She was laying it on thick.
Jeremy gave her shoulder a squeeze. “It’s okay, tell me what happened and we’ll fix it. No problem.”
Adeline pulled back; puddles of tears formed at the base of her eyelids. “I had an accident.”
Jeremy clearly didn’t have any sisters, because he had no idea what that meant. “Are you hurt?”
“Hurt?” Adeline said, confused. “No, an acc-i-dent.” With each syllable she nodded her head toward the lower part of her robe.
Jeremy followed her nod; the gears turned in his head and then his eyes shot back up to hers. “Oh, shit. Uh. So, what does that mean?”
Really?
“Jeremy, I don’t have any tampons, and neither does Karol. I wasn’t supposed to start for a few more days, so I am completely unprepared.”
Jeremy instinctively backed up a step. Not for any other reason than he just got really uncomfortable. The exact reaction Adeline had hoped for.
“Uh, okay. I’ll just radio down to Travis to bring some up.”
“What? No!” Adeline gave her best horrified expression.
“O-okay, then just call room service, they’ll bring some up.”
“Do you have any idea what it is like to be a woman and have this happen to you? It’s mortifying, Jeremy! It’s mortifying enough to have to have this conversation with you, there is no way I would have it with a stranger!”
“Okay, well, what do you want me to do?”
“Go get me some tampons and some Advil from the sundry! Please!”
“Addie, you know I can’t leave my post. There’s no way—”
“You can’t be serious!” Adeline forced her face to scrunch into a sob. “You aren’t going to help me? Oh my God. I can’t believe my life. This is ridiculous!” She paused for a moment to take a shuddering breath. “Fine! I’ll just go myself, blood dripping down my fucking legs! I bet that will get the press off the kidnapping. I can just see it now, ‘President Williams’ Daughter Bloody in Paris’!” She turned away again and gave her best fake cry.
Jeremy looked up at the ceiling, checked his watch, then let out a deep sigh. “Fine. Don’t answer your phone, the door, or anything else. I’ll be back in five minutes. You hear me, Adeline?”
Adeline threw her arms around him and began thanking him. As she did so, she noticed in the mirror fastened to the door that the bottom of her robe had slid up and she could see her black dress. She quickly let go and wrapped the robe back around her.
Jeremy said, “Okay. I mean it, do not answer this door.”
He hadn’t seen the dress.
“Okay, I promise. Thank you so much, Jeremy. You are a lifesaver!”
Jeremy started out the door and then turned back. Adeline interrupted him just as he raised his finger and opened his mouth. “I know! Answer for no one!”
As soon as he shut the door, Adeline threw off her robe and started jumping up and down. “Like a charm!”
“We are so dead.” Karol took her and Adeline’s shoes from the closet and handed Adeline her pair of black pumps.
“No.” Adeline smiled. “We are so about to have the time of our lives!”
With that, Karol knew that Adeline wasn’t a bit worried about the consequences, so it wasn’t even worth broaching the subject. The two of them grabbed their clutches and snuck their way down the hallway and eventually out the back of the hotel.
The two of them were full of laughter and looking for trouble.
Showtime
Jack and Viktor did as Xander asked and left him at the entrance and went up the stairs to the second level. Xander wasn’t sure what they would find inside the stadium. A lot of times the very worst thing you can do is speculate. If they were walking into a trap, it wasn’t one that any of them would be able to walk away from. There were simply too many dark spaces for men to hide. But something inside Xander knew that they weren’t in danger here. At least not physically. He was sure the glow inside was the jumbotron. If they even had jumbotrons in soccer stadiums in Paris. That wouldn’t be something Xander would know. He was a fan of the NFL, UFC, NBA and any other American sport acronym that you could think of. But not soccer, or futbol, rather. One thing he knew for certain, however, was that whatever he was about to see, it wasn’t going to be pleasant. And though it wasn’t going to have anything to do with soccer, he knew it most likely would be the beginning of a game. A game of life and death that he had grown very tired of playing with other people’s lives.
