Shaw darted between the boxers, who reacted surprisingly. One swung at her with a fist, hitting her shoulder and throwing her off balance. Shaw fell to one knee, but staggered back up, still running. The other gave chase, grunting a string of curses. Shaw glanced back, stopped and threw an elbow into his oncoming face, breaking the nose. Blood flew. The crowd roared its approval. The young boxer shook his head and blinked, like an ox stunned from running into a tree. Shaw didn’t wait around for him to recover. She spun and broke into a sprint as the crowd cheered her on.
From behind a sharp cry went up.
“Tată!”
It was a woman’s voice. Shaw bit her lip, in two minds. Slowing down now might be the end of her. But the cry went up again and Shaw couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder.
Oana and Alba had rushed up to their father. Lupei turned from staring after Shaw to glare hard at his two daughters.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Word just came through,” Oana shouted back at him, face to face. “And we thought you ought to know.”
Shaw slowed to a walk. The crowd’s entire attention—as well as that of Lupei and his sons—was on Oana.
“Know what?”
“It’s Hagi. He’s sent a message, asking for a meeting under a flag of truce. But not just that. All three leaders of the Roma’s biggest families have done the same. You will make four. It will be history’s most important Roma summit.”
Lupei stared at Oana as if he’d been poleaxed. Clearly, Shaw thought, such a possibility had never occurred to him.
Lupei had no further interest in her. The boxing was over. The crowd sensed the signs and was already drifted away. Shaw waited for a few moments but then decided to take advantage of the opportunity Oana had unknowingly given her.
She walked away.
And then stopped in shock on hearing the next few comments.
“When?” Lupei had asked. “And where?”
“They’re here,” Oana answered. “They said the element of surprise made them feel safer. From you. They have their bodyguards, but they’re here, Tată. And they want to talk... now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Unbeknownst to Shaw, Alicia and Mai had been watching her from a concealed vantage point in the woods whilst the rest of the team scoured what areas they could in search of the suspect trucks.
Alicia was flat on her stomach, wearing dark camo gear, and feeling miserable. “Whose idea was it to lie near a fucking ant’s nest? Is this some kind of weird Mai thing?”
“It’s the best angle.”
“Well, my tits are speckled with bites. Drake’s gonna have a fit later.”
“I’m sure he’s seen worse.”
Alicia shifted slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been dating him for a while now.”
Alicia grunted. “You know, you’re pretty good at insulting a woman indirectly, Sprite. Just say what you mean.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Between the trees, ahead, they kept a close eye on the clearing. Until now, Alicia had been kept warm by the sight of two muscly men, stripped to the waist and wearing tight shorts, throwing punches at each other. Using night goggles and field glasses, she’d kept up a running report of both men’s attributes.
“Buns of Steel just threw a perfect jab, followed by an elbow a toddler could’ve blocked. Moose Knuckle countered with a cross that just blacked Buns’ right eye and now Moose is capitalizing on it. Whoa, they’re on the floor...” Alicia rose slightly, trying to get a better look. “Buns must have hold of something tender ’cause Moose’s arse is waving like a fucking flag. Now, Moose is bucking... oh, wait. Is that Shaw?”
Mai sighed. “I’ve had her for three minutes already. She’s talking to Lupei.”
“Yeah, yeah, I had her too. I was multi-tasking. They look cozy.”
“Not the word I would use. Shaw is prepping an escape route.”
Alicia saw it too—Shaw scanning the boxing arena and the crowd, searching for gaps. Lupei and his sons crowding her.
Alicia prepared herself. “You ready, Sprite?”
“As ever, Taz.”
Right then, Shaw made her break. Alicia and Mai rose, aimed their guns and started forward, tracking her. The Native American was running at an angle to them. They would have to make up some ground to intercept her. Alicia sped up, watching her footing in the dark forest. They saw Shaw take out the two boxers and then pause, her attention grabbed by Oana’s sudden appearance at her father’s side.
“Down,” Mai hissed.
