Read Matt Drake 07 - Blood Vengeance Online
Authors: David Leadbeater
The supersonic roar of a jet-fighter, a Raptor, boomed like God’s own thunder across the valley, shaking the very mountains. With a whoosh like an ocean boiling, the first missile was loosed, scoring a direct hit on the first chopper, causing a mid-air explosion. The second missile destroyed the second chopper a moment later; fire, machinery, flesh and bone thrown skyward and straight down to the ground.
Drake suddenly found himself in a hellfire battle. Charred bodies and burning chunks of metal rained down all around him and his team. Boulder-sized chunks of jagged metal delved into the earth. A huge intact rotor blade slammed against the tiled roof directly above them and started to slide down, still spinning faster than the eye could follow.
“Move!”
Drake hurled his battered body from under the roof, dragging Komodo with him. Alicia and Dahl hurtled clear. The Blood King slipped and fell, directly in the path of the onrushing rotor blade.
At the last second, Smyth audibly cursed, reached down and scooped Kovalenko up; the Delta man running and dodging deadly debris, all but dragging the Blood King with him. The rotor smashed into the ground, crunching its blades. Deadly shards sheared away in the collision. Drake heard the sonic boom of the Raptors coming around and the shouts of the American commander to say all was well on the ground.
All
’s well? Are you fucking kidding me?
Drake looked up, still dodging and ducking as death rained from the skies. The bulk of both choppers
now crashed down into the courtyard with an almighty noise, not exploding but sending out another wave of compressed machine and body parts.
Drake staggered as the shockwave struck, shielding his face with his arm and turning away. Something hard glanced off his Kevlar vest, leaving yet another bruise; something soft and wet collided with his leg. He didn’t look down. A spray of tiny objects spattered past, at last leaving a vacuum in their wake.
Only a burning hell remained, but it was now a safer hell. Drake turned to see where Smyth and the Blood King had landed.
“Looks like you got to the gates of Hell twice, Kovalenko.”
The Blood King grinned back at him.
“Which one of you assholes dies first, hey?”
Drake goggled and listened to the rest of the team’s simultaneous curses. Somehow the Blood King had wrenched away from Smyth, found a pistol, and was now holding it against the soldier’s head. His body was almost entirely concealed by Smyth’s bulk and he had positioned his back against a soot-smeared, half-crumbled wall.
Drake let out a long breath. “Jesus Christ, Kovalenko, don’t you know when you should just
die?”
“Death
does not scare me.”
Alicia came to stand beside Drake. “It’s over,” she said with an uncharacteristic softness in her voice. “You are well and truly done.”
“Perhaps. But my Vendetta will live on. I take as many of you with me as I can, and then
she
will—”
The Raptor boomed overhead for the last time, drowning out Kovalenko’s next words.
Drake met Smyth’s eyes. The soldier was ready for any instruction, letting his body stay relaxed and loose. The gun barrel wavered not an inch from his right eye. It was going to be almost impossible to save Smyth’s life.
Kinimaka whispered from the rear. “I have the bastard in my sights.”
The approaching army ground to a stop as its commander saw the situation. The man crouched and waved some of his men forward. Each one took careful aim. The commander spoke quietly into his comms.
The crackling of many fires, the groans of injured men, and the soft warping of overheated metal were the only sounds. The castle was lit by a silvery moon and savage flame. Once more, time stood still.
Drake took a step forward.
“You have done enough damage. Kovalenko, your name will become the staple word for dishonor.
For infamy. Your fame? It will be meaningless.”
“You think I did it all for fame?”
“Course you did,” Alicia said. “You’re a damn psycho bird.”
“And I had plan for you, Myles.
A great one. You were to be my masterpiece. I would take you and break you. Lock you away in dark place for many years. And when hardships of my life got me down, I would look at what you once were, and what you had become. A broken shell. You would have been my object lesson, the example for any future potential traitors.”
