The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake 6) (6 page)

It took all day Thursday for the team to prepare. Dahl constantly chomped at the bit. Hayden worked wonders through Jonathan Gates with the Russian government. Having already acquired a chopper and weapons, she further smoothed the path by getting the Russians to admit they would rather see the jail obliterated off the map than not – it would rid them of part of the blight that was Nikolai Razin.

But the chopper had to be American made. The arms had to be American. It was all to guard the Minister of Defense’s back, and it wasted valuable time, but was extremely necessary. Karin kept in touch and watched several areas via satellite feed, all the time fine-tuning her tech from Washington, preparing to be their ‘all-seeing-eyes’ when they assaulted the jail.

Alicia was ready within minutes of their arrival, and spent the next several hours texting Lomas and keeping herself upbeat by insulting almost everyone who came within three feet of her. The only person she gave a pass to was Mai – the Japanese woman seemed uncharacteristically anxious not only about Drake, but about something from her past too. She mentioned it briefly to Alicia –
the Clan is looking for me –
but Alicia didn’t know enough about Mai’s life to heed the first signs of onrushing calamity.

Kinimaka watched it all from the back of the room, offering advice where he could. When Hayden started to look overburdened, her jaw clenched and shoulders tense, he eased over to her and took her outside for a break. When Torsten Dahl appeared a few feet away, phone to his ear, saying what sounded like a
‘hope to speak soon but can’t be too sure’ speech to his wife and kids, Kinimaka moved away. When Alicia beckoned him over he listened to her talk about the biker gang as if they were her newfound family – and he smiled. It was good that she had found a semblance of home; at least until she decided it was time to move on.

And when the phones were dumped into their cradles and all calls ended; when the quiet of anticipation fell like a soft, frayed blanket; when the team – the family – looked to each other and prepared for one of the biggest assaults of their lives, Mano Kinimaka took a second to send his mother a last simple text.

Love you.

Drake heard the sound of approaching helicopters as he
lay waiting atop the concrete block that was his bed. It was early morning. His eyes were closed, but sleep had never been so far away. He was waiting for this moment; that sound.

The
whump, whump
of the approaching choppers took him back a few months to the start of all the current madness where, in York, he had simply been photographing models at a catwalk show.
Those were the days,
he mused.

But now Mai was back in his life, the beat of his heart restored, and even now she was on her way to pull his arse out of the mire. He jumped up, checked that the shiv was still down his sock, and moved next to the bars. Somehow, he didn
’t think this was one of those prisons that would stay locked down during a raid. The inmates would be called upon to help defend it.

Razin
’s rules.

The noise increased. Prisoners across the aisle from Drake leaned out of their cell doors, arms waving, faces pressed between the bars. The choppers drew closer. The men began to shout. Drake thought the team might breach through the exercise yard wall or the kitchen area. They wouldn
’t risk blowing out any wall that ran anywhere near a cell. They wouldn’t go through the front door. This was strictly smash and grab.

Which brought him to his first problem.
Yorgi.
He hoped the waif-like thief had heard the tumult by now and was standing ready, maybe even using the roof space to creep nearer to Drake’s cell, but he couldn’t be sure of it. So when the cell doors opened with the sound of a large bolt shooting back, he waited a moment for the aisle to clear, then slipped quickly away from his room. Following silently in the wake of the last man, he descended the stairs and circumvented the gym area whilst trying to ignore the shrill complaints of his bruised body. Rotor blades thudded just beyond the walls, the sound unmistakable now to even the oldest and most inexperienced ears. The team was landing.

Drake ran. Gunfire sounded from outside the walls. Inmates ran to the exercise yard door, but it was locked. Someone shouted for one of the guards to open it. A man recogni
zed Drake and stepped in front, but ended up on his back, nose askew, to sleep out the rest of the day. Drake’s eyes unceasingly sought his target, but Yorgi made no appearance. He raced into the meeting room and beyond into the bright corridor. Two men stood up ahead, blocking his way, a guard and a prisoner quietly conversing.

“Here he is,” the guard said in English.
“His friend. Get him.”

Drake never slowed. He used his momentum to drop and slide across the polished floor, swinging his legs as he got close to the prisoner, sending him crumpling to the floor. When he landed, Drake had already relieved the guard of his baton. He spun once, taking the guard out with a blow across the forehead and the prisoner out with a strike to the back of the neck.

Then he was speeding off again, approaching the end of the corridor. He ran down to Yorgi’s room and saw the destroyed roof tiles, pipes and aluminum framing scattered across the floor.

