Xander King BoxSet

by Bradley Wright

  “I’d kill the motherfucker.”

  Xander didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He slammed his windshield closed on his helmet, leaned forward, and spiked the throttle. The motorcycle leapt forward, and in a matter of seconds they were doing 150 miles an hour, a blur in the night. They were speeding toward Vitalii Dragov, Martin King, and a large group of Russia’s most notorious mafia thugs.

  Xander had agreed with Sam.

  39

  Slow Motion, Art, and a Fireworks Display

  Xander and Sam were like a lightning bolt as they took the off-ramp from the MKAD and continued onto A-105. They were only minutes from the airport now. For what it was worth, they hadn’t seen a plane’s lights fill up the night’s sky. Maybe they would make it in time. Maybe Dragov and Xander’s father never really planned on leaving. They could very well be riding right into a trap. It only took twenty-four seconds on A-105 before it was apparent that the trap notion was at least partially true as a blacked-out Cadillac Escalade EXT swerved over in front of Sam and Xander’s surging rocket.

  Xander tapped down on the front and back brakes at the same time, applying even pressure so as not to go into a stoppie, where the bike’s back end pitched upward and they rode solely on the front tire. The applying of that even pressure, however, still didn’t keep the back end from sliding out to the left on him as they skidded. The sound of the tires screeching against pavement and the roar of the SUV’s engine filled the air around them. Xander was ready for this sideways skid as well, and like moving his hands on a guitar to play the perfect note, he played the brakes in harmony to straighten the motorcycle and maintain their balance. It was the second Escalade that dropped back on their right side with a gun out the window that threatened the key of the dangerous tune he was playing. But this wasn’t Sam’s first rodeo on the back of a motorcycle with Xander. Four years ago they had found themselves in Rome in a similar situation.

  Just as normal friends would.

  Sam had already pulled the AK-47, and just as Xander hit the throttle and swerved to roar past the left side of the Caddy in front of them, she squeezed off a short burst of three bullets, the second of which punched right through the hand of the man holding the gun. It was a good thing too because this was a well-coordinated attack. A third Escalade—Russians aren’t known for their creativity—swerved into the lane in front of them, and Xander was forced once again to lay on the brakes, sending them back into what would have been the line of fire. Thanks to Sam, a bloody hand was all that greeted them. Until, of course, the tailgate lifted on the Escalade in the middle. The three Escalades pulled even in front of them, closing off all three lanes of the highway. Xander checked his left rearview mirror and, no surprise to him, three more Escalades took up the lanes behind them.

  At least one of those was white.

  They were in a bad spot. The other two tailgates rose on the Escalades in front of them, and they were now staring down the barrels of three semiautomatic assault rifles. The interior of the truck’s lights illuminated the three men behind the guns. All three were dressed in all black, down to their matching ski masks. Beyond the trucks in front of them they could see the lights of the airport reaching up into the black sky.

  So close, yet so far away.

  Xander had no choice but to act fast; his only hope was that Sam would be ready. From the center of the middle lane, Xander drifted to his left, until he was perfectly aligned with the white dotted line that separated the lanes. Xander found that as with most moments of surged adrenaline, everything around him, including his breathing, slowed to a crawl. His senses heightened. He could smell the burnt rubber, the gasoline fumes from the Escalade’s massive engines, and he swore he even saw Sam nod in the side mirror, as if to say, we are in this slow-motion world together. And just like that, the slow motion ended as he squeezed the hand brake on the right handle bar, clamping the brakes down on the front tire. As the back end of the bike came up, Sam had a clear line of sight, and as she gripped the back of Xander’s T-shirt with her left hand, she sprayed the AK from left to right, dropping every single one of the three men holding guns in front of them. Because he’d hit the brakes, the three Escalades behind them roared past and there couldn’t have been more than two inches on either side of the motorcycle as they did. Xander moving onto the dotted line so they wouldn’t hit the bike when he suddenly hit the brakes was a stroke of genius. Just as soon as the Escalades flew by, Xander let go of the front brake, and the back tire slammed down as he simultaneously pulled his pistol with his left hand and shot out the back tire of the Caddy on the left, sending it careening off the road, leaving a space for him to pull away. But just as he gave the bike gas, swerved around the back two Escalades, and then swerved back to go in between the left two Escalades in front of him, the drivers swerved together, cutting him off. He immediately steered left to go around on the strip they had left when they came together in front of him, but the driver quickly cut him off by swerving to his left.

