xXx

by Tim Waggoner

  Serena followed Xiang’s lead. She too grabbed a pin, reinserted it into her grenade, placed it on the table, and grabbed the 9mm that Xiang had left behind. She turned to Xander, her expression unreadable, then she slipped away. Unlike Xiang, she didn’t look back to give Xander a parting glance.

  * * *

  Xander heard Nicks and Adele speaking in his ear.

  “Shit’s about to go down,” Nicks said.

  “Ready to have some fun?” Adele added.

  The server who’d been bringing Xander his coat had dropped it on the ground when she fled. He got up from the table, retrieved his coat and headed downstairs, keeping a close eye on the action as he went.

  A soldier jumped onto the stage, pointed an assault rifle in Nicks’s face, and shouted in a thick Russian accent.

  “Turn off music! Turn it off!”

  Nicks did as the man commanded then put his hands up.

  The soldier then turned around and shouted even louder.

  “Everybody, hands up! On the floor! First person move, first person die!”

  Xander recognized the soldier from a briefing Gibbons had given him years ago. This was Red Erik, Russia’s baddest of badasses. While Erik was giving orders from the stage, his men were busy rounding up the partiers and holding them at gunpoint. Xander had reached the ground floor by this point, and he found himself trapped with the prisoners. He saw Serena nearby. He looked around for Xiang, but saw no sign of him. He wasn’t surprised. Xiang struck him as one slippery bastard. He wondered if the story the man had told about being approached by Gibbons in the hospital was true, and if so, just what it meant. But he didn’t have time to worry about it. He had more pressing problems right now, and they all had Russian accents.

  Xander, pulls on his coats, put his hands in his coat pockets and took a step to the side. “I moved,” he said.

  From the stage, Red Erik looked at him, confused. Xander took a step back to the position where he’d started.

  “Oops. I moved again. Why am I still alive?” He looked around at his fellow prisoners. “I mean, come on. Is anyone buying this? Russians dropping from the sky? Could you get any more obvious?”

  Red Erik had had enough. “Shut up, funny guy.”

  “OK, alright, OK. Let’s do this.” Xander said.

  As if his words were a cue, the partiers all drew guns—even the women who were barely dressed and didn’t seem to have any place on their bodies to conceal weapons. They pointed their guns at the Russians, who suddenly didn’t look as sure of themselves as they had a moment ago. The tension in the club increased exponentially as the possibility of violence was quickly becoming a certainty. And once the bullets started flying, everyone in the place—pirate or soldier—would end up as shredded meat lying on the blood-soaked temple floor.

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Red Erik seemed more irritated than worried. “What is this, a bloody circus?”

  “I know what you want,” Xander said. “I got Pandora’s Box right here.” He jiggled a hand in his coat pocket to illustrate his point. “You’re wrong about something though. You take this from me, you die first.” Xander nodded to one of the soldiers guarding the crowd. “Lieutenant Leningrad over there goes second. Then the two blond Ivans by the door, Moscow Mule at the bar, and the Igor at the bottom of the stairs after that. Don’t get me wrong. I love Russia. I hung out with the slednecks in the Red Square. I’ve gone free diving in the frozen lakes off Siberia. In fact, I spent the best six months of my life on an island called Bora Bora with a beautiful Russian woman named Yelena. But none of that really matters, because like I said, if you take this from me: You. Die. First.”

  Red Erik sneered. “I take it from you, dead or alive. And if you hold it too tight, I cut your arm off.”

  Xander caught Serena’s eye. He didn’t believe in telepathy, but he did believe that like-minded people could communicate in ways beyond mere speech, and if Serena was as sharp as he thought she was, she’d pick up on the vibe he was sending her. After a second, she gave him an almost imperceptible nod, and he turned his attention back to Red Erik.

  Xander shrugged. “Okay, suit yourself.”

  Xander pulled a hand from his coat pocket and tossed an object toward Red Erik. The spy caught the object with a triumphant grin, but when he looked at what he held in his hand, his grin disappeared.

  “Grenade?” Red Erik said, surprised. But the Russian recovered quickly, mashing his hand down on the detonator to stop the grenade from exploding. He then gave Xander a “nice try, asshole” smile.

