Matt Drake 8 - Last Man Standing (5 page)

Drake slid the rented 4x4 into a spare bay and looked dubiously at the rusting pay-and-display machines.

“Wonder if we should pay?”

“We’re not tourists, Drake,” Dahl said severely.

“I bloody well know that.”

“Though by the way Drakey was driving,” Alicia put in breezily, “you might think otherwise.”

“Shut it
,” Drake said. “Haven’t been behind the wheel for ages. Haven’t had a good car chase for . . . months. Remember?”

“Yeah. The American
freeway and airfield chase.” Dahl smiled in fond memory. “Shelby Mustang ate you up that day.”

“Bollocks
,” Drake said. “In any case, next time will be the decider.”

“You’re on.
Once we sort out Coyote we’ll book a track day. You, me and two Aston Martins.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer a Saab?”

“Can we stop talking about cars?” Mai spoke up. “And concentrate on the tiny problem at hand. You know—Coyote?”

Drake took another three-sixty perusal through the windows. “Well, this is Sunnyvale. Quiet town, which is good. Everything matches what we learned on Google Maps.” They had memori
zed the town’s layout prior to setting off and driven around it before parking. “Half an hour to kick off. We should get going.”

“And dark already
,” Mai noted.

The team climbed out of their car, standing for a moment to take in the feel of the place. The setting was quiet, broken only by the occasional passing car or barking dog. No youths roamed the streets or lingered outside the local newsagents and takeaways. Roadways and streets were wide and obstacle free. Streetlamps were fully functional. One downside was that at least three different routes led to the castle, more to the train station.
Stores and businesses closed early here, which the team counted as a plus. Market Street was built on a sharp incline, and contained the wrapped-up white hulks of many stalls. Alleys, dark narrow passageways and winding paths lay everywhere, havens for murderous assassins.

“This way.” Dahl marched off. Drake and the women followed. The classified ad had provided a telephone number in addition to the
STD code, the digits of which were actually coordinates. Dahl would now locate them on his preloaded mobile app and pinpoint their rendezvous area. A faint breeze whispered around the foursome, cool and carrying with it the mingled scents of hearth fires, cooked dinners and beer from a nearby pub. Sounds surrounded them too—the laughter of locals chatting across a garden fence, the trundling noise of someone maneuvering their wheelie bin up a paved path, the rapid passing of a man on a fast bicycle, the loud booming of a TV show behind drawn, bright curtains.

Dahl led them past a mid-size roundabout and along a route that led out of town, noting the small police station and fire station that nestled in next to each other along the way. Alicia examined
them with a critical stare.

“Let’s hope they’re fille
d with red-blooded, meat-eating, rugby-playing village boys,” she said. “I have a feeling we’re gonna be needing ‘em before the night’s out.”

Mai cackled. “Feeling a little horny, Taz?”

“Piss off.”

Dahl walked past the edge of town, until flat fields and hedgerows filled the landscape. Out here the wind picked up several notches and lost a few degrees of warmth.

“I’m not lost,” the Swede said as Drake opened his mouth. “As you know navigation is one of my many fortes.”

Drake held up his hands. He could already see their destination, unlike Dahl who had his nose almost buried in the smart phone. In the end, he just pointed.

Dahl nodded. “Yeah, that’s where I was headed next.”

At the cent
er of a nearby field, two dimly lit cabins stood amidst a chain-link fence with builders’ wooden signs all around. It was a flippant disguise, but it would work for a night or two. Way beyond the paddock Drake saw a carnival outlined against the dark Ferris wheel and other rides slinging passengers around.

“I guess we know where most of the villagers went
,” he said.

Dahl took point again. Drake was under the impression that the Swede wanted this business over with quickly so he could get back to his family.
Twenty four hours,
Drake reasoned. It wasn’t so long when you put it into perspective.

On the approach to the paddock’s locked gates
, Dahl slowed. Men melted out of the night, weapons raised. One of them approached.

“We’ve been waiting for you.”

Drake shrugged. “We’re here now.”

“Follow me.”

They were led through the gates and into a sparse cabin. A pockmarked wooden desk held papers and other contraptions that were being closely guarded. The man walked around the table.

“All right. Listen up. Last Man Standing is kill or be killed. Only one person can win. Got it?”

“We hear you,” Mai said evenly.

“As for other competitors
. . . there’s Vincent, an undefeated assassin also known as The Ghost. Gretchen, a Russian special-forces killer. Blackbird—once of Mossad and their best. Need I say more? Duster, a Cockney lunatic. Santino, a nasty piece of work from Mexico City. Oh, and Gozu . . .” the hard-faced man cast a faintly amused glance toward Mai. “I’m told to tell you he’s the clan’s
second
Grand Master assassin. And finally, we have the best of the best. Possibly on level par with the Coyote herself, though never let her know I said that.” The man winked. “We have the most notable French contract killer of all time—Beauregard Alain.”

