David Leadbeater
The Blood King Conspiracy
DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this book to my daughter,
Megan,
‘brighter than the sun and moon…’
And to all the wonderful, selfless #Indie authors who support me every day on Twitter. You know who you are.
CHAPTER ONE
Hayden Jaye dimmed the lights as she entered her private alcove of the living room she was sharing with five lethal men.
Her laptop shone brightly, gently whirring to itself as if in anticipation of the upcoming attention.
Hopefully, so was Ben Blake.
Hayden typed in Ben’s Skype address before taking a moment to scan the room. She was tired and worn. This assignment was, in the words of her boss — the Secretary of Defence — not only a career maker, but a potential career killer too. In more ways than one.
It was by far the biggest and most dangerous she had ever tackled. Her fellow CIA agent, the massive Hawaiian, Mano Kinimaka, had heard whispers the entire agency was abuzz with the implications of it.
Some agents were taking bets…
Hayden tapped the laptop, imagining the connection firing itself off around the globe towards the UK. She spoke to Ben every day, job permitting, and for the most part she was loving it. She found herself missing his boyish charm, his innocence. Sometimes, she even found herself thinking about him during work. But then she forced herself to stop and remember the promise she had made to her father, and considered never contacting Ben Blake again.
But, for now, the thrill drove her on.
Ben’s smiling face came scarily close to the screen, his long hair whipping past. For a computer geek he really didn’t get this Skype thing.
“Killed anyone today?” His grin showed he didn’t get the grown-up thing either.
“There’s time,” Hayden said through gritted teeth, then actually found herself almost grinning back. What the hell…?
“So what did you do?” Ben was floundering already. To give him his due it was hard work, this digital-interaction thing. When you talked this way every night you soon ran out of things to say.
Hayden cast a glance at her five-man team busy playing poker, standing guard, and texting loved-ones. “We did ok,” she said softly. “No one here knew how deep this thing went and no one knew how high the stakes were. Well, today we learned a little, and we’re doing… ok.” Learned a little? She thought. Biggest understatement since the words ‘Houston, we have a problem’ were uttered.
“Good. Umm… Matt and Kennedy say Hi. How’s Miami?”
“Excellent,” Hayden rubbed her forehead tiredly. “Say it back for me. And Miami’s Miami. Doesn’t change a lot.”
“Cool. Hey, you ok?”
“I guess so. Jonathan’s having a tough time up on the Hill. He’s fighting budget cuts versus young marine’s lives. That sort of thing.”
“The Wall of Sleep are, at the time of talking, number 96 on the Indie chart.”
Hayden didn’t miss the self-indulgent change of subject. “If only we could all have earned our fame from a single incident,” she said, then kicked herself. Ben’s band had earned itself a name and a record deal directly because of his involvement in what everyone now referred to as the ‘Odin thing’.
And, truth be told, he deserved it.
“Sorry, man, it’s tense down here.”
“No worries, Hay. I miss you.”
Hayden was about to reply, her demeanour softening, when her number two in the team, Kinimaka, hissed a warning at them all. It was the code-word for ‘be alert, unknown contact.’ Now Kinimaka was known and teased as the loveable giant, the not-too-bright muscle of their crack team, but when Mano Kinimaka issued a warning, you shot to attention.
Hayden left Ben talking to air, instantly alert, and glided towards the centre of the room. All eyes were on Kinimaka who was scrutinizing the security system that guarded the Miami-based CIA safe-house.
“Shadows,” he was saying, his voice thick with a strong Hawaiian accent. “Clever shadows,” he turned a steely gaze on them. “I don’t like the look of this.”
Hayden’s mind was calm. Clever shadows. The people out there were specialists. She motioned quickly to the others in her team — Wyatt Godwin, Bowers, Mawby and Carrick.
“Getcha positions, guys. Move.”
She picked up a rectangular receiver that lay like an ant crawling on a mountain against Kinimaka’s trunk-like arm, and punched the button. Resounding thumps sounded out as unseen deadlocks bolted, and shutters fastened together.
The receiver also acted as a panic button. The CIA were already mobilising.
“Eight minutes, max,” Hayden said as reassuringly as she could. She cast another glance over Kinimaka’s shoulder.
Nothing moved out there. The Hawaiian screwed his face up and sent a confused shrug at her. “Maybe-”
In the next dreadful moment Hayden heard a sound she could hardly comprehend. The staccato pounding of all the locks being clicked back. The clunk of the shutters opening.
But she held the only remote, and the codes were known to only a few at Langley…
Mayhem scattered her thoughts. Men with masks and bodysuits came flooding fluidly through the door. Another loud noise and she knew the rear door had been blown in. Within ten seconds one of the best CIA teams in the U.S. was stunned and floundering.
But they were not lost.
Mano Kinimaka bellowed, picked up the surveillance table, and threw it overhand at the invaders. Wires, consoles and router boxes clattered to the floor and smashed against the walls as the massive object arced through the air before crashing into and taking down half a dozen men. Grunts and cries rent the air.
Kinimaka leapt towards them.
Hayden rolled as the gunfire started. Masked men came at her from three sides. She came up hard and clunked one in the face with her gun, side-stepped another, and shot the third point blank. He crumpled instantly, blood painting the air where his body had stood a second before.
Noisy hell surrounded her.
Men yelling. Guns exploding. Bullets ricocheting and tearing apart everything they encountered. Kinimaka had launched his bulk towards the door, seemingly in an attempt to block it, but the enemy kept pushing in. Jeez, how many of these bastards were there?
Three of them hit Kinimaka hard. The loveable giant crumpled. Hayden felt a three-pronged jolt of fear and hate and adrenalin. If they hurt Mano, they would pay. She bounded over a still-writhing body, shooting two bullets into the legs of the man closest to her. She peeled him off Kinimaka and threw his bulk aside, then levelled her pistol at the next guy’s forehead.
Knowing she couldn’t wait she pulled the trigger. Blood, brain matter and bone exploded and blew back in her face. She snarled. Kinimaka had the third guy by the neck, a big man but just a scrawny chicken in the Hawaiian’s hands. The guy’s eyes bulged like giant marbles. Kinimaka shook him until his neck broke and threw him to the floor.
Six more masked men squeezed through the door. Hayden fired until her clip was empty. She heard her team backing her up. Bullets whizzed by, and she heard the terrible screams of her colleagues behind her.
More enemy figures pushed in from the back door. Guns bristled in more hands than she could count. The heavy atmosphere in the room suddenly became overwhelming, as thick as liquefied guilt, and the CIA agents began to see that they had been outnumbered and out-thought.
Hayden slowly lowered her weapon. She sensed more than saw Kinimaka as he stood down for a moment, but knew he was coiled and ready for the next order.