  Xander returned the smile as Serena hurled a knife at Red Erik. The blade thunked into his wrist, causing him to drop the grenade. The man’s eyes went wide as he realized what had happened, and then the grenade exploded, and Red Erik’s nickname took on a whole new meaning as chunks of his flesh flew through the air along with copious amounts of his blood.

  Just as Xander had promised, the spy had died first.

  After that, all hell broke loose as everyone started shooting. Xander spotted two more of Xiang’s team—the bleached-haired man who’d tried to kill him earlier and the bearded tough guy who Marke told him had taken out Jonas Borne. The men didn’t bother with weapons. Instead they fought with their hands, breaking arms and snapping necks, fury and rage personified, with violent streaks a mile wide.

  Xander ran to the soldier he’d dubbed Lieutenant Leningrad, grabbed the man, and slammed him down onto a table, reducing it to splinters and rendering the man unconscious. Xander then saw two soldiers attack Serena. She grabbed the first’s gun barrel and pushed it aside before he could shoot her, slammed the heel of her fist into the second one’s jaw in a vicious upward strike, and then yanked the gun out of the first soldier’s hand and smashed the butt into his skull, dropping him like a rock. She’d taken both men out in two seconds flat.

  Damn! The more Xander saw of the woman in action, the more impressed he was by her.

  Knowing Serena could defend herself just fine, he turned to head toward the next men he’d promised Red Erik he would take out—the two blond Ivans by the door. But before he could do more than take a step in their direction, the men fell, one after the other. They were followed by Moscow Mule at the bar and the Igor near the stairs.

  “That’s one more you owe me, Cage!” Adele said. “You owe me at least 20 more, Xander!”

  Xander grinned and held up three fingers. “Read between the lines!”

  He heard the sound of a motorcycle engine racing then, and he looked up in time to see Xiang—the satchel containing Pandora’s Box slung over his shoulder—come racing down the stairs on a bike. The man drove straight through the pirates, partiers, and soldiers shooting and brawling, his two men clearing a path for him.

  Xander saw Nicks on stage, using the wire from a pair of headphones to choke a Russian soldier. He heard Nicks’s voice in his ear and the Russian collapsed to the stage.

  “Tennyson! Some backup would be nice!”

  “X said stay on the boat!” Tennyson replied.

  “That was before the goddamn Russian army touched down, man!”

  Another soldier got in Nicks’s face with a gun then, and Nicks grabbed the DJ’s laptop from the turntable console and snapped it closed over the soldier’s gun muzzle. Nicks jerked the gun back and forth, trying to disarm the man, or at least keep him from shooting.

  Xander was torn. He wanted to go to his friend’s aid, but Xiang was getting away with Pandora’s Box, and he couldn’t let the man retain possession of such a deadly weapon. Serena’s words came back to him now: Power like that doesn’t belong in anyone’s hands. He hated it, but the choice was clear.

  Sorry, Nicks, he thought.

  Xander hauled ass toward the stairs. He knew there was no way he could catch Xiang on foot, but the man didn’t work alone. He had a team. So if he had one bike stashed on the upper level for a quick getaway, there was an excellent chance he had more. As Xander raced up the stairs, he knew what Marke would
tell him to do if she were here. You have a sniper perched in a tree outside, don’t you? So tell her to put a bullet through Xiang’s head when the asshole rides out of the temple, and call it a fucking day. He could do that. He should do that. But his gut told him it was the wrong call. Maybe it was because of the story Xiang told about Gibbons saving his life and talking to him in the hospital afterward. It sounded as if Gibbons had given the man his Triple-X recruiting speech, and although Xander had no idea why Xiang wanted a weapon of mass destruction so badly, if Gibbons had seen something good in him, then Xander was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt—at least a little. Gibbons might have presented himself as a cynical smartass, but he wore that persona like camouflage so that people—especially his enemies—would underestimate him. In reality, he possessed the shrewd, calculating mind of a master strategist, and he was an excellent judge of character. In the intelligence game, understanding people—their hopes, dreams, desires, and fears—was perhaps the most important weapon in a spy’s arsenal. So if Gibbons saw something in Xiang, then Xander wanted to honor that if he could. After all, if Gibbons hadn’t seen that there was more to Xander than most people saw—hell, more than even he had seen himself—then Xander Cage wouldn’t be the man he was today. He owed Gibbons. And Xander always paid his debts.

