“Well, yeah. Sort of. José was Ortega’s man. He turned on me and Lawson. Left us in a car with a bomb. Then he trapped us at gunpoint after we survived that.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “How is he dead and you are free to talk to me?”
“A cowboy and a Russian walked into a bar—or a gang fight, as the case is here.”
“Zhanna?”
“Yeah.” Sam could sense King smiling. “And Jack Bronson. He’s as charming as ever, by the way.”
Sam heard Jack mutter in the background, “Kiss my wrinkled ass.”
“But I thought Dbie said he refused to help?”
“Guess he had a change of heart,” King said. “I’ve been told I’m irresistible.”
Sam scoffed.
“You just rolled your eyes, didn’t you?” King said.
“Bugger off. And you’re more irresponsible than irresistible these days. You’re not in your prime anymore, Xander.”
“The hell you say.”
“Anyway. That’s great news they have arrived. Lay low. I’ll see if I can coordinate to get us some weapons.”
“Don’t bother. We took plenty off José and crew.”
“Where are you now?” Sam asked.
“We were going to try to raid a strip club for the laptop that made the fake videos, but thanks to José’s big mouth—pointing out the tech guy’s car in the parking lot before he tried to kill us—we checked there first. The moron left the laptop in the car. Zhanna already found the software he used to manipulate the video. I’m in the clear if I can get it back to the States.”
The jet’s engines began to whirl to life.
“Find somewhere to go for the night,” Sam said. “Start formulating a plan. Just because you can get yourself clear of taking the girl doesn’t mean you’re clear. You had enough drugs at your house in Lexington to start your own distribution center. And there’s the matter of finding who is behind all of this. For your sake and for sake of the girl’s family. Last time I saw the senator as I was leaving Langley, he had just watched his daughter get murdered on television. Taking down Ortega isn’t just to rid the world of another scumbag, it’s for answers.”
“I’m with you, old girl. Just get down here and let’s get Team Reign back together officially. Being a spy and staring death in the face isn’t near as much fun on your own. Speaking of, how’s Kyle doing?”
“Sore. Can you blame him?”
“No. Maybe you can work on him on the way down?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Be safe.”
Sam ended the call.
“Sounds like a party,” Kyle said, void of exuberance.
“Right up your alley,” Sam said.
“Not this kind of party.”
“You don’t miss him at all?”
Kyle’s brow furrowed. Sam knew she had hit a nerve.
“Miss him? That’s all I’ve done is miss him, Sam!”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“For two years! He was closer than my brother. I sat with his sister and his niece and cried for hours after we buried him. It’s been hell. Every time something good happened to me, the first person I thought to call was X so I could share it with him. And when I was struggling, all I wanted to do was get a kick in the ass from him to stop me from moping around. But he took that from me. You took that from me!”
“He did it to save your life!” Sam had had enough. “You should be showing gratitude! Not sitting here sobbing away to me. Your best friend is alive! Live in that moment. Not how butt-hurt you are by what he had to do to protect you!”
They were both seething. They sat quietly as the jet cruised down the runway, then lifted into the air. The cabin lights dimmed, and Sam’s phone began to ring. It was Dbie. Sam answered.
“I can’t get ahold of Xander! Have you heard from him? Is he all right?” Dbie was frantic.
“I just spoke with him. He’s fine. Zhanna and Jack made it to him.”
“Jack? I thought he—”
“He had a change of heart, I suppose,” Sam interrupted.
“Is that a plane engine I hear?”
“It is. Kyle and I are on our way to Mexico City.”
“Kyle? How’d that happen?”
“Long story, Dbie. Can you do me a favor while I’m traveling?”
“Of course.”
“I need to know who might have the ability to reach out on behalf of the FBI. Someone who knows the inner workings enough not only to be able to contact agents but to know the strings to pull to get clearance for a team at the airport.”
“Sure. That should be a short list. Do you want to include FBI Director Simmons?”
“Include everyone. An insider is working to trap Xander, and we need to find out who. Sooner rather than later.”
“On it. Call me when you land, and I’ll let you know what I have.”
Sam ended the call. She could tell by Kyle’s body language—completely turned away from her toward the window—that he was finished talking. So she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Visions of traitors dancing in her head.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“I thought I heard Sam tell you to go somewhere and lay low,” Jack said.
“Sam says a lot of things,” King said. Then he looked back over his shoulder at Zhanna. “Anything?”
The four of them had driven down to the St. Regis in the middle of downtown. It was a beautiful cylindrical building at the edge of a large roundabout. King could see the fountain in the middle; the water spouting up was lit by a myriad of colored lights. When they were making their way to the hotel, Zhanna had been attempting to bypass the security on the laptop, but as Lawson pointed out, a tech guy wasn’t going to make it easy to crack his hardware.
“I can’t get in,” Zhanna said. “Password probably in Spanish. Not really my strong suit.”
King looked over at Lawson. He watched as the big man never stopped studying the entrance to the hotel. It was like he was trying to see right through the walls.
“What in particular are you looking for?” King asked him.
