Theatre of War (Matt Drake 28) Tenth Anniversary Novel Read online

  Alicia appeared close to Drake’s shoulder. “We’re the A-Team,” she said. “And you are?”

  “Jake,” the man said, looking confused. “I run security for the family.”

  “Well, you’re about to face a whole lot more than you bargained for.” Dahl ran up, hefting his pack across his back.

  “And I’m supposed to simply accept what the Assistant Director of the FBI and you guys are telling me?”

  Mai grunted. “Why wouldn’t you? Why else would he call you and why would we bother ourselves with these preening idiots? We have far better things to do with our time.”

  Jake looked surprised and slightly impressed. “All right, then,” he said. “Point taken. The assistant director mentioned an approaching superior force?”

  Drake gave him the bare bones of it. By now, Jake was struggling to take it all in, but they kept him mobile, kept him walking, talking and actioning orders to his men.

  “Three genuine Delta teams are inbound,” Dahl told them. “That’s twenty solid men. Our men. How many guards do you have?”

  “Fifteen,” Jake said.

  Drake was surprised, but pleased. “If you have any off duty, call them in,” he said. “You’re going to need every good trigger finger.”

  “When this force sees we’re waiting and have backup, will they retreat?” a man asked.

  “Good question, but not a chance. This force of men and women are coming here to destroy you. To wipe you off the map. To obliterate this entire family, its home, its very memory. You have to be prepared to fight.”

  Already, Drake could tell the real soldiers from the wannabee pretenders in the expressions of the gathered men.

  Jake led them through a vast lobby where two arms of a staircase wound upward to the next level and then through a ballroom with wide bay windows.

  As they walked, Dahl asked questions. “Are there any family members living elsewhere?”

  “Usually, yes, but today’s a family birthday,” Jake answered. “Everyone, and their partners, are here today.”

  “No black sheep?” Alicia asked, drawing a knowing nod from Mai.

  “Not that I’m aware of.” Jake shrugged. “But who knows?”

  They traversed the ballroom and then a kitchen with several islands and more units than Drake could count. They exited through a set of French windows onto a vast, paved patio overlooking the substantial garden. A swimming pool and lounger area complete with sauna building and gym sat off to the left, other outbuildings to the right, all bordered by a tall wall of lush green trees in the distance.

  Beyond that was the ocean.

  Drake spun as rotors washed the air above. Looking up, he spotted the correct identification marks on the base of three helicopters and waved them down.

  “You’d better calm the spoiled cherubs.” Mai nodded from Jake to the family gathering around the pool.

  Drake realized everyone was rising to their feet in alarm.

  “With me.” Jake pointed at two of his men and hurried off.

  Drake studied his teammates. “One way in by road,” he said. “Let’s make them pay dearly for entry.”

  “And whatever you do,” Mai said urgently. “Zuki must be kept alive. Do not risk killing her.”

  “So long as I can mess her up a bit,” Alicia muttered. “That’ll have to do.”

  They decided to leave Dahl and Kenzie in the back, where the Swede could help organize Jake’s defenses, then they ran for the house.

  Helicopters descended right behind them, putting down on the lawn. Shouts went up from the family and then the guards as explanations were made.

  Drake plucked his main weapon from his backpack as he ran the length of the house and approached the front door.

  “Ah, crap,” Alicia said, pulling up and peering through the windows. “I’m guessing that isn’t a Dominos delivery.”

  A long line of SUVs, vans and several cars were approaching at speed down the driveway.

  Drake winced and pressed his comms button.

  “Dahl,” he said. “It’s time to get mad.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Bright, midday sunshine flashed off a dozen or more windshields, sending spears of light into Drake’s eyes. The figures inside the vehicles weren’t yet visible, but he could tell the cars were loaded down.

  “Quick,” he said. “Wait.”

  Realizing the conflicting counsel in his words, he dropped to concealment. So far, Zuki and her soldiers had no idea what they were up against. The chopper they’d arrived in sitting on the driveway could easily belong to the Gundowans.

