Matt Drake Book 9 - The Plagues of Pandora

by David Leadbeater

  “This is all well and good,” Trent muttered. “But my heart tells me the samples are a long way from here, either carried by or protected by the Moose.”

  “Collins called it in,” Silk cried. “Let’s just stay alive.”

  Charging down East Ocean, the staggering convoy ate up mile after mile. The cop cars moved closer, but were now attracting fire from the mercs atop the second truck. Trent and Silk saw some breathing space and were about to rise when a new monster entered the battle. A police chopper, rotors thundering, swung into sight and headed, nose down, for the men on the second truck. Quickly, it gained on them, flying above the raging torrent of cop cars and both motorbikes. Guns bristled from its open doors.

  Trent and Silk hit the deck near the back edge, watching. Rapid gunfire slammed into the truck’s roof, shredding men and piercing the metal, passing down into those below. Instantly the truck bucked, swinging sharply as its driver died. Collins and Radford made evasive maneuvers, Collins shooting to her right, up over the sidewalk and a little way down to the beach, Radford bouncing across somebody’s front garden and then laying the front end down to avoid a parked car, whipping it back up in time to lay on the power and shoot back into the race.

  Trent turned to Silk. “Guess who’s gonna be perforated next?”

  Silk nodded. “I’m already there.”

  As the second truck slowed and smashed up onto the sidewalk with mercs falling from its sides and leaping from its doors, Trent and Silk rose and ran to the front end. Once there, they paused, looking down. Trent caught a silver flash in the corner of his eye and looked right, saw Collins keeping pace with them, hair flying, and beyond her now a police speedboat, slicing through the ocean, matching their speed.

  The rotors of the chopper grew louder.

  Trent could see only one way out. Sirens and rotor blades slashed the air apart behind him. The truck’s terrible roar battered his ears. Collins’ powerful bike spurted ahead with a powerful roar. The speedboat bellowed.

  A cocoon of peace enveloped him. “Just do it.”

  He leaped down onto the truck’s cab and leveled his weapon, but it was already too late. The chopper thumped overhead, bullets spraying from its sides. Many found their way diagonally through the truck and into the cab; allowing the bird to pull up and away before the deadly stream caught up to Trent and Silk.

  They were warned! he thought. They knew we were here. Thank God.

  But that still left them in a world of difficulty. The driver, now dead, was no longer in control of the wheel. The behemoth slowed but it also slewed to the side. Cop cars shot past the right-hand side, careful to keep a wide gap between themselves and the runaway. Collins and Radford surged ahead. Trent hung on as the truck slid to the right, causing confusion among the cops. Several cars collided before a space opened up and the truck jolted through, striking the sidewalk and then shuddering onto the beach. It hit hard, its left-side wheels sinking, its right still spinning, and immediately tipped. Trent and Silk, clinging to the bulkhead with white knuckles, felt the heavy vehicle lift onto two wheels. Both let out involuntary cries. The whole world tipped.

  A life flashed before Trent’s eyes—the new life he wanted for his son and himself. This wasn’t the way to do it. This was going to get him and his friends well and truly killed.

  The truck lifted and lifted, Silk at the bottom and moments from death; Trent at the top and feeling his legs starting to float—and then the three-hundred-ton monster stopped tilting, its weight the final factor, and slowly slammed its chassis back down onto all tires.

  Silk fell to his knees, the sudden loss of momentum as jarring as the horror he had just lived through. Trent clung to the bulkhead. For a moment they were both quiet, thankful, drawing breath.

  The sound of sirens and the roaring of engines destroyed their fugue. Collins, minus her bike, ran up alongside.

  “What the hell are you guys still doing up there? Get down here now!”

  Trent sent a quick glance toward Silk. “We’d better do as she says. Nobody wants to survive a ride like that and then face Collins in ballbuster mode.”

  Silk nodded. “I don’t know which is worse.”

  Trent steeled his resolve and wiped the blood from his face, then nodded down at Claire Collins.

