Matt Drake 8 - Last Man Standing (2 page)

He clicked on the last e-mail, scrolled to the bottom and started to read the exchange
s. The contents were stark and grueling, sent at the Blood King’s behest for the attention of the world’s greatest assassin. Drake expected ghastliness and was not disappointed.

Mai read it without emotion. “It changes quickly from an exploratory message
sent to Zoya that appears to contain several . . . code words?”

Drake nodded. “Yes. Some kind of security protocol that even then is vetted by the Russian before being forwarded to Coyote.
But once established—” he didn’t need to continue.

“Yes, it’s pretty graphic. There’s a request from Kovalenko’s men to bring Coyote in
, in the event of his death. It actually says ‘finish the job’, and ‘activate in the events of Dmitry’s death’. It’s real.” Mai hung her head. “Damn. I can’t believe that after all this, and with the bastard dead, this is all real.”

Drake linked her fingers. “Coyote was always going to be an obstacle that at some point would need addressing
,” he said. “This way, we don’t get to put it off. We take her on directly.”

“So the big question, the one ev
eryone’s been asking since Odin . . .” Mai left it hanging.

“Who is Coyote?”

“Yeah. I’m betting it’s Alicia.”

Drake didn’t smile. “Don’t forget what Coyote has done.”

Mai bowed almost imperceptibly. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. But what we have here, what we really have
in a crazy way—is the first real proof that Coyote exists. And a way to backtrack. All we have to do is find out where Coyote’s e-mails originated from.”

Mai could have doused his sudden fire with a flood of pessimism, but chose not to. Drake silently thanked her. He knew the chances of her using
her own personal channels were practically zero at the moment. But there was another problem.

“
Damn. We can’t ask Karin, can we? Bollocks. She’d have this cracked in about ten minutes.”

“Is there anyone else?”

Drake let out a breath. “Yeah. Of course. Dozens of people. Hundreds, probably. We do have the resources of the US government. But—” he shook his head. “Someone I would trust with information like this?”

He fell silent. Mai watched his face.
Something this important, this sensitive, required a Karin or a Ben. Or even a Jonathan Gates. A proven trustworthy warrior that could be relied upon to do it right. Truth be told, Mai couldn’t think of a single person.

Then Drake looked up. “There is one person. Just one man I would trust with this.”

Mai frowned. “Who?”

“Michael Crouch.”

***

Drake walked out into the sunshine, leaving the sense of cloying madness behind, and thought about what he would say. Crouch had contacted him recently, probing for information, and Drake hadn’t exactly come through. But the Yorkshireman
knew that the boss of his former boss was not one to hold a grudge, but one highly principled and disciplined straight arrow.

He made the call and waited for Crouch to become available.

Eventually the clipped tones leapt across the airwaves. “Drake? How the devil are ya?”

“Not bad, sir. And how’s the Ninth?”

The Ninth Division was the covert British agency with blanket authority to protect England’s assets anywhere, at any cost.

“Still here.
And kicking arse like the Good Samaritan’s hysterical donkey.”

Drake remembered now that Crouch was prone to adding the occasional over-embellishment in his descriptions. Doing so now meant the boss of the Ninth Division was enjoying a slow day.

“We need your help.”

“What can I do
?”

Quickly, Drake outlined the situation, not surprised when he heard Crouch’s sharp intake of breath on hearing the name of Coyote.

“So we have a chance to nail this Jackal.” Crouch rarely made accidental references. To call Coyote by that name showed both the hate and regard in which he held her. “Just give me a minute.”

Drake felt Mai come up beside him and knew, even as she laid her head on his shoulder, that she was scanning the area for adversaries. The bane of their brilliance was that they could never switch off.

“Drake? You there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send the files over. Send them here. I have someone that can do all kinds of shenanigans, an outsider actually. And Caitlyn – that’s her name – could never be back-traced. She sure speaks the lingo. Remote capture of your laptop. Piggybacking. Backtracking through digital trails. I won’t pretend to understand it all, but she’ll get the job done.”

