The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3) (6 page)

“No. It couldn’t—”

“Yes.” Gates’s voice cracked as his whisky-fuelled charge of adrenalin clearly began to dissipate. “It’s not your concern, Jaye, my wife. I- I have always been a patriot, so the president knew within hours of her abduction. I remain…” He stammered. “A patriot.”

Hayden hardly knew what to say. “Why tell me now?”

“To explain my next actions.”

“No!” Hayden shouted, banging the window in sudden terror. “You can’t do it! Please!”

“Relax. I have no intentions of killing myself. I will help avenge Sarah first. Ironic isn’t it?”

“What?”

“That now I know how Matt Drake feels.”

Hayden closed her eyes, but the tears rolled down her face anyway. Kennedy’s memory was already fading from the world, a heart once so full of fire now diminished to eternal night.

“Why tell me now?” Hayden finally repeated.

“To explain this.” Gates paused, then said, “Ed Boudreau has a baby sister. I’m sending you the details. Do—”

Hayden was so shocked she interrupted the secretary before he could continue. “Are you sure?”

“Do whatever you have to do to take this fucker down.”

The line went dead. Hayden heard the email report chime out on her phone. Without checking she turned smartly and walked out of the room, ignoring the worried stares of Ben Blake and his sister. She walked over to Kinimaka’s little closet and found him working on a chicken and chorizo sub.

“Where’s Alicia?”

“Got her pass revoked yesterday.” The big Hawaiian’s words were distorted.

Hayden bent in close. “Don’t be a fucking idiot. We both know she doesn’t need a pass. Now where is Alicia?”

Kinimaka’s eyes widened into dinner plates. “Umm, one minute. I’ll trace her. No, she’s too sharp for that. I’ll—”

“Just ring her.” Hayden’s stomach sank even as she said the words and blackness blighted her soul. “Tell her to get hold of Drake. He’s got what he asked for. We’re going to hurt an innocent person to get information.”

“Boudreau’s sister?” Kinimaka seemed sharper than usual. “He’s actually got one? And Gates signed off on it?”

“You would too”—Hayden wiped her eyes dry—“if someone just tortured and killed your wife.”

Kinimaka absorbed that in silence. “And that makes it okay for the CIA to do the same to an American citizen?”

“It does for now,” Hayden said. “We’re at war.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Matt Drake had started on the expensive stuff. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Black was beckoning and looking none too shabby.

Would the better stuff stifle the memory of her face faster? This time, in his dream, would he actually save her like he’d always promised to?

The search continued.

The whisky burned. He emptied the glass immediately. He refilled. He struggled to center himself. He was a man who helped others, who gained their trust, who stood up to be counted and never let anyone down.

But he had failed Kennedy Moore. And, before that, he had failed Alyson. And he had failed their unborn child, a baby dead before it even had chance to start living.

The Johnnie Walker, like every other bottle he had tried before, was making the desperation run deeper. He had known it would. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted it to carve a slice of agony out of his soul.

The pain was his penance.

He stared at the window. It stared back, blank, unseeing and unfeeling— dirtied to the point of blackness, just like him. The updates from Mai and Alicia were becoming less frequent. The calls from his friends in the SAS were still very much on time.

The Blood King had made an attempt on Ben’s parents a few days ago. They were safe. They never knew the danger and Ben would never know how close they came to being victims in the Blood King’s vendetta.

And neither would the CIA agents who were guarding the Blakes. The SAS did not need recognition or pats on the back. They simply did the job and moved on to the next.

A haunting tune started to play. The song was as moving as it was beautiful—‘My Immortal’ by Evanescence—and it reminded him of everything he had ever lost.

It was his ringtone. He scrabbled around the bed sheets a little blearily, but eventually got a hold on the phone.

“Yes?”

“It’s Hayden, Matt.”

He sat up a little straighter. Hayden had known about his recent exploits, but had chosen to ignore them. Alicia had been their go between. “What’s happened? Is Ben—?” He couldn’t even bring himself to speak the words.

“He’s fine. We’re all fine. But something has come up.”

“You found Kovalenko?” Eagerness cut through the alcohol haze like a blazing searchlight.

