by Tim Waggoner
At least Talon had no difficulty passing the time here. He was down on the dance floor, tearing it up in a performance that was part acrobatics, part martial arts, and all attitude. People had backed away to give him room, and now a small crowd watched him, clapping and cheering as he executed one seemingly impossible move after another
Xiang saw a large man making his way through the crowd. At first glance, there was nothing special about him. He was tall, fit, muscled, and tattooed, and he exuded absolute confidence, as if there wasn’t a man—or woman—in the place that he couldn’t take on. A bonafide badass, Xiang thought, but then so were a lot of people here. But what set this man apart were subtle qualities that most people would never recognize. But then Xiang wasn’t most people. Outwardly, the man appeared to be just another partier trying to get the lay of the land, checking people out, looking for a bed partner or someone to pick a fight with. Maybe both. But he moved with a relaxed precision that told Xiang this was a man whose mind and body were in perfect balance. And while he looked at the people he passed with what appeared to be only mild interest, Xiang could see the intense concentration concealed in his gaze. This was a warrior, and he’d come here looking for something—or someone.
Xiang smiled. Now things were getting interesting.
He let out a piercing whistle, and Talon—hearing the signal—looked up. The two men made eye contact, and Xiang nodded in the warrior’s direction. Talon, still dancing, glanced in the direction Xiang indicated, saw the man, turned back to give Xiang a nod, and in the blink of an eye he dropped the party-animal act and became a straight-faced professional. His audience let out moans of disappointment and some urged him to start dancing again, but Talon ignored them as if they no longer existed. He pushed past them and started moving toward the warrior.
Xiang watched Talon’s progress, but then the warrior stopped walking and looked up toward Xiang, as if alerted by some instinct that he was being watched. The two men locked eyes, and Xiang could feel an immediate unspoken rivalry between them, a pair of predators recognizing each other for exactly what they were.
Xiang grinned. This just kept getting better and better.
* * *
Xander broke eye contact with the Asian man and began making his way through the crowd once more. “I spotted our clown,” he said to Nicks and Adele.
“Easier than expected,” Nicks replied. “Drinks all around.”
Xander looked around and spotted Nicks mingling with some very hot women not far from the stage. The man knew how to mix business with pleasure, no doubt.
Adele spoke then. “Tiny dancer on your six, X. I’m ready to have some fun. Douchebag hunting season is my favorite.”
Xander glanced behind him and saw a young Asian man with bleached hair moving in his direction. He recognized him as the man who had been putting on an impressive display on the dance floor only a few minutes ago. He didn’t look like a party boy now, though. He looked like a hunter intent on running his prey to ground. He kept his hand pressed tight against his thigh as he walked, and while Xander couldn’t see it, he had no doubt the man gripped a knife. Xander pictured Adele sitting in her perch, tracking the man through her rifle’s scope, finger on the trigger, ready to put a bullet into the guy’s head.
“A little early in the night to kill someone,” Xander said.
“Oh, come on. Let me be Buck Hunter to Mr. Dance Revolution.”
“Lemme fix it,” Nicks said.
The singer and his backup dancers were taking a break, and Nicks hopped up onto the stage and quickly conferred with the man. The singer smiled, nodded, and handed Nicks the mike. A few seconds later, Nicks was standing behind a pair of turntables, hood mask pulled up over his face.
“This a party or a funeral?” he shouted into the mike.
The crowd stopped what they were doing and turned toward the stage, unsure what was happening.
Nicks continued. “Either way… Somebody’s get turnt up tonight!”
He put down the mike, reached for the turntables and dropped a massive fucking beat. The crowd cheered in delight and people swarmed the dance floor, gyrating wildly. The man with the bleached hair was cut off from Xander in the bedlam, and Xander took the opportunity to slip away.
“Told you he was fun to have around,” he said as he put more distance between himself and his would-be assassin.
