Whiskey & Roses (The Xander King Series Book 1)

by Bradley Wright

  The gunfire was silent again but Xander could hear footsteps across the floor above him. He’d moved through the kitchen and made his way to a hallway. It was clear that the rest of the team had gone upstairs. He’d moved past a couple more dead militants, one of them with a hole where one of his eyes used to be. With his pistol stretched in front of him, Xander had found himself at the bottom of the stairway. He could hear more shots coming from upstairs and his mind told him to go toward them to help. However, something in his gut was pulling him toward the closed door that was just off to his right.

  You always have to follow orders, but when you are in the heat of battle, it’s your gut you really have to pay attention to, he’d heard his trainer, Marx’s voice in his head. He turned away from the stairs and reached for the brass knob on the white door. He gave it a jiggle, but it was locked. He had taken one step back toward the stairs but a nagging feeling pulled at him from his stomach. He’d imagined himself kicking the door in and shooting the two men on the stairs that were waiting to greet him. Xander turned back toward the door, put his boot to it and sent the door flying off his hinges. Sure enough, it was as if he’d seen into the future, as he squeezed the trigger twice, dropping the two dark-bearded, towel-headed militants that actually were waiting on the other side. It was as if he’d been born with some sort of sixth sense. And that sixth sense was telling him that Evelyn wasn’t far from him now. The stairway below him made a hard right about six steps down. Xander had pulled a flash grenade from his belt line, pulled the pin, and banked it off the left wall and it bounced down the unseen stairs into the room below. Xander had repositioned his pistol out in front of him, walked down the six stairs, and just before he turned right to go down the last six into the basement he heard a pop and a blinding light flashed through the room. He heard at least two groans come from men waiting for him below. Without stopping, he turned the corner and walked right down the last six steps, shooting two men who were covering their eyes on the left wall, then two more who were shading their eyes from the flash at the mouth of a hallway on his right. He’d continued walking through the damp and half-lit basement, stepping over the dead men and through the smoke of the flash as he entered the hallway. Twenty-five feet in front of him there had been another closed door and he’d walked toward it. However, he had made a mistake. He felt a burning sensation on his back and realized that he had made the rookie mistake of not checking if the hallway extended to the other side of the room underneath the stairs. Upon this realization, Xander dropped to his back like a sack of potatoes, and without rolling over he shot his gun upside down and behind him, dropping the man with the machine gun before he could exploit Xander’s mistake. As Xander had paused to consider his error he’d heard a scream come from behind the door at the end of the hallway. It was a woman.

  Evelyn.

  Xander had popped up to his feet and moved forward toward the door. He could still hear the pop of gunfire coming from the levels above him. He remembered thinking that there must have been a lot more men there than intel expected. He’d readied himself to kick in the door but before he could raise his leg, the doorknob turned and the door crept open in front of him.

  Xander’d crouched into ready stance, pistol extended in front of him.

  “Let the girl go and I’ll let you live!”

  Xander’d shouted toward the room in front of him. His voice had echoed off the concrete walls that surrounded him, making him jump inside himself. He waited for a response but all he could hear was a woman’s muffled moans, sounding as if she was struggling to get free.

  “Last chance, I’m coming in!”

  A man with a thick, almost inaudible Middle Eastern accent spoke up. “You come in, she die, you die!”

  Xander could tell by the sound of the man that he was frightened, and that he would shoot the first thing that moved through that door, on reflex alone. He also could make out that the man was most likely standing on the left side of the room, along the inside of the same wall the door was on.

  “Ten seconds!” Xander had shouted.

  He’d then tiptoed quietly back into the basement and snatched up one of the bodies of the men he had shot moments ago. He’d hoisted him up on his shoulder and walked back toward the door.

  “Five, four…” Xander had kept walking. “Three, two…” As the number “one” came out of Xander’s mouth he’d thrown the body as far into the room as he could. Just as he’d suspected, the man fired immediately into the body. Before the gunman could turn his gun back toward Xander as he walked into the room, Xander had popped two bullets in the man’s chest, and the man’s gun and the girl dropped from his hands to the ground. His body had held its stance for a moment, then, like a freshly chopped tree, he’d toppled, face forward, to the concrete below, with a bone-rattling thump.

  Timmberrrrr, Xander had thought.

  The woman had squealed through her duct-taped mouth and squirmed away from the now dead man that had been holding her at gunpoint. Xander had holstered his gun and pulled a knife from a slot in his combat boots.

  “It’s okay, miss, United States Navy,” he’d told her as he cut her hands free. She’d ripped the duct tape from her face and threw her arms around him, sobbing. He lifted her to her feet as she continued to cling to him.

  “Thank you,” she’d cried, “thank you so much!”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Not till I get you out of here. Are you okay to walk?”

  “Y-yes, I’m good.”

