“No.” Kovalenko shifted on the floor. “That was some clever opportunism on Grigori’s part. I’ll give him that.”
“Grigori?” Dahl asked from the doorway. “Grigori was the leader of your enemies?”
“He was one of the figureheads. Did you know him?”
Dahl cursed. Drake remembered it was Grigori that had revealed Kovalenko’s plan to them, thus enabling them to flush the Blood King out, to capture him. Grigori had forced that side of things just to get a shot at the Blood King and had then committed suicide.
A desperate plan.
Drake heard other people approaching. Though his muscles ached, and his head still rang, he reached for his gun.
“It’s okay,” Hayden said. “I have Coburn and his advisors on the comms’ secure channel. These are the good guys.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Drake and Dahl muttered simultaneously and exchanged a wry glance.
Keeping their guns low, they waited for the new arrivals.
Alicia patted Mai on the back, congratulating her for being alive. The others performed similar rituals, marveling at their lack of broken bones and bloodied flesh. Every last one of them bore an injury, but the day could have ended far worse. Cam shuffled onto a table at the back of the room, found a plate of cold pancakes under a plastic domed cover and invited Shaw to eat with him. Kinimaka walked across two seconds later, grabbing a plastic bottle of maple syrup on the way.
“My kind of celebration,” the big Hawaiian said.
Drake realized he too was starving. In the military, he’d been taught to eat whenever he got the chance. He held out a hand toward Alicia, used her to pull himself to his feet, and started hunting for sustenance.
Hayden was perched on the edge of a table, regarding Kovalenko.
“What do you mean—you wanted us right here, right now. With Coburn?”
“Is the President on the line?” Kovalenko nodded at Hayden’s comms.
“He’s there.”
“Believe me when I tell you—” Kovalenko grinned “—you aren’t ready for what comes next.”
Drake paused in his hunt for food. Dahl turned from his surveillance at the door.
Hayden placed her cellphone on the table beside the Blood King. “President Coburn is listening.”
Kovalenko looked beside himself with arrogance, with superiority. “You know me,” he said self-importantly. “As you knew my father. Do you really think people like you would ever catch me off guard? I am—”
“Get to the fucking point, asshole,” Alicia growled. “Before I make you eat your own narcissistic tongue.”
“You can’t imprison me. I created twenty nukes, remember? They’re small, granted. They’re low yield, but they’ll still make a mess of . . . say . . . several blocks of a capital city. Not to mention the fallout.”
The room was very still and very quiet. Hayden spoke first. “What are you saying?”
“Twenty nukes, yes? One exploded on the Devil’s island. You idiots grabbed three more earlier and then there’s the one I still have in my hand. What does that mean to you?”
Luther came over and relieved the Blood King of the low-yield nuke as Hayden answered his question.
“Fifteen are still out there.”
The Blood King clapped his hands. “Oh, that’s right. I have fifteen more, just waiting for detonation on my command.”
“You really need to dispense with this condescending bullshit and get to the point,” Luther said. “Fast.”
“Fair enough. Of the fifteen, I have three very well hidden. They’re my leverage in case I ever get . . . umm . . . captured by European or American agents. I’ll never reveal their whereabouts, but I will say that, every day or so, I have to call in a five-digit code that resets their timers to forty-eight hours. Yes, it’s a pain but so worth it.”
“And the remaining twelve?” Hayden asked.
“Mr. President.” Kovalenko called. “Are you hearing this?”
After a brief pause a voice said: “I can hear you.” Drake recognized Coburn’s tones.
“Okay then. So, of the remaining twelve, just one is active. That’s the good news.”
Drake closed his eyes. “You son of a—”
“Careful. I loved my mother. But she couldn’t save me from my father’s influence. Aren’t you happy there’s only one last nuke to worry about?”
“As if we’d take you at your word,” Drake spat.
“Wait,” Hayden interrupted. “You said that the active nuke is good news. What do you mean by that?”
“Because the bad news is pretty fucking dire. For all of you and especially for you, Mr. President.”
The room froze. Even those who were eating paused. Kovalenko grinned at his captive audience.
“I’ll put you all out of your misery. The final nuke is activated. It is in Washington DC and it will explode in four hours. I won’t say more than that, except that it has a very unique deactivation method.”
Drake was unable to stop himself from leaning forward. “Which is?”
“A facial recognition device. To deactivate it, the bomb requires a special face to be presented to the onboard computer screen. And, of course, there is only one face it could be. It is yours, President Coburn.”
Drake was stunned, hardly able to believe his ears. “That’s insane thinking. The face of the President of the United States is the only way of preventing a nuclear weapon from detonating in Washington DC?”
“Exactly,” Kovalenko said. “Does the bad news make sense now?”
“It’s . . . impossible,” Hayden stuttered. “You’re lying.”
“Am I? Do you want to test that theory upon Washington DC?”
“It’s a bluff.”
“Not at all,” Kovalenko said. “President Coburn merely has to leave the safety of his bunker and venture into the city he calls home, surrounded by Secret Service agents if he prefers. You thwarted me once, Coburn. You beat me. But today, I will have my revenge.”
