The winged dagger matt d.., p.1
The Winged Dagger (Matt Drake 32), page 1
The Winged Dagger
(Matt Drake #32)
By
David Leadbeater
Other Books by David Leadbeater:
The Matt Drake Series
A constantly evolving, action-packed romp based in the escapist action-adventure genre:
The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)
The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake #2)
The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)
The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake #4)
Brothers in Arms (Matt Drake #5)
The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake #6)
Blood Vengeance (Matt Drake #7)
Last Man Standing (Matt Drake #8)
The Plagues of Pandora (Matt Drake #9)
The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake #10)
The Ghost Ships of Arizona (Matt Drake #11)
The Last Bazaar (Matt Drake #12)
The Edge of Armageddon (Matt Drake #13)
The Treasures of Saint Germain (Matt Drake #14)
Inca Kings (Matt Drake #15)
The Four Corners of the Earth (Matt Drake #16)
The Seven Seals of Egypt (Matt Drake #17)
Weapons of the Gods (Matt Drake #18)
The Blood King Legacy (Matt Drake #19)
Devil’s Island (Matt Drake #20)
The Fabergé Heist (Matt Drake #21)
Four Sacred Treasures (Matt Drake #22)
The Sea Rats (Matt Drake #23)
Blood King Takedown (Matt Drake #24)
Devil’s Junction (Matt Drake #25)
Voodoo soldiers (Matt Drake #26)
The Carnival of Curiosities (Matt Drake #27)
Theatre of War (Matt Drake #28)
Shattered Spear (Matt Drake #29)
Ghost Squadron (Matt Drake #30)
A Cold Day in Hell (Matt Drake #31)
The Alicia Myles Series
Aztec Gold (Alicia Myles #1)
Crusader’s Gold (Alicia Myles #2)
Caribbean Gold (Alicia Myles #3)
Chasing Gold (Alicia Myles #4)
Galleon’s Gold (Alicia Myles #5)
The Torsten Dahl Thriller Series
Stand Your Ground (Dahl Thriller #1)
The Relic Hunters Series
The Relic Hunters (Relic Hunters #1)
The Atlantis Cipher (Relic Hunters #2)
The Amber Secret (Relic Hunters #3)
The Hostage Diamond (Relic Hunters #4)
The Rocks of Albion (Relic Hunters #5)
The Illuminati Sanctum (Relic Hunters #6)
The Illuminati Endgame (Relic Hunters #7)
The Atlantis Heist (Relic Hunters #8)
The Joe Mason Series
The Vatican Secret (Joe Mason #1)
The Demon Code (Joe Mason #2)
The Midnight Conspiracy (Joe Mason #3)
The Rogue Series
Rogue (Book One)
The Disavowed Series:
The Razor’s Edge (Disavowed #1)
In Harm’s Way (Disavowed #2)
Threat Level: Red (Disavowed #3)
The Chosen Few Series
Chosen (The Chosen Trilogy #1)
Guardians (The Chosen Trilogy #2)
Heroes (The Chosen Trilogy #3)
Short Stories
Walking with Ghosts (A short story)
A Whispering of Ghosts (A short story)
All genuine comments are very welcome at:
davidleadbeater2011@hotmail.co.uk
Twitter: @dleadbeater2011
Visit David’s website for the latest news and information:
davidleadbeater.com
Contents
Other Books by David Leadbeater
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Other Books by David Leadbeater
CHAPTER ONE
The tall man with the broad shoulders, salt and pepper hair, easy way of standing and eyes that glittered like twin black holes of evil, held up a hand. His name was Brandon Mawle, also known as the Paymaster. Beside him stood another man, this one with long blonde hair tied in a tail, a gaunt, pale face and blue eyes that glittered whenever they knew violence and bloodshed was on the horizon. They were glittering now. He was also a tall man, and his size gave him the appearance of a living skeleton. Nobody liked to get too close to Villiers. To top it off, he spoke in a whispery voice, an undertone with a hard edge. The legend was he’d once had botched throat surgery and had buried the doctor who’d performed it.
Buried him alive, that was.
Mawle and Villers were a dangerous pair, a match made in Hell. Mawle was obviously the boss, but Villiers complimented him in his malevolence. Tonight, they were both staring in the same direction.
At a filthy-looking man who wore handcuffs. There was dirt in his hair and plastered across his face and ripped clothes. The man was sweating, his eyes wide, his whole body prepared for flight.
‘You can run soon,’ Villiers said in that scratchy voice. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Why am I here?’ the man’s voice quavered.
Mawle sighed. ‘Get yourself together, soldier. Your life depends on giving it your best now.’
He enjoyed playing on their fears, watching the shadowy expressions cross their features. This was just the latest in a long line of soldiers.
‘Why did you kidnap me?’ the man asked.