He had given Jack and Viktor time enough to find a good spot to perch. He steeled his nerves and stepped forward into the tunnel. The air was cool and damp, and his sneakers squeaked and echoed as he walked. The closer he came to the end of the tunnel, the brighter whatever was shining inside the stadium became. Dread slowed his pace. The best that he could hope for was to see anything other than Natalie dead. As the concrete walkway beneath his feet turned into a soft grass, he found that indeed the light they had seen was a gigantic screen glowing white. Like a flashlight in a tent, it illuminated the stadium, which was filled with row after row of empty seats.
There were no signs of anyone in the stadium. If Jack and Victor were up on the second level, they too were hidden. Without instruction of any kind, Xander did the only thing he thought to do and walked out to the middle of the field.
“Okay!” Xander’s shout echoed throughout the stadium, reverberating his own word back to him. “I’m here! You got what you wanted!”
He let his voice finish its echo before turning to face the massive screen. The bright white light was almost enough to blind him. No one spoke back to him, and as he stood there in silence, he could hear his heart thudding against his chest. Instinctively he pulled his pistol. The cool steel felt good in his hands. Almost like a security blanket. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. It was so quiet in that stadium that he almost jumped out of his skin when the giant screen in front of him came to life and the roar of a crowd filled the entire stadium. Not a live crowd, but a crowd cheering through the speaker system.
The source of the crowd noise flashed onto the screen in front of him. He recognized the venue immediately: Churchill Downs. The screen was replaying a video of that year’s Kentucky Derby coverage. Xander knew it because there on the screen was a big black colt wearing the number six on his side.
King’s Ransom.
Xander’s stomach turned, and he felt hot saliva rush into his mouth through his jowls. The starting gate opened, and horses burst through and began racing down the track. For two minutes, Xander watched. He didn’t know it, but his mouth was slacked open slightly as he watched his beloved racehorse come from behind and win the big race. This was the first time he had seen the race since watching it live. His reaction this time was much different than when he first watched. There was no celebrating this time. The camera then showed Xander, Natalie, Kyle, and Annie celebrating the win in the owner’s box. The camera zoomed in on Natalie receiving a celebratory kiss from Xander; then immediately the screen went black. He was once again plunged into darkness, and the silence was deafening in the wake of the noise of the crowd. A myriad of emotions overwhelmed him. Then his stomach turned again.
Now on the screen was a shaky video of someone walking in the dark. He recognized where this video was taking place as well, because it was his own backyard. The person walking with the camera was approaching his own barn. In that moment he cursed himself for not having security posted outside. He knew what was coming next as the sound of horses whinnying and blowing air through their mouths reached his ears from the speakers. When he saw hands open the barn, he turned his back on the screen. There was no way he was going to watch them murder his horse. His breath was coming fast and thoughts were racing through his head as he heard a stall door open. As the footage continued behind him, Xander continued to beat himself up. Why didn’t he have security by the stalls? Why didn’t he have a better lock on the barn? Why hadn’t he installed an alarm? His entire adult life he had been keepin
g strangers safe, but it never occurred to him to protect his own prized animals? Even after his home was invaded, he had been too distracted to put stronger security measures in place. It was a mistake that he would never forgive himself for. He put his hands over his ears, desperately trying to drown out the sounds that were projecting from the stadium’s speakers. Tears came to his eyes. Even though he didn’t watch them do it, he couldn’t keep the visions of them killing Ransom from playing in his mind. His stomach rolled again, and he lost it on the ground in the middle of the field. The taste of vomit lingered on his lips as he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirt. When he didn’t hear any more sounds, he slowly turned his eyes toward the screen. The camera had stopped on the words that were written in blood on the wall of Ransom’s stall.
Natalie Rockwell.
