Devil's Island Read online

  Devil’s Island

  (Matt Drake #20)

  By

  David Leadbeater

  Other Books by David Leadbeater:

  The Matt Drake Series

  A constantly evolving, action-packed romp based in the escapist action-adventure genre:

  The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)

  The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake #2)

  The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)

  The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake #4)

  Brothers in Arms (Matt Drake #5)

  The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake #6)

  Blood Vengeance (Matt Drake #7)

  Last Man Standing (Matt Drake #8)

  The Plagues of Pandora (Matt Drake #9)

  The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake #10)

  The Ghost Ships of Arizona (Matt Drake #11)

  The Last Bazaar (Matt Drake #12)

  The Edge of Armageddon (Matt Drake #13)

  The Treasures of Saint Germain (Matt Drake #14)

  Inca Kings (Matt Drake #15)

  The Four Corners of the Earth (Matt Drake #16)

  The Seven Seals of Egypt (Matt Drake #17)

  Weapons of the Gods (Matt Drake #18)

  The Blood King Legacy (Matt Drake #19)

  The Alicia Myles Series

  Aztec Gold (Alicia Myles #1)

  Crusader’s Gold (Alicia Myles #2)

  Caribbean Gold (Alicia Myles #3)

  The Torsten Dahl Thriller Series

  Stand Your Ground (Dahl Thriller #1)

  The Relic Hunters Series

  The Relic Hunters (Relic Hunters #1)

  The Atlantis Cipher (Relic Hunters #2)

  The Disavowed Series:

  The Razor’s Edge (Disavowed #1)

  In Harm’s Way (Disavowed #2)

  Threat Level: Red (Disavowed #3)

  The Chosen Few Series

  Chosen (The Chosen Trilogy #1)

  Guardians (The Chosen Tribology #2)

  Short Stories

  Walking with Ghosts (A short story)

  A Whispering of Ghosts (A short story)

  All genuine comments are very welcome at:

  [email protected]

  Twitter: @dleadbeater2011

  Visit David’s website for the latest news and information:

  davidleadbeater.com

  Contents

  Other Books by David Leadbeater:

  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 TWENTY 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

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Other Books by David Leadbeater:

  The Matt Drake Series

  The Alicia Myles Series

  The Torsten Dahl Thriller Series

  The Relic Hunters Series

  The Disavowed Series:

  The Chosen Few Series

  Short Stories

  CHAPTER ONE

  In his mind she was already dead.

  Her and her two children. The Devil drank tepid water from a paper cup before biting into a ripe plum. He wiped his fingers on a napkin. He watched the woman emerge from school having dropped her children off. He followed her moves, actions, habits.

  But that was just on one of his monitors.

  Four others were dedicated to different parts of her life. Social media. Web browsing. An appointment calendar. Local events. They were part of a five-strong desktop array that filled the Devil’s vision, angled so he could see them all with a quick glance.

  “Hey,” he shouted into absolute silence. “Take this shit away.”

  The slave crept in from an outer room, picked up the paper cup and the plum stone, and departed without making the slightest sound. It didn’t dare. The rules, and punishments, were clear.

  The Devil studied his prey for another few hours, watching her, reading about her, delving into her social media activities, researching the various ‘events’ she’d marked down as ‘going to’ or ‘interested.’

  Which one would offer up the best kill?

  After a while, the Devil sat back. That was enough for today. He checked his notes. So far, the Cameron Street event was offering the best opportunity, but he wasn’t done yet. There were others to study. He took a moment to gather his thoughts then reached for the large, white encrypted satphone.

  “What news from ground zero?” He spoke immediately the call was answered.

  “DC is hot. There are humid days. The tourist flow is large. Endless. The streets are packed, unpredictable. I’d say that the whole scenario is just that—unpredictable. Roadworks are everywhere, narrowing options. Luckily, the proposed kill sites are out of the center but still disordered and messy. We’re planning on scouting the sites today. The police are effective but underfunded and stretched thin even here.”

  The Devil waited, but no more information was forthcoming. The news wasn’t surprising. On complex jobs like this he always employed a remote two-man team. They would scout the area, work through his kill scenarios, follow the target, and then report back, naming every conceivable hazard, pitfall and surprise they could conjure up. Anything—no matter how petty, juvenile or ambiguous. Basically, their job was to pave the road.

  The Devil signed off, sat back and considered scenarios. He’d done this a thousand times. More than that. He was the perfect paradox. The most renowned and anonymous assassin in the world, its greatest contract killer. Renowned only in certain places and to those that passed many tests, used the correct back channels, and offered the name of a sponsor that had used the Devil’s specific services before.

  Even to those that knew him, knew he existed, he was a bedtime horror story, a campfire terror, concocted to frighten friends and enemies alike.

