Free The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake 6) by David Leadbeater Page A

had come within an inch of his skull as it whipped past.
    “I ’ll finish ‘em.” Alicia scrambled after the battered vehicle.
    Mai squeezed her trigger as men jumped from the second vehicle. One fell backwards, slamming hard against the bodywork before slumping lifelessly. Dahl uttered a satisfied grunt as he took out another. Then a third stepped around the hood, RPG cradled across his shoulder. As he pulled the trigger, Hayden or Kinimaka took his head off with a double-shot – the RPG aimed straight up as its operator fell – the grenade screamed high up into the air like a flare before falling down through a small arc and exploding against a rocky outcrop.
    Mai heard more shots and much cursing as Alicia dispatched the guards still trapped in the second truck. That left only two remaining. “They’ll be radioing for help.”
    Drake pulled a face. “I doubt they can have many more guards to send. They still have to run the jail.”
    “I meant from other connections,” Mai explained carefully, making Drake feel a little foolish. “Razin clearly owns part of the Russian government.”
    “If they did, they ’d have told him you were coming to free me,” Drake said.
    “They didn ’t have enough time,” Dahl said with a wicked grin. “Hey, good to see you, ya bloody Yorkshire terrier.”
    Drake took the proffered hand with a grin of his own. Alicia slapped him across the back of the head as she returned.
    “How the hell did they snatch you in the first friggin’ place? Did you stop sleeping with a gun under your pillow?”
    Drake thought back to the abduction. “It was our fault,” he admitted. “We got complacent.”
    “Too much Mai-time?”
    “Is that possible?”
    “I wouldn’t know.” Alicia sniffed. “But you sure interrupted me at a delicate moment.”
    “Delicate? You?”
    “Well, if you must know , Lomas was just—”
    Hayden ran up to them, Kinimaka a step behind. “We should go. Now.”
    Mai indicated the truck slewed across the road ahead. “There are two still alive out there.”
    “Makes no difference. If they return to the jail we’ve got ‘em off our backs. If they follow our asses we can ambush them. Main thing is – let’s get the truck outta here.” She pointed at the vehicle they had arrived in. “That truck.”
    Kinimaka laughed. Alicia scowled at him. “Mano. What the hell have you done to her? Though clearly not English, she at least used to seem human.”
    ****
    Within three hours they were installed inside one of the CIA’s Moscow-based safe houses. The last of the prison guards hadn’t bothered to follow them, leaving the rest of their getaway uneventful. Drake had asked that all questions be delayed until they were safe and could relax a little, so, after showering, eating and spending a few moments with Mai, the team gathered in various poses around the front room. Curtains were drawn against the dark and prying eyes. All exits were locked and watched over by a central CCTV system. Alarms were activated.
    Kinimaka stood by the window. Through the gap between the material and the plaster wall, he had a good view of the street outside. The big man didn ’t take any chances at safe houses. He still had nightmares about the one assaulted by Boudreau and the Blood King’s small army.
    He listened as Drake described his first few hours of captivity. The Russians, Razin and Zanko, sounded like the type of men their team had been assembled to deal with. When Drake introduced Yorgi, Kinimaka studied the whip-like man with new eyes.
    A thief. An escaped felon. A resourceful procurer of goods. A sly, clever man with secret agendas.
    Alicia stated the obvious out loud. “So you helped Drake so he ’d drag your sorry carcass outta there? What now?”
    Yorgi bit hard into the burger he ’d been handed, clearly savoring something other than prison fodder. “Now? I have not thought so far—”
    “Balls,” Alicia said. “You thought very well.”
    Yorgi shrugged.