The Carnival of Curiosities (Matt Drake Book 27)

by David Leadbeater

  “Can we call them?” Mai asked.

  “You can try,” Bryant said. “But I doubt they’ll pick up.”

  Mai dialed the numbers provided by the FBI but only one of the phones was in working order and that went straight to voicemail. The satnav counted down steadily from thirty minutes to twenty and then ten.

  “Are you armed?” Bryant asked.

  “You kidding? I just got off a flight,” Kenzie said.

  “And all your guns are in your armory,” Mai said pointedly.

  “Not all of them. When we pull up, I’ll open the trunk lockbox. There’s a few .45s in there for emergencies.”

  “Arnold Urban was as good as they come,” Kenzie said. “If he’s there, you’re gonna need them.”

  “You don’t think he’ll have slowed with age?” Bryant asked.

  “The best ones never do.”

  Eight minutes later, Bryant stopped the car at a curb. Mai was out the door first, with Kenzie following a step behind. Bryant ran to the trunk, popped it and opened a sturdy lockbox before handing out loaded guns.

  “Are we still within the law?” Mai asked.

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Bryant said. “My only concern is Robbins.”

  Mai admired him for it. He wasn’t worried about himself or what the authorities might hit him with later. She was seeing a very appealing side to the complex man.

  Kenzie went up the short path first and banged on the door. “Police!” she shouted, shrugging at Mai’s questioning look, and holding her gun pointed at the ground. Bryant walked down the side of the house.

  “Guys!” he shouted. “The gate’s broken.”

  Mai ran after him, seeing a garden gate at the rear of the property lying askew, held on by a single hinge. They went through carefully in single file, finding themselves in a small back garden lined by hedges. A man’s body was sitting in a deckchair, wrists zip-tied to the armrests, eyes staring lifelessly up at the cloudy skies. The man’s throat had been cut.

  Bryant bowed his head. “Damn,” he said. “Robbins, I’m sorry.”

  He turned and ran, already shouting out the next address and the name of the man that lived there.

  Eighteen minutes later, they arrived at a bigger house with a high fence and wrought-iron gate. Bryant wasted no time climbing over with Mai and Kenzie just steps behind. Their boots scrunched through gravel as they made their way up the short driveway.

  “Bello’s a hothead, a fighter, but has a good heart. When it’s on the line, he’s all in. Anything for the team.”

  They knocked again at the front door, waited ten seconds and then dashed around the back. This time the gate was locked, but only until Kenzie smashed it apart with a solid front kick. Mai slipped around a corner and glanced across Bello’s back garden.

  “Empty.”

  They ran to a back door, shading their eyes to see inside. Bryant went further, to a set of French doors.

  He ducked instantly as though he’d been fired upon.

  And crawled back to Mai and Kenzie.

  “They’re inside,” he whispered. “Bello’s alive, but Urban has a knife and a gun. We must hurry.”

  Kenzie frowned. “The only way to take Urban is by covert means. You enter hard, he’ll kill Bello and at least one of us.”

  Bryant hesitated. “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “We were trained the same way. It’s what would happen if you rushed me.”

  Mai was already scanning the sides of the house. A drainage pipe ran past a second floor window that was slightly ajar. She holstered her weapon and started climbing.

  Bryant rotated down once more in her estimation as, staring up, he said: “Now there’s a sight,” but she had no time to think about the man’s infuriating personality swings. She opened the window wide and climbed in soundlessly, conscious of noisy floorboards. Seconds later, she was at the head of the stairs.

  With no comms, she knew she was on her own. Mai descended with caution, able to hear Urban talking in the back room. He was reminding Bello of the reason he was about to get his throat slit.

  “It was a war, man. You were dressed as Terries. You fired on us,” Bello said.

  Mai knew battlefield slang. The American soldiers had referred to their Afghani enemies as Terry Taliban back then. She used Urban’s harsh reply as cover to move swiftly, pausing at the doorway to look inside. By her estimations Urban should be facing away.