Then the screen went black. He could have spent years trying to prepare himself for what he saw next, but it wouldn’t have helped. All the battles he had fought in the military, all the violent missions he had carried out, and all the horrible things his eyes had seen in war—all paled in comparison to the image that held his eyes at that moment. The massive screen switched into a split screen, the same image on each side, except the right side was zoomed in.
Zoomed in on Natalie Rockwell’s face.
The speakers in the stadium popped, and then he could hear her sobbing, moaning, trying to cry out, but it was all muffled. On the left side of the split screen, a camera showed an empty room where on the far wall Natalie was strapped with her limbs sprawled into the shape of a star. He glanced back over the right of the split screen, and the zoomed camera showed tears running down her face and a gag fixed in her mouth. A brown leather strap was wrapped around her forehead, holding her head in place.
Xander was mortified.
He looked back to the left side of the screen and saw large gears on both sides of two huge steel rods with sharp points, each about a foot away from Natalie’s ears.
“Hello, Xander,” a man’s voice boomed over the speakers of the stadium. The accent was clearly Middle Eastern. “So nice of you to join me.”
Xander didn’t say a word. He just stood, on wobbly legs, staring at Natalie as she writhed around inside the straps of the torture device. He couldn’t imagine the fear she must be feeling. The hopelessness.
“I imagine you probably don’t like what you see in front of you, do you, Xander? I wonder if the millions who will be watching all around the world will like it? I wonder what they will think seeing their beloved star in such distress? They are signing on to watch by the thousands as we speak. I imagine the number in the next four hours will grow well into the millions. But what will they find before it’s all over? That, Xander, is entirely up to you.”
Xander instinctively began walking toward the screen. It was then that the smaller screens attached to the concrete along the rail of the upper deck all around the stadium, spaced about thirty feet apart, came to life, each screen displaying a different image. Xander stopped walking and spun around slowly, seeing every single screen. Each screen showed a different picture, but they all shared one similarity: a dead man’s body, laying on his back, dead eyes staring soullessly into the camera. All Middle Eastern men, wearing similar clothes, all covered in blood.
“The viewers will also see this, Xander. Your handiwork in my home country of Syria, outside my brother’s home.”
Xander’s stomach dropped. Just as the image of Sanharib Khatib popped into his head, the real image of him dead filled every single one of the smaller screens around the stadium.
“They will see my brother. Dead at the hands of their real-life G.I. Joe. Americans and the rest of the world will see me give you what you didn’t have the courtesy of giving me. A chance. A chance to save the one that you love. They will see that you are the real monster, and they will see the compassion that I have before I take her away from you.”
Xander looked back to the screen that showed Natalie. A desperate and lonely ache crawled all through his body.
“But they will see her die. America must learn that there are consequences for their actions. The world will no longer stand by and let your tyranny run rampant in our cities and our countries. And when you don’t make it to your precious Natalie in time, they will see that the power in the world has shifted, because the encore to that performance will hit even closer to home for your powerful America.”
Xander had no idea what that meant, but he knew that terrorists weren’t all that creative. He knew in that moment that he had been set up as a distraction for a larger plan. He hoped that this terrorist, apparently Sanharib Khatib’s brother, was telling the truth about the broadcast. He hoped his government was watching and that they were immediately taking the steps to try to find out what else this monster was planning. Because Xander knew he would have nothing to do with that. If Khatib made the mistake of giving him a chance to save Natalie, he was going to use it, and he was going to save her. That much he knew for certain.
The man’s voice continued. “You have four hours. I had planned on giving you six hours. But that was before you went against my wishes and decided not to come here alone as you were told. Consequences. Your actions have consequences.”
Xander immediately set a timer on his Apple watch.
“I wish you no luck. I wish only that you find her dead, the way I found my brother. Then you will know only a small portion of the pain of losing a brother. But you had better hurry, before all hope of saving her washes away.”
