The Gates of Hell

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hayden steeled herself for what was to come. Her entire career in the CIA had not prepared her for this situation. The Secretary of Defense’s wife murdered. An international terrorist holding unknown numbers of powerful people’s relatives hostage.

Did the government know the identities of all of those involved? No way. But you could be damn sure they knew a lot more than they would ever let on.

It had seemed so much simpler back when she first enrolled. Maybe it had been simpler back then, before September 11^th. Maybe in the day of her father, James Jaye, the legendary agent she strived to emulate, it had been black and white.

And ruthless.

This was the sharp edge. The war against the Blood King was being fought on many levels, but hers may yet prove to be the most terrible and successful.

The diverse personalities of the people she had on her side gave her an edge. Gates had spotted it first. That was why he had let them conduct their own investigation into the mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle. Gates was cleverer than she had ever given him credit for. He had seen straight away the advantage provided by such contrasting personalities as Matt Drake, Ben Blake, Mai Kitano and Alicia Myles. He had seen the potential of her team. And he had thrown them all together.

Genius.

A team of the future?

Now a man who had lost everything wanted justice to be brought against the man who had so brutally murdered his wife.

Hayden walked up to Boudreau’s cell. The laconic mercenary gave her lazy eyes from over the top of his steepled hands.

“Can I help you, agent Jaye?”

Hayden would never forgive herself if she didn’t try one more time. “Give us Kovalenko’s location, Boudreau. Just give him up and this is over.” She spread her hands. “I mean, it’s not like he seems to give a shit about you.”

“Maybe he does.” Boudreau unfolded his body and slipped off the bunk. “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it’s too early to tell yet, huh?”

“What is his agenda? What is this Gates of Hell?”

“If I knew…” Boudreau’s face portrayed the smile of a feasting shark.

“You do know.” Hayden remained very matter of fact. “I’m giving you this last chance.”

“Last chance? Are you going to shoot me? Has the CIA finally recognized the dark sins they must commit to stay in the game?”

Hayden shrugged. “There’s a time and a place.”

“Sure. I could name a few places.” Boudreau sneered at her, the crazy showing through as spittle flew. “There is nothing you can do to me, Agent Jaye, that would make me betray a man as powerful as the Blood King.”

“Well…” Hayden forced a smile. “That’s what got us thinking, Ed.” She fixed the joviality in her voice. “You got nothing here, man. Nothing. Yet you won’t spill. You sit there, wasting away, happy to accept imprisonment. Like a washed up motherfucker. Like a loser. Like a piece of Southern shit.” Hayden laid it on thick.

Boudreau’s mouth tightened into a tense white line.

“You’re a man who’s given up. A quitter. A sacrifice. Impotent.”

Boudreau moved toward her.

Hayden pushed her face up against the bars, taunting him. “A fucking limp dick.”

Boudreau struck out, but Hayden backed away faster, still forcing the grin on her face. The sound of his fist striking steel was like a wet slap.

“So we wondered. What makes a man like you, a soldier, become a limp dick?”

Boudreau now stared at her with slowly comprehending eyes.

“That’s it.” Hayden mocked him. “You got there, didn’t you? Her name is Maria, yes?”

Boudreau slammed the bars in an unspeakable rage.

It was Hayden’s turn to sneer. “As I said. Impotent.”

She turned away. The seeds were sown. It was about speed and severity. Ed Boudreau would never crack under normal conditions. But now…

Kinimaka wheeled the TV they had strapped to a chair to where the mercenary could see it. The trepidation in the man’s voice was obvious even though he tried to hide it.

“What the hell are you people trying to pull?”

“Keep watching, motherfucker.” Hayden made her voice sound as if she just didn’t care anymore. Kinimaka turned the TV on.

Boudreau stared. “No” he mouthed quietly. “Oh, no.”

Hayden met his eyes with a totally believable sneer. “”We’re at war, Boudreau. You still don’t wanna talk? Choose a fuckin’ appendage.”

Matt Drake made sure the camera was firmly fixed in position before he stepped into the picture. The black balaclava was pulled down over his features more for effect than disguise, but the body armor he was dressed in and the weapons he carried made the seriousness of the girl’s position stand out, starkly accurate.

The girl’s eyes were pools of desperation, of fear. She had no idea what she had done. No idea what they wanted her for. She didn’t know what her brother did for a living.

Maria Fedak was an innocent, Drake thought, if anyone was these days. Caught by chance, snared by misfortune in a globally cast net that fizzled and crackled with death, heartlessness and hate.