  After all, who would believe that a man existed who, if paid enough, would murder any man or woman in the world and make their deaths look like a terrible, irrefutable accident? Who would believe he’d been doing it for thirty years? Who would believe all the stories—the jet liner he’d crashed over the Pacific for a single-mother kill, the bridge collapse in Japan for an accountant, the nightclub fire for one boy’s sister, desperate to take the family inheritance? It was all fiction and conspiracy. Wasn’t it?

  The Devil lacked any morals and conscience. He had a desk full of gadgets and a remote team. He embraced all new technology as soon as he understood how it made him better at his job. He enjoyed testing every new device.

  But the real thrill came at the end, and he always reserved it for himself. The real thrill was in that final kill, that miracle mile when he walked away, leaving the carnage behind and knowing that—though certain police elements
suspected his involvement—they would never truly know.

  Which brought his thoughts around to Luka Kovalenko and Devil’s Island.

  “Hey,” he summoned the slave again. “Bring more food.”

  It was going to be a long evening here on Devil’s Island. New arrivals were expected. Yes, this was his island, his resting place, but many years ago he’d turned it into a haven for killers and soon after lost almost all control of the place. Lesson learned. The castle was now the only place he and his men were safe. The ragtag clansmen out there could never breach this place.

  Clansmen or islanders were his terms for the groups of madmen and killers running amok on his island, living with impunity. The Devil was an orderly man and liked to slot things into orderly boxes.

  Moving away from the monitors that encapsulated his newest project in DC, he walked over to the right side of the room. This was his local surveillance wall. The castle bristled with CCTV monitors, many positioned to watch the approaches and the areas outside in case of an attack, but others employed to observe its residents.

  The Devil cast a cursory glance over them now. All appeared to be in order. Of course, he didn’t have time to keep a constant watch. That was the job of four men stationed on the castle’s first floor level that had a similar bank of monitors. The camera he was most interested in surveilled an upper floor room. It would make a noise when the outer doors opened.

  Luka Kovalenko had been inside that room for a long time now.

  The self-proclaimed Blood King was alone, but nevertheless possessed the savvy and guts to insist he be given one of the only rooms in the castle that wasn’t bugged or monitored. Money talked, especially for the Devil right now, and his request was granted. No doubt the evil little monster had brought surveillance testing and dampening equipment with him too. The Devil grudgingly admitted that Kovalenko was exquisitely good at everything he put his mind to.

  What on earth was the sneaky Russian bastard up to?

  The Devil had followed his recent exploits across London and Paris. It was all a bit noisy, a bit brash, but the Devil understood why. The Blood King was announcing his leadership of the criminal empire. He was taking his father’s kingdom back. In one dreadful swoop, he had become the worldwide head of organized crime, a new nightmare figurehead to haunt every government’s dreams, and sent a thousand would-be usurpers scuttling back into their filthy dens.

  Well done.

  Yes, it was grudging praise, but it was still praise. The Devil didn’t spread it around. At that moment the slave entered the room, once more bowing and scraping its heels to announce its presence. The Devil didn’t acknowledge it in any way. Why would he? It did as it was told, or it suffered horrible consequences. Either outcome didn’t bother the Devil.

  Soon, he tired of the surveillance feeds and returned to the new project in DC. Remote feeds watched the front of the woman’s house, the rear garden, the windows and the two-vehicle garage. A tracker denoted the position of her car and her push-bike twenty-four-seven. She appeared to have no friends. She was relatively new to the area. There were no interior monitors, but the Devil didn’t need them—he had access to her internet activity in real time. He never killed anyone at home. It was one of the hardest places to engineer a fatal accident. Far better for a chance encounter in an unfamiliar place, an unfamiliar situation, a one-off, distinct event.

  And far better for the Devil if others died at the same time. Their deaths would help dilute the impact of casualties. He’d long since known that multiple fatalities drew far less attention to him than just one.

  The woman in question would be one of the easier kills, he thought, even considering the uncertain and unplannable factors that surrounded a public event. But that was what he loved about mothers—they always enhanced their children’s days with trips to the park and the mall; they attended shows and parades; they visited local attractions and ate at fast-food outlets.

  He smiled. Even under police protection, Johanna Dahl and her two daughters were vulnerable.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Apart from an enforced plane journey, the SPEAR team took no down time following their exploits in Paris. On landing in DC, they went straight from the airfield to the battle room, their entire focus aimed at finding their abducted friends.

  Only hours had passed since they left Paris aboard Air Force One.

  But they were the most precious hours for Mai and for Luther, for Karin and Dino. By now, Drake knew, his friends could be anywhere on the planet.

  There was no time to relax, to come to terms with everything that occurred. More importantly, they couldn’t mourn Smyth and Lauren. And the hunt for the new Blood King would have to wait.

