The Carnival of Curiosities (Matt Drake Book 27)

by David Leadbeater

  “Observe and report,” Trent said. “Stay under the radar.”

  “Let’s hope that she doesn’t recognize you,” Silk said.

  “Not a chance.” Trent was wearing thick glasses and had dyed his hair blond. He’d also grown as much stubble as he was able, and looked a different man.

  Ten minutes later they were inside the club.

  Dance tracks reverberated from wall to wall. The dancefloor was a blur of motion, people swaying on high-gloss LED tiles that flickered with every color of the rainbow, picked out by high-level strobes and lasers. Hayden made a point of skirting the first dance area and then a second on her way to the bar.

  Kinimaka stayed with her. Trent and the others peeled off. Hayden studied the nightclub whilst waiting for her drink. A second level overlooked part of the first, people leaning over railings to watch the action below. Everyone appeared to have a drink in their hands and was shouting to be heard.

  “If you can’t hear yourself speak, you’ll drink more!” Mano yelled at her. “That’s the idea.”

  Hayden could believe it. There was no attempt to keep the music aimed at those on the dancefloor, rather it blared out of speakers positioned all around the enormous space. Hayden’s drink arrived, a virgin cocktail, and she took a sip, somehow managing to refrain from grimacing. They stood for a while, pretending to talk, yet watching comings and goings.

  “Obvious Russian muscle,” Kinimaka told her when two broad-shouldered, brutish-looking men stalked past. Hayden nodded and watched them, but they were doing nothing except breaking up an insignificant scuffle in one of the rear rooms. She met Mano back at the bar.

  “Anything?”

  “Nah. Lots of goons wandering around, keeping the peace, trying it on with the women. I saw a guy get dragged out. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “How about that?” Trent appeared alongside them, nodding at a small group in the corner. “Security just came out of that huddle. Didn’t speak to anyone but he did leave something behind.”

  Hayden saw a broad-shouldered hulk wearing a black jacket with the word Security emblazoned on the back, walking away, listening to something being said into his earpiece and then scanning the crowd, as if looking for someone.

  “He’s getting instructions on where to go next,” Radford said. “Maybe he’s distributing drugs for people to buy remotely. Maybe through the Internet or using an app. It’s actually quite clever.”

  “Money doesn’t change hands,” Hayden said. “They just use an illegal app. Or a disguised one. Send this guy out to hand over the goods. If he gets caught, they’ll say they have no affiliation with him. So that’s Madame Davic’s plan? To use some kind of new-fangled app technology to flood LA with drugs?”

  “But is it drugs and an app?” Silk asked. “We need to check.”

  From different angles they followed the security guard around, passing the responsibility between them so that the guard never saw the same face twice. Assuming there would also be club cameras on him, they remained as surreptitious as possible.

  Finally, Silk saw him palming off some bright red pills to a couple who pocketed the merchandise. Silk, an accomplished pickpocket, was able to get close to them and, whilst Hayden caused a small distraction by sidling up to the guy, remove two pills from his pocket.

  They met a few minutes later back at the bar.

  “What are they?” Hayden peered at the small red pills in Silk’s hand.

  “See the symbol?” Trent pointed out a stylized icon carved into the surface of the pill. “It’s the Russian word for death.”

  Hayden closed her eyes briefly, not shocked at Madame Davic’s public display of hatred for the people purchasing her goods, but at the lack of care displayed by the public themselves. Were they so unhappy that this pill was potentially worth their lives?

  Or were they all so imbued with the invincibility of youth—believing the worst would never happen to them?

  Just then, there was a flurry of movement over by the staircase. Hayden saw six suited men hurrying down, their hands held close to their chest pockets.

  “Boys,” she said. “We might have trouble.”

  Kinimaka was focused entirely on the little red pill and its Cyrillic letter. “Look at how the tail curls over to the right, like a—”

  “Mano! Heads up!” Hayden cried.

