Blood Vengeance

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

Amidst the battle cries and the bedlam, Drake heard the revving engines of arriving cars. The Blood King’s main force was already here. His heart thudded. Just one sighting, just one! That was all they needed to call in the cavalry.

A fitting analogy, he thought. Out here, in these dry, desolate badlands — more than fitting.

The big truck hit level ground and bounced and clattered its way across the courtyard, revving and swerving as if James Hunt was trying to shunt his way past on the inside. Komodo and Kinimaka came sliding up to Drake.

“Sure must seem like we’re trapped here,” the Hawaiian grunted. “So where’s Kovalenko?”

“Kovalenko has a source in the government,” Drake pointed out. “If we needed any proof, the drone confirmed it. Now that source will either throw him to the dogs — that’s us,” he clarified unnecessarily. “Or warn him off.”

“He’s here,” Kinimaka growled. “I can smell evil a mile off.”

Drake regarded him. “Is that a Polynesian thing?”

“CIA training.”

Drake laughed. “Must be the advanced part of the course, eh?” Without pause he rose and sprayed the courtyard with bullets. The huge truck barreled on through. A wave of men came behind it and a second wave behind them. A foul chorus of vile intent rose from their ranks. Drake fired, Kinimaka and Komodo standing alongside him, and several of the running men fell, but the rest charged on. The ground passed swiftly beneath their feet as they hurdled the fallen. Drake dropped more, shooting indiscriminately. The truck roared past his eyeline and smashed into the gate, making the castle walls shudder with the impact. Its front end blasted inside the castle, but its canvas-covered bed got stuck in the gap half way through and ground to a vibrating halt.

Drake pulled out a military-issue knife. “They all die.”

With that he jumped right off the castle walls, sailing into space and landing atop the canvas cover. He held his balance, feeling the cover belly out beneath him, then fell to his knees and slashed hard with the knife. Komodo and Kinimaka, coming five seconds after him, fell right through the gap into the bed of the truck below, and Drake followed a split second after them.

Hard-looking men started in shock. Komodo was amongst them before they could react, slashing a throat; a cheek; a chest. Kinimaka had held on to his Glock and whipped it out now, three single shots signaling the deaths of three dull-witted men. Drake jabbed one man in the throat with his knife, then another across the forehead. The last was too far away to touch…

… and already held a pistol leveled precisely between the Englishman’s eyes.

“G’night fu—”

Drake threw his knife end over end. It embedded to the hilt in the man’s throat. The reflex shot went high, skimming up into the roof. Komodo was already jumping through the gaps in the side-canvas, hitting the ground before turning to finish the driver. Drake leapt through the other side, taking the passenger down into the dirt with a chokehold.

“Where’s Kovalenko?” he whispered into the man’s ear. “Did he send you to die alone?”

The man struggled but couldn’t break Drake’s hold. The Englishman tightened it a notch. “Tell me.”

“He’s out there. With his lieutenants. Don’t worry. He’s coming for you.”

Drake choked the man out and rose to his feet. The truck now effectively blocked the gap where the gate had been, but men were already tearing the remainder of the gate apart. They would be through in minutes. Plus Drake could now see them atop the walls, having gained access by jumping from the mounds that passed close to either side.

“Time to fall back,” he said, but then Dahl’s voice rang out.

“The walls!” he cried. “Go to the walls!”

If it had been anyone else, Drake would have paused and questioned it, but knowing Torsten Dahl as he did there was no choice. He pounded hard at the steps and found Karin standing at the top, isolated, staring out over the walls as enemy commandoes came at her from both sides.

“He’s out there,” Karin said softly, oblivious to her danger. “That bastard is right there, watching us.”

Drake smashed into a commando running at him full pelt, slightly dipping his shoulder and letting his momentum send the guy flying off the walls. The second he met with a palm to the face, breaking his nose and letting his own tear ducts destroy his vision. He sensed Komodo at his back, meeting the attackers who charged in from the other side. The two men fought hard on the castle walls with Karin between them, hand-to-hand combat being more practical in the enclosed conditions. Komodo threw a man over the walls to the concrete below, blocked knife strikes, and used the enemies’ own force of numbers against them, employing them as shields and foils, toppling them like dominoes. The heights of the castle rang with clanging steel and dying screams. Drake did take a bullet, but it only drove into his vest and knocked him back less than a step. Without missing a stride, he broke the shooter’s wrist and twisted the weapon away from him, using its full magazine to thin the herd.

In a moment’s respite, he turned to Karin. “Show me.”

She held out a hand. Drake followed her pointing finger and there, atop the highest mound and flanked by Mordant and Gabriel, stood the Blood King. The Russian regarded the scene for a moment before starting forward.

“He’s coming in,” Karin yelled, and then remembered the walkie-talkie in her hand. “I have to—”

“No time.” Drake grabbed her and almost threw her down the steps. “Go!” Both he and Komodo followed her down to the courtyard, dodging bullets as they ran. The truck lay idling away down there, and beyond it the helicopter burned like a furious beacon. Dahl and Alicia stood close to the truck, watching the castle gates finally fall.

“Low on ammo,” Alicia said. “We gotta conserve.”

“Kovalenko will be inside within minutes.” Drake said. They ran as a group, heading past the chopper’s blazing wreckage. The heat was a furnace blast in Drake’s face as he skirted it, raising the temperature of Death Valley to an even more deadly notch. They used the arched doorways as cover when Kovalenko’s men broke through, hiding and firing in pairs, leap-frogging each other to reach a safer place.

And, finally, Drake gave Karin the nod. “Make the call.”

Karin’s eyes blazed with pure hatred as she ducked a hail of gunfire, rose amidst the smoke of pulverized stone and charred metal, and spoke into the receiver.

“Bring the fire!” she cried, looking up to the burning skies. “Bring the fires of hell down on this motherfucker!”