King wasn’t sure he would ever have a moment like this again. The day he decided to disappear, he’d made the decision to sacrifice these sorts of pleasures. However, after watching Dmitry Kuznetsov stare into the afterlife, he realized that the entire point of fighting the bad guys was so that he, and everyone else in the free world, could have the opportunity to drink too much by the pool by day and make love to someone extraordinarily beautiful by night. And that was exactly how King had spent the last two days. And after the dark, frozen, and murderous two weeks he’d just spent in Barrow, Alaska, it was an absolute breath of sun-warmed fresh air.
By the time King and Sam filled out all their paperwork and went through the debriefing process, Nigel Warshaw had been cleared of all wrongdoing. Kuznetsov had really tried to stick it to him—all the way down to the plane they’d used that had been linked to the holding company of one of Warshaw’s former colleagues. Turned out, Kuznetsov had his own plane, which was funded by his nephew Artem’s mob money, painted the same color and gave it the same tail number, all in an attempt to throw people off the scent. It had almost worked.
Director Lucas had been cleared as well. He found it funny that Kuznetsov had included him in his little charade. President Gibbons did not. President Gibbons wasn’t finding a lot of things funny now since he’d been elected. Half the media in existence managed to blame him for risking the lives of every single American. Saying that he played with their lives by not giving the American people more information. They’d been spinning lies for more than seventy-two hours. King was actually there when all of it was going down, and he didn’t know any of the stories they were telling.
Because they didn’t happen.
This is what happens when you give biased people the freedom to print or report whatever the hell they want. King just shrugged all of that off. He’d learned a long time ago not to let what the media––any of the media, right or left––has to say bother him, no matter what his political or social beliefs. Because all they wanted, whether from one extreme or the other, was for you to believe what they believed. And they would say anything to make that happen.
Cali motioned for King to join them in the pool. He’d heard someone say one time that most of the world’s problems could be solved by a swim-up margarita bar. At the moment, he couldn’t think of one argument against that. He stepped down into the cool water, the sun high in the sky baking his broad shoulders. He waded over to Sam and Cali, and Cali wrapped her arms around him.
“Hey, good lookin’,” she said. Her smile dialed up to a ten. Then she kissed him. Her breath was a mix of sweet limes and some coconut lip balm. Her skin was hot, and her body was the best scenery on the entire island.
“Disgusting,” Sam said. She couldn’t help herself. But King knew by the way she had buddied up to Cali that she liked her. That was a first for Sam, who still had a patch over her left shoulder. She said the wound was healing nicely. Patrick O’Connor had done a good job not doing any permanent damage.
Cali pulled away, reached for the bar, and handed Sam and King a shot each. The three of them tapped the plastic of their cups and threw their drinks back. The warm tequila burned all the way to King’s stomach.
“Hey, Sam, guess you’ve taken two shots this week now.” King nodded to her shoulder as he grinned from ear to ear. Shocker, Sam didn’t find it amusing.
“Was that a dad joke?” Cali laughed.
King shrugged.
The bartender walked over and handed King a large cup of golden juice, a little umbrella sticking out of the ice. “Your margarita, Mister Bond,” he said.
King winked at Sam. “That’s James Bond.”
“Yes, sir,” the bartender said, half smiling. “You’ve mentioned that a couple of times.”
Sam almost refused to get his credentials made when he insisted that James Bond was the name he wanted to go by for the weekend. Finally, she’d given in. Kyle would have thought it was hilarious. Just like Cali had, because it was her idea. She was still laughing when King took his first sip. It was delicious.
“That never gets old,” Cali said about King’s cover name.
“You sure about that?” Sam smiled. The ice queen was melting.
It was turning into one of life’s better days. Then, from the bar beside Sam, her phone began to ring.
“Don’t answer that,” King told her.
Sam lifted the phone to check the number. “It’s Director Lucas.”
“Then definitely don’t answer that.”
Sam set down her drink and picked up the phone. Cali took the opportunity to snuggle in close to King. Her sun-kissed face glowed, and her dirty-blonde hair blew in the breeze.
“You did say this vacation wouldn’t last long,” Cali said to him.
“It’s the nature of the beast,” he said with a frown.
Against Sam’s and his own better judgement, when things were finished in Barrow, King wasn’t finished with Cali. She had actually declined his invitation for a vacation together at first. Her brain told her what she should’ve listened to: not to get further involved with a man who was married to his country. But King had caught her at the perfect moment. She was already tired of Alaska, but couple that with being entangled in something so dangerous that it instantly showed you how fragile life could be, and it gave her a reason to want to live it up, and King was ecstatic that she had. Because for once, he had the same mentality.
