King's Ransom (The Xander King Series Book 3)

by Bradley Wright

  Viktor emerged from behind the tree, his zipper in his hand, and the streetlight showed a bewildered look on his face. “What is problem? Viktor haven’t taken piss since plane!”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn, soldier. You piss your pants if that’s what you gotta do. The boat is here!”

  Viktor’s face morphed into surprise. “Boat is here? Why you not just say so?”

  Viktor pulled the night-vision monocular from his pocket and ran to Jack’s side.

  Jack just watched Viktor for a second, in awe of his obliviousness.

  “Knucklehead,” Jack said under his breath.

  “I thought Xander was going inside boat, why he up top with Sam?” Viktor asked. He was staring toward the boat through his monocular.

  Panic flooded Jack, and he dove his head back to the rifle’s scope. “He ain’t supposed to be up top.”

  As soon as he said it, smoke plumed inside the windows of the dining area of the boat. Jack knew that was Xander. What he didn’t know was who was walking toward Sam as she peered over the opposite side of the boat.

  Xander inched open the door to the dining room as gently as he could. He didn’t want to draw the attention of others who were surely lurking somewhere on the boat. And he didn’t want to draw Natalie’s attention either, because she might make noise herself and trigger the unwanted company. It was unlikely they would be heard over the boat’s engine, but it would be nice if he could get in and out of there without resistance. He knew that wouldn’t be the case. Khatib would never just let Xander walk in and walk out without a fight. This was his “statement to the world,” after all. Xander looped his finger through the ring of the M18 smoke grenade. He would have to move quickly once the smoke started, because it would completely engulf them in a matter of seconds. The smoke could complicate things for him if he couldn’t see Natalie’s straps to undo them quickly, but he felt the smoke could be a lifesaver at his back if Khatib’s men approached while he was focused on freeing her.

  Xander gave the pin a yank, waited until the bottom popped, and as soon as the white smoke began to rush from the bottom of the grenade, he rolled it inside and charged into the dining room. As soon as he cleared the smoke that was filling the room at a rapid rate, he was taken aback now that he was closer to Natalie. Everything was a blur. The coming through the smoke, the dim lighting, the fact that no one had tried to stop him. Something had to be coming, but he jogged toward her, so close now to getting her out of there.

  “Natalie!” Xander shouted. He was right in front of her now.

  It wasn’t until she began to raise her head that he noticed she wasn’t actually strapped to the wall at all.

  Weird.

  The straps were there, at her ankles and her hands, but they weren’t fastened. Instead, Natalie’s wrists were resting on pegs and she was standing on two foot-sized platforms. And now that he was close, that didn’t look like her hair. It didn’t look like her body either. Xander knew every inch of Natalie, and when her face was finally revealed, it was clear they had been set up.

  This wasn’t Natalie.

  It was Melanie.

  The wig had been convincing enough from a distance, but up close, Xander felt like a fool. The shock of seeing Melanie’s sinister smile instead of Natalie’s innocent face had almost been enough to get him killed. Melanie reached behind her back, and when she brought her hand around, it held a pistol.

  “You move and you die.”

  Sam’s body froze in place when she heard the man with the French accent behind her.

  He said, “Drop that gun in your right hand. Then turn around very slowly. No sudden moves.”

  Sam did as he demanded and dropped the gun. She began to raise her arms toward the black sky above her. As she did, she started to turn toward him.

  “Slowly,” the man reminded her.

