“Hold tight and—”
Marv didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Well, at least Sam didn’t get to hear him finish before a van came careening out of a side street and smashed into their SUV. The crash was so loud and so full of force that for a split second everything went black. The next thing she knew, their SUV was on its side, airbags deflating after deployment as they were being pushed across the road, metal scraping, glass smashing, Sarah and Zhanna screaming, and her ears ringing with a high-pitched zing. In the moment they were being shoveled across the highway, it reminded her of last Christmas when she and Xander were turned over in their Hummer on that snowy night in Lexington. She remembered having to shoot her way out then, and that thought brought her hands to her pistols, readying them for the shoot-out she was sure was about to ensue.
“Ready your weapons!” Sam shouted over the scrape of fiberglass and asphalt. “Whoever this is will be trying to kill us as soon as we come to a stop!”
Her last four words—“come to a stop”—were across dead silence because the SUV had already done just that. There was no time to make sure everyone was all right. Sam knew the men who slammed into her would already be coming out of the van, and the best way to make sure her team was okay would be to provide cover while they regained their wits. With her pistols at the ready, she put her feet past Kyle and stood on the asphalt through the smashed window of the turned-on-its-side SUV. Still inside the SUV, she reached out through the window above her, and blindly aimed in the direction of the van as she began to squeeze the triggers. She tried to make sure the spray was no wider than the van; that way a stray bullet would be far less likely to clip an innocent bystander.
As Sam continued firing her pistols, she shouted instructions to the rest of the team. “If you’re conscious,”—POP-POP-POP—“get out through the sunroof and”—POP-POP-POP—“make sure they don’t make it to this side of our truck!”
POP-POP-POP!
Sam could see movement from the backseat. Kyle was helping Zhanna and Sarah maneuver around her legs and out through the sunroof. She glanced to her left and saw no movement from the agent who had been driving. He was slumped against his door, a pool of blood under his head. She fired a couple more blind rounds before she heard backup gunfire from behind her. It was just in time because she had just fired off the last of her ammo. She crouched beside the seat in front of her, found the black bag of ammunition the CIA agent had brought along, and scooped up two fresh magazines. She loaded them into her pistols, racked both slides, and made her way out the sunroof. The air was cool and smelled of burnt rubber and gunpowder. Horns were honking; off in the distance she could hear screams and sirens. Those sounds were all surrounded by the blasts from guns and the crashes and clanks their bullets made as they burrowed into vehicles, concrete, and glass.
Sarah and Zhanna were posted at the rear of the SUV on Sam’s left, and Kyle was to her right huddled down, popping up momentarily to fire off a few rounds. She sidled up to him and took up the defense against their attackers, as well as the eight more who had pulled in behind them in two all-black stretch SUVs.
Sam checked on Kyle, straining her voice over the violent sounds that surrounded them. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine! We need Xander! Is he on his way?”
“I’m not sure! We got cut off before we could finish our conversation!” Sam shouted over the automatic gunfire that erupted about twenty-five yards from them. She fired four shots back at two men on the right flank of their van. In the streetlamp’s beam, she could see that one of them went down.
“What—” POP-POP. Kyle had fired his weapon in between words. “What are we gonna do? We’ll run out of ammo before we fend them all off!”
Kyle was right. Sam had already gone through two full magazines just making sure all of them could exit the vehicle safely. She watched the slide kick back on Kyle’s now-empty Glock, and she handed him her last spare magazine. She had only eighteen bullets left herself, and she knew the girls only had one pistol each. She raised up from behind their overturned Chevy Tahoe and caught two of the gunmen behind the van that hit them as they were reloading. Four squeezes of the trigger later and both of them were down, leaving her with only fourteen rounds. There were at least seven or eight men left, maybe more. She couldn’t tell exactly how many they had eliminated. It was dark, cars were still rushing by, and the side where Sarah and Zhanna were shooting was obstructed by the van that was still in T-bone position in front of them. She couldn’t see exactly how many were opposing them, but she knew one thing for certain.
The four of them were in trouble.
