The Gates of Hell

CHAPTER TEN

Hayden Jaye stepped away from the computer when her cell phone began to ring. Ben and Karin were busy resurrecting the sea voyages of Captain Cook, and in particular those concerned with the Hawaiian Islands. Cook, although widely known as a famous explorer, was a man if many talents, it seemed. He was also a renowned navigator and an expert cartographer. A man who mapped everything, he recorded the lands from New Zealand to Hawaii and, as was more widely known, made first landfall on Hawaii — a place he named the Sandwich Islands. A statue still stands in the town of Waimea, on Kauai, as a testament to the place he made first contact in 1778.

Hayden backed away when she saw the caller was her boss, Jonathan Gates.

“Yes, sir?”

Only ragged breathing came from the other end. She walked over to the window. “Can you hear me? Sir?”

They hadn’t spoken since he gave her the verbal reprimand. Hayden felt a bit unnerved.

Gates’s voice finally came through. “They killed her. Those bastards killed her.”

Hayden stared out the window without seeing anything. “They did what?”

Behind her both Ben and Karin, alerted by her tone, turned around.

“They took my wife, Hayden. Months ago. And last night they killed her. Because I wouldn’t do their bidding.”

“No. It couldn’t—”

“Yes.” Gates’s voice cracked as his whisky-fuelled charge of adrenalin clearly began to dissipate. “It’s not your concern, Jaye, my wife. I–I have always been a patriot, so the president knew within hours of her abduction. I remain…” He stammered. “A patriot.”

Hayden hardly knew what to say. “Why tell me now?”

“To explain my next actions.”

“No!” Hayden shouted, banging the window in sudden terror. “You can’t do it! Please!”

“Relax. I have no intentions of killing myself. I will help avenge Sarah first. Ironic isn’t it?”

“What?”

“That now I know how Matt Drake feels.”

Hayden closed her eyes, but the tears rolled down her face anyway. Kennedy’s memory was already fading from the world, a heart once so full of fire now diminished to eternal night.

“Why tell me now?” Hayden finally repeated.

“To explain this.” Gates paused, then said, “Ed Boudreau has a baby sister. I’m sending you the details. Do—”

Hayden was so shocked she interrupted the secretary before he could continue. “Are you sure?”

“Do whatever you have to do to take this fucker down.”

The line went dead. Hayden heard the email report chime out on her phone. Without checking she turned smartly and walked out of the room, ignoring the worried stares of Ben Blake and his sister. She walked over to Kinimaka’s little closet and found him working on a chicken and chorizo sub.

“Where’s Alicia?”

“Got her pass revoked yesterday.” The big Hawaiian’s words were distorted.

Hayden bent in close. “Don’t be a fucking idiot. We both know she doesn’t need a pass. Now where is Alicia?”

Kinimaka’s eyes widened into dinner plates. “Umm, one minute. I’ll trace her. No, she’s too sharp for that. I’ll—”

“Just ring her.” Hayden’s stomach sank even as she said the words and blackness blighted her soul. “Tell her to get hold of Drake. He’s got what he asked for. We’re going to hurt an innocent person to get information.”

“Boudreau’s sister?” Kinimaka seemed sharper than usual. “He’s actually got one? And Gates signed off on it?”

“You would too”—Hayden wiped her eyes dry—“if someone just tortured and killed your wife.”

Kinimaka absorbed that in silence. “And that makes it okay for the CIA to do the same to an American citizen?”

“It does for now,” Hayden said. “We’re at war.”