He had no idea what would happen next, but for the first time in a while, he had found someone special who knew who he was and what he did, and didn’t care. Cali just wanted to be with him, and he just wanted to be with her. She leaned over and gave him a long tequila kiss. The scent of Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil came with it. With the weather, the drinks, and the company, King had become blissfully intoxicated. As for Sam, as she had often done over the years, because she was the adult in their partnership, she waded over with a total buzzkill.
“Sorry to interrupt you two, but duty calls,” Sam said.
King finished his kiss. “You’re leaving now?”
“Yes, but I managed you two more days here. But that’s all Director Lucas was willing to spare.”
Cali was happy to hear they had more time together. Her smile sparkled along with the green maze running through her hazel eyes.
“Thanks, Sam. You going to Langley to prepare for our next assignment, I’m assuming?”
“You mean the thankless job that no one else wants or can do?” Sam said. “Yes, that’s where I’m going.”
“Lucas tell you what it is?”
“Briefly, but don’t concern yourself now. Just be ready when I call.”
King stepped forward and wrapped Sam in a hug.
Sam pulled away and looked at Cali. “Keep him out of trouble, will you?”
Cali pulled him close. “You mean the thankless job that no one else wants or can do?”
Sam smiled. “Yes, that one.” Then to King. She pointed her finger back and forth between him and Cali. “Maybe don’t mess this one up?”
That was Sam’s way of giving him her stamp of approval. King thought pigs might fly next. Sam waded her way out of the pool, then disappeared into the hotel.
Cali turned toward him and held him at the small of his back. “If you need to go, I’ll manage here by myself.”
The shot of tequila was hitting him in all the right ways. So was Cali. He knew he didn’t have much longer with her, but he planned on making the most of every single second. He knew whatever assignment was next would be another deep dive into the dark side of life. So for now, he planned on soaking up every bit of light he could.
And the bright one standing right in front of him, for the moment, was absolutely all the light he needed.
Copyright © 2021 by Bradley Wright
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Bradley Wright/King’
s Ransom Publishing
www.bradleywrightauthor.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead,
or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
MOST WANTED/ Bradley Wright. -- 1st ed.
ISBN - 978-0-9973926-9-2
For John Younce
I’ve had the good fortune of meeting many a fine gentleman in my life. But you, sir, stood above them all.
“That was the trouble with lies: it was very important to remember them accurately when, generally, they were the things you most wanted to forget.”
Liza Cody
“Running away will never make you free.”
Barton Gellman
Chapter One
There was a chill in the air as Alexander King leaned against the corner of the high-rise building. Night had fallen over Mexico City. The weather reminded him of San Diego. The underbelly of crime, however, did not. Across the street, the drug-lord-turned-human-trafficker whom King had been waiting for exited his black Mercedes sedan. The streets were mostly quiet. Not uncommon for two in the morning on a Thursday night. Especially when the party section of the city was a couple of blocks away.
King took a step back behind the brick wall to further conceal himself. He’d been in Mexico City watching Raúl Ortega for the past three days. Learning his patterns, studying his habits. The man was infamous in all circles of intelligence across the globe, but especially in North America. His reputation was that of a ruthless leader, quick to silence detractors by any means necessary. For over a decade it had been all about drugs. However, for the last year his operation had grown into pedaling humans. The reason King was watching was because young American girls had become his choice of sale.
So far King had learned one important thing: Ortega was never alone. This didn’t surprise King. Men like Ortega always have someone hunting for their head. However, it seemed to King that Ortega had either grown complacent or he considered himself untouchable. Three days had shown King the man wasn’t afraid to be in public. He’d visited night clubs, restaurants, and even outdoor markets. Anyone with any sort of skill wouldn’t have a problem removing this drug king from his throne. That’s why it frustrated King that for the first time in his career as an assassin for the CIA, he had only been sent there to gather intel.
He hadn’t been sent in to kill.
The entire thing had been odd to him. What was the point of learning an enemy’s patterns if you weren’t to capitalize on them? Sam, his longtime partner and a handler at the CIA, thought the same thing. So much so that she’d almost told him to stay in the Cayman Islands with the new woman in his life—Cali—but Director Lucas was adamant it had to be King. So there he was, watching a known kingpin go about his normal routine, only to report on it, not to stop it. Meanwhile, Cali was in bed all by herself on the other side of town. He could still be with her in the islands, overlooking the beach, but instead they were stuck in the city where neither of them wanted to be.
Consequences of the job, he supposed—never getting to go where he wanted to go. All he could hope was that his legwork would somehow help nail this criminal in the future.
King took one more glance toward Ortega’s car. When he did, King’s entire operation changed. Under the bright glow of a streetlight, he saw one of Ortega’s men pushing a Caucasian female out in front of him. He could hear her cry of distress from a block away. There was no way King could just sit back and take notes after his eyes witnessed what was almost certainly a woman being taken against her will, being forced into only God knew what next.
King pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Sam.