Alicia looked sideways at Drake. “He really has to die.”
“Wow, I’d almost forgotten you used to work for this freak. You didn’t . . .?” Drake raised an eyebrow suggestively.
“I worked for him for a couple of hours.” Alicia sniffed.
“Doesn’t really count. And
no!
I don’t shag everyone I work for, you know.”
Drake grunted. “I bloody well hope not. We’re working for the President right now.”
All the while the two were drifting closer.
“Stop!”
Kovalenko cried. “Stop with that moving right now! You think I am stupid? Eh?”
Alicia was in the middle of a dirty laugh.
“C’mon BK. I’m in the middle of a fantasy about the Oval Office here.”
Then Drake suddenly did stop. A thought had occurred to him, one both the SPEAR team and th
e American government really needed an answer to.
“Someone helped you secure that drone, Kovalenko. Give us a clue.”
The Blood King took a moment to decipher Drake’s accent, then smiled slyly. “A new player has entered the game. And with a plan even I found intriguing. Unfortunately though,” he grunted, “I can’t join the New Order or the quest for Pandora.”
Drake thought about that as his feet inched forward again.
Kovalenko ground the barrel of the gun into Smyth’s temple. When blood began to flow, both Drake and Alicia stopped. They had drawn their guns and were mere feet away.
“Who dies?” Drake whispered hotly. “Live or die, K
ovalenko. Who lives or dies today?”
The Blood King sneered. His finger tightened on the trigger. Drake felt his own finger pulling back. Smyth closed his eyes.
The world paused.
The gunshot, when it came, startled everyone. The noise was a harsh explosion that destroyed the menacing silence. Karin screamed. The marine commander let out a loud curse. Kinimaka fell to his knees in exhausted acceptance.
“Oh no.”
Smyth slumped to the side. Drake reacted instantly, shouting abuse at the Blood King. His finger was a hair’s breadth from discharging the bullet.
The Blood King stared back at him stupidly, shocked. No bullet his come from his gun.
Drake felt shock hit him like a blazing RPG.
The shot hadn’t come from Kovalenko’s gun!
In fact, it hadn’t come at all. Smyth’s eyes suddenly flew open, his face twisting into a stupid grin. In that instant Drake knew the noise had come from Smyth’s authentic sounding gunshot message tone, and he absolutely knew who the sender was.
Mai!
She had saved Smyth’s life and served the Blood King up on a platter all the way from Tokyo.
Now
that
was legendary.
Drake
fired, shooting the gun out of Kovalenko’s hand. Alicia sent the next one through his collarbone. Two more came from the marines, the first blasting half his thigh away, the next hitting below the hip. The man slumped. Smyth scrambled away. Drake stooped and hauled Kovalenko up as blood fountained high from the major artery in his thigh, a fitting spectacle for a man with so much red on his hands.
Kinimaka rose to his feet. “Fu
ck this shit, I’m calling the hospital.”
“That message?” Drake nodded to Smyth. “You should
friggin’ frame it. Saved your life.”
“I know.”
Drake crouched down and took hold of the Blood King’s heavy jacket. “God, I hope you’re not dead yet,” he said.
Consciousness still swam in the Blood King’s eyes. That, and a little bit of disbelief, a ton of hatred and hostility, and beneath it all—
still a terrible unyielding purpose.
“Just this once,” Drake said point-blank into his face. “I hope there is a hell and the Devil makes you his bitch.”
“Not . . . over.” Kovalenko faltered. “On my . . . death.
She
alone finishes the Vendetta.”
Drake pulled back. “What?”
“Goodbye. I will see you in Hell soon enough.”
Drake shook the man hard. Kovalenko’s eyes closed as his blood gushed into the sand. Drake cursed and shook him again, slapped his face. He couldn’t believe that
now
he was trying to keep the Blood King alive.
Alicia placed a hand on his shoulder. “He’s gone. Thank God.”
