Whiskey & Roses (The Xander King Series Book 1)

by Bradley Wright

  Xander gave her an I told you so look. “How the hell else do you think they were so ready for us to pop up out of the water tonight, Sam?”

  “Not James, he wouldn’t—”

  Kyle interrupted, “He would, Sam, and he did.”

  “How’d you get away from him?” Xander asked.

  “He started acting funny, then pulled a gun on me. I was going to use the technique you showed me about disarming but I only got to the first step before he shot at me.”

  “He shot at you?” Sam broke in, shocked.

  “Yeah, Sam, he tried to kill me.”

  “But you moved your head first, didn’t you?” Xander slapped Kyle on the back and smiled with pride.

  “I sure as hell did! If I hadn’t, I’d be dead man. Dead. Instead, shit just came together for me and I knee’d him in the balls, then shattered his nose with another knee.”

  “Yes! Fuck that sum bitch!” Sean yelled.

  “That put him on his ass and…Xander—” Kyle stopped, shock broke out over his face as he noticed Xander’s shoulder. “Xander, you have a harpoon sticking out of your shoulder!”

  Xander gave it a yank and pulled it out of his arm.

  “It’s fine; it was mostly just stuck in the suit.”

  “I swear to God, sometimes I think you aren’t human,” Kyle said, shaking his head in awe.

  “I’m tellin’ you, if he had a cape he’d be a superhero!” Sean announced.

  Xander just gave the three of them a smile, still feeling the high of Kyle using what he had taught him to save himself against James.

  “Capes are for pussies.”

  “Boys, I hate to interrupt, but there are more coming. We’ve got to regroup.” Sam jumped in.

  A solemn look fell across all of their faces as they once again realized where they were and what lay ahead of them. “Khatib knows we’re here, and we need to regroup and get a plan.”

  “No plan necessary, Sam,” Xander said as he wiped his bloody hand on his wet suit. “I have it all worked out. Ready all your weapons and stay behind me. No one moves without my cue.”

  Sarah’s Worried Heart

  “No one moves without my cue.”

  Sarah Gilbright instructed her four-man team from her van parked close to a notorious hangout of Vitalii Dragov’s. She already had the sinking suspicion that she wouldn’t be giving any instructions to move. Xander’s plane wasn’t in Moscow, and as far as CIA allies had reported, no such plane had landed anywhere in Russia for that matter.

  Sarah was nervous, for more than one reason. She couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. Had Xander received the wrong intel on his father’s possible killer? Or had the CIA? It wasn’t likely that the CIA got it wrong, but it also wasn’t conclusive intel. Just information that Xander’s father had done some deals with Dragov. She knew that didn’t necessarily mean he killed them, but she knew that information would be enough for Xander to take a closer look. However, Xander wasn’t here.

  Where is he?

  That brought the other reason for nerves, Xander’s safety. Could he be somewhere, chasing the wrong information and getting himself into something he can’t get out of? Sarah knew he could more than handle himself, but when it’s the Wild West, anything can happen. She desperately wanted to be there when something did go down. Another concern was that if he did have the right intel, and found his parents’ killer, there would be no bringing him into the CIA fold. Ever.

  Snow had begun to fall around the van. Sarah worried that hanging around Dragov’s lair for too long would bring unwanted attention. She would give it a—

  Sarah’s cell phone dinged with an incoming text message. Director Manning’s name appeared on her screen. She knew he would want an update, and she sure as hell didn’t want to give him this one. The one where the first time she made a move for the CIA, it was the wrong move. She didn’t even want to open the text. She looked up from her phone and followed a slow-falling snowflake filled with a ray of morning sunshine, all the way to the ground.

  “Where the hell are you, Xander?” she asked the empty van.

  “Come again, Agent Gilbright?” One of her team members answered back through her headset, which she apparently had forgotten to mute.

  Sarah sat staring at the snow, zoned out with visions of Xander in trouble somewhere out there in the world. Visions of him pinned down and taking heavy fire, all in the name of revenge. A terrible weight pressed on her chest and a terrible worry filled her heart.