  “Coming, dear.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Tyler Webb slammed the table in excitement, his exuberance getting the better of him. Alone in the office, but still faced by five live TV screens he struggled to keep from dancing around.

  “We have two of them!” he cried. “What a start to the game, my friends. What a start.”

  Five confused faces stared back at him. Of course they were waiting for the customary greeting. Of course they knew less than he about proceedings in the three target cities. Of course, this was as it should be.

  “We are the Pythians,” he intoned.

  “We are the Pythians.”

  “So, straight to business. Team London lost most of its men but still smuggled out the sample. Team Angeles, when warned of the oncoming raid, reacted superbly and threw attention away from the Moose as he liberated our sample. Team Paris is about to strike. I love the fluidity of all this, gents and ladies. Makes me feel very much alive.”

  “Los Angeles was touch and go,” General Stone affirmed. “To say the least.”

  “That’s what I mean!” Webb practically cackled. “We spent two days finding the right place, two days excavating and then outmatched the best of the US in a last minute escape. You couldn’t write that stuff!”

  Stone looked a little relieved. Webb wondered why for a moment and then remembered the thorn in their rosy situation. “This team in London,” he said, “that almost beat us. They’re called SPEAR, I believe.”

  Stone winced but covered it with a nod. “Yes, sir. I believe we first heard of them through Dmitry Kovalenko. It was they that thwarted the Blood King in his efforts to use the nano-vest on the president underneath Washington DC. Indeed, it was they that took him down. They also stopped Coyote,” he smiled, “but failed to stop her using the nano-vest.”

  Webb pursed his lips. “I recall they also stopped several other attempts to test the vests.”

  “Sure.” Stone shrugged. “I guess they’re what you might call—our arch enemies.”

  “And the team in LA?”

  “We’re investigating. I believe the Moose, when he’s safe, might be able to shed some light onto that question.”

  “Do they have anyone in Paris?” Nicholas Bell asked.

  Stone raised both brows. “I can’t imagine there will be anyone so effective,” he said. “They’re spread pretty thin.”

  “Good. Good. Well, we’re ahead of the game at least. A good place to be. So tell me, General Stone, tell me about this SPEAR team.”

  “Since they popped up in London I’ve been digging deep. It seemed as good a way as any to test the resources we have . . . procured. It’s the same team that found the tombs of the gods, if you remember? All that Odin stuff too. They also untangled a Korean plot to plant brainwashed super-assassins among the population.” Stone proceeded to name and describe every known member of the team.

  “Not all were present at Knightsbridge.” Webb stared down at a sheet of paper before him where names had been matched to quickly snapped photographs. “Yorgi the thief. Alicia Myles, I believe. Lauren Fox—the escort.”

  Stone appeared to wince. For a moment, lost for words, he said nothing. Then Nicholas Bell stepped into the breach.

  “I guess we don’t really know how big the team is.”

  But Webb barely heard him, concentrating on Stone. The general looked like he’d just swallowed a really, really big pill. “Is there a problem, Stone?”

  “Ah, we don’t know the exact location of every single member. Even our resources can’t encircle the globe.”

  “Accepted. But still, we are nothing if we’re not a proactive group. The curve of destiny is always before us but we
must now strive to remain ahead of it. If SPEAR is causing us problems we should take steps to stamp them out.”

  “I suggest you stay on track,” Stone said quickly. “Nothing can be gained by deviating here. Look what happened to everyone else that stood up to them, even the Shadow Elite. We have schemes and plans to see us through the next two years. We should concentrate on those.”

  Webb thought about that. Stone was usually his most staunch ally, his hardest rock. Today, something was off with the man. Perhaps it was the influence of that damn builder, the uncouth Nicholas Bell. Perhaps it was something else entirely.

  Time to test the general.

  “This is your plan, Stone. We allowed you to take first strike. I must insist now that you man up and face a most thorny issue.”

  Stone’s eyes bulged at the slur, face suddenly flushing beetroot red. “Man up!” he blustered. “Man up. Me? I’ve seen more action than any man here. I’ll have you know—”

  Webb tapped the desk. “Calm yourself, General. Your reaction is the one I was searching for. But the basic issue remains. Drake and his colleagues need to hit the proverbial brick wall.”