They heard it too. Oana’s message: “It’s Hagi. He’s sent a message, asking for a meeting under a flag of truce. But not just that. All three leaders of the Roma’s biggest families have done the same. You will make four. It will be history’s most important Roma summit.”
Alicia and Mai crept in the direction they thought Shaw would escape. All attention remained on Lupei as he struggled with the words Oana had spoken. A deathly silence had fallen over the arena and a harassed look of disbelief and fear on the faces of Lupei’s sons.
Half a minute passed. Shaw wavered, still unsure whether to go to Oana or run. Alicia wished she had a decent comms system; they were invaluable with undercover ops. Then a man wearing a business suit clucked his disapproval and urged the boxers to “Get back to killing each other.” Alicia saw Lupei’s face darken and knew what would happen next.
“Now would be the perfect time to get the fuck outta there,” she whispered out loud. “C’mon, Shawnasee. Run.”
Lupei barged Oana out of the way, stalked over to the loudmouth, and grabbed him by the windpipe, squeezing until the man’s eyes bulged. When he tried to speak, Lupei drove fist after fist into his ribs, still grasping the windpipe. The man’s legs buckled, his face took on a look of agony, but Lupei didn’t let up.
Finally, Shaw looked to her own welfare. She’d caught Oana’s attention but had been waved away. She turned and walked toward the woods, threading through a crowd seemingly captivated by Lupei’s violent actions.
Alicia and Mai moved to intercept Shaw, still studying Lupei and his sons.
The Roma leader let the businessman fall to the floor and then climbed atop his heaving frame, raining blow after blow at his unprotected face. Nobody tried to stop him, or tried to protect the businessman. The woman he’d come with looked on in fascination.
Alicia ran to Shaw. “You okay?”
“Hey, what are you doing here? Did you hear what Oana said?”
“Yeah, we’ve been covering you.”
“Didn’t trust that I could do the job?”
“Nothing like that,” Mai said. “We have each other’s backs, always. That’s what we do and why we’re so good.”
“All right. Then what next?”
“I wish we had a comms system,” Alicia complained, sliding a phone out of a tight trouser pocket. “Now I gotta call Drake like I’m asking for a date. Not that I ever ask.”
*
Ten minutes later, Shaw met the rest of the team deeper in the woods, whilst Alicia and Mai stayed to watch the boxing arena.
Hayden sat back on her haunches after Shaw related the news. “This changes things,” she said. “The four Roma leaders involved in a peace pow-wow tonight? They surprised Lupei with their timing but there’s still no way he’s gonna accept.”
“Totally agree,” Cam said. “My father’s business depends on turmoil, hardship and conflict.”
“But he does have to sit down and talk,” Dahl said. “They’ve hoodwinked him.”
There was general agreement.
Drake’s phone rang. “Alicia says they’re moving,” he said after listening for a few seconds. “We have to get into position.”
Using Alicia, Mai and now Kenzie as scouts, they moved carefully through the forest, taking no chances. Lupei would have guards stationed at sensitive areas, but clearly this was not one of them, for they were able to reach
the arena without incident. Alicia and Mai were waiting.
“If we wanna hear what these boys have to say, we need to move fast,” Alicia said softly. “C’mon.”
The team stole through the woods, spreading out, using every ounce of their expertise. Lupei had climbed off the businessman’s twitching figure and, still furious, wasn’t intent on making a quiet exit. Yelling orders and directing his sons, Lupei made a call to summon several bodyguards and then shouted at Oana, asking for directions to the summit. Oana wasn’t shy about shouting them back to him, which helped immensely.
Drake fell in with Alicia and Mai, slipping carefully between trees. “You two enjoy spending a little time together?”
Alicia gave him a dark look. “Ask me that again when there’s a hospital nearby, I dare you.”
Drake made a face at Mai but said nothing. The team approached an area where a wide, fast-flowing stream tumbled down two tiers of natural landscape to dissect a large, open area within the forest. The ground was bare and dead as if blighted, the banks of the stream covered in thick mud. Drake volunteered to get closer along with Dahl and, together, the two men crawled through tangled roots and thick undergrowth.