“Nothing in particular. I’m looking in general. At everything. Unless you know what we are looking for, I’ll look at all of it.”
“Thought we was looking for Mexicans,” Jack said.
“We’re in Mexico, cowboy,” King laughed. “Everyone is Mexican.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, son. You know what I mean.”
“But do I?”
Zhanna chimed in. “You telling X not to be smart-ass, Jack, is like telling you not to be a redneck.”
They all laughed.
“She’s got a point,” King said.
“Anyone have a camera?” Lawson said from the backseat. Apparently he was the only one working.
Zhanna handed over her phone. “You can zoom by pinching with your fing—”
“I know how it works,” Lawson interrupted as he raised the phone to snap pictures. “I have a teenage daughter.”
“What do you see?” King said.
“Probably nothing, but this guy just went inside a few minutes ago. Already back out.”
King heard Lawson taking several shots. He could tell by the lights under the valet area that the man was Caucasian. That was about it. “How good is the zoom on the camera?”
“It is new phone,” Zhanna said. “So pretty good really.”
“Yeah, I’m getting close,” Lawson said. “But his back is turned, so I can’t get his face. Probably nobody anyway.”
King watched as the Caucasian man froze when he looked in the direction of their van. The man spun quickly and jumped on a motorcycle.
“That didn’t look like nothing,” King said. “You ready for a car chase, old man?”
Jack started the van. “I am, but I’m not sure this van is.”
The motorcycle zoomed forward, and Jack squealed out of their parking spot, making a right onto the turnabout. He took the first exit to make it on
to the same road as the motorcycle that was speeding away.
“Step on it!” King shouted. “This might be our only lead!”
Jack did just that, but the torque on the rented van was being left in the dust by the crotch rocket. King scoured the immediate area for something faster, but he knew by the time he took possession, the motorcycle would be long gone. The van was their only chance.
Jack turned left to follow the bike. He cut it early into oncoming traffic to try to make up some ground. It worked. The motorcycle got wedged in by a few cars trying to turn, and Jack cut back across two lanes, landing right behind the bike. The man found a small gap between cars and steered between them. Then the whine of his engine screamed as he took off. There was no way for Jack to make it clean through that same gap, so he decided to make a new one.
“Hold on!” Jack shouted.
He rammed the van into both cars, splitting them apart, then pushed through. He floored it, and when King looked up, he saw a red light. The motorcycle was looking for a clean way through. One more chance for them to catch up before the man got away for good.
“He’s going to fit through that next gap, but we’ll never make it,” King said.
Jack saw the same thing and once again swung wide out into the oncoming lanes. King grabbed the “Oh shit!” handle above his window and hung on for dear life. Jack swerved left to avoid a truck, then right to avoid an SUV, and he had to slam on the brakes, turn right, then back left to avoid the cross traffic headed through the intersection. He managed to do so without getting them killed, and they found themselves right beside the man on the motorcycle.
King looked down at him, but the man’s hat was pulled so low he couldn’t get a view of his face. King heard Lawson once again snapping pictures, but Lawson quit when he yelled out to warn everyone.
“He’s got a gun!”
King looked again and saw a pistol being brought up in his direction.
“Brakes!” King shouted.
Jack responded quickly, and as King was jerked forward then back by his seat belt, the sound of bullets firing lit up the night. King looked up and watched the man try to reach back and fire again, but he had to swerve to avoid another vehicle. Then the man on the motorcycle jumped forward and sped off into the darkness.
King slammed his fist on the dash.
“Shit, I had to brake. Nothing I could do,” Jack said.
King slammed his fist again, then let out a sigh. “Not your fault, Jack. I’d be dead if you hadn’t. Everyone okay?”
They all gave a yes.
“Lawson,” King said, “not that it matters, but did you get the license plate?”
“Yes. But like you said, it won’t matter. That plate won’t lead back to whoever the hell that was.”
Zhanna undid her seat belt as Jack pulled away from the traffic. “You think that man could be involved with dead girl? Or with setting you up?”
“He’s involved in something,” King said. “Finding out what will be the impossible part.”
King adjusted his seat belt and sat back. “Find us some place to lay low. And don’t tell Sam I said to. I don’t need another ‘I told you so’.”
Jack pulled away as Zhanna borrowed King’s phone to search for a place to stay. Lawson combed the pictures for anything that might be useful, and King just sat and stewed on the fact that a night was going to go by where the entire world thought he was a human trafficker, a drug dealer, and maybe even a murderer. Though he had never cared what people thought of him, this lie that was so widespread and so much the opposite of his true character, he couldn’t escape the fact that it hurt. For the first time since faking his own death, he was beginning to long for the days when he was a ghost to the rest of the world.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Well, son, this ain’t the St. Regis, that’s for sure,” Jack said as he set his carry-on suitcase on the second of the two queen beds in the small hotel room.
Since none of them could use credit cards, all they had to book a room was the cash Sam always left King in his go bag. It was enough for everything they needed—food, water, adjoining rooms. They had a place to regroup off the radar, and that was all King really cared about.
