The Gates of Hell

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mai Kitano stared at the dead phone in her hands and knew her objective was a long way from being achieved. Dmitry Kovalenko was not a man who would let go of a possession easily.

Her sister, Chika, had been abducted from a Tokyo flat weeks before Matt Drake had first contacted her with his wild theories about the Bermuda Triangle and a mythical underworld figure called the Blood King. By then, Mai had already learned enough to know the man was very real and very, very deadly.

But she had had to play her true intentions down and keep her secrets close. In truth, not a difficult task for a Japanese woman, but made more difficult by Matt Drake’s obvious loyalty and unyielding conviction to protect his friends.

Many times she had almost told him.

But Chika was her priority. Even her own government didn’t know where Mai was.

She exited the Miami side street where she’d taken the call and headed across the busy road toward her current favorite Starbucks. A homely little branch where they took the time to write your name on the cups and always remembered your favorite drink. She sat for a while. She knew the CocoWalk well, but still intended to grab a cab over there shortly.

Why CocoWalk?

The sheer volume of people, both locals and tourists, would work both for her and against her. But the more she thought about it, the more she believed the Blood King had made a very shrewd decision. In the end, it was all about who held the upper hand.

Kovalenko did, because he was holding Mai’s sister.

So, amidst the throng, it would not seem out of place for her to be handing off a bag to some guys. But if she then challenged those guys and forced the issue about her sister — that would attract attention.

And one other thing — she felt she knew Kovalenko a little better now. Knew which way his mind worked.

He would be watching.

Later that afternoon, Hayden Jaye placed a private phone call to her boss, Jonathan Gates. Immediately, she could tell he was on edge.

“Yes. What’s wrong, Hayden?”

“Sir?” Their professional relationship was so good she could sometimes turn it personal. “Is everything okay?”

There was hesitation at the other end of the phone, something else out of character for Gates. “It’s as good as can be expected,” the Secretary of Defence muttered at length. “How’s your leg?”

“Good, sir. Healing well.” Hayden stopped herself from asking the question she wanted to ask. Feeling suddenly nervous, she skirted the issue. “And Harrison, sir? What’s his status?”

“Harrison’s going to prison, as are all of Kovalenko’s informants. Manipulated, or otherwise. Is that all, Miss Jaye?”

Stung by the cold tones, Hayden collapsed into a chair and squeezed her eyes shut. “No, sir. I have to ask you something. It may have already been covered by the CIA, or another agency, but I really need to know…”She paused.

“Please, Hayden, just ask.”

“Does Boudreau have any family, sir?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Hayden sighed. “It means exactly what you think it means, Mr. Secretary. We’re getting nowhere down here and times running out. Boudreau knows something.”

“Goddamn it, Jaye, we’re the American Government, and you’re CIA, not Mossad. You should know better than to talk openly that way.”

Hayden had known better. But desperation had beaten her down. “Matt Drake could do it,” she said quietly.

“Agent. That will not do.” The secretary was quiet for a time and then spoke. “Agent Jaye, you’re under a verbal reprimand. My advice — keep a low profile for a while.”

The connection died.

Hayden stared at the wall, but it was like seeking inspiration from a blank canvas. After a while she turned and watched the sunset fall across Miami.

The long delay ate away at Mai’s soul. A woman of decision and action, any single period of inactivity grated on her, but when her sister’s life was in the balance, it practically tore her spirit apart.

But now the waiting was over. Mai Kitano approached the CocoWalk at Coconut Grove and moved quickly to the vantage point she had scoped out a day earlier. With hours still to go before the exchange, Mai settled in at the dimly lit bar of the Cheesecake Factory and placed the device-filled rucksack on the counter before her.

A chattering bank of TV screens perched just above her head, playing various sports channels. The bar area was loud and hectic but nothing compared to the pandemonium filling the restaurant’s entrance and check-in desk. She had never seen a restaurant so crazily popular.

The bartender came over and placed a napkin on the counter. “Hello again,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “Another round?”

Same guy as last night. Mai didn’t need the distraction. “Save it. I’ll take a bottled water and tea. You wouldn’t last three minutes with me, friend.”

Ignoring the bartender’s stare she continued to survey the entrance. Scrutinizing dozens of people at the same time was never hard for her. Humans are a creature of habit. They tend to stay within their circle. It was the new arrivals she had to constantly review.