  Hayden led the way from the plane to a hastily commandeered CIA satellite office within DC. It was convenient, accessible and came equipped with the latest technology. It offered everything they needed to get started.

  Inside, they shrugged out of their bulletproof jackets, depositing them on the backs of chairs, across sofas or over the kitchen worktop. They divested themselves of weapons, heaping their well-used guns and knives into a pile and sending Molokai and Kenzie to the armory to organize new ones.

  Drake used his arm to sweep the room’s only table free of clutter—chip wrappers, used paper cups and plates, magazines, scraps of paper—and placed a top-of-the-range laptop at one end. Alicia brought up a chair.

  Dahl studied Kinimaka. “Time to earn that Kona Coffee blend, bro.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  The big Hawaiian placed a still-hot coffee he’d appropriated from the Air Force One staff, next to the laptop and squeezed his bulk into the chair. It was a tight fit and included the precarious grinding of wooden legs. Hayden moved the coffee further away to prevent an accident.

  Kinimaka opened the laptop. “Give me some space, guys. This isn’t exactly my forte.”

  “If it helps,” Alicia said. “You’re all we’ve got. Karin and Lauren were the real computer whizzes.”

  “I’m with you.” Dahl sat down beside him. “Whatever you need.”

  Drake blinked at the Swede. “What the hell could a mad bell end do with real technology?”

  “He could find the closest second-hand Saab dealership,” Alicia suggested.

  Dahl glared at them both, knowing their banter was part of the coping process.

  Kinimaka logged in and stared at a black screen. “Crap. Where do I even start?”

  “What do you know?” Dallas asked. “Start there.”

  Drake looked over at the newcomer. Dallas was Kenzie’s new—and only—employee. Dallas assumed he was being paid but Kenzie wasn’t so sure. He was black, well-built and earnest. He was a huge sentimentalist, always reflecting back on the good old times. During the last battle against the Blood King in Paris’s American embassy, Drake thought Dallas had seemed a bit overwhelmed, but then he couldn’t blame the man. He’d signed on as a new member of Kenzie’s band of relic smugglers and, that same day, had ended up fighting in the streets of Paris and giving almost everything to save the life of the President of the United States and his family. Quite the baptism of fire.

  Drake offered a sheet of paper and a pen to Dallas. “You’d best write it down, mate,” he said. “The Swede struggles with proper languages.”

  Dahl ignored him. Alicia spoke first. “Mai and the others are being taken to a place called Devil’s Island, far from DC. They’re being shipped, we believe. It’s part of some convoluted plan of Luka Kovalenko’s—the new Blood King—although I think I remember him saying he wasn’t going to be there.”

  Drake accepted a can of Pepsi Max from Hayden. “He said he was too busy planning the next attack.”

  At that moment, Kenzie re-entered the room. “And I know someone else who won’t be there,” she grinned. “Topaz.”

  Drake grimaced, remembering Kovalenko’s vicious female bodyguard and her brutal end.

  Alicia clucked her tongue. “Well some of her will be. You still got h
er blood on your shirt.”

  Kenzie deposited eight identical handguns onto the table before dipping her chin and inspecting the front of her shirt. “Guess it’ll have to come off.” She started unbuttoning.

  “Whoa,” Dahl cried out. “We’re trying to concentrate.”

  “Do I distract you, Torsten? Anyway, I’m wearing a sports bra.”

  “No, no,” Alicia groaned, peering between her fingers. “Nobody wants to see that.”

  “Don’t worry, Myles. If I wanted you, you’d be putty in my hands.”

  Alicia leaned over to Drake. “Did she say I’d be pussy in her hands?”

  “No!”

  Dallas finished his scribbled note and slid it over the table to Kinimaka.

  The Hawaiian was clicking away at the keyboard. “I’m reviewing facts I already checked back in Paris,” he said. “There was the penal colony of Cayenne in the 19th and 20th centuries, called Devil’s Island, in French Guiana. Closed down in 1953. Seventy thousand were sent there, never to escape.”

  Kinimaka bit a thumbnail. “It inspired the movie, Papillon. There was another penal colony close to Panama, called the same. There’s an old movie. A song. None of this purports to our Devil’s Island.”

  Drake felt his cellphone vibrate and moved to the back of the room before checking the screen. He’d received too much bad news through his phone—a fact which now gave him a rush of anxiety whenever it rang—but this caller made him intensely happy.

  “Yorgi,” he said. “Everything okay, mate?”

  “Yeah as long as I don’t move I’m fine.”

  “There’s a lesson for you. The next time somebody fires two bullets at you, get out of the bloody way.”

  It was a little early for leg-pulling. Yorgi was silent for a long moment. “I feel so sorry for Archer and Webster,” he said. “They saved my life.”

  “Good soldiers,” Drake said, his voice gruff. “Greater men.”