  Sam’s mind spun as she evaluated her options. If she pushed off hard enough, she could make it over the rail of the boat below her and into the water. The problem was, she would have to squat first to gather enough power for the dive. She would be dead by then. Rushing him wouldn’t help either, because now that she was facing him, she could see he was holding a submachine gun of some kind. Even the worst shooter would be able to hit her at least once before she could reach him. However, there were no other options. If this was it, she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  The moment Sam dug her foot into the flooring of the rooftop deck and squinted her eyes in preparation of the gun going off, she heard a crack in the distance, and with almost zero lag time, the entire top half of the gunman’s head disappeared in front of her. She had already begun her dive toward him, so she used his lifeless body as a tackling dummy, and as she landed on top of him, blood hemorrhaged from the top of where his head used to be. She glanced up to where the sound of the rifle had come from, and underneath a streetlamp at the river’s edge, she could see a figure hunched over the rail—Jack—and a figure beside him, the shadow of his arms over his head, jumping up and down—Viktor. Before Sam could register an emotion, she heard a gunshot blast directly below her.

  Xander.

  In the Thick of It

  As they approached the bar, Kyle heard Adeline saying something but couldn’t make out what she said. His mind was on the men across the plaza watching him. The same men were now walking toward him. They didn’t belong with this crowd. It was clear that this was going down, and it was going down now.

  “Sarah, they’re coming. I repeat, they are coming!” Kyle’s voice was urgent.

  Adeline and Karol looked up at him like he was crazy.

  Adeline took a step back. “What did you just say?”

  No time to sugarcoat. “Adeline, I need you to trust me, okay? We have to get out of here right now.”

  “What? Kyle, you’re scaring me. Who are you?” Her face turned from confusion to fear.

  “I don’t have time to explain. I know you’re the President’s daughter and you both are in danger. You have to come with me now, Adeline!”

  Adeline recoiled from Kyle’s outstretched hand. The men over her shoulder were working their way quickly through the crowd.

  “What’s that behind the bar?” Adeline pointed. She looked worried.

  Kyle’s stomach turned just before he turned his head. But he didn’t know what she was referencing; there was nothing but a couple of bartenders pouring. Kyle whipped his head back to Adeline, but all he saw was her tugging at Karol as they pushed their way through the crowd, toward the entrance of the club. This club was so big that once she made it inside, she would be almost impossible to find.

  Kyle bolted for her, pushing one skinny partier to the ground.

  “Adeline! Adeline, wait!”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw two more men making their way toward Adeline from the street. If they didn’t run into a block by the crowd, they were going to beat Kyle to the girls.

  “Adeline!”

  She didn’t turn; she was fighting her way through to the entrance now. The men behind him were no longer a concern, but the two men closing from the side were gaining faster than he could. Kyle continued to push forcefully through the crowd.

  “Sarah! Damnit, Sarah, are you there? Four of Khatib’s men are closing us in. Adeline is running inside the club, I need help getting to her!”

  Sarah didn’t answer.

  Kyle didn’t have time to worry about her and Zhanna too. He could feel panic trying to overwhelm him. It was like a rising tide, pushing and pulling at his wits. Adeline and Karol made it inside the club. He was only twenty feet away now, but Khatib’s men were only ten. He saw a small gap in the dancers, and as the bass from the speakers rattled inside his chest, he felt like his heart was going to explode. He made a final push and closed the distance fast. One of Khatib’s men pushed past the bouncer at the door, but just before the second man could make it, Kyle dove through two females and barely sank his fingertips inside the collar of the dark-haired man’
s shirt, pulling him down to the ground with him.

  Unfortunately for Kyle, because of the way he had to dive, the man ended up on top of him. The man immediately raised his fist and brought it down on Kyle’s forehead. Black spots floated in front of his eyes, and a sharp pain stoked at the back of his head where it had been driven down hard onto the concrete beneath him. Through the swirling dark flashes, he saw the man raise his fist again. Instinct derived from hours on the mat with Xander kicked in, and Kyle shrimped out and away from the man while putting his bent leg in between the two of them for separation. Simultaneously, he moved his head to the right, and when the man’s punch missed, Kyle trapped the man’s arm in between his left arm and his rib cage. In one motion, Kyle kicked his right leg, the leg that was bent between them for separation, out and around the man’s neck while he brought his left leg up and hooked it around his own ankle where his leg was draped along the back of the man’s neck. Kyle had trapped the man’s head, as well as his right arm at the shoulder, inside the triangle he purposely formed with his legs. The man was trapped in a triangle choke, but all Kyle could think of as he pulled the man’s arm across his chest and the man’s head down toward his groin, tightening the choke, was Adeline in the hands of Khatib’s other goon.