  Six men were coming at them, hands now outstretched. Maybe they’d seen them pickpocket the couple and were merely coming to evict them from the premises, but Hayden took no chances. The first bouncer got a kick to the knee, which put him on all fours. The second received a flying kick to the face after she vaulted off the back of the man she’d sent onto his hands and knees. By then, Mano and the boys were in the fight,

  Kinimaka stopped one mid-stride by simply holding his hands out and grabbing hold of the guy’s shirt. He then threw the bruiser across the floor, watching him skid along the polished tiling like a bowling ball until he struck the side of the dancefloor. Clubbers skipped and jumped out of the way. Some cheered. Some cried out in warning. Trent slammed an attacker in the sternum and backed away. Silk and Radford slipped past the remaining men.

  “Come. Here,” a heavyset Russian brute intoned. Clearly two separate sentences. Muscle-bound arms reached for Kinimaka. The Hawaiian let himself be taken closer before smashing his forehead into the other man’s nose. The Russian bellowed, releasing Mano but not backing away.

  “You bwoke by dose!”

  “Just a love tap.” Kinimaka twisted away, following Trent and Silk toward the exit. Hayden followed. There was a short spell of light-heartedness, a sense of achievement, but then came the sound of many heated voices behind them.

  And one loud voice in particular.

  “Bring them to me!”

  Hayden looked up, noticing a balcony jutting out above the second floor. The woman leaning over, staring down at her, was Madame Davic.

  Their eyes met in a flash of mutual hatred. Men were already streaming down the stairs. Hayden turned and raced for the exit, Kinimaka at her side. The area around the double doors was full of activity, people milling around and staring worriedly at the commotion rather than moving on. Silk reached them first but couldn’t find a way through. Trent turned to Mano.

  “What do you think, big guy?”

  Kinimaka lowered his shoulders and kept on running, forging a way through the crowd. Hayden, at the back, was forced to slow and turn to meet the first of the Russians.

  “Come with me,” he said, subtly showing her the gun holstered inside his jacket. “Madame Davic wants to talk.”

  “Madame Davic can kiss my ass.” Hayden jabbed him in the throat and kicked the next in the stomach. A hand grabbed her collar and she whirled to strike, but saw it was Trent urging her on. She ran after him. Kinimaka had cleared a path to the door and was squaring up to the doormen outside.

  Hayden heard radios crackling, the goons getting their orders. She saw a blur of activity outside and realized the real danger wasn’t inside the club.

  It was in the street outside.

  Somehow, Madame Davic was already there. There had to be an elevator attached to her upper floor office, Hayden imagined. The woman was stocky, bulky around the shoulders as if she worked out by weightlifting her own guards. Her hair was dirty blond, her face marked by lines of responsibility and stress and, most likely, anguish. Hayden watched as she walked into the middle of the street and raised a shotgun, aiming it at Kinimaka.

  She’d never moved so fast. She screamed as she ran. Mano heard her, turned, and never saw Madame Davic but the glass all around the window shattered. Hayden, covered in glass, skidded to Mano’s side.

  “Down, you idiot, down.”

  They went headlong, scrambling along the width of the sidewalk to the side of a parked car. Madame Davic was yelling in anger. Another boom rang out and the car they were leaning against shuddered. Hayden started to crawl away from where she’d last seen Madame Davic.

  “Is
she mad?” Mano asked. “This isn’t the nineteenth century and she’s definitely not Al Capone.”

  By now Trent and the others were down alongside them. Trent and Silk had relieved two guards of their weapons and checked the mags. “We’re good,” Trent said. “You ready?”

  “Very,” Kinimaka muttered.

  Madame Davic fired once more. There were running feet, goons approaching the car. The nightclub doors were opening, discharging even more. They were seconds from being shot right there in the street.

  “Up!” Trent jumped to his feet and opened fire. Hayden was with him and saw two men tagged by bullets fall to the floor. Silk also opened fire, hitting another Russian. Madame Davic stood at the center of her falling men, snarling.

  “You fuckers. You come to my club. You damage my business. You shoot at me... me?” She’d already reloaded and fired again. The shell smashed the windows of the car Hayden and Kinimaka were standing behind. Already, Trent and Silk were running. Behind them, gun-toting goons emerged from the club.

