Blood Vengeance

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Matt Drake assessed the hell, the horror and the stunned confusion that held sway over the center of Washington DC and clamped a hand on Dahl’s shoulder.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“We have to get this right. Open your friggin’ eyes. Not one man out here knows what he’s bloody doing.”

Dahl stopped, taking in the various scenes playing out around them. Dead ahead, people staggered out of the brightly lit front entrance of the Hotel Dillion amidst the sounds of gunfire. From the left, the two Secret Service agents were sprinting hard toward the hotel, shouting at a bunch of cops to follow them. The cops looked bewildered, their attention divided between the snarled-up traffic, the hordes of angry pedestrians, the scene of Gates’ murder and the frantic Secret Service agents. In the midst of all this mayhem, it had to have crossed every cop’s mind that even the agents might not be who they appeared to be. And to the right, the wide street stretched into a nightmare vision of floodlit chaos, the road snarled and jammed up, hordes of men and women thronging every available space, all the way to the White House.

“Jesus Christ,” Dahl breathed, standing still for a minute. “This is just crazy. It’s like… the end of the world.”

Men, women and officials rushed all around them. Strident, purposeless cries cut the air, nothing more than blunt knives. Sirens squalled like errant gusts of wind. And the aimless and the shocked stood all around, dumbfounded, staring at nothing.

Drake ignored it, and tried to contact Hayden again. When he got no answer he decided to try Karin. The phone rang twice before it was picked up.

“Matt? Thank God, are you okay?”

Drake let out a long breath. There was no way to steal himself for this next conversation. And as badly as he wanted to know what was happening at their end, he knew he had to tell her everything he knew first.

“Karin—”

“The whole fucking world’s gone crazy, Matt. Romero’s dead. Hayden’s dying. We’re in hiding. And I can’t get hold of Ben, or Mum and Dad. Why can’t I get hold of them?”

Drake felt the center of his very being wobble. Romero? And… and Hayden? He wanted to speak, but found his tongue just wouldn’t work. All of a sudden the craziness around him didn’t matter anymore.

“Fuck me,” he said at last, and suddenly found himself sitting down right there in the midst of the mayhem on the city street.

Lost.

“Matt? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so blunt. I’m so glad you’re okay. How are the others?”

Drake ignored the half-hysterical flurry of questions. “It’s bad news, Karin,” he said with heavy emotion. “Ben and your Mum and Dad… they’re gone. They were killed.” The last word came out so thick with grief Drake started to cough.

Karin screamed at him. She cried and denied him until her voice drifted away and another came on the phone.

“Drake. This is Smyth. Komodo, Karin and Kinimaka are incommunicado right now. You need to get over here, bud. We could do with you and that crazy Swede about now.”

Drake nodded to himself. “What happened?”

“Fuckers hit the HQ hard, man. Didn’t give us a chance. Must’ve been watching it for weeks. We’re lucky any of us got outta there alive.”

“And Hayden? Romero?”

Smyth drew a breath. “They got hit,” he said irritably. “It happens.”

Drake relayed the news to Dahl as the Swede squatted next to him. “Where are you, Smyth?”

“Gray’s Military Hospital. I haven’t the slightest idea where it is. It’s pretty well guarded and they’re working on Hayden right now. Got a bad feeling though, Drake, like… safe ain’t safe anymore. Something don’t feel right, you know?”

Drake did. If the Blood King’s men could find the SPEAR team’s HQ, he felt they sure as hell could track them to a hospital, military or not.

“We’re on our way.” He was about to end the conversation when the phone bleeped to warn him of another incoming call. Drake checked the caller ID and was shocked to see the bat phone symbol flashing, the one he had assigned to Jonathan Gates’ most secure emergency line. It had never rung before.

His mouth dropped open yet again. “Smyth. Wait. Just wait.”

Quickly, he flipped over to the new line, answering, “Yes? This is Matt Drake.”

An official-sounding voice spoke in hard impassive tones. “We’re calling all active agents from every agency together right now to attend a crisis meeting at the Hotel Lewison Park, Conference Room 1B.”

Drake noted Dahl answering the same call. “What’s this about?”

“Go there now. The VP will address you.”

“Now? I—”

The connection broke. Drake stared at the phone. VP? he thought. As in Vice President? His phone had a tracker, so they would know he was close by the Lewison. For a second, he just stared at Dahl.

“Can Kovalenko really do all this?”

“I don’t know.” Dahl pointed out the Lewison, not a hundred yards away. “But that’s one call we can’t ignore.”

Drake explained the situation to Smyth and told him they would be in touch as soon as they were able. “What happened to the President?” Smyth asked.

“I don’t know,” Drake said. “But I think we’re about to find out.”