“You sure you can keep up, mate?” the Swede asked. “Let me know if you want me to slow down.”
Drake was already slithering at double-quick pace. “Wouldn’t you rather be stuck up a tree with all the other fucking baboons?”
Dahl came to an abrupt stop. Drake edged to his side. Through a tangle of branches and gnarled trunks they studied the scene ahead.
Three men were seated on plush, wooden chairs that must have been carried through the woods and put in place on one side of the stream. The men sat upright, were well groomed, wore fresh clothes, and sported shiny boots. They were positioned three meters apart for some reason, and each had two large, burly bodyguards positioned behind his chair, arms crossed, muscles bulging. The men carried all manner of weapons.
Lupei occupied the other side of the wide stream, his sons arrayed around him. They all carried knives and faced the three seated men with open hostility. Lupei hadn’t bothered with a chair.
“You arrange all this without my knowledge? You come here? You sneak around and expect me to what... Capitulate?”
All four men glared at each other, Drake noted. None of them seemed friendly, although none were as aggressive as Lupei.
“Nobody’s asking you to yield,” one man spoke up. “We’re here to try to avert a war. Surely that’s in all our interests.”
Lupei’s voice took on a sly tone. “Is it in Hagi’s interest?”
Drake saw the man on the far left stand up. Hagi was big. What once was muscle was turning to fat, but the man still looked brawny and proud. His fists, when he raised them, were knobby and huge. He sported a thick beard and nose, and eyebrow studs. His voice was a low rumble.
“If you are referring to Anyana then, yes, you and I will have a reckoning over the murder of my daughter. I am here because I believe a truce is more important than anything else in our lifetime. I am here because I do not want to see the Roma tear each other apart.”
“The Roma are too proud to submit to weak men such as you.”
Hagi didn’t react. Instead, he spread his arms. “Do you not remember? Our clans used to gather for huge celebrations that stretched from valley top to valley top. We used to join forces for the bigger jobs and to ward off threats. Do you remember the winter of ’59?”
“I do,” another leader said, this man with wide black eyes, a thin face, and a shock of black hair tied at the back of his head. “The clans joined together, many hundreds strong, to ward off large and targeted police roundups. It was the stuff of legends. A story that will never die despite it belonging to our grandfather’s generation.”
“We have wandered for centuries,” Hagi said. “Alone. Persecuted. Hated. Surely we are stronger when we are together.”
Lupei snorted. “Probably, yes,” he allowed. “But the Feuds started in ’66. I can’t help that, nor can I change it.”
“The Feuds don’t have to define our history,” the fourth leader said. “We can change that right now.”
Drake started as Alicia scrambled between them. “What’s happening, boys?”
“It just got started,” Dahl said. “They’re reminiscing. Lupei’s being a twat.”
“Shocker.”
“You’re only here for the warmth, yeah?” Drake asked.
Alicia was pressed up against both of them. “Why else would I be here? Now be quiet.”
“Yes,” Dahl murmured. “Let’s see what trouble you’ve gone and gotten us into this time.”
Alicia elbowed him sharply. “Me? I didn’t bring us to Transyl-fucking-vania in the middle of bloody winter. Cam did.”
“Cam’s your boy,” Dahl said. “And, luckily, we’re a few miles west of Transylvania.”
“My what? My boy? Is that how you see him?”
“No. Not at all. But it’s fun to wind you up.”
Drake was concentrating on the gathering by the stream. “My grandfather caught a strange boy with his daughter and shot him,” Lupei said. “That was 1966. This boy was another clan-leader’s son and they had been together for a while, it transpired. My grandfather wouldn’t apologize, so one of his sons was murdered in reprisal. The Feuds began, mostly scattered through the seventies, when the rivals made a show of killing the sons and daughters of others. Elaborate, carnival-based deaths, from iron maidens to the terrible Trial of Martolea. We can never get past that horror.”
