The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)

by David Leadbeater

  “North Kukui Street,” Mai told the cab driver. “You can drop us off near the mortuary.”

  The cab driver flicked a glance at her. “For real?”

  Alicia drew his attention with a feisty smile. “Keep it down, five-o. Just drive.”

  The cab driver muttered something that sounded like “Fuckin’ haole,” but switched his eyes to the road and went silent. Drake thought about where they were going. “If this really is Buchanan’s office, he’s unlikely to be there at this time.”

  Alicia snorted. “Drakey, Drakey, you just don’t listen hard enough. When we finally realized that the silly man, Pilipo, had jammed his throat so hard into your hands he was turning purple we set about saving his ridiculous life, and he told us that Buchanan has a house.”

  “A house?” Drake made a face.

  “Of business. You know these dealers. They live and eat there, play there, organize their local jobs from there. Keeps it neat. He’ll even keep his men around. It’s a nonstop hard-core party, dude.”

  “Which will help keep the nightclub events quiet, for now.” Mai said as the cab stopped outside the mortuary. “Remember when we infiltrated that shipping magnet’s office in Hong Kong? Fast in, fast out. That’s what this should be.”

  “Just like when we hit that place in Zurich.” Alicia said loudly to Drake. “It’s not all about you, Kitano. Not by a long shot.”

  *****

  Hayden entered the apartment she’d been assigned within the Honolulu CIA facility and stopped dead in surprise. Ben was waiting for her, perched on the bed, legs swinging.

  The young man looked tired. His eyes were bloodshot from days of staring at a computer screen, and his forehead looked a little scrunched from concentrating so hard. Hayden was pleased to see him.

  She made a show of looking around the room. “You and Karin finally got the umbilical snipped?”

  “Har, har. She’s family.” He said it as if their closeness was the most obvious thing. “And she sure knows her way around a computer.”

  “Genius-level IQ will help you with that.” Hayden slipped her shoes off. The thick carpet felt like a foamy cushion beneath her aching feet. “I have absolute faith that tomorrow you will find what we need in Cook’s logs.”

  “If we can even locate them.”

  “Everything’s online. You just have to know where to look.”

  Ben frowned at her. “Does… does it feel like we’re being manipulated here? First finding the Tomb of the Gods and then the displacement devices. Now we discover that the two are linked. And—” He paused.

  “And what?” Hayden planted herself next to him on the bed.

  “The devices might to be linked to the Gates of Hell in some way,” he reasoned. “If Kovalenko wants them, they must be.”

  “That’s not true.” Hayden leaned in close. “Kovalenko is a madman. We can’t presume to understand his thinking.”

  Ben’s eyes showed he was fast losing track of his thoughts and flirting with others. He kissed Hayden when she dipped her head against his. She pulled away as he began to fumble with something in his pocket.

  “I’m more comfortable with it coming out through the zipper, Ben.”

  “Uh? No. I wanted this.” He pulled out his mobile, flicked the screen to the MP3 player and selected an album.

  Fleetwood Mac began to sing ‘Second Hand News’ from the classic Rumours.

  Hayden blinked in surprise. “Dinorock? Really?”

  Ben flung her onto her back. “Some of it’s better than you’d think.”

  Hayden didn’t miss the poignant sadness in her boyfriend’s tone. She didn’t miss the theme of the song apparent in the title. For the same reasons as Ben it made her think of Kennedy Moore and Drake and all that they had lost. Not only had they both lost a great friend in Kennedy, but her violent death had reduced every one of Drake’s friends to mere background noise.

  But when Lindsey Buckingham began to sing about tall grass and doing his stuff, the mood soon changed.

  *****

  Mai asked the cab driver to wait but the man wouldn’t listen. As soon as they cleared the car, he revved the engine and set off in a spray of gravel.

  Alicia stared after him. “Wanker.”

  Mai motioned toward the intersection ahead of them. “Buchanan’s house is to the left.”

  They walked in comfortable silence. A few months ago, Drake knew such a thing would never have happened. Today, they had a common enemy. They had all been touched by the Blood King’s lunacy. And, if allowed to stay at large, he could still hurt them dearly.

