The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWNETY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The Blood King Conspiracy

  (Matt Drake #2)

  by

  David Leadbeater

  Copyright © 2012 by David Leadbeater

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher/author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Other books by David Leadbeater:

  The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)

  Chosen

  Walking with Ghosts (a short story)

  Connect with the author on Twitter: @dleadbeater2011

  Visit the author’s website: www.davidleadbeaternovels.com

  Follow the author’s Blog http://davidleadbeaternovels.blogspot.co.uk/

  All helpful, genuine comments are welcome. I would love to hear from you.

  [email protected]

  DEDICATION

  I would like to dedicate this book to my daughter,

  Megan,

  ‘brighter than the sun and moon. . .’

  And to all the wonderful, selfless #Indie authors who support me every day on Twitter. You know who you are.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hayden Jaye dimmed the lights as she entered her private alcove of the living room she was sharing with five lethal men.

  Her laptop shone brightly, gently whirring to itself as if in anticipation of the upcoming attention.

  Hopefully, so was Ben Blake.

  Hayden typed in Ben’s Skype address before taking a moment to scan the room. She was tired and worn. This assignment was, in the words of her boss - the Secretary of Defence - not only a career maker, but a potential career killer too. In more ways than one.

  It was by far the biggest and most dangerous she had ever tackled. Her fellow CIA agent, the massive Hawaiian, Mano Kinimaka, had heard whispers the entire agency was abuzz with the implications of it.

  Some agents were taking bets . . .

  Hayden tapped the laptop, imagining the connection firing itself off around the globe towards the UK. She spoke to Ben every day, job permitting, and for the most part she was loving it. She found herself missing his boyish charm, his innocence. Sometimes, she even found herself thinking about him during work. But then she forced herself to stop and remember the promise she had made to her father, and considered never contacting Ben Blake again.

  But, for now, the thrill drove her on.

  Ben’s smiling face came scarily close to the screen, his long hair whipping past. For a computer geek he really didn’t get this Skype thing.

  “Killed anyone today?” His grin showed he didn’t get the grown-up thing either.

  “There’s time,” Hayden said through gritted teeth, then actually found herself almost grinning back. What the hell . . .?

  “So what did you do?” Ben was floundering already. To give him his due it was hard work, this digital-interaction thing. When you talked this way every night you soon ran out of things to say.

  Hayden cast a glance at her five-man team busy playing poker, standing guard, and texting loved-ones. “We did ok,” she said softly. “No one here knew how deep this thing went and no one knew how high the stakes were. Well, today we learned a little, and we’re doing . . . ok.” Learned a little? She thought. Biggest understatement since the words ‘Houston, we have a problem’ were uttered.

  “Good. Umm . . . Matt and Kennedy say Hi. How’s Miami?”

  “Excellent,” Hayden rubbed her forehead tiredly. “Say it back for me. And Miami’s Miami. Doesn’t change a lot.”

  “Cool. Hey, you ok?”

  “I guess so. Jonathan’s having a tough time up on the Hill. He’s fighting budget cuts versus young marine’s lives. That sort of thing.”

  “The Wall of Sleep are, at the time of talking, number 96 on the Indie chart.”

  Hayden didn’t miss the self-indulgent change of subject. “If only we could all have earned our fame from a single incident,” she said, then kicked herself. Ben’s band had earned itself a name and a record deal directly because of his involvement in what everyone now referred to as the ‘Odin thing’.

  And, truth be told, he deserved it.

  “Sorry, man, it’s tense down here.”

  “No worries, Hay. I miss you.”

  Hayden was about to reply, her demeanour softening, when her number two in the team, Kinimaka, hissed a warning at them all. It was the code-word for ‘be alert, unknown contact.’ Now Kinimaka was known and teased as the loveable giant, the not-too-bright muscle of their crack team, but when Mano Kinimaka issued a warning, you shot to attention.

  Hayden left Ben talking to air, instantly alert, and glided towards the centre of the room. All eyes were on Kinimaka who was scrutinizing the security system that guarded the Miami-based CIA safe-house.

  “Shadows,” he was saying, his voice thick with a strong Hawaiian accent. “Clever shadows,” he turned a steely gaze on them. “I don’t like the look of this.”

  Hayden’s mind was calm. Clever shadows. The people out there were specialists. She motioned quickly to the others in her team - Wyatt Godwin, Bowers, Mawby and Carrick.

  “Getcha positions, guys. Move.”

  She picked up a rectangular receiver that lay like an ant crawling on a mountain against Kinimaka’s trunk-like arm, and punched the button. Resounding thumps sounded out as unseen deadlocks bolted, and shutters fastened together.

  The receiver also acted as a panic button. The CIA were already mobilising.

  “Eight minutes, max,” Hayden said as reassuringly as she could. She cast another glance over Kinimaka’s shoulder.