Someone had found Yorgi and pulled him out of his secret home.

Drake swore. Where would they take him? Was he, Drake, to blame? He searched the floor for any sign of blood or something he could use as a weapon. He picked up one of the steel pipes – a prison weapon if ever he saw one. Footsteps thundered by outside the door, guards rushing so fast that they didn’t see him. Drake walked to the frame and listened.

Muffled shouts reached his ears, the sound of a man begging for mercy behind a closed door.
The standard prison echo,
he thought, but this voice sounded a lot like Yorgi’s.

Drake rushed out, listening hard, pinpointing the noise as coming from behind the fifth door down. A rushing sound accompanied the screams, a sound Drake had heard before.

Oh shit.

He barged into the room, letting the door smash back against the wall. Three men whirled at the sound, one of them holding a wide, industrial hose. Yorgi sat against the rear wall, drenched, whimpering, gasping for breath. They had been trying to drown him standing up.

Drake ran hard. The hose whipped and exploded with a thick stream aimed at his legs. Drake jumped through the torrent, bringing the pipe down on a man’s nose before lashing it left across a second man’s mouth. Both screamed and bent double, holding their heads in their hands. Drake dropped the pipe and grabbed the hands of the man holding the hose, forcing the brass handle down between his legs. He let go and immediately the hose, unconstrained, began to skip and jerk like a ferocious snake. Drake jabbed the man in the solar plexus before finishing him with a rigid windpipe strike. He ran across to Yorgi.

“Hey, hey, you alright?”

The saturated man looked up. “I have had worse beatings.”

“Bloody great.”
Drake extended a hand. “Trust me. I do keep my word.”

****

They sprinted back up the glaring corridor, Yorgi squelching and shivering with every step. Drake slowed as they reached the far door and put an arm out to stop Yorgi.

“Wait.”

He peered into the room. It was empty, but through the open door at the far end he could see right into the mess hall. Pandemonium reigned. Prisoners scurried haphazardly past the opening; shouting, gesticulating and fighting each other. A great huddle of them suddenly fell backwards, tripping over feet and twisting to crawl away. Drake heard a loud explosion before brick dust and shrapnel flew in a razor-edged cloud across the mess room.

“Now!”

Drake pulled Yorgi along. The sound of gunfire exploded from ahead. Prisoners twisted, spurting blood, as they charged forward. Drake paused for a second at the entrance to the mess hall, then walked out into full view, hands in the air.

Don
’t shoot me,
he silently intoned.
Please . . .

“Matt!”

Mai’s shout came on the heels of Dahl’s cheer and just before Alicia’s expletive. The three soldiers knelt among a pile of rubble, rifles tucked firmly into their shoulders, a ragged, crumbling hole at their backs where the door to the yard used to be. Some of the prisoners recognized Drake and charged at him. The guns bucked and men skidded to his feet, already dead.

Drake ran hard, pulling Yorgi along. Mai and Alicia covered his sprint as Dahl turned to check their own retreat. A shout sounded from somewhere behind Drake. He whipped his head
around and saw a spectacular sight. The whole crowd of prisoners – mostly Razin’s men – hurtling toward him in a rag-tag wedge. Not a man amongst them wanted to have to explain to Zanko why they hadn’t tried to prevent Matt Drake’s escape.

Drake reached his friends. Mai and Alicia, and now Dahl, fired around him, felling prisoners with leg and body shots so that they tripped up the men following behind. Some
hurdled their fallen comrades, brandishing an assortment of weapons from plastic trays to improvised shanks; others swung knotted bed sheets full of rocks.

“Go!” Drake shouted.

“Nice to see you too!” Alicia shouted back, carefully squeezing shots off as the mob closed in. Drake ran through them, letting them cover his back, out into the exercise yard. A crazy scene met his eyes.

A military chopper had landed in the yard, amidst prison vehicles and storage sheds. The rotors were still spinning, as was the barrel of the nose cannon, having fired a burst at the prison
’s main entrance where most of the guards were situated. The fence was down, a clear escape route showed right to the helicopters door. But the guards in their towers and their wired-off perches still took pot shots.

Drake whirled. “You guys bring me a gun?”

Dahl skidded to a halt beside him. “This is a quick extraction. We have no intentions of inducing a shoot out!”

“You
’re taking the piss.” Drake pointed at the guard towers. “They’re all yours, Dahl.”

