Free Matt Drake 07 - Blood Vengeance by David Leadbeater Page B

here. Mai quickly stepped into view, ready to try her luck, prepared to take a bullet and still fight on to reach the shooter, already fine-tuning the zigzag run that would best preserve her life, when a white cop car shot past her vision and screeched as it swung broadside at the man with the gun.
    The killer whirled, eyes wide, but it was too late. One minute the smug victor, the next the victim of a crushing incident, he lay across the hood of the car, held in place only because the vehicles were so close together. The gun slipped from between his fingers and clattered noisily to the road.
    Mai stared as Dai Hibiki jumped out and beckon ed both her and Chika over. “Hurry. You don’t have much time.” His gaze was turned up toward Chika’s window.
    Mai stopped right in front of him. “How the hell did you get here so quick?”
    Hibiki smiled at Chika. “ When you called I was already on my way here.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     
     
    Matt Drake assessed the hell, the horror and the stunned confusion that held sway over the center of Washington DC and clamped a hand on Dahl’s shoulder.
    “Wait.”
    “What?”
    “We have to get this right. Open your friggin’ eyes. Not one man out here knows what he’s bloody doing.”
    Dahl stopped , taking in the various scenes playing out around them. Dead ahead, people staggered out of the brightly lit front entrance of the Hotel Dillion amidst the sounds of gunfire. From the left, the two Secret Service agents were sprinting hard toward the hotel, shouting at a bunch of cops to follow them. The cops looked bewildered, their attention divided between the snarled-up traffic, the hordes of angry pedestrians, the scene of Gates’ murder and the frantic Secret Service agents. In the midst of all this mayhem, it had to have crossed every cop’s mind that even the agents might not be who they appeared to be. And to the right, the wide street stretched into a nightmare vision of floodlit chaos, the road snarled and jammed up, hordes of men and women thronging every available space, all the way to the White House.
    “Jesus Christ,” Dahl breathed, standing still for a minute. “This is just crazy. It’s like . . . the end of the world.”
    Men , women and officials rushed all around them. Strident, purposeless cries cut the air, nothing more than blunt knives. Sirens squalled like errant gusts of wind. And the aimless and the shocked stood all around, dumbfounded, staring at nothing.
    Drake ignored it, and tried to contact Hayden again. When he got no answer he decided to try Karin. The phone rang twice before it was picked up.
    “Matt? Thank God, are you okay?”
    Drake let out a long breath. There was no way to steal himself for this next conversation. And as badly as he wanted to know what was happening at their end, he knew he had to tell her everything he knew first.
    “Karin —”
    “The whole fucking world ’s gone crazy, Matt. Romero’s dead. Hayden’s dying. We’re in hiding. And I can’t get hold of Ben, or Mum and Dad. Why can’t I get hold of them?”
    Drake felt the cent er of his very being wobble. Romero? And . . . and Hayden? He wanted to speak, but found his tongue just wouldn’t work. All of a sudden the craziness around him didn’t matter anymore.
    “Fuck me ,” he said at last, and suddenly found himself sitting down right there in the midst of the mayhem on the city street.
    Lost.
    “Matt? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so blunt. I’m so glad you’re okay. How are the others?”
    Drake ignored the half-hysterical flurry of questions. “It’s bad news, Karin,” he said with heavy emotion. “Ben and your Mum and Dad . . . they’re gone. They were killed.” The last word came out so thick with grief Drake started to cough.
    Karin screamed at him. She cried and denied him until her voice drifted away and another came on the phone.
    “Drake. This is Smyth. Komodo, Karin and Kinimaka are incommunicado right now. You need to get over here,