Mai sipped tea and observed. There was a happy atmosphere in here and the delicious smell of mouth-watering foods. Every time a waiter passed with an enormous oval-shaped tray, loaded to breaking point with huge plates and drinks, she found it hard to keep her attention on the doors. Laughter filled the place.

An hour passed. Near the end of the bar, an old man sat alone, head down, nursing a pint. Loneliness surrounded him like a coat of bristles, warning everyone off. He was the single blight in the whole place. Directly behind him, as if to distinguish his peculiarity, a British couple asked a passing waiter to take a photo of them sitting together, arms around each other. Mai listened to the man’s excited voice “We just found out we’re pregnant.”

Her eyes never stopped roving. Her bartender approached several times but didn’t get fresh again. Some football match played out on the TV screens.

Mai kept tight hold of the rucksack. When the readout on her phone said eight o’clock, she saw three men in dark suits enter the restaurant. They stood out like Marines in a church. Big, broad shoulders. Neck tattoos. Heads shaved. Hard, unsmiling faces.

Kovalenko’s men were here.

Mai watched them move, assessing their prowess. All were competent, but several leagues behind her. She took a last sip of her tea, fixed Chika’s face firmly in her mind, and slipped off the barstool. With consummate ease she stole up behind them, holding the rucksack against her legs.

She waited.

Seconds later one of them noticed her. The shock on his face was gratifying. They knew her reputation.

“Where is my sister?”

It took them a moment to recover their tough demeanor. One said, “Do you have the device?”

They had to speak loudly to hear one another above the din of people arriving, leaving, and being called to go to their tables.

“Yes, I have it. Show me my sister.”

Now one of the hard-cases managed a smile. “Now that”—he smirked—“I can do.”

Careful to stay amongst the milling crowd one of Kovalenko’s goons fished out a new-looking iPhone and tapped out a number. Mai sensed the other two staring at her as she watched, most likely assessing what form her reaction might take.

If they had hurt Chika, she wouldn’t care about the crowd.

Tense moments passed. Mai saw a pretty young girl race happily toward a big display of cheesecakes, followed quickly and just as happily by her parents. How close they were to death and mayhem they just couldn’t know, and Mai had no wish to show them.

The iPhone crackled into life. She strained to see the small screen. It was out of focus. After a few seconds the blurred image came together to show a close-up of her sister’s face. Chika was alive and breathing, but looking scared out of her mind.

“If any of you bastards have hurt her…”

“Just keep watching.”

The picture kept panning away. Chika’s whole body came into view, tied so tightly to a solid oak chair she could barely move. Mai grated her teeth. The camera continued to retreat. Its user was walking away from Chika, across a big, well-lit warehouse. At one point, they paused near a window and showed her the view outside. She immediately recognized one of Miami’s most iconic buildings — the Miami Tower — a three-tier skyscraper renowned for its ever-changing color display. After a few more seconds, the phone returned to her sister and the owner began retreating once again until, eventually he stopped.

“He is against the door,” the more chatty of Kovalenko’s men told her. “When you give us the device, he will walk outside. Then you will be able to see exactly where she is.”

Mai studied the iPhone. The call had to be current. She didn’t think it was a recording. Besides, she had watched him dial. And her sister was definitely in Miami.

Of course, they could kill her and escape even before Mai managed to get away from the CocoWalk.

“The device, Miss Kitano.” The thug’s voice, though harsh, held a great deal of respect.

As it should.

Mai Kitano was a shrewd operative, one of the best Japanese intelligence had to offer. She had to wonder how badly Kovalenko wanted the device. Was it as badly as she wanted her sister back?

You don’t play roulette with your family. You get them back and get even later.

Mai raised the rucksack. “I’ll let you have this when he steps out the door.”

If it was anyone else, they might have tried to snatch it away. They might have bullied her a bit more. But they valued their lives, these goons, and they nodded as one.

The one with the iPhone spoke into the microphone. “Do it. Walk outside.”

Mai watched carefully as the picture jumped around, taking the focus away from her sister until a battered, metal door-frame came into view. Then, the outside of a tired-looking warehouse, somewhere badly in need of a paint job and a sheet metal worker.

