“Y-yes,” Kyle whimpered.
Though the situation seemed disastrous, the fact that they weren’t already dead was a stroke of luck, really. She knew with each passing second they kept Kyle and her alive that it was a second closer to Xander spoiling the party. They’ll try to make an example of us, she thought. She figured there might even be the coordination of a video. She hoped.
* * *
Khatib’s militants closed in on Xander from both the beach side and the canal side of the compound. It was time to take those chances. He tucked Rambo back down inside the sheath strapped to his leg and bolted toward the edge of the brush in the direction of the canal. He stayed low, moving only his feet below him as he bent over, weaving through the foliage. He once again came to the edge of the ten-foot drop to the canal when a bullet screamed past his head. Two men standing on a walkway—a bridge over the canal—that connected the seemingly abandoned building and the compound were screaming as another was firing a rifle. Xander dropped down to his stomach. He knew they were really closing in on him. God only knew how many men were catching up to him from the beach behind him; three still stood overlooking the canal, and out of the corner of his eye, just before he almost lost an ear from the bullet a second ago, he had spotted at least half a dozen more men coming out of the front door of the compound, headed straight for him.
Fortune favors the bold.
Xander popped to his feet, quick-scoped the man shooting at him on the walkway, killing him. Next, with a massive inhale and two bounding steps he dove headfirst into the canal. It didn’t take long for him to reach the bottom, but he felt a small amount of pressure in his ear so he knew it was at least ten feet. He swam from the middle to the far-right side, never leaving the bottom. It was a good thing because as soon as he moved, bullets began thumping through the middle of the small artificial waterway.
A moat? He built a moat? What is this guy, a comic book villain?
Xander knew the darkness of the water would be in his favor, but still he swam feverishly, desperately trying to make it under that walkway the three men were on. If he could make it there, there might just be enough cover to make something happen. The bullets streaming into the water got farther and farther away. Above him as he swam, the moonlight offered little help to see where he was going. However, when that moonlight suddenly became shadowed, he knew he was under that bridge.
Xander slowly made his way to the top. His eyes burned from the saltwater, and pain shot through the wound in his shoulder with every stroke. He thrashed his bare feet below him to steady himself. He brought his Mk16 up at the same time his eyes raised out of the water. He continued to thrash his feet back and forth to hold himself in place. He saw three men running along the canal, shooting blindly into the water, one pointing to another at where he should shoot, even though he had no idea where Xander had gone. There was a steel beam above Xander’s head that ran along the bottom of the walkway, and Xander took hold of it with his left hand, his gun in his right. He kept one eye on the men and worked the other eye along the length of the walkway, looking for a way up.
Or a way in!
His eyes lit up. The moron who had commissioned this little walkway was dumb enough to leave a large storm grate connecting to what Xander hoped was the sewer exit from the compound. There was a chance it was large enough for him. If it was, it was going to be one disgusting entrance, but an entrance all the same. Free of bullets.
Xander let himself slowly back down to the water. Just as he did, one of the men turned Xander’s way and raised his gun.
So much for the bullet-free entry.
Xander had never let his gun down, so he shot and killed all three men along the canal. Just as the last one dropped, three more came out of the spot in the brush where he had jumped from into the canal just seconds ago. Xander managed to shoot the first two, but the third rattled off a succession of shots, and one of them ripped right by Xander’s hand that held the steel bar; it forced him to let go, plunging him into the water. His Mk16 slipped from his hand as well, and the current of the canal carried it downstream. He was down to two pistols and Rambo. The gunman continued to fire on him, so he let the current push him behind the walkway and pulled himself out of the canal, crawling the ten feet up the embankment. The two men on the bridge came to his side, and Xander pulled his pistol as he dove behind the concrete railing. This covered him momentarily from the two on the walkway, but it put him directly in front of the gunman who had just knocked him from under the bridge. The man fired and missed. Still flat on the ground, Xander pointed his pistol and squeezed the trigger. The barrel of the gun kicked back and up and over so that Xander saw the man’s head jerk back, knocking him off his feet. The shot had hit the man square in the forehead. Before the others could react, Xander shimmied himself along the ground, around the concrete rail, and shot the two men left on the walkway.