Mawle stared at the man who was standing about thirty feet away from them. ‘Kidnap?’ he repeated. ‘We took you away from your street hovel. Fed you. Watered you. Strengthened you. Gave you a roof over your head. We are not the American government,’ he said. ‘We look after our own.’
The man narrowed his eyes. ‘I know you’re not the government,’ he said. ‘And you have nothing to do with the honest principles of this good country.’
‘So you cling dearly to the image of a honourable, principled America,’ Mawle said. ‘Even after what they did to you.’
The man, whose name they knew was Brennan, didn’t break eye contact. ‘Not the country,’ he said. ‘I stand by my fellow man. My brothers. The men I fought alongside.’
Mawle nodded. ‘And how many of your brothers are alive today?’
Brennan bowed his head. It was the reason for how he lived. Mawle probed deeper. ‘Were you a sole survivor?’
Brennan shuffled his feet and said nothing. His shoulders drooped and his body sagged. He didn’t need to say a word.
‘Look around you,’ Mawle said. ‘What do you think happens next?’
Brennan looked up. They were all standing in a wide clearing in a thick forest. They had walked fifteen minutes along rambling paths to get here. The ground was hard brown dirt and brush, the trees all huddled around as if standing guard. It was quiet out here except for a howling wind that blew through the forest, as if chasing its own screaming tail. Mawle knew Brennan had to feel intimidated, but that was kind of the point.
Mawle had fifteen men at his back. Some were on foot, some on motorbikes, two on ATV’s, which admittedly didn’t stand much of a chance in the forest. This didn’t include Villiers, who was standing in his skeletal way, holding a large gun that was currently pointed at the ground.
‘Well, Brennan,’ Villiers hissed. ‘Are you ready?’
The night sky above was black and empty. No stars were visible and no clouds either. It was as if someone had stolen the celestial markers away. Mawle didn’t particularly like it – he was used to hunting his men and women under a gleaming vault or a cloud-struck arch of grey-blackness – but he wouldn’t let it affect his enjoyment of the evening. Nothing ever did. Mawle had been doing this for over five years now, and he reckoned he was pretty good at it. Before that, he’d spent the best part of a decade being a ruthless mercenary and, before that, a soldier in the British army. SAS. But the real money lay here – in hunting ex-special forces men and women.
‘Delta-Force, am I right?’ he asked.
Brennan straightened up as if addressing his captain. ‘Three years,’ he said. ‘Tip of the damn sword.’
‘Good,’ Mawle said. ‘I like that. You still have the fire in you.’
‘You’re gonna need it,’ Villiers added with an evil little chuckle.
Mawle frowned at him. ‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘Give the man a little space. After all,
‘Mr O’brien and Mr Valicenti. Two of my new clients. They’ve never completed a hunt before. Are you ready, gentlemen, to hunt an ex-Delta soldier?’
Both men nodded, practically licking their lips. They both carried state-of-the art automatic weapons and were weighed down with ammo. Thirteen other men, mercenaries, stood around them, all looking pretty confident.
Brennan, standing alone, his face creased with the weariness of long-felt hardship and pain, bit his bottom lip and shook his head at them. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘I’d like to say it’s for the money,’ Mawle said easily. ‘But that’s barely half of it. I do it for the thrill of the hunt. What about you, Villiers?’
‘Blood,’ the gaunt man hissed. ‘Blood and murder.’
Mawle shrugged and addressed Brennan. ‘Well, you asked.’
‘You’re sick men,’ Brennan said.
Mawle pursed his lips. ‘I don’t care about that,’ he said. ‘I care only about what makes me happy. I’ve built my empire hunting and killing. My clients adore me. They keep coming back, you see. We don’t stay in one place very long but this place... right here...’ he spread his arms. ‘This is desolation, America. This is the wild, the middle of fucking nowhere. And I love it. We’ve been here for three weeks already, conducted four hunts and... do you know something? Not a whisper. Not a murmur or a waft of the heat in our direction. The system, it doesn’t care. So, four, five men or women go missing. Who notices? Not the authorities. The missing have no real friends. I mean, take you, Mr Brennan. Who will report that you are missing?’
‘What makes you think I’m gonna be missing?’ Brennan said with steel in his voice.
Mawle allowed himself a smile. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then you will fight. Give him the knife.’
One of his men threw a brand new knife at Brennan’s feet. It was a twelve inch tactical Bowie survival hunting knife, and it looked like it meant business. It was a deadly weapon. Brennan stared at it, fully aware that picking it up signalled his compliance in all this madness.
‘And what if I don’t run?’ he asked quietly.
‘An interesting question,’ Mawle said. ‘It has happened before and I don’t mind telling you what happened. There was a soldier who had lost his way badly. Honestly, we picked him at random and he was a bad pick. Drugs...’ he pretended to inject his arm. ‘Drink and neglect. Ended up, he couldn’t run for more than a few minutes. The clients weren’t best pleased, as you can imagine,’ Mawle grinned as though addressing a corporate event rather than a scared man in the woods. ‘Anyway... we still had to have our fun, didn’t we? Had to appease the bloody clients. I have to say, they got their money’s worth. We tied the guy between two trees, spreadeagled, and went to work on him. Took him four hours to die. If I were you,’ Mawle grinned. ‘I’d take the hunt.’