  They were still trapped.

  The sides of the road would be too risky. They were all gravel, and if you’ve never been on a motorcycle, gravel and motorcycles don’t mix. But as two more men began to steady their guns on them from the backseats of the two Escalades in front of them, he was left with no other choice. Sensing that this was the only option, Sam squeezed both arms around Xander. Just as the men fired their guns, Xander swerved wildly to the left, avoiding the bullets, and plunging into the gravel. At first, when he turned back to the right, paralleling them to the road, the back end searched for grip in the loose rocks as it slid wildly out to the left. To keep from toppling over sideways, Xander was forced to jerk the steering column back to the left, entering into a deadly game of one-hundred-mile-per-hour motorbike balance.

  Sam had the wherewithal to leave the steering worry to Xander, and if she hadn’t, they would have been dead. As Xander desperately fought to regain control of the death machine, Sam became one herself. She brought the AK up to shoulder height and held the trigger down for as long as it would shoot. The bullets arched left, right, up, and down as they followed the tilt and lean of the wobbling motorcycle. The result was like one of those artists—if you can call them artists—who fling paint all over a canvas by swinging a brush wildly through the air. The result, a come-what-may smattering of paint wherever it might fall. Sam’s bullets painted the Escalade in much the same way. They sprayed up, down, left and right, taking out the man holding his gun through the rear window. The blood from his forehead was a masterpiece of its own. And just as Xander decided that gunning the throttle would finally straighten out the motorcycle, the last bullet in the AK-47’s magazine found its way to the cheekbone of the driver in the SUV. The motorcycle surged forward, up onto the smooth blacktop now, and Xander heard what Sam was able to turn and see. The dead man in the driver’s seat fell forward onto the right side of the steering wheel and turned the Escalade right in front of the other two SUVs. In a spectacular crash, the Escalade flipped up in the air, and the sound of the twisted metal, like a tornado demolishing an aluminum barn, reached all the way to the motorcycle. Tires scorched the blacktop and the rest of the SUVs came together in an automobile fireworks display, worthy of the greatest of Fourth of July celebrations. It all ended in a fiery blast—the grand finale—and Xander leaned forward as he spiked the throttle and the bike sped away toward the airport.

  40

  Let’s Make a Deal

  The engine of the motorcycle wound down as Xander slowed, pulling into the eerily quiet parking lot. That didn’t lower Xander’s heightened senses. He and Sam were well aware that all eyes were on them. If Vitalii Dragov and Martin King were smart, they would level them with an RPG missile right now. So far, no screaming missiles were headed their way, and just an empty parking lot that overlooked three private aircraft hangars loomed in front of them. Xander pulled the bike into the first parking space inside the lot, behind a van, which just so happened to be the lone vehicle there
. It provided at least a small amount of cover. They were around a hundred yards from the nearest hangar.

  Xander waited for Sam to get off from behind him before he peeled himself off the bike. As he stood, his legs maintained a comically bowlegged frame. Sam couldn’t help herself.

  “Okay, cowboy.” She nodded toward his still separated legs. “What now?”

  Xander looked down and couldn’t help but smile as he removed his helmet. A streetlight shined down over them, almost in a spotlight.

  “Nice moves back there, Samantha.”

  “We make a hell of a team.”