“Excellent. I’ll send the file and leave the laptop turned on then. Will that do?”

“Probably.” Crouch laughed. “Give us an hour then call back.”

Drake ended the call. “Now
, we wait.”

“It will give us chance to talk.”

“About what?”

“Oh, so much. How
Dai Hibiki is looking into Grace’s past and trying to track her parents. How the DC doctors are trying to jog her memory using a kind of hypnosis. How I murdered a man, a father of two, in cold blood and, one day, expect to pay for it. How even changing my phone number doesn’t stop Smyth from texting me. How Alicia will cope now, and what she’ll do. This is the aftermath, Drake. Everything changed when Kovalenko hit DC. What do we do next?”

“Next? I have no idea. I’m living day to day. Aren’t you?”

“We all are. But that can only last so long.”

Drake took a while to think it through. “You know what I think? The catalyst is Hayden. Always was. When she gets better, we’ll have somebody we
all respect to lead the way.”

Mai thought about that. “It makes sense. But Drake, it’s going to take something big to stop this team from breaking up. Something bigger than anything we’ve encountered so far.”

“Is that even possible?”

Mai shrugged. “I don’t know.”

They talked some more, carefully avoiding Mai’s most dangerous problem, as if knowing that an hour was just nowhere near enough time in which to tackle it. The time ticked by and the Russian driver smoked until Mai worried he might very well expire on the spot.

As the late afternoon sun began to fall
from the skies, Drake’s phone rang. “I’m here.”

The line was silent, uncharacteristically so. Drake checked to see if the line had gone down. “Are you there, sir?”

“Yes.” Crouch’s voice was low, devoid of fire, of confidence. The man sounded as if the whole world had just come crashing down around him.

“
Did you manage to discover the origin of those e-mails?”

“Yes. Yes we did.”

Drake felt a little like a man trying to kick-start a dead horse. “Where do they originate from?”

Crouch’s voice dropped yet another octave. “God help us, Drake. They were sent from here. From the Ninth Division.”

A 747 landing on his shoulders couldn’t have surprised Drake more. His mouth fell open and he adopted similar mannerisms to what he imagined Crouch must be displaying thousands of miles away.

“It can’t be. No way.
From
the Ninth
?”

Drake stared at Mai, utter incredulity shining from his eyes. But he knew better than to question Crouch any
more. The man made little or no statement that hadn’t been properly verified.

“It gets worse.” Crouch groaned, his words forced from his throat like daggers. “The e-mails were sent
. . . from Shelly’s computer.”

Drake stiffened
again. Shelly Cohen was and always had been one of the mainstays of the Ninth Division, ever since its long-ago inception. Known affectionately as Crouch’s vice chairman, she regularly stood in for the boss and undertook missions of her own.

“Someone set Shelly up?” he said immediately. “Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know,” Crouch said. “The protocols are pretty strict, but I guess it could be done. Either way, Drake, it’s an inside job. Has to be. The e-mails originated from our intranet.”

“Gotcha. So what does Shelly say?”

“Don’t know. She took a week’s holiday two days ago.”

An inexplicable shiver ran down Drake’s spine. “She did? Christ, that’s unfortunate.”

Crouch didn’t answer. Drake knew what he was thinking. “But
Shelly
?” he said. “She’s always been part of the backbone. The lifeblood. Shelly is . . . well she’s at least four parts of the Ninth Division.”

“And has always had access to every piece
of Intel the British government ever acquired.”

Drake shook his head. “All right then. Why now? Why does this operative, so good she’s worked under the radar for twenty years, suddenly make a rookie mistake?”

Crouch remained silent, waiting.

Mai fixed him with a challenging stare.

And then Drake got it. “That’s the whole point isn’t it? Coyote
is
too good to ever get caught. This was a deliberate act.”

“I believe so.”

