The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)

by David Leadbeater

  “Komodo,” Drake said. “This is the end. Has to be.”

  He pushed past the big team leader into a giant passageway. The space was already larger than the door that led into it and, if it was possible, Drake sensed the passage widening, the walls and the ceiling withdrawing further and further until—

  A cold, stiff breeze caressed his face.

  He stopped and dropped a glow stick. By the faint light he fired off an amber flare. It flew up, up, up, then down and down without finding purchase. Without finding a ceiling, a ledge or even a floor.

  He fired a second flare, this one more to the right. Again the amber infusion vanished without trace. He snapped a few glow sticks and threw them ahead to illuminate their way.

  A sheer cliff edge dropped off six feet in front of them.

  Drake felt intense vertigo, but forced himself to continue. A few more steps and he faced the void.

  “Can’t see a thing. Bollocks.”

  “We can’t have come all this way to be thwarted by the bloody dark.” Karin voiced everyone’s thoughts. “Try again, Drake.”

  He sent a third flare into the void. As it flew this one picked out some faint highlights. There was something on the other side of the chasm. An enormous structure.

  “What was that?” Ben breathed in awe.

  The flare plummeted quickly, a brief spark of life lost forever to the darkness.

  “Wait there,” the last remaining Delta soldier, a man with the call-sign Merlin said. “How many amber flares do we have left?”

  Drake checked his webbing and his pack. Komodo did the same. The number they came up with was about thirty.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Komodo said. “Fireworks display, right?”

  “One time,” Merlin, the team’s weapons expert, said grimly. “Find out what we’re dealing with and then hump it back to a place where we can call in support.”

  Drake nodded. “Agreed.” He set aside a dozen flares for the way back and then readied himself. Komodo and Merlin came up to stand beside him at the edge.

  “Ready?”

  One by one, in rapid succession, they fired flare after flare high into the air. The amber light blazed brightly at its highest point and threw out a brilliant glow that shattered the dark.

  Daylight came to the eternal blackness for the first time in history.

  The pyrotechnical display began to have an effect. As flare after flare continued to shoot up and explode before drifting slowly downward, the great structure at the other end of the gigantic cavern became illuminated.

  Ben gasped. Karin laughed. “Brilliant.”

  As they gazed in wonder, the pitch black was set on fire and a stunning construction began to appear. First, a series or arches cut into the rear wall, then a second series beneath that. Then it became apparent that the arches were in fact small rooms—niches.

  Below the second row, they saw a third and then a fourth and then rows upon rows as the dazzling lights drifted down the great wall. And in each niche great glinting treasures reflected back the brief glory of the drifting amber inferno.

  Ben was stunned. “It’s… it’s…”

  Drake and the Delta team continued to fire flare after flare. They made the massive chamber appear to burst into flames. The magnificent conflagration flashed and raged before their eyes.

  At last, Drake fired the final flare. Then he took a moment to appraise the mind-numbing revelation.

  Ben was stammering. “It’s huge… it’s—”

  “Another tomb of the gods.” Drake finished with more worry in his voice than wonder. “At least three times the size of the one in Iceland. Jesus Christ, Ben, what the hell is going on?”

  *****

  The journey back, though still fraught with danger, took half the time and half the effort. The only major obstacle was the big chasm where they had to rig another zip-wire to travel back across, although the chamber of Lust was always going to be a problem for the guys, as Karin pointed out with a wry glance at Komodo.

  Once back through the archway, Cook’s Gates of Hell, they hoofed it back through the lava tube and out onto the surface.

  Drake broke a long silence. “Wow, that’s the best smell in the world, right now. Fresh air at last.”

  Mano Kinimaka’s voice came out of the surrounding dark. “Make that Hawaiian fresh air, man, and you’d be nearer the mark.”

  People and faces drifted out of the semi-dark. A generator was fired up, lighting a hastily-erected set of string lights. A field-table was being erected. Komodo had called in their position as soon as they started up the lava tube. Ben’s signal returned and his mobile bleeped on four separate occasions with voicemail. Karin’s did the same. The parents had been allowed to call.

  “Only four times?” Drake asked with a grin. “They must have forgotten you.”

  Now Hayden came up to them, a battered, weary-looking Hayden. But she was smiling and she gave Ben a tentative hug. She was followed by Alicia, glaring with killer-eyes behind Drake. And in the shadows, Drake saw Mai, an awful tension stretched across her face.

  It was almost time for their reckoning. The Japanese woman, rather than the English woman, seemed the most ill at ease about it.

  Drake shrugged the dark cloud of depression away. He topped it all by flinging the trussed and gagged figure of the Blood King onto the rough ground at their feet.

  “Dmitry Kovalenko.” He growled. “The Bell-end King. The most depraved of his kind. Anyone fancy a few kicks?”