  Once he gained the upper level, Xander ran toward the back, into the shadows, and there he found a black cloth draped over another bike. He tore the cloth away, shrugged off his coat—telling himself that he’d be back to get it—and climbed onto the vehicle. But as soon as he did so, he realized that this wasn’t an ordinary motorcycle. This was a fucking water bike! He knew the things existed, but he’d never actually seen one before. They were inspired by snow bikes, and they had a paddle tire in the rear, along with a pair of skis mounted on the sides for buoyancy. The vehicles were designed to be amphibious, capable of operating on land or water.

  Xander grinned.

  He hit the ignition, revved the engine, and shot toward the stairs. The water bike soared over the stairs, and just for the hell of it, Xander did a 360-degree spin in the air before landing in the midst of battling Russians and pirates. As he raced forward, he used the bike as a weapon to take down any soldiers in his way. He spotted Serena in the crowd, her two teammates still busy brutalizing every soldier they could get their hands on, but he saw no sign of Xiang. No surprise. The man had surely made it out of the temple by now, which meant Xander had some catching up to do. As he headed for the temple’s entrance, a soldier started shooting at him, so Xander detoured toward the man and lifted up his front wheel to knock the bastard out of the way. The path to the entrance now clear, Xander gunned the engine and the bike surged forward. He saw Serena making her way toward the entrance, too, most likely intending to go after Xiang and Pandora’s Box. But as she ran, another soldier stuck out his arm and clotheslined her. She went down, and the soldier—who was armed with a shotgun—gave a nasty grin as he swung the weapon around, intending to shoot Serena in the head.

  Xander turned the bike toward the man and gunned the engine. Serena lay on the floor between him and the soldier, and just as the front wheel of the bike was about to strike her, Xander pulled up on the handle bars and goosed the engine. The bike leaped over Serena and smashed into the Russian’s chest, sending him flying.

  Xander saw the first rays of dawn shining through the temple windows. Time to get moving. But Serena rose to a sitting position and looked up at him, and he couldn’t resist performing a bunny hop with the bike for her, jumping both the front and back wheels off the ground several times.

  “Trembling yet?” he said, grinning.

  She smiled, and then Xander pointed the bike toward the temple entrance and gave it the gas. As he flew past the stage, Nicks threw the soldier he’d been struggling with into his path. Xander rolled over the man—who let out a pained oomph!—and then he was out of the temple and in the morning light.

  As the bike juddered down the temple steps, he saw a Russian soldier standing guard at the bottom. The man turned toward Xander and raised his assault rifle, but before he could fire, Adele unfurled from her perch, spinning as the sailcloth unwrapped around her. She shot the soldier in the head as Xander roared past the man.

  Adele came to the end of the cloth and landed gracefully on her feet.

  “That’s another one you owe me!” she shouted as Xander raced away.

  * * *

  Nicks ran out of the temple in time to see Xander head off into the jungle after Xiang. Adele ran after him, determined to watch his back even though there was no way in hell she could hope to catch up to him on foot. Then again, if anyone could do it, it would be her. Nicks had never known anyone with more sheer stubbornness in his—

  His thoughts broke off as a soldier carrying a 9mm emerged from the temple. The man looked pissed as hell, and when he saw Nicks, he shouted in Russian. Nicks didn’t know the language, but whatever the man said, Nicks knew it couldn’t be good. Time to ball out, he thought, and started running. Unfortunately, the soldier decided to give chase.

  Fuck! Nicks had no idea why the man had a hard-on for him. Maybe one of the soldiers Nicks had taken out had been the guy’s friend. Or maybe he was pissed that their raid on the temple hadn’t turned out like they’d thought it would, and he was looking for someone to take out his anger on. Whatever the reason, Nicks did not want the man to get his hands on him, and so he poured on the speed.

  The soldier fired as they ran, and Nicks expected to feel a bullet slam into his back any second, but none did. Nicks didn’t care what the reason was. He was just happy not to be dead yet.