  “All right, stay behind me. I’m gonna get you out of here.” She’d hugged him again and he pressed the com button on his headset. “Blackbird, this is SEAL team seven, do you copy?” Xander waited. Evelyn tried to dry up but the tears kept coming. The relief on her face made Xander feel like a hero. What had just happened seemed like such a blur. He’d almost as if there was someone with a controller moving him along in a video game or something. It was so surreal. “Blackbird, I repeat, this is SEAL team seven. Do you read me?” Another pause followed.

  “We read you, SEAL team seven, go ahead,” a muffled voice had finally spoken back to him through his earpiece.

  Xander had felt a rush of relief flow through him. “Blackbird, the chicken is in the coop, we await extraction instructions.”

  The chicken is in the coop? What the hell was the chicken is in the coop?

  Xander knew the boys were going to have a field day with that one. But so what if they did. He’d got the girl.

  Call me rich-boy rookie now, he remembered thinking.

  “SEAL team seven, be at the extraction point in three minutes,” the voice had instructed.

  “Three minutes, over,” Xander had replied.

  Ron had come on line after that. “Rookie? That you?”

  “This is King. I have the girl in the basement. Is it clear to come up?”

  “Nice work, King. We’ll come to you. Derek?”

  That was the first time he’d been called anything other than rookie, or rich boy. He’d won their respect.

  “No. Derek is KIA.”

  “Shit. Hold your position. We’re on our way.”

  Xander turned to Evelyn, “You’re gonna be all right, Ms…”

  “Evelyn, and I can’t thank you enough soldier—”

  “Alexa—Xander, Xander King. Just doing my job, miss.”

  “Well, thank you, Xander. You saved my life.”

  Those words had never left Xander. You saved my life. He’d never imagined anyone saying that to him, and he certainly hadn’t imagined the weight it would carry.

  If only I could have saved them.

  The memory of his parents’ murder had flashed before his eyes.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” Xander had heard Ron’s voice from the other room. Xander had taken Evelyn’s hand and walked out through the hallway and into the main room in the basement. When they’d entered the room the four remaining SEALs were coming down the stairs and Ron was looking around the room at the carnage Xander had left i
n his wake. “You did all this, rookie? By yourself?”

  Xander had nodded.

  “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. If Anderson liked you before, he sure as shit’s gonna love you after he hears about all this. You’re like a goddamned Rambo or somethin’,” Ron had gone on, his mouth agape.

  “He’s my hero,” Evelyn had spoken up. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his shoulder.

  She had called him that several times—her hero—over the next week as she’d thanked him the best way a woman can thank a man.

  Red lace lingerie and all.

  Kyle brought down the engines on Sam’s nod, and that snapped Xander out of his trance. It was game time.

  “I figure we are about half a mile from shore,” Sam spoke up.

  Xander could hardly see her it was so black. They couldn’t risk lights in the boat, just in case someone might be watching the water from the compound. There was a faint view of lights in the distance, but overall it was fairly dark on land as well. Sean pulled the diving gear from under one of the seat cushions and he, Sam, and Xander fumbled around with the oxygen tanks and goggles. They secured their weapons and began to slip on their flippers.

  “Where’s my gear?” James asked from the opposite end of the boat. He was rummaging through the storage but there wasn’t any more scuba gear to be found. Sam had only appropriated enough for three, and originally it was for James, but that was before Sean had decided to come along.

  “I’m sorry, James, there isn’t any more,” Sam answered.

  “What? You said I was going in with you. Sean, is it? Give me your gear.”

  “Buddy, you’re as nutty as squirrel shit if you think I’m gonna sit out here on this boat while my boy goes into enemy territory.”

  “I’ll show you nutty, country boy!” James shouted as he lunged forward at Sean. Somehow in the darkness, Sean’s fist found James’s mouth, dropping him to the deck of the boat. The boat wobbled in the water as James’s weight shook the entire vessel.

  “That’s enough!” Sam shouted. She realized shouting was a bad idea with the way sound carried over water so she lowered her voice back down to a whisper. “That’s enough. James, Sean has been on many missions with Xander; it makes more sense this way. You man the com system and keep Kyle safe. We will radio when we need you two to come with the boat. Be ready with your gun then. We will certainly need some cover on the way out.”

  James didn’t protest. A cloud floated east, giving way once again to the light of the moon. Xander could now see James sitting up and wiping blood from his lip. Sean looked over at Xander and gave him a wink. Xander smirked briefly, and then went back to securing the final strap on his right flipper.

  Sam continued. “Kyle, obviously, keep your headset on. When we are finished, or if we need backup, we will call for you. You won’t have cover coming in, so you will just have to be quick. I know Xander will hate me saying this, but it must be said.”

  “Nothing good ever follows a comment like that,” Kyle remarked.