  No time for the choke.

  As the man writhed in between his legs, desperately struggling for air, for freedom, Kyle let go of his head, and in three powerful and quick motions, he drove three head-splitting elbows into the man’s forehead. After the second elbow, the man’s body had gone limp. But Kyle’s third one landed before he could stop it. Kyle unwrapped his legs, and the man collapsed to the concrete, blood leaking from his battered face. Kyle hopped up to his feet, and as soon as he turned for the door, the bouncer held up his hands—“I’m not going stop you”—and Kyle pushed into the club.

  The club was packed full of people.

  The music blared through the massive warehouse of a room.

  The darkness was only highlighted in a few places by glowing, colored florescent rope lights.

  Adeline could be anywhere.

  Sarah practically pulled Zhanna to the ground as she ducked behind the boat.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Sarah asked Zhanna.

  “I don’t think so. It’s dark.”

  Sarah and Zhanna had walked down the steps from the street onto the concrete riverwalk where the boats were docked for their owners to enter Wanderlust. Marv hadn’t called back, but Sarah didn’t want to stand around and wait. As soon as they started to snoop around the boats for anything that looked suspicious, a fishing boat, like a mini version of one you would see in the ocean, pulled up to the dock. Sarah could have sworn that the man that ducked back into the cabin had a machine gun strapped around his shoulder.

  “Did you see what I saw?” Sarah asked.

  “Man with gun? Yes, I saw this.”

  Sarah’s phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She didn’t answer. One, because she didn’t want anyone from the boat beside them to hear her. And two, because she knew it was Marvin, and she already knew what he didn’t about the boat. It had to be Khatib’s men. Unless it was a police boat and she just thought it was a fishing boat. Sarah was no sea woman. The closest she had come to hanging out on a boat was a Disney cruise for her nephew’s birthday—oh, and killing some Russian thugs on Xander’s yacht.

  Zhanna whispered, “How is Kyle doing?”

  Kyle!

  “Shit!” Sarah whisper-shouted. “After I called Marv, I forgot to put my earpiece back in!”

  “I am sure he is okay,” Zhanna said.

  Sarah fumbled in her pocket and replaced the earpiece. As soon as she put it to her ear, two men rushed off the suspicious boat, and it was clear from their attire that they weren’t there to party. Both were dressed in all-black tactical gear. Sarah, Zhanna, and Kyle had walked right into the middle of a war.

  “Kyle! Kyle, are you there?”

  For a moment, all Sarah could hear in her right ear was the sound of obnoxiously loud music.

  “Kyle!”

  “Sarah?”

  Sarah’s stomach did a flip when she heard his voice over the music.

  Kyle shouted, “Where the hell have you been—”

  “Kyle! Listen to me! You have to get out of there! Get Adeline and get out of there, there are men coming for you!” Sarah said as loudly as she could while trying not to let anyone that might still be on the boat hear her.

  “What?” Kyle shouted.

  Shit. The music enveloping his voice seemed even louder. She had no choice but to shout.

  “Get out of there! There are men coming for you!”

  The music continued to play without a response. Had Kyle heard her?

  Finally he responded. “No shit, Sarah! I’ve been trying to tell you that for five minutes now! I lost Adeline in the club and there are—”

  “Hey!” a man shouted from the direction of the suspicious boat.

  Kyle continued talking, but Sarah didn’t hear what he said. She was forced to focus on the man shouting at her. She poked her head above the bow of the small boat she was hiding behind, and as soon as her eyes crested the wood, she could just make out a man staring back at her.

  “Hey, who are you?” the man asked.