  Stone’s face scrolled through a medley of emotions, finally settling on deceitful. “There is a way,” he said. “Maybe.”

  Webb sat back, happy to see Stone back to his normal self. Clifford Bay-Dale jumped in with a stiff elitist comment, “Hurry up, man. We don’t have all day.”

  Stone continued as if the interruptions hadn’t happened. “Some time ago, across in the Czech Republic I understand, Drake and his team pretty much destroyed a terrorist arms bazaar—”

  “When they found the third tomb of the gods?” Webb, by now, was familiar with their exploits.

  “Yes, in Germany. Now, through the ears of the NSA and the eyes of ground-based assets I do know that this arms bazaar was attended by men who are normally ghosts. They pull the strings of the puppets we know. Terrorist royalty if you like, with a long reach and an even longer memory. The SPEAR team were marked that day, etched in the memories of these powerful men, though so far their constant exploits have kept them untouchable.”

  “How’s that?” Robert Norris wondered.

  “It’s hard to track and plan to kill a team always at war,” Stone said. “A team that doesn’t even know itself where it will be the next day, or even the next hour. Drake’s team has been on the move for over a year and situated in all parts of the globe. But now,” he mused aloud. “Now we might have a chance.”

  “Go on,” Webb said, reading through a dossier as he listened, a dossier compiled on that very team and its every member.

  “The terrorists don’t know where Drake is right now but I do. He doesn’t know his team have been marked. If we do this right we could have every terrorist in London burning his house down.”

  “Removing him from the game,” Webb said. “And adding a rich depth of confusion to it.”

  “You got it. Now, give me some time. I have a little event to plan.”

  Webb agreed to the general’s signing off. Within ten minutes he had said his goodbyes to the rest of the Pythians, effectively cutting their meeting short but hearing no complaints. Tyler Webb had started this group, the vision was his to enjoy, the game his to abuse and manipulate. He would have everything go his way or not at all.

  General Stone had slipped up somewhere, he was sure. There were no clues in his latest dossier. Perhaps Nicholas Bell knew something—the outspoken builder had been atypically quiet throughout the meeting.

  Webb’s sense for trouble, as practiced and shrewd as a Shaolin master’s, unfolded inside, its edges jagged, sharp like thorns. Even among the superior ranks of the world, he mused, death’s heavy hand could strike at any time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Alicia Myles checked her watch for the hundredth time. “How come we ain’t getting no bloody action?” she complained. “Drake and those blokes in LA got plenty. How ‘bout little ole me?”

  Russo, crouched beside her behind a hedgerow, grunted. “Coming from you the term ‘action’ could mean half a dozen different things.”

  “Quit speaking, before I break that mountain you call a face with my boots.”

  Russo frowned, his crag-like face shifting like sliding rock. “I accepted you, Myles. Doesn’t mean you can insult me.”

  “Believe me that was no insult. And besides what’s wrong with being a game girl?”

  “Nothing. So long as you don’t bring that ‘game’ near me. I get the feeling that the term ‘safe sex’ isn’t even close to your playbook.”

  Alicia licked her lips. “No such thing.”

  At that moment, Michael Crouch, the leader of their little team, spoke up. “I realize watching a cemetery through the night is a little boring, chaps, but try to keep the noise down.”

  Alicia heard Healey snigger, the young man’s emotions getting the better of him. “Hey Zack,” she said. “You ask Caitlyn out on that date yet?”

  Caitlyn, knelt next to Healey in the ditch, turned her head away. Healey immediately crimsoned. “Umm, well, do ya think I’ve had bloody time?”

  “Nope.”

  Healey shook his head, muttering a word.

  Alicia’s ears caught it. “Don’t call me a bitch, Zacky. You know that kinda talk just turns me on.”

  Crouch gesticulated. “Look!”

