Free The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake 2) by David Leadbeater

Kinimaka just stared. Drake took a moment to shoot two adversaries who dared to peer around the bulkhead and then checked his weapon.
    Three-quarter empty. “Where the hell are the marines?” he wondered aloud.
    Then Hayden screamed, making Drake almost squeeze the trigger in alarm. A chopper had been drifting towards them, inch by inch, and now as it came within their warning range a man had leaned out and started shooting.
    “Boudreau?” Drake guessed.
    “The very motherfucker,” Kinimaka growled. “Fruit-bat crazy, that one. Pure fruit-bat.”
    A great claxon went off, louder than the shooting and the fighting and the death-cries of wounded men. It could only mean one thing. They had the device. Then ropes unravelled heavily from the chopper and struck the deck like big boa-constrictors all around them. All of a sudden men were abseiling down.
    Were they trying for Hayden again?
    Drake fired the machine-gun one handed, scooping up a knife with the other and walking towards the landing zone. Dead adversaries plummeted to the ship’s deck, bouncing hard.  Hayden emptied her clip too quickly, panic affecting her aim. This arsehole Boudreau really had her traumatized, no doubt his intentions when he so brutally executed her men.
    Kinimaka walked with them, waiting for the hand-to-hand. He didn’t have to wait long. Their enemies bounced lightly and sprang forward. Drake allowed one to land on his knife, then twisted and slashed another across the throat. He caught a blow on his chest and fired close-up, sending a man skidding back into his comrades, scattering and confusing them.
    A knife flashed.
    Drake let it pass through the gap between his arm and his chest without even blinking. The knife-wielder’s expression change from smug to terrified in a millisecond. It changed to agony one millisecond later.
    Kinimaka was at his side, an intimidating presence if ever there was one. Boudreau was leaning out of the chopper, being held up there only by his men, spittle flying from his lips.
    “Get him!” came the mad scream. “Can’t you fucksticks see him? He’s fuckin’ big enough!”
    Mano? Drake thought. They were after Mano Kinimaka? Not Hayden?
    “He’s desperate,” Kennedy’s voice came from close by. “The Blood King must have given him another chance.”
    More men came at them. Drake understood better now why they weren’t shooting. They wanted the Hawaiian alive. Never mind, it would accelerate their downfall.
    He front-kicked one man in the chest, heard ribs break. To his left and right, Kinimaka and Hayden used close-up fighting techniques. Boudreau’s team was good, and the melee soon turned into a stalemate, helped at Drake’s end by the limited corridor of attack his enemies were afforded by the bulkhead.
    Again the claxon sounded. “Fuck you!” Boudreau’s voice rang out, a madman on the verge of losing his last, tentative grip on reality. “Fucking useless meatheads!”
    And he started shooting indiscriminately. Several of his men went down. Blood slathered the deck. Boudreau laughed. “Fucking, ” he fired, killing a young mercenary with red hair. “Useless,” he fired again, sending another bullet into another subordinate. “Meatheads!” He fired twice more. Two more men collapsed, one with a hole in his head and his blood spattered across the rest of the living.
    “Get back! Are you deaf as well as useless?”
    The remaining men started to jog towards the port side. They must have some kind of makeshift disembarkation apparatus over there.
    Which is why they were defending that area so ruthlessly against Bradey and his men.
    Drake let them go. He had no interest in chasing down fleeing men. The chopper above them with its crazy occupant veered upwards and began to climb.
    Hayden was staring at Kinimaka. “What gives, Mano. Why’d that monster want you?”
     

 
     
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    The stakes had risen higher than ever and still they had no idea which mastermind was