m pretty sure she still has a role to play. And she wants her empire back.”

  “We’ll encounter her again,” Alicia said. “Be sure of that.” It wasn’t stated as a threat or a promise, but Mai knew that Alicia meant Zuki would meet a sudden, sharp end.

  “My company, Glacier, is shut down,” Bryant told them. “For now. But I do have a few trustworthy operatives that I’ve sent to Sutherland to help swell the ranks. He seems to think cutting the head off the snake is the only way forward.”

  “The Scourge,” Alicia said. “I agree. But we have to find them first.”

  “Not the Scourge,” Bryant said. “He means the President of the United States.”

  Mai narrowed her eyes. “Does he have a plan?”

  “He’s working on it.”

  “My life,” Mai said. “My job, my work, it has been all about keeping people safe. Growing up as part of the Tsugarai clan I saw first-hand how evil works, how it corrupts. I didn’t want that. That’s why I fled, joined law enforcement, Drake’s team and then later helped destroy the Tsugarai. I saved my parents, rescued Chika when the Blood King abducted her. I don’t know how to do anything else—but I don’t know how to do this.”

  “To my mind,” Alicia said. “Both the Scourge and the President have to be taken out, preferably simultaneously. But an op like that—it’d take perfect planning and a lot of time.”

  “America is a divided country at the best of times,” Bryant said. “Despite being called the United States, it’s a diverse, riven, partitioned country. It’s not that surprising that someone could pull this off. What is surprising is the amount of manpower they have inside our borders.”

  “We’re meeting the guys in the morning,” Mai checked her watch. “So I suggest we grab the last good night’s sleep we might ever get. It’s getting late.”

  Alicia checked her watch. “Late? It’s barely ten. Oh, wait...” She eyed Mai and Bryant. “Are you two wanting a little alone time? That’s brings the phrase ‘tossing and turning’ to a whole new level.”

  Mai practically growled at her. “There’s nothing going on between Bryant and me. Now, stop being a bitch and get out of my room.”

  “All right,” Alicia held her hands up and started walking. “But if Bryant’s walking lop-sided in the morning... I’ll know.”

  Mai held the door open until Bryant got the message and preceded Alicia out. She was left staring at a quiet room, a rumpled bedspread, and a desk full of empty miniatures. Any other time it might have been the sign of a good night in a hotel room. Tonight, it held an aura of foreboding.

  Tomorrow, New York could be hit by a terrorist attack and they couldn’t decide who to tell about it. The authorities already knew—at least some of them did.

  Mai felt helpless, angry and a little scared. For the first time that she could remember they weren’t able to directly fight their enemy, to push forward toward some kind of endgame and win the day. Both of their major enemies were unapproachable.

  I guess we have until the dawn breaks. After that, all our futures are unclear.

  She just wished she wasn’t spending this last night alone.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Aboard the plane, it was chaos.

  Drake called Karin, asking her to warn anyone she trusted in New York that all hell was about to break loose. Hayden tried their friends in LA. Trent, Silk and Radford were busy mobilizing everyone they trusted, and trying to lessen the impact of attacks up and down the West Coast. Kinimaka liaised with those of Bryant’s staff who remained at work—finding a clear, private air strip near Manhattan. On any ordinary day they might be able to take a helicopter from there to a skyscraper helipad but, today, that was out of the question.

  As the plane zeroed into the landing strip, the team were too busy to buckle in. They worked.

  The plane touched down, bumped, skidded, and rumbled up the tarmac to a hangar where two large SUVs waited. It was early morning, before sunrise, making them all aware of the ticking clock as the pitch-black skies took on a lighter hue.

  “Who else can we warn?” Hayden asked as they hurried down the plane steps toward their vehicles.

  “We’ve done all we can,” Dahl said. “You can guarantee most of our warnings won’t get through, but those that do will save lives.”

  “How long to the center?” Drake asked Mano as the Hawaiian started the car and set off.

  “A solid hour,” he said, peering through the windscreen. “A little after sunrise.”

  Drake whipped his phone out and called Mai. “We should be there a couple of hours before the stock exchange opens.”

  “We’ll meet you on Broadway,” Mai said. “Where it meets Wall Street. Bring your guns.”

  “It’s a date,” Drake said, but she was already gone.