He ran hard, staying low, heaving Yorgi firmly behind him. At first
, bullets peppered the dirt around his feet, but, after a few well-placed shots from Dahl, the volleys soon stopped. Drake exited the fenced area. Both Mai and Alicia backed out of the ragged hole. Alicia threw a small device back into the prison and shouted,
“Run!”

Drake put his head down. An explosion sounded behind him, and
, when he slipped a glance that way, he saw a cloud of fire stretching up and billowing out, Mai, Dahl and Alicia framed by the flames, sprinting hard, guns still firmly at their shoulders and searching for targets, faces set as grim and hard as he’d ever seen.

The chopper came up quick. Hayden and Kinimaka stared down at him. Gunshots peppered the windshield and bounced off. Drake saw Hayden finessing the cyclic stick as he clambered aboard.

Yorgi made a wet sound as he plumped down on to the seat beside him.

The chopper lifted off, barely giving the other three enough time to jump aboard. Dahl was the last, making an athletic leap to grab hold of one of the skids, then crouching and leaping again in an instant, gun swinging, like a world-class free runner.

Drake stared. “Nice.”

“New hobby.”

“I meant the rescue.”

“Oh, well, you
’re welcome. Couldn’t leave you out here on your own to be horribly tortured.”

“Dahl,” Alicia said, “hasn
’t stop pacing up and down since we got here. I think he loves you, Drakey.”

“Bog off.”

Dahl reddened.

“And thanks to you too, Alicia.” Drake let himself relax for just a moment as the chopper continued to rise.

“You know, they just had to say words like
guns
and
explosions
to get me here.”

Drake turned to Mai. “Hey—”

Just then Hayden screamed,
“Oh no, dammit! They’ve got a fu—”

A massive explosion shook the chopper as the rocket propelled grenade struck the chopper
’s undercarriage. The helicopter immediately spun out of control.

Kinimaka shouted out what was already clear,
“Hold on! We’re going down!”

Drake grabbed hold of a restraint strap with his left hand, and pushed Yorgi firmly back into his seat with the other. He saw Hayden fighting the collective, Kinimaka leaning across to help by adding his own strength, as the sky flicked around and around like a crazy kaleidoscope.

“Ow!” Drake smashed his head against the bulkhead. Aware that the ground was rushing up, he held on even tighter and yelled, “Where’s the spare guns, for fuck’s sake!”

The chopper slammed down hard, the sickening crunch of its buckling skids giving them a millisecond to prepare before the belly of the machine struck concrete. The impact sent Alicia tumbling, smashing her head against a seat back. Mai and Dahl held on, but crashed into each other. Drake protected Yorgi with a grip like a band of steel.

As the chopper came to rest, Hayden immediately unbuckled and climbed out of her seat. “Hurry!” Both she and Kinimaka took up weapons and opened the cockpit doors, quickly establishing positions as guards came running forward.

Alicia groaned as blood seeped from her scalp down her forehead. Drake crouched beside her. “Can you focus? Can I borrow your gun?”

“Piss off!”

Dahl threw open the side door, reaching into a lockbox as he did so. “Spare weapons and mags in there, Drake. Help yourself. You might want to arm your new friend
, too.”

The Swede jumped down, followed by Mai. Drake delved into the lockbox. Alicia jumped out the other
side, backing up Hayden. Guards ran at them from the entrance of the prison building, using the cover provided by several sheds and vehicles along the way. Prisoners had crossed over the breach in the wall by now and were again massing for a charge.

“We don
’t have much time!” Hayden yelled. “Anyone got a plan?”

Dahl shouted above the din.
“This way!”

Drake picked an M4 assault rifle, slightly out of date perhaps
, but a great weapon, and handed Yorgi a SIG Pro semi-automatic pistol. “Make sure it’s loaded and grab some spare ammo.” Drake readied himself at the door, prepping the M4.

“Ready?”

Yorgi nodded.

Drake jumped, landing a foot behind Dahl. Bullets fizzed all around the stranded chopper, even skimming off the concrete and the tiny spaces underneath the machine. Yorgi landed awkwardly and Drake steadied the man before he tripped headlong. Mai sent sporadic bursts at the walls over the prisoner
’s heads, shattering the concrete and showering them with hard shards. Dahl made sure they all saw where he was pointing.

“There.”

