Matt Drake 8 - Last Man Standing (16 page)

“Here.”

Crouch galloped over. He ignored the man’s silent pleas whilst checking under his shirt. “Same layout as before,” he reported. “Give me a minute.”

“Not too long
,” Dahl said. “We’ve taken over one hour to deactivate the first two. Even for a Swedish elite soldier that’s not a good start.”

Drake pretended to choke on plasterboard dust, coughing
, “Swedish elite soldier,” as he fell to his knees, head down. Dahl threw a black look his way.

Crouch
unhooked the nano-vest, holding it up to the light. Mai let the leather feed through her fingers.

“Same as the last one. Exactly.”

Alicia pursed her lips. “So. Did someone have a surplus of these things and sell them to the highest bidder?”

“Coyote?” Crouch sounded doubtful.

“The Blood King,” Alicia stressed. “This is his final curtain call.”

“Perhaps. But the op is still Coyote’s. She
’d have full autonomy. And the nano angle just doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, if we can stop the debate and get moving
,” Dahl said. “We might even be able to save the other two. Then you can examine the vests all you like.”

The group prepared to move off, directing the civilian again toward the church. They didn’t want him going home, pointing out that he’d already been abducted once tonight. The church might be the safest place.

Dahl held up the tracking device. “All right folks—”

The streak hit him in the midriff, travelling at high speed and taking no prisoners. Dahl’s exclamation of shock was torn from his mouth. The
tracking device flew into the air. The Swede flew back and slammed into the side wall, shattering apart even more plasterboard and landing in a heap, spluttering.

A darkness detached itself from his body, a lithe, twisting darkness, every sinuous movement speaking of malice.

It leapt at Alicia, making the Englishwoman squeal before she could catch herself. The attack was so sudden, so precise and hard, that it had disconcerted everyone. The single person in the team that wouldn’t have been disquieted was Dahl, and he’d been taken out first.

Design.

Drake ran to Alicia’s aid. His friend had recovered quickly, but the bruise along the top of her left eye was already coloring. She stumbled away, and Drake was in. The Yorkshireman stepped up hard, striking at the black-clad figure with tough, accurate blows. As he worked, Mai drifted in from the right-hand side.

“Beauregard Alain
,” she said softly. “Try me. I’d like to take you one-on-one.”

Soft laughter issued from beneath the mask. No words, just the whispered sibilance. No arrogant return, only quiet confidence. Drake
knew that kind of confidence and knew better than to push the kind of man that oozed it. They needed to take this enemy down, and fast. He struck even harder, but the Frenchman had other ideas. With a lightning quick rib kick he doubled Drake over and switched his attention toward Mai.

The ex-ninja targeted the man’s knee with a side kick, his throat with a finger jab and his ribs with a flying-knee
—all in the same movement. Beauregard caught them all and executed a comeback of his own. As Mai drifted past, he elbow-jabbed and back-kicked, striking flesh, then whirled with a reverse flying kick. The blow glanced across Mai’s skull, barely making contact.

Dahl groaned, trying to extricate himself from the wall and the broken plasterboard
and failing. Crouch had already retrieved the tracking device and was checking to make sure it was still working. Drake and Alicia had recovered and were looking for the best way to enter the fray.

Beauregard’s head
swiveled from side to side, the movement inside the mask giving him the appearance of a deadly predator; a black snake, a confident killer. Then he performed a feat Drake wasn’t even sure Mai could pull off. He leapt straight up, pushed off the wall at his back, and smashed both feet into Mai’s chest, using her as a way of deflecting his flight toward Drake and Alicia. Then, still in mid-air, he kicked Drake hard in the chin and Alicia right on the nose. He landed with a flourish.

And rose with a semi-automatic in each hand. “Seems I won
,” he said with a heavy accent but no bravado in his voice.

B
efore he could fire, Michael Crouch moved to stand in front of the stunned team. “Not so fast,” he said. “You’ll have to go through me first.”

“And you are?”

But the hesitation was clear. The fact that he hadn’t pulled the trigger was obvious. He knew this man.

“You know me, Beauregard. And I know you.
We worked together, before you became greedy and went rogue. You were a good man back then. Fact is—” Crouch coughed. “I still am.”

Beauregard still waited. The gun didn’t waver a milli
meter. He seemed to be weighing up past impressions with current positions. Clearly, there were a lot of factors involved, both old and new.

“Who are you working for, Beauregard?” Crouch
suddenly asked. “What do you know of the nano-vests?”

All of a sudden Beauregard moved. His gun arm flexed. Quickly, he saluted Crouch with the weapon. “For the past
,” he said thickly. “One reprieve. Next time, it will go differently, Mr. Crouch. Do not get in my way again.”

