The man collapsed without another sound.
To his left Mai had jabbed two men in swift succession. Both doubled-over with stomach wounds, surprise plastered across their faces. Drake swiftly used a stranglehold to incapacitate one whilst Mai knocked out the other.
“Go.” Drake hissed. They might not know it, but these were still the Blood King’s men. They were lucky Drake was in a hurry.
They moved back into the hallway and down to another room. As they slipped inside, Drake caught sight of the kitchen. Men were crammed in there, all staring at something on a low table. The sound of rap music pounding from inside was so loud, Drake almost expected it to come walking out to greet him. Mai bounded ahead. By the time Drake entered the room, she had already felled one man and was on to the next. A guy with a thick beard confronted Drake, revolver already in hand.
“What did you do—?”
Training was everything in the art of fighting, and Drake’s was returning faster than a politician could dodge a key question. Instantly, he snapped his foot up, struck the revolver from the man’s hands, then stepped in and caught it in mid-air.
He reversed the weapon.
“Live by the sword.” He fired. Buchanan’s man fell backward in an artistic spray. Mai and Alicia immediately scooped up other discarded firearms as someone shouted from the kitchen. “Hey, fools! What the fuck you doin?”
Drake grinned. The discharge of firearms was not unheard of in this house it seemed. Good. He approached the door.
“Two,” He whispered, indicating that the door space afforded just two of them the space to maneuver. Mai fell in behind.
“Let’s put these dogs down.” Drake and Alicia stepped out firing, aiming for the forest of legs that surrounded the table.
Blood sprayed and bodies folded to the floor. Drake and Alicia moved forward, knowing shock and awe would confuse and intimidate their opponents. One of Buchanan’s guards leapt over the low table and barged into Alicia, sending her flying. Mai stepped into the breach, defending as the guard jabbed at her twice. Mai caught each blow on a forearm before bringing her gun down hard on the bridge of his nose.
Alicia was back in the fray. “I had him.”
“Oh, I’m sure you did, sweetie.”
“Blow me.” Alicia trained her gun on the groaning, weeping men. “Anyone else want to try? Hmm?”
Drake was staring at the low table and its contents. Piles of C4 littered the surface in various stages of preparation.
What on earth was the Blood King planning?
“Which one of you is Buchanan?”
No one answered.
“I have a deal for Buchanan.” Drake shrugged. “But if he’s not here, then I guess we’ll have to shoot you all.” He shot the nearest man in the stomach.
Uproar filled the room. Even Mai stared at him in astonishment. “Matt—”
He snarled at her. “No names.”
“I’m Buchanan.” A man with his back against the big fridge gasped as he pressed hard on a bullet wound. “C’mon, man. We ain’t hurt you.”
Drake’s finger tightened on the trigger. It required a massive amount of self-control not to fire. “You haven’t hurt me?” He jumped forward and deliberately knelt on the leaking wound. “You haven’t hurt me?”
Bloodlust filled his vision. Inconsolable grief stabbed at his brain and heart. “Tell me,” he said thickly. “Tell me where Claude is or, so help me, I will blow your brains all over this fucking fridge.”
Buchanan’s eyes didn’t lie. Fear of death rendered his ignorance transparent. “I know Claude’s friends,” he whimpered. “But I don’t know Claude. I could give you his friends. Yes, I can give you them.”
Drake listened as he spilled two names and their whereabouts. Scarberry and Peterson. Only when that information was fully extracted did he indicate the table full of C4.
“What are you doing here? Getting ready to start a war?”
The answer stunned him. “Well, yes. The battle of Hawaii’s about to begin, man.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ben Blake walked into the tiny office he shared with his sister to find Karin standing by the window. “Hey, sis.”
“Hi. Just look at this, Ben. A Hawaiian sunrise.”
“We should be at the beach. Everyone goes there for sunrise and sunset.”
“Oh, do they?” Karin eyed her brother with a little sarcasm. “Look that up on the internet did you?”
“Well, now we’re here I’d like to get out of this stuffy place and meet some locals.”
“What for?”
“I never met a Hawaiian.”
“Mano’s a friggin’ Hawaiian, dumbo. Jeez, sometimes I wonder if I got both our allowance of brain cells.”
Ben knew it was useless to start a battle of wits with his sister. He drank in the glorious sight for a few minutes before heading out the door to pour them both a coffee. When he returned, Karin was already booting their computers up.
Ben placed the mugs next to their keyboards. “You know, I’m looking forward to this.” He rubbed his hands. “Searching for Captain Cook’s logs, I mean. This is real detective work because we’re looking for what’s hidden away, not what’s obvious.”
“We do know there are no references on the web that tie Cook to Diamond Head, or Leahi, to the Hawaiians. We know that Diamond Head is but one of a series of cones, vents, tunnels and lava tubes that run underneath Oahu.”
Ben sipped the hot coffee. “We also know that Cook landed at Kauai, in the town of Waimea. Points to note about Waimea — there’s a canyon there awesome enough to rival the Grand Canyon. The locals of Kauai coined the phrase Hawaii’s original visitor destination, as a cheeky taunt toward Oahu. Cook’s statue stands in Waimea near a very small museum.”
“The other thing we know,” Karin responded. “Is that Captain Cook’s logs and journals are right here.” She tapped her computer. “Online.”
Ben sighed and started flicking through the first of the extensive journals. “Let the fun begin.” He plugged his earphones in and sat back.
Karin stared at him. “Turn it down. Is that the Wall of Sleep? And another cover? Someday, little brother, you’re going to have to get those new tracks down and stop wasting away your five minutes of fame.”
“Don’t talk to me about wasting your time away, sis. We all know you’re the master of that.”
“You intend to bring that up again? Now?”
“It’s been five years.” Ben turned the music up and concentrated on his computer. “Five years of ruin. Don’t let what happened back then wreck the next ten.”
Running on no sleep and minimal rest, Drake, Mai and Alicia decided to take a short break. Drake had been receiving calls from Hayden and Kinimaka since about an hour after the sun came up. The mute button soon resolved that problem.
They rented a room in Waikiki. It was a big Outrigger hotel, packed with tourists, allowing them a high level of anonymity. They ate quickly at a local Denny’s, then headed to their hotel where they took an elevator to their room on the eight floor.
Once inside, Drake relaxed. He knew the benefits of fuelling up on food and rest. He curled into an easy chair near the window, basking as the clear Hawaiian sun bathed him through the French windows.
“You two can fight over the bed,” he murmured without looking around. “Someone set an alarm for two hours.”
With that, he allowed his thoughts to drift away, calm with the knowledge that they had an address on two men who were as close to Claude as anyone could be. Calm with the knowledge that Claude led straight to the Blood King.
Calm with the knowledge that bloody vengeance was only hours away.