  Together, they were one of the best teams in the world.

  They cut across the intersection and slowed as Buchanan’s property came into view. The place was ablaze with light. Curtains drawn. Doors were open so music could spill out into the neighborhood. The thud, thud of rap music could be heard even from across the road.

  “A model neighbor,” Alicia commented. “Someone like that—I’d just have to mosey on round and smash their Goddamn music center to pieces.”

  “But most people aren’t like you,” Drake said. “That’s what these people thrive on. At heart, they’re bullies. In real life, they carry shotguns and have no compassion or conscience.”

  Alicia grinned at him. “They won’t expect a full-frontal assault then.”

  Mai acquiesced. “Fast in, fast out.”

  Drake thought about how the Blood King had ordered the murder of so many innocents. “Let’s go fuck ‘em up.”

  *****

  Hayden was naked and sweating when her cellphone rang. If it hadn’t been the distinctive ringtone of her boss, Jonathan Gates, she would have blocked it out.

  Instead, she groaned, pushed Ben away, and jabbed at the answer button. “Yes?”

  Gates didn’t even notice her breathlessness. “Hayden, apologies for the late hour. Can you talk?”

  Hayden immediately snapped back to reality. Gates deserved her attention. The horror he had endured for his country was way beyond the call of duty.

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Dmitry Kovalenko holds captive members of the families of eight United States Senators, fourteen Representatives and one mayor. This monster will be brought to justice, Jaye, by any means necessary. You have all resources.”

  The connection went dead.

  Hayden sat there staring into the semi-dark, her ardor completely extinguished. Her thoughts were with the prisoners. The innocent were suffering yet again. She wondered how many more would suffer before the Blood King was brought to justice.

  Ben crawled over the bed to her and just held her like she wanted.

  *****

  Drake went inside first and found himself in a long hallway with two doors opening off to the left and an open kitchen at the end. A man was coming down the stairs, eyes suddenly registering shock as he saw Drake enter the house.

  “What the—?”

  Mai’s hand moved faster than the eye could see. One second the man was drawing breath to shout warning, the next he was tumbling down the stairs with a tiny dagger in his throat. When he hit the bottom, Mai finished the job and retrieved her dagger. Drake advanced up the hall. They turned left into the first room. Four sets of eyes looked up from the plain boxes they were packing with explosives.

  Explosives?

  Drake recognized the C4 instantly, but had no time to think as the men grabbed carelessly abandoned weapons. Mai and Alicia danced around Drake.

  “There!” Drake pointed to the quickest. Alicia felled him with an ungraceful kick to the groin. He went down burbling. The man in front of Drake came at him fast, leaping over the table to get some height and power to his attack. Drake angled his body underneath the man’s flight, and when he landed, kicked out both his knees from behind. The man screeched in rage and spittle flew from his mouth. Drake brought a devastating axe-kick down on the top of his head, all brute-force and power.

  The man collapsed without another sound.


  To his left Mai had jabbed two men in swift succession. Both doubled-over with stomach wounds, surprise plastered across their faces. Drake swiftly used a stranglehold to incapacitate one whilst Mai knocked out the other.

  “Go.” Drake hissed. They might not know it, but these were still the Blood King’s men. They were lucky Drake was in a hurry.

  They moved back into the hallway and down to another room. As they slipped inside, Drake caught sight of the kitchen. Men were crammed in there, all staring at something on a low table. The sound of rap music pounding from inside was so loud, Drake almost expected it to come walking out to greet him. Mai bounded ahead. By the time Drake entered the room, she had already felled one man and was on to the next. A guy with a thick beard confronted Drake, revolver already in hand.

  “What did you do—?”

  Training was everything in the art of fighting, and Drake’s was returning faster than a politician could dodge a key question. Instantly, he snapped his foot up, struck the revolver from the man’s hands, then stepped in and caught it in mid-air.

  He reversed the weapon.