Sam looked back over her shoulder, away from the road where gunfire was raining down on them. She saw a row of storefront buildings. Just beyond those she could see railroad tracks. If they could make it there, they might have a chance. But there was no cover in the stretch they would have to run to get there. Nothing to keep the bullets off of them. Even the buildings that were closer than the tracks were too far to make it safely. Sam glanced back over at Sarah, the slide of her pistol locked back: empty. Sarah’s face was full of concern, an expression that Sam was certain her own face mirrored. Gunfire continued behind them.
They weren’t going to make it out of this without creating some sort of distraction.
Did Someone Order a Distraction?
Sam ducked down behind their overturned SUV, gunfire echoing in the night behind her as she continued to stare toward the train tracks, hoping an answer would come to her. They were two hundred yards from a chance at getting lost amongst the railcars that sat idle in the dark, but it may as well have been two hundred miles. The crackle of the automatic weapons was beginning to drive her mad.
The sniper rifle and Xander’s go bag.
Just as that thought came to Sam’s mind, out of the corner of her eye she noticed the slide on Zhanna’s pistol lock back. Their last line of defense was however many bullets she had plus however many remained in Kyle’s last magazine.
Sam turned toward Kyle and shouted, “How many bullets?”
Kyle fired a shot to drive one of the men back, then shouted without looking, “Seven, maybe six!”
“Hold them back, but only shoot when you have to!”
Sam tucked both her pistols behind her back and entered the SUV through the sunroof on her hands and knees. The driver was still unconscious behind the wheel. She reached into the large black bag where she had grabbed the extra magazines earlier, dodging shards of window glass as she fingered for the butt of the rifle. She heard Kyle fire twice more. Their time was running out. Fast. As the fingers of her left hand danced through the dark and found the sniper rifle, her right hand grasped the nylon handle at the top of Xander’s go bag. After Kyle fired twice more, Sarah knelt down beside Sam as she backed out of the sunroof.
Sarah’s voice was hurried. “Sam, we’ve got to go, they’re closing in on our right. We gotta go!”
Sam nodded, then handed Sarah her pistols. “Hold them back, there are about seven rounds left in each!”
Sarah took both of Sam’s Glocks, and as soon as she stood up and handed one to Zhanna, a man jumped out from the side of the van in front of them with his gun raised. Sarah flinched as she raised her gun, but she heard a shot fired behind her and the man in front of her dropped. Sarah glanced to her left and found Kyle, his face wrought with worry but his gun trained on the dead man. Sarah gave him a nod, and Kyle managed to duck down behind the SUV just as someone fired at him in the distance. Sarah took up his position just as Sam locked the magazine in place on the M24 sniper rifle.
“I’m out!” Kyle said. Fear was visible in his weary eyes.
The sirens were getting closer, but she knew they wouldn’t be much help. These men were professionals. They would dispatch the police in seconds. As Sarah and Zhanna fired off their last few rounds, Sam stood, turned the rifle in the direction of the gunman, and peered through the scope. There had been at least one other v
an full of men that had already pulled in. They were severely outnumbered and, worse, completely out-ammo’d. She could manage to get a few of the men with the sniper rifle, but with only Xander’s Glock and two magazines in the go bag, this was a battle they couldn’t win.
But she wasn’t going down without a fight.
Sam shouldered the sniper rifle, peered down the scope, and as she swept from right to left, it found three men crossing the road, hunched over, guns out in front, coming straight for them. She gently wrapped her finger around the trigger. She heard Sarah and Zhanna shouting that they were out of ammo, and shouting at her to run, but it was muffled. Like their voices were a mile away. Sam inhaled sharply as the world outside of her scope faded away. As she let out a breath and just as her finger twitched, a sedan came out of nowhere from the left side of her scope and drove right through the three men stalking toward her, crashing into the SUV beside them. Before she pulled her rifle down, the door of the sedan opened, arms pushed the deflated airbag to the side, and a man rose quickly from the door and began to fire at the men who had been firing at Sam and the others.