The camera retreated further. Street parking spaces came into view, and a large white sign that read Parking Garage. The red blur of a car flashed by. Mai felt her impatience begin to boil, and then the camera suddenly refocused back on the building and specifically to the right of the door, to reveal a battered, old plaque.

A building number, and then the words: Southeast 1^st Street. She had her address.

Mai dropped the rucksack and took off like a starving cheetah. The crowd melted away before her. Once outside, she ran to the nearest escalator, vaulted the railings, and landed sure footed about half-way down. She yelled and people jumped aside. She hit ground level at a sprint and reached the car she had carefully parked on Grand Ave.

Turned the ignition. Slammed the stick shift into gear and floored the accelerator. Burned rubber out into the traffic flow of Tigertail Avenue and didn’t hesitate to take chances. As she wrenched at the wheel, she turned three-quarters of her attention to the Sat-Nav, punching the address in, heart hammering.

The nav guided her onto SW 27th. With a straight road pointing north ahead of her, she literally jammed the pedal into the carpet. She was so focused she didn’t even think about what she would do when she reached the warehouse. A car ahead didn’t like her antics. It pulled out in front of her, tail-lights flashing. Mai slammed its rear fender, making the driver lose control and send his car slewing into a row of parked motorcycles. Bikes and helmets and shards of metal scattered in all directions.

Mai narrowed her focus. Shop fronts and cars zipped past as blurry walls of tunnel vision. Pedestrians screamed at her. A biker was so shocked at her high-speed maneuvers he wobbled and fell off at a set of lights.

The nav took her east on Flagler. The readout told her she’d be there in five minutes. A fish market was a haze of color to the left. A quick dogleg and she saw a sign that read SW1st Street.

Fifty seconds later and the nav’s Irish accent declared: you have reached your destination.

Even now, Mai took no major precautions. She remembered to lock the car and leave the keys behind the front, passenger side wheel. She sprinted over the road and found the plaque she’d seen a little while ago on the shaky camera.

Now she took a breath to steel herself against what she might find. She closed her eyes, centered her balance, and calmed her fear and her fury.

The handle turned freely. She walked through the threshold and quickly slipped to the left. Nothing had changed. The space was about fifty feet from the door to the back wall and about thirty feet wide. There were no furnishings. No pictures on the walls. No drapes on the windows. There were several glaring, hot banks of lights above her.

Chika still sat tied to the chair at the back of the room, eyes bulging now as she fought to move. And fought, it was clear, to tell Mai something.

But the Japanese Intelligence agent knew what to look for. She spotted half-a-dozen CCTV cameras positioned around the place and knew immediately who was watching.

Kovalenko.

What she didn’t know was why? Was he expecting some kind of show? Whatever it was, she knew the Blood King’s reputation. It wouldn’t be quick or easy, which discounted a hidden bomb or gas canister.

The dog-leg at the end of the room, just before her sister’s chair, no doubt concealed a surprise or two.

Mai inched forward, elated to find Chika still alive but under no illusions as to how long Kovalenko intended that to last.

As if in reply, a voice boomed out over hidden speakers. “Mai Kitano! Your reputation is unprecedented.” It was Kovalenko. “Let us see if it is well deserved.”

Four figures slipped out from behind the blind dogleg. Mai stared for a second, hardly able to believe her eyes, but then had to choose a stance as the first of the killers raced toward her.

Running fast, shaping himself for a flying kick, until Mai easily slipped aside and executed a perfect spin kick. The first fighter crashed to the ground, shaken. The Blood King’s laughter resounded through the speakers.

The second fighter came at her now, giving her no chance to finish the first one off. The man was twirling a chakram—a steel ring with a razor sharp outer edge — on the end of a finger and smiling as he advanced.

Mai paused. This man was an adept. Deadly. To be able to wield such a dangerous weapon with confident ease spoke of years of hard practice. He would be able to throw the chakram with a mere flick of the wrist. She quickly evened the odds.

She ran toward him, cutting down his range. When she saw his wrist jerk she dived into a slide, slipping underneath the arc of the weapon, straining her head as far back as she could as the evil blades sliced the air above her.

A lock of her hair fell to the floor.

