The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake Book 10)

by David Leadbeater

  Fortunately, the call was answered immediately. “Yep?”

  “Matt? Can you talk?”

  “Aye, could do with the break actually. Things have gone right to shit here.”

  Tell me about it, Hayden thought. She sighed aloud. “What’s happening over there?”

  Drake ran her through the high- and lowlights. Hayden listened then poured herself a black coffee. “Quite a dilemma. Remember, Dahl and the others are still likely to get the job done. Mai may be down, but never count her out. My issue would be with Chika and Yorgi and the length of this so-called trial. Can you get another night out of it?”

  Drake said he didn’t know. Hayden caught the edgy tone and decided to change the subject a little. “Bringing you up to speed,” she said. “The Pythians have the fossil. Dudley’s still on the loose with help from his old gang. We believe the lost kingdom may be real and that the Pythians are trying to find and use it in some way.”

  “Any idea where it is?”

  “Oh, yeah, plenty. But this damn language has to be translated—which takes time—or we have to find an old translation. Nothing has turned up so far.”

  “An old translation? You’re saying the US already did it and kept it all a secret?”

  “I know. Big shock there, right?”

  “But why? Surely it’s a great archaeological find that the whole world can get behind?”

  “We’re not sure. It may have something to do with a sunken ship. Or diplomacy. Or nothing more sinister than passing time.” Hayden shrugged even though he couldn’t see her.

  “I guess China wasn’t a world power back then,” Drake said intuitively.

  “Sure. We’ve thought of that too and the current consequences. Either way, this can’t end well.” Hayden put the coffee down as her stomach started to growl, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in about twelve hours. Looking around the office, at the team all working on adrenalin and enthusiasm she suddenly realized that everyone might need to take a break and refuel. She shouted out as much, insisting that everyone take a couple of hours off.

  To Drake she continued, “We know for sure the Lost Kingdom lies somewhere under the South or East China Sea, probably near China and Taiwan. The boundaries are disputed as you know. With that in mind I’m already organizing a first-class diving team in the area as well as several other specialists in their field. I was hoping you guys might be able to supervise.”

  Drake was quiet for a moment, but then his reply was exactly what she wanted to hear. “I guess I’ll go rescue ‘em all and then head to Taiwan then. No worries. Catch you later.”

  If only everything were so simple.

  Hayden signed off and motioned to Kinimaka. “Let’s get out of here for a while.”

  “Home?” Their rental was only fifteen minutes away.

  “Why not? You can knock me together some of that sausage, eggs and rice you love so much.”

  “Sweet bread?”

  “Damn right.”

  The couple said their goodbyes and headed out of the office. Hayden heard Karin and Komodo ordering from the on-site restaurant. She couldn’t force them to relax, just hoped they would have the sense to realize that sometimes taking a breather was better than powering through. Kinimaka drove their large 4x4 through the early afternoon traffic, a big man in a big car, taking care not to sideswipe anything. As ever her antennae was up, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

  Once home, Mano headed into the kitchen whilst Hayden took off her jacket and flung herself down onto the sofa. Staring straight ahead, vegetating, she found herself studying the few ornaments and single picture they had placed on the white mantelpiece. All was well, she was sure, but where had this new pastime come from?

  Tyler Webb. During the Pandora event the Pythian leader had promised to come into their homes; even boasted about having pictures and video of them, but had never shown an ounce of proof.

  Why?

  Now she heard the noise from the rear of the house and it wasn’t Mano. It wasn’t her imagination. The rear French doors had just slid open or closed—the catch made a peculiar sound whenever they did so. Drawing her weapon she advanced through the front room and turned a dog-leg to reach the rear. Nothing looked out of place. The doors were closed.

  But—

  Something didn’t feel right. Was there a faint cologne in the air? A fading imprint in the carpet? Her eyes fixed on something and she called Mano through.

  “You see that?”

  “What?”

  “The picture on top of the bookcase. It’s facing the wrong way.”

  “Okaaay. Do you want me to set it straight?”

  “Mano. I think somebody’s stalking us.”

  The Hawaiian’s face passed through a multitude of emotions, mostly hilarity to surprise and then to seriousness. “Because the frame’s the wrong way around? It fell down yesterday. I probably replaced it backwards.”

  “You did?” Hayden felt a moment’s relief. But her gut still told her something was wrong. “How did it fall down? Did you knock it over or did you find it on the floor?”

  Kinimaka reached out to hold her, but she twisted away. This shouldn’t be happening to me. I’m an ex-CIA agent and leader of the best special operations team on the planet. Was this how it began? How people felt every day when they knew something was different but couldn’t quite put their finger on it?

  Was this how it all started?

  First the niggling nervousness and then the denial. Next the deep fear, the burning sensation in the stomach and again the denial. Then the paranoia; evaluating every little thing until every little thing began to drive you crazy. Truth be told, you could find suspicion in just about everything, every day of your life.

  The man with the phone—was he texting or taking her picture? The guy three shops over—was he following her? The slightly cracked open wardrobe. The shadow that crossed her window. The crackle that may or may not be the boards settling.

  Kinimaka walked over and righted the photo. Hayden watched, then took out her cellphone and began to take pictures of the room. She ran through the house as her boyfriend finished making their meal, cataloguing everything. No mental notes this time, no room for error.

  Downstairs, Mano was waiting. “All good?”

  She forced a smile and picked up the proffered fork. “All good.”

  “Find anyone?”

  “Funny. Look, don’t you remember Tyler Webb saying he had pictures of us?”

  “Oh yeah.” Kinimaka laughed. “But the guy’s a total whack job freakazoid. Now just try that sweet bread.” He smacked his lips loudly.

  “Mano,” Hayden said softly. “What if he was telling the truth? What if he’s been watching us for weeks? What if he’s been in our house? With a camera?”

  Kinimaka put down his fork. “This isn’t like you, Hay. You’re stronger than this. Tougher. Some maniac with a god complex trying to unsettle you is all it is. Any case,” he started shoveling eggs into his mouth again. “All he’ll get is me falling over two or three times and you stepping out of the shower.” He waggled his hand. “Meh.”

  Hayden kicked him under the table. “Hey! There’s a lot of guys would like to see me step out of the shower. And into it for that matter.”

  “Do we have time to test the theory?”

  Hayden didn’t even check her watch. “Stupid question. C’mon.”

  As they left the table, their meal almost eaten, Hayden fought down the unsettling feeling that the sound of the rushing water would leave her deafened, that the smoked glass screen and even Mano himself would leave her practically sightless, and that she had never once taken her gun into the shower.

  Why did she feel the need to now?

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Tyler Webb was a happy man. Not only had Dudley now secured two major bargaining chips; not only were the Chinese about to be made to sit up and beg; not only had his small, expensive team of translators pinpointed the location of the Lo
st Kingdom so accurately he already had men heading to the site—he had now sent Dudley and his highly capable crew to the site too.

  And that wasn’t the best part. Not by a long shot.

  His train of thought broke as two monitors set before him flickered to life. Clifford Bay-Dale and Nicholas Bell stared out at him.

  “We are the Pythians,” he said. “What news have you?”

  Bay-Dale, architect of the lost kingdom project, spoke up. “We are the Pythians. As you know we have located the ancient site. It’s too early to provide any absolute proof yet, but we are working on it. Incontestable proof would take many months, perhaps years, but we can provide a formidable corroboration when the find is combined with evidence provided by the Niven Tablets, the American expedition of 1945 and the Peking Man. Startling corroboration. The Chinese will be forced to give us all that we want once our ultimate terms are laid out on the table.”

  “Superb,” Webb said. “And Nicholas?”

  “Zoe Sheers, our new primary member, is up to speed. I will have her ready to speak at the next meeting. Do we have news on your Lucas Monroe?”

  “As you say—up to speed. And Clifford? Last we spoke you hadn’t found the time to vet a new member.” He allowed the sentence to hang.

  Bay-Dale surprised him. “I made time, Tyler. If we make time then we make things happen. I do have a candidate, a man called Julian Marsh, ready to go. Such an excellent choice I’m surprised I didn’t think of him before. Anyway, as you both say, next time we convene . . .”

  “Good. Good.” Webb shut his misgivings away. He didn’t enjoy giving the others even a modicum of control, but the way the Pythians were branching out meant he had no choice. “Now, Clifford, what about the haters? What about those who would seek to derail our new discovery?”

  “The press,” Bay-Dale admitted. “I have made a short-list of some of the rags that take themselves too seriously. Men in power who would seek to profit.” He coughed delicately. “The ridiculous academics who are so short-sighted they barely see what’s beyond their own snooty noses—”

  Now Bell coughed, only raucously. Webb knew why. Such words coming from a man like Bay-Dale—a controller of energy prices—sounded ludicrous.

  “Prices rising again are they this year?” Bell clearly couldn’t help himself. “Price of oil up is it? Another tsunami maybe? Extra investment? How many houses do you have now anyway?”

  Bay-Dale ignored him utterly and completely. “We have eyes on as many haters as possible. And we have leverage. I believe a significant amount of haters can be swayed to our side. Enough to make all the difference.”

  Webb claimed both their attention by declaring operations open on the hugely important next level of their project. “So onward. The Chinese are teed up, waiting for our call. Shall I make it now?”

  His question was designed to magnify excitement within Bay-Dale and Bell and it certainly worked. Bell sat up straight, eyes widening with pleasure and even Bay-Dale appeared surprised.

  “You have them interested already?”

  “I have my go-between standing by. He’s more a . . . procurer . . . of wishes. He makes things happen. He will get our demands to the government of the People’s Republic and in particular up to the State Council and all the way to the top—the Paramount Leader. We will be taken very seriously, gentlemen.”

  “Fire across his email,” Bell said in a predictably crass manner. “I have more than one wish list I’d like procuring.”

  “He has no email.” Webb sighed. “No address. No paper or digital trail. He does not exist apart from to those whom he invites to be his clients. Now, be quiet whilst I contact him.”

  The process was laborious, necessarily so, as the call rerouted through half a dozen countries and servers. Despite all that, when the line started ringing it was answered immediately.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Mr. Webb. Following on from our last conversation we now hold both the Peking Man fossil and the location of the lost kingdom of Mu, either of which will cause a stir in the Chinese government the like of which you have never known. Not one but two legacies are at stake. Now, as we all know the Chinese like to play hardball in their negotiations and are masters of the double-cross. Please tell them there will be no negotiation beyond the provision of authenticity. And any double-cross will end in unprecedented disaster. Our demands will be met within forty-eight hours or the fossil will be destroyed live on YouTube. What will happen to Mu will be far worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “The whole area between China and Taiwan is being secured by a primed daisy-chain bomb.”

  “And your demands?”

  “The code boxes we spoke of, your so-called Z-boxes. The Chinese may not have developed a quantum computer just yet, I know, but those little boxes are almost as good for code-cracking. You say the People’s Liberation Army and their Cybersecurity Division have developed three? I want three.”

  Webb signed off to quiet laughter.

  *

  Later, alone, he spoke to Callan Dudley, the Irishman on his way to China.

  “I have new information for you, Mr. Dudley.”

  “Oh, aye? And what might that be?”

  “You’re headed to Asia, yes? Well, I have news that the SPEAR team, including the woman who beat you, are currently somewhere in Japan. If you come through for me, I will do my very best to facilitate some kind of . . . meeting.”

  “Yer very best? Hey boys, the people who locked me up be in this part of the world too. Looks like we might get a showdown.”

  Webb heard drunken cheering in the background. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Webb sat back in silence, allowing his thoughts to drift. Today had been another major step forward for the Pythian movement. The wheels were turning. China would relent and then Taiwan would protest. The code boxes would be delivered. The US would shudder. New primary Pythians were on the way. From this lofty tower the world below was nothing but a game board to be played, manipulated and controlled. With that idea in mind he pressed a button to call the private elevator and allowed himself to be whisked fifteen floors down to an equally private lobby. There, a chauffeur awaited, the car already burbling. Webb stepped straight into the back seat, stretching out across the luxury leather.

  “The hospital,” he said quietly.

  His driver knew which one. His driver knew all the local addresses of the entire SPEAR team after multiple visits from Webb and other furtive operatives. As they negotiated traffic, Webb changed clothes and added spectacles and a comb-over to his appearance. The good thing about a city’s CCTV cameras was that they were all passive outside of extremely sensitive areas, which meant Webb could move freely without too much worry about facial recognition software. Only if authorities suspected he was in the vicinity would proactive measures be taken.

  You can’t police all of the city all of the time.

  Webb entered the hospital along with everyone else, wincing at the too-warm entry area and ignoring the information desks. Lines of people waited at the coffee shop to his right and at the convenience store to his left, as if there weren’t two deserted duplicates directly across the road. His eyes turned up briefly to check the signage, ensuring he was headed in the right direction. Inside, deep down, he was so fully alive his heart was racing, his temples practically pulsing. The prowl was on. The danger was exquisite, the outcome potentially delicious. A nurse smiled at him. The corridor bent at a right angle, passing a restaurant and an employees’ shop. A bank of elevators took him to the first floor and now Webb forced himself to slow down through fear of overexcitement. Her private room stood one hundred yards away. He strode on, a confident visitor to all appearances, but when he reached the small window he slowed. It was covered by a closed blind but he knew who lay on the other side.

  The door handle turned. He didn’t bother to hide his face. The syringe lay cupped in his pocketed right hand, not that he wanted to use it.

  And look at
that.

  He grinned outwardly. She lay sleeping, face turned away, monitors beeping nicely. The room was cozy, perfect for the recovering plague victim. Webb knew this woman was an expensive escort, but had no clear idea how she fitted in with the SPEAR team’s international efforts. No doubt she was a procurer of information, but he didn’t like to hang presumptuous hats on a person until he’d properly stalked them and learned their every inner secret—dirty, precious, miserable, heart-rending, the more priceless the better.

  He opened her personal drawer, rummaging through the items of clothing there. The top drawer was locked but there was the key—right next to her water glass. How quaint. He sipped from the glass, flicking his tongue around the entire rim. He pawed through her locked drawer, finding a purse and a cellphone, which he quickly cloned. Many people kept information on their cellphones that couldn’t be accessed elsewhere, even by him—house alarm codes, obscure passwords, pin codes, highly personal details . . . for instance, the way to contact her escort service. All the time Lauren Fox lay sleeping at his side, breathing softly.

  He slipped in beside her, ever so careful, ever so quiet. The syringe was now exposed, but he really didn’t want to use it. It was so much better when they were fully conscious. The sheets covered them both. A little snore escaped her luscious lips. Her hair smelled of almonds. He savored it for one more moment before climbing out, ecstatic.

  Even in his rapturous state Webb didn’t want to tempt fate too much. It was time to leave a memento and get back to the real world. Why do these moments have to end so quickly? For that was all they were—moments. Yes, he could enter their lives, their homes, prowl around whilst they were out, but the truly perfect encounter was right here and now. In his mind it had a name—the Live Prowl. It was real time, full risk, and gave him the most intense thrill.

  Webb drew a stylized ‘P’ on Lauren’s wall, right beside her peacefully sleeping face. This was the first of many, and would be necessarily large, obvious and crass. The ones to follow in the days and months to come would be far more intimate and thus more shocking.