‘Has anyone ever won?’
‘I like that question too, and what it implies about you. Winning means evading us for one whole day. If that happens, you go free and we have to quit the area. And the answer to your question is, yes, it has happened. A woman by the name of Nova danced with us among the European alps once. She was used to the terrain and managed to slip away. Never heard from her again and, clearly, we never returned to Europe.’
‘You let her live?’
Mawle spread his hands. ‘Never saw the bitch again, but I’m sure I’m now on some Interpol watchlist.’
‘I’ll be the second to slip away,’ Brennan said.
Villiers almost hissed: ‘That’s what they all say,’ but Mawle nudged him to stay quiet. Instead, he spread both his hands. ‘Then pick up the knife and get started. You have a five-minute head start.’ He checked his own watch and then threw a cheap plastic one to Brennan. ‘Starting... now.’
Brennan didn’t waste any time. He bent down, scooped up the knife and the watch and started for the treeline. Seconds later, he was gone, the sound of him crashing through the forest crazily loud to start with. Mawle assumed it would quieten once three or four of the initial five minutes were up.
It was always the same.
He turned to his men, to his clients. ‘The game is on,’ he said, nostrils flaring. ‘Already, I can smell a victory. Shall we go rip his flesh apart?’
The clients cheered. The men gripped their guns tighter. It was a fine night to be alive.
CHAPTER TWO
Just under five minutes passed before Mawle and his small army mobilised itself. The bike riders jumped onto their machines, made sure their comms were working, and then sought the nearest trail in the direction that Brennan had gone. The foot soldiers started off at a steady pace, their guns held across their arms. The two clients were surrounded by men, well protected, and moved off with them, leaving Mawle and Villiers alone in the clearing.
‘And so begins another great hunt,’ Mawle said quietly.
‘Live prey,’ Villiers was practically salivating. ‘Is the best.’
‘Go join in, my friend. Enjoy yourself.’
Villiers was gone in an instant. He was a good man to have around, an elite bodyguard, but sometimes, like any mad dog, you had to let him have his head. Villiers would help keep the men right. His tracking skills were legendary.
Mawle followed at his leisure. He wanted to keep the clients in sight, that was all, to make sure they were getting everything they’d paid for out of this experience. He found a twisting path and followed it through the trees, ducking low-hanging branches and forcing his way through overgrown brush. The path was hard and dark, the only light provided by Mawle’s head torch. As they neared Brennan, they would dispense with the lights and rely on hunter’s instinct, but for now – with Brennan racing ahead – they would embrace the light.
Mawle pushed between the rough boughs of two trees. He kept his eyes low, his ears sharp. He could hear the far-off roar of the bikes, the whispers of his men and the occasional raucous laugh of one of the clients. Already, they were closing in on their target. Mawle had been hoping for more.
Minutes passed. Twenty of them. Mawle ran low, pulled his trusty .45 from its holster, and listened to the chatter in his ears. The bikes had spied the running man – Brennan – and were monitoring him, but letting him run further into the wilderness. Brennan had attacked them twice, the first a close call. He couldn’t be underestimated. Mawle hadn’t had a man die in his employ for two years. He didn’t want to start tonight.
Another twenty minutes passed. The pack of soldiers forged through the forest, staying together, protecting the clients in their midst. The clients themselves were both broad-shouldered, fat-gutted Americans with big bushy beards and silver-grey hair. They were rich, bored, fifty-ish men of questionable taste and loose morals, perfect for Mawle to sink his teeth into. This kind of thing made them feel alive where nothing else did anymore. It sated them, and it sated Mawle, too. The communications coming through his ear told him that the bikers were hounding Brennan now, hounding him into the harder brush. They were cutting his options down.
Mawle caught up to the pack.
‘You may have a sighting soon,’ he told the clients.
Villiers was nowhere to be seen. Mawle knew he’d have ranged far beyond the pack, and maybe even caught the bikers by now. He’d have a good view of their prey. Would Villiers hold back? Sometimes he hadn’t been able to help himself. But Mawle had reprimanded him for that. And the way to reprimand a man like Villiers wasn’t to give him a written warning, it was to ban him from the next kill. This time, he hoped Villiers would stay entirely professional.
They cut through the forest at speed. It was a great night for it, the weather cool, the visibility high.
A great night for a manhunt, Mawle thought.
Everything was going perfectly. The hunt, the chase, even the meandering sprint of their quarry. The clients looked pleased and were even snacking and drinking as they loped along. A good sign. Mawle privately held them in contempt – he couldn’t stand their privileged, snivelling little ways, but they were his bread and butter, the way he made a living, so he put on an outwardly gratified face for them.
