Matt Drake 11 - The Ghost Ships of Arizona by David Leadbeater

Author:David Leadbeater
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Hayden woke with a start, quickly reaching out for Kinimaka’s reassuring bulk at her side. The Hawaiian grunted and rolled, slipping an arm around her. Hayden didn’t like to struggle away but something was definitely bugging her. Some kind of intuition. Sunlight flooded through the closed hotel room curtains but that didn’t mean it was late. A quick glance at the Pulsar on her wrist told her it was a little after 7 a.m. Knowing Mano was difficult to wake at the easiest of times she slid backwards in the bed until she sat upright and surveyed the room.

Shit, perhaps it was Tyler Webb’s stalking back in DC or getting their butts kicked twice already, or even the reports of the ghost ships that Drake was tracking through the desert, but an unsettled sensation stole over her. Kinimaka snored, face to the pillow. Hayden slipped out of bed, suddenly feeling exposed in her underwear, and shrugged on a bath robe. Water dripped in the shower. Traffic roared outside the slightly cracked window. Someone walked noisily past along the hallway. All normal and natural noises for a middle-of-the-road hotel room, nothing sinister. But having reviewed all forms of stalking she knew that the worst and most dangerous forms were those where the victim wasn’t entirely sure if it was happening. The ones that haunted people, made them edgy for no obvious reason.

Why were the hairs on the back of her neck standing up?

Were her clothes piled differently than she remembered? Her pants folded along a new crease? Her shirt arranged so that the arms were flung up in a classic “hands high” pose? Or did she leave everything that way? Was that bathroom door left wide open last night? Because she knew damn well that she’d closed it to reduce the noise from the dripping tap. Maybe Mano had—

Wait. That wasn’t right.

Hayden padded over to the bureau. Sure enough her Glock sat in the center of the desk. The problem was, she always slept with it under her pillow, ever since her father explained it was the only place in the room she could reach it easily and a perp might not be able to steal it away as she slept. Old fashioned, yes, but as true as the coming of night and day. There was nothing subtle about this situation now.

“No!” How could this keep happening? And in such a random hotel room. Shivers crept up and down her spine. She knew very well that Webb possessed endless and multi-layered connections. It wouldn’t be too tricky for a man of means and he clearly got off on the danger.

Kinimaka was struggling toward consciousness. “Wha—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hayden said. “Get dressed, Mano. We have a job to do.”

*

With the CIA’s and NSA’s mega-boffins investigating the inner workings of the Z-box and studying what the Pythians were trying to achieve by so rapidly targeting energy facilities, the proactive competence of Hayden’s team was severely limited. It was with exultation then

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