  “Let them group up,” Drake said.

  They crouched at the side of the front door, waiting, as the enemy vehicles came to a sudden halt along the driveway. Drake watched how the enemy moved, seeing two distinct differences in their actions.

  The ex-Delta contingent ran and formed up as separate, coherent teams, ready and willing to take orders and move together. The samurai were largely individual and distinctive, each one dressed differently and looking only to one person.

  Zuki.

  The royal princess stepped out of one of the most comfortable cars, attired in a tight black kimono and with her hair scraped back, hanging down to the small of her back. In her hands she carried a compact machine gun and a katana. With a flick of her head, she strode among her men and directed them to move.

  Individually, and in groups, they started off. Several hung around the woman as if to guard her, but Zuki didn’t appear to need looking after. The way she held her sword, her gun and the movement of her figure told Drake everything he needed to know.

  “Watch her,” he said. “She’s deadly.”

  They crouched in silence, counting the seconds. Maybe the attacking force was wondering where the guards were. Maybe they were thinking they’d got lucky. Or maybe they assumed they’d already been seen. Either way, they had no choice but to advance.

  The sound of their boots grating on the dirt and gravel of the drive increased. Drake nodded at Alicia.

  Together, they rose, took aim and fired. Four shots. Four dead men. The sound of their bullets ringing out filled the lobby and signaled the start of the battle. The men outside dropped to cover and returned fire.

  As they’d waited, Mai and the others had crept along the internal front portion of the house, heading into both wings. Now, they also rose and opened fire, giving their enemies more to think about. Four more fell dead or dying.

  Drake crouched, keeping his head down as splinters fell across his back. The wooden paneling and glass doors were taking a hammering.

  Alicia cursed under her breath while she waited.

  In a lull, they both rose and loosed several more shots, aiming at the wheels of cars, the helicopter and various enormous fixings in the garden.

  Drake spotted several hulking shapes inching toward them through hedge animals and around low walls.

  Samurai.

  He also realized the vehicles were advancing, the drivers inching forward to give their colleagues better cover.

  It was all happening fast.

  The enemy forces proceeded steadily, working with each other, laying down covering fire.

  Drake expected nothing less. He could work against that kind of advance, knowing it intimately.

  It was the samurai army that fed off hand-to-hand combat and close-quarter battle that was the uncertain variable. They didn’t stop moving, creeping and crawling, and drawing fire. They spanned out too, covering the entire front of the house and no doubt entering through unguarded windows.

  Drake backed up as the entrance frame was bombarded with bullets. Alicia scrambled in his wake.

  Splinters filled the air. The attackers, some behind cars, accelerated, converging on the steps and ascending to the front door.

  Drake ran for the staircase, pounding up to the next floor balcony and taking cover behind marble balustrades. When ex-Delta soldiers appeared, guns aimed forward, he peppered them with lead. At t
hat moment their allied Delta Force stormed through from the back of the house, riddling their enemies.

  Drake added to the toll, spotting another five men go down. The noise of gunfire was tremendous, saturating the lobby and rising to fill the spaces among the high ceilings, resounding from wall to wall.

  Stealing in from the right, seen only though a gap in doorways, Drake saw several pairs of legs heading toward the back of the house.

  “Dahl!” He hit the comms. “Samurai inbound.”

  “On it.”

  Alicia, head down and covered in debris, made a waving motion that had meant any number of things in the past, from something downright sinful to a warning of imminent danger.

  “The fuck?” Drake shrugged.

  “We should head back there. Help the dumb Swede out.”

  Drake nodded. The Delta guys below were engaging their enemy counterparts to the max and Dahl was most definitely short of backup.

  They had no blueprint of the place, but he remembered seeing a smaller staircase that wound down toward the far end of the ballroom. “Come on.”