Xander.
As soon as she saw him emerge from the car, firing away, she took down her rifle, threw his go bag on her back, and began backing away from the SUV toward the train tracks.
“Let’s go!” Sam shouted to Kyle, Zhanna, and Sarah. “Let’s regroup in the rail yard!”
The three of them looked at Sam, then glanced back toward the road where Xander was glowing under a streetlamp, his pistol blasting red-orange bursts of light from its tip. Kyle pumped his fist, then quickly sidled up to Sam, and the four of them moved for the tracks. Zhanna, Sarah, and Kyle went running, while Sam backed her way there as she brought the rifle’s scope to her right eye. She found Xander, noticed two more men emerging from his sedan, and swung her rifle to the side of the road where the three of them were firing. Her scope found one man aiming at her from the side of the van. She saw a quick burst of fire from the barrel of his gun and squeezed the trigger. She didn’t feel any bullets hit her, and before she turned to make sure none of her crew had been hit, she watched the left side of the man’s neck explode from her rifle’s round.
Sam glanced behind her as she opened and closed the bolt, chambering a new round, and saw the three of them still running for the train tracks. None of them were hit. She was in between the shops now. Xander, and she assumed Jack, were still firing away. She brought her rifle back up and saw Xander throw his pistol to the ground—out of ammo—then make a break toward her. A man wearing a cowboy hat—it was indeed Jack—continued firing behind him as he moved toward Sam as well. He was trying desperately to hold the gunmen off while they ran her way. As Xander approached the overturned SUV, she swung her rifle back to the right and fired after her sights found two gunmen rounding the vehicle at the same time as Xander. The man flew backward off his feet, but as she went to take out the second gunman, the heel of her boot caught on the curb and she slammed onto her back; the rifle clanked against the blacktop and slid several feet away from her. The last thing she saw was Xander hurdling the overturned truck; at the same time the gunman rounded its other side. Her heart dropped to her stomach. She knew Xander was unarmed, and the van that had T-boned them would block any chance Jack might have of taking out the gunman for Xander.
Without looking, she dove back behind her, and with the rifle in her hands she rolled back over. Her heart was racing as she moved the scope toward her eye, and she heard the rapid tat-tat-tat of an automatic rifle echoing toward her. Fearing the worst, she audibly inhaled as she brought the rifle to her shoulder and dropped her head in place for a look through the scope. Her mind flashed the sight of Xander going down in front of her, but her eye found reality, and it was Xander tearing the rifle from the gunman’s grasp, hitting him with a front push kick, and turning the gun on its owner, dropping him with a short burst. Xander then turned his back to Sam and took two more gunmen out on the opposite side of the van. It was then that Sam realized she had been holding her breath. She finally released the air, and through the scope she watched Xander turn back toward her. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “What can I say?” as he jogged toward her. Jack and another man ran not far behind him.
Sam let her arm that held the sniper rifle relax and collapse against the blacktop. As she exhaled, her mouth formed into a half smile of relief.
She said aloud to herself, “Cocky bastard.”
The Band Is Back Together
Xander watched as Sam jumped back up to her feet. When he glanced over his shoulder, Jack and Viktor were right behind him. Over Jack’s cowboy hat, in the distance, he saw two more SUVs screech to a stop under a streetlight. Whoever was holding Natalie certainly didn’t lack resources. He motioned for Jack and Viktor to speed it up, then continued to jog forward, and Sam let him catch up. They were in an alley between storefronts. In front of them it was now pitch black. The tracks that Sam had seen a few moments ago were no longer visible.
Sam said, “Good timing, old boy.”
“Good to see you, Sam. Thanks for coming. I’m sorry—”
“You left without telling us, I know.” Sam waved away his words. “You’re an idiot. But we’re here now and now Akram Khatib knows exactly where we all are.”
“Where does this alley lead?”
“Train tracks. I remember from studying a map that it is a massive abandoned railway. We can definitely lose them there.”
Xander asked, “Abandoned railway in the middle of Paris? Where have I heard that?”