  “Live by the sword.” He fired. Buchanan’s man fell backward in an artistic spray. Mai and Alicia immediately scooped up other discarded firearms as someone shouted from the kitchen. “Hey, fools! What the fuck you doin?”

  Drake grinned. The discharge of firearms was not unheard of in this house it seemed. Good. He approached the door.

  “Two,” He whispered, indicating that the door space afforded just two of them the space to maneuver. Mai fell in behind.

  “Let’s put these dogs down.” Drake and Alicia stepped out firing, aiming for the forest of legs that surrounded the table.

  Blood sprayed and bodies folded to the floor. Drake and Alicia moved forward, knowing shock and awe would confuse and intimidate their opponents. One of Buchanan’s guards leapt over the low table and barged into Alicia, sending her flying. Mai stepped into the breach, defending as the guard jabbed at her twice. Mai caught each blow on a forearm before bringing her gun down hard on the bridge of his nose.

  Alicia was back in the fray. “I had him.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you did, sweetie.”

  “Blow me.” Alicia trained her gun on the groaning, weeping men. “Anyone else want to try? Hmm?”

  Drake was staring at the low table and its contents. Piles of C4 littered the surface in various stages of preparation.

  What on earth was the Blood King planning?

  “Which one of you is Buchanan?”

  No one answered.

  “I have a deal for Buchanan.” Drake shrugged. “But if he’s not here, then I guess we’ll have to shoot you all.” He shot the nearest man in the stomach.

  Uproar filled the room. Even Mai stared at him in astonishment. “Matt—”

  He snarled at her. “No names.”

  “I’m Buchanan.” A man with his back against the big fridge gasped as he pressed hard on a bullet wound. “C’mon, man. We ain’t hurt you.”

  Drake’s finger tightened on the trigger. It required a massive amount of self-control not to fire. “You haven’t hurt me?” He jumped forward and deliberately knelt on the leaking wound. “You haven’t hurt me?”

  Bloodlust filled his vision. Inconsolable grief stabbed at his brain and heart. “Tell me,” he said thickly. “Tell me where Claude is or, so help me, I will blow your brains all over this fucking fridge.”

  Buchanan’s eyes didn’t lie. Fear of death rendered his ignorance transparent. “I know Claude’s friends,” he whimpered. “But I don’t know Claude. I could give you his friends. Yes, I can give you them.”

  Drake listened as he spilled two names and their whereabouts. Scarberry and Peterson. Only when that information was fully extracted did he indicate the table full of C4.

  “What are you doing here? Getting ready to start a war?”

  The answer stunned him. “Well, yes. The battle of Hawaii’s about to begin, man.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Ben Blake walked into the tiny office he shared with his sister to find Karin standing by the window. “Hey, sis.”

  “Hi. Just look at this, Ben. A Hawaiian sunrise.”

  “We should be at the beach. Everyone goes there for sunrise and sunset.”

  “Oh, do they?” Karin eyed her brother with a little sarcasm. “Look that up on the internet did you?”

  “Well, now we’re here I’d like to get out of this stuffy place and meet some locals.”

  “What for?”

  “I never met a Hawaiian.”

  “Mano’s a friggin’ Hawaiian, dumbo. Jeez, sometimes I wonder if I got both our allowance of brain cells.”

  Ben knew it was useless to start a battle of wits with his sister. He drank in the glorious sight for a few minutes before heading out the door to pour them both a coffee. When he returned, Karin was already booting their computers up.

  Ben placed the mugs next to their keyboards. “You know, I’m looking forward to this.” He rubbed his hands. “Searching for Captain Cook’s logs, I mean. This is real detective work because we’re looking for what’s hidden away, not what’s obvious.”

  “We do know there are no references on the web that tie Cook to Diamond Head, or Leahi, to the Hawaiians. We know that Diamond Head is but one of a series of cones, vents, tunnels and lava tubes that run underneath Oahu.”

  Ben sipped the hot coffee. “We also know that Cook landed at Kauai, in the town of Waimea. Points to note about Waimea—there’s a canyon there awesome enough to rival the Grand Canyon. The locals of Kauai coined the phrase Hawaii’s original visitor destination, as a cheeky taunt toward Oahu. Cook’s statue stands in Waimea near a very small museum.”

