“Right. Tommy called the police and spilled everything. Apparently the way they are moving the girl is in one of three identical vans.”
“Now how the hell are we supposed to know where they are? Must be a million vans in this city.”
“Well, Tommy said the vans all have a dry cleaning logo. Black vans with a big white whistle on the side. We find those vans, I bet we find Xander and Sam too.”
Marv’s words felt like a slap in the face to Kyle, and it snapped him out of his trance.
“Clean as a whistle,” he said out loud.
“What’s that, son? You okay?” Jack asked Kyle.
“When Xander was on the way in to the hotel earlier. He said it was a dumb slogan and Sam got mad at him for caring. He was laughing at the van, said something like, ‘It’s 2017 and you can’t do better than “clean as a whistle”?’”
“That’s right, I remember,” Jack said.
“One of the vans was here, Marv. Right down at the front entrance,” Kyle shouted.
Kyle grabbed the phone and bolted for the door. Zhanna and Jack hurried behind him.
“I’m heading out front now. Get word to the police not to let that van leave!”
“Will do,” Marv said. “And we’ll get the word out to all of our eyes to find those vans. We find the vans, we find Xander and Sam.”
Kyle ended the call. That elevator ride down was the longest minute of his life. As soon as the doors dinged open, he sprinted for the front entrance. He skidded to a stop just outside the door, but there was no van to be found. Police cars were everywhere, and every cop there turned their guns on Kyle.
“Now hold on now!” Jack caught up. Sam had given everyone their own CIA credentials. Jack flashed his to the police. “Anyone see a black van here with a whistle on the side of it?”
The police moved forward, but none of them had seen anything. Kyle knew Xander was walking in the front of the hotel when he made the comment about the slogan on the van, but he couldn’t remember if he had seen it himself on the way in or not. His mind was on Sam and Xander at the time, so it didn’t compute. After asking the police several times, one of the members of the valet stepped up.
“I saw the van you’re talking about leave from around the back earlier. It was just before the police arrived. I was around back smoking when it pulled up.”
“What did you see?” Kyle asked the young man.
“A few guys in black were carrying out a couple of huge laundry bags. They seemed heavy. I just figured they were full of clothes or towels. I didn’t know. The black they were wearing matched the black van so I just figured—”
“Can you remember anything else?” Kyle interrupted, desperately searching for something they could use.
“Just that there was this real pretty girl with them. At first I thought it was Jennifer Lopez.”
“Gabriela,” Kyle said to Jack and Zhanna. Then he turned back to the valet. “Did you see which way they went? Did they say anything?”
“The big guy told some skinny Mexican man in a white suit that everything was in place. I just thought the guy in the suit was the owner and the guy was telling him the job was done.”
It sounded like Tarter was with Francisco and Gabriela already.
Kyle ignored the young man, turning back to Zhanna and Jack.
“If we don’t find that van, like now, they’re both going to be dead.”
Kyle’s phone was ringing again. Marv.
“Marv, please tell me you have something!”
“I just might. I just remembered something. Were Xander and Sam wearing the earpieces I supplied you with?”
“Yeah, but what does that—”
“I put GPS trackers in them. I’ll pull the coordinates and send them to you immediately. Be ready to get on the road ASAP.”
“Marv, you’re a genius!
38
Everything’s Not Lost
First, he began to regain his sense of smell. But Xander didn’t dare make a move or even think about opening his eyes. His brain snapped back instantly to Gabriela stabbing him in the shoulder with the needle, so he knew, since he was still alive, that he had been taken. Only one thing registered to his sense of smell, and that was the unmistakable scent of blood. He didn’t feel any painful spots on his own body, so that meant that someone else was in there with him. Either already dead or close to it. The faint smell of rubbing alcohol then began to announce itself. This told him that someone had been doctored. But he didn’t dare open his eyes. Not until he could be sure no one was watching him. He needed more information. Then he could find an advantage.
He felt ropes around his wrists and he was sitting up, so he knew he was tied to a chair. He thought of Sam, hoping she was okay. He wiggled his right ear, and as he suspected, his earpiece was gone. David must already be involved, because he doubted Gabriela knew enough to look for it. Then again, he had underestimated her for the last time. There wasn’t a heavy light penetrating his eyelids, so he knew that wherever he was, it was mostly dark. Just as he was about to take a peek at his surroundings, a door slammed somewhere above him, and he could hear the muffled sounds of a man and a woman in what sounded like a heated argument.
The next thing he heard sent chills down his spine. No more than a couple of feet to his left, a young woman’s voice shouted into the room.
“Help me! Please, someone help me!”
This gave Xander several bits of information. The first being that he wasn’t too late. The girl he was trying to save was left beside him. Second, the room wasn’t very big, because her voice didn’t echo. And lastly, the argument didn’t skip a beat upstairs, so whoever was up there was fully aware of the situation below them. Therefore, once Xander figured a way out of his restraints, no one up there was safe.