  They changed their tactics, running out into the street. Only Madame Davic and three guards stood there now. Davic had her head down, reloading. Trent shot one of the guards; Silk another. As one they raced across the road, crunching through broken glass and hurdling groaning bodies. In the distance sirens wailed.

  “Gonna be hell to pay for this one,” Silk muttered.

  Hayden was aware that CCTV was highly prevalent in the surrounding area. “Her own actions will shut her down,” she said. “If she hadn’t come out like a madwoman shooting in the street...”

  For some reason there was still shooting behind them; the double blast of a shotgun and the enraged bellow of a dangerous beast. Hayden was glad of the shadows that claimed them; happy that they’d foiled Davic’s plot but worried about what repercussions victory might bring about.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dahl dragged Alicia into a space between two parked cars and slapped her face. Unconscious after the blast, she didn’t respond immediately, which was possibly just as well since Dahl wanted to remain alive. He may have killed a submarine and a helicopter, but dealing with an enraged Alicia was another matter altogether. The blond moaned and then breathed deeply. Dahl changed tactics as she came to and tapped her lightly on the nose.

  “C’mon, snap out of it. C’mon, Alicia.”

  “I’m not a fucking retriever, Dahl. Stop patting me on the nose.”

  The Swede was too busy to respond. Cam and Shaw had been blown off their feet, covered in glass, but were now sheltering behind a stalled bus. The trouble was, nobody knew if there was another attack coming, or from which direction.

  Dahl scanned the street. Glass, rubble, clothing, shattered timbers and mangled steel lay everywhere. There were no bodies that Dahl could see, but he could hear groaning from somewhere. The café where Donovan had been sitting looked like it had been mauled by a forty-foot bear, and Donovan was gone.

  What happened here?

  He stayed low. Alicia tried to stand but Dahl kept her down, understanding she might be suffering from dizziness, confusion, or a million other symptoms knowing Alicia.

  “If you pat me on the head once more, Torsty, I’m gonna make you wish you were born a eunuch.”

  “Finally, I can call you a dizzy blond,” he said without looking at her. “Been saving that one up.”

  Alicia stayed where she was, probably realizing she shouldn’t be moving around just yet. Dahl watched for Donovan, aware that this attack had been meant for them. Donovan had targeted them.

  Cam and Shaw joined him half a minute later.

  “That Donovan guy drew us here,” Cam said. “Lured us. The bomb was meant to kill us.”

  Dahl pointed to the right. “Just keep an eye out for more. Shaw, you got the sidewalk.” The Swede moved into the road, conscious of the target he was presenting but knowing they couldn’t stay there forever. Police cars were approaching along with a fleet of ambulances.

  Dahl willed himself to spot Donovan. Just one glimpse, however brief. It would be far worse to leave him out there—hunting them down. So this is it then. This is how it’s gonna go from now on.

  Drake had been right. Their enemies were hunting them even on home soil.

  The thought shocked and unsettled him. It didn’t sound accurate. Dahl couldn’t remember a single moment when the Yorkshireman had gotten his facts right before. Maybe that was just Dahl, but...

  Splitting up had been the right thing to do. Staying together, staying relatively local, wasn’t. On the other hand, if they were kicking ass on distant shores...

  How the hell am I ever going to admit that Drake was right?

  Simple... he wasn’t. Their enemies, aware that they no longer worked for the government—and possibly knowing that fact through insider information—were tracking them down, stalking them across the country.

  At his back a voice said: “We’re gonna have to keep a much lower profile, Torsty.”

  Alicia was there, backing him up as always. She looked dazed, but she was ready to fight.

  Dahl looked at her. “Have we fucked up, Alicia?”

  The blond glared back. “No. Because that would mean Drake was right, and splitting the team up isn’t right. It can’t be...” She sighed. “Can it?”

  “He’ll never hear it from me,” Dahl muttered.