  “The other thing we know,” Karin responded. “Is that Captain Cook’s logs and journals are right here.” She tapped her computer. “Online.”

  Ben sighed and started flicking through the first of the extensive journals. “Let the fun begin.” He plugged his earphones in and sat back.

  Karin stared at him. “Turn it down. Is that the Wall of Sleep? And another cover? Someday, little brother, you’re going to have to get those new tracks down and stop wasting away your five minutes of fame.”

  “Don’t talk to me about wasting your time away, sis. We all know you’re the master of that.”

  “You intend to bring that up again? Now?”

  “It’s been five years.” Ben turned the music up and concentrated on his computer. “Five years of ruin. Don’t let what happened back then wreck the next ten.”

  *****

  Running on no sleep and minimal rest, Drake, Mai and Alicia decided to take a short break. Drake had been receiving calls from Hayden and Kinimaka since about an hour after the sun came up. The mute button soon resolved that problem.

  They rented a room in Waikiki. It was a big Outrigger hotel, packed with tourists, allowing them a high level of anonymity. They ate quickly at a local Denny’s, then headed to their hotel where they took an elevator to their room on the eight floor.

  Once inside, Drake relaxed. He knew the benefits of fuelling up on food and rest. He curled into an easy chair near the window, basking as the clear Hawaiian sun bathed him through the French windows.

  “You two can fight over the bed,” he murmured without looking around. “Someone set an alarm for two hours.”

  With that, he allowed his thoughts to drift away, calm with the knowledge that they had an address on two men who were as close to Claude as anyone could be. Calm with the knowledge that Claude led straight to the Blood King.

  Calm with the knowledge that bloody vengeance was only hours away.

  *****

  Hayden and Kinimaka spent the morning at the local Honolulu PD. The news was that some of Claude’s ‘associates’ had been taken out during the night, but no real news was forthcoming. A club owner called Pilipo was saying very little. Several of his bouncers were in hospital. It also appeared his video feed had miraculously gone down when a ma
n and two women had assaulted him sometime before midnight.

  Add to that a bloody gun-battle somewhere in downtown that involved more of Claude’s known associates. When armed officers had arrived at the scene, all they found was an empty house. No men. No bodies. Just blood on the floor and a kitchen table that, when dusted, revealed traces of C4.

  Hayden tried Drake. She tried Alicia. She pulled Mano to one side and whispered furiously in his ear. “Damn them! They don’t know we have the backing to proceed as we see fit. They need to know.”

  Kinimaka shrugged, his big shoulders rising and falling. “Maybe Drake doesn’t want to know. He’ll do this his way, government backing or not.”

  “He’s a liability now.”

  “Or a poisonous arrow shooting straight for the heart.” Kinimaka smiled when his boss glanced at him.

  Hayden was momentarily fazed. “What? Are those song lyrics, or something?”

  Kinimaka looked hurt. “Don’t think so, boss. So”—he flicked a glance toward the assembled cops—“what does the HPD know about Claude?”

  Hayden sighed deeply. “Not surprisingly, very little. Claude’s the shady owner of a few clubs that may or may not be involved in illegal activities. They’re not high on the HPD’s watch list. Hence, their silent owner stays anonymous.”

  “With everything no doubt engineered by Kovalenko.”

  “No doubt. It always pays for a criminal to be several times removed from the real world.”

  “Maybe Drake’s making progress. If he wasn’t, I think he’d be with us.”

  Hayden nodded. “Let’s hope so. In the meantime, we have a few locals to shake down. And you should make contact with anyone you know who might be able to help us. Kovalenko’s started a bloodbath already. I hate to think how it might all end up.”

  *****

  Ben fought hard to keep the focus at a high level. His emotions were in disarray. It was months now since his life had been normal. Before the ‘Odin thing’ his idea of being adventurous was keeping his modern rock band, The Wall of Sleep, a secret from his mum and dad. He was a family man, a good-hearted nerd with a talent for all things technical.