  “No sign of the helicopter full of our cavalry yet. It looks like we’re on our own.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” As Sam removed her helmet, her dark hair fell around her face and her smile curled into a confident smirk.

  “What now?” Xander asked.

  Before Sam could answer, they heard a cell phone ring. They both looked around like it would be on some invisible man standing beside them; then Xander felt a buzz in his pants. Sarah’s phone. He pulled the phone from his pocket; the number was blocked. Xander answered without speaking, placing the call on speakerphone.

  “Xander, turn the motorcycle around and get the hell out of here now. I don’t want you to end up like your mother.”

  Hearing his father’s voice on the other end of the cell phone did a lot of things to Xander all at once. The first feeling was a pang of nostalgia, remembering the goofy sayings and all the lessons that voice had taught him. The second feeling was disbelief, that after all these years of supposedly being dead, it could actually be him. If Xander hadn’t heard Sarah tell him about Manning flipping on his dad, and if he hadn’t seen him with his own eyes just a bit ago, he would have believed that someone was playing a sick and twisted joke on him. The third feeling, the feeling that stomped on the other two feelings, was one of sheer, unadulterated, blood-boiling, skin-roasting anger.

  “Fuck you. Come out here like a man and talk about it.”

  “Aah, I see we are very much alike, you and I, son.

  “You and I are nothing alike.”

  “So, you think because you were a Navy SEAL, Black Ops, and all those other meaningless titles that you are better than your old man, huh? You have no idea what I’ve been through in my life.”

  “You’re right, I don’t even know who the fuck you are. But step out into this parking lot and you’ll find out exactly who I am and what I’m made of.”

  Sam swore she could see steam wafting into the cool air off Xander’s head. Then she realized she actually could; it was from him being in that motorcycle helmet for so long. She wanted to help, but there was nothing for her to say. This is the moment that her partner—her friend—had been waiting for since he was just a teenager. All she could do was be there for him in the aftermath. If either of them were around for the aftermath.

  “Xander, I’ve lived a long and mostly brutal life. That hardens a man. Thickens his skin in a way that you couldn’t imagine. You think I would be afraid of you? I’m not saying I’m not proud of you, son, ‘cause you are a hell of a soldier. But your tools have yet to be sharpened enough to take a man like me.”

  “Try me.”

  The man on the other end of the phone was no longer his father in Xander’s mind. He was now only known as the man who killed his mother, the man who stole the last decade of Xander’s life, and Xander didn’t want to bear that burden any longer. No matter what that meant.

  “I’ll tell you what, son, you leave your weapons where you stand, walk into that middle hangar there in front of you with your pretty unarmed girlfriend, and I’ll make you a deal.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ll let you have your shot at me. I know more about fighting than you will ever learn, but if you win, I’ll instruct everyone here that you will be free to go. You and your girlfriend there and the rest of your friends that I captured so easily earlier today.”

  “And if you win?”

  “They’re all dead. Everyone but you.”

  “What happens to me?”

  “You come to work for me. I think we’d make a pretty damn good team. You and I together could run the whole damn world.”

  Xander looked up at Sam.

  “Xander, you know it’s a trap. We both know you can’t win. Even if you win, you lose. He will never let you go.”

  Xander didn’t respond. He removed both pistols from the back of the waistline of his pants and tossed them on the ground.

  “Sam stays out here and you’ve got a deal.”

  “Deal,” Martin King said without hesitation.

  Xander ended the call.

  “Xander, you can’t—”

  Xander interrupted, “I have put you and Kyle in danger far too many times already during my search for revenge. I won’t do it anymore. This ends now, and it ends with me. If you are truly my friend, Sam, you will get on that motorcycle and get the hell out of here. Get on your phone and tell everyone else the same thing.”

  “Xander, I can’t leave. I won’t leave.”

  She spoke those last words to Xander’s back. He had already started the short walk toward the end of his long journey. And this time, for the first time, Sam didn’t follow.