  By now Cam and Shaw had joined them, the four figures monitoring each compass point. When the ambulances arrived, Dahl called a paramedic over and asked her to take a look at Alicia. The sun beat down, the surf rolled and roared, and the cafés, restaurants and gift shops would still do their business tonight.

  But everything had changed.

  “What next?” Dahl asked aloud.

  “We get the team back together,” Shaw said. “And figure out a good move. Conversely, it would be better for all of us.”

  “You could be right.” Dahl liked the way the Native American was already thinking of them as family, as a unit, rather than in separate parts.

  “But, for now, America is done for us,” Alicia said as she rejoined them, a small bandage wrapped across her forehead.

  “You shoulda asked them to take a look at that nose whilst they were at it,” Dahl said with a small smile.

  “It’s still crooked? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “They know how and where to target us,” Dahl said pensively. “Maybe some government figures are involved. The same ones that dissolved the Strike Force teams when the new president came into office. That should be our focus, our emphasis, our main purpose. Whatever that is.”

  “Agreed,” Alicia said. “But first we have to disappear.”

  “I might be able to help with that,” Cam said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Marko Lupei was a squat man with a shaved head, and incredibly broad and muscular shoulders. Hailing from a Romani village in Transylvania, he had been traveling most of his life. By night he was an escape artist, the best and most renowned in the land, but by day he was the leader of the Lupei family, a close-knit, hard-living, criminal enterprise that made its mark every day on the brutal Romanian underworld.

  Lupei cut through an assortment of parked vans and trucks, intent on a particular destination. He was bare-chested as he often was. It took a day where ice sat unmoving, thick as his wrist, to make him throw on an old T-shirt or ragged top of some sort that lay crumpled in a corner of his bedroom, covered in dust, grime and cobwebs. As always, he was intense. Nothing existed for Mark Lupei but the Carnival and the side businesses.

  The day was ending. A bitter gale blew along the summits of several rolling hills, the highest of which the Carnival had camped on that night as it rolled between venues. The gusts were hard enough to rock the caravans, set the dogs barking, and make small children sit up in bed, eyes wide with fear. Lupei cared about none of that.

  He descended the far side of the hill and entered a small wood, saw the flickering flames of a campfire through close-set tree trunks. Five siblings
sat waiting for him along with his wife—Aurelia. They were seated on the cold, hard ground, their faces rigid and washed by fiery reflections, their attention taken by the mesmerizing conflagration.

  “Throw me some of that,” Lupei said as he took a place beside Aurelia, stretching his hands toward the warming fire.

  Nicu, one of his three sons, threw him a charred piece of meat. Lupei tore off a strip and washed it down with cold beer before starting to speak.

  “It is true,” he said finally. “Hagi has vowed to wipe us out.”

  “A pathetic, weak comment we’ve heard before.” Aurelia leapt to the attack, his wife quick to anger in his defense.

  “True, but not like this.” Lupei tore off another strip of meat, laid it on a plate and spread some garlic sauce over it.

  “It wasn’t a year ago that Hagi said he wanted to end the feud,” Nicu said.

  Lupei grinned. “We soon put an end to that shit,” he said grimly. “Hagi showed weakness. Ending the feud would dishonor history, dishonor the sacrifices made by our ancestors. What we did a year ago... that changed Hagi. Changed him forever.”

  Lupei made a point of studying his two daughter’s faces. He knew both Oana and Alba disagreed with the way he’d handled Hagi’s daughter, but death was something they should live with every day; it was how they dealt with their issues.

  “You oppose me?” he challenged both of them.

  “Of course not, Father,” Oana answered for both of them. Oana was the oldest and tended to take the lead, but Alba could be bull-headed when she had an opinion. Lupei had brought all his children up to be opinionated.

  Even the ones who’d abandoned their family duties.

  “But you do think what we did was wrong?” He wanted to know if they’d back him rather than having any real interest in their opinions.

  “Maybe outright murder was overly inflammatory,” Oana answered back. It was a smart comment, disrespectful maybe, but Lupei had asked. He turned back to the matter at hand.