“No, not yet. But Ed Boudreau does have a sister. And we’ve been sanctioned to bring her in.”

Drake sat up, the whisky forgotten. Hate and hellfire burned twin tracks through his heart. “I know exactly what to do.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hayden steeled herself for what was to come. Her entire career in the CIA had not prepared her for this situation. The Secretary of Defense’s wife murdered. An international terrorist holding unknown numbers of powerful people’s relatives hostage.

Did the government know the identities of all of those involved? No way. But you could be damn sure they knew a lot more than they would ever let on.

It had seemed so much simpler back when she first enrolled. Maybe it had been simpler back then, before September 11
^th
. Maybe in the day of her father, James Jaye, the legendary agent she strived to emulate, it
had
been black and white.

And ruthless.

This was the sharp edge. The war against the Blood King was being fought on many levels, but hers may yet prove to be the most terrible and successful.

The diverse personalities of the people she had on her side gave her an edge. Gates had spotted it first. That was why he had let them conduct their own investigation into the mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle. Gates was cleverer than she had ever given him credit for. He had seen straight away the advantage provided by such contrasting personalities as Matt Drake, Ben Blake, Mai Kitano and Alicia Myles. He had seen the potential of her team. And he had thrown them all together.

Genius.

A team of the future?

Now a man who had lost everything wanted justice to be brought against the man who had so brutally murdered his wife.

Hayden walked up to Boudreau’s cell. The laconic mercenary gave her lazy eyes from over the top of his steepled hands.

“Can I help you, agent Jaye?”

Hayden would never forgive herself if she didn’t try one more time. “Give us Kovalenko’s location, Boudreau. Just give him up and this is over.” She spread her hands. “I mean, it’s not like he seems to give a shit about you.”

“Maybe he does.” Boudreau unfolded his body and slipped off the bunk. “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it’s too early to tell yet, huh?”

“What is his agenda? What is this Gates of Hell?”

“If I knew. . .” Boudreau’s face portrayed the smile of a feasting shark.

“You do know.” Hayden remained very matter of fact. “I’m giving you this last chance.”

“Last chance? Are you going to shoot me? Has the CIA finally recognized the dark sins they must commit to stay in the game?”

Hayden shrugged. “There’s a time and a place.”

“Sure. I could name a few places.” Boudreau sneered at her, the crazy showing through as spittle flew. “There is nothing you can do to me, Agent Jaye, that would make me betray a man as powerful as the Blood King.”

“Well…” Hayden forced a smile. “That’s what got us thinking, Ed.” She fixed the joviality in her voice. “You got nothing here, man. Nothing. Yet you won’t spill. You sit there, wasting away, happy to accept imprisonment. Like a washed up motherfucker. Like a loser. Like a piece of Southern shit.” Hayden laid it on thick.

Boudreau’s mouth tightened into a tense white line.

“You’re a man who’s given up. A quitter. A sacrifice. Impotent.”

Boudreau moved toward her.

Hayden pushed her face up against the bars, taunting him. “A fucking limp dick.”

Boudreau struck out, but Hayden backed away faster, still forcing the grin on her face. The sound of his fist striking steel was like a wet slap.

“So we wondered. What makes a man like you, a soldier, become a limp dick?”

Boudreau now stared at her with slowly comprehending eyes.

“That’s it.” Hayden mocked him. “You got there, didn’t you? Her name is Maria, yes?”

Boudreau slammed the bars in an unspeakable rage.

It was Hayden’s turn to sneer. “As I said. Impotent.”

She turned away. The seeds were sown. It was about speed and severity. Ed Boudreau would never crack under normal conditions. But now. . .

Kinimaka wheeled the TV they had strapped to a chair to where the mercenary could see it. The trepidation in the man’s voice was obvious even though he tried to hide it.

“What the hell are you people trying to pull?”

“Keep watching, motherfucker.” Hayden made her voice sound as if she just didn’t care anymore. Kinimaka turned the TV on.

Boudreau stared. “No” he mouthed quietly. “Oh, no.”

Hayden met his eyes with a totally believable sneer. “”We’re at war, Boudreau. You still don’t wanna talk? Choose a fuckin’ appendage.”