  Alicia studied the flat open-plan graveyard they had found in the heart of Paris early that morning. Arriving in the fog of 4 a.m. they had located a hiding place and settled down to watch. The Church of the Three Holy Innocents bordered the Rue St Dennis and immediately called to Alicia as a truly gruesome place. The mausoleums were dirty, old and broken, their doorways like jagged teeth. Snarled weeds grew everywhere. A mural of the danse macabre patterned one large wall whilst rumors of charnel houses blighted the place. History spoke not only of terrible charnel pits but also of the dreaded plague pits, bodies being tipped into deeply dug holes in the ground like endless toppling heads of corn, their arms and legs entangled, their dignity in death destroyed. Several mercenaries known to be on the Pythians’ payroll had been identified visiting the cemetery over the last two days. Armand Argento at Interpol had fed the information back to Crouch.

  “At first the Paris police weren’t interested,” Crouch said, matter-of-factly. “Nothing ever changes. But after the events in London and LA, my bet is they will suddenly get interested. Especially . . .”

  Alicia watched a dark-clad group of men thread a path through the broken-down graves on their route to the center of the cemetery. She decided they had been right not to send someone into the graveyard to snoop around. The mercs were here and they were totally exposed. Ripe for the plucking.

  “Ready?” She shifted tensed-up muscles, ironing out the knots of the last few hours.

  Crouch signaled a go. Under a crisp, brightening dawn sky they moved off. Stars and the moon still twinkled in the frosty heavens; a brisk wind snapped around them. Moving with a low center of gravity and absolute silence, Alicia and Russo led the team out of hiding. Guns were prepped; in the case of Caitlyn tracking devices, information-gathering tools and communications systems were tuned and monitored. She ran at the back, armed and flak-jacketed, but with orders not to engage until Healey had made good on his promise and trained her up.

  As she ran, Alicia fixed the ragtag group of mercenaries in her sights. They were closing now, only one of them seemed even half-observant and he was studying a patch of darkness in the other direction. The front four men suddenly dropped out of sight, giving Alicia a moment’s pause, but then their heads reappeared and she realized they had jumped into a previously excavated hole.

  “On point,” she whispered into her comms. “All good. They’re bringing up the samples now. We’ll catch them red-handed.”

  Still, an air of unease trickled across the back of her neck. After what had transpired over in London and Los Angeles this campaign almost felt inadequate. Could this actually be the Parisian
cops trumping the mercs? Or perhaps they didn’t have much of a crew?

  “Underestimate me at your peril,” Alicia breathed as she came upon one of the mercenaries with his back turned. “I may look like a fantasy but I’m your worst fucking nightmare.”

  Her knife made sure he didn’t even squeak. As Russo descended like an avalanche the rest of the mercs spun. Healey and Crouch were already on one knee, taking aim, and picked two off without wasting a moment. Alicia danced around her falling man and engaged the next. This was too easy.

  All four mercs were climbing out of the hole. Crouch fired again, sending one writhing back down. Alicia thought fast and sprinted to reach the hole first, leaving the rest of the mercs to her team. Those emerging from the hole would have the desperately needed samples.

  As she ran, a figure dropped out of the sky, landing eight feet in front of her. A figure wrapped in a skintight black bodysuit. Somebody who snagged her attention so violently she tripped and fell.

  “Beauregard!”

  Alicia covered her fall with a roll and a leap. The assassin, Beauregard Alain, hadn’t moved, but stood with a feline grace, muscles bulging.

  Alicia hesitated. “You may have beaten the SPEAR team once,” she said. “You won’t beat me again.”

  Beauregard’s lips turned upward. “You tripped over when your eyes met mine.” His French accent was music to her ears.

  “Is that why you zip that stacked body of yours into a skintight suit?” She allowed her gaze to drift down to what she considered to be Beauregard’s biggest asset. “To keep that monster from tripping you up?”

  “Maybe one day,” Beauregard leaped at her, “you’ll find out!”

  Alicia sprang to the left, head still intact by an inch as Beauregard’s heel snapped at thin air. “Promises, promises.”