* * *
Xander made his way to the club’s upper level, but when he reached the table where the Asian man had been sitting, he found it empty. He looked around but saw no sign of the man, which was weird. Xander would’ve seen him come down the stairs, and since he hadn’t, that meant the guy was still up here somewhere. This level wasn’t very well lit. Lots of shadows for someone to hide in. That was okay, though. Xander didn’t mind playing hide and seek.
But before he could start looking, he heard a woman’s voice come from close by.
“At first I thought Special Forces, but your ink’s all wrong. CIA would send in a drone, bomb us to hell. MI6? Not the kind of subtle they prefer. Who sent you?”
He turned to see a beautiful woman of Indian descent step out of the shadows and into a sliver of moonlight shining through a temple window. She wore a black sports bra, black leather shorts and thigh-high boots. He was impressed. Not many people could get the drop on him like that.
“I haven’t been sent anywhere since I got called to the principal’s office,” Xander said, “and that was in fourth grade.”
“The men who come to this island are on the run, hiding from the world. But not you. You’re not hiding. You’re looking for someone.”
He realized then that she was the woman he had seen on the pier, the one who had been watching from a distance before melting into the darkness. She seemed cool as ice, and since she had the advantage over him, he decided to see if he could rattle her a little.
“And who’s to say I haven’t already found her?” He stepped closer to the woman, forcing her to retreat until her back was literally against a wall. He moved even closer until only a few inches separated them.
If she was intimidated, she sure as hell didn’t show it. “Was that meant to scare me?”
Xander smiled. “A little tremble would be nice.”
He heard Adele’s voice in his ear.
“Really, Cage? She bats her Bambi eyes and suddenly you go jelly on me? Some things never change.”
The woman surprised Xander then. She pushed close to him and started running her hands across his body, as if she was trying to turn the tables and intimidate him. Xander decided right then and there he liked this woman. He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill her.
“Whatever it is you’re here for,” she said, “you’re gonna come up short.”
“I know a Swedish female bobsled team that would beg to differ. But since you think you already know me…”
“Considering that you’re one tremble from limping out of here, I’d say I’m pretty close.”
Xander felt pressure against his crotch. He looked down and saw that while the woman had been distracting him, she had pressed a gun against his balls.
He looked into the woman’s eyes once more. “I’d say you’re a couple inches off.”
The woman stiffened as she realized that while she’d pulled a gun on him, he’d pulled a knife on her, and was now pressing the blade to her ribs.
Xander smiled. “Does this mean you’re not cooking me breakfast in the morning?”
“I’m gonna be sick,” Adele said. “You know what ruins everything? Boobs.”
Moving lightning-fast, Xander snatched away the woman’s gun with his free hand, but moving equally fast, she grabbed his knife, and in the blink of an eye, they both pressed their stolen weapons to the other’s throat.
“Bit of a stalemate, sister,” Xander said.
“Not if you drop the gun.”
“Ladies first.”
Neither of them moved an inch.
Xander was finding himself increas
ingly intrigued by this woman. Not because of her beauty—although he had to admit, that didn’t hurt—but because he sensed a fire burning within her, a powerful blaze over which she kept an iron-fisted control. He wondered what would happen if she ever chose to relax her grip and let her fire burn free and wild. If he was close to her when it happened, he thought he might not survive it. But what a way to go.
He decided to give her a bit of the truth and see how she reacted.
“Here’s a little secret,” he said. “I’m not the bad guy.”
She peered deeply into his eyes, and he wondered what she saw there.
“I don’t believe in good guys,” she said.
Before Xander could respond, he heard a man say, “Serena,” and then follow that up with a question in Mandarin. “Who’s your friend?”
Xander glanced to the side and saw the Asian man he’d been searching for emerge from the shadows. His expression was calm, almost placid, but his gaze flicked from one weapon to the other, and Xander could practically hear the gears turning in the man’s head as he assessed the situation and debated his next move.