  “Agent Gilbright?”

  Sarah erased those visions, cleared her throat, and swallowed hard as she nervously tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, biting her lip and shaking her leg.

  “Nothing.”

  A Moment’s Hesitation Will Be a

  Lifetime of Regret

  Xander peered around the corner of the boat toward the compound. Approximately one hundred yards in front of him, all of the lights on the three-story concrete structure were lit. It reminded him of a prison. Each level of the compound had a full wraparound concrete walkway, and it now resembled an anthill with all of the men with guns taking position on various points of the railing. The part of a human being that would panic in a dire situation like this no longer existed inside of Xander. The sheer volume of Black Ops missions the navy had sent their best SEAL on had squeezed that out of him. The still thick and warm air of the summer night seemed to hold them in water. Their biggest advantage was gone now, the element of surprise. Xander knew to regain this element he would have to split off from the rest of his friends. That thought left an empty feeling in his stomach for them, especially Kyle, but he couldn’t be leaving him in better hands. Sam and Sean were as seasoned as any soldier could be.

  “They’ll only be expecting three of us,” Xander announced.

  “No way, X-man. We stay together,” Sean spoke up immediately.

  “The heat will be on the three of you. Can you handle that?” Xander asked, looking at Sam.

  “Of course. It’s the only way to recover an element of surprise.” Sam understood. “We will be fine. Kyle will stay in the middle of us. We will go in the back from the beach side so you will have to go around to the front. It is as good as suicide.” She looked at Xander with worried eyes.

  “I’m not going in the front.”

  “Then where will you go, X?” Sean asked.

  “It’s most likely, since according to the blueprints there is no underground level, that he is on the top floor. So the three of you will make your way there.”

  “But you don’t think everything is on those blueprints, do you?” Sam asked.

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know it will be covered in soldiers willing to give their life for Khatib.”

  Xander grabbed the bag from the boat and pulled out the last gun left, his SCAR Mk 16 he’d fitted with a specially adapted silencer. “Good thing this puppy squirts out 654 rounds per minute then. He grinned at Sam as he loaded and locked it.

  Sam didn’t share his grin. “Yes, but only a thirty-round clip.”

  Shouts echoed over the beach as the militant soldiers prepared to defend the devil’s house. The rest of them readied their weapons as they crouched behind the boat. The waves crashed beside them and the water grew closer as the tide had begun to move in.

  “The tide is gonna pull the boat out any minute now, so we need to make this quick,” Xander announced.

  “That boat isn’t going to start, X. We’d best be thinking of plan B,” said Kyle.

  Xander knew Kyle was right, and that was especially bad news. Not only did it affect timing to get back to the plane, but it made it much easier to be followed and attacked by more of Khatib’s soldiers. Even with GPS, it would be extremely difficult to make the kind of time on land in a truck that they could make in the water.

  One problem at a time.

  “Let me worry about that. We could have used their speedboat if you hadn’t cracked it in half.” Xander
winked at Kyle.

  Kyle only returned a stone face. The time for humor had passed. The enormity of the task in front of them had settled in, for all of them. “Okay, Sam, you take Sean and Kyle beachside, around back. They will be expecting this, so be ready. I’ll wait here until I see you’ve drawn some attention, then I’ll make my own way in. Listen carefully…”

  Xander’s face took on a seriousness that even Kyle had never seen before. “Do. Not. Hesitate. If your instinct tells you to move, then move. If it tells you to shoot, then shoot. A moment’s hesitation will be a lifetime of regret. Sam, Sean, I don’t need to tell you that you are ten times the soldiers any of Khatib’s men will be. Use it. Kyle, believe me when I tell you, though you haven’t been through it, you are better trained than any of these men. That, I promise you. Know that, when the doubt creeps in. Let your training take over; let your mind rest. Got it?”