Xander stood in the middle of the field, his eyes watching Natalie suffer. He knew all too well what it was like to lose loved ones. No one knew the lasting hurt of such tragedy better than himself. And he wasn’t about to feel it again.
Not tonight.
Not Natalie.
As soon as that thought rolled through his mind, the sound of a machine coming to life filled the loud speakers. Xander watched in horror as the gears on both sides of the giant steel spears began to turn. His heart sank as he took in the fear on Natalie’s face as she watched the massive spears begin their slow and relentless motion toward her head. Her eyes were wide, her muscles taut, as she struggled against the restraints. Squeals of terror harmonized with the mechanical hum of the slowly grinding gears.
He heard the man’s voice bellow out once more over the horrifying sounds of machine and Natalie’s screams. “Four hours.”
Anything Is Possible
Sam, Kyle, Sarah, and Zhanna sat in silence, staring in horror at the television fixed to the back wall of the jet. Just as they had touched down in Paris, they received a message from Marvin that something big was going on. He had received an official e-mail from director of the CIA, Mary Hartsfield, with a link embedded inside it. Sam paired her phone to the television and opened the link. For five minutes they sat in silence, watching the very same video that Xander had just endured at the stadium. The commentary from Akram Khatib and all. Now that it was over, every last one of them struggled to find words. As the machine turned the gears and the gears turned the spears aimed at poor Natalie’s head, all of them were frozen in their seats.
“Holy shit,” Kyle said, finally breaking the silence.
“Holy shit,” Sarah agreed.
While the rest of them sat motionless in shock, Sam stayed silent for a different reason. Her wheels were already turning. She listened intently to every single word Akram said. She listened for inflections placed on different words, and tried to find emotion in words that might lead to some sort of clue. She played it back in her head, looking for anything that may be of use. Akram Khatib was the brother of Sanharib. Sam had choked the life right out of the son of a bitch just a couple of weeks ago. No clues there. Akram went on to talk about showing compassion, about giving Xander a chance to save Natalie. Clearly, he wanted Americans to see Xander as the bad guy. To think that he was the reason Natalie was in this mess. Not likely anyone would fall for that, but he was giving conspiracy theorists something to g
rab on to. The only thing that Akram said that didn’t mesh with the rest of his speech was . . .
“Washes away,” Sam said out loud. She didn’t mean it for anyone to hear.
“What was that, Sam?” Kyle asked.
“Washes away,” she repeated. She took out her phone and scrolled to Marvin in her contact list.
“Washes away?” Sarah asked. “You think it could mean something?”
Sam looked up from her phone. “It just strikes me as an odd thing to say—‘before all hope of saving her washes away.’ Why would hope wash away unless it has something to do with water?” Sam finished her thought, not expecting an answer, then pressed call on Marv’s contact.
Marv answered, “I heard it too,” instead of hello.
Sam’s next thought was of Xander saying how smart he thought Marvin to be. He’d caught the word “washes” in Akram’s speech as well. They were on the same page. “I need you to check all security cameras surrounding the River Seine.”
“Already have my team on it. How’s Xander?”
“That is my next call. Let me know the moment you find anything.”
“Will do. I have an SUV at the airport to pick you up. I had one of our local operatives stock a bag with toys that you’ll find useful, along with Xander’s standard go bag. I spoke with Director Hartsfield, you have the full cooperation of the CIA.”
“Thank you, Marv. As soon as you have anything—”
“I know, I’ll call you.”
Xander dropped to his knees and took in a long cool breath of air. His chest was tight and his heart was heavy. He couldn’t look up at that screen any longer. Watching Natalie strapped to that wall was literally breaking his heart. Usually, in times like this, he was able to channel the hurt and the fear into anger. An anger that usually fueled him to do some extraordinary things. At the moment, that ability escaped him. Maybe it was the sight of Natalie. Maybe it was the lack of having any idea where she might be.
King's Ransom (The Xander King Series Book 3) Page 7