David Leadbeater
The Lost Kingdom
This one is for my family
CHAPTER ONE
Callan Dudley was the youngest member of the 27-Club — a seven-strong gang of crazy Irishmen whose sanest known act in eight years was to make a blood pact that, when they all finally came together again in Hell, they would dance a healthy jig on the Devil’s balls.
His brother, Malachi, at thirty five, was the oldest.
Callan Dudley hadn’t seen his crew in about a year. Though they were a gang they didn’t exactly run together. At least, not in several years. The members drifted apart, did their own thing for a while, then came together somewhere down the line, in some merciless, dark rat hole of a public house where even the vermin stayed out of the dark corners for fear of being killed and eaten by the patrons. There they partied loud and cursed violently and drank themselves into a rare, dreamless stupor.
Dudley’s time with the Pythians had been diverting at least, at times even entertaining. The mercs he ran with were assholes to a man, in the game solely for money and motivated only by their own greed. Every last one of them deserved to die and rot in Purgatory, forgotten even by their own whore-bag, soulless mothers. His enemies, however — now they were a different matter.
Alicia Myles, the female who had beaten him at his own game, sprang to the forefront of his mind. Truth be told she was never far away. And the rest of her comrades. He would be learning more about them very soon.
First things first, however. There was the small matter of his recent incarceration and the imminent transportation to a so-called American ‘black site’. Not that they had officially told him anything, but he kept up with the times. If he allowed this to happen the black site would be the least of his worries.
So what to do? Escape. Sure, but that wasn’t easy when you were clapped in enough iron to take down Tony Stark. Time was his enemy. Not opportunity, you could create those. Not guards, he could destroy those. And not environment, the place didn’t matter. It was the precise when of it all that would carry the day.
Dudley bunched his muscles when the irons were applied. Stared the guards down as they escorted him along a white-walled corridor. Called their mothers bitches and whores as was expected. None of it mattered. On the surface he was just another dangerous Irish asshole prisoner, seeing the light of day for the last time. Underneath he was as watchful as a starving predator. The corridor led to a low-ceilinged, underground parking lot. Black sedans, SUVs and 4x4s stood everywhere, many of them with engines running and filling the area with their noxious exhaust fumes.
The guard to his right — bright-eyed, young, relatively new to the game since he looked about twenty five and hadn’t been knee-deep in mayhem since the age of eight — turned to him.
“Take a last look around, dipshit. This’ll be the last thing you ever see that ain’t got a set of bars in front of it.”
Dudley headbutted him. It was expected.
The guard fell away, his free hand coming up to cup his bloodied nose.
“Be thankful it weren’t yer feckin’ balls got crushed,” Dudley snarled.
Men dragged him further into the parking lot and toward a nondescript SUV. The only thing different about it was the blacked-out windows but sometimes, that one singular feature was more than enough. Dudley held in the smile. Maybe it sported government plates too? No matter, the target was already painted on the roof.
Settling in, Dudley allowed the seat belt to be fastened and two burly guards to flank him in the back. Two more climbed into the front: driver and passenger. The latter, a bearded seasoned individual turned to face him.
“Go along to get along,” he said. “If you need to speak address me as Guard Winston. We ain’t here to damage you. Nod if you understand.”
Dudley nodded, happy to conform. A bag was thrust over his head, making it hard to breathe. The vehicle started and drove up a sharp incline, then out into traffic. Cruising the streets of DC, probably headed up toward Silver Springs or Bethesda. Dudley retained a clear sense of direction, not that it mattered too much at the moment.
Events were out of his hands.
The transport continued in silence until Guard Winston radioed in their progress about an hour into the journey. By then they were navigating country roads, slowing for tight bends and passing no traffic in either direction. Dudley used the time to reflect on what he considered to be a rather storied past. What had led him to this exciting juncture in life?
Family. Of course. His father had been Irish Mob, killed by the British. Uncles? Still engaged in the fight. Mother? Rotting away in some undisclosed, hateful English town someplace with her new prick of a husband. One day Dudley dreamed of taking the entire 27-Club to visit both of them, just for the night.
Party time.
Dudley was ready, though even he was shocked by the ferocity of it. The distinctly unlikely chance that the Pythians were engineering his escape dissipated to nothing as soon as the first explosion occurred. This was 27-Club discretion and refinement if ever he’d experienced it.
The first explosion rocked the car, sending it up onto two wheels, just as the driver was steering wildly and trying to brake. Dudley was jerked against his seat belt, at the same time trying to wedge himself between the two rear guards to minimize injury. The car flipped, crashing down onto its right-hand side with a crunch of metal and screams from the guards. At forty miles an hour it scraped along the asphalt, rapidly decelerating. Dudley hung on as best he could, still sandwiched. The guards grunted and shifted, well-trained despite their non-Irish affiliations and knowing full well what was coming next.
By the time the second explosion went off, the car was already bouncing. Dudley imagined the mines had been laid in holes dug out of the asphalt, then roughly covered over again until the target vehicle passed over. How had the lads known the route? Well, when all this blew over the Americans would probably find one of their guards was missing, unable to get out of bed because he was strapped down and full of holes.
Dudley crushed the man below him without mercy, trying at the very least to impede his shooting arm. Metal crunched, rasped and grated all around him, fragments of glass lashing at his face. The back end of the vehicle came around, smashing into a hillside verge. All of a sudden the front end whipped around. Dudley was thrown forward, the front of his head leaving the back far behind and seeing stars.
At last, the SUV ground to a halt.
The follow-up assault was instantaneous. Though he couldn’t see their faces, or anything at all, Dudley just knew the boots he heard stomping outside belonged to the craziest lads in the business.
The boys are back!
With that thought blasting through his head he began to lurch to and fro within the confines of the seatbelt, smashing between the seat in front and the headrest at back. At least one guard turned their attention toward him.
“The hell you doin’, man?”
“Gettin’ in the feckin’ mood, man.”
Dudley smashed his head even harder.
Guard Winston kicked out the windshield with his feet, ensuring his firearm was at the ready. The black boots out there disappeared from sight. The car’s driver looked over at Winston.
“Whaddya think?”
“Can’t hang around here all day. The distress button’s been pressed. Now let’s get ourselves free.”
Dudley leaned on the guard below as those in the front seats crawled clear of the wreckage. Up on their knees, casting around, they said nothing. The third guard elbowed Dudley.