“Kovalenko must have paid her a fortune. Jesus, sir, we have to be sure. Have you tried raising Shelly?”

Crouch exhaled. “Of course I have. Every channel. No answer
so far. We won’t give up on her, Drake, until the proof is absolute. And at that time . . . I’ll be happy to slit her throat.”

Drake still couldn’t reconcile the facts. Coyote had ki
lled Alyson. Coyote was the world’s greatest and worst contract killer. Assassin. Cold blooded murderer.

Shelly?

“I . . . I need time with this, sir. Let me know what you find.”

“Of course
,” Crouch said and signed off. As he did so Drake thought he heard a gunshot.

As Michael Crouch ended the call to Drake a shot rang out behind him. Shocked, he turned, already reaching for the handgun kept in the drawer by his side. The Ninth Division offices near London were kept intentionally sparse. The various chiefs, cyber experts and field-soldiers were in a constant state of flux, always shipping in and then out to the next crisis. Just this month Crouch himself had overseen jobs in Vienna, Zurich and Milan. The world was always warding off a catastrophe of some sort. The room was rectangular, a low-roofed shed with multi-colored exposed cables, thickened walls, expensive computers balanced on the edges of cluttered desks, operatives rolling along at hyper-speed on their castor-fitted chairs, locked and barred weapons cupboards, and privacy corners set apart only by curtains. The Ninth Division had always been rough and ready, poised to act in an instant and used to the constant comradeship and tramp of soldier’s boots; the knife-edge of Britain’s response, the rugged home and op-center of military men.

It was, however, set in the middle of a small regimental compound, surrounded by electric fences and surveillance systems and guards with guns. For someone to breach
the security this far it had to be an . . .

. . .
insider job.

Crouch
saw a cyber-information analyst go down, a man he’d trained for eight years. He flinched as blood splashed across a screen. The person shooting was definitely not Shelly Cohen. It was a hired merc, ex-Army, clad in body armor and full-face helmet, but easily recognizable to seasoned men like Crouch because of the way he fired his weapon and conducted himself. Within seconds more men had appeared behind the first, squeezing off careful shots.

Warning shouts came through the comms.
Yeah, thanks,
Crouch thought.
About as much fucking use as a four-cylinder Ferrari.
Calmly, he took in his immediate surroundings, logging the young, capable and extremely loyal soldier, Zack Healey, ducking across from the left, and the heavy-boned, craggy-faced Rob Russo rumbling over from the right.

A good, hard line.

Crouch raised and sighted his gun. “Did you call it in?”

Healey replied
, “I was already consulting with Armand Argento from Interpol, sir. He’s taken the reins.”

“Good man.” Crouch knew Argento was one of the best. “Now let’s thin the herd a bit.”

The three men opened fire, bullets striking true about the chests and heads of their attackers. Grunts and howls announced their agonies, but the ones with chest-shots only staggered and looked meaner.

“Bloody body armor
,” Crouch declared.

“We have armor
-piercing bullets behind the bars, sir,” Healey said, looking eager.

Crouch weighed up the options. He counted at least a dozen adversaries inside, and God only knew how many more waited outside. But up aga
inst that was the sanctity, the eminence and reputation of the Ninth Division. Crouch would not let it slip away so easily.

“Go. They hit us in our house, we’ll slice their goddamn heads off with paper
cuts if we have to.”

Healey scrambled away on all fours. Bullets laced the air in his wake.
Unfazed, the young soldier reached the far gun cabinets and punched in a quick four-digit code. Crouch watched anxiously, still tracking his enemies and staying low. Shots flew all around them. A mug full of coffee was shot to bits, sending its hot contents all over him. Great, now to add insult to injury he smelled of cheap, instant brown sludge.

The mercs advanced
as a practiced unit. Healey slid a full box of ammo clear across the smooth wooden floor, passing through chair legs and under desks, right to Crouch’s feet.

Russo dived right in with him. “Kid’s got Olympic champion potential for box sliding at least.”

