Kinimaka’s stomach flipped. He snatched at the phone. “What happened?”
“Mano? It’s Special Agent Collins. I’m sorry to say that another attempt was made on Kono’s life earlier today. She-
“Is she okay?” Kinimaka all but screamed.
Collins breathed. “She’s fine. We took them all out,” she paused. “With a little help. But we saved her. You owe me a dance, Mr. Kinimaka.”
Kinimaka sat down hard. “Oh, thank God. Thank you. And what do you mean — a little help?”
“Ever hear of Aaron Trent?”
Kinimaka surfed his brain waves. “Trent. Trent? Wasn’t he part of that CIA group that was disavowed?”
“You got it. Well, Trent, he owes me more than a few dances too and lately he’s finally gotten around to settling up. I received the alert from Kono’s detail and headed over there, but by the time we arrived on scene half of our team were wounded or dead. Aaron came with me—”
Kinimaka blinked. “Was that wise?”
“Oh, he’s good,” Collins confessed. “When I first got this LA gig I thought it was all about busting his team’s balls, and I came through, believe me. But they’re good people. Hard. Clever. Dependable. Damn, I wish half my colleagues were a quarter as good.”
“Good to know.”
“So, we come upon the scene and the whole house is going up in flames. Masked men can be seen through the windows. I head for the front door. Trent just races and leaps through the shattered window, lands and neutralizes two men before I get to him. The third I pop and we’re heading for the stairs. At that point Kono herself comes flying down, on fire. Flames literally blazing up and down her entire back.”
Kinimaka closed his eyes, distraught.
“Trent jumps on her, putting her out with his coat and his body. I shoot over the top of their hunched forms, taking down man after man. They collapse down the stairs, already catching fire. We back out. Trent throws Kono over his shoulder. I fend off an overgrown brute with a goatee. We head outside, grabbing what’s left of our team. At the start of the driveway we come under fire, bullets hammering the ground around us from the second floor windows. We’re trapped for as long as those goons realize the house is burning down all around them, until they get the message that they’re actually gonna die screaming.” She paused and took another breath.
“Still,” she breathed. “Doesn’t help us. We’d be dead in about two more minutes. The goons have autos trained on us. The only reason they haven’t hit us is because they’re fucking useless shots and we’re crouched down low like a row of husbands during a brothel raid. All is lost. And then…”
Kinimaka’s eyes were wide. “Yes?”
“The rest of the Disavowed show up like fuckin’ super heroes. Silk and his new woman, a cop called Brewster, and Dan Radford. They peppered that house with 16mms, round after round, obliterating the goons from the face of the earth. Man, I’ve lost count of the number of battles I’ve fought with those guys, but they always take it to the max.”
“Thank you,” Kinimaka whispered. “Thank them for me. Is Kono with you now?”
“No, she’s at Radford’s place. Don’t worry, he’s back with his wife. Again.”
Kinimaka didn’t know what to say. His most heartfelt thanks wouldn’t do this justice. Instead he gave her what he could. “Whatever you guys need. Anywhere. Anytime. Just ask. The SPEAR team is well connected in DC… for now,” he added as an afterthought. “Don’t hesitate to call me.”
Collins laughed. “I won’t.”
Kinimaka replaced the receiver in its cradle and looked around. “Kono was attacked again but she’s okay. By the Great Kahuna’s balls I’ll be glad when this is all over.”
Hayden checked the time. “Won’t be long,” she said. “I wonder how they’re doing.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Drake checked his wrist. “Damn, I’ll never get used to not wearing a watch.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you with a timepiece on your wrist,” Dahl said.
“Not since I left the regiment,” Drake said. “Long time now, mate.”
“Are you hinting?” Mai asked lightly. “I don’t take hints very well.”
“Hear, hear,” Alicia mumbled.
The rumbles and bursts of arms had died away. The team had considered rushing to the aid of the locals, but had decided the four remaining assassins and the upcoming arrival of Coyote was the greater priority. Dahl was engrossed in his big piece of plastic.
“I have two signals now at the castle,” he said. “Neither moving. On the one hand these two could have become trapped by each other, neither wanting to make the first move, which is kind of ironic. On the other they could both be dug in waiting for somebody to test them.”
Alicia made a pretense of shielding her eyes and looking up at the castle. “Let’s not disappoint them.”
Drake agreed. “It’s oh two hundred hours. Most of the town is asleep. The castle is a safe place to fight.”
“Let’s hope none of the local youths think so too.” Alicia followed Dahl up a narrow alleyway.
“If they do,” Drake’s disembodied voice said behind her. “It’ll either kill ‘em or cure ‘em.”
Up they went until the alleyway opened onto a wider road, bordered by houses and garages. It was the kind of street where the front windows of a house practically sat above the sidewalk, not good for the privacy of residents or would-be skulkers. The four of them passed swiftly, soon reaching the top of the hill and approaching the castle walls.
The battlements were high where they still stood intact, cracked and crumbled in other places. A shallow moat encircled the walls. Drake spied a gate to the left. Dahl pointed to the right.
“Walls are so damaged over there we could sneak across.”
Drake nodded. “All ways in are compromised,” he said. “We make the best of it.”
It was all they could do. None of them wanted to be here, forcibly pitted against hardened killers, but it wasn’t in any of them to lurk and hide. Leave that for prowlers, cutthroats and gutter rats. Drake led the way across a deteriorated, jagged wall, squeezing between the broken stones and slipping down the other side onto a well-cut sward of grass. Instantly, he crouched down in the shadows cast by the wall, surveying the area. The castle was almost circular, its walls irregular. A tall keep sat in the middle, broken-down but with its remains standing on top of a high hillock. A manmade wooden switchback staircase led to the top. Beyond it was a delve in the earth, almost like a wide drain, that led to an original barred grating and several seemingly irregular portions of inner wall, most of them covered in rustling foliage.
Drake cast around, feeling exposed. Dahl crouched next to him, tracking device in hand. “If they’ve seen us,” the Swede said. “Surely they will move.” He checked his watch. “Twelve minutes is up.”
He switched the screen on, taking in the flashing dots. “Still two in the castle. Almost on top of each other, but the scale is relatively small. One of them—” he glared hard at the screen. “Is in the very center of the castle.” He looked up at the high keep. “There.”
Drake searched through the gloom at the top of the grassy hill. To make matters worse the battered remains of the structure up there offered many low walls to hide behind and two tall, jagged rocky rectangles.
“Any clues?”
“Hey, Mai’s the bloody ninja,” Alicia hissed. “Send her up. I’d be amazed if she doesn’t come down with the assassin’s head and another small child. Ah, screw it.”
With that Alicia started up the steep slope. Instantly, the challenge was accepted. From the murk above a heavy, sudden boom rang out, a deep, resonating twang like an industrial strength rubber band being fired and Drake saw something lift into the night.