Mai crashed feet first into the adept, kicking at his knees with all her might. This was no time to take prisoners. With a crunch, she both heard and felt, the man’s knees gave way. His scream preceded his fall to the ground.

So many years of training lost in an instant.

The man’s eyes betrayed much more than personal anguish. Mai briefly wondered what Kovalenko might have over him, but then a third fighter entered the fray and she sensed the first was already up on his feet.

The third was a big man. He pounded the floor toward her like a big bear stalking its prey, bare fleet slapping the concrete. The Blood King urged him on with a series of grunts and then burst out laughing, a maniac in his element.

Mai looked him straight in the eyes. “You don’t have to do this. We are close to catching Kovalenko. And freeing the hostages.”

The man wavered for a moment. Kovalenko was snorting high overhead. “You make me quiver, Mai Kitano, quiver with fear. Twenty years I have been but a myth and now I break my silence on my own terms. How could you…” He paused. “Or anyone like you, ever measure up to me?”

Mai continued to stare into the big fighter’s eyes. She sensed the one behind her also pausing, as if awaiting the outcome of a mental struggle.

“Fight!” the Blood King suddenly screamed. “Fight, or I will have your loved ones flayed alive and fed to the sharks!”

The threat was real. Even Mai could see that. The big man exploded into action, running at her with arms outstretched. Mai reviewed the strategy. Hit and run, strike swift and devastatingly hard, then get out of harm’s way. If possible, use his size against him. Mai let him come, knowing he would expect her to use some kind of evasive move. When he got to her and grabbed at her body, she stepped inside his reach and swept his legs.

The sound of him hitting the floor drowned out even the demented cackling of the Blood King.

The first fighter now struck her hard, aiming for her lower back and landing a painful blow before Mai twisted and rolled, coming up behind the downed man and giving herself a bit of space.

Now the Blood King let out a shriek. “Chop her sister’s fucking head off!”

A fourth man now emerged, wielding a samurai sword. He headed straight for Chika, six steps away from ending her life.

And Mai Kitano knew now was the time to execute the best play of her life. All her training, all her experience, came together in a life or death, last-ditch attempt to save her sister.

Ten seconds of lethal grace and beauty or a lifetime of burning regret.

Mai leapt onto the heaving back of the big man, using him as a springboard to launch a flying kick against the first fighter. His shock barely registered as Mai’s leading foot cracked several bones in his face, but he went down like dead weight. Mai immediately tucked her head in and rolled, landing hard on her spine, but the momentum of her leap carried her far across the concrete floor in minimal time.

She landed farther away from her sister and the man with the sword.

But right next to the chakran.

In a millisecond of pause she centered her being, steadied her soul, and turned, letting loose the deadly weapon. It skimmed through the air, its deadly blade flashing, glinting, already streaked red with Mai’s own blood.

The chakran sliced into the swordsman’s neck, quivering. The man collapsed without sound, without registering anything at all. He never knew what hit him. The sword clattered to the floor.

The big man was the only fighter capable of standing against her now, but his leg kept on giving way as he tried to stand up. She had probably taken out a tendon or two. Tears of agony and helplessness coursed down his face, not for himself but for his loved ones. Mai locked her gaze on Chika and forced herself to run over to her sister’s side.

She used the sword to cut the ropes, gritting her teeth on seeing the purple wrists and the bloody chaffs caused by constant struggle. Finally, she pulled out her sister’s gag.

“Go limp. I will carry you.”

The Blood King had stopped laughing. “Stop her!” He was bellowing at the big fighter. “Do it. Or I will end your wife by my own hands!”

The big man screamed as he tried to crawl toward her, arms outstretched. Mai paused near him. “Come with us,” she said. “Join us. Help us destroy this monster.”

For a moment, hope lit the man’s face. He blinked and looked as if the world’s weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

“You go with them and she dies,” the Blood King grated.

Mai shook her head. “She’s dead anyway, friend. The only vengeance you will get is by following me.”

The man’s eyes were imploring. For a moment Mai thought he would actually drag himself out along with her, but then the clouds of doubt returned and his gaze turned downcast.

“I can’t. So long as she still lives. I just can’t.”

Mai turned away, leaving him lying there. She had her own wars to fight.

The Blood King sent her a parting shot. “Run far away, Mai Kitano. My war is about to be declared. And the gates await me.”