“If you think that weighing my life against thousands of DC citizens,” Coburn’s voice came through the phone, “will faze me, then you’re quite wrong. Every day, I am ready to put my life on the line for this country.”
“And now you can prove it.”
“Where’s the bomb?” Dahl asked.
“When we ride on the roads of DC, I will tell you.”
Dahl bunched his fists. “DC’s over an hour from the airport.”
“Then I think we’d best get moving. Don’t you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
The easiest part was getting out of New York.
An army helicopter was cleared to land in Central Park. It scooped them all up and flew them to a military airfield. Once there, a fast jet landed, taxied around and lifted off immediately, stopping only to collect the Strike Force team and their dreadful prisoner.
Alicia made a point of sitting beside Cam, letting him have the window seat. As the jet lifted off into the low-hanging storm and Dahl and Kinimaka handed food and bottled water out, she turned to him.
“How you doing, kid?”
The tousle-haired youth turned away from the window. “You need to stop calling me that. I’m older than I look.”
“You told me that before, back in Mexico when we first met. How old are you?”
“Twenty nine.”
Her face fell. “Get the fuck out of here. You’re twenty two, tops.”
“I may not know the exact day, or month, I was born, but I was told the year. I’m twenty nine.”
Alicia glanced down at Cam’s hands, reminded of his origin. The knuckles were scarred and bruised. They carried old wounds. At least two looked like they’d been broken and left to heal by themselves. Cam came from proper Romanian Gypsy stock and had been the best bare-knuckle fighter in the country.
“Your hands ever hurt, Cam?”
“These old things? Nah. I grew up with it. Boxing was all we knew back then. One day they’ll curl up and
stiffen and stop working but until then . . .” He shrugged.
“You don’t have to be here with us.”
“I understand. At first, when you saved my life, I had nowhere to go . . .” He struggled for a moment before continuing. “When my sister was murdered, I honestly had no clue what to do. Ruby was my only true family. We shared everything since we were five. At that age, we had no shoes. No soap. No toys. But we had plenty of food and water, and we had the woods and the fields to fire our imagination. We were never unhappy, never still, until we started to get older.”
Alicia accepted a sandwich and bottle of water from Kinimaka. “And then things changed?”
Cam swigged from his own bottle and unwrapped part of his sandwich before continuing. “It got harder. We had to pull our weight. A weight that increased month on month, year on year. My brothers were fighters and robbers. They were enforcers too. My other sisters were con-artists. They dressed up pretty to trick rich businessmen, drew them into the fold and then blackmailed them. To be fair, they still do that.” Cam went silent.
Alicia ate and drank, thinking. She’d brought Cam along because he’d just witnessed the murder of the only family that he loved, his companion of decades, because she’d initially worried about what he would do next, suicide included. She’d wanted to keep him close, to let him talk, at least for a day or so. Cam’s story moved her because of its similarities to her own. Cam and Ruby had quit their gypsy family, running away at a young age in search of better things. But instead of joining the Army like Alicia, they had entered a life of petty pilfering, of scams and schemes. It made them very little cash, but it did make them rely on each other.
And now all that was gone, taken away by a savage ignorant man with a gun. A man that Alicia had killed.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” she confessed.
Cam bit his lip, a gesture that made his face appear even younger. “You showed me kindness, Alicia. You were a stranger and you were kind. You didn’t have to save us. That’s a rare quality in this world. Believe me, I’ve seen all sorts. All manner of evils. But I’ve never seen kindness like you showed.”
Alicia found herself swallowing, unable to look Cam in the eye. “I . . . see.”
“What I see is more than a team. More than soldiers working together. I see compassion and respect. Even love. You people are lucky to have even an ounce of empathy between you. Ruby and I never saw that as we grew up.”
Alicia cleared her throat. “You wanna stay with us until this is over?”
“I want to earn my keep.”
“You don’t have to do that, Cam. Not with us.”
The sandy-haired man gave her a narrow-eyed glance. “I think I do. You guys are soldiers. Your circle’s small. I get that. If you want to help me now—let me earn your respect. All of you. I can focus on that.”
Alicia nodded and then sat back, reflecting on everything that had been said. She had a suspicion that Cam had never confided in anyone but Ruby before and hoped he wasn’t seeing her as a surrogate. She had to be careful, but the kid had a point.
Kid?
Maybe not. And maybe his way of dealing with his sister’s death was the right choice. He was capable, shrewd, and had helped rather than hindered from the time they landed in New York. He’d been up to any task.
But as the plane thundered toward Washington DC she wondered if any of them were up to the task ahead.
*
Mai found herself seated next to Shawnasee for the hour-long flight. It was hard to know what to say to the grieving woman, but Mai had several harsh experiences of her own to draw on.
“You fought well out there,” she began, looking to break the ice. “Where did you learn to fight with knives like that?”
“I grew up with four brothers. All red-blooded males, all about as wild as they could be within the law. If we weren’t fighting, we were getting in some real trouble. Our father owned a local casino, so money wasn’t an issue.”
“Owned?”