“We just met,” Serena said.
“But we were getting along famously until you interrupted, Mr. Bad Timing,” Xander said.
The man made no move to come closer, but he fixed Xander with an icy stare. “When you leave here, make sure to stick to the path,” he said. “There are a lot of unmarked graves on the island.”
“Bet the guy who sold you that shirt is in one of ’em,” Xander said.
The man’s lips tightened in irritation. “How long do you intend to push your luck?”
“As long as it takes to get what I came for,” Xander said, looking at Serena.
“Which is what, exactly?” the man said.
Xander and the man in the ugly tropical shirt glared at each other, tension building by the second. And just when Xander thought the man was finally going to lose control and attack him, he removed the gun from Serena’s throat, and spoke to the man in perfect Mandarin.
“A damn strong drink,” he said.
If the man was surprised that Xander could speak his language, he didn’t show it. Instead he motioned for Serena to take her knife away from Xander’s throat, and then he smiled.
“That’s what I was hoping you would say!”
* * *
The man, who introduced himself as Xiang, led Xander and Serena to the table he’d occupied earlier, and the three of them sat. A bottle of Wuliangye—a mellow Chinese liquor that was fifty-three percent alcohol—sat on the table, along with three glasses. Xander poured their drinks and then handed a glass to Serena. “Here you go, precious,” he said.
She rolled her eyes at him, but she took the drink. Xander then gave Xiang a glass and took one for himself. He had no idea what was in the pitcher, but whatever it was, it smelled lethal.
“They say alcohol erases all deceit and reveals the hidden truth,” Xiang said.
Xander smiled. “I have no hidden truth.” He then made a toast in Mandarin. “Gan Bei!”
“Gan Bei!” Xiang said, then tossed back his drink in a single gulp.
Xander did the same, or at least pretended to. When Xiang’s head was tilted back, Xander emptied the contents of his glass over his shoulder. He was certain Serena noticed, but she didn’t say anything. Xander put his glass down and gave Serena a wink. She looked at him, her expression unreadable.
She’s crazy about me, Xander thought. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Xiang put his empty glass on the table and then said, “Let’s be real and talk about what we really want.” And then, without further preamble, he reached into his pants pocket, removed an object, and put it on the table, just out of Xander’s reach.
It was Pandora’s Box.
* * *
Tennyson sat on the prow of the bowrider, earbuds in, music blaring while reading redacted documents on his phone. Whenever he encountered a particularly juicy bit of information, he made a note of it on his hand with a black marker.
He was so wrapped up in his reading—who knew that cereal companies were secretly conducting research into parallel dimensions?—that he didn’t notice three lights appear on the horizon, heading toward the island.
Helicopters, coming in fast.
6
Xander stared at Pandora’s Box. Such a small thing, but it was capable of causing Godzilla-sized destruction.
“Since we’re being real, that’s all I’m here for,” Xander said. “I see no reason you both can’t just walk away nicely.”
Serena looked at the device with a disgusted expression. “Some people are good at turning their backs when millions of lives are at stake.”
Xander frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Power like that doesn’t belong in anyone’s hands,” Serena said. Although she was responding to Xander’s question, she locked eyes with Xiang as she spoke.
Looks like there’s some conflict in Xiang’s merry band of thieves, Xander thought. Good to know.
Xiang scowled at her. “So that’s how you wanna play it?”
“Yes,” she said, coolly defiant.
There was a satchel on the seat next to Xiang, and he reached into it now and pulled out a grenade. Xander experienced a rush of adrenaline upon seeing the weapon. Xiang popped the pin and rolled the grenade across the table to Xander. He slammed his hand on top of the device, snatched it up, and depressed the trigger, resetting the detonation.
“What is this, Eastern Europe in the nineties?” Adele said. “Xander, watch out. Next he’s gonna send you a fax.”
“You willing to kill people just so you can keep that little contraption for yourself?” Xander nodded toward Pandora’s Box.