  41

  Vanquish

  A small glass door in the middle of the massive white airplane hangar had been propped open, awaiting his arrival. Xander knew that Sam was probably right. There was no way they were going to let him out of there alive, win or lose. But just because someone doesn’t let you do something doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Stupid of him to think this way, but he knew Sam wouldn’t leave. He knew she wouldn’t be calling Kyle and the helicopter full of his allies, telling them to turn back. All he could hope for is that they could bail him out one last time after he put an end to this chapter of his life. He would have plenty of time to make it up to them later. And if he didn’t make it, he had left enough of his fortune to Kyle and Sam to be able to take care of everyone without him. Come what may, this would be the end of his lifelong quest.

  Xander walked through the open glass door and into what was an empty office. More like a reception area. Generic gray carpet covered the floors, the walls all painted white, and pictures of different types of aircrafts, old and new, sporadically filled the voids. The only person in there with him was at the far end of the room; it was Melanie—or Melania. Just one of the many painful betrayals of the last couple of days. She wore a sarcastic smile and opened a door for him. The door that led to the area where all the planes were stored. The area where he would finally face his demons.

  Well . . . demon.

  He wasn’t exactly sure what awaited him in the next room. His father made it seem as though he wanted to actually fight Xander to put an end to this. Something Xander found absolutely absurd. The only chance the old man had at beating Xander would be to shoot him as he was unarmed. And maybe that was the plan. Maybe all he wanted to do was get Xander unarmed so he could show the people who worked for him just how ruthless he could be. Mercilessly gunning down his own son, proving that no one could cross him and live to tell about it. Or maybe the son of a bitch was crazy and thought he could actually take Xander in a fight. One could only be so lucky.

  Xander walked through the door, not giving Melania a second look. Once through, the ceiling vaulted to over forty feet. Massive florescent light fixtures hung down in rows, illuminating a wide-open space that could fit at least six or seven of Xander’s G650-sized aircrafts inside it. As it were, there was one such plane—not his—on the far left end of the hangar; the rest was empty except for a circle of rare collectible cars that had been parked in the middle. In the center of the circle of cars—old Mustangs, Lamborghinis, Rolls-Royces, and such—was an open circle about the size of a UFC Octagon. Seems that Martin King has a flare for the dramatic. All around the cars were what looked like extras from the set of the movie The Expendables. Half of the Russian thugs were even we
aring those stupid beret hats. All of them in their militant-style combat clothing, all of them armed.

  Xander was screwed.

  In the middle of the circle and the cars, surrounded by the ridiculous-looking spectators, stood a man about the same height as Xander, in a navy-blue suit, who had white hair and a white beard. As the goons parted and Xander entered the ring-sized circle, he could see that his father’s face was tan and leathery. He must not spend much time in Russia. He had already removed his suit jacket and rolled the sleeves of his white button-down shirt up to his elbows, two buttons undone at the top. The air in the hangar stank of jet fuel and arrogance; the warmth in it enabled the foul body odor around him to linger as well. Leaning against the hood of a black vintage Porsche 911 Turbo, sinking the nose of it almost all the way to the floor, was a fat, ugly son of a bitch with a pockmarked face and terribly dyed black hair, sucking on a cigar. Elvis, if he’d survived and ate pierogies six times a day for the last thirty-nine years.

  Dragov.

  Amazingly, with danger all around him, his father, once thought dead, and the looming threat of death possibly just moments away, Xander found himself completely calm. He was ready for this. He stopped twenty feet from his father and just looked him solemnly in the eye. Xander’s face held no emotion. Mostly because he felt nothing. The time for all of that had passed.

  “You look good, son.”

  Xander didn’t speak, his face still void of emotion. Over his father’s broad shoulders, through the open hangar door, the sun was just beginning its trek across the sky. It cast a light shadow over his father’s face, hooding his eyes, making him seem even more sinister than his deep and gravelly voice could manage alone.