It also made him even more certain that David was directly involved. The only reason he would put Xander in the same room as the girl would be to rub it in his face. Xander knew that once David learned he was involved, it would change his behavior. He would want revenge, and he would want it to be painful. Since Xander stopped him from ruining a woman’s life in Afghanistan, it made sense to him that David, being the sick bastard that he was, would want to create a scene where he was successful this time in doing what he wanted with a woman. Or a girl in this case.
The girl continued to shout, and because no one had tried to quiet the girl, Xander thought the probability was good that he could get away with a peek at the room. It was imperative that whoever was involved in holding them down there believe that he was still out of it. Their lives depended on it. One millimeter at a time, he lifted his left eyelid. It also registered to him that the smell of blood must be coming from the girl, but hopefully she wasn’t too terribly hurt.
His eyes found an empty basement directly in front of him. To his left was a flight of stairs leading up to the only light source in the room, which he assumed was coming from underneath the door at the top. He slowly moved his head to the left, and there was the girl, shouting toward the stairs. Her hands were also tied behind her back. Beyond her, something was lying on the ground in the corner. Xander opened his right eye, blinked away the blur, and that something turned into a silhouette of someone.
Sam.
He couldn’t see very well, but the bottoms of her shoes were the most lit, and he could tell those silver, ski-boot-like clips on her boots anywhere. A silent prayer went up that it wasn’t her blood he smelled and that she was, at the very least, alive. As the girl continued to shout, he worked his wrists for the first time. The ropes didn’t give an inch. The shouting continued upstairs and then the door opened. Their voices were no longer muffled. He rested his head back down on his right shoulder, exactly where it was when he woke up.
“This is an unnecessary risk, and we aren’t going to keep them alive just so you can have revenge!”
Xander recognized the angry woman’s voice immediately.
Gabriela.
“News flash, bitc
h, your end of the deal is complete. So you and your Mexican Miami Vice–looking boyfriend better move on. This no longer has anything to do with you!”
David Tarter.
“Please get me out of here! I promise I won’t say a word to anyone!” The girl continued to plead.
Then there was silence.
A light came on in the room. The stairs began to groan under the weight of someone walking down. Hearing David’s voice made Xander’s heart rate quicken.
“He’s still out,” he heard David say. “But it won’t last much longer. You two get the hell out of here, this is my show now.”
The stairs groaned; David was going back up.
“No! Please.” Sobs from the girl. “Please just let me out of here. Please!”
Xander’s heart squeezed and his stomach clenched hearing the fear in the innocent girl’s cry.
“We are not leaving until you make the exchange, and you are going to do it right now!” Gabriela must have been at the top of the stairs.
David said, “For the last time, your part in this is finished. Xander is going to watch this girl get handed off to some creep. And he is going to know that there is nothing he could do to stop it. Then I’ll make him watch his gimpy sidekick die right in front of him.”
That confirmed beyond doubt that it was Sam lying in the corner. And it confirmed that it indeed was her blood. But they had kept her alive just so Xander could watch her die.
Xander had Tarter pegged exactly.
“You are a fool,” Gabriela said.
He heard a couple more footsteps, then the door once again shut. Over the sounds of the girl crying, Xander could hear one more muffled shout, and it was a man’s voice. Then he heard two consecutive gunshots, and almost simultaneously two bodies hit the floor. He knew that David had just executed both Francisco and Gabriela. And he knew that if he wasn’t able to get this girl next to him free, he and Sam were going to be next.
That was not an option.
39
Sometimes a Happy Ending Is Hard to Imagine
“I have located them,” Marv told Kyle over the phone.
“The vans?”
“Xander and Sam. I’ve located their GPS coordinates through their earpieces. Good news is that they are together. They aren’t far from you, but I can send the police over to check it out if you want.”
“No,” Kyle said quickly. “I have Jack and Zhanna with me. We’ll go to them.”
“Sending the coordinates to your phone now. Just copy and paste them into your maps app.”
“Got it.”
Kyle ended the call, and the three of them jumped into the Tahoe. The map said they were only half a mile from where Marv said they would find Xander and Sam. Now that Kyle had half a second to process, his heart was heavy. Not only was his best friend in possibly the worst trouble Kyle had seen him in, but now, so too was his woman. He had of course always cared about Sam, but over the last five months, they had become all but inseparable. They had downplayed to Xander how serious their relationship was. For the first time in his life, Kyle was sincerely in love. And now the two people he loved most in the world were in real trouble.
“I’m gonna kill this son of a bitch, David Tarter, when I find him. With my bare hands,” Kyle told Jack and Zhanna as he threw the truck into drive.
“I love your enthusiasm, son,” Jack said. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That boy’s an ex-SEAL. Probably tougher than a pine knot.”
“I don’t care. Either way, he’s a dead man.”
Xander opened his eyes once again. This time, he had intent.
“Don’t scream, okay?” he said to the crying girl beside him.
She jumped in her seat, gasping in fright, but managed to do as he asked.
