Read The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3) for Free Online Page B

honor. It’s how I survived through my youth. And if honor was questioned…” He showed her the stained blade. “There was always more blood.”
    There was a subdued ping from his computer screen. He walked over and clicked a few buttons. The face of his commander over in Washington DC appeared.
    “We’re in position, sir. Target due in ten minutes.”
    “The device is the priority. Above anything else. Remember that.”
    “Sir.” The face moved away, revealing a view from an elevated position. They were looking down into a parking lot, rubbish strewn and practically abandoned. The grainy picture showed a tramp moving around at the top of the screen and a blue Nissan departing through a pair of automatic gates.
    “Get rid of that down-and-out. He could be Politsiya.”
    “We’ve checked him out, sir. He’s just a bum.”
    The Blood King felt a slow rage start to burn. “Get rid of him. Question me again and I will bury your family alive.”
    The man simply worked for him. But the man knew what Dmitry Kovalenko was capable of. Without another word he took aim and dropped the bum with a head shot. The Blood King smiled when he saw a dark stain begin to spread across the roughly concreted lot.
    “Five minutes to mark.”
    The Blood King spared a glance for the woman. She had been his guest for some months now. The wife of the Secretary of Defense was no little prize. Jonathan Gates was about to pay a dear price for her safety.
    “Sir, Gates has passed the deadline.”
    In any other situation, the Blood King would use the knife now. Without pause. But the second device was important to his plans, though not imperative. He picked up the sat-phone that lay next to the computer and dialed a number.
    Listened to it ring and ring. “It would seem your husband does not care for your safety, Mrs. Gates.” The Blood King twitched his lips in the approximation of a smile. “Or perhaps he has already replaced you, hmm? These American politicians. . .”
    A click, and a scared voice finally answered. “Yes?”
    “I hope you are close and that you have the device, my friend. Otherwise. . .”
    The voice of the Secretary of Defense was strained to the point of breaking. “The United States does not bow down to tyrants,” he said, the words clearly costing him the greater part of his heart and soul. “Your demands will not be met.”
    The Blood King thought about the Gates of Hell and what lay beyond. “Then listen to your wife die in agony, Gates. I do not need the second device for where I’m going.”
    Making sure the channel stayed open, the Blood King raised the knife and set about fulfilling his every murderous fantasy.
     
     
     

CHAPTER TEN
     
    Hayden Jaye stepped away from the computer when her cell phone began to ring. Ben and Karin were busy resurrecting the sea voyages of Captain Cook, and in particular those concerned with the Hawaiian Islands. Cook, although widely known as a famous explorer, was a man if many talents, it seemed. He was also a renowned navigator and an expert cartographer. A man who mapped everything, he recorded the lands from New Zealand to Hawaii and, as was more widely known, made first landfall on Hawaii—a place he named the Sandwich Islands. A statue still stands in the town of Waimea, on Kauai, as a testament to the place he made first contact in 1778.
    Hayden backed away when she saw the caller was her boss, Jonathan Gates.
    “Yes, sir?”
    Only ragged breathing came from the other end. She walked over to the window. “Can you hear me? Sir?”
    They hadn’t spoken since he gave her the verbal reprimand. Hayden felt a bit unnerved.
    Gates’s voice finally came through. “They killed her. Those bastards killed her.”
    Hayden stared out the window without seeing anything. “They did what?”
    Behind her both Ben and Karin, alerted by her tone, turned around.
    “They took my wife, Hayden. Months ago. And last night they killed her. Because I wouldn’t do their