  But he was staring right at her.

  Urban started in shock. Mai attacked without hesitation. Urban backpedaled, glancing left and right and then seemed to reassure himself that Mai was alone. He met her attack with enthusiasm.

  They didn’t speak, just traded blows. It was Mai’s lifelong ninja and Special Forces training against Mossad’s best. Urban blocked and retaliated, but was driven back against a wall. He feinted left, then left again, managed to slice her T-shirt at the waist and slipped aside, angling back toward Bello.

  Mai leapt in defense, forcing him away, back toward the French windows. Bello was struggling left and right in the chair, leaning it on to two legs one way and then the other. Mai attacked Urban with all her skills, forcing him back against the window and bloodying his face. Urban barely withstood her, more dangerous because he had the knife which had now cut her three times. Mai ignored the bloody incisions and fought on.

  As Urban blocked her attacks, Kenzie and Bryant moved into view behind him. Kenzie lifted a brick, nodded at Mai, then threw it at the window. The glass shattered, making Urban yell out in shock and fall to the ground, covering up.

  Kenzie leapt over broken glass to disarm him, strike twice at his temples, and haul him up by his collar.

  She stared into his eyes. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Bryant produced a set of cuffs. “Drop the knife.”

  Mai watched as Urban was secured and then turned to Bello. The ex-Marine had stopped struggling and regarded them sadly.

  “The things we did in the war,” he said dejectedly. “Should stay in the war. But even the righteous kills haunt you. The dead don’t lie quietly, my friends. And you—” he nodded at the cuffed Arnold Urban “—should know that better than anyone.”

  “When you stop fighting,” Urban said in a thick accent. “That’s when you die.”

  The words struck home with Mai. Maybe that was why, despite these weeks when they ought to be keeping low profiles, the SPEAR team seemed determined to stay in the thick of the action. Maybe, unconsciously, they knew that inactivity wouldn’t save them. It was a big shout to getting the team back together again.

  Mai watched Bryant gauging the interaction. The man seemed calmer now, more in control. He’d lost two acquaintances today, but it hadn’t pushed him over the edge. Maybe working with him was more than a job, more than a way to pass the time for a month or so. Unconsciously, had she been testing him, judging to see if he was right to run her team afar from an office? Was this all... a trial?

  She was confident they could handle him as their boss. The man seemed capable and didn’t crack under pressure. And it was a way to get the team, as one, back to where they belonged. Maybe they could still carry out missions together and then divide for their downtime. That way, they could even pursue some kind of personal life.

  She just had to sell it to the rest of the team.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Drake had been waiting for Noah and Axel Boone the whole day. First, he’d checked in with Isla Kelly to make sure she was okay and asked her to rent a room at a hotel for the next few days using cash. Then, conscious of the wasted time and two abducted women, he’d returned to the only link he had to the Boone brothers.

  Their house.

  And now, as the afternoon waned before a black shadow that spread across the east and reached for the west, Drake saw Axel Boone walking up the long road that led to his front door. Drake was in his car. Axel was alone. The man’s hair was unkempt, his clothes creased and untidy. There was stubble all over hi
s face. He walked and looked like a man who’d been awake all night.

  Drake waited for him to unlock the front door to his house before following. Bracing himself, he knocked. Axel returned a moment later, looking annoyed.

  “Hey, man, what is it? I just—”

  Drake’s fist plowed into his nose, propelling him back through the doorway. Axel fell to his knees in the hall. Drake gave him a kick to the ribs for good measure, then reached down and dragged him to the kitchen, making sure he closed and locked the door at his back. The kitchen faced west and held the last of the natural light. Drake threw Axel face first against the fridge.

  “Talk,” he said. “Where are the women?”

  Axel coughed into the linoleum floor, bringing up blood. Face down, he held up a hand to ward Drake off. The Yorkshireman grabbed the outstretched fingers and twisted hard, breaking at least two.

  “Where are the women?”

