Guardian Knight

by Aarti V Raman

  Brand then hauled him upright in the same motion as he rose up. When they were both standing, Brand had the scimitar to Castle’s throat, and his grip was inexorable.

  “Put your weapons down or he dies. One move and its done.” He pressed the tip in an inch, his grip tightening when he saw one of the men try to leave the room.

  The room gave an almighty lurch with the ship’s motion.

  He planted both bare feet as best as he could on the tilting floor and said again, “Do not move.”

  The men didn’t.

  Castle was cursing in three languages, invoking the name of all the gods and their wrath, telling his men, the yellow-hearted bastards to fight. To put bullets in the man who was dragging their leader across the room.

  Brand pressed the blade deeper, when the men guarding the door refused to move. Blood poured down Castle’s jugular and onto Brand’s arm. It was ugly, surreal.

  “Move,” Brand said softly.

  His injuries were forgotten in the thrill, the kill of battle.

  It was called an adrenalin rush, battle rage. A hundred psychological phenomena. But what it meant was that his spine tingled as if he’d just drunk fresh clear water and he felt strength surge into him in one powerful rush.

  The soldier moved and opened the door. Brand went first, knowing his back was open to all sorts of attack, but he couldn’t cover both fronts. So he made the older man his human shield and got out, the other man kicking and dragging every single step.

  Even his opened neck wound didn’t stop the man’s invective or his thirst for vengeance.

  One enterprising soldier shot the bulb behind Brand that provided illumination. Thankfully, there was a room about ten feet ahead, and Brand had seen it.

  He threw Castle down, still gasping and holding his throat, screaming like a demented man, “I will kill you, Brandon Rice. I will hunt you down and drink your blood. I will avenge my son.”

  Brand heard his cries, but he ran over broken glass and went to the other room where, thankfully, he found some of his things.

  His shoes for one, he pulled them on in double quick time. Then he removed his shirt, put on his jacket first since it was bulletproof, then his shirt. Buttoned everything up, broke the porthole window on the other side, and ran out the other side of the deck.

  The Royal Guard would catch up to him in a matter of seconds he knew, and at the moment he smelled the sea he realized he was in another smaller boat, a second motor launch.

  A boat that was moving away from the Sea Queen. With a sound of horror, he considered swimming back to the Queen. It wouldn’t take that much time.

  But he needed to put this boat out of commission.

  He hoped like hell that his men had found entry to the Sea Queen and were even now rescuing Akira.

  He wouldn’t want to survive otherwise.

  He ran forward, seeing lights in the navigation cabin and burst in, taking a small derringer stuck in the heel of his boot - which he’d extracted when he’d put the boots on - and shot the lights down. Now, the only light came from the Zippo lighter - stashed in the heel of his other boot – which he now held in his other hand.

  The man who guided the boat, cursed in Spanish and Portuguese. A dialect only heard in the country of San Magellan.

  Brand saw that the man was tall, dressed in evening clothes and extremely nervous.

  He had a pencil thin moustache and a quivering upper lip. He was Minister of Defense and Finance for the Government of San Magellan.

  Luck was a sweet lady sometimes, Brand thought inanely, while he threw the scimitar at the man with deft accuracy.

  Geraldo De La Hoya clutched his right shoulder and sank to his knees in a whimper of pain.

  Brand lunged forward in one move and pressed his small gun at the base of the man’s temple. “I won't miss. At this close range, even if the bullet comes out, you’ll be a vegetable for the rest of your life.”

  Brand leaned in close, shoving the lighter in the man’s face so that he could see him better. Recognize him.

  “Rice.” Geraldo shivered and spat at the same time.

  “Yes. Did you think I’d forget?” Brand asked softly, in English this time.

  “Those men. The Royal Guard. They’ll be coming for you,” he babbled nervously. His hands filling with blood from his knife wound.

  Brand pulled the knife out and blood poured out in a frothy torrent. Geraldo groaned. An animal sound.

  “The papers. Where are the papers?” Brand pressed.

  “Please. Please, don’t kill me. Let me go,” Geraldo begged, clutching at Brand’s hands. Clawing on them.

  If Brand felt any pain, he didn’t let on. He could hear the sounds behind him now. One half of his brain, his hearing sense, focused on the feet that were closing in on him. He had less than twenty seconds before nine men came at him with guns.

  “The papers, Geraldo. And you’ll live.” He promised.

  “At the Sea Queen. La Reine. On the last deck. My stateroom.” Geraldo blubbered, broke, crying piteously.

  Brand squeezed his neck once, and then made a split second decision.

  “Come on, you murdering son of a bitch,” he said and half-dragged half-carried Geraldo out of the nav-cabin.

  The rails were next to the cabin thankfully, so he only had to stagger about five feet. He pushed Geraldo over the railing and the man fell with a resounding splash, screaming, “NO!”