“Wrong question to ask,” Xiang said. His voice was calm and steady, but there was an intensity in his gaze, and Xander knew the man was enjoying this. He was a game-player, a risk-taker.
Takes one to know one, Xander thought.
“What’s the right question?” Xander asked.
Serena reached for the box then, but Xiang was faster. His hand was a blur as he drew a knife and slammed it into the table between Serena’s hand and the device, the blade missing the tip of her middle finger by only a fraction of an inch.
“Are you willing to die for it?” Xiang said.
Time to take this game to the next level, Xander thought. He rolled the grenade toward Serena, and she snatched it up, her reflexes almost as fast as Xiang’s.
“One grenade, three people,” she said, then smiled. “I like the odds.”
She rolled the grenade back to Xander, and he grabbed it once more. Xiang smiled, reached into his satchel, took out another grenade, popped the pin, and rolled it to Serena. She caught it easily, but she didn’t look as confident as she had a moment ago.
“Two grenades, three people,” Xander said. “I love those odds.”
He shot Serena a quick glance, she nodded, and the two of them rolled their grenades toward Xiang. The man caught them without taking his eyes off Xander and Serena. He was smiling now, as if he was enjoying himself immensely. Xander knew just how he felt.
“Give the word, Xander, and I’ll put both these assholes out to pasture,” Adele said.
Xander reached behind his back and waved her off. The message: Do NOT shoot!
Xiang, still holding onto the two grenades, leaned slightly toward Xander.
“You ever bleed so much you open your eyes and all you see is red?” he asked.
“No, but have you ever folded yourself off a triple on a fourstroke and woke up and saw your spleen lying next to you?” Xander looked at Serena. “Bike stalled.”
She smiled.
Xiang continued. “When you’ve fought wars on every continent, you expect death.”
“Naturally,” Xander said.
“Our bodies are such fragile things,” Xiang said. “Death can sometimes sneak up on you.”
Without warning, Xiang rolled the gren
ades at Xander and Serena with far more force than before, and the two of them barely caught the grenades before they went bouncing off the table. While they were distracted, Xiang drew two more objects from his bag: a third grenade and a 9mm. He placed both objects on the table in front of him.
“Bullet through my throat, drowning in my own blood, and all I can hear myself think is, Today’s the day, today’s the day I die.”
Xander thought he understood. It was at moments like those, when death was so close you could feel its cold breath on your skin, that you felt most truly alive.
“Okay, I’m touched,” Xander said, “I really am.” He called out to a nearby waitress, “Can you bring me my coat from behind the bar, please?”
“I’m not finished,” Xiang said. “Then a man comes along, stops the bleeding, and says there are more important things for me to do than die.”
Serena pursed her lips in irritation. “Could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”
Xiang rolled the third grenade to Serena, who rolled hers to Xander, who in turn rolled his to Xiang.
Xiang continued his story. “Later I’m in a hospital bed, half-conscious, delirious, and the man comes in and tells me a story about this drought in California, about skateboards and swimming pools. And about a man named Xander Cage.”
Xander leaned toward Xiang. “I heard the guy was dead.”
Serena smiled knowingly. “Is he now?”
The waitress returned with Xander’s coat then, but before she could hand it to him, a loud whoooooosh filled the air, and Xander felt the floor vibrate beneath his feet as the building shook. A helicopter just flew overhead, he thought. Military, from the sound of it. An instant later spotlight beams shone through the windows, and the temple doors burst open and armed soldiers flooded into the club.
The grenade pins had landed on the floor when Xiang popped them. He reached down and grabbed one, reinserted it into the grenade he held, and left the device lying on the floor. He straightened, grabbed Pandora’s Box, and shoved it in his satchel, snatched up the bag. He gave Serena a last look before rising from the table and heading off to disappear into the crowd and shadows. But before he vanished, he looked back and gave Xander a “fuck-you” wink.