  He led the way, retreating from the balcony along a wide corridor bordered by bedroom doors. He counted twelve before seeing the top part of the staircase up ahead. With Alicia alongside, he slowed, taking a look over the banister before venturing down.

  A huge picture window gave them a wide, unobstructed view across the rear gardens.

  The royal family—made up of about eight individuals that Drake could see—were standing arguing with Jake alongside their pool. One of them was reacting angrily, another shouting with indignation. They appeared literally unable to interact with the reality of what was happening all around them.

  Jake had a lot of work to do if he were to usher them to some sort of safety.

  His men were standing ready, facing the house, some on one knee, others ready to duck behind walls and the three helicopters the Delta soldiers had arrived in.

  Dahl and Kenzie were scanning the house for emerging enemies, their guns held loosely at their sides.

  Drake started down the staircase. Just then, Mai, Cam and Shaw appeared, running toward them, firing backward.

  “Too many to hold back,” Mai said. “We need better cover.”

  To emphasize her point, a statue to her left exploded into alabaster pieces. Mai ducked and kept running.

  Drake hit the bottom of the stairs and ran for the patio doors, flinging them open before raising a hand to Dahl and the others. Out here, it had gone cold. Clouds were scudding in.

  “Idiot,” the Swede growled. “I almost shot you.”

  “Not quick enough,” Drake replied. “Especially since you put on weight.”

  “Eh?”

  But there was no time for a response. Doors and windows along the main house and its two wings blasted open. The doors crashed to the ground, some slithering along atop the debris they made. More windows exploded.

  Samurai and enemy Delta soldiers climbed outside before spotting the royals and charging the swimming pool.

  Drake didn’t hesitate. He swept the group to his left with bullets.

  Alicia spun and fired at the group to his right. Then they ran, looking for cover as shots were returned.

  Dahl and Kenzie were driven to the right, putting a few hundred yards of space between them and the pool. The royals were wide open, guarded only by Jake and eight of his soldiers.

  “Crap,” Drake said. “If they kill the Gundowans we’re done.”

  But the onslaught of bullets kept him pinned down. Drake watched with his back to a chopper, ducking as lead peppered almost every inch of it and Jake remonstrated with his bosses.

  The royals weren’t fazed at all. Still they argued with Jake and watched the advance of the group who’d come to kill them.

  Jacuzzi guy had at least climbed out and was toweling himself off.

  At first, Drake stared in disbelief, mouth dropping open, but then it occurred to him.

  The arrogance. The knowledge that they were on top of the pile. The superiority. It all fostered the belief that they were bulletproof, able to talk, plan or pay their way out of anything.

  Drake saw it now in the eyes of the family’s father, a tall silver-haired man with a deep tan. This man, the head of the Gundowan royal clan, stood facing the oncoming samurai and their flashing swords. The fire of mad privilege had ignited Gundowan’s eyes and actions, and he gestured and shouted at his killers with deep disdain.

  He appeared untouchable; an attitude emboldened by untold years of living with unbridled abandon.

  The samurai rushed him. Most had holstered their compact guns as they approached, no doubt told to make this messy and make it hurt.

  Jake left his attempt to move the royal family and ran to back up his men.

  Drake managed to fire two shots into the approaching samurai before being forced back into cover, tagging a man in the hip.

  Two swordswomen were the first to slice into the guards, their blades flashing faster than lightning.

  One samurai fell away, shot in the stomach. The other hacked at arms, head and shoulders, striking hard and fast.

  Drake touched his comms button. “It’s now or never,” he said. “All at once. Are you ready?”

  “See you in hell,” Alicia breathed and meant it.

  As one, the SPEAR team leapt to their feet and fired. They strafed the lawns back toward the house, crisscrossing the area with bullets. The enemy Delta soldiers were hit or dived for shelter. Walls and planters the size of small cars exploded. The SPEAR team advanced to their right, moving to reinforce Jake’s dwindling guard.

  The samurai, numbering around thirty now, cut and hacked among the guards.