Then he was gone, a shadow blending with the retreating dark of the night. A ghost warrior, flitting beyond vision.

“Shit and bollocks.” Alicia slapped Crouch on the back. “You do have some uses, old man.”

Crouch
nodded. “Once this is all over we’ll need to move fast. Beauregard is yet another deep mystery. The man wouldn’t stoop so low as to enter a tournament like this. Somebody is running him, a hidden party. Add Mossad and the nano-vests, and you’ll see that we need to finish this fast, then get back to MI6 to get the war cabinet involved. If James isn’t awake yet I’ll bloody well shake his head from his shoulders. The security of much more than a small English village is at stake.”

Drake knew that Crouch was referring to the British Prime
Minister, James Ronson, without hint or thought of vanity. Crouch was simply the most well-connected man he knew, and for good reason. If he wanted to he could topple governments and move mountains. In fact, Drake imagined, with the Ninth Division now defunct, Crouch could pretty much write his own ticket.

What next for the
eminent leader?

Dahl had managed to climb upright and dust off. He retrieved the tracker from Crouch. “Now then. After that
—short interlude—we can continue. Only thirty minutes left to rescue two people. Only one tracker. Are we ready?”

Drake nodded, still reeling a little. “
Stop yer jabbering and move!”

The third flashing signal came from over near the supermarket. Drake hightailed it that way, bruises aching, self-esteem more than a little bit battered.

“If we see that bastard again
,” he said. “We need to take him down hard.”

Mai rubbed the top of her chest. “I believe I underestimated him. Being French and all.”

“C’mon Little Sprite!” Alicia barked. “What are you? A
country
racist? Russians are bad because nothing works right. Frenchmen in tights are weak because they’re, well, French. Wow.”

Drake shook his head. “
I shoulda known, after all that just happened, you would mention the tights.”

“What?” Alicia said innocently. “I mean they were rather
tight.
And that sexy high-kick near my face put his—”

“No.” Drake put his head in his hands. “Please no.”

“Oh yeah. He did it to you too, didn’t he?”

Drake saw the supermarket up ahead and pointed with blessed relief. “How’s the signal, Dahl?”

The Swede estimated the distances. “Puts our man inside the damn supermarket.”

They hurried along as time ticked away. Twenty five minutes remained
until Coyote’s deadline. Drake entered through the broken window and glanced around at the damage they’d already helped cause.

“Cops are going to have fun with this in a day or two.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Crouch advised. “Cops are the least of
our
worries.”

Dahl followed his tracking device, at last coming up against the rear wall. “Damn. Just another bloody wall. What is it with this thing?”

Drake tested the construction. “Well, they can’t have put someone behind this thing and sealed it up again so fast,” he said. “Feels sturdy.”

“Wait.” Mai was moving along the wall. “Here.”

Drake paced to her side. “Coyote’s men are indeed bastards,” he said. “As if we needed more convincing.”

A heavy metal door stood before them, featureless except for a handle and vision panel. Nobody need
ed to be told this was the supermarket’s storage freezer. One glance inside confirmed a woman lying prone on the floor, hands and feet bound. When Drake knocked she didn’t move to acknowledge them.

“How the hell do we get in?” Alicia asked.

Drake eyed the nano-vests Crouch carried. “What about one of those?”

The Ninth Division man frowned. “Could kill the woman inside. And us. Could bring down the entire building.”

“Bollocks.”

“Wait.” Dahl stepped up and peered inside. “How far away is she from the door?” He stepped back. “Could work.”

“What?” Drake asked.
“What
could work?”

Dahl ran at a sprint through the supermarket and out the broken windows.

Drake looked around at his companions, face to face. “I really don’t like it when he gets an idea in his head.”

“Yeah
,” Alicia said. “Forget the nano explosions. Here comes Torsten Dahl.”

And here he did come, at the wheel of a Toyota Hilux, teeth gritted and face set through the windshield
, gunning the engine for all it was worth. The large vehicle smashed through the already demolished windows, shattering what glass and framework remained, then ploughed through the fallen shelves and piles of groceries. Drake and the team scattered. Dahl hung on grimly. Box displays and large baskets full of crisps and biscuits were destroyed, slithering under the wheels and smashing to left and right. The truck bounced, yawing over a pile of groceries. On an angle, the front bars struck the freezer door, pushing it back and shattering the frame. The Hilux came to a stop halfway through, and Dahl revved hard, slamming the vehicle into reverse.

“Fuck!”

Drake and the others, on their way forward, suddenly had to dive out of the way again.

Dahl
burned rubber as he reversed fast, taking most of the door with him and smashing even more of the supermarket to pieces. Once the front wheels were clear, Drake ran again, this time bouncing from pile to pile and into the demolished freezer. He dropped to his knees beside the trapped woman.