  All the roads into Manhattan were snarled with traffic. Police bikes stood at severa
l street corners and helicopters rattled overhead. It might be early, but the working crowd wanted an early start. The coffee shops were bustling, the patisseries overflowed. The incessant crosswalks held them up, allowing a thick flow of human traffic to cross every few minutes. They traversed Broad Street and by the time they were approaching Exchange Place, Kinimaka was searching for a parking spot.

  The sun had long since risen.

  Drake kept in touch with Mai.

  “Walking up and down Wall Street is not my idea of fun,” Alicia shouted down the phone. “Where are you guys? Did you stop to find Mai a date in Barney’s Pet Store?”

  Mai swiped the phone away. “Don’t listen to her. It’s all we can do to unglue her from Tiffany’s window.”

  Drake laughed at that, then found himself hoping Alicia hadn’t heard him.

  Kinimaka swerved into a parking spot, attracting a chorus of horns.

  Drake was out in seconds, staring down a brisk, cool wind and looking along the busy street.

  Hayden and the others jumped out, everyone shouldering backpacks which held their weapons and other gear. Hayden pointed the way ahead and they set off at a hurry, jogging along New Street toward Wall Street. Although Drake wasn’t totally savvy with New York’s street plan, he was surprised and pleased to notice that they were running alongside the Stock Exchange.

  The very place they’d come to protect.

  “How we doing?” he asked.

  “Eight thirty,” Hayden called back. “Don’t worry. We have time.”

  Yeah, he thought, but not a whole damn lot.

  They came around the side of the Stock Exchange, understanding now that it was a pedestrianized street. No traffic allowed. Ahead, Mai, Alicia and Bryant were waiting.

  “Nothing to be seen except tourists and wolves,” Alicia said as they approached. “Might be our terrorists’ day off.”

  Don’t bank on it, Drake was about to say but then realized his words might be taken as a very bad joke. Instead, he nodded at Alicia and then Mai. “You two get along okay?”

  Bryant’s sigh said it all. “Don’t even ask,” he said.

  Drake surveyed the street. Full of tourists with cameras, men with suits and briefcases, buildings flying the American flag, and people seated on a row of benches, drinking coffee and eating pastries. It was a snapshot of everyday American commerce.

  “What’s wrong with this picture?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Dahl said.

  “Exactly.”

  Drake hurried past the famous white edifice with its stone pillars in the direction of Wall Street itself. Looking right, he saw where the pedestrianized area began, and the road ended. “Surely,” he said, “it’s just Wall Street. The stock exchange is a hard target, but any attack along here will scream the headlines: Wall Street. It’s what the news outlets do. Dramatize for bucks and fuck the detail. We’re in the wrong place.”

  They started jogging, still not entirely sure. Drake was given a good vision of what Americans were currently experiencing as he ran. There was a sense of anxiety among the tourists even as they snapped their cameras. There was a feeling of urgency among the Wall Street types and a tendency to check in all directions.

  Cops patrolled both sides of the street, unsure what they were looking for, but enjoying the fact that they were out in force. An undercurrent of disquiet filled the wide spaces between concrete buildings. The bustle and energy of the big city continued unabated around it.

  Drake angled both hands above his eyes to block out the glare from the sun, gazing down the length of Wall Street. Not knowing what he was looking for, he was surprised to spot the anomaly almost immediately.

  “It’s the bikes, the bloody bikes,” he said.

  They were parked at an angle to the curb, all black—at least six that he could see, standing out against the vehicles around them. Every six meters, all the same, sharks hiding among a pod of dolphins. The sidewalks around them were packed, the road too. Drake checked his watch.

  09:02.

  “There’s no time,” he shouted, then took out his weapon and fired it into the air.

  Screams rang out and people ran. Spaces appeared on the sidewalk.

  Hayden fired her weapon, further scattering the crowd.

  Drake then took off toward the first pair of bikes just as they exploded.

  In savage synchronicity, the entire line of motorcycles blew up. The detonations were deep, reverberating through the ground as much as the air. Deadly metal shards tore forth, slamming into trash cans, brick walls and cars. A passing SUV was knocked over by the blast, tumbling onto its side. Many people, already running, were felled as the resounding explosion washed over them.

  Drake was blown backward off his feet. At first all he could see was sky. His vision clouded. A steady thrum rang in his ears. Alicia was at his side, sitting upright and shaking her head.

  Drake surveyed the damage. The bikes appeared to have been packed with a shaped charge, sending most of the blast toward the sidewalk. A monstruous act.

