Matt Drake 8 - Last Man Standing (20 page)

Matt Drake emerged from the ruined hotel, staggering from side to side.
The battle had not been kind to him. Ribs were bruised. Red marks covered his neck, testaments to how hard Alicia had squeezed. Dust covered his body from head to toe.

Coyote chuckled. “No
w that’s what I call a final fight, Matt.”

The skies were bright, shining down on the town square. Coyote’s mercs had thinned out. Drake heard the sounds of battle in the distance. He swallowed hard, not an easy feat with a mouthful of plaster, and licked his lips.

“They’re coming for you.”

Coyote indicated her dozen suited-up captives. “Let them come.”

Drake stopped on the top step that led to the hotel doors. Billows of dust and smoke mushroomed through the shattered opening and windows at his back. He tried not to cough.

“How does it feel to be the last man standing? Your friends are dead. How does that feel, Matt? I’m sure Kovalenko
—wherever he is—will be watching. Blood Vendetta fulfilled.”

“We had a deal
,” Drake rasped, nodding at the captives. “Will you keep your word now, Shelly?”

The use of her name brought an open expression to her eyes. “I always do
,” she said, a touch regretfully. “I always have done. That’s why we’re in this fucked-up position, you and I.”

She turned and, with a flick of her head, indicated that her lackeys should remove the nano-vests. Drake waited until they slithered to the floor.

“What now?”

“Well. You’re not
actually
the last man standing, are you, Drake? There’s also Beauregard.” She gave him a sly smile. “And me. That’s France versus England. An interesting matchup.”

Drake flexed his already battered muscle
s.

“And let’s not forget Japan
,” a lilting voice spoke out.

Coyote’s eyes glimmered with confus
ion, her face slackening. “What? How?”

Mai Kitano emerged from the billowing dust
; a white ghost.

Drake grinned. “C’mon Coyote. In what reality did you ever believe you could best me?”

Coyote shouted her fury. Her mercs raised their weapon and took aim. The townsfolk screamed and scattered or dived to the floor. Drake ran hard toward their nemesis, Mai at his back.

Coyote didn’t wait. She didn’t allow her lackeys to fire their weapons. She took off like a sprinter out of the blocks, running headlong toward Drake.

And in the middle of it all, from his position above the action on the roof of the town square, Beauregard Alain suddenly appeared, dropping down like a deadly snake.

Torsten Dahl’s
half-choked, disembodied voice came out of the fog. “Don’t forget Sweden in that matchup.”

And Alicia’s too: “Is that Beauregard?”

Drake met Coyote in battle,
sending his first strikes against her vital areas. Unlike the previous struggle there would be no holding back in this one. They had all known the score from the moment they stepped into the hotel. Dahl had bruised a rib when he might have splintered it. Alicia had marked his neck when she could have broken it. Now, Drake had the chance to make Coyote pay for her mistake.

Drake ducked as Coyote came back at him; the two foes face to face. Shelly Cohen’s face was unrecognizable, transformed into the wild animal she truly was at her core. The killer shone through for all to see
, and Drake was still disturbed by it.

Coyote kneed him, pushed him away. A little distance opened up. Beyond her frame
, her mercs fell to Beauregard, the French assassin a living scythe in their midst. The hotel continue to billow out smoke and emit sounds of destruction. Chopper blades whirred and clattered through the air. Explosions and gunfire made powerful rents in the dawn chorus.

Drake
sensed an errant bullet whiz between them as he closed in on Coyote. It didn’t matter. This was all about vengeance. Coyote knew what she’d done to Alyson; thus she knew it was always going to come down to this.

A blow landed on his temple, his bicep. He ignored the pain, stepping in and pummeling Coyote’s midriff. He reached out to grab her throat
, but she was wily and twisted away. She threw a succession of punches that Drake caught on his arms, deflecting the worst of the blows. She drove a knee into his stomach, taking the wind right out of him.

Drake fell to one knee, still deadly, by no means at a disadvantage with all the moves in his arsenal. His eyes never left those of his assailant and then he saw the shadow looming behind her.

Drake rolled away. Coyote, at the last instant, must have seen the shock or the figure reflected in his eyes, for she too threw herself aside. Beauregard, black-clad, reared up behind her but missed his deadly strike.

Drake scrambled away, creating space. Beauregard slipped between them. Coyote
whirled and crouched in a ready position.

Three
lethal adversaries, all poised to kill.

Explosions boomed out from the edge of town. Men scream
ed in earnest. Gunfire rattled. Drake saw the big wheel shudder.