Rolled her over. The eyes fluttered softly, the breathing shallow. He nodded at Crouch. “Do it.”

He watched the man disarm the ignition mechanism. In truth, now that he’d seen it done there was nothing to it. A simple matter of disengaging a wire and a metal plate. But if Crouch hadn’t been around . . . the results might have been much different.

If Crouch hadn’t been around
. . .

The thought gave birth to a deeper
consideration.
Did Coyote quietly control Crouch’s presence in order to help with the vests? In order to realize their wider potential and see what might be coming?

But he was giving the woman too much respect, yet again. For some reason Shelly Cohen would just not
transmogrify into the terrible mien of Coyote that he held in his mind. The match wouldn’t fit.

Crouch held up the vest. “Done.”

“Now, fast.” Dahl stepped down from the Hilux. “Number four is only at the village square, just a few minutes away. We have twenty minutes.”

“The
center of town.” Drake nodded. “Sounds crafty and sly to me. This is the one, guys. Coyote’s final play. Dial in your best game and turn it up to A.”

Alicia was already moving. “Dude, that’s my
only
game.”

Karin played a game of digital warfare against the great and notorious SaBo, only the risks and rewards involved were far beyond any ‘game’. They were life-threatening.

Time and again she breached his system, only to be routed out. Komodo kept her going with coffee and Mountain Dew. When his eyes started to glaze over from trying to keep track of the
scrolling code, keywords and flashing warning signals, he wandered over to a second bank of computer terminals where a man wearing an army uniform sat at ease.

“How ya doin’?”

“Good.” The man he knew as Sergeant Pearson gave him a perfunctory smile. “Feeling a little undermanned at this moment. But otherwise okay.”

“Undermanned?” Komodo asked. Nobody had said anything about being undermanned.

“Budget cuts. Recession. We’re two men down twenty four hours a day. Add that up, sir, and that’s a lot of slack.”

“Damn straight.” Komodo
nodded at the door. “How safe is this place?”

“Well, it’s not Tesco, sir, but it certainly isn’t MI6 either.”

Komodo grunted at the lack of real information. “Bud, we ain’t exactly got a great track record when it comes to safe houses. If there’s someone you can call I’d do it now.”

The ex-Delta man walked away, returning to Karin’s side.

“Sir,” the man called from behind. “This isn’t a safe house. It’s a joint government-private sector run building. We just rent the basement.”

Komodo just stared. “Then call someone.”

Karin glanced around at him. “What’s all that about, T-vor?”

“Nothing special
,” he said. “How you doin’?”

“Wins and losses
,” she said. “Nothing vital. SaBo’s reputation is well-deserved. It’s a dance, like combat, only we don’t get hurt like you do.”

Komodo grumbled. “I never felt combat was much like a dance.”

“You know what I mean. Look . . .” She tapped a button, executing a command. The picture flashed across immediately to the screen to her right, tracking the progress of her latest attack, showing circuits penetrated and firewalls breached. Several layers disappeared like confetti on the breeze, destroyed, but then a flashing grid-barrier stopped them and a net enveloped Karin’s point of infiltration. All of a sudden the screen went blank.

Karin sighed. “And another attack is thwarted.”

“What about your secret weapon?”

Karin smiled. “Worming its way through a myriad of redundant circuits. It is most definitely the key to beating SaBo. I just have to keep him bus
y until it gets to where I need it to be.”

“Got it.”

The room’s single door swung open. Komodo, still thinking of Sergeant Pearson’s words, swung around with a hand hovering over his holstered weapon. A Glock was all they would let him keep, and that only as a courtesy. To Komodo, it felt a little like brandishing a lollipop, but he knew the effect would be somewhat different.

Now, however, only Pearson came into sight. “We just received an update from the field
,” he reported. “Our forces have assembled at Sunnyvale. The SAS are there, coordinating with elements of the British Army, Hostage Rescue, what was SO13 and SO12, now SO15, and CO19 along with the Special Projects Unit, which had actually been formed to combat hit men, or assassins, and several units of special police are ready to move. Hardware is on the ground and in the air. A full-scale assault will begin within the hour.”

Karin bit her lip. “They are aware of the merc army, yes?”

Pearson nodded. “We have civilians already in extreme danger. Their safety is the prime concern. The Prime Minister and COBRA have signed off on it. They’re going in, Miss.”

Karin nodded, her eyes betraying her concern. Not
only for her friends but for everyone involved. An assault would leave many dead. But if she could just defeat SaBo in time, she might be able to help save lives.

In
her distress, apprehension and determination she failed to notice that one of SaBo’s lesser signals had breached the tiniest part of her system. It would feed him nothing, give him no upper hand in their cyberbattle.

But if he pigg
ybacked a cell signal onto it he would instantly have their location.