  The enemy Delta men were regrouping just as the SPEAR team’s Delta collaborators hit them devastatingly from behind. The enemy gunfire died. Drake’s team, no longer under fire, raced for the pool.

  By now, the royals had retreated but still stood in a defiant group as if in disbelief at the invasion of their privacy.

  Jake’s guards were down to five. They fought the samurai soldiers around the sides of the pool, but it was a losing battle. They were badly outnumbered.

  Drake shot three enemy fighters but didn’t keep firing and thus force the samurai to pull out their guns because he didn’t want to get pinned down again. Speed was essential. Already, the samurai had closed the gap to the royals by half.

  Drake reversed his weapon in his hands and slammed it over the head of the first samurai that turned toward him.

  The SPEAR team clashed with the samurai soldiers around the swimming pool. Dahl grabbed a man at the midriff and hurled him into the blue waters.

  Alicia snapped a woman’s arm and then looped it around the neck of a smaller man, entangling the two before jumping on top of them. Not quite standard procedure, but effective.

  Cam and Shaw worked together, darting among the swords. Shaw jabbed quickly with her knives, dropping fighters in her wake. Cam got up close and delivered punishing fist after fist, breaking bones.

  Mai was a dervish, a monumental force, twisting and turning among the Japanese attackers.

  The SPEAR team took out a dozen samurai in less than a minute.

  But the samurai were far from ineffective. Their target was all they cared about, and they’d already thinned the royal guard to one man and Jake. They were ten meters away from the Gundowans.

  Jake cried out and fell to one knee as a sword sliced his chest. The pool tiles were becoming slick with blood.

  A samurai pushed by into empty space, facing the royals, but Shaw managed to put a knife between his shoulders.

  The Gundowans watched the entire scene with sneers of scorn.

  Drake shoulder-charged a man, moving under the swing of his sword, and watched him fly backward. Another flashed his blade at Drake’s neck, but he pulled away, letting it slice by. Still another jabbed at his midriff, but Shaw caught the thrust with the flat of her knife and flayed open the man’s wris
t.

  A burning question swept through his mind.

  Where the hell is Zuki?

  The highly capable, vicious and destructive royal princess was nowhere to be seen.

  Drake laid out another samurai before stepping back from the battle for a few seconds and searching the area.

  The Delta battle was going their way. Only a few enemy soldiers remained. The samurai were dwindling but still around twenty strong, only meters away from the royals now.

  Drake saw dozens of window and door openings along the back of the house and knew Zuki could be watching out of any one of them.

  A light rain drifted across the Hamptons and the house’s back garden in misty sheets.

  Drake wiped sweat from his eyes. This was far from over.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  Looking up, Drake found her.

  Zuki was standing on the roof of the great, sprawling house, a bazooka nestled across her left shoulder.

  Shock and sudden alarm ignited inside him. Drake yelled out a warning at the top of his voice. Even the royals scattered in astonishment.

  Zuki laughed as she pressed the firing button.

  A white plume of smoke trailed after the missile as it streaked toward the pool, finally smashing into the gym building with a devastating explosion.

  Drake was on the ground and felt it shudder. Wreckage plumed and drifted into the air, momentarily blocking out the pallid sun. New fires raged among the debris.

  Zuki was already reloading.

  Drake scrambled up. Mai was racing toward the house. “I will stop her,” she shouted back. “She’s my responsibility. I let her go free once.”

  Drake glanced at Alicia. “We have to help her. No telling how many samurai are up there with her.”

  “All right.” The blond sighed. “Let’s back the bitch up.”

  They chased after Mai. At their backs, Dahl and the others took the opportunity to grab the royals and herd them away from the pool, around the side of the sauna building. Most of the samurai were picking themselves up off the floor.

  Dahl threw the last protesting royal head-first to safety, ignoring his bleating. They could square up later if that’s what the idiot really wanted. He took stock of the situation.