Brothers In Arms (Matt Drake 5) Read Online Free PDF

bodyguards.” She hung her head. “Senseless slaughter.”
    Ben tapped his monitor. “That woman from the Washington Post has vanished ,” he said with some relief. “Finally.”
    A reporter from DCs biggest newspaper had been hanging around the new facility for days now, sensing a meaty story, haranguing them every time they stepped out.
    “Sarah Moxley?” Hayden said. “Oh, she’ll be back.”
    Alicia paced the room. “What do we know? That some all-American kid tried to assassinate a US Senator. That the kid’s being dissected to give us a clue as to why the hell he did it. The video feed—” She paused, glancing again at the TV screen they’d all been watching. “Showed his face. Did he look sane to you?”
    In a corner of the room , Gates was attempting to find out what had happened to Drake and Mai. The secretary’s voice rose. Whoever was on the other end of the line wasn’t doing himself any favors. “Then fetch him.” Gates almost yelled. “I’ll wait.”
    “We’re contacting all the agencies ,” Karin spoke up. “Trying to find a connection between Senator Turner and the Koreans. Failing that. . .it could be anything.” The blond girl shot a quick glance at Komodo. The big soldier nodded back at her without smiling. Karin knew him well enough by now to see the distress in his eyes. The wait for news was as traumatic as an operation in the Middle East.
    Kinimaka moved to Hayden’s side. The big Hawaiian was moving much easier now, the deep bruising caused by gunshot subsiding. “This proves that Mai’s agency friend was on the level, boss.”
    “Sure.” Hayden was distracted, studying the video of yesterday ’s event yet again. “Look at his eyes, Mano. His eyes.”
    Kinimaka looked. He’d already looked a hundred times, but he looked again because Hayden asked him too. The shooter, now identified as Michael Markel, from the DC area, had been a thirty-five-year-old teacher. He was a loner, but nothing about him stood out as wrong. His house had already been turned inside out—but whatever Markel’s reasons were for his act, they still remained a mystery. So far, the man stood out as the perfect citizen.
    “Look deeper ,” Hayden told both Ben and Karin. “This man has a skeleton hidden away somewhere.”
    Hayden felt her thoughts being knocked awry. The new job came with some already deep-rooted problems —one namely Ben Blake. The pair had treated each other cordially so far, but there was no getting away from the coolness that existed. Hayden found herself not wanting to ask too much of her ex-boyfriend, whilst he clearly found it hard acknowledging the new arrangement.
    And s omething had changed Ben back at that third tomb of the gods. When the soldier died in his arms, when Ben’s hands dripped with the man’s blood, a revolution had begun in his brain. Maybe its purpose was to bring out the man and discard the boy forever. Or perhaps it was just another ordeal, a trauma that would twist his psyche.
    Hayden knew his pain. She almost wished he had endured an ordeal of that kind before she’d made her decision. The boy needed help, but it wasn’t right for her to step up.
    The man at her side was the biggest reason —in more ways than one. She was finding it increasingly hard to maintain a strictly professional relationship with him, especially since their relentless days and months of crazy exploits had ended. What she needed was a distraction. Something that would focus her mind on work.
    Of course it didn’t help with Karin and Komodo making constant lame excuses to disappear together. Or with Torsten Dahl’s brooding. The Swede was already having second thoughts about switching jobs, but kept them mostly to himself.
    Gates put the phone down at last. Every eye in the room turned to him.
    “Drake’s plane was shot down by the Koreans. Not officially, of course. But the bastards claim they were protecting their territory from an unidentified attack. There’s a lot