  At that moment, the figure of Jonathan Gates materialized from the growing hubbub around the makeshift camp. Drake narrowed his eyes. He knew Kovalenko had personally murdered Gates’s wife. Gates had more reason to hurt the Russian than even Drake and Alicia.

  “Take a shot.” Drake hissed. “Fucker won’t need all his arms and legs in prison anyway.”

  He saw Ben and Karin flinch and turn away. In that moment he caught a glimpse of the man he had become. He saw the bitterness, the vengeful anger, the spiral of hate and resentment that would lead to him becoming something not unlike Kovalenko himself, and knew all these emotions would eat away at him and eventually change him, make him over into a different man. It was an end that neither of them would want…

  …Alyson or Kennedy that is.

  He turned away too and put an arm around each of the Blakes’ shoulders. They were staring eastward, past a set of swaying palm trees toward distant glittering lights and the rolling ocean.

  “Such a sight might change a man,” Drake said. “Might give him a renewed hope. Given time.”

  Ben spoke without turning. “I know you want a Dinorock quote right now, but I ain’t gonna give you one. Instead, I could quote several relevant lines from Haunted. How about that?”

  “You’re quoting Taylor Swift now? What went wrong there?”

  “That track is as good as any of your Dinorock. And you know it.”

  But Drake would never admit it. Instead, he listened into the chatter shooting back and forth behind them. The terror plots had been foiled competently and quickly, but there had still been some loss of life. An inevitable consequence when dealing with fanatics and madmen. The country was in mourning. The president was on his way and already promising another complete overhaul of the U.S. intelligence system, though it was still unclear how anyone could have prevented Kovalenko from hatching a plan twenty years in the making when, during all that time, he had been considered a mere figure of myth.

  Much like the gods and their remains they were finding now.

  Still, lessons had been learned and the U.S. and other countries were determined to take it all on board.

  The question of charges being brought against those people in authority who had acted under coercion and out fear for the wellbeing of their loved ones was going to tie up the judicial system for years.

  But the Blood King’s captives had been freed and were being reunited with their loved ones. Gates was promising that Kovalenko would be m
ade to retract the blood vendetta, one way or another. Harrison had been reunited with his daughter, albeit briefly, and the news only made Drake sad.

  If his own daughter had been born and loved and then kidnapped, would he have done the same as Harrison?

  Of course he would. Any father would move heaven and Earth and everything in between to save his child.

  Hayden, Gates and Kinimaka drifted away from the hubbub until they stood near Drake and his group. He was pleased to see Komodo and the surviving Delta soldier, Merlin, with them too. Bonds forged in comradeship and action were everlasting.

  Hayden was quizzing Gates about some guy called Russell Cayman. It seemed the man had replaced Torsten Dahl as head of the Icelandic operation, his orders coming from the very top… and maybe even from a foggy and distant place above that. Cayman was a hard man, it seemed, and ruthless. He usually ran black-ops and, it was rumored, even more secretive and select operations both at home and abroad.

  “Cayman is a troubleshooter,” Gates was saying. “But more than that. You see, no one seems to know whose troubleshooter he is. His clearance is beyond top-level. His access is immediate and unreserved. But, when pushed, nobody knows who the hell he actually works for.”

  Drake’s mobile rang and he tuned out. He checked the screen and was pleased to see the caller was Torsten Dahl.

  “Hey, it’s the mad Swede! How’s it going, mate? Still talking like an arsehole?”

  “It would seem so. I’ve been trying to contact someone for hours and I get you. Fate is not being kind to me.”

  “You’re lucky to get any of us,” Drake said. “It’s been a rough few days.”

  “Well, it’s about to get rougher.” Dahl came back.

  “I doubt that—”

  “Listen. We found a drawing. A map to be more accurate. We managed to decipher most of it before that wanker Cayman classified it a top-level security issue. By the way, did Hayden or Gates find anything out about him?”

  Drake blinked with confusion. “Cayman? Who the hell is this Cayman? And what do Hayden and Gates know?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t have a lot of time.” For the first time Drake, realized his friend was whispering and in a rush. “Look. The map we found, at the very least, points to the locations of three tombs. Did you get that? There are three tombs of the gods.”

  “We just found a second.” Drake felt the wind knocked out of him. “It’s huge.”

  “I thought so. The map appears to be accurate then. But Drake, you have to hear this, the third tomb is the biggest of all and it’s the worst.”

  “Worst?”

  “Filled with the most terrible gods. The real nasty ones. The evil ones. Tomb three was kind of like a prison, where death was forced rather than accepted. And Drake. . .”

  “What?”

  “If we’re right, I think it holds the key to some kind of doomsday weapon.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  By the time another darkness descended over Hawaii and the next stages of some ancient mega-plan were being instigated, Drake, Alicia and Mai left it all behind to bring an end to their own crisis once and for all.

  By chance, they chose the most dramatic setting of all. Waikiki Beach, with the warm pacific, starkly lit by the full moon, rolling in to one side, and the rows of tourist hotels blazing out to the other.