“It’s okay, I’m going to find a way out of here.”
The girl stifled a cry.
“But how? We’re all tied up.”
“I promise I’ll get us out. I don’t know if you were with them in Mexico, but we saved all the other girls that were in that van with you.”
Through the small trickle of light that was coming from the door up the stairs, Xander could see her eyes light up.
“You did?” She realized she said it a little too loud, so she said it again in a whisper. “You did?”
“We did. And I’m going to get you out of here too. I just need you to tell me everything you know—”
“Did that man just kill those two people upstairs?”
“I think he did.”
“Good,” she said. “That man in the suit is the one who brought me here.”
It sank in how terrible this situation had become. Xander knew it was bad, but for a teenager to be happy someone was dead, things were off-the-charts terrible.
“I don’t blame you for being happy about that. But I need you to stay focused, okay?”
“Okay.” The girl nodded, eager to hear what he had to say.
“Did you see anything that might help us when you were on the way in?”
“There are about eight or nine guys who all have the same look as that man who just came down the stairs. Is that what you mean?”
As the girl talked to him, Xander was trying to figure a way out of there.
“Yes, that’s perfect. So they didn’t blindfold you?”
“I think they were supposed to, but they were really worried about you and that lady over there in the corner.”
Xander’s stomach dropped.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes. They were fixing something on her leg. The man in charge, they call him David, said he wanted her alive . . .”
The girl trailed off. Xander already knew why.
“So I could watch her die, right?”
“R-right. I’m sorry,” she told him. And her tone told him she really meant it.
“I’m sorry you are involved in this sweetheart. But I can tell you, they already made their biggest mistake.”
“They did, how’s that?” she said.
“They should have never let me live.”
Kyle swerved onto a side street. The closer they got to Xander and Sam’s location, the harder his heart pounded.
“Should be right up here on right,” Zhanna told him.
Zhanna press-checked her Glock; it was ready to go. Jack had already made sure his Colt Python was ready to strike.
“Right here!” Zhanna shouted.
Kyle jerked the steering wheel to the right, the truck skidded to a stop, and all three of them jumped out of the car, pointing their guns at a massive dumpster.
“No. No, no, no, no!” Kyle was overcome. The only thing he could see in his mind at that moment was Xander and Sam piled on top of each other inside that dumpster.
Dead.
“Don’t panic now, Kyle. Not yet.” Jack said.
Jack took the lead. He had seen enough dead bodies in his time, he thought he may as well spare Kyle seeing his friends first. With his Colt Python extended in front of him, he grabbed the large plastic cap, tossed it back, and it clanged against the back of the dumpster on the other side. The light fixed to the side of the building they were behind shined a blueish light down over the three of them. Kyle was in agony as he watched. There were a lot of scenarios running through his head, and not one of them had a happy ending.
Jack leaned over the edge of the dumpster, his pistol pointing down inside.
“Well, there ain’t no bodies. So that’s good. I can’t see anything else.”
Kyle breathed a sigh of relief, but the reality that Xander and Sam were still missing swooped right in to steal his joy. He took out his phone and turned on the flashlight. He walked over and shined it inside.
“See anything?” Zhanna asked.
“Looks like something in the corner. Hold this.”
Kyle handed his gun and phone to Zhanna, then hopped up and over the rim of the dumpster. He bent down in the corner, and his hand found two earpieces and a piece of paper. He held them
up to Jack and Zhanna.
“Well, what’s it say?” Jack asked.
“I can’t,” Kyle said. Then he handed the paper to him.
Jack read aloud. “If you ever want to see your friends alive again, come to Anderson Automotive. Come alone. And bring Xander’s checkbook.”
Kyle’s heart sank. He knew from what Xander said about Tarter that he would never let them out of there alive. No matter how much money Xander had.
40
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
While Xander was questioning the girl, they heard some footsteps upstairs, then a couple of doors shutting at the front of the house.
“Did you see anything else? Anything that might help me know where we are?” Xander asked her. He knew they were running out of time. They heard more and more footfalls upstairs. He figured they would be coming back down for the girl soon.
“I did. We are right across the street from the Santa Monica Pier. My mom took me there just a couple of weeks ago, and we rode on that famous Ferris wheel. Those men tried to cover my eyes, but I knew I had to try to find some sort of reference point if I made it out of here.”
“Fantastic. You did great. What’s your name?”
Xander wanted her to remain calm. And he thought he saw an opportunity to get her free.
“Carrie. They tried to take my sister when they got me. But she got away. The other girl reminds me a lot of her.”
Other girl?
“What other girl, Carrie? It isn’t just you?”
“No, they brought two of us on the plane. They already took her somewhere else.”
That news broke Xander’s focus. He turned his head from Carrie. He didn’t know if she could see him in the dark, but if she could, he didn’t want to upset her by showing his emotion.
“She’s younger than me. Is she going to be okay?”
Xander knew the answer was most likely a no.
King's Reign (The Xander King Series Book 4) Page 18