“No,” Drake said. He slapped Kovalenko again. “You didn’t hear—”
The Blood King’s eyes opened wide. He took a deep rasping breath. “If I see any of your dead friends on my travels,” he rasped. “I’ll be sure to fuck them up.”
Drake’s jaw locked. He couldn’t speak. How could so much hatred and enmity come from one mind? Even in death.
“She will come for you,” Kovalenko said quite clearly. “You see, Zoya gave me her details.
Now Coyote will fulfill the Vendetta.”
Drake didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. There were many pros and cons swirling around a
ny new contact with the Coyote. “We will stand together,” he said. “She is but one person. We are a family.”
“Not with the plan she made.” The Blood King let out a final death rattle.
“The Kitano woman. Myles. The Swede. And you, Drake. You four will have to kill
each other.”
Then he died.
Mai caught up with Hibiki near the bright sprawling Sony stand. There the sheer volume of people would make it very difficult for anyone to keep track of her. The charade with Hikaru would give her a few hours grace, no more. Hopefully the Clan were still egotistical enough to assume she would carry out their every order. If they weren’t, and they were here, she had a plan B for that too.
Mai pushed her way into the crowd. Hibiki was leaning over a PS4. “Did you get what you needed?”
Mai gave him a look.
“Sorry. Of course you did.
Silly of me to ask. So it’s time to light the fire?”
Mai dragged him away from the new console and toward the exit door. “Light the fire. Call the boys. Ready the men, we’ll be going in hard, dirty and hot.”
“Sometimes I forget how much fun working with you can be.”
Mai paused as they entered the Tokyo sunshine. She dug out her phone and sent a quick text off to Gyuki.
It’s done. I will wait to hear from you.
As she started to walk away, she remembered the picture Hibiki had taken earlier, the one she wanted to tease Smyth with. She lined the message up. With her finger on the send button she suddenly paused.
Tease? Really?
No, not really. She just wanted to make his day. She felt sorry for the hot-tempered soldier and even more so now that his pal, Romero, was dead. She didn’t love Drake any less, but she was still her own woman and would do some things as she fancied.
Decision made, she hit the send button.
Job done.
Hope it helps.
Hibiki walked away from her. Mai flagged down a taxi and gave the driver an area outside Tokyo to start with. Once there, she would refine the directions. Hibiki and her old friends—the guys from the agency who still cared for her and wanted to see this thing through to the very end—would be following.
Mai relaxed as the taxi negotiated the strangled roads of central Tokyo. It took over an hour to gain the countryside, and by that time she had switched off her phone and was able to immerse herself in a clear stream of thoughts, all the way down to her core.
A bitter homecoming to be sure.
The fight of her life, and something she had to see through if she was ever going to break free of her bonds, both mental and physical. Memories of that far gone day still came at her like killers ambushing her in a thick jungle. Hellish memories.
The old man smil
es as he comes to take me away. The generous benefactor. The predator.
I
whirl, turn back to my mother and see the tears washing down from her eyes.
The old man peel
s me away, hands like sandpaper. I strain every ounce of my body towards my parents as I’m dragged away.
The emptiness.
The longing. The new broken thing that aches inside my body. And then . . .
. . .
and then—the forgetting.
The old man, Bishamon, and Gyuki in particular had to pay for the atrocities they had committed in this country, at the clan home and around the world. The innocent victims, those still living and
those long dead, needed some kind of recompense.
Mai paid the taxi driver and sent him on his way. By her judgment, she was about two miles away from the village. The woods looked inviting, and Mai followed the gentle curve of a trickling brook, enjoying the dappling of sunlight on her face and the fresh scented breeze. Without dawdling, she used the journey to still the center of her being and to cleanse her soul. Her passage disturbed several animals, rabbits, mice, rats. She saw them all. Her concentration levels had never been higher.