Xander was exhausted.
He noticed how quiet it had become, and the lull in men coming out of the woodwork to try to kill him allowed time for the image of Sean being executed to come flooding to his conscience. A heavy sadness fell upon him like a weighted vest. He dropped his forehead to the concrete. His emotions swelled.
“I’m sorry, Sean,” he muttered out loud. “I’m sorry.” Tears pooled in his eyes.
Use it.
A voice came to his aid. His voice. The voice he had trained to come in at times like these and give him the strength he needed to finish what he started.
Use it, X.
Use the anger.
Save them.
33
The Most Haunting Image His Eyes Would Ever See
Kyle felt a shove at his lower back, and stars spotted the darkness in his bag-covered eyes as his head slammed into a concrete wall. Dazed, he wiggled a few times until finally he was sitting up with his back against a wall. The purple stars slid back beneath the clouds in his mind, and he began to regain his wits. A thud hit the wall next to him accompanied by a female voice grunting in pain.
Sam.
Where the hell are we, and where the hell is Xander?
Because there was nothing but black in front of his eyes, the execution of Sean played over and over as if on the big screen at the local Cineplex. He tried to do as Xander had taught him and erase the negative from his mind, but shit—this was as bad as it gets. He was stuck in a country full of terrorists, in a room full of gunmen—who were all fully aware that it was their intention to kill them—with his hands tied and a bag over his head. Oh, and none of them even spoke English, so he couldn’t even try to charm his way out. The worst part of it all was that he was worried about his best friend. The same friend that got him into this mess. All he cared about, though, was that Xander was okay. As bad as it was in that room, for the moment at least there was no one shooting at him.
“You okay, Sam?”
“I’m okay. Whatever happens, Kyle, don’t say a word to them. I will do my best to dangle a carrot for them. Hopefully it will be long enough—” She stopped herself. She couldn’t be certain whether or not someone in the room with them spoke English.
“I hear ya.” Kyle let her know that he knew she was holding out hope that Xander could save them.
“Long enough for what exactly?” a deep and gravelly Middle Eastern voice asked. Chills simultaneously ran all up and down Kyle’s and Sam’s spines. “Do tell,” he finished.
“Who are you?” Sam asked.
“Who are you?” the voice returned. “I’m not sure you are in the position to be demanding answers.”
“You already know who I am. I’m sure James filled your ear full of bullshit the moment you filled his pockets.”
“Indeed he did, Samantha,” Khatib replied. Sam was sure it was him. She shuddered when he said her name. “I am assuming that since you are doing the talking that this is Kyle and not Xander. I am assuming Xander is the one who got his brains blown all over my beach?”
“Yes, you bastard! Your men shot hi
m like a dog!” Sam cried out, selling her pain. Khatib somehow had no idea that there was a fourth among them. Xander was alive! She hated to disrespect Sean with her words, but even though he was dead now, he was still helping them.
A sinister laugh rolled from the terrorist’s gut. “So much for the most spectacular killer that ever lived.” He continued his laugh. His men, though they couldn’t understand what he was saying, joined him in laughter.
“Enough!” he silenced them. “Well, I guess the only thing left to do is make an example of the two of you.”
“An example of what exactly?” Sam asked. Her only goal now was to prolong Khatib’s inevitable plan.
“An example of what happens to those who try and stop me, stop ISIS. I must thank you, really. This will do wonders not only to build my following but to strike fear in the hearts of those who oppose me.” Khatib muttered something else in Arabic, and Kyle and Sam were brought to their feet. He was remarkably well spoken for someone who lived in a bunker, Sam thought.