  Axel bellowed into the space at the bottom of the fridge. Drake twisted the arm hard, forcing the man onto his back, and then scanned the kitchen counter. A knife rack beckoned, but so did a cutlery drawer, a kettle and a large dishwasher the same size as Axel.

  What will work faster?

  Cowards usually responded quicker to pain, and there was no doubt in Drake’s mind that Axel was a coward. Drake grabbed a long-handled knife, bent down and jabbed the end into Axel’s right bicep, holding it there. Axel flinched, gasping, coughing blood. Drake bore down steadily on the knife, letting it sink in an inch at a time.

  “Where are the women?”

  “All right, all right,” Axel gasped, grimacing and spitting. Tears rolled down his face. “They’re up at Isiah’s place. Noah and Isiah are with them.”

  “Who’s Isiah?” Drake hissed. “Tell me or I’ll jam this thing right through your fucking arm.”

  “Gun nut. Came into a fortune when his folks died. Lives in that old house out on Apache Ridge Place. Nobody bothers him out there.”

  “Did you know the two losers that kidnapped Isla Kelly?”

  Axel blubbered again. “Yeah, we used to invite each other over to watch. Get ideas. That kind of thing.”

  Drake punched the knife right through the man’s bicep. “You’re taking me to this Isiah’s place right now.”

  A feral light came into Axel’s eyes that he covered by looking down. “Okay, okay.”

  Drake dragged him upright. Axel still blubbered and glared in terror at the knife stuck all the way through his arm. Drake grabbed three more from the rack. “Any trouble from you,” he said. “You know what happens.”

  Axel nodded. Drake took a risk guiding him from the front door to the car but saw nobody out walking and no drapes twitching. He shoved Axel into the passenger seat before popping the trunk and taking the old gun from the backpack and pushing it into the rear waistband of his jeans. After that he drove Axel in silence except for the occasional rush of spoken directions.

  “This Isiah,” Drake asked when Axel said they were close. “He gonna see me coming?”

  Axel stared fixedly ahead. “Nah.”

  “Do not lie to me. Put it this way, when I exit this car, I’m hiding it and leaving you gagged and cuffed to it. If I die, you die far more slowly.”

  Axel folded. “He might. Has a big property. Cameras. It just depends if he’s... busy.”

  Drake knew what he meant. Good to his word, he pulled the car into a tangle of wild shrubbery and zip-tied Axel to the mechanism underneath the car seat before leaving him alone.

  Drake pressed through the shrubbery at the rear of Isiah’s big house, looking through a row of trees and a dilapidated fence into an expansive rear garden. He made out a fountain, two summer houses and a double garage in addition to the home’s rear, which appeared to cover two levels and have numerous bedrooms.

  More importantly, there were two small white CCTV cameras surveying the garden from a position high up on the house’s soffit boards. Drake couldn’t see an easy way in.

  But would Isiah and Noah really be sat there monitoring the CCTV feed? Axel’s story was that he’d gone out for supplies—food, clothing and other stuff so that the trio could enjoy themselves for days on end without interruption. Drake somehow doubted they’d be doing anything other than terrorizing the two women right now.

  He gambled his life on it.

  Sprinting, he covered the garden in seconds, came up against the back wall, and peered through a window. He saw no shadows, no movements, and heard nothing. The closest door was locked. All the windows were shut. Drake eased his way around the house’s far side, conscious of more cameras nestled above. Of course, if the home’s security included motion detectors he was already screwed. Drake moved faster than he was comfortable with for just that reason, searching for a way inside. Eventually he came to an old utility door that utilized a locking mechanism Drake knew was dated and extremely vulnerable. First with care and then with intense force he smashed the lock back into its housing and pushed the door inward. The door handle loosened, and Drake was in.

  Common sense told him that Isiah and Noah wouldn’t have stashed the women in an obvious place. Rather, they’d be in a basement or secret room. Drake stalked the house methodically and cautiously, knowing his chances of finding the hiding place were slim, but hoping for a break or some appearance from one of the men.

  Forty-eight minutes later that break came.