“Everything all right?” Sam answered. Her British accent sounded sleepy. He must have woken her.
“No. Ortega has a girl, and she did not want to be with him.”
“I won’t ask you how you know this for a fact,” Sam said as she cleared her throat. “But I will tell you it doesn’t matter. This is a strict no-contact operation. Do not engage, X.”
“Easy for you to say, Sam. You didn’t hear the fear in her voice as she was pushed into a building.”
Sam was quiet.
There was the faint rush of traffic in the distance. The occasional horn honking, even a siren far away, but all of it was background noise to the sound of blood rushing between King’s ears as his adrenaline surged and his heart rate quickened.
“Sam? No comments?” he asked her.
“Comments? No. Just lying here wondering why you called me. You and I both know that whatever I say, it won’t change anything. You’re going to do what you want to do. Next time just save yourself the minutes to wake me up, and skip the call.”
Sam didn’t sound frustrated, merely confident that what she was saying was true. And King had nothing to say in return, because he knew she was right.
“Just know,” Sam said, “if it gets messy, the agency will deny to the Mexican government that you’re one of ours.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to come down and bail me out yourself.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Sam said. “Tell me why again is it that we work for the CIA? If you’re constantly going to defy their orders, shouldn’t we just go back to our own team and let them contract us if they’d like? We could go back to using your own plane, and you’d get to see your family and poor Kyle.”
“How ’bout I just keep this clean, then we can worry about leaving the CIA on our own terms if we want.”
“Not sure that’s how it works, X, but whatever you say. Just be careful. This guy isn’t a small-timer. He has an army at his beck and call, and probably half the Mexican government as well. Play the long game. I know you want to save the girl, but maybe you can save hundreds of girls if you wait and we do this right.”
Sam, ever the voice of reason. He knew she was right; he just didn’t know if it was in him to watch them take that girl.
Sam added, “Sometimes being smart is a better skill than being a magnificent killer.”
King took a deep breath to slow his climbing heart rate. “Sounds boring, but I hear you. I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter Two
The next morning Alexander King’s coffee tasted sour. There wasn’t anything wrong with it; it was the exact same coffee he’d had the last few mornings. The difference, he supposed, was the horrible taste he already had in his mouth from his sickened stomach after leaving that girl alone with those monsters last night. Every ounce of his being wanted to charge in there like he always did. He just couldn’t. It wasn’t about defying orders from the CIA, like Sam had said on the phone; he did that all the time. But he wouldn’t have been able to get her out of there without getting her hurt, or worse. He had no backup in Mexico City, and it would have been much more than a one-man job.
But that didn’t mean he liked it.
King watched the sun begin to rise behind the buildings across the street through the slit in the curtains of the hotel room. He hadn’t slept a wink, but he did manage not to wake Cali. They had an early morning ahead. Their flight to Alaska was leaving soon. King was going to fly back with her and stay for a couple of days while he had a hole in his schedule. He wasn’t too happy about going back to Barrow after what happened there only a short time ago—plus, it was still cold as hell there—but Cali would be able to keep him warm.
King felt Cali’s arms wrap around his waist and her kiss on the back of his neck.
“Good morning,” Cali said. “I didn’t hear you come in last night. Everything go okay?”
King turned and accepted the kiss she was offering. The green in her hazel eyes sparkled in the morning light coming in over his shoulder.
“It was fine.”
She squeezed him. “You excited to get back to the cold?�
�� Her smile was ornery. She knew how much he hated it.
“Oh yeah, can’t wait,” he said, devoid of enthusiasm.
“Well, I’m going to hop in the shower. Join me?”
“Go ahead. Let me finish my coffee here and make a phone call.”
Cali squinted her eyes as she stared up at him. “Hmm. Declining a shower with me. That’s a first. You sure everything’s okay? It’s fine if it’s not, you know. I do realize that every day doesn’t begin with roses and end with champagne.”
King liked Cali. He was probably already in love with her. But he wasn’t ready to deep dive into feelings with her. At least not about the underworld in which he had to operate.
“It’s fine, I promise. Just an off morning.”
“Well . . .” She leaned in and kissed him softly on the cheek, then on the neck as she pulled away. “You’re allowed those, I suppose. Just don’t make a habit of it.”
She walked away toward the shower. It was hard not to follow. She was only wearing a pair of tiny white panties. A man can’t fake it when other things are on his mind. And as beautiful as Cali was, and as good as she would feel against his skin, his mind was on the haunting decision of leaving that girl alone last night. It was absolutely eating him alive.
King finished his coffee, and Cali, her shower. The two of them packed their things and loaded up the rental car.
“You want to stop and get some breakfast or just grab something at the airport?” Cali asked.
King put the car in drive and pulled away from the front of the hotel. “I’m okay to wait.”
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 45
