Last Man Standing

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Matt Drake faced off with Torsten Dahl. Mai faced up to Alicia. The air in the hotel lobby was electric, the tension a living, breathing animal with teeth and claws.

If they refused to fight, twelve civilians would be blown up and then Coyote and her men would barricade the half-full church and set it on fire. Then they would start going door to door with RPGs.

The army incursion wouldn’t make it in time. Karin hadn’t been heard from. Same story with Crouch.

The tournament was still on.

Drake nodded to Dahl. “Smile for the camera whilst I thump you into next week.”

The Swede didn’t look impressed. “Is that a Yorkshire way of saying you’re scared?”

Drake threw a punch he knew would be deflected, struck out with a series of martial arts moves he knew would be defended. Dahl came back at him, gaining a punch to the arm and a bruise on the thigh. Drake doubled him over, but allowed him to fall back. To their right Mai and Alicia performed a similar dance, making it look good, but taking very little damage.

Within a few minutes the sugary tomes that would haunt Drake for the rest of his life drifted through the lobby.

“Stop pussyfooting around, boys and girls. This is where it gets real. I want to see some blood and guts or the next sound you hear will be Mr. John Featherstone’s scream as his body parts have a disagreement and split. You hear me?”

Drake glared around the vast lobby. “We’re out of options, folks. Her bloody computer guy has eyes and ears everywhere.” He shook his head, remembering the band attached to his wrist. “Even monitoring our heartbeats.”

“That’s right,” Coyote said just to drive her point home. “How exciting. My money’s on the big Swede.”

“I dunno.” Alicia dropped into defensive mode. “I’m still fancying Beauregard.”

Mai smirked. “The tights again?”

“It was in my face.” Alicia grinned.

Mai blitzed her, employing several blows that brought her in close, then used elbows before spinning back out again. Alicia spluttered and held a hand up to her face. “Damn, if that turns into another black eye, you’re history, Sprite.”

“More like it,” Coyote said sweetly. “And the men?”

Drake feinted and ducked, slamming a hard right into Dahl’s midriff. The Swede’s muscles were flexed, absorbing the blow. He stepped away and then came right back with a push-kick, surprising Drake and bruising ribs. The Yorkshireman threw caution to the wind, getting stuck in, and ran at his unlikely opponent, catching him around the waist in a bear hug and driving him backward.

Dahl’s clenched fists crashed down onto his exposed back with a blow that would have felled a charging raptor. Drake’s teeth clenched but he kept on pushing, the momentum driving him on, until he slammed Dahl into the wall that supported the staircase. The whole side of the structure juddered, plaster cracked, and there was the sound of splitting timbers.

Dahl grunted.

Drake stepped away, ducking as a fist whistled past his ear. Dahl somehow managed to grip one of the staircase’s spindles just above his head and used it to gain leverage, kicking out and connecting with Drake’s chest.

“Oof!”

Coyote’s clapping echoed around the lobby.

Mai drove Alicia back against the reception desk, then ducked under a flurry of blows, raised the Englishwoman up, and deposited her hard on the polished surface. Cracks raced away to all sides like a crazy spider web. Alicia swiveled and slipped off, falling to her knees and striking low. Mai found her impetus upset and stepped aside, ready to drive again. Alicia jumped back up onto the desk in order to gain the high ground then yelled in surprise as it collapsed around her.

Fractured sheets of wood fell inward. The front of the desk collapsed. Alicia disappeared amidst the destruction, leaving Mai staring in disbelief.

Drake took a step and launched a high front kick at the Swede’s chest, determined to stay on par. The blow was blocked but the force of it sent Dahl back against the staircase. This time the entire wall cracked. A hole appeared behind the Swede, revealing a dark space where the staircase’s supports lived. Without thought, Drake strove to keep the Swede on the back foot, hitting him again and again around the chest — not the face or other vital areas — and driving him even deeper into the fissure.

Off balance, Dahl pinwheeled backward, striking support after support, smashing the timbers apart. Drake heard the staircase coming down before he saw it, but by then it was too late. The structure began to tumble down around him.

“Shit!”

Drake hit the deck, covering the back of his head with his hands. He heard Dahl grunting about dumb northerners somewhere among the collapsing construction up ahead. A heavy chunk of six connected risers smashed down inches from his feet. The main staircase almost seemed to slide off its moorings, slipping out into the lobby and leaving a spindly carcass behind. In the darkness near the back wall something sparked; a circuit blowing or shorting. Tiny flames flared into life.

Drake coughed and looked up. Dahl stood before him.

“Dickhead.”

The Swede reached down with huge arms. Drake knew exactly what was coming but couldn’t react in time. A second later he felt himself pulled up and lifted into the air; then he was in mid-flight, enjoying the air-time but not looking forward to the landing. He smashed down amidst a great splintering, remembering that there’d been a low wooden table where he now lay.