  Brand looked back and saw the men were swarming the cabin from the portside. Bullets were pinging and piercing the night. He threw the gun on the floor. Held onto the scimitar and then jumped off the rails.

  Forty-Eight

  Akira didn’t know how long she cried. Like her heart was already broken and now all that was left was to trample her body. She hunched around herself and didn’t stop. Sobbing copiously, crying with a vengeance and terror so huge it swallowed her up.

  “Let her go,” she cried. “Please. I’ll do anything.” She begged of the two guards who stood over her head.

  “Please. She’s a little girl.”

  The words, the pleas were meaningless. Everything was meaningless, but what else could she do? Shanaya, her niece was innocent, untouched by the violence that Akira lived in… grief and anguish so acute her body couldn’t contain it all.

  “Please, tell your boss. Tell him he can do whatever he wants with me, but let the girl go.” She was begging, pleading, mindlessly, over and over again.

  The guards didn’t utter a single word. They were immovable, unshaken.

  Akira was forced to get to her feet, when the two guards separated and another bound and gagged man in evening clothes joined her on the floor.

  He was bruised all over his long, poetic face and he was bleeding in the chest. She recognized him from his thumbnail picture that she’d seen on his website. He was the COO of NERVU Corp. and the son of the man who owned Mantisse Corp.

  Cobalt Bernhardt.

  “Mr. Bernhardt?” she asked uncertainly.

  One of the men jerked her to her feet by dragging her up by the hair. She could feel her hair start to come apart from the roots and barely managed to hold the scream in. But she wouldn’t scream, she promised herself. She wouldn’t.

  The crying on the TV got louder.

  Her own soundless tears continued.

  “Who are you?” Cobalt asked her, as he was pulled to his feet too.

  “I am Akira Naik. I am a reporter for an Indian news agency. I’ve been following Prince Kharaan’s trail of destruction for three months now. I was on the Sea Princess, Sebastian Delgado’s yacht.” she whispered urgently, while the mists of grief started lifting from her mind and heart.

  Anger, righteous and cold filled her being. She was going to die, of that there was no doubt. But she’d see the monster in hell before she let him harm one hair on her baby girl.

  “Oh, you’re that Naik. He,” Cobalt shuddered. “He wants to kill you particularly. Oh, lord. Oh, lord, Miss Naik.”


  “How did you get involved with him, Mr. Bernhardt?” Akira couldn’t resist asking him bitterly.

  “I made a pact with the devil, and he came to collect.” Cobalt gave her an anguished look. “The Sheikh has my son. He has Nigel.”

  “Look, Mr. Bernhardt, there’s no time to explain.” Akira shut her mouth as she heard footsteps approaching.

  Then Prince Kharaan, the monster, the murderer, the chess master, came into view with his Guard surrounding him.