Drake stopped next to her, brandishing the knife in his right hand, the other resting lightly on his gun. It didn’t matter to him anymore that she was innocent. It was retribution, nothing less. A life for a life.

He waited patiently.

“Maria Fedak,” Hayden said. “She is your sister, married, Mr. Boudreau. Your sister, oblivious, Mr. Mercenary. Your sister, terrified, Mr. Murderer. She doesn’t know what her brother is, or what he does on a regular basis. But she does know you. She knows the doting brother, who visits once or twice a year with the fake stories and the thoughtful gifts for her kids. Tell me, Ed, do you want them to grow up without a mother?”

Boudreau’s eyes were bulging. His naked fear was so intense Hayden actually felt pity for him. But this wasn’t the time. His sister’s life was truly in the balance. That was why they had chosen Matt Drake, alone, as the point man.

“Maria.” The word spilled out of him, wretched and despairing.

Drake barely saw the terrified girl. He saw Kennedy, dead in his arms. He saw Ben’s blood-soaked hands. He saw Harrison’s guilty face.

But most of all he saw Kovalenko. The Blood King, the mastermind, a man so hollow and void of feeling he might be nothing but an animated corpse. A zombie. He saw the man’s face and wanted to throttle the life out of everything around him.

His hands moved toward the girl and locked around her throat.

Hayden blinked as she watched the monitor. Drake was rushing things. Boudreau had hardly had time to soften up yet. Kinimaka stepped toward her, always the kind mediator, but Alicia Myles yanked him back.

“Not a chance, big guy. Let these fuckers sweat. They have nothing but death on their hands.”

Hayden made herself sneer at Boudreau the way she remembered him sneering when he ordered the murder of her men.

“You gonna squeal, Ed, or you wanna find out how they make sushi in the UK?”

Boudreau glared at her with murder in his eyes. A thin drool slid from the corner of his mouth. His emotions were getting the better of him, just as they did when he smelled a close kill. Hayden didn’t want him shutting down on her.

Alicia was already close to the bars. “You ordered the execution of my boyfriend. You should be glad it’s Drake doing the dicing and not me. I’d make the bitch suffer twice as long.”

Boudreau stared between both of them. “You had both better make sure I never get out of here. I swear I will cut you both to pieces.”

“Save it.” Hayden was watching Drake squeezing Maria Fedak’s neck. “She doesn’t have much time.”

Boudreau was a hard man, and his face shut down. “The CIA won’t hurt my sister. She’s a United States citizen.”

Now Hayden truly believed the madman truly didn’t get it. “Listen to me, you crazy bastard,” she hissed. “We’re at war. The Blood King has murdered Americans on American soil. He has kidnapped dozens. Dozens. He wants to hold this country to ransom. He doesn’t give a shit about you or your stinking sister!”

Alicia muttered something into her earpiece. Hayden heard the instruction. So did Kinimaka.

So did Drake.

He let go of the woman’s neck and unholstered the gun.

Hayden ground her teeth together so hard, the nerves around her skull screamed. Gut instinct almost made her cry out and order him to stop. Her focus blurred for a second, but then her training kicked in and told her this was the best chance they had of tracking down Kovalenko.

One life to save hundreds, or more.

Boudreau had noticed the play of emotions across her face and suddenly he was at the bars, convinced, reaching out and snarling.

“Don’t do it. Don’t you fucking do it to my baby sister!”

Hayden’s face was a mask of stone. “Last chance, killer.”

“The Blood King’s a ghost. Whatever I know, it might be a distraction. He loves that sort of thing.”

“Understood. Try us.”

But Boudreau had been a mercenary too long, a killer too long. And his hate for authority figures had blinded his judgment. “Go to hell, bitch.”

Hayden’s heart sank, but she tapped the monitor on her wrist mic. “Shoot her.”

Drake raised the gun and put it to her temple. His finger squeezed the trigger.

Boudreau bellowed in horror. “No! The Blood King’s in—”

Drake let the horrible sound of gunfire mask all other sounds. He watched as blood exploded from the side of Maria Fedak’s head.

“North Oahu!” Boudreau finished. “His biggest ranch is there…” His words tailed off as he sank to the floor, watching his dead sister slump in the chair and looking at the blood-spattered wall behind her. He stared in shock as the balaclava-clad figure came up to the screen until he filled it. Then he removed the mask.

Matt Drake’s face was cold, detached, the face of an executioner who loved his job.

Hayden shuddered.