  Sarah looked at Zhanna’s clothing, then down at her own. There was no way they could pass for club goers. She wanted to tell Kyle again that men were after him, but it sounded like he already knew. She and Zhanna needed to get in there, fast. But she had to get by this man first.

  “Help!” Sarah shouted. Then she stood, letting the man see her. “Please! Help me! My friend, she isn’t breathing!”

  Zhanna didn’t miss a beat. She immediately lay back on her back and splayed out her arms and legs. Sarah ran around the front of the boat she was hiding behind.

  “Please, can you please help me?”

  The thin, dark-haired man said, “Sorry. I can’t help. I’m sorry.”

  Sarah thought quickly. “Can you please call for an ambulance then? Please?”

  “No—I mean . . . Hold on, I’m coming,” the man said.

  Sarah knew that would do the trick. She knew attention would be the last thing he would want to be drawn to this area right now. The man exited the boat and began walking toward her. As he came into the light, she could tell by the bulge in his pocket he was carrying a gun.

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you!” Sarah said to him. “I don’t know what happened, she just collapsed.”

  The man rounded the boat and saw Zhanna lying on the ground. Sarah moved in behind him, ready to knock him unconscious when the time was right. But she didn’t have to. As soon as the man knelt down, Zhanna brought her right shin to the side of his head with an impressive force for a woman on her back. The man toppled over and face-planted on the concrete. Sarah pushed out her bottom lip and raised an eyebrow, impressed.

  Zhanna jumped to her feet and shrugged her shoulders. “What? I thought he was going to try to give mouth to mouth.”

  Sarah pulled out her gun and spoke into her earpiece. “Kyle, where are you? We’re coming!”

  She waited a moment to hear Kyle’s voice.

  The only thing her right ear heard in return was music.

  Where There’s Smoke…

  Melanie fired the gun as soon as she brought it near Xander’s head. With no time to spare, Xander was able to shoot his left arm up to meet hers, and the gun went off right beside his ear. He couldn’t help but recoil from the painful sound. When he did, Melanie jumped from her foot pegs and drove Xander to the ground. He managed to get his hand on her wrist that held the gun, and he banged it as hard as he could against the hardwood floor. She punched him in the face, and through the smoke he grabbed for her, but he only came away with the wig. He slammed her gun hand against the floor again, and this time she let out a yelp as the gun skittered across the floor.

  Now she was in trouble.

  The white smoke was so thick at that point t
hat his eyes began to water and his lungs began to burn. Xander reached up and grabbed her by the throat. She wrapped both her hands around his wrist as he squeezed, but there was nothing she could do. He was too strong. With the force of a car accident, Xander slammed her down to the floor beside him, removing her from her straddled position over him. When her shoulder smashed into the floor, all the air gusted from her lungs and she choked trying to find a breath. He held his hand to her throat as he rose to his knees and began to apply downward pressure, taking his grip from painful to excruciating.

  “Where”—cough—“is Natalie?”—cough, cough. His lungs were on fire, and his voice didn’t sound like his own. The anger inside him was boiling over. Of course, Melanie couldn’t answer with her throat being smashed in his grip, but he didn’t let up. “Where?”

  “Melania! Where are you?” a man shouted from the opposite end of the dining hall.

  Xander released his hold on Melanie, took a deep breath, and rolled into the thickest of the white smoke. He didn’t know how many would be coming in after him, but he was certain they would be armed, and you can’t shoot what you can’t see. He unzipped his pocket, pulled out his Marfione OTF knife, put his gun in his pocket, zipped up his pocket, and pressed the button on the grip, releasing the blade from its sheath. All he could see was red. He turned over and dropped to his stomach. The smoke wasn’t quite as thick there. To his left, he could just make out Melanie, holding both hands to her throat, still trying to catch her breath from the squeeze of Xander’s grip. Back to his right, he could see boots. Three sets of them. The smoke swirled from the doorway and around the movement of the men who were entering the dining room. Xander put his mouth down to the floor, sucked in the cleanest air he could, then rose to a crouch, knife at the ready.