  And he was smiling.

  ~~~~~~

  All the terror, the grief drained away from her. She wasn’t crying anymore. Absolute, ruthless purpose filled her body, strengthened her knees and she remembered that she had Brand’s knife strapped on to her right garter.

  She was going to use it on him before it was over, Akira vowed silently.

  “Aah, Mr. Bernhardt is here too. How lovely. Now we are all here.” The prince continued smiling like this was a cocktail party and he’d just met two long-awaited guests.

  “Let my son go, you bastard!” Cobalt yelled.

  The prince nodded, his smile never slipping from his face. And one of the men put a bullet through the man’s right leg. Cobalt sank down in a blood-curling scream.

  Akira clenched her fists and waited for her turn.

  Kharaan turned to her. He came forward, his guards parting around him.

  She had no illusions about how this was going to end, but she wasn’t going down without a fight. One blow, just one good blow. Somewhere, anywhere.

  “Sheikh Kharaan at your service, madam,” he said formally, sketching a short bow.

  Akira wanted to spit at him. She struggled to keep her face, her eyes impassive. Brand had told her she had fire. She was going to bank it until it would explode in all their faces.

  Oh God, where was Brand…

  She stopped thinking, and concentrated on breathing.

  “Sheikh,” she acknowledged.

  He laughed. The monster laughed. “Such fire. Such passion. You would have made a delightful addition to my harem.” Regret touched his imperial eyes.

  “What are you going to do with us, Your Highness?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Please do not act dumb, Miss Naik. It doesn’t become you.”

  Alright, he wanted her intelligence; she’d give it to him. She prayed like she’d never prayed in her life that someone up there was going to send the cavalry in soon.

  “Let my niece go. And I’ll agree to anything you want,” she said in a quiet voice. All that dignity and posture drilled into her by boarding school back in her. It was Elahe Naik’s daughter speaking now.

  “How touching.” Kharaan ame forward and ran one finger down her cheek, the same cheek that had been split open days ago.

  The wound had healed, and there was no scar left from it, but it still hurt from time to time, like when somebody touched it with the slightest pressure. He pressed his thumb slightly in the very center and Akira couldn’t control the slight tremor of pain that radiated through her body.

  He nodded, satisfied in some way known only to him.

  “And so very lovely.” Kharaan sighed, and stepped back.

  Akira dug her nails in deeper into her palms.

  “I have followed your… exploits, shall we say, for quite some time now, Miss Naik.” He continued; admiration tingeing the flat, barely discernible Middle Eastern accent.

  “And I have yet to come across a woman who has so much fire, such courage. They would have let you lead our Bedouin tribes in the olden days, called you Sultana. Cursed you for a witch.”

  He fingered her rumpled hair now. Touching the fiery strands, observed the slight twitch of her eyelid. It was the only reaction she betrayed.

  “Let Mr. Bernhardt’s son go. Let Shanaya go. You have us, Sheikh. There’s no need to take innocents,” she forced herself to speak rationally, calmly, like it was a pay raise she was discussing and not the lives of children.

  “My brother Hashim was three years old, when my uncle cut his throat out and left him inside his crib for my father and me to find. I was three too, younger by a minute to my twin,” Murad said harshly. “And I’d have died if Castle hadn’t intervened.”

  Akira wondered who Castle was, if he was as big a monster as Kharaan was.

  Kharaan smiled, unpleasantly. “You met Castle’s son, Cameron, on the Sea Princess, Miss Naik. And just a few days ago…in Santa Boronia. Castle is…most upset about his son’s end.” Kharaan’s smile vanished. “As am I. So don’t talk to me about innocence, Miss Naik.”

  “So you slaughter innocents just because your own was destroyed.” She allowed the slightest contempt to coat her voice.

  Kharaan had turned around again and was regarding her with new eyes. Speculative eyes.

  Akira hoped she’d touched a nerve. The man wanted to talk, she could sense that. People who wanted their stories heard always opened up to her.

  Kharaan was also one such man. And she would indulge him because it would buy her time to plot her strategy and. dammit, she wanted to know. She needed to know the truth before she died.

  “What do you know of slaughtering innocents, Miss Naik?” He demanded of her, and she flinched at the violence shimmering in him.

  “I have seen it enough times to know that somebody always profits from it…that it’s often senseless, unpredictable, and always unnecessary.”

  “What wars have you been a part of, Miss Naik? What do you know of leading a people through hunger and misery and poverty so acute they could tear other’s flesh apart for food, water, shelter?”

  “I have observed them. Your so-called wars,” she replied. “Those righteous reasons, those logical slogans. Means bullshit in the end. People still die.”

  “Yes, they do, don’t they? Like your sister died. Like your niece who will die soon. Like you. Maybe even your parents in their bungalow up on Carter Road. Who knows how people die?” Kharaan spoke meditatively.

  Akira’s flashing brown eyes indicated that she wanted to lunge for him, and strike him. He admired at the way she held herself back. Didn’t say a word.

  Yes, indeed. Akira Naik was a most extraordinary woman.

  Too bad she couldn’t live past tonight.

  “I won't play your games. If you want to kill me, get it over with. Now.” She was indifferent, turning away from him in a blatant gesture of insolence and disrespect.

  Five guns turned in her direction and she braced herself for the bullets that would follow.

  “Bas.” Stop, the Sheikh called out. The men stopped.

  Akira’s arm was almost wrenched out of the socket as the man whirled her around and gripped her hair in his hand. The pain brought tears to her eyes but she held her ground.

  “Ask your questions, Miss Naik. But do not disrespect me. The consequences will be felt by your niece and not you.”

  Madness and righteousness mingling in his eyes until Akira felt like she was looking at the devil himself.

  And she’d thought Brand was dangerous.

  “Alright,” she murmured, nodding once.

  He let her go, so suddenly she almost stumbled. He caught her arm again, but this time in a proprietary gesture.

  He helped her stand up, even asked her solicitously, “Are you alright, madam? Would you like something? Water, champagne?”

  Akira swallowed a couple of times, the action clearing her mind of everything but the need to proceed with the interview. That’s how she would treat it, she told herself. It was just another interview. It would buy her the time she needed.

  “I know what you’ve done. The buying of the lumber company, sorry, buying part of it. Bailing NERVU out with the share buyout and holding Cobalt’s head ransom over it, so that he would carry out your orders without question. Geraldo’s greed and anger made him a worthy ally and you used him to gain entry and access to the oil at San Magellan., didn’t it?”

  Murad did not answer. She didn’t really expect him to.

  “When hon
est claims from both your companies didn’t work, you turned to anarchy and chaos for a solution. Yours was supposed to be the only militia faction at the mountains, but even Geraldo didn’t anticipate public outrage. Your plans were delayed again.” She paused, waited for him to say something.

  Anything.

  He said nothing.

  “Then, you attacked Sebastian Delgado. Third time’s the charm and all that…so, Sebastian Delgado died on the Sea Princess. I have circled around and I still can't get to the heart of it. The why. Why would you want an entire country destroyed over your greed?”