  Nothing moved out there. The Hawaiian screwed his face up and sent a confused shrug at her. “Maybe-”

  In the next dreadful moment Hayden heard a sound she could hardly comprehend. The staccato pounding of all the locks being clicked back. The clunk of the shutters opening.

  But she held the only remote, and the codes were known to only a few at Langley . . .

  Mayhem scattered her thoughts. Men with masks and bodysuits came flooding fluidly
through the door. Another loud noise and she knew the rear door had been blown in. Within ten seconds one of the best CIA teams in the U.S. was stunned and floundering.

  But they were not lost.

  Mano Kinimaka bellowed, picked up the surveillance table, and threw it overhand at the invaders. Wires, consoles and router boxes clattered to the floor and smashed against the walls as the massive object arced through the air before crashing into and taking down half a dozen men. Grunts and cries rent the air.

  Kinimaka leapt towards them.

  Hayden rolled as the gunfire started. Masked men came at her from three sides. She came up hard and clunked one in the face with her gun, side-stepped another, and shot the third point blank. He crumpled instantly, blood painting the air where his body had stood a second before.

  Noisy hell surrounded her.

  Men yelling. Guns exploding. Bullets ricocheting and tearing apart everything they encountered. Kinimaka had launched his bulk towards the door, seemingly in an attempt to block it, but the enemy kept pushing in. Jeez, how many of these bastards were there?

  Three of them hit Kinimaka hard. The loveable giant crumpled. Hayden felt a three-pronged jolt of fear and hate and adrenalin. If they hurt Mano, they would pay. She bounded over a still-writhing body, shooting two bullets into the legs of the man closest to her. She peeled him off Kinimaka and threw his bulk aside, then levelled her pistol at the next guy’s forehead.

  Knowing she couldn’t wait she pulled the trigger. Blood, brain matter and bone exploded and blew back in her face. She snarled. Kinimaka had the third guy by the neck, a big man but just a scrawny chicken in the Hawaiian’s hands. The guy’s eyes bulged like giant marbles. Kinimaka shook him until his neck broke and threw him to the floor.

  Six more masked men squeezed through the door. Hayden fired until her clip was empty. She heard her team backing her up. Bullets whizzed by, and she heard the terrible screams of her colleagues behind her.

  More enemy figures pushed in from the back door. Guns bristled in more hands than she could count. The heavy atmosphere in the room suddenly became overwhelming, as thick as liquefied guilt, and the CIA agents began to see that they had been outnumbered and out-thought.

  Hayden slowly lowered her weapon. She sensed more than saw Kinimaka as he stood down for a moment, but knew he was coiled and ready for the next order.

  There was an abrupt lull. The sound of war still roared in their ears as the room grew strangely still. Profound tension passed from eye to eye, as quick and as weighty as death and ruin.

  A man with short hair and chiselled features walked into view, pushing his way to the front of the veritable crowd of bad guys. Hayden counted fifteen standing, seven on the floor. Good enough on a normal day, but this . . . this was crazy.

  “I guess you’re the girl,” the lead man spoke with an American southern accent and motioned to his men. They stepped forward, took Hayden’s gun and roughly bound her wrists with plastic ties. The lead CIA agent didn’t panic; she still had nightmares about her treatment at the hands of the German, Abel Frey, and in particular, that psycho-bitch Alicia Myles. Hayden kept her focus and remembered her training.

  The lead man spoke again. “And we need two more.” He pointed to Kinimaka and one of the agents behind her. “That big bastard we can torture for longer,” he said, his lips curling in a sneer. “And him, he’s the last one standing.”

  Hayden whipped her head round and tried to hold in a gasp. Wyatt Godwin stood swaying in position. The other three agents, Bowers, Mawby and Carrick lay prone on the floor, writhing, gasping, having taken bullets.

  Men pushed past her and bound Godwin’s hands before shoving him to the ground next to Kinimaka. She saw the men trying to bind the big Hawaiian’s wrists with plastic ties, trying hard to hide the fact that they wouldn’t reach all the way around.

  Lead man saw it anyway, eagle eyes everywhere. “Fools. Just keep your guns on the big bastard. If he looks dangerous treat him like a rhino. Shoot the kneecaps.” The warped grin showed how amusing he thought he was.

  But even in his sleep Mano Kinimaka looked dangerous. His guards glanced at each other with worried looks.

  Now lead man finally turned his eyes towards Hayden. “We don’t have a lot of time, I know that. So you’ll hear it straight. That’s my promise. You will all die. Eventually. These three,” he motioned towards Bowers, Mawby and Carrick with his big Desert Eagle, “are dead already.” A slimy tongue flashed across dry lips. “You three have a choice. Die easy or . . .”

  The man shocked her by suddenly leaping in her face and grabbing her throat in a steel-fingered choke hold. Almost immediately she saw stars, and her legs threatened to give way. But even that wasn’t enough. The man buried his fist into her stomach, grinning as he struck once, twice, three times, and all the while his fingers tightened.