Kyle felt a tug at his neck, and the next thing he knew white light blasted into his eyes and pain poured inside them as if he had just looked up into a needle storm. He blinked his eyes to try to focus, but he only caught glimpses of a shadowy figure in what seemed to be a small box of a room. Sam cried out in pain beside him. She was desperately trying to adjust her eyes to the light as well. Kyle felt a sharp pain as one of the gunmen drove the butt of his rifle into his stomach. A metallic taste formed in the back of his mouth, and he was sure he would vomit. He gasped for breath, and he felt another sharp pain to the side of his head, and once again purple shooting stars rocketed across his mind’s eye. He staggered and fell to his knees. The smell of blood and mildew were almost enough to make him sick. After a moment, the cobwebs began to clear, and when he looked up, he noticed he was staring right into the lens of a camera. Sam was right. The pain seared and his heart dropped into his stomach. He had seen this enough on CNN to know exactly what was going on.
This was his execution video.
Words he couldn’t understand and unknown faces swirled around the room. His mind was mostly blank. He thought for a moment he would pass out, but as he started to slump over, one of the terrorists was kind enough to poke the small of Kyle's back with the point of his machine gun. To his left they brought Sam to her knees, and her face held an expression he thought he would never see on her.
Fear.
Her eyes searched around the bright room the same way his had, and it made him wince in pain and squint his eyes as he felt the penetrating needles of light that she too undoubtedly was trying to overcome. Khatib was the master of ceremonies as he stood with another man behind the camera. Every time he spoke, his minions moved into action. The room was hot and damp. The distinct smell of mold filtered through the stench of body odor from the man holding the gun to his shoulder. Although the temperature was hot, it was visually freezing cold. The light-gray cinder block walls and high-output florescent lights reminded him of a hospital room gone wrong.
Khatib barked another order, and moments later Sam, still on her knees, was forced to move over beside Kyle. Her arms were still tied behind her back, just the same as Kyle's. Movement followed more shouting, and for no apparent reason at all, they were removing Sam’s ropes from her wrist. What followed would never leave Kyle's memory; it would forever torment him in his dreams. It would be the most haunting image his eyes would ever see. No, they didn’t brutally kill her; what happened was far worse. The men shuffled Kyle out of the frame of the camera lens.
Khatib’s dark and yellow eyes peered into Kyle’s. “This, you arrogant American prick, is what happens when you come for Sanharib Khatib!” His eyes seemed to go black and an almost supernatural evil emanated from his mortal soul.
He shouted something to the two men who were subduing Sam. Immediately they began peeling off her wet suit. The more she fought, the rougher they were, and a third man joined in to help. After a struggle, Sam stood naked. They forced her back down to her knees onto the damp and dirty concrete floor. Two more men joined, and they managed to get her bent over on all fours.
“Stop it! Leave her alone, you sick fuck!” Kyle shouted, doing the best he could to break free from his restraints.
Khatib replied calmly. “Or what? You’ll kill me?”
“You’re going to pay for this!”
Khatib just laughed as he walked over to Sam. Sam didn’t say a word, and she didn’t make a sound. It occurred to Kyle that this might not be her first time in a situation like this, because he could see in her face that she wasn’t even there. She had traveled somewhere deep inside her own mind and was hiding there. Khatib crouched down, grabbed her by the back of her hair and pulled her face from the ground to look up at him while the men continued to hold her in the sexual position.
“You try to screw Khatib? Well, now it is you that is screwed. And I know you will enjoy it, you filthy whore.” Khatib snapped his finger, and one of his men who stood behind Sam stepped up and pulled his penis from his robe-like garment. Khatib slammed Sam’s head back down to the concrete floor and motioned to the cameraman to make sure he was recording. The man moved in behind Sam and began the act that Kyle knew was one of the worst things that could happen to a woman. Her facial expression didn’t change, and she didn’t make a sound. Simultaneously, Khatib exposed himself and began to urinate on Sam’s back. Kyle had to take his eyes away. He couldn’t imagine the horror she was enduring. He would do anything to trade places with her and spare her this nightmare. Khatib filled the room with a long and sinister laugh. The smell of urine wafted to Kyle's nose, and he vomited uncontrollably at the foot of the wall beside him. Khatib gave a solemn speech in Arabic to the camera as he continued his excretion. As horrible as it was what Sam was enduring, Kyle knew that in a matter of moments, none of it would matter. Khatib finished his speech and his degradation, as the man behind Sam finished as well. They brought her back up to her feet, and her seemingly lifeless body hung in the two men’s arms who held her, naked, degraded, before the eye of the camera. Khatib snapped his fingers again, and two men untied Kyle and removed his wet suit. They retied him, arms and legs, and shuffled him over beside Sam.
