“Where is he, Marv?”
“Port des Saints-Pères. It’s a tiny little port on the river across from Le Louvre. Only room for one or two boats.”
“I’m assuming you’ve already checked the cameras,” Xander said.
“I have. They conveniently aren’t working.”
“Jesus.”
“Xander, I have to call this in. I have to let the local authorities know that there could be terrorist activity going on that close to the museum.”
“No way, Marv. It’s late. The museum is closed. Khatib might blow up the entire thing if the police show up sniffing around. You have to let me handle this.”
“X, I can’t. If something happens, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“Marv, who the hell are you going to call that is better suited to deal with this than I am? If you can tell me that, then you can call it in.”
Xander let Marv sit with that for a moment. He already knew what Marv would say. Marv had been around at a time when the government was sending Xander on mission impossible after mission impossible. He knew there absolutely was no one they could bring in who would know better how to handle Khatib and his men.
Marv finally spoke up, resignation heavy in his voice. “Damnit, X. You and I both know the French couldn’t find anyone better suited for this than you if they trained them from birth. Not to mention they are on boats, so let the frogman in you go wild.”
“Will do. Jack Bronson is with me. He will help me establish a perimeter. He’ll have my back with the sniper rifle. Marv?”
“Yeah, X?”
“Do you think Natalie is there? Do you think they never left the port?”
Marv let out a sigh. “I really don’t know. But I think there is a good possibility. I’ll keep an eye on all the surrounding cameras to see if I can pick up any clues. Kyle hasn’t moved in five minutes or so now. So you’d better get in there.”
“What, you aren’t going to wish me luck?”
“If that son of a bitch Khatib is down there, you won’t need luck. But you will need a spot on your office shelf for another award or two. I know that much.”
“Awards are for the insecure. Seeing Natalie finish her movie in Paris will be all the reward I’ll need.”
“I hear ya. In that case, break a leg.”
Xander ended the call. Their SUV was parked along the street about a block away from the X that marked Kyle’s spot. A spot that hadn’t moved in a while. Xander didn’t like that.
He got out of the car and walked around to where Jack and Viktor were standing. “Jack, you know