Crouch exchanged the standard rounds for the more powerful ones in seconds. Then he rose and fired a salvo. The mercs, arrogant behind their armor, were advancing hard, firing consistently. Crouch saw techs struggling for cover and professional British soldiers pinned down. Then his bullets made their mark, sending the oncoming team to their knees with shouts of fury. Blood leaked and pumped through their vests. Other men stood over them, shotguns now raised, but Russo took them out in the next few seconds and soon Healey was joining in from the far left. A stray shot passed by Russo’s face, making the man flinch, but Crouch figured his fellow soldier was so heavily boned up top that the slug would either bounce off or simply disintegrate into metal dust. His eyes flicked toward the yard monitors just above his head and locked onto the single one that hadn’t been shot to bits.

“Shag it off
,” he said.

Russo looked at him. He’d heard the boss utter that phrase enough times to know what it meant:
Get the hell out.

“Dozens of them
,” Crouch said. “This crew is only the advance team.”

Rather than a daring raid Crouch now knew that this was an extermination. No warning bells had sounded. No alarms. Not even a shout. Somebody knew the position of every guard, every camera. Every computeri
zed failsafe.

Somebody
. . .

Crouch backed away. As much as he felt a chest-full of anger and determination
, he still struggled with the absolute shock of betrayal. And not from just anyone—from the one person he had considered his best. Even worse was her status as a master assassin and her ability to operate right under his nose.

Maybe it was time to hang up the guns and don the slippers; time to concentrate on that other endearing love of his life
—archaeological mystery.

But now he grabbed the box of ammo and rushed over to the far wall. Healey grinned at him, all boyish excitement. Damn, he needed a hard man or woman to curb that boy’s fire. It was
either that or the daft kid would get himself killed.

Daft kid?
Crouch thought.
More like one of the youngest proven soldiers in my regiment.
Was he really getting too old for this shit?

Russo dashed up behind. Crouch turned to gauge the positions of his other men and women. All were ready, prepared to fight. As he lifted his arm, preparing to move, there came an almighty crash as if the whole shed was falling in, collapsing on top of them. Crouch saw two grappling hook arms break through the shorter wall, then burst open as they sensed space or air, each one deploying four grappler arms and digging back into the wall of the shed.

“What in the name of astounding warfare is that?” Crouch whistled.

“Nothing good
,” Russo said. “Not for us.”

A sudden jolt rocked them all off balance. The entire prefabricated shed shuddered, and Healey pointed out a fact that Crouch really didn’t like.

“You realize the floor is a part of this structure, don’t you? It’s bolted and welded to the base of the walls.”

“They just plonk these things down wherever we go
,” Crouch said, “if they can.” Then he looked around. “Brace yourselves.”

Another stomach-churning lurch and one of the grapplers looked as if it was about to tear its way back through the wall
, then the whole shed shifted. Desks grated and displaced their burdens. Computers, phones, files and drawers crashed to the floor. The shed stirred one more time, throwing Healey to the ground amidst the clutter. Then, suddenly, as Crouch reached down to help Healey up, the shed heaved and pitched, then faltered forward as if being dragged.

I
t picked up speed.

Crouch stumbled. The shed yawed. A grating noise like the slow opening of the world’s most rusted gates made him want to cover his ears.
The entire structure was moving and there was nothing they could do about it.

At least, that was Crouch’s first fleeting impression. Once that ridiculous moment of weakness passed
, he applied himself to the actual problem.

How to get out of the moving office.

He pictured the geography of the area around them. The shed had been put down on the outskirts of an industrial park, alongside electrical-goods outlets, builder’s merchants, conservatory retailers and blocks of brass-name-plate offices. Directly in front of them was a barely used airfield. Beyond that a steep grassy bank and the Thames.