The tree line ended up against a rough wooden fence. Beyond that, Mai saw the village as she had seen it recently, and long ago. It had barely changed, the only additions being the extra billet and the jail. She could hear the sound of chanting and assumed most of the ‘students’ were sitting around the fighting arena, watching bouts and demonstrations given by the masters. Mai touched the crude fence and pulled some stakes from the ground. She ducked through the gap, feeling the soft forest loam give beneath her shoes. She took a last look up at the clear blue skies.
This could be the last time she breathed freely.
Or breathed at all. She had enjoyed the operation at the Game Show. She had enjoyed the attention. She loved the attention that Smyth gave her, and especially Drake.
Because it made her feel alive.
And free.
Free.
And if I lose my freedom I will find a way to die.
Today.
Mai crossed the open grassland, stopping only when she came up against the second long billet. She risked a peek through a nearby window. The long hall was empty, the beds neatly made, the floors swept and washed. She could use this wall to mask her progress to the top end of the village. It might be useful to let Hibiki know her plan, but she had turned her phone off.
Never mind. He’s clever enough to figure it out.
She hoped so. If not for her sake or for his, then for Chika’s.
Mai raced ahead. She reached the top end of the billet in seconds and peered around its ragged edge. The logs it was made of smelled earthy and damp. Across the way stood the small dwellings of the clan
chiefs, and past them the low prison building. Almost directly ahead stood the ornate temple, Bishamon’s lair, but standing before it now was something completely new.
A thick pole, dug and hammered into the ground, and tied to it a figure wrapped in a ragged assortment of dirty clothes, head hanging and seemingly left to rot.
Mai felt a jolt of dreadful memory strike her. It was as if the clock had turned back two decades and more. The person tied to the pole could have been her, many years ago. That person, she knew from experience, had somehow insulted the Clan. Maybe they had refused orders or struck a colleague out of turn. Maybe they had not listened hard enough. Maybe, if it was a girl, they had refused Gyuki’s nightmare offer.
I will fight you for your body. Winner takes all.
Now Mai felt rage rise like molten magma. The eruption was about to hit, and it would raze this village to the ground.
She launched herself forward, taking no chances and ignoring the tied body for now. Her timing was perfect. Shouts sprang up from the fighting square, shouts which signified Hibiki’s arrival. Mai cleared the temple steps in a single bound and yanked down on the heavy door handle. She pushed and a wedge of darkness was revealed, a path to the inner demon. Mai took the invite and stepped inside, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the gloom. The wooden floor was highly polished and bordered by a square of flickering candles.
Bishamon’s voice rang out hard and cold. “Remove your shoes before entering the temple of the Tsugarai.”
“I am here for my parents.
And for you too. If you want my shoes . . . you come and take them.”
Bishamon rose to his feet, now an old man with long straggling hair and brown wrinkled skin. Mai saw no change in his physical appearance. It was his attitude toward her that was now out in the open. Before, he had always been the kindly granddad, the accommodating benefactor.
“Then you will die today, Mai Kitano.”
“Oh, how you have changed. Oh, how my clear understanding now makes your true colors shine through. The deeds you do are steeped in evil, old Master. The Devil will judge
you.
”
“How dare you?” Bishamon spluttered, coming across the candlelit square. As he walked, his robes flapped around his bare scrawny ankles, and white spittle flew from his chapped lips. “History has already judged me. I am seventy years old. Did God strike me down? No. Did the Devil send his Grim Reaper? No. My boot heels grind bone when they pass through forest and dojo and city street, Mai Kitano. That is the way of masters.”
“You are no God, Bishamon. Just a pitiless, loveless, bitter old man. The world will not miss you nor ever remember you.”
“Be as it may,” Bishamon whispered. “I will have your shoes.
One way . . . or another.”
Mai had known she would be wasting her time, but she had to try. She would not hurt this man without an offer of repentance, no matter the suffering he had sanctioned. But now that offer was past its expiration date.
“For what you did to me. For what you made me. For the childhood you stole from an eight-year-old girl. For the love you ripped from my arms forever. I give you . . . this.”
