The Blood King Conspiracy

CHAPTER THREE

Deep inside the Florida Everglades, Hayden Jaye twisted on the concrete floor. Her hands were still bound but she used Mano Kinimaka as a fulcrum and pushed to her feet.

She looked around.

They had been thrown into a makeshift cell. The place they were in was a ramshackle mess; nothing more than a few old buildings knocked together. Obviously a temporary base, but for how long? Their cell was full of empty, torn-apart cardboard boxes. Wyatt Godwin, the only other surviving member of her team, sat propped in a corner and gave her a weak smile.

Beyond a row of heavy, black bars lay a vast, untidy room, dominated by a chaos of technological clutter and weaponry that had clearly just been thrown together. Hayden counted dozens of men making their way among the jumbled islands; none wore masks.

She turned to Kinimaka. “Any ideas?”

The giant shrugged, displacing dust from his shoulders in a mushroom cloud. “Everglades. Trees. Water. Gators. The four airboats we all arrived on.”

It had taken four airboats to carry the members of their enemy squad. When they arrived at their destination Hayden had seen nothing but derelict walls and overgrown doorways, but inside, the place was a veritable, if untidy, shopping mall of advanced machinery.

Hayden stared at Kinimaka. “Airboats.” She repeated. He nodded.

The bars rattled. Hayden spun to see the devil responsible for the murder of three CIA agents pressing a leering face between the narrow gaps. “Ed Boudreau,” he thrust a gloved hand through and made a play of shaking thin air. “Pleased to kill you.”

“Likewise,” Hayden whispered, knowing she shouldn’t but unable to stop herself. Her father had been better than that, had taught her better than that.

“You look quite a mess, my dear,” Boudreau said. “Oh, my, is that brain in your hair? Who’d have thought an enemy agent would actually have one and then lose it, eh?”

Kinimaka used the wall to stand up behind her. She didn’t see him, she felt the rumbling and the shaking.

“Hey, hey big boy,” Boudreau laughed. “Calm down. I’m not going to start with either of you two.” His gaze fell upon Wyatt Godwin. “Hi there.”

“So what do you want?” Hayden continued to evaluate their surroundings, as she knew the other two were doing.

“You touched on the subject briefly, remember? Back when your friends were painting the walls? It’s a local phenomenon known as the Bermuda Triangle. Been around a few years. Tell me what you know.”

“Alright, alright,” said Hayden looking away. “It’s a song by Barry Manilow. Early ‘80’s, I’m guessing. Did we win?”

“He did.” Boudreau motioned at Godwin. Guards appeared, levelling lethal-looking weapons at Kinimaka and her. “Don’t move.”

Hayden sucked in her lips. They were dead anyway. Why not try their luck now, when there were three of them? Why wait?

Survive as long as you can. The old Jaye creed had been all but branded into her. One minute, to the next, to the next. Don’t provoke. Every next moment might bring you the chance you need.

Godwin struggled hard, giving one guard a bloody nose, but he was no match for three. They manhandled him out of the cell and threw him to the ground before Boudreau. “Nothing fancy,” the leader said, taking out his field knife. “Tell me what you know, and it’s quick. Dick me about and it’s choppy choppy time.” His grin left no doubt in Hayden’s mind which scenario he favoured.

“Listen!” She hoped the desperation didn’t show too much in her voice. She couldn’t bear to watch another member of her team murdered before her eyes. Commonsense and training urged her to shut the hell up. Heart and mind said otherwise.

“We don’t know much. What we learned, well, we only learned yesterday.” Was it really only yesterday that her team had been laughing, excited, looking forward to their futures? Was it really only yesterday that she’d been talking to Ben Blake and torn between two minds about what to do with him?

“It’s something to do with the Queen Anne’s Revenge,” Hayden blurted. “You know, Blackbeard’s ship?”

If her father could see her now…

“The pirate?” Boudreau smiled condescendingly.

“Yes! They found it in ’96 off the North Carolina shore and have been excavating and salvaging it ever since. And, well, pirates… well they tend to hoard a lot of… umm… treasure.”

Surprisingly Boudreau wasn’t laughing, only appraising. “You’ll be telling me the Bermuda Triangle is naught but pirate booty next! Aarghh!”

With the last exclamation Boudreau sank his knife to the hilt into Godwin’s thigh. The shock was so sudden that even Godwin just stared for a second. Then Boudreau twisted the hilt and ripped the blade back and Godwin started to twist and scream. Blood pooled rapidly through his trousers and across the floor.

“Anything else?”

Hayden stayed quiet.

“Tell me about the Blood King?” Boudreau all but bellowed. “Tell me about the Blood King!”

Hayden stepped back despite herself. Boudreau had gone red in the face and was sending spittle flying in her direction. Christ, even the very mention of the Blood King sent this American bad-ass into seizures.

How could that be?

“We know nothing, Boudreau. Beyond his name, and that he is looking for the item we confiscated from the Queen Anne’s Revenge. That’s it.”

She turned a regretful gaze towards Godwin. The man’s eyes had rolled up into his head. A guard was kicking him, another stabbing him. Inside five minutes one more CIA agent lay still and bleeding at Boudreau’s sin-stained hands.

Hayden met the eyes of Mano Kinimaka. It was a look of finality and goodbye. A look that said ‘don’t judge me on how I die, judge me on how I’ve lived.’

Kinimaka’s heavy brows raised in an open expression of sorrow. The Hawaiian was a very open man, not used to concealing his feelings.

Boudreau was already at the cage and tapping the bars with his knife, sending rivulets of blood spattering across the floor.

“You ready?” He grinned at Hayden.

Then someone shouted, a scared holler that seemed completely out of place coming from the rough brawler who stood clutching a sat-phone.

“Boudreau!”

The leader’s face showed anger. “What?”

“It’s him! It’s him!” The phone was being brandished as if it were ablaze.

Hayden watched closely as Boudreau’s face adjusted instantly from confident fury to abject terror.

Instantly.

Hayden stared in utter amazement. Whoever was on the end of that sat-phone had one of the scariest and most capable enemies she had ever known almost pissing his pants in fear.

It beggared the obvious question — who?

The Blood King?

Hayden sank back against the far wall, grateful for the respite and for the various trackers that some geek had sewn into her clothing a couple of weeks ago.