  “No, it doesn’t. You’re right. But it can’t be avoided. If you haven’t heard from us—”

  “All right, that’s enough, Sam,” Xander interrupted. “Kyle, we will see you in one hour.”

  “Xander, we must have a contingency plan. Kyle must know what to do in case we don’t make it out alive,” Sam insisted.

  “She’s right, I won’t know what to do unless there’s a plan,” Kyle agreed with Sam. Xander stood up, giving his full attention to Kyle.

  “How long have we been doing this?”

  “I know, X, but this is different.”

  “Kyle, how long?”

  “I don’t know, four, maybe five years?”

  “Okay, and how many times have I missed my mark?”

  “N-not once, X. Never.”

  “That’s right, never. I’ll call for the boat in one hour. Be ready.” Xander didn’t flinch as he peered through the darkness into Kyle's eyes. What Xander understood that Sam didn’t in that moment was that any amount of doubt, no matter how small, would eat away at Kyle the moment they all left the boat. That hour would seem like a day. If Xander let Sam explain what happens if they all die, the only thing Kyle would think about over every agonizing minute they were gone was death, and failure. Xander knew that logically, Sam was right. There was a strong possibility that this wouldn’t work, and Kyle wouldn’t know what to do, but Xander knew Kyle would come like the cavalry and get himself killed for no reason if he sat out on that boat thinking the worst. Xander had seen this firsthand on a number of missions he had been on with rookies. As cruel as it sounded to not have a backup plan, it was actually the best thing for him.

  “Xander,” Sam started again, “we cannot leave him—”

  “Sam, we’ll see him in one hour,” Xander said to her with a glare. She had known him long enough to understand there was reason for him saying what he was saying to Kyle. She let it go. Xander sat back down, this time with his butt on the railing. He nodded to Sean and Sam and they joined him in a seated position at the rail. They made some final adjustments to their equipment, secured their mouthpieces, and with a nod to Xander, Sam and Sean dropped backward into the deep darkness of the Mediterranean Sea.

  Kyle walked over to Xander, who looked up at him from his seat on the boat’s rail. “One hour, right?” he asked, a sound of pleading came with the question.

  “One hour,” Xander answered with confidence as he secured his mouthpiece.

  Kyle held out his fist and Xander gave it a knock just before he fell backward into the water.

  Khatib Is Ready: Too Ready

  The compound buzzed like a beehive. Normally after midnight there wasn’t nearly this much movement, or soldiers. It was as if they were preparing for battle. On the third and top floor of the compound, sitting at his desk, rolling a coin along the tops of his fingers was Sanharib Khatib. It had come to his attention a day ago that he was being targeted by an American rebel. Khatib never even asked his source why a random American might be targeting him. You see, with a man like Khatib there could be a thousand reasons. None of them mattered. Word came in that there would be three of them and that one of them just might be one of the most spectacular killers on the planet. This of course didn’t frighten Khatib. He had seen far worse war than any one man could bring down on him.

  Still, he prepared. He doubled his security at the compound to what he felt was a ridiculous forty armed men. According to his source, this American should be arriving any moment. He told his men that an example would be made of this American and broadcast for all the Western world to see. He instructed his men to add ten extra security cameras, and they would edit the video after this man was killed to show the world what happens when you mess with ISIS. Khatib, even though his source told him the United States government was not involved, of course still assumed that they indeed were. He would send them a message as well, that if they wanted to shut him down, it would take a lot more than one measly American assassin. He laughed to himself as he thought of Jason Bourne from the American movies. He enjoyed those movies, and it amused him that the Americans would actually believe it could be a reality. Khatib wasn’t some soft villain that lived inside of a make-believe world. He believed himself to be a god. So far, no one had ever been able to prove the contrary to be true.

  James walked from the front of the boat to where Kyle was sitting in the captain’s chair. Blood still trickled down his lip from its meeting with Sean’s fist. He sat down across from Kyle.

  James reached out his hand. “I don’t believe we were properly introduced. James.”

  “Kyle.” He took James’s hand. James gave what Kyle thought to be an overly firm shake.

  “I’m not interrupting you, am I?” James asked.

  “No, just sitting on pins and needles here really. Watching them drop down and disappear into that dark water is a scary sight.”

  “Scary indeed, mate. Listen, mind if we have a chat?�
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  Kyle sensed arrogance in James. He always thought British accents sounded arrogant, so maybe that is all it was. “I don’t mind. Have at it, bud.”

  “Bud.” James laughed. “You Americans love that term. Especially you country boys.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s a lot like you all with your ‘blokes’ and ‘mates.’”

  “I suppose you’re right. So, bud, how long have you known Xander? Has he always been wound so tightly?”

  “You’d be wound tightly, too, if you knew what he’s been through,” Kyle answered, a bit put off by James’s sentiment.