Shit, they were wrecking the place. Demolishing it.

Alicia rose from the wrecked desk. “A phoenix from the ashes,” she said as she tried to maintain her dignity.

Mai eyed the vast desk she’d destroyed. “A dumb blonde from Essex,” she returned.

Alicia held out a hand. “Just… wait. Wait until I get myself untangled from this shit.” She picked her way carefully out of the mass of splintered and cracked wood, avoiding sharp edges, then gave an imperious flick of her hair.

“Okay. I’m ready.”

Mai didn’t waste time, painfully aware of Coyote’s eyes and SaBo’s careful monitoring system. She propelled Alicia into the warren of Egyptian artefacts, not only keeping up the onslaught but purposely giving the other woman more obstructions than she could handle. Sphinxes tumbled and crashed to the floor, their heads rolling across the Turkish rug. Alicia threw a display but Mai ducked under it. A short row of pillars, topped by objects, fell in unison like a tumbling row of dominos. Alicia caught Mai’s lashing foot and twisted, making the other woman perform a three-hundred-and-sixty degree spin just to keep her attack at the correct pace. Mai executed the spin and came back around for good measure, slapping Alicia across the face with the sole of her other foot in mid-flight.

Alicia dropped the foot, shocked. “Shit. You’re a goddamn Power Ranger. That’s what you are.”

Dust and falling shavings and other particles swirled all around them. Drake rose and staggered out of the remains of the table, almost falling, but used Alicia’s back as a leaning post. As he eyed Dahl he saw the electrical fire that had started under the stairs.

“Ah, guys. That can’t be good.”

Flickering flames ran along wires and into circuit boards, spreading fast. Dahl ran at Drake, but the Yorkshireman slipped under his grasp, loping out of reach. To his left Mai, close enough to touch, grabbed Alicia and spun her around, then kicked her away.

Dahl delivered a weighty blow to Drake’s ribs that left him gasping, stunned.

Mai sent the Swede a hard look, then jumped at him, instinct urging her to protect Drake. Her thighs grasped the Swede around the head, her arms balanced on the floor by his feet, and then she yanked him over. The Swede gave a yell of surprise and fell hard.

Alicia, losing her opponent, came at Drake, feinting before slipping around his body and grabbing his throat in a choke hold. Drake felt no slack in the powerful grip, corroborated by the fact that his face started to turn red.

He couldn’t breathe.

Mai landed hard on Dahl’s chest, driving her knees in. Her next strike landed on his right ear, rocking his senses. Her next was to his nose, making him see black spots. The final blow would come from stiffened fingers to the larynx; a strike that would hit like a knife.

Drake fell to his knees, almost blacking out.

The dust hung heavy in the lobby. Smoke from the fire began to billow. An explosion boomed out from below, the blast taking part of the floor with it. Still more wreckage plumed into the lobby, now licked with flames. Part of an upper floor collapsed, showering the lobby with debris, dust and bits of carpet; even bedside cabinets, a small TV, and a chair came crashing down.

Amidst the chaos the four fought. Drake recovered quickly, in time to reverse head-butt Alicia, breaking the choke hold, then used what little strength he had left to send a powerful punch at her cheekbone. The Englishwoman cried out. Drake fell back as she threw herself at him and caught her by her own throat just as she regained her hold on his own.

Eye-to-eye, they fought to survive. To be the last man standing.

Mai sent her throat jab but Dahl diverted it at the last second. His large hand struck her temple. Mai wavered. The Swede bucked, trying to throw her off, but the Japanese woman jabbed at his nervous system, making him fold with agony.

The fires burned all around them. The hotel’s innards collapsed. In the intensity and the terrible heart-wrenching destiny and the heat of the moment, the final blows were struck.

SaBo couldn’t believe his eyes. He stared at his computer screen, checking three times before he dared relate his finding to Coyote.

“My God, you will not believe this.”

“Tell me.” Sugary and confident.

SaBo checked again, trying to evaluate every circuit, keep that bitch Karin at bay, and assess his findings. The screens didn’t lie.

“The damn place is a mess, but you can obviously see that. The monitors that show their life signs, the ones we clipped to them. Well, they’ve actually changed. Not as though they’ve been removed, which I installed a trip alert for, but genuinely. Authentically. Shit, I just didn’t think they’d go that far.”

SaBo watched in dumb amazement as, one by one, the red pulsing life signs that indicated the SPEAR team slowly winked out.

Until only one remained.

“They’re dead,” he said. “Monitors prove it. Life signs have flatlined.”

Coyote sounded angry. “All of them?”

“No. No. There’s one left. Only one left alive.”

“Tell me.” The anticipation was sickly.

“Drake,” SaBo said. “Matt Drake.”