  “Name’s Boudreau,” he whispered. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Hayden Jaye.”

  He walked away, letting her slither to the ground just for show. Hayden lay there a minute, trying to breathe.

  Boudreau came back and stuck a boot before her blurry eyes. “What was I saying? Oh, yeah, die easy . . . or die screaming, bitches. Your call.”

  Hayden began to gain some focus and managed to sit up. She saw that Boudreau’s men had already dragged Bowers to his feet. The tall, good-looking father of two was white with fear and pain, gasping so hard his sides were heaving. Blood soaked through the side of his jacket.

  “I doubt you’ll talk,” Boudreau addressed his comment to Hayden. “So this one’s for the fun of it all.”

  The leader walked over to Bowers, took out a wicked blade, and cut the agent’s throat before anyone could react. Even then the wickedness employed by their captors wasn’t over. The men holding him deliberately kept him upright and walked him around as his throat sprayed red mist everywhere. Walls. Carpet. Windows. It was a mercy when Bowers finally crumpled and they let him fall to the floor.

  Boudreau raised his eyebrows towards Hayden. “Like that? He’s next.” The blade levelled at Mawby, short and stocky and due to be married in eight weeks.

  Hayden played for time. “You haven’t even asked a question, for Christ’s sake. What do you want, Boudreau?”

  “Not to be played for a fool, Miss Jaye. You see, my boss is, quite possibly the craziest, most dangerous man in the world. And he’s asked me to get answers. So-”

  Quickly, Boudreau spun on the spot and threw his knife. It slammed through Mawby’s throat. The agent would have staggered back into the wall if it weren’t for the men holding him. They wasted no time parading him up and down. Hayden turned away from the bloody spectacle, sickened.

  Boudreau said his boss was the craziest? The guy was registering high up the whacko-meter himself.

  “And so we come to the last,” Boudreau had retrieved his knife and was now winking at Carrick. “Where d’ya want it, son? C’mon. Where?”

  Hayden snapped. “What the hell do you want, Boudreau? Our investigation? Details?”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  Hayden was counting down. Help couldn’t be more than three minutes away.

  “The Blood King,” she said cryptically. “We’ve heard about some guy called the Blood King today.”

  “You’ve heard of him!” Boudreau’s eyes practically bulged. “Heard! Love of God, no wonder he wants an example made of you all, CIA or not.”

  Another minute ticked by.

  Hayden said: “Not just the CIA, Boudreau. The American government.”

  The southerner’s eyes widened a little and for a moment Hayden thought the crazy, hard-man betrayed a glimmer of fear. “Nothing,” he breathed. “Even that is nothing to the Blood King.”

  He spun away and strode over to Carrick. The agent stood half-bowed, blood already leaking from a thigh wound, but his eyes betrayed nothing as he stared the evil man with the knife right in the eyes.

  “Good,” Boudreau drawled. “I almost feel a pride in
you. Almost-” The knife flashed.

  “We know someone’s found the answer . . .” Hayden cried, desperate and sweating and shaking with emotion. “ . . . to the Bermuda Triangle! We know, you evil bastard.”

  Boudreau shot her a smug, evil leer and then deliberately turned and slowly pushed his bloody blade through Carrick’s neck until it emerged the other side. The strength of the man was shocking.

  Carrick slumped. Boudreau left the knife where it was and signalled his men. “Double-time. The cavalry’s coming,” he winked in Hayden’s direction. “Don’t fret, dear. Those three got off easy compared to what’s gonna happen to you.”

  After they vacated the house the only sound that remained was the slow drip of blood and the gentle whirring of the laptop.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ben Blake sat staring at the dark computer screen for a few moments, then started screaming. Within seconds Drake and Kennedy were at the door.

  “What the hell are you pissing about at, Blakey?” Drake was carrying a tea towel, a somewhat strange look for the ex-soldier. “Nappy rash playing you up again?”

  Kennedy was smiling. “Maybe the Backstreet Boys are getting back together? Again?”

  “H . . . Hayden. She, . . . ” Ben’s felt a heavy pounding in his head, as if a demon was trying to smash its way through his skull, “ . . . something just ha . . . happened.”

  Drake realised his best friend was terrified. “Hey! Hey, mate, calm down. Just sit back for a sec. It’ll be alright. Breathe.”

  Ben took a moment to gather his nerves. “I was just talking to her. Hayden. I think . . . I think they got ambushed, or invaded, or whatever. There was fighting.” Ben’s voice fell. “Gunshots.”

  “No way.” Drake twisted his head to take in the computer screen. It offered nothing but an empty wall that sported a colour so drab and life-sucking it could have been used to decorate a tax office.

  “I can’t hear anything,” Drake said. “Did you hear anything?”