This was it.
Xander must already be dead.
That morbid thought was the first that passed through Kyle's mind. All but two gunmen moved away from the camera, leaving one man on the right side of Kyle and one on the left side of Sam. On Khatib’s command, both men raised long and jagged knives to Sam’s and Kyle's throats.
“How long have we been doing this?”
The image of Xander asking Kyle that question on the boat earlier flashed across Kyle's mind. As he felt the cold steel of the blade press against his throat, a choking swallow of fear made a gulping noise in the silence of the room. He closed his eyes and saw himself on the boat, answering Xander’s question—I don’t know, four, maybe five years? He saw Xander reply to him—Okay, and how many times have I missed my mark? Kyle could almost feel his best friend there in that room with him, just like they were back on that boat. Oh, how he wished they were back on that boat. He saw himself answer Xander—N-not once, X. Never.
Khatib’s voice broke the silence in the room with one final command. “And now, you take your final breath.”
Kyle couldn’t help but draw in a deep breath through his nose. He thought of Xander’s reply—That’s right buddy. Never.
As the memory of Xander saying that last word—Never—fleeted from his memory, he came to the last of his inhale and—
Smoke! he thought as his eyelids flew open, and he propelled himself backward away from the knife. He landed on his back with a breathtaking thud, and sure enough, puffing in through the long hallway was smoke. Khatib shouted, and his men scrambled out of the room through the hallway. The two men holding Sam and Kyle threw them against each other in a pile at the far corner of the room. The men tied their arms to two metal pegs on the wall, preventing them from escaping
the room that was now slowly filling with smoke.
Khatib walked over to them. “And now you will burn. You will burn like the trash you are.” He spit at the two of them, then put the bags back over their heads, leaving them in darkness. Kyle heard what sounded like a tripod being collapsed, and then he heard something that sounded like a latch. The last thing he heard was a loud thud, as though Khatib had closed an extremely dense and heavy closet door. As the smell of smoke grew stronger, Kyle assumed that Khatib had stashed the camera in some sort of fireproof safe and would return later to retrieve it. He scanned his memory of the room, but he couldn’t remember there being any door of that sort, but there had been a lot going on.
“The smoke, Sam! It’s Xander! It’s Xander! Sam! I’m so sorry they did this to you. But Xander is going to take care of him! Are you okay? Are you still with me?” Kyle shouted as he tried unsuccessfully to wiggle free of his ropes.
“I’m here, and we are alive. That is all that matters,” Sam woefully replied, followed by a smoke-induced series of coughs.
34
Compound Fracture
Flames began to rage and black smoke billowed up into the sky from the partially fire-engulfed compound. As Xander peered through his scope, he still smelled the gasoline on his fingers. He had a perfect view of the front door of the compound that opened out to the walkway over the canal. He would be able to see anyone that exited that door from his spot perched high on the roof of the dark house across the street. When he had tried to investigate the dark house earlier, he had found that not only was it unoccupied but it was a complete and total decoy. A shell, built only to conceal what lay underneath, an underground room. The room where his friends were undoubtedly being tortured. He knew that a tunnel ran underground and the only way to get to that room was through a hidden entrance in the main compound. He had seen this setup before. He’d seen it on a previous mission not far from there in a small town outside of Baghdad, in Iraq.
Xander King BoxSet Page 23