“He died ten years ago. Killed by the leader of a gang of thieves. They’d already got the money, but they shot him on the way out. For the hell of it.”
“You make them pay?”
“Never found them. The cops weren’t bothered. My dad died, and everyone outside our family didn’t give a shit. The casino eventually went bust and fell into ruin. My dad was the driving force and my brothers were too young to handle the business. I have no clue where they are now.”
“I’m so sorry about your mother and sister.”
Shawnasee closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
“You didn’t tell me how you learned to fight with knives though.”
Shaw opened her eyes, looked at Mai and smiled. “I guess I didn’t. There was a man in our town. An old Delta Force guy. He’d teach anyone to handle themselves in exchange for a crate of beer a day. When I started to grow and attract the attention of every male from twelve to sixty, I spent five days a week buying him beer.”
Mai nodded. “Everyone should know how to protect themselves. I wondered how you fought and assumed the bearing.”
“Assumed the bearing?”
“You fight like you were in the military. I guess your Delta guy taught you well.”
Shaw nodded. “He was a good man.”
Mai sensed sadness there too, but didn’t pursue it. Shaw had enough on her plate. She gestured at Luka Kovalenko, seated at the front of the plane three rows in front of them.
“You did well not to kill him.”
“The day’s not done yet.”
“That’s true,” Mai said. “And, honestly, I haven’t got a clue where it will lead us.”
“Do you think the President will actually stick his face next to the nuke to deactivate it?”
“I’m not sure he has a choice.”
“What if Kovalenko’s lying and the bomb goes off anyway?”
Mai shrugged. “Then we’re all screwed. You don’t have to come with us.”
“If you don’t mind me tagging along, I’d rather keep Kovalenko within reach.”
Mai understood. She’d feel the same way herself. “Sure. In the same circumstances I doubt I could have shown your restraint.”
Shaw looked at her. “Oh, I think you would. You guys seem pretty grounded to me.”
Mai blinked at that. “We do?” Her brain ran wild. They had Torsten Dahl, the Mad Swede, finding every opportunity to save the day in spectacular fashion. They had Alicia Myles, the military wild child. They had Luther and Molokai, famed leaders of their own teams that got things done in any way possible. They had Hayden and Kinimaka, perhaps the most down to earth of any of them. Then there was Kenzie, the sword-wielding Israeli with a grudge and a soft-spot for Dahl. And finally, Matt Drake, the enigmatic core of the team, their trailblazer.
And, of course, there was Mai herself.
“I never thought of us as . . . grounded.”
“I’ve only seen you in combat.” Shaw shrugged, her braided ponytail slapping left and right. “Together, you are a formidable, coherent force.”
“Yeah,” Mai said. “But our downtime shows our true colors.”
“You don’t mind me tagging along until this is over?”
Mai shook her head. “Don’t mind at all. You deserve closure and vengeance. Luka Kovalenko is all about revenge, it’s the only emotion I’ve ever seen him or his father embrace. I just wonder how many would like their shot of revenge at him.”
“Thousands. Just thousands.”
Mai nodded and checked her watch. They were twenty minutes from DC.
*
At the front of the plane, Drake had been given the distasteful task of sitting next to Kovalenko. For the first half of the journey, the Yorkshireman managed to avoid any kind of contact, but during the second he wasn’t so lucky.
“Has your President agreed to visit the nuke?” Kovalenko asked.
Drake ignored the question for a minute but then decided the best way to shut
the fool up was to show ignorance. “I’m not party to that information.”
“You see how my vengeance works? This is real blood vengeance. Like my father wanted. I feel . . . satisfied.”
Drake tuned it out. Arguing with this man was a waste of energy. To point out his failings was futile. It would serve only to make Drake angry. The best thing for the Blood King was a shallow grave.
“How close are we to Washington?” came the next question.
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Good. I wonder if Coburn will greet us.”
“Not a chance. How many more men do you have in DC? How many officials have you paid off or threatened? Where does your influence end, Kovalenko?”
“My influence? It is global.”
“I don’t think your Russian friends believe that.” He couldn’t resist the jibe.
“I will teach them their lessons when I am done with you. They’ll live to regret their actions—at least for a few days.”
“You’re going straight to prison, pal.”
“Am I? And what of the three weapons I spoke of. My leverage? What of them?”
Drake truly had no answer. “Look, mate,” he said. “You should stop yapping. If I look at you, I’m gonna have to break your fucking face. If I hear you again, I’m gonna stick my size ten in your mouth. My advice . . . shut your cakehole.”
Kovalenko nodded and held his tongue as the plane landed in Washington DC. Drake was staring out the window as they taxied toward a private hanger.
Damn, he thought. It’s raining here too.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
The plane came to a stop just outside the wide-open hangar doors.
Drake was about to rise when the Blood King turned to grin at him.
“We will see what happens next.” He whispered with that all-knowing, smug expression plastered across his bloodied and bruised face.
It gave Drake pause. What else could truly happen? Was there another tributary to this evil plan? When it really came down to it, Drake couldn’t see the Blood King sacrificing himself in nuclear fire. It wasn’t his style.
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