The two of them made it to the end of the alleyway, and just as Jack and Viktor reached the drop-off into the gravel, gunfire erupted from the street behind them.
Sam answered, “Maybe on the news. Parisians are fighting over whether to develop it or use it as green space.”
Xander looked down and kicked at the gravel under his feet. “Green space, huh?”
They heard a clanking noise a few feet away from them. The four of them turned toward it, and Sam turned on the flashlight of her phone. “That must be Kyle.”
Emotion welled up inside Xander when he saw Kyle’s face in the bright white light. He was peeking out from behind an abandoned railcar, banging a pistol against it to get their attention. Xander had never been so happy to see his friend’s face. Kyle came out from behind the railcar and met Xander halfway with a massive man hug.
“Goddamn, it’s good to see you,” Xander said.
“I’m sorry, buddy. We’re gonna find who did this. They’re going to pay for what they did to Ransom.”
“And for taking Natalie,” Sarah said.
She and Zhanna walked out from behind the same railcar, both shading their eyes from the flashlight. Xander let go of Kyle and walked toward them. Sarah wrapped her arms around him. The smell—her scent—of lavender and honey filled his senses. It made him long to be in a much different place, under much different circumstances.
He said, “Thank you for coming.”
“I’m sorry about King’s Ransom, and I’m sorry about what is happening to Natalie. I know what she means to you. I saw it in both of your eyes back at your place in San Diego. Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”
“I hate to break up the reunion,” Sam interrupted. “But we’ve got gunmen bearing down on us, and we’ve got to get somewhere that I can call Marv back. Maybe by now he knows which way we should move.”
Xander knew Sam was right, but he didn’t want to let go of Sarah. After just a moment longer, she pulled away. Xander located Zhanna and gave her a nod just before Sam turned off the flashlight. When Sam opened her phone, the glow from its face was much softer.
Sam handed Xander his go bag. From the outside it looked just like a standard backpack, but Xander knew the contents weren’t quite so ordinary.
“Marv had this prepared for you prior to my arriving,” Sam told him. “It’s got your Glock 19, two extra mags, a suppressor, a Marfione Halo 4 OTF knife, a SAT phone and a burner phone
, two flash and two smoke grenades, a flashlight with an IR strobe, an IFAK, a class-three body armor vest, and a night-vision/IR monocular.”
Kyle said, “So, basically a fuck-shit-up bag?”
“Basically,” Sam answered.
Xander dug inside the bag and pulled out the Glock and the flashlight. Then he retrieved the knife, unzipped and placed it in the pocket of his joggers, and, finally, replaced his hoodie with the protective shirt-vest. He handed Sam the SAT phone, strapped the go bag on his back, turned on the flashlight, and started jogging.
“Call Marv on this,” he said to Sam. “Let’s move north. Everyone but Sarah, lose your phones.”
“But Viktor just bought new iPhone,” Viktor said in a whine from the back of the pack.
“Sorry, Viktor,” Xander replied, no sympathy.
“But why does Barbie get to keep phone and Viktor does not?”
Sarah answered, “Cause Barbie’s phone is a CIA-encrypted phone.”
Viktor groaned, then tossed his phone to the gravel. “Boss, when we get back, you get Viktor phone like Barbie?”
“Yes, Viktor.”
There were three more phones that cracked against the gravel below them as everyone did as Xander asked, followed by men shouting from the spot behind them where they had entered the rail yard just a moment ago.
“There is flashlight!” one of the men shouted.
“Follow me!” Xander said to his ragtag crew as he zagged over a few sets of tracks, putting a long stretch of interlocked railcars between them and the gunmen. As soon as they moved out of sight, the pop of gunfire erupted behind them and the clank of bullets rocketing through metal crashed into the railcar beside them.
“Let’s put some distance between us and them.” Xander said. And before they kicked it into gear, he broke out into a sprint, he and his flashlight moved quickly away from them in the dark.
“Don’t you know you got an old man with ya?” Jack shouted.
King's Ransom (The Xander King Series Book 3) Page 9