“Shit
, you’re kidding me.” Alicia said. “I’ve heard of him.”

Drake nodded. “That bell
end escaped an entire SAS unit fifteen years ago. Killed two men in the process. Hope he’s slowed down a bit.”

“Believe me
,” their greeter assured them. “He hasn’t.” He handed out sheets of paper with facts, figures and mugshots attached. “Everyone has a set of these. Learn their faces well so you don’t off any of these poor townsfolk tonight, eh? And by ‘off’ I mean—”

“We know what you mean
,” Dahl growled. “As if you care about these people one bit.”

The man shrugged indifferently. “I get more money if this whole thing goes under the radar, that’s all.
Now, we have placed several . . .” he paused, “. . . preventative measures hidden around the town. Snipers. CCTV cameras. Mines.” He coughed.

“
Mines
?” Mai exploded. “Are you crazy?”

“Raving fuckin’ bonkers, lady. But that’s
part of my charm, and part of the deal. Don’t try to leave or get a message out. We will know. Finish the goddamn tournament. That’s why you’re here. Now—on to the technical stuff.”

The man pushed several items across the table toward them.

“Basic Bluetooth-equipped burner phones so we can get in touch with you. Take only the one with your name on it. Look often for text messages as well as listening for calls. Yep, it could get you killed in an awkward moment, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Yellow teeth grinned sickeningly from between thin, cracked lips.

“This is a chip that will monitor your vital signs
,” the man went on. “Geoffrey here is going to implant you with it.”

Drake stared at the small injector gun and its tiny dart. He shook his head. Alicia and Mai protested more vociferously and even Dahl looked uncomfortable.

“I didn’t make the rules,” the man said. “I just enforce them.”

Alicia
stalked around the desk. “Let me be clear, fuckhead. No prick’s going inside me that I don’t want there.”

“No prick
,” the man said. “Just a jet of air.”

“Not interested
,” Alicia said.

“All right.” The man pushed across a tangle of straps and metal boxes. “Tie them tightly to yourselves. The signal will transmit through Bluetooth. If
they come off it thinks you’re dead, which means in relation to the tournament that you are dead. And you will be killed by any man—on sight. We can tell the difference between real death and the removal of the monitoring system.”

“Much better
,” Alicia muttered.

“Guns?” The man sighed. “Let’s see them.”

Drake gave him an innocent look. “This is the UK. Guns are illegal.”

Wands were passed over their bodies. When nothing bleeped or shrieked the man eyed them with a kind of amazed confusion. “You haven’t brought any weapons?”

“Why?” Dahl rumbled. “You know who we are. Do you really think we need them?”

The man blinked hard. “Okay then.
Onward. We’re almost done here. For information we have a real army of men surrounding this town, folks. I can’t warn you enough about trying to escape or get a message out. A late entrant, guy called Crouch who you know, might be a little late to the party. But he’s a lucrative takedown. Almost—” the man eyed Drake. “As lucrative as you. Be warned. Beauregard Alain will care only about the big money.” He indicated the final piece of equipment on the table, a chunky black box with a large screen. “Nope, it’s not an ancient iPad, it’s a location device.”

“Shouldn’t you be keeping that?” Alicia said in a droll tone.

“Not this one, love. It’s a—” he made a face, “cheap bit of crap to be honest. It shows the locations of you and your erstwhile competitors. Only thing, our resident genius tech engineer,” he nodded to a closed door, “has installed a very clever modification to the program. It refreshes not in real time but once every twelve minutes. You understand?”

Drake nodded. “Keeps it interesting.”

“Doesn’t it?” The man grinned. “Oh, and two final things.”

“Is it the location of the food tent?” Alicia asked quickly. “I’m bloody starving here.”

“The Coyote will enter the competition when ten hours have elapsed.
She
is the most lucrative target of all. Her choice. And an extra little challenge when she joins—she will reveal the locations of four special nano-vests attached to four citizens around the town. The vests will be wired to explode within a short time limit. The rest is up to you.”

Drake regarded the man with hatred. “When this is done we
will
come for you.”

“Well
, at least somebody cares about the citizens,” the man said. “All the other competitors just laughed.”

“When do we start?”

“It’s almost eight.” The man referred to his watch. “Best get going.”

Back outside, they were led beyond the dim cabin lights to another gate and showed through. Beyond that, dark fields led all the way to the outskirts of the carnival.

“Go through the
carnival,” a faceless soldier said, “and back into Sunnyvale. It’s already eight o’clock. The game of assassins has already begun.”