Coyote
didn’t hesitate. “Damn, it’s time!”

A
moment later she was running, sprinting hard, not away from the battle at the edge of town, but right toward the heart of it.

Dahl stumbled from the wrecked hotel, Alicia at his side. Like Drake, the two of them bore the wounds and bruises of battle and were covered in dust and debris. Smoke had blackened their faces.

Dahl had been afraid the civilian they freed earlier might have decided to loiter in the kitchens rather than chancing the outside world, and had insisted they check. Luckily, he’d fled.

Now Alicia surveyed the scene around the town square.

“Crap. I didn’t expect that.”

The area around them was empty, save for several inert bodies, all mercs. Away toward the right, heading downhill, she made out the figures of Drake and Mai. Ahead of them was Coyote in full flight.

“What the hell? And where’s Beau?”

Dahl
shrugged. “The assassin has shown her true colors,” he noted. “Cowardly to the core. They lurk, they hide, they kill, never manning up and joining the fight. This is our town now.”

Alicia set off. “I guess we should follow. Hey, what was all that about you dropping out of shiny school? Did Drake know?”

Dahl looked pained. “Nobody knew. It’s my business alone. Let it go.”

Alicia purposefully misunderstood. “That’s the new mega song, right?
Let it go? Have you seen the marines singing it on YouTube? Put a tear in my eye it did.”

“No. I mean yes. I mean
—that’s not what I meant.” Dahl sighed. “But you knew that, of course.”

“Torsty,” Alicia said. “Of all people, I get it. You should know that. If you don’t wanna talk about it that’s all right by me.”

“Thanks.” Dahl’s reply was a grumble.

“Drake’s observations are gonna be interesting though.”

Dahl nodded glumly. “And so sharply perceptive, I’m sure.”

Alicia laughed. “Yeah. That’s always been his Yorkshire way.
Perceptive as fuck.”

Dahl sucked in his lips and said nothing. The decisions you made
—simple or tough—they were the things that defined you. When faced with adversity you dug deep, finding the core to your heart and soul, and it was the choice you made at that time that changed you and turned you slowly and steadily into the person you would become. Dahl believed that was why hardships were visited upon men and women and their children.

To
mold them.

If he
’d chosen to leave and pursue an army career then it was that decision, among others, that had made him the man he was now. The craziness came from his rebellious side and he refused to reel that in. It was, after all, part of him.

The two were closing the gap now, the aftereffects of their tussle wearing off. Alicia even took a moment to untie the life
sign monitor Coyote’s mercs had made her wear.

“Won’t be needing that anymore.”

Dahl’s face reverted to happy. “Oh yeah. Thank God for Karin Blake.”

Alicia nodded. The ‘battle to the death’ had been their plan all along, totally reliant on
Karin’s ability to break through SaBo’s defenses without the hacker knowing about it. When Crouch initially left Sunnyvale to contact Karin, one of the things he’d related was that particular plan. It had been up to her to make it work, to take the SPEAR team’s monitors offline at the right time and fake their deaths, to fool one of the world’s greatest hackers without him ever knowing it.

Karin had told Crouch she had just the weapon
—a virus stored away in some redundant system. She’d just hoped she had the smarts to pull it off.

Dahl ripped his own monitor away.
The sounds of battle—the mercs holding off the main incursion team—intensified ahead.

“We’re walking into a war
,” Alicia noted.

Dahl glanced sideways at her. “So what else is new?”

Drake
raced headlong, recklessly, determined not to lose the Coyote. In his haste he did lose Mai. The Japanese woman, ever attentive, came across two mercs on their way out of town—deserters—and taught them that fleeing wasn’t necessarily the best idea. When Mai looked around, Drake was gone.

Still, all roads led to the battle.

Drake crossed the muddy path that led through the carnival’s gates and found himself inside the fence. Rides and stalls stood to his left and right, looking shabby, unpainted and tired in the light of day. A firefight raged ahead, stray bullets whickering everywhere. Mercs, Kevlar-suited special cops, and elite military units fought for ground.

But Drake knew the mercs were fighting blind. SaBo’s surveillance blanket had been taken down. Karin had won the battle of the hackers.

Now it was his turn.

But where was
—?

Coyote hit him from a blind spot, an elbow to the neck
, sending him face-first to the floor. Drake rolled, eyes never leaving her feet. Did she have a gun? He glanced up, thankful to see empty, flexing hands. Coyote jumped at him, stomping hard, but Drake rolled again. His movement brought him up against another pair of legs—those belonging to a merc.

The man stared down in surprise. “What da fu
—?”

