The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)

by David Leadbeater

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Hayden, Matt.”

  He sat up a little straighter. Hayden had known about his recent exploits, but had chosen to ignore them. Alicia had been their go between. “What’s happened? Is Ben—?” He couldn’t even bring himself to speak the words.

  “He’s fine. We’re all fine. But something has come up.”

  “You found Kovalenko?” Eagerness cut through the alcohol haze like a blazing searchlight.

  “No, not yet. But Ed Boudreau does have a sister. And we’ve been sanctioned to bring her in.”

  Drake sat up, the whisky forgotten. Hate and hellfire burned twin tracks through his heart. “I know exactly what to do.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Hayden steeled herself for what was to come. Her entire career in the CIA had not prepared her for this situation. The Secretary of Defense’s wife murdered. An international terrorist holding unknown numbers of powerful people’s relatives hostage.

  Did the government know the identities of all of those involved? No way. But you could be damn sure they knew a lot more than they would ever let on.

  It had seemed so much simpler back when she first enrolled. Maybe it had been simpler back then, before September 11th. Maybe in the day of her father, James Jaye, the legendary agent she strived to emulate, it had been black and white.

  And ruthless.

  This was the sharp edge. The war against the Blood King was being fought on many levels, but hers may yet prove to be the most terrible and successful.

  The diverse personalities of the people she had on her side gave her an edge. Gates had spotted it first. That was why he had let them conduct their own investigation into the mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle. Gates was cleverer than she had ever given him credit for. He had seen straight away the advantage provided by such contrasting personalities as Matt Drake, Ben Blake, Mai Kitano and Alicia Myles. He had seen the potential of her team. And he had thrown them all together.

  Genius.

  A team of the future?

  Now a man who had lost everything wanted justice to be brought against the man who had so brutally murdered his wife.

  Hayden walked up to Boudreau’s cell. The laconic mercenary gave her lazy eyes from over the top of his steepled hands.

  “Can I help you, agent Jaye?”

  Hayden would never forgive herself if she didn’t try one more time. “Give us Kovalenko’s location, Boudreau. Just give him up and this is over.” She spread her hands. “I mean, it’s not like he seems to give a shit about you.”

  “Maybe he does.” Boudreau unfolded his body and slipped off the bunk. “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it’s too early to tell yet, huh?”

  “What is his agenda? What is this Gates of Hell?”

  “If I knew. . .” Boudreau’s face portrayed the smile of a feasting shark.

  “You do know.” Hayden remained very matter of fact. “I’m giving you this last chance.”

  “Last chance? Are you going to shoot me? Has the CIA finally recognized the dark sins they must commit to stay in the game?”

  Hayden shrugged. “There’s a time and a place.”

  “Sure. I could name a few places.” Boudreau sneered at her, the crazy showing through as spittle flew. “There is nothing you can do to me, Agent Jaye, that would make me betray a man as powerful as the Blood King.”

  “Well…” Hayden forced a smile. “That’s what got us thinking, Ed.” She fixed the joviality in her voice. “You got nothing here, man. Nothing. Yet you won’t spill. You sit there, wasting away, happy to accept imprisonment. Like a washed up motherfucker. Like a loser. Like a piece of Southern shit.” Hayden laid it on thick.

  Boudreau’s mouth tightened into a tense white line.

  “You’re a man who’s given up. A quitter. A sacrifice. Impotent.”

  Boudreau moved toward her.

  Hayden pushed her face up against the bars, taunting him. “A fucking limp dick.”

  Boudreau struck out, but Hayden backed away faster, still forcing the grin on her face. The sound of his fist striking steel was like a wet slap.

  “So we wondered. What makes a man like you, a soldier, become a limp dick?”

  Boudreau now stared at her with slowly comprehending eyes.

  “That’s it.” Hayden mocked him. “You got there, didn’t you? Her name is Maria, yes?”

  Boudreau slammed the bars in an unspeakable rage.

  It was Hayden’s turn to sneer. “As I said. Impotent.”

  She turned away. The seeds were sown. It was about speed and severity. Ed Boudreau would never crack under normal conditions. But now. . .

  Kinimaka wheeled the TV they had strapped to a chair to where the mercenary could see it. The trepidation in the man’s voice was obvious even though he tried to hide it.

  “What the hell are you people trying to pull?”

  “Keep watching, motherfucker.” Hayden made her voice sound as if she just didn’t care anymore. Kinimaka turned the TV on.

  Boudreau stared. “No” he mouthed quietly. “Oh, no.”

  Hayden met his eyes with a totally believable sneer. “”We’re at war, Boudreau. You still don’t wanna talk? Choose a fuckin’ appendage.”

  *****

  Matt Drake made sure the camera was firmly fixed in position before he stepped into the picture. The black balaclava was pulled down over his features more for effect than disguise, but the body armor he was dressed in and the weapons he carried made the seriousness of the girl’s position stand out, starkly accurate.

  The girl’s eyes were pools of desperation, of fear. She had no idea what she had done. No idea what they wanted her for. She didn’t know what her brother did for a living.

  Maria Fedak was an innocent, Drake thought, if anyone was these days. Caught by chance, snared by misfortune in a globally cast net that fizzled and crackled with death, heartlessness and hate.

  Drake stopped next to her, brandishing the knife in his right hand, the other resting lightly on his gun. It didn’t matter to him anymore that she was innocent. It was retribution, nothing less. A life for a life.

  He waited patiently.

  *****

  “Maria Fedak,” Hayden said. “She is your sister, married, Mr. Boudreau. Your sister, oblivious, Mr. Mercenary. Your sister, terrified, Mr. Murderer. She doesn’t know what her brother is, or what he does on a regular basis. But she does know you. She knows the doting brother, who visits once or twice a year with the fake stories and the thoughtful gifts for her kids. Tell me, Ed, do you want them to grow up without a mother?”

  Boudreau’s eyes were bulging. His naked fear was so intense Hayden actually felt pity for him. But this wasn’t the time. His sister’s life was truly in the balance. That was why they had chosen Matt Drake, alone, as the point man.

  “Maria.” The word spilled out of him, wretched and despairing.

  *****

  Drake barely saw the terrified girl. He saw Kennedy, dead in his arms. He saw Ben’s blood-soaked hands. He saw Harrison’s guilty face.

  But most of all he saw Kovalenko. The Blood King, the mastermind, a man so hollow and void of feeling he might be nothing but an animated corpse. A zombie. He saw the man’s face and wanted to throttle the life out of everything around him.

  His hands moved toward the girl and locked around her throat.

  *****

  Hayden blinked as she watched the monitor. Drake was rushing things. Boudreau had hardly had time to soften up yet. Kinimaka stepped toward her, always the kind mediator, but Alicia Myles yanked him back.

  “Not a chance, big guy. Let these fuckers sweat. They have nothing but death on their hands.”

  Hayden made herself sneer at Boudreau the way she remembered him sneering when he ordered the murder of her men.

  “You gonna squeal, Ed, or you wanna find out how they make sushi in the UK?”

  Boudreau glared at her with murder in his eyes. A thin drool slid from the corner of his mouth. H
is emotions were getting the better of him, just as they did when he smelled a close kill. Hayden didn’t want him shutting down on her.

  Alicia was already close to the bars. “You ordered the execution of my boyfriend. You should be glad it’s Drake doing the dicing and not me. I’d make the bitch suffer twice as long.”

  Boudreau stared between both of them. “You had both better make sure I never get out of here. I swear I will cut you both to pieces.”

  “Save it.” Hayden was watching Drake squeezing Maria Fedak’s neck. “She doesn’t have much time.”

  Boudreau was a hard man, and his face shut down. “The CIA won’t hurt my sister. She’s a United States citizen.”

  Now Hayden truly believed the madman truly didn’t get it. “Listen to me, you crazy bastard,” she hissed. “We’re at war. The Blood King has murdered Americans on American soil. He has kidnapped dozens. Dozens. He wants to hold this country to ransom. He doesn’t give a shit about you or your stinking sister!”

  Alicia muttered something into her earpiece. Hayden heard the instruction. So did Kinimaka.

  So did Drake.

  He let go of the woman’s neck and unholstered the gun.

  Hayden ground her teeth together so hard, the nerves around her skull screamed. Gut instinct almost made her cry out and order him to stop. Her focus blurred for a second, but then her training kicked in and told her this was the best chance they had of tracking down Kovalenko.

  One life to save hundreds, or more.

  Boudreau had noticed the play of emotions across her face and suddenly he was at the bars, convinced, reaching out and snarling.

  “Don’t do it. Don’t you fucking do it to my baby sister!”

  Hayden’s face was a mask of stone. “Last chance, killer.”

  “The Blood King’s a ghost. Whatever I know, it might be a distraction. He loves that sort of thing.”

  “Understood. Try us.”

  But Boudreau had been a mercenary too long, a killer too long. And his hate for authority figures had blinded his judgment. “Go to hell, bitch.”

  Hayden’s heart sank, but she tapped the monitor on her wrist mic. “Shoot her.”

  Drake raised the gun and put it to her temple. His finger squeezed the trigger.

  Boudreau bellowed in horror. “No! The Blood King’s in—”

  Drake let the horrible sound of gunfire mask all other sounds. He watched as blood exploded from the side of Maria Fedak’s head.

  “North Oahu!” Boudreau finished. “His biggest ranch is there. . .” His words tailed off as he sank to the floor, watching his dead sister slump in the chair and looking at the blood-spattered wall behind her. He stared in shock as the balaclava-clad figure came up to the screen until he filled it. Then he removed the mask.

  Matt Drake’s face was cold, detached, the face of an executioner who loved his job.

  Hayden shuddered.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Matt Drake stepped out of a taxi and shielded his eyes to study the tall building that rose before him. Grey and nondescript, it was the perfect frontage for a secret CIA operation. The local agents would enter via an underground parking garage after running the gamut of multiple security levels. Anyone else, be it agents or civilians, entered through the front door, purposely presented as sitting ducks.

  He took a deep breath, almost sober for the first time in as long as he could remember, and pushed through the one-man revolving door. At least this setup seemed serious about its security. A plain desk faced him, manned by half a dozen stern-looking men. No doubt many more were watching.

  He walked across the polished tile floor. “Hayden Jaye is waiting to see me.”

  “The name?”

  “Drake.”

  “Matt Drake?” The guard’s stoic exterior slipped a little.

  “Sure.”

  The man gave him the kind of look a person might use upon seeing a celebrity or a convict. Then he made a call. Seconds later, he was showing Drake to a discreet elevator. He inserted a key and pressed a button.

  Drake felt the lift shoot up as if on a cushion of air. He chose not to think too hard about what was about to happen, he would let events take care of themselves. When the door slid open, he was facing a hallway.

  At the end of the hallway stood his welcoming committee.

  Ben Blake and his sister, Karin. Hayden. Kinimaka. Somewhere at the back stood Alicia Myles. He didn’t see Mai, but then he didn’t really expect too.

  The scene was wrong though. It should have included Kennedy. The whole thing looked odd without her. He exited the elevator and tried to remember they were probably feeling the same way. But did they lie in bed every night, seeing through her eyes, wondering why Drake hadn’t been there to save her?

  Then Ben was in front of him and Drake said nothing and enfolded the young lad in his arms. Karin was smiling uneasily over her brother’s shoulder, and Hayden came forward to lay a hand on his arm.

  “We missed you.”

  Desperately, he held on. “Thanks.”

  “You don’t have to be alone,” Ben said.

  Drake took step back. “Look,” he said, “it’s important to get one thing straight. I’m a changed man. You can’t rely on me anymore, especially you, Ben. If you understand that, all of you, then there’s a chance we can work together.”

  “It wasn’t your—” Ben started in on the problem straight away, as Drake had known he would. Karin, surprisingly, was the hand of reason. She grabbed him and pulled him aside, leaving Drake a clear route through to the office behind them.

  He strode through, giving Kinimaka a nod on the way. Alicia Myles regarded him with solemn eyes. She had also suffered the loss of someone dear to her.

  Drake stopped. “It’s not over, Alicia, not by a long shot. This bastard needs to be eliminated. If not, he might burn down the world.”

  “Kovalenko will die screaming.”

  “Hallelujah.”

  Drake continued past her into the room. Two big computers stood to his right, hard-drives whirring and clicking as they searched and fed off data. A pair of floor-length, bulletproof windows faced him, looking out over Miami Beach. He was suddenly struck by an image of Wells, pretending to be a pervert and asking for a sniper scope to pick out the tanned bodies down there.

  The thought gave him pause. It was the first time he’d thought of Wells coherently since Kennedy had been murdered. Wells had died badly at the hands of Alicia or Mai. He didn’t know which one and he didn’t know why.

  He heard the others filing in behind him. “So…” He concentrated on the view. “When do we go to Hawaii?”

  “In the morning,” Hayden said. “Many of our assets are now focused on Oahu. We are also checking the other islands because it’s known Kovalenko has more than one ranch. Of course, it’s now also known that he is a master of deception, so we are continuing to follow up other leads in different areas of the world.”

  “Good. I remember a reference to Captain Cook, Diamond Head, and the Gates of Hell. Have you pursued that?”

  Ben took that one. “Extensively, yes. But Cook landed at Kauai, not Oahu. His—” The monologue abruptly broke off. “Umm, in a nutshell. We’ve found nothing unusual. Yet.”

  “No direct links between Cook and Diamond Head?”

  “We’re working on it.” Karin spoke up a bit defensively.

  “But he was born in Yorkshire,” Ben added, testing Drake’s new barrier. “You know, God’s Land.”

  It seemed as though Drake hadn’t even heard his friend speak. “How long did he spend in Hawaii?”

  “Months,” Karin said. “He returned there at least twice.”

  “He may have visited every island then. What you should do is check out his logs, not his history or his achievements. It’s the things he isn’t famous for that we need to know about.”

  “That…” Karin paused. “That actually makes sense.”

  Ben said nothing. Karin hadn’t finished. “What we do
know is this: the Hawaiian god of fire, lightning and volcanoes is a woman called Pele. She is a popular figure in many ancient tales of Hawaii. Her home is said to be at the summit of one of the world’s most active volcanoes, but that’s on the Big Island, not Oahu.”

  “Is that it?” Drake asked shortly.

  “No. Although most of the tales are about her sisters and siblings, some of the legends tell of the Gates of Pele. The gates lead into fire and the heart of a volcano—does that sound like Hell to you?”

  “Could be a metaphor,” Kinimaka said without thinking, then blushed. “Well, it could be. You know. . .”

  Alicia was the first to laugh. “Thank God someone’s still got a sense of humor.” She chortled, then added “No offence” in a voice that showed she didn’t really care which way people took her.

  “Gates of Pele might be useful,” Drake said. “Keep at it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Aren’t you staying?” Ben blurted, obviously hoping he’d get a chance to talk to his friend.

  “No.” Drake stared out the window as the sun began to set over the ocean. “Tonight, I have somewhere to be.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Drake walked out of the room without looking back. As expected, Hayden caught him up just as he was about to step on the elevator.

  “Drake, slow down. Is she alright?”

  “You know she’s alright. You saw her on the video feed.”

  Hayden grabbed his arm. “You know what I mean.”

  “She’ll recover. It had to look good, you know that. Boudreau had to think it was for real.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I could have seen him snap.”

  “Well, I was the one he stabbed, so I got that pleasure, thanks to you.”

  Drake pressed the button for the ground floor. “Your agents should have his sister by now. They’ll take her to the hospital, and get her cleaned up. Fake blood’s a devil to get outta the hair, you know.”