And she leaped like a lion, a tiger,
a vengeful warrior of legend; faster than even the old master’s eye could follow. Her flying kick took her across the flickering candles, across the polished square, finishing when the toe of her lead foot smashed Bishamon’s windpipe into pulp. The old master’s hands flew up, but he was already falling, already choking, already dead.
Mai spat on his cooling corpse.
“For all the innocence you have ever destroyed. For all the pure children you have corrupted. You will never get the chance again.”
And then she turned away, tears falling like rain from her eyes. Vengeance was never pretty, and it was hardly ever fulfilling. It never achieved its purpose, never reclaimed the things you had lost. But it was all she could take, and this entire mission had been about achieving it.
She kicked over all the candles and watched the floor set alight. She turned as if in a dream and walked over to the doors. She left the temple behind, a bad memory, her past finally overcome, avenged and erased.
Outside, the scene had changed. The body was still tied to the pole, but beyond it the village arena was in uproar. Hibiki had brought the boys all right, and every one of them was tooled up to the max, fully-vested even as far as face masks, and all were aware that even one of th
ese tricky little Ninja warriors could take out a dozen men. Guns were trained on the students and their chiefs with unwavering dedication, primed to fire, and the highly trained professionalism of the Japanese special agency shone through.
Off the books mission, my ass,
Mai thought. Seeing this, it was clear that Hibiki had offered the big dogs the Tsugarai, and they had chomped off not only his hand but his entire arm.
But they still couldn’t have done it without her.
Or the sad death of a father and money launderer called
Hayami.
Mai’s attention receded as the body tied to the pole struggled. It was time now for Mai to confront the younger version of
herself and hope this person had not been corrupted beyond saving. She moved around the pole.
“Hi. You’re safe now. It’s over.”
The face came up, clearly Japanese and covered in dirt, blood and streaks of sweat. The black hair was matted, clumpy and stuck to the sides of her face. She looked to be young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and the look of hope which totally transformed her face lifted the shackles from Mai’s heavy heart.
“What’s your name, pretty one?”
“I am Grace. It’s Grace. But—”
Mai had questions, but didn’t want to ask them here. The sooner they got the victims away from this place, the sooner they could start to heal. “We’ll talk,” she said. “Later.”
“Look out!”
The shriek saved her life, but it wasn’t just the scream, it was the raw, unadulterated terror behind it.
The hammered-in mortal fear that the attacker inspired.
Gyuki came at Mai
with everything he had: punching, kicking, spinning and leg-sweeping. Mai took two heavy blows in the first four seconds and found herself reaching for that calm spring inside which focused her being. What she needed was something to give Gyuki pause, to make him doubt. He truly believed, possibly correctly, that he was the world’s greatest warrior. A man like that could win with brash confidence alone, but he could be shattered to a shadow of himself if he was made to sense doubt.
Mai spun away. “Bishamon is dead,” she breathed. “What will you do now?”
Gyuki flicked a glance at the burning temple. “I will survive.”
“The outside world will not accept a man like you.”
“It will have to.”
Gyuki sprang, executing a double front-kick. Mai caught both strikes on the palms of her hands and skipped back. Gyuki came in low, spinning and sweeping, but Mai hopped over the extended leg and came down hard as it flashed by.
The sole of her boot smashed his knee, drawing out a grimace of pain. Mai grinned. “I am better than you now. The best. Haven’t you heard?”
Gyuki suddenly stopped in his tracks, surprising her. “So you have accepted the invite?”
Mai narrowed her eyes in utter confused. “What?”
“You have accepted?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This pro
posed tournament in the UK. It is all everyone talks about. Even the Clan received an invite. For me, of course. I will go. Some of the greatest warriors, fighters and military people on the planet are taking part. Others,” he eyed Mai speculatively, “Are not being given any choice.”
Mai shook her head in bemusement. “Assembled by
who?”