  Nicks made it to the beach and kept running, but he quickly realized that he’d made a mistake. The sand slowed him down, and it wasn’t easy to keep his footing. If he wasn’t careful—

  Nick tripped and went down face-first.

  He rolled onto his back in time to see the soldier jogging up to him. The soldier reloaded his gun and aimed at Nicks’s head. As he was about to squeeze the trigger the bowrider came flying up onto the beach and slammed into the Russian, crushing the man beneath its weight.

  Shocked, Nicks looked up to see Tennyson leaning down and removing his mouth guard.

  “X said stay on the boat,” Tennyson explained.

  * * *

  Xander raced through the jungle, snapping branches and kicking up dirt as colorful birds took to the air to get out of his way. He had no trouble following Xiang’s trail. To Xander’s experienced eye, the man might as well have left a trail of coconuts. But Xander had to do more than follow if he wanted to catch up to Xiang. He banked the bike to the left, deviating from the path the other man had taken. The underbrush was thicker here, the trees larger and closer together. Xiang had wisely avoided this part of the jungle, but Xander couldn’t afford to play it safe—and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He cut through underbrush and weaved through a maze of trees, at times with so little clearance that his arms scraped their trunks. And then he emerged from the labyrinth of green into a more open area, and there was Xiang, leaning forward on his bike and riding like the proverbial bat out of hell.

  Xander fell in line behind Xiang and stayed on his tail as they continued blazing a trail through the jungle. And then suddenly, they crashed out onto the beach, but instead of slowing down, Xiang headed straight for the water. He pushed a button and the bike’s water skis ratcheted down into place. Xander did the same thing, and then the two men were on the ocean, zooming across the surface without losing any speed, leaving a trail of white spray behind them as they went.

  But things were, of course, about to get worse.

  Xiang and Xander rode toward a military patrol boat that was anchored offshore. Russian soldiers stood on the deck, and they turned when they heard the bikes draw near, raised their guns, and began firing.

  Xiang hunkered down to make himself the smallest target possible and increased his speed. Xander did the same, and both men weaved their bikes
back and forth to make it harder to draw a bead on them. Xiang angled away from the boat, but Xander saw that the crew was already pulling up their anchor, and there were machine guns mounted fore and aft. Men were running toward the guns, preparing to add their firepower to the mix, and Xander knew that once they got that boat moving, he and Xiang would have a hard time outrunning them.

  He turned toward the boat and headed straight for it. There was a flare gun in the bike holster, and Xander drew it, took aim, and fired at the boat’s gas tank. The flare launched with a whumpf and streaked toward the boat. Xander tossed the gun aside, turned away from the boat, and raced away as the green-burning flare struck the tank and the boat exploded into flame. He felt a blast of hot air against his back, but he ignored it and concentrated on catching up to Xiang.

  The man was headed out to sea, and he’d put a good amount of distance between them while Xander had detoured to deal with the Russians. Xander gunned the throttle and picked up speed and bit by bit began closing in on Xiang. The farther they went, the rougher the water became, and choppy waves rolled toward them. Xiang and Xander began jumping over the small waves, as if they were snow skiing and jumping over moguls. They jumped in perfect synchronization—up, over, down, and up again.

  Xiang took a quick look back and saw Xander not more than a dozen feet behind him.

  “Come on!!” he shouted, then faced forward once more.

  Xander was gratified to see that he’d rattled the man. If he kept up the pressure, maybe he could rattle Xiang further, and he would start making mistakes. He goosed the throttle again, drawing even closer to Xiang.

  On your six, motherfucker, he thought.

  The water calmed then, and Xander was able to close the distance even more, until only a couple feet separated the two men.

  Just a little more…

  But then Xander looked past Xiang and saw a twenty-foot wave approaching them. Xiang headed straight for it, and Xander realized the man intended to surf the damn thing. Xiang didn’t lack balls, that was for sure, but then neither did he. Another wave crested, and the two men entered the tube, Xiang banking up the wall, Xander right behind him. Xiang hurdled easily over the crest of the wave, but now it barreled down on Xander, threatening to crash into him. There was no way Xander was going to get over it, so he slammed the front of his bike down and duck-dived under the water, passing easily through the wave and popping out the other side, closer to Xiang than ever.