  But tonight, it was a place for dangerous people and harsh revelations. Three forces of nature came together in a meeting that would forever change the course of their lives.

  Drake spoke first. “You two have to tell me. Who killed Wells, and why. That’s why we’re here, so there’s no point pussyfooting around anymore.”

  “It’s not the only reason we’re here.” Alicia eyed Mai with venom. “The sprite here helped kill Hudson by keeping quiet about her little sister. It’s time to get me and my man a little old-fashioned vengeance.”

  Mai shook her head slowly. “That’s not true. Your fat, idiot boyf—”

  “In the spirit of Wells, then.” Alicia hissed. “I want me some Mai-time!”

  Alicia stepped forward and punched Mai hard in the face. The small Japanese woman staggered, then looked up and smiled.

  “You remembered.”

  “That you told me the next time I punched you I should hit you like a man? Yeah, you don’t tend to forget something like that.”

  Alicia unleashed a flurry of blows. Mai retreated, catching each one on her wrists. The sand around them churned, swept into errant patterns by their quick-moving feet. Drake tried to intercede once, but a blow to the right ear made him think twice.

  “Just don’t friggin’ kill each other.”

  “Can’t promise anything,” Alicia muttered. She dropped and swept Mai’s right leg. Mai landed with a grunt, head cushioned by the sand. When Alicia advanced, Mai threw a handful of sand in her face.

  “Bitch.”

  “All’s fair—” Mai lunged. The two women came face-to-face. Alicia was used to close combat and hit hard with elbows, fists and palms but Mai caught or dodged every one and returned the blows in kind. Alicia caught hold of Mai’s belt and tried to pull her off balance, but all that she achieved was to partially rip open the top of Mai’s trousers.

  And leave Alicia’s defenses wide-open.

  Drake blinked at the developments. “Now that’s more like it.” He stepped back. “Continue.”

  Mai took full advantage of Alicia’s mistake and, against a warrior of Mai’s class, there would only be the one. Blows rained down on Alicia and she staggered back, her right arm hanging limp with agony and her sternum burning under multiple strikes. Most warriors would have folded after two or three, but Alicia was made of sterner stuff, and even at the end, she almost rallied.

  She threw herself back through the air, kicked out, and stunned Mai with a two-footed blow to the stomach. Alicia landed on her back in the sand, and body-flipped herself straight up.

  Only to meet a face plant of the hardest order. The stomach kick would have taken out the Hulk, but it hadn’t even phased Mai. Her muscles had absorbed the blow with ease.

  Alicia went down, lights almost out. Stars swam before her eyes, and not the ones that twinkled in the night sky. She groaned. “Lucky fucking shot.”

  But Mai had already turned to Drake.

  “I killed Wells, Drake. I did.”

  “I realized that earlier,” he said. “You must have had your reason. What was it?”

  “You wouldn’t have said that if I’d killed the old bastard.” Alicia groaned from below them. “You’d have called me a psycho-bitch.”

  Drake ignored her. Mai shook sand from her hair. After a minute, she took a deep breath and stared him deep in the eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “Two reasons. The first and simplest—he found out about Chika being kidnapped and threatened to tell you.”

  “But we could have talked about—”

  “I know. That’s only a small part.”

  Only a small part, he thought. The kidnapping of Mai’s sister was a small part?

  Now Alicia struggled to her feet. She too faced Drake, uncharacteristic fear in her eyes.

  “I know,” Mai began, then indicated Alicia too. “We know something far worse. Something terrible—”

  “Christ, if you don’t spit it out, I’m going to shoot you both in the bloody head.”

  “First, you must know Wells would never have told you the truth. He was SAS. He was an officer. And he worked for a tiny organization so far up the food chain it governs the Government.”

  “The truth? About what?” Drake’s blood had suddenly run cold.

  “That your wife—Alyson—was murdered.”

  His mouth worked but no sound emerged.

  “You got too close to someone. They needed you out of that regiment. And her death made you quit.”

  “But I was going to leave. I was going to leave the SAS for her!”

  “Nobody knew that,” Mai said softly. “Not even s
he knew that.”

  Drake blinked a sudden wetness from the corner of his eyes. “She was having our baby.”

  Mai stared, ashen-faced. Alicia turned away.

  “I never told anyone before,” he said. “Never.”

  The Hawaiian night groaned around them, the heavy surf whispering the long-forgotten songs of the ancients, the stars and the moon gazing down as impassively as they had always done, keeping secrets and listening to the promises a man might often make.

  “And there’s something else,” Mai said into the dark. “I spent a lot of time with Wells when we were running around Miami. Whilst we were in that hotel, you know, the one that got shot to bits, I heard him talk on the phone at least half a dozen times to a man—”

  “What man?” Drake said quickly.

  “The man’s name was Cayman. Russell Cayman.”

  THE END

  (Matt Drake will return in The Tomb of the Gods—the final part of the initial 4 part series.)

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR