Brothers In Arms (Matt Drake 5) (15 page)

Romero trained a gun on him whilst Drake took the lead.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey! You tell me where we are. You tell me!”

“Changjon
. Near.”

“Where in the
world
?” Drake thought it appropriate to punctuate his request with a punch and watched the man’s head slam back into a tree.

“Korea.” The man gasped.
“Kangwon-do province.”

Drake considered that. “How far from China?”

“Five hundred miles.”

“Alright
,” Romero muttered as if realizing he’d just won the bet. Drake ignored him.

“And this?” Drake waved at the barracks, the warship, the faraway island. “What’s the story?”

For the first time, the Korean looked scared. The guns hadn’t scared him, neither had Drake, Romero or the punch in the face. But this question sent a shadow of fear blooming across the man’s features.

“I. . . don’t know
,” he said haltingly.

“That’s a big fucking gun, pal.” Drake made sure the Korean saw it. “Rammed anywhere, it’s gonna hurt. Question is
—how much pain can you take?”

“I have a wife
,” the Korean mumbled suddenly. “I have a child. Please don’t kill me.”

Drake stared, taken aback.
Romero chuckled. “Who gives a fuck?”

But Drake waved the American away.
He stared at the Korean soldier as if seeing him for the first time. “You’ll see them again,” he said. “If you tell me what I want to know.”

“Just a base.” The man’s arm trembled as it pointed toward the barracks. “For soldiers. The
ship takes us to patrol. Sometimes we are at sea, sometimes in another province. And sometimes. . .”

“The island?”

“Yes. We take on board many prisoners and deliver them to the doctors. Then we leave. That is all I know.”

“You don’t collect them later?”

“No. I have never seen one leave.”

“They must have another way off the island
,” Romero said.

“There are graves,” the Korean volunteered. “All over the island. We are ordered to bury many bodies. Most
of the prisoners, I think, never leave.”

“How long?” Drake asked quietly. “How many years has this been going on?”

The Korean searched his memory. “Past my time. I don’t know.”

The man looked thirty plus. Maybe older. Drake
thought hard. “How do they
get
these people?”

“They use the Russians.
There is some kind of chain across Europe. A child is kidnapped in Spain. Within hours, he has been swiftly transported through a handful of checkpoints—houses situated in Germany, and then Russia. From there to China and, later, to Korea.”

Romero whistled. “That’s sophisticated stuff, my man.
An op that big. . .we’re talking serious brass, and serious leadership.”

“And serious payoff
,” Drake added, thinking of Dai Hibiki’s original message. Something about advanced weaponry. They hadn’t seen any signs of it on the island. “Tell me—where is the HQ?”

“The island.”

Drake shook his head. That wasn’t it. Couldn’t be. The chain of command would stretch much higher than that, but then a soldier wouldn’t be privy to that kind of information. He tried a different tack. “Okay. Where is the
European
HQ?”

“
Germany.” The Korean spat the word out. “But I know most about the smaller houses in China and Russia. The big one, the important one, is in Germany, but now everyone talks of the Russian one because they have made some fantastic discovery. Something about gods and ancient towers. Something so big they say it makes the island operation a tiny speck. ”

“
And the rest of the HQs?”

“
I’m sorry. Please don’t kill me.”

Drake
listened as the man reeled off addresses in China and Russia, then shot Romero a look. “We could do worse than heading to China,” he said. “We need to get out of Korea pronto. China is as good a place as any round here.”

“Better than South Korea?”

“We don’t know how far this thing reaches,” Drake said. “This guy’s already mentioned Spain, Russia and Germany. Who knows where else?”

“And in China?
”

“We could pay a visit to their little
house
. Maybe learn some more.”

“Sounds like a plan. What about him?” Romero jerked the barrel of his gun sharply.

The Korean soldier began to shrink back, as if he might be able to squeeze into the tree at his back. “Please. I have a wife. A child.”

Drake stepped forward and buried his knife through the man’s heart.

“So did I.”

Hayden put the phone down after an
other odd conversation with her boss. Gates had just rung to inquire about Lauren Fox’s mental state. Now the secretary had told her he was on his way to meet the woman. Hayden had warned him about the news reporter, Sarah Moxley, who continued to hang around but her boss seemed unperturbed.

The man had changed
since his wife died. The fast-thinking, clear-talking, inspiring leader had been replaced with something cloudier. Something more suited to politics perhaps, but not something she could stake her career on anymore.

A situation that needed reviewing, but not yet. The high-class hooker, Lauren Fox, had been rumbling on about going hom
e for the last twenty minutes.

“You should stay for your own safety.” Kinimaka was telling her, the huge Hawaiian
looking out of place as he sat next to the small, pretty woman, dwarfing her. Hayden found a smile flitting around the corners of her lips as she stared at him, seeing his discomfort like no one else could, knowing him so well after their long working relationship, and wondering more and more often how the other kind of relationship might get started.

Lauren waved at him. “I already proved I can look after myself.”

“Your assassin was one of many, Miss Fox. You are the fourth victim in a few days. Sorry,
attempted
victim.” Kinimaka coughed. “We don’t know the scope of this thing yet. If you could help by giving us your movements—”

“I already told you!
I get about. My job calls for some travel every now and then, alright? I gave you my movements.”

Trouble
was they didn’t match up to all the previous victims. Not yet anyway. Kinimaka was studying the paper she’d written on. “How about early January? Let’s try that.”

Hayden thought about the previous victims. All dead because, as strangers, they had crossed paths with someone dangerous.
And they had pretty much travelled in the same areas. At least, that was the theory. How they fitted in with suicidal, faceless assassins was a mystery that had them all beat.

“I have clients
,” Lauren was saying. “If you’re not gonna charge me, at least let me contact them. My business is my livelihood.”

Kinimaka looked surprised. Alicia, still sitting next to the feisty woman, brightened up. “Tell you what, Foxy. I haven’t had a shag in months. How
’bout I spend a few days standing in for you?”

Lauren was about to answer when a shout rose from the control room. Hayden sped off immediately, Alicia a step behind.

The banks of monitors were flashing. Both Ben and Karin were standing. Torsten Dahl was buckling into a bulletproof vest.

“Move!”
the Swede cried. “Fifth attempt in progress! The victim and the cops’re holding the assassin off at a friggin’ service area not thirty minutes from here!”

Torsten Dahl
leapt out of the big Dodge SUV even before it stopped moving. A row of cop cars sat before him, lined up outside the entrance to a small service station. A dozen pairs of world-weary eyes swiveled toward him.

“Who the hell are you?”

Dahl ignored them, considering the black SUV classification enough, and not caring for their tones or surly looks. He sized up the scene himself within a minute.

Several bodies lay strewn across the grassed area in front of the station. Dahl guessed these were innocent bystanders, caught up in the madness when the assassin tried to reach his target. It was after this that reports had start
ed coming in of a shooter behaving very much in the manner Hayden and Kinimaka had flagged with every US agency. After that, the shooter’s target—a truck driver—had apparently produced a gun, escaped and barricaded himself in an alcove the service station used for a game room.

“We need to take this bastard alive.” Hayden breathed in Dahl’s ear. “If possible.”

Beyond the wide glass doors, Dahl made out the shelves and bright lights of the shop. Foregoing subtlety, he dragged one of the cops over. “What’s the layout of this place, my friend?”

The cop blinked for a moment before catching the look in the Swede’s eyes. To his credit
, he was wise enough to know it was time for some straight talk. “Doors open onto an entrance hall. Shop’s off to the right, game room down a bit and to the left. Then the restrooms. We think the shooter’s past that, roaming the small food court and the fast-food area.”

“Civilians?”

“You better believe it, buddy. Restaurant staff and day-trippers. Some got away when the shooting started, sure, but it’d be a mistake to think everyone made it.”

Dahl grabbed Hayden’s arm. “If he’s anything like the other assassins
, this man will be hunting the truck driver to the point of obsession. He won’t be watching the exits or entrances. He won’t be watching the people in there.” He paused, looking between Hayden and Alicia, quickly deciding on the least caustic and embarrassing of the two. “Sorry, Mano. Your girlfriend’s mine for a while.”

*****

Lauren Fox, watching events unfold on the big screen monitors, saw the camera swerve and sway as Dahl and Jaye moved swiftly around the building, heading for the rear entrance. She was intrigued, despite herself. One part of her wanted to get the hell out and salvage whatever remained of her clientele; the other was most definitely caught up in the excitement.

And a deep, wiser part of her knew that staying put was the safest move. For now.

The Secretary of Defense had joined them a few minutes ago, given her an appraising look, and then gone to talk to Ben and Karin Blake and their bodyguard, the big dude they called Komodo. Lauren noticed his eyes lingering on everything—from the field cams of Dahl and Jaye and Kinimaka to the surveillance cameras that protected the building’s perimeter, to the toned curves of Karin Blake’s body.

There was an interesting dynamic running through this group, she thought. She saw loyalty and compassion running alongside the capacity for instant violence and ruthlessness. Lauren knew how to read people. It was a quality that had kept her alive most of her life.
She saw Ben Blake’s despair. His sister’s delight. Komodo’s happiness. And Jonathan Gates’ utter desolation.

Of course, she had heard about his wife and how she had died. The
entire country knew. Lauren had already connected the dots and figured out that this was most likely one of the teams that had taken down the Blood King. The Russian criminal, Dmitry Kovalenko, was currently languishing in some secret hellhole, awaiting trial.

What the hell had she landed
smack dab in the middle of?

And why? Her mind flicked back over the last several weeks. Nothing unusual jumped out at her. The photographs of the three dead victims rang no inner bells. Hayden had told her to
focus her mind on any recent travel but she traveled almost every day. Now if the blond agent had specified
outside New York
, that might narrow the field a bit.

She hadn’t, but Lauren ran through it anyway.
Three times
, she thought. Washington DC. Boston. Atlantic City. Each time a ritzy but far-flung hotel.

On the monitors the action had started. She
wasted no time concentrating on Torsten Dahl’s field-cam.

*****

Dahl strode boldly through the kitchen of the resident Popeye’s until he could see the food court area. Once there, he grabbed Hayden again, held her close, and ducked down behind the counter.

“See anyone?”

“Unfortunately not. Come on.”

Dahl
rounded the counter and then sat with his back against it. Hayden cuddled into him, playing the scared girlfriend. Now they saw several pairs of scared eyes staring back at them from between table legs and even from underneath booths. Dahl picked out two bodies splashed with blood.

Then came the sound of fast footfalls.
Dahl looked up in time to see a broad-shouldered man wearing a blue Abercrombie and Fitch zipper top and black khakis stride into the food court. Again, the Swede saw those staring eyes, the blank expression, and the competent manner in which the assassin moved. The gun he carried was held loosely, but still in a way where it could be used in half a second.