  Noah came into view behind a false bookcase. The whole thing swung outward, emitting the man holding a bloody towel in his hands and chuckling softly to himself. “Noah Boone, you’re a living legend.”

  Drake stepped out into sight. “Let’s see, shall we, pal?”

  Boone froze in shock. The hesitation was enough to end him. Drake knocked him unconscious with three crushing blows for now, conscious of the need for speed, and left Noah bleeding on the carpet before venturing beyond the bookcase.

  What the...?

  He was standing inside a dungeon, complete with leather contraptions, chains and torture devices. Concrete walls were formed of low arches from which the deadly paraphernalia hung. Bright lights shone down upon the center of the room.

  Three stone slabs stood side by side, draped by black silk throws. Upon the slabs were two women, their arms and ankles chained to the slabs by manacles and thick steel links. Both women were naked and staring at the ceiling, breathing raggedly, bleeding steadily. They had been gagged. A tall man wearing a long black robe and an evil, demonic mask complete with horns stood between them, a hand on each of them. He was chuckling, increasing their terror. The demon mask spun toward Drake as he stepped into view.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Well, if you’re a demon, then I’m an avenging angel.” Drake ran at the man but wasn’t prepared for him to whip out a Smith and Wesson. Still ten feet away, Drake flung himself to the floor and rolled as the demon opened fire. A bullet flew over his head. Drake moved to the foot of the first slab, and heard the demon shuffling around. When he judged that his opponent’s feet were in the right place he rose fast and struck out.

  His right arm smashed the gun from the hand of the demon.

  The figure staggered back. Drake vaulted across the empty slab, kicked out and planted two boots on the man’s chest. The impact sent him reeling, his right side glancing off one of the stone slabs with a crunch of broken ribs. The man under the demon mask squealed out in pain.

  “Not such a hard ass then,” Drake muttered. He scooped up the Smith and Wesson and pulled another zip-tie from his back pocket. “Sit up.”

  The demon whined and groaned. Drake cast a glance over at the two women who were following the action as best they could from a prone and restrained position. Their eyes were wide, terrified. Drake opened his mouth to reassure them.

  A quick movement caught his eye. Glancing back toward the entrance he expected to see Noah—he hadn’t had time to zip-tie the man—but was shocked to see a different figure at the doorway.

  “Courtney?”


  “Put the gun down.”

  “Are you here in an official capacity?”

  “As a cop? What do you think?”

  “I knew you were an asshole. You dropped the Isla Kelly accusations far too quickly.”

  “That three men visited her? Yeah, poor bitch was suffering some kinda trauma.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “No, fuck you. I checked on you. Some kinda soldier. You fast enough to take me, soldier boy?”

  Drake dived for the floor, lifting his gun arm at the last moment and firing over the top of the slab he was diving behind. The bullet scraped a wisp of stone from the edge of the slab before continuing and slamming into Courtney’s forehead, blasting his brains from the back of his skull.

  “Aye, mate,” he said, peering around the side of the slab. “Seems that I am.”

  Standing, he rushed to the two women and freed them before looking around for clothes. There was no way he was going to get away from this situation without spending a few hours talking to the police.

  Ten minutes later, Drake made the call.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hayden dressed conservatively for a nightclub, pulling on a pair of white jeans and a loose T-shirt. When Kinimaka asked her what he should wear she looked over to where he stood, near their hotel bathroom.

  “We’re not partying, Mano, and please stay clear of the dancefloor. We’re finding out exactly what kind of chaos Madame Davic is trying to cause. We’re heading into enemy territory.”

  “Those jeans look a bit tight for an op.”

  Hayden gave him the middle finger. “Maybe you’d like to adjust them for me.”

  Kinimaka grinned, pulling his own trousers on. “Later.”

  By the time they met with Trent, Silk and Radford, the Los Angeles sun was a crimson streak of fury over the Pacific. The Disavowed boys were also dressed appropriately. They ended up parking just a block from the club and joining a small queue at the door.