Crouch reeled back as the shed shook again, threatening to come apart. In his heart of hearts he actually doubted that would be a good thing. Their enemies probably had many weapons readied for just that scenario. He flinched as a lampstand crashed down, narrowly missing his skull
; watched as Russo palmed off a sliding, chest-high filing cabinet that might have crushed a lesser man; and looked to the weapons cabinet.

Healey gave him a hopeful look.

Crouch nodded. “Rocket launchers,” he said. “Time to step up our game a little.”

Healey grinned like a boy with a new bike. Again he punched in the access code and pulled out the weapons. By now more of Crouch’s team had made their way to his side.
Crouch grunted as metallic pings clattered against the walls.

“Someone forgot to check our defen
se upgrade,” he said. Which cast doubt on this being a Coyote operation; it was more likely to be a different, lesser enemy.

He felt the lurch as the shed slid out of their compound and onto the industrial park’s streets. A slight turn and they were dragged over grass, through a briefly
resisting fence, then they hit tarmac again. If Crouch had interpreted their movements correctly they were now traveling across the airfield.

Why? What on earth
—

Then it hit him.

“Shit.” He motioned for Healey to pass him one of the RPGs. “Best get a move on, lads. Unless you want to go for a swim in a tin box.”

Quickly he checked and loaded his weapon
, even as the jouncing shed jolted its way along the road. Another salvo of bullets ricocheted off the walls. Two of Crouch’s men lost their balance and rolled away as one metal edge slammed into the ground harder than before. An RPG slithered after them, worryingly already loaded. The shed travelled uphill for a short while and then hit a long downhill slope. Crouch felt a table slam into his back and pushed it aside. The dead and dying mercs all rolled toward the far wall, one of them still groaning but seemingly incapacitated.

There was no time left.

Crouch lifted the rocket launcher and balanced it over one shoulder; not an easy feat in the zigzagging shed. Healey did the same. Russo and the other men and women took cover as best they could. Then, with a shout, Crouch let the missile fly. The explosive warhead arrowed toward the shed-wall, fins spinning in flight. The downside to his plan happened next—the payload detonated on impact, sending metal fragments and fire bursting far and wide. Healey’s missile hit further along, also detonating when it struck metal. A fireball mushroomed up the wall and spread across the roof, most of it escaping through the new ragged holes. Crouch, having prostrated himself in a hurry, looked up to see a torn-apart wall and scenery swishing past.

“Move it.”

What was left of the Ninth Division struggled toward the blackened sides of the holes. As they approached, a new vehicle came into view; a flatbed truck, laden with men—their machine guns standing ready.

“Down!” Crouch yelled.

Bullets spattered the shed, peppering its frame and flying through the newly opened cavities. Fortunately the shots were all high. Crouch crawled hard, pistol in hand.

Healey was already there, firing through the gap at the swerving truck. When the shed gave another fishtail bounce it barely upset his aim
; the bullet drawing sparks from the truck’s rear tailgate. Crouch squinted and made every shot count, picking off one guy with a shot to the chest, making him tumble over the truck’s low sides and smash to the ground.

Where the hell
is the backup?

“We need to get out of here
,” he said suddenly.

For there, snaking along to the left, was the Thames itself, wide at this point and relatively deep, nothing standing between them and it except a half-mown flowery bank. Beyond the serpentine, reflective waterway, Crouch now saw lights in the sky, coming fast.

Helicopters. “Good guys are almost here,” he said. Hoped.

He emptied the clip, forcing the truck to rev hard and surge out of sight after losing another
soldier. Then he fixed Healey with a tough stare.

“Jump.”

The young man blinked rapidly. Even his thirst for adventure was slaked a little by the prospect of jumping out of an office being towed by a bunch of gun-wielding mercs, it seemed.

“Stop being a little bitch
,” Russo growled. “And get your shrunken balls airborne.”

The big man showed an example, leaping ungainly through the jagged gap, just missing a sharp curve of metal, and landing in a bouncing tangle of arms and legs on the bank outside.

“Now if you can’t do better than that,” Crouch said. “You’re sacked. All of you.”