*****

Matt Drake made sure the camera was firmly fixed in position before he stepped into the picture. The black balaclava was pulled down over his features more for effect than disguise, but the body armor he was dressed in and the weapons he carried made the seriousness of the girl’s position stand out, starkly accurate.

The girl’s eyes were pools of desperation, of fear. She had no idea what she had done. No idea what they wanted her for. She didn’t know what her brother did for a living.

Maria Fedak was an innocent
, Drake thought, if anyone was these days. Caught by chance, snared by misfortune in a globally cast net that fizzled and crackled with death, heartlessness and hate.

Drake stopped next to her, brandishing the knife in his right hand, the other resting lightly on his gun. It didn’t matter to him anymore that she was innocent. It was retribution, nothing less. A life for a life.

He waited patiently.

*****

“Maria Fedak,” Hayden said. “She is your sister, married, Mr. Boudreau. Your sister, oblivious, Mr. Mercenary. Your sister, terrified, Mr. Murderer. She doesn’t know what her brother is, or what he does on a regular basis. But she
does
know you. She knows the doting brother, who visits once or twice a year with the fake stories and the thoughtful gifts for her kids. Tell me, Ed, do you want them to grow up without a mother?”

Boudreau’s eyes were bulging. His naked fear was so intense Hayden actually felt pity for him. But this wasn’t the time. His sister’s life was truly in the balance. That was why they had chosen Matt Drake, alone, as the point man.

“Maria.” The word spilled out of him, wretched and despairing.

*****

Drake barely saw the terrified girl. He saw Kennedy, dead in his arms. He saw Ben’s blood-soaked hands. He saw Harrison’s guilty face.

But most of all he saw Kovalenko. The Blood King, the mastermind, a man so hollow and void of feeling he might be nothing but an animated corpse. A zombie. He saw the man’s face and wanted to throttle the life out of everything around him.

His hands moved toward the girl and locked around her throat.

*****

Hayden blinked as she watched the monitor. Drake was rushing things. Boudreau had hardly had time to soften up yet. Kinimaka stepped toward her, always the kind mediator, but Alicia Myles yanked him back.

“Not a chance, big guy. Let these fuckers sweat. They have nothing but death on their hands.”

Hayden made herself sneer at Boudreau the way she remembered him sneering when he ordered the murder of her men.

“You gonna squeal, Ed, or you wanna find out how they make
sushi
in the UK?”

Boudreau glared at her with murder in his eyes. A thin drool slid from the corner of his mouth. His emotions were getting the better of him, just as they did when he smelled a close kill. Hayden didn’t want him shutting down on her.

Alicia was already close to the bars. “You ordered the execution of my boyfriend. You should be glad it’s Drake doing the dicing and not me. I’d make the bitch suffer twice as long.”

Boudreau stared between both of them. “You had both better make sure I never get out of here. I swear I will cut you both to pieces.”

“Save it.” Hayden was watching Drake squeezing Maria Fedak’s neck. “She doesn’t have much time.”

Boudreau was a hard man, and his face shut down. “The CIA won’t hurt my sister. She’s a United States citizen.”

Now Hayden truly believed the madman truly didn’t get it. “Listen to me, you crazy bastard,” she hissed. “We’re at war. The Blood King has murdered Americans on American soil. He has kidnapped dozens.
Dozens.
He wants to hold this country to ransom. He doesn’t give a shit about you or your stinking sister!”

Alicia muttered something into her earpiece. Hayden heard the instruction. So did Kinimaka.

So did Drake.

He let go of the woman’s neck and unholstered the gun.

Hayden ground her teeth together so hard, the nerves around her skull screamed. Gut instinct almost made her cry out and order him to stop. Her focus blurred for a second, but then her training kicked in and told her this was the best chance they had of tracking down Kovalenko.

One life to save hundreds, or more.

Boudreau had noticed the play of emotions across her face and suddenly he was at the bars, convinced, reaching out and snarling.

“Don’t do it. Don’t you fucking do it to my baby sister!”

Hayden’s face was a mask of stone. “Last chance, killer.”

“The Blood King’s a ghost. Whatever I know, it might be a distraction. He loves that sort of thing.”