Lawson walked in from the adjoining room. “You couldn’t pick a place with minibars?”
King turned to find Lawson in his pants and a white tank undershirt, his arm and chest muscles bulging. “Oh, so you do have a sense of humor?”
“Not really,” Lawson said.
Jack walked over and looked Lawson up and down. “You’d better room in here with Xander. Man like you could get Zhanna pregnant from one bed over.”
King laughed. “Not you, though, old man?”
Jack took off his cowboy hat and ran his finger through his thinning white hair. “Nah. I’ve been shootin’ blanks for longer than you’ve been alive.”
Zhanna walked in. “Should I get my own room? You three are making me nervous.” Then she let a wry smile grow across her face.
“Go ahead and freshen up,” King said to the three of them. “If you don’t mind, I want to hurry and put our heads together on this. See where we land before Sam and Kyle get here.”
Jack grabbed his bag and began moving toward Zhanna’s room. “I’ll jump in the shower, then run out and get us some food.”
“Sounds good, Jack. I’m starving. Thank you,” King said. Jack nodded and walked forward. “And Jack?”
Jack turned to face King.
“I know we give each other a lot of shit,” King said. “But it’s damn good to see you and Zhanna, my friend. Thank you for dropping everything to come here and help me out.”
“You’d do the same for me. Besides, I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ but breakin’ horses and catchin’ up on Sons of Anarchy.”
“Sounds pretty damn good to me.”
“Could be worse. Sons is a great show, but the adrenaline I got puttin’ that knife in the back of that traitor earlier was just a bit more exciting.”
“A bit?”
“Yeah.” Jack’s smile was wide. “A bit.” Jack walked into the other room without another word.
Lawson took a seat at the foot of one of the beds in King’s room. He was holding Zhanna’s phone in his hand.
“You find anything noteworthy in the pictures you took?” King said.
“I had my partner, Cassie, look into the plates on the motorcycle, but she couldn’t get through the Mexican government to run it through the database. It would come up stolen anyway, I’d bet my lack of fortune on it.”
“Me too,” King said. “Anything else?”
“No shots of his face, couldn’t even see the color of his hair,” Lawson said as he stood. He walked over to King as he scrolled through pictures. “This probably won’t help, but there was this one. At least it was some sort of differentiator.”
King took the phone and looked over the picture. It was a shot of the man on the motorcycle as he was aiming his gun at King in the front seat of the van. His arm was stretched out, ready to fire.
“You must have taken this right before Jack hit the brakes. I must be missing what you’re seeing. Help me out.”
Lawson reached over, placed two fingers on the screen, the spread them apart to zoom in. “I almost missed it myself.”
King squinted, and then he noticed it. He absolutely couldn’t believe what he saw. He let out a small gasp.
“What?” Lawson said.
The part of the picture Lawson had zoomed in on spotlighted the man’s left hand as he held the gun. The reason he’d zoomed in was because the man had his middle finger on the trigger instead of his index finger. And the reason he was using his middle finger to pull the trigger was because this man didn’t have an index finger at all.
“Scott Smith,” King said.
“Wait, you know this guy? From a missing finger?”
“I don’t know him, but he was with Brittany McKinley and her friend at the club the night she was taken.”
> Lawson looked off as if searching his mind. “The white guy who was talking to them before the fight started? Cassie sent me the footage, but I don’t remember seeing a missing finger.”
“I never even saw the video,” King said. “But when I asked Brittany to tell me everything about that night, it came up in conversation.”
“We know anything about who he is?”
“Dbie found a little bit. He’s ex–Navy SEAL. Why he’s ‘ex’ and not ‘former’ has been redacted in his paperwork. He’s been a ghost ever since. No paperwork, no driver’s license, nothing.”
“Unreal,” Lawson said, shaking his head. “Then he’s the one who took her. So we at least know that much. But doesn’t that mean he’s also the one who set you up. You were a SEAL, right? You sure he doesn’t have a vendetta against you from back in the day?”
“Clearly he has something out for me, but it isn’t from something in my SEAL past. He and I never crossed paths, as far as I know, so I certainly never did him wrong.”
“You sleep with his girl without knowing?”
King looked over at Lawson. He was serious. “Well, possibly, back then. But that wouldn’t be enough to want to out me and make me look like a traitor.”
“You’d hope not, but I’m just dotting Is and crossing Ts looking for answers.”
“It’s not that. But there has to be something.”
“I’ll get Cassie on it right away,” Lawson said. “Maybe she should coordinate with Dbie. Two minds working together are better than one.”
“Agreed. I’ll call Dbie.”
They both were quiet for a moment. Zhanna walked past the doorway and out of sight. She had only a towel wrapped around her and she was drying her wet hair. King looked over at Lawson and noticed him noticing her.
“Good thing the old man swapped rooms,” King smiled. “I don’t need you complicating things.”
Lawson grinned but with the shake of his head. “Nah. I’m already spoken for.”
“Yeah, you might be spoken for, but you’re not dead. I could see that by the way you looked at her. She’s a beautiful woman, inside and out. That can get even the best of men in trouble.”
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 58