  Kyle nodded. Sam and Sean followed with a nod of their own. Sam then nodded back to Sean and Kyle, and they followed her to the front of the boat. Xander pulled a grenade from his belt and pulled the pin.

  “Bullets only hurt when they hit you.” Xander told them as he chucked the grenade toward the front of the compound. Sand, smoke, and fire shot up into the night as the colossal blast of the grenade filled the air. The boom echoed through the silence and as Khatib’s militant monkeys turned their attention to it, Sam, Kyle, and Sean bolted across the beach into the thick brush that would cover their run to the compound. Xander watched them until they disappeared. Worry for them formed like a storm cloud inside his gut. Then a thought that shook him to his core.

  What if Khatib isn’t the one responsible for my parents’ death?

  Then, an even more horrifying thought…

  So what if he was?

  Xander adjusted the strap on his gun. The grip of sadness wrapped its hands around his throat and he could hardly swallow. Because he couldn’t let go of his rage, more of the people he loved might die. And to what end? Revenge?

  Xander got to his feet and walked to the edge of the boat. It was too late to call them back now. How could he have been so selfish? How had this thought not sunk in until now? He felt a warm tear roll out of his left eye and down his cheek. Anger poured inside of him. Not anger for whom he perceived to be his archenemy, but anger at himself for letting it win. Xander put his ass in the sand and took a deep breath. It was too late now. These feelings would do nothing to keep his friends safe. Another deep breath. For some strange reason the thought of that text popped into his head. The text from the night his house was invaded. The message from a still unknown source that had saved his life. Someone is in your house.

  Tat. Tatat-tatat-tatat! Gunfire rang out from the back of the compound, snapping Xander out of his trance. A calm fell over him and all other thoughts left his mind. He sprinted from the cover of the speedboat to the same brush his friends had entered moments ago, but instead of turning right and staying inside of it he continued through to the other side. He could see lights on at the front of the compound but the militants’ attention had turned to the beach, where Sam and company had begun their assault. There was only one other building close to the compound and it was across the street. It looked abandoned as there wasn’t a single light or sign of life coming from it. Gunfire continued behind him and a growing sense that the dark building might not be empty grew on him as he moved toward it along the brush line.

  “Xander,” Sam’s voice came to his ear from his com system.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Xander, we are pinned down. There are more than we’d thought. We are taking heavy fire, we can’t move forward. We’re going to continue a distraction on this end, use it to get where you need to go. But, Xander, you must hurry!”

  Xander had never heard urgency like that in Sam’s voice before. She was always cool and collected.

  “I’m coming back to you,” Xander replied.

  “No. No! You coming this way will only hurt our chances. There is no penetrating them from this end. We are covered in the brush behind an old truck. They will be on us soon, but we’re covered for now. Do not come this way.”

  “Get out of there, Sam. Go back to the boat and wait for me there. Do not let them get you. Pull back, do you hear me, Sam? Pull back!” Xander shouted into his headset.

  “It’s too late to pull back, Xander. The only way out of this is if we are the only ones left alive. We will never make it back to the plane if we run now. Goddamn it, Xander, just make it quick!”

  Xander heard her grunt just before she released the com button. Seconds later he heard a blast come from the beach and when he looked past the compound he saw a mist of smoke and sand rise up in front of the lights of the building. She’d thrown a grenade.

  Toughest bitch on the planet.

  He looked down and in front of him was a canal. The water running through it didn’t look very deep but he figured he would certainly have to swim the twenty yards to the other side if he indeed listened to his instinct that the abandoned house wasn’t abandoned at all. He was just about fifty yards from the compound, and all of the commotion on the beach just beyond the brush. He surveyed the dark building until a faint red light caught his eye at the back of it. He pulled up his Mk 16 and looked through the scope. Sure enough, there was a soldier there, peering around the corner at the commotion, a burning cigarette in his hand. Xander instinctively hurried down the ten-foot incline into the canal and began his swim across. The water was near freezing but he continued forward. He knew in the basement of that dark building was Khatib.

  He could feel it.