Alicia scouted the route ahead, taking off fast and staying low.
It didn’t take long to reach the carnival grounds and soon the four new contestants were walking along the wandering, muddy byways. Bright artificial light glared down at them from tall floodlights, and vivid neon splashes danced across their vision. Children ran without seeing, their small fists clutching bags of pink cotton candy and toffee apples. Queues formed around a huge bouncy slide and at a homemade curry stand.

Alicia eyed the slide. “Y’know, do we have time? I fancy a go on that.”

Drake laughed and marveled silently about his oldest living friend’s constitution. Inside, Alicia was a crumbling wreck. Outside, you would never know she’d seen a bad day in her life.

Dahl gave her an odd look. “I can never truly tell when you are serious.”

Alicia was already on her way. Drake saw her eyeing the queue, the people in it, and the men and women that hung around its fringes, and knew there was more to her request than she was letting on. He threw an arm around her shoulders.

“What do you see?”

“I hate these fucking perverts.” Alicia motioned toward more than one individual. “They stand around and they watch. It’s their eyes that give them away. Too hungry. Too calculating. Always observing instead of being lost in the moment with your child. If I had kids . . . God, I could never let them out of my sight.”

Drake hadn’t heard this from her before. “Oh. Were you and Lomas
. . . ?”

“Don’t be a dick. No. I’ve always looked out for these perverts. Everywhere I go. Even been known to
quietly neuter a few in my time.” She smiled. “Literally.”

Drake winced involuntarily. “Good job.”

“It’s Santino,” Alicia said. “Right there.”

Drake almost gawped but caught himself at the last moment.
Alicia had clocked one of the assassins whilst scanning for pervs. He likened the man to the picture he’d recently studied. Santino was staring at mothers and children coming down the slide and, as Alicia said—his eyes betrayed him.

Dahl said with a touch of irony. “But we haven’t even broken out the tracker yet.”

“Okay,” Drake snarled. “This is gonna be a real pleasure.”

As one, the team melted away to Santino’s blind side. Dahl checked behind the s
lide and gave Drake a thumbs up from pitch darkness. Mai moved to Santino’s left, Alicia to his right. As a unit they hemmed him in without showing a single sign of hostility.

When they were ready and the slide was at its busiest
with mothers, fathers and kids changing around and grabbing happily at each other, Alicia walked in front of Santino and gave him a sideways glace. With his attention grabbed, Mai struck hard and fast, smashing blows into his voice box, eardrum and ribs with three rapid blows. Then both women took the gargling, unsteady man under the arms and dragged him to the side. Drake followed, concealing their actions as best he could.

“Caught you in the act
,” Alicia hissed into his good ear as they laid him out behind the slide, rowdy generator booming alongside. “Your weakness betrayed you in the end, Santino.”

The assassin bucked and struck out, catching Mai a glancing blow across the temple, too well-trained and dangerous to die without putting up a fight.
He sat up fast, still choking, only to find Torsten Dahl’s size twelve planted firmly in his face.

Santino collapsed again, skull cracking against the hard ground. Alicia watche
d as his face twisted in agony.

“Too good and fast an end for the likes of you
,” she said. “I wonder what else we could come up with.”

But the man called Santino hadn
’t acquired the fearsome reputation that had earned him an invite to the world’s greatest fighting tourney for nothing. The agony did not matter. The crushed bones did not matter. All that mattered was escaping, fighting now to reap vengeance another day. With a spine-twisting body flip he was up and on his feet in less than a second, whirling on Alicia soon after that. The startled woman fell back in alarm, narrowly missing the wide arc of a blade. Santino leapt through the gap she’d created, scrambling through the slippery mud back toward the carnival.

“Feisty bastard
,” Alicia said. “Should have made sure.”

“Don’t let him get among the people!” Dahl cried.

Drake took off after him like light chasing shadow. Mai was alongside, ranging to his right. Santino tripped and rolled under the air-filled slide, coming up in the darkness beneath. Drake dived right in after him, but the man’s heels were as fleet as a scared rabbit’s, carrying him fast to the other side. Drake was only inches away when Santino broke back out into the night and veered left, into the main body of the carnival itself.

Drake pursued hard, his eyes set on Santino as the assassin walked among families, long-bladed knife held flat along the side of his leg, not instantly noticeable but still poised to be used.

The group entered the carnival again, pushing through crowds and stopping errant children from getting too close to the assassin. The man paused once, at the back of a long queue at a donut stand, and fixed Drake’s entire team with a black stare; the stare of a soulless man, a merciless killer. Children formed most of the line in front of him. Carefully, unobtrusively, he raised the knife and placed its tip at the bottom of a boy’s spine. The warning was clear.