  Shattered windows and wrecked niches studded walls where the main blasts had hit. The bikes were smoldering ruins, the cars to either side of them crushed hulks.

  Drake heard the screams first, overcoming the ringing sound in his ears. A slap from Alicia helped. He stood up and gritted his teeth as the full horror of what had happened set in.

  “Move!” Hayden ran past.

  People were trapped in cars. More lay helpless on the sidewalk, caught under rubble. There were many bleeding, some badly who needed immediate attention. Drake’s action with the gun had saved countless lives, but the inevitable casualty toll was very apparent.

  And even though Drake and the others knew a primary blast was often used to draw defenders in to bear the brunt of a deadly secondary attack—and had experienced the tactic first-hand—he ran alongside his team into the thick of the destruction.

  Alicia found herself running with Bryant. Together, they reached the overturned SUV. Alicia concentrated on the occupants while Bryant warily eyed their surroundings, looking from adjacent cars to rooftops above.

  “How do you keep fighting? How do you do it? They could be anywhere. More bombs, guns. You name it. I don’t think I’m nearly as strong as you.”

  Alicia fixed her attention onto him. “The only way I can explain it is... have you had the training?”

  “Yeah, I was military trained.”

  “Then... if you haven’t had the training, you run. You don’t confront them. But if you have had the training, you fight. When you feel like running—fight.”

  Bryant joined her as she reached in through the SUV’s shattered front window and helped drag the driver to safety. They did the same for the passenger, escorting both people to the side of the road. Alicia noted that their wounds were superficial, mostly bruising and cuts, and pointed further along the street.

  “We go again,” she said. “See the woman trapped under the car?”

  Drake checked the wrecked vehicles closest to the blast, thankfully finding them empty, before casting his eyes further afield. The main thing he saw was a field of human suffering, people laid out by the blast, some unmoving, most groaning or crying out in pain.

  “This op is now a rescue mission,” he spoke into his comms. “We’re first on the scene. Make everyone as comfortable as you can before more cops get here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Hayden bent to her task as terrified cries filled the air.

  Kinimaka, at her side, dragged a man from under an overturned vehicle, wrapping his bleeding thigh with strips of his own jacket.

  Hayden hauled a woman from the gutter, noting a metal projectile sticking out of her leg, and careful to avoid making contact. Together, they made the couple as comfortable as battlefield bandaging allowed and then went in search of others.

  Hayden found a man with a broken arm, and used a discarded walking stick for a splint.

  Kinimaka helped a woman and her young son,
mercifully untouched, away from the row of burning cars and bikes.

  “A little help down here.” Mai and Kenzie were dealing with a trio of bankers, their suits ripped by flying debris, their faces bloodied. Hayden and Kinimaka hurried over to them.

  Together, the SPEAR team picked their way down Wall Street, saving lives by acting fast. They were joined by a doctor and a nurse, both affected by the explosion but not hurt. Hayden worked as quickly as she could. Their mission had to be put on hold for now. Those affected by the terrorist attack came first.

  Wall Street was a long stretch of devastation. Debris flew and tumbled through the air, at first so thick it blocked out some of the light. Toxic black smoke plumed through it, bending away over the rooftops, snatched by gusts of wind. The familiar hum and bustle of New York came to an abrupt stop.

  Hayden welcomed more helpers. Sirens cut the air, not far away now. Drake had found a coffee shop that had been devastated, the walls and door shielding its occupants from the brunt of the blast but not all of it.

  Hayden ran over. Drake was already inside, passing those that weren’t hurt badly to Alicia by the doorway. Hayden took people off Alicia and assisted them to Kinimaka, who half-carried them across the road.

  When Kinimaka left, Dahl took his place, assisting the next casualty, and then Cam and Shaw. It was bloody, dirty work.

  Bryant crawled from one victim to the next, patching them up in preparation for the arriving ambulance crews.

  Further down Wall Street, Kenzie pulled a man out from under a pile of rubble with the doctor’s help.

  Hayden kept a constant eye on their surroundings. The blast would be enough to grab international headlines, but she didn’t put it past the Scourge to heap more misery upon the scene. Ambulances were approaching, their lights flashing. Hayden stepped out, shielding her eyes against the rising sun.

  She counted five ambulances in a line, maneuvering their way along Wall Street, and held her breath. She wanted to run toward them, to warn them, to speak to someone in authority through her comms system and tell them to hold back.