Brothers In Arms (Matt Drake 5) by David Leadbeater Read Free Book Online Page B

rations, resolving to start setting traps and hunting the next day, when Mai had held up a hand. Shocked, because of the ease of their passage so far that day, Drake had blinked and almost tripped, but soon caught himself when he spied the deer.
    It stood alert, ears pricked, nostrils sniffing the breeze. A lovely creature, it appeared far too exquisite too harm, but red meat and protein would soon become the essence of survival for them, so Drake wasted no time in ambushing and shooting the beast. They carried it back, mouths watering, and then laid its body in a patch of barren ground a good walk from their shelter.
    “The blood will soak into the ground,” Smyth had said, unsheathing his knife. “No point doing it too close to home when we don’t know what it might attract.”
    As darkness fell , they lit a campfire, erected a spit, and roasted the best parts of the deer. Even before it had cooled, they were feasting, fingers burned and dripping, mouths savoring the taste. Drake couldn’t remember the last time food ever tasted so good. When they had finished, they all sat around the dying campfire in a comfortable silence.
    It wasn’t long before they were asleep, Drake lying close to Mai, wondering what tomorrow might bring.
    *****
    And as the night waxed and waned, Drake found himself half-waking and half- dreaming, all subconscious thoughts centered round Mai Kitano. It all went back to the beginning, back to when they first met.
    It had been his second mission as part of the British SAS, in mid-1998. Drake had been twenty-three then, a competent, fresh, deadly special-forces soldier. Their target had been a Chechen warlord, the country’s most ruthless. Back in ’98 kidnapping was Chechnya’s major source of income, and the easy “go to” money-spinner for almost every aspiring warlord. And there were many. But Akhmad Doku ran them all—they could aspire no higher than to grace his boot with their shattered teeth. The new President Maskhadov was making things very hard for the warlords, resulting in some horrendous car bombings against official figures. Normally, the Chechen’s would solve matters from within, but Doku didn’t run his kidnapping business from inside the country; he ran it from nearby Turkey where the amenities and the lifestyle were a little more suited to his tastes.
    Thus President Maskhadov had tugged at an old thread. His education had been through Oxford, his friends graduating into all kinds of business. One of them, a Commander Wells of the British SAS, had been all too happy to send an undercover team over to Istanbul to help eradicate the “Doku germ.”
    So, a young Matt Drake found himself in the middle of the most chaotic city he ’d ever known. And the crowds thronging the streets were nothing compared to the badly repaired houses that massed within and around the city. Space was at a premium, and when Drake saw the palatial dwelling with which the vile Chechen warlord rewarded himself, his blood ran a little hotter, his disgust a little greater. After a few days of investigating, they discovered Doku hosted a weekly party. Drake and another of the team were chosen to pose as guests.
    The “prettiest” of the SAS team found themselves gliding along with other partygoers, genuine invite in hand—ripped from the dying hands of Doku’s dumbest goon—through a high, arched doorway and into the entrance hall of an ostentatious mansion. Drake didn’t like to dwell on the obvious trappings of madmen and murderers—the mock dungeon room; the sealed-off wings; the presence of armed guards; blank, staring eyes of most of the warlord’s “escorts;” or the barely concealed track marks on their forearms. Instead, he ventured as far as each sentry’s irritation would allow, creating a detailed map in his mind of every entry and egress point, every CCTV camera, every guard station, and the types and quantities of weapons they carried.
    Around midnight , he found himself