Matt Drake 07 - Blood Vengeance by David Leadbeater Page A

courage. “You are my mentor,” he said. “And my idol. You always will be, Hayden Jaye.”
    Her attempt at a smile broke his heart again. When the phone rang he slammed it to his ear without once breaking their eye contact.
    “Yes?”
    “Mano. This is Agent Collins, your CIA liaison for LA. It’s about your sister, Kono. You just rang to check on her?”
    Kinimaka could barely bring himself to speak. “Yes.”
    “She ’s fine and under close guard. Without going into too much detail, Mano, we got there just in time.”
    “Thank . . . you,” he managed, “Agent Collins.”
    “Don ’t thank me,” she said. “It was your call that prompted the op. Thank yourself.” The agent hung up; tough, strict and to the point.
    Hayden brushed his hair with a shaking hand. “She ’s okay?”
    “Yeah. She’s fine.”
    “Thank God.”
    Kinimaka looked up, then around the room; for the first time noticing the lack of security, the open undraped windows, the well-lit office blocks that surrounded the hospital, the tree-lined entry road.
    “God ain ’t here for us today,” he said, standing up. “We’re going to have to look after ourselves.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     
     
    The Blood King poured himself a precise shot of vodka, expecting very little from the relatively famous French brand and receiving exactly that. He tipped the shot back in one go, the way his Russian fathers and forefathers had always done. He yelled out a toast, as was his ritual.
    “To freedom,” he said, speaking to Gabriel and the other mercenaries about the room. “Let us hope it tastes better than this fuckin ’ vodka, dah?”
    The men saluted. The Blood King chased the shot with a salty pickle, obtained from the in-room mini bar. “Gods,” he said, spitting the bits out. “I have tasted better prison food.” He stared at the quiet occupant in the room. “How about you? What exactly is your poison, Mr. President?”
    Coburn eyed Kovalenko with disdain. “You won ’t get away with this.”
    “I won ’t? But I already have, Mr. Pres. I already have.”
    “What the hell do you want?”
    “Ah, sixty-four million dollar question. But that number is so out of date in modern times, yes? Let’s see, how much did it cost you to become President? Six hundred and sixty four million, perhaps?”
    “You ’re crazy, Kovalenko.”
    “So they tell me,” the Blood King said wryly. “Too many years at sea playing the salty dog. Same as Blackbeard, yes?”
    “So you still think you ’re a pirate? You won’t be able to disappear this time, Kovalenko.”
    The Blood King poured a second shot, contemplating the President’s words and weighing them against the recent pleasurable scene he’d witnessed in the hotel’s lobby when his men had decimated Coburn’s Secret Service detail. This was something new for him, weighing someone else’s opinion against his own. After so many years of fulfillment without consequence it was actually a breath of fresh air. But he had discovered the ability in prison whilst recruiting Mordant and Gabriel to the cause, and had found, to his surprise, that other people had clever ideas too.
    But the Americans were weak at their heart and unimaginative. They had allowed a covert enemy force to plant an operative deep inside their capital city’s Department of Transport—to the point where he been able to pull off a one-time infiltration of their secretive hi-tech VIP traffic control system.
    All lights green, was the maxim, meaning ‘clear the way for the particular dignitary’, but not this time. On this occasion, the saying had become an absolute—all lights, all roads.
    And there was still something far better to come.
    Kovalenko thr ew back the shot, toasting under his breath, this time to his lieutenants and the men they had selected. The Secret Service agents had ordered the lobby to be evacuated, but had been understandably uneasy, and when armed men had stepped forward from several different parts of