Drake
rose fast, delivering a gut punch. The merc folded, grunting hard. When the man’s weapon came down, Drake grabbed it, reversed it, and smashed it across the man’s head. Lights out.

Before he could bring the gun back around
, Coyote was on him. They tumbled to the cold, muddy earth—face to face, body to body—arms tight around each other.

“You always wanted me this way
,” she breathed.

“The entire unit wanted you this way. But that wasn’t
it.
You were much more than that. Didn’t you know? Didn’t you know that just your voice and your way, the ideal that was
you¸
brought more
men back alive than their bloody grenade launchers?”

“
I knew
!” Coyote screamed point blank into his face. “Of course I bloody knew!” She threw a punch that he turned away from and heard it squelch into the mud next to his face. “But I couldn’t help it!
Don’t you get that? I couldn’t . . . fucking . . . help it!
”

She punched down again and again. The second one missed too, but the third caught him full on the nose, sending an arrow of agony into his brain. The fourth smashed into his temple
, as did the fifth, and suddenly Drake was seeing stars.

“Shelly
,” he said. “Shelly!”

“Not Shelly!” Her fists continued to rage down upon him.
“Not Shelly! Just a psycho who couldn’t control it. A freak who learned to live with it.”

Drake twisted and brought his hands up, but was fighting a losing battle. Coyote, on top, possessed all the power, all the leverage, and a lifetime of fury.

“I didn’t want to be this monster!” she screamed. “I wanted to be Shelly!
Not fucking Coyote!
” And now tears fell from her eyes, dropping like beads of rain onto his bloody face.

Matt Drake gave it up. Not the battle, but the vengeance. He saw now the way it had all played out.

“Stop,” he said, letting his hands fall to the sides and leaving himself wide open. “Stop then, Shelly. I don’t want revenge on you. I want to help you.”

Coyote’s next blow fell hard, stopping a hair
’s breadth from the tip of his nose. The shock on her face transformed the animal within, restoring the woman he knew.

“I will help you
,” he said to the woman that had killed his wife and unborn child. “Let me.”

For one second Shelly Cohen stared down at him. “Matt? I’m sorry. I
—”

And then something hit her like a rocket
; a black-clad figure that came out of nowhere and still fought for victory. Or was it something else?

Drake struggled upright. Beauregard and Coyote scrambled and
rose, the Frenchman a millisecond quicker and thus gaining the advantage. Drake tried to shake off a foggy brain and blurred vision, and stepped up.

“Wait. Who the hell are
you
working for, Beauregard? Have they switched your orders? Told you to take
Coyote
out?”

The French assassin’s face was hidden behind the feature-hugging mask.
“The Pythians want you both,” he said in his thickly accented voice. “All of you. They will remove anything that stands between them and the world. They will remove it with extreme and total prejudice.” The man laughed. “Just wait and see.”

With that he side-kicked Coyote’s knee, forcing her to fall, and came around, tumbling across the ground toward Drake. At the last minute he swerved and threw out a lightning punch that Drake didn’t even see.

But he felt it. The sudden agony in his throat made him reflexively send both his hands there, leaving the rest of his body open to violent, nerve-shattering attack. Beauregard was like Mai—one vital strike and you were dead.

Beauregard pounced.

And Michael Crouch took him down.

***

Drake flinched as Beauregard struck out, both fists flying, then let out a pent-up breath as Crouch landed on the man’s exposed back. The Frenchman slammed into the dirt as if he’d been poleaxed, mud exploding out from under him.

Drake breathed hard. “Nic
e move.” His throat was on fire.

Crouch shrugged. “I saw
—” and suddenly disappeared. Drake blinked and saw Crouch hit the same mud as Beauregard, only the Frenchman was now standing upright, Crouch’s neck in his hand, fingers pressed deeply into his victim’s pressure points.

“You will die for that
,” Beauregard mouthed at Crouch.

“No!” Drake shouted, knowing he wouldn’t make it in time.

The Frenchman flexed his fingers. Crouch screamed as if he’d been stabbed by a thousand daggers. His face turned instantly white, eyes glazing over.

And Drake could only watch as, unbelievably,
Coyote
leapt to the aid of her former boss. Her shriek of, “
Michael!
” was lost under the crunch of her body hitting Beauregard’s. Crouch fell away, gasping. Drake ran to his aid.

“Your word
,” Drake heard Beauregard say to Coyote. “If your word can no longer be trusted, then you are no longer the Coyote.”

Drake heard another cry
as he patted Crouch’s face. This one of twisted anguish.

Shit.