He took off, staying low. Drake quickly searched the inmate crowd for signs of Zanko or Razin, but saw nothing. He waited as Mai slipped past him and he saw Hayden, Kinimaka and Alicia running their way. He turned and followed the mad Swede, making a bee-line for a big, green Ukrainian built KrAZ truck. The behemoth was a six wheeler, with an open back partly covered with a tarpaulin that strapped into hooks situated all along the truck’s high, steel sides.

Perfect for deflecting bullets.

Dahl clambered up into the high cab, whooping with delight when he found that the truck was already idling. Drake reasoned that his team’s helicopter arrival had interrupted some kind of delivery and the driver was long gone.

The team climbed aboard, two in the cab and the rest in the truck bed, sitting with their backs against the solid sides. Dahl pumped the accelerator and shifted gears, wincing as the mechanism made a deep, angry grinding sound.

Alicia sat beside him. “It ain’t your wife, Dahl. You can’t smooch the damn thing into submission. Give it some fuckin’ wellie.”

Dahl rammed the gear lever home and stepped on the pedals. The truck roared and lurched forward. Diesel smoke belched from the exhausts. Bullets pinged and bounced off the sides as the guards rounded the stranded chopper. Dahl trod on the accelerator and turned the wheel, aiming for the prison gates.

He slammed the back panel. “Gatehouse!”

A trio of guards already stood outside, aiming their weapons as the truck roared toward them. Mai and Drake stood up in the back and let loose on full auto. Two of the guards twisted and
fell, the third ran like a spooked rabbit. When the truck slowed, Drake jumped to the ground and ran, using the enormous wheels as shelter, before smashing his way into the gatehouse where he searched a wall-mounted, gray console. The commands were written in Russian, but there were only two significant buttons. One red, the other green.

He hit the green one, heard the satisfying crunch and saw movement as the gates swung inward, and climbed back into the truck as it began to pick up speed. As he paused atop the sides he cursed. “Bastards are chasing us.”

****

The heavy truck rumbled and roared as it bounced and crashed its way through the prison gates and on to a rough-and-ready road. Dahl fought the wheel at every turn. Alicia checked the side mirrors to gauge the pursuit.

“Three trucks, a little Land Rover type thing and a kind of mini-pickup. Drake would probably know the makes, models and street value.” She smiled tightly.

Dahl was wracking his memory. “You remember the map? If we branch off up the road ahead we come to
Zalinsk – the empty town?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Dahl swung the wheel hard when the turn came up, sending the truck jouncing along an even bumpier road and his teammates sprawling across the truck’s bed. Through the subsequent yelling, Dahl uttered the quiet words, “Apologies people.”

They crested a muddy rise. The town of
Zalinsk lay in a shallow depression, nothing more than an unsystematic jumble of buildings, many now open to the elements as the place had been abandoned for so long. With the pursuing vehicles only a half mile behind, Dahl set off down the slope only a little faster than was safe. When the truck hit the bottom he aimed it at the middle of two of the nearest buildings and hauled on the brakes when it had effectively blocked the road.

“Pile out!”

Dahl hit the dirt first, Alicia a step behind. Drake scaled the truck’s sides and flipped himself over the top, then waited for Yorgi. Mai landed deftly beside him.

“Who is your new friend, Matt?”

“Prisoner. Thief. Informer. Entrepreneur. It’s good to see you, Mai.”

“It will get even better when we reach civili
zation.” Mai smiled demurely, then raced off through the open door of a nearby building, heading for the roof. The pursuing convoy was already thundering down the slope, some of the guards taking hopeless potshots. Drake followed Mai as Hayden and Kinimaka aimed for a nearby structure, the big man as usual ensuring he was the screen between his boss and the line of fire. Drake thought that Hayden was so used to his routine, she barely noticed it anymore.

Gunfire cracked from the rooftop. Drake saw the lead truck
’s windshield shatter and had an idea. “Yorgi, wait behind me.” He pointed.

Sinking to his knees, he took aim with the sturdy M4. The sights lined up and he squeezed off a flurry of bullets. The lead truck lurched and swerved as the driver-side t
ire exploded, veering off the road and bouncing rapidly down a sharp hill. Drake imagined the men being flung around inside the truck bed much more vigorously than he had been, and saluted with the rifle when he saw two of them thrown so high they were tossed over the side.

His teammates all opened fire. The second two vehicles ground to a halt, their occupants scrambling out and either finding cover or rushing around the back. Drake stayed where he was for the moment.

Then four guards poked their heads into sight. One exploded instantly, a splash of red being the only testament that he’d been there at all. The other three leveled rocket launchers.

Drake ducked and threw himself into the dirt as missiles flew at them.