  “Xander!” A cry rang out through the sounds of gunfire. Xander stopped mid-stroke and waded for a moment in the middle of the canal. The gunfire stopped and silence fell around him.

  It couldn’t have been. Sam would never blow her cover. Would she? Not unless—

  “Xander!” This time it was unmistakable. It was Sam. The man he’d searched for in his mind and in reality for the last twelve years was only yards from his grasp. The release that Khatib’s death would give Xander would be almost too great to measure. He could completely repurpose his life. He could become the man that his parents had always wanted him to be.

  But—

  Xander turned from the dark compound and swam to the edge of the canal back toward his friends. They needed him. It was bad or Sam would never have given away her position.

  She wouldn’t scream unless they’d taken her.

  He scaled the ten-foot bank and ran back into the brush. He could hear a man shouting but couldn’t make out the words. He dashed through the thick, waist-high foliage, and just in front of him was the truck Sam had radioed him from.

  There was no sign of them.

  The shouting continued and as he peered over the hood of the truck his heart fell to his stomach. There on the beach, under the floodlights that beamed from the compound were his three friends lined up beside one another, in the grips of a group of gun-wielding tyrants. A man stood shouting at them in another language, waving his gun in their faces. Xander raised his rifle for a closer look. Through the scope he could see terror on the faces of his friends. The gunman seemed to be screaming directly at Sean, when Xander could make out Sean spitting in the man’s face. The man stopped screaming and wiped the saliva from his face. Xander repositioned his gun, but before the shock of Sean spitting on the man had passed, the man pulled up his gun and squeezed the trigger.

  Sean’s face disappeared.

  Sam’s scream rattled Xander’s bones and echoed through the night. Instincts were all Xander had at this moment and he put a bullet in the gunman’s head, then one in both of the other men that stood beside him. The men left holding Sam and Kyle turned them toward Xander as a meat shield, and then moved them sideways toward the compound’s back door and out of Xander’s line of sight.

  Xander pressed his com button. “Sam, Kyle, if you can hear me, just do whatever they say. Just stay alive. I will find my way to you. Jus
t—”

  Static erupted in Xander’s ear and he tore his headset from his ear. The men had broken their coms. Gunmen above the beach on all three floors of the balcony turned their attention to the brush and bullets began to rain all around Xander as he tucked back down behind the truck. His only chance was the shadows. He knew they’d be coming into the brush at any second and he had to move. The only chance he had of saving his friends, and the afterthought of killing Khatib, was to methodically reduce the number of the opposition. The longer he took, the less the chances were of his friends surviving. He would have to take some chances.

  Xander looked down at his utility belt; all around him bullets pelted the truck, sounding like a hailstorm on a tin roof. Two frag grenades, one flash grenade, and two smoke. He unclipped one of the smoke grenades and looked around the side mirror of the truck. Four men fired from different levels of the compound above him, and as he raised up a little higher he could see three men, guns pointing out in front of them, running into the brush after him. He pulled the pin on the smoke grenade and tossed it into the middle of the brush, about ten feet in front of him back toward the canal. A hissing sound filled the air and smoke began to rise from the ground like from a fire-filled chimney on a cold winter night. Xander took his gun in his hands and dove outward, belly to the sky. Before the men firing down on him could adjust their aim Xander shot all four of them dead as he landed flat on his back. One on the bottom walkway, two on the second floor, and one on the top. The three men in the brush turned the corner of the truck. Xander stayed low and crawled into the smoke cloud he’d left for himself a moment ago. Branches cracked and leaves rustled as they hurried their way through the waist-high thicket toward him. Xander knew they would think he’d continued all the way out to the canal, so instead, he held his position right in the middle of the thick white cloud of smoke and crouched to a knee. They were just steps away now and from a sheath he’d strapped to the right side of his right leg, he pulled out a knife. Rambo, as he affectionately called it. He took Rambo in his right hand and pulled it up to ready position with the back of the blade to the outside of his forearm. He listened as their footsteps grew closer.