Drake stopped immediately, along with Dahl. Mai forced herself not to cry out a warning. Alicia was nowhere to be seen. Santino nodded and left the queue, twirling the knife on the tip of his finger. The only woman
that noticed pulled her children closer, but laughed along with them as they watched, caution in her eyes.

Santino veered his ambling gait toward the
carnival’s exit.

If the assassin noticed Alicia was missing he gave no sign. In Drake’s opinion the man must know she was AWOL. They had underestimated this assassin, and probably how good
most of the participants were in this little charade. It would never happen again. Indeed, Drake wanted to live and tear apart the clouds that roiled between Mai and himself. And he wanted to unravel the many mysteries they’d discovered at Zoya’s place. The Russian monster had hoarded myriad secrets. And he wanted to slide a dagger into Coyote’s neck. For all these dreams to come to pass he had to survive this night.

Last man standing.

At any cost.

Now,
he flicked his head at Mai. The Japanese ninja read his intent loud and clear. She melted into the crowd, flitting along its edges like silent, unseen death. Drake and Dahl increased their pace. Santino glanced back at them once more, eyes barely widening when he noticed what had happened.

Now the decision was his. Try to carry out his threat and die
, or run to live. He chose the latter. He broke quickly for the exit, not anticipating the turnstiles. Though they were open they still clogged the path and the milling people did nothing but get in his way. After several moments of frustration Santino lost his temper and pounded toward a nearby collection of games and amusements stalls. Drake was well aware of the need for discretion. The last thing they needed now was a carnival brawl that brought cops from far and wide. He moved fast after Santino, then stopped in amazement as a carnival-ground basketball flew through the night and connected squarely with the assassin’s face. Santino halted as if he’d run into a brick wall, blinking and dazed. The basketball bounced away amidst chimes of young-sounding laughter.

Alicia appeared from the middle of a crowd, spinning another ball on the tip of her finger.

Santino fixed her with a glare of hatred. He leapt at her, snarling, but again experienced only pure shock as he landed face-first in the dirt. Mai had stepped in from the side, tripping him before he even got started.

Drake and Dahl stepped in, hauling him up by the armpits and laughing at the nearby people. Drake imitated a man downing many pints as Dahl scooped up the discarded knife and tucked it away. Santino fought and struggled but the combined strength of the men hol
ding him gave him little room to maneuver. Fathers laughed. Mothers looked stern. Even those working the stalls smiled.

Drake and Dahl manhandled
Santino past the last stall and into the shadows that surrounded the fence around this place. Tall trees stood alongside and hung their high branches overhead. The lights and laughter seemed far away. As they turned Santino around and flung him up against the fence, a couple jumped up from the overgrown brush not far away, both in states of undress and fleeing with clothes unbuttoned and pants around their ankles. Alicia chortled after them.

“I’d put that away before I reached the
carnival, little man.”

Drake stood back from Santino, giving the assassin air. “We’
re fighting in a tournament that I intend to win, dickhead. So here’s your chance. Go for it.”

Santino didn’t need to be told twice. Fast as a striking snake he struck at Drake
; jab and punch, jab and sidestep, another knife appearing in his left hand, then more thrusts, feints and sharp punches. Drake ducked and dodged, letting Santino’s blade tangle in the side of his jacket.

Santino wrenched it free. The heave unbalanced him.

Drake pounced, breaking down the assassin’s defense in seconds and leaving him writhing on the ground. Blood coated the grass all around.

Dahl looked sideways at him. “
You
intend to win?”

Drake smashed Santino’s face into the dirt with his boot
heel. “Who else is there?”

Alicia and Mai were staring too, perhaps waiting for the punch
line. Drake didn’t have one and wasn’t about to make one up. Not on this day. Not when Coyote was so close.

Santino gurgled. Drake started to pile brush over him.
Mai finally hunkered down alongside him. “He’s done. Let’s move on to the town and finish what we came here to finish.”

“Sure. I can do that.”

Alicia kicked at the slow-moving mound. “This is actually better than he deserves.”

A quick weapons search
had found a utility knife, a military blade, and two powerful but small handguns. Drake handed the weapons out and consulted the map. Alicia swatted it aside.

“Let’s just get away from this piece of
dying shit,” she said, “and worry about the damn town when we get there.”

She walked off. Drake looked at Mai and Dahl, sharing a moment of startled bewilderment. One thing only was Alicia Myles’ constant
—she was never predictable. Numb to the visual delights and mouth-watering smells of the carnival, the four made their way through the crowds and the temporary stalls toward the heart of the town of Sunnyvale—their own personal Ground Zero.

It had begun.