“Where else?”
Through another door, the great improbable pile of loot sat largely undisturbed. The Russian machine still moved slowly it seemed, thank God. Drake blessed Moscow’s snail-pace bureaucracy, not for the first time in his career.
“You know,” he said, “the US should inventory this entire house whilst the Russkies are still flogging king of the hill with people’s lives over in the Ukraine. Who knows what treasures, what secrets, are buried in here?”
Mai nodded. “No argument there.”
With time ticking away they got down to do what they came for. Carefully, gingerly, they picked at the pile, discarding swords, Uzis, a whole chest full of mixed-up bullets, mortar shells, anti-tank guns, grenades in bunches like deadly pineapples, and more guns than even Drake could keep track of.
Several of which looked futuristic.
“I’ll give this to Zoya,” he said. “Girl sure knew how to party.”
“Not sure what you mean by that,” Mai said distractedly. “All I see around me is death and madness.”
Drake frowned. Something had certainly changed within Mai, and it had a lot to do with Tokyo. He saw her reading a leather-bound book. “What you got?”
“I’m not sure. Something about a Lionheart Treasure. Maybe for the future.”
Drake agreed. “Yeah. I keep seeing tomes relating to Pandora, plagues and there’s a newish pad here about something called the Pythians. And the Devil’s Pyramid. What the hell is that? I think if we don’t stay on topic we could be here for days.”
“Weeks,” Mai said. “So look out for Coyote, Kovalenko, Blood Vendetta. Stuff like that.”
“Last Man Standing,” Drake said, putting the pad aside. “That’s the name of the supposed tourney.”
Mai was plucking more distracting volumes out faster now, revealing even more treasures at the heart of Zoya’s pile. A bulky black chest, strapped down with leather fastenings and three enormous padlocks. A brass plate screwed to the top read: Le Comte De Saint Germain. Mai’s eyes widened to saucers, but she made herself ignore the huge chest, flicking through a sheaf of papers piled to its side.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing and nothing.”
“Bollocks,” Drake agreed with Yorkshire aplomb. “Bollocks and more bollocks. Look, Grannyzilla must have had a laptop or something. How else could she have communicated with Kovalenko’s lieutenants?”
Mai pursed her lips. “Could be. You go look for that. I’ll continue here.”
Drake rose, trying not to groan as the toll of the past year manifested itself in the deep aching of his joints and muscles. The sudden thought of pain brought forth an onset of guilt — at least he was still alive to feel this variety of emotions, unlike some of the heroes that had fallen along the way.
Take a moment.
After a while he moved out of the room, casting a searching eye around the kitchen. Zoya’s idiosyncrasies meant that a laptop could be hidden literally anywhere. Hang the rule book, the Russian monster had been an utter loon. The oven was the first place he looked, perhaps with more curiosity than expectation. Burned cookies stared back at him, their little charred faces drooping; a sight that filled him with a sudden unaccountable sadness.
It made him think of children, and all that he had lost in his life.
The tray had warped a little. Drake pulled the cookies out and placed them on top of the stove. The Russian driver, smoking a cigarette in the doorway, stared at him strangely.
Drake shrugged and turned away, quickly opening cupboards and checking shelves, then standing on top of chairs to inspect the harder to reach alcoves and hideaways. Dust dens and spiderwebs greeted him. Pretty soon, he crossed into the front room and began an inspection there. When the hunt still revealed nothing he gave an audible groan and went to find Mai.
“Damn. I got nothing. There’s only one place left to search. Do you fancy…”
Mai smiled sweetly. “Not a chance. Have fun. Oh, and be careful. Zoya was probably sexually active.”
Drake closed his eyes. “Thanks for that.”
He made his way warily to the woman’s bedroom. The big double bed was unmade, the dirty sheets rumpled. He tried to dismiss the sight of rubber-boot prints on the duvet at the foot of the bed. Such visualizations could lead to debase imaginings. The drawers were full of clothes, but at the bottom of the wardrobe, hidden by hanging coats and trousers, he found a sparkly new Lenovo.
Within a minute he had it laid out on a table and was calling Mai. The Japanese woman came through to see the welcome screen flashing up.
“Good luck with the password.”
“These days,” Drake said. “With Windows 8, most people leave their accounts logged in just as they do on their mobile phones. It’s quicker. I’m hoping…”
The front-page apps showed which e-mail account Zoya used most and flipped nicely open when Drake clicked on it. “Thank you, app developers,” he said. “For making all our accounts so much easier to access.”
Mai jabbed at the screen. “That folder there. DK. Dmitry Kovalenko. You know, until now, I actually thought this might be a huge waste of time.”
Drake opened the folder. Immediately half a dozen e-mails flashed up, all entitled Blood Vendetta. Drake quickly checked the ‘sent’ folder and noted that every single one had been forwarded. Zoya then was indeed the go-between, acting as a middle-monster between Kovalenko and Coyote.
He clicked on the last e-mail, scrolled to the bottom and started to read the exchanges. The contents were stark and grueling, sent at the Blood King’s behest for the attention of the world’s greatest assassin. Drake expected ghastliness and was not disappointed.
Mai read it without emotion. “It changes quickly from an exploratory message sent to Zoya that appears to contain several… code words?”
Drake nodded. “Yes. Some kind of security protocol that even then is vetted by the Russian before being forwarded to Coyote. But once established—” he didn’t need to continue.
“Yes, it’s pretty graphic. There’s a request from Kovalenko’s men to bring Coyote in, in the event of his death. It actually says ‘finish the job’, and ‘activate in the events of Dmitry’s death’. It’s real.” Mai hung her head. “Damn. I can’t believe that after all this, and with the bastard dead, this is all real.”
Drake linked her fingers. “Coyote was always going to be an obstacle that at some point would need addressing,” he said. “This way, we don’t get to put it off. We take her on directly.”
“So the big question, the one everyone’s been asking since Odin…” Mai left it hanging.
“Who is Coyote?”
“Yeah. I’m betting it’s Alicia.”
Drake didn’t smile. “Don’t forget what Coyote has done.”
Mai bowed almost imperceptibly. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. But what we have here, what we really have in a crazy way — is the first real proof that Coyote exists. And a way to backtrack. All we have to do is find out where Coyote’s e-mails originated from.”
Mai could have doused his sudden fire with a flood of pessimism, but chose not to. Drake silently thanked her. He knew the chances of her using her own personal channels were practically zero at the moment. But there was another problem.
“Damn. We can’t ask Karin, can we? Bollocks. She’d have this cracked in about ten minutes.”
“Is there anyone else?”
Drake let out a breath. “Yeah. Of course. Dozens of people. Hundreds, probably. We do have the resources of the US government. But—” he shook his head. “Someone I would trust with information like this?”
He fell silent. Mai watched his face. Something this important, this sensitive, required a Karin or a Ben. Or even a Jonathan Gates. A proven trustworthy warrior that could be relied upon to do it right. Truth be told, Mai couldn’t think of a single person.