“We can tonight,” the thin-faced leader said. “We start by calling a truce. And then arrange an official gathering. Work out an honorable pact.”
“It will be the death of the Roma,” Lupei said. “We are a people forged in conflict. We need it to survive.”
“No,” Hagi said. “We need togetherness to survive because most of the world is against us. United, we are stronger.”
“They persecuted us in the great wars, before them and after them,” Lupei said. “But collective oppression shouldn’t define us.”
“Then what should?” Hagi asked.
Lupei was about to fire something back at him, but the thin-faced leader spoke up first, sitting back on his haunches and swigging wistfully from a half-empty bottle of alcohol. “The old days,” he said with half a smile. “The old ways. And the old tricks. Remember them? The greatest shows... the assistant being sawn in half and the pure shock horror of the audience? The fake blood. They never knew there were two assistants in the box, doubled up, one with their head sticking out, the other with their feet sticking out. Levitation: Where the support is cleverly hidden beneath a floor mat and also passed through the magician’s clothes. Tradition, race memory and history defines us.”
Lupei rose and stalked to the edge of the bank, standing in the deep mud there. He pointed a finger straight at Hagi. “You,” he said. “You are the one building an army. You are the one planning to strike first. You are the aggressor.”
Hagi also rose. “It is you I want, Lupei. Not your people. Save them now. Save all of them by agreeing to face me alone.”
Lupei blinked, weighing up the possibilities. From all he knew about the man, Drake knew that he wouldn’t back down from a challenge. Lupei would be trying to identify his best path to victory.
“You should name me your king,” Lupei said finally. “King of the Roma. I will unite the clans and it will be as the old days. Our people will embrace power again. Influence. Wealth. I can make that happen.”
Hagi regarded him as a man might regard a slug crawling across his pillow. The other two leaders lowered their heads. “You are talking yourself and your family into extinction,” Hagi said, voice laced with exasperation. “I will not touch your sons, your daughters, only you. Whichever way this goes, Lupei, you will die for what you did to my daughter.”
“You think you have the advantage?” Lupei shouted. We will see. You think you can beat me? I want you to try.”<
br />
Drake watched as the three leaders, now all on their feet, pulled apart, signaled their bodyguards and stalked away from the meeting. Lupei shouted threats and insults after them.
The die was cast.
The Roma war was coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Drake, Dahl and Alicia waited for Lupei to depart the area before making their way back through the woods. Hayden and the others had found their own vantage points to watch the meeting, which meant everyone needed to meet and then confer in comfort.
Alicia squirmed beside him as Lupei ranted and promised slow deaths to all that opposed him. “Wish they’d hurry up and fuck off. I’m not used to lying on my front.”
Dahl rolled over onto his back. “I hear you prefer being on top.” He grinned. “Feel free.”
Alicia blinked in surprise at the normally respectable Swede but then saw Drake’s face and heard Kenzie’s reaction. Dahl was nothing if not a wind-up merchant.
“Don’t mind if I do.” She swung one leg over but was stopped by a sharp cry followed by the sound of several people crashing through the woods and then even louder shouts.
“Lupei! You must come quickly!”
“Boss? Where are you? We have no time!”
“It is Oana and Alba! Lupei, you have to move now!”
Drake squirmed quickly in the direction of the shouting. Cam was suddenly at his side, eyes wide as dinner plates. Shaw was alongside him. “What the hell is going on?”
Lupei spoke up, shouting out his position. Drake saw four men slamming their way through the trees, slowing as they approached Lupei and his sons.
“What is it?” Lupei growled. “If my good-for-nothing daughters have run away I will—”
“Not run away,” a man breathed, panting heavily. “Abducted by the Hagis! Whilst you conversed with Hagi himself, they were taken.”
Lupei was staring at the man as if he’d grown an extra pair of eyes. “But how? You are the guards of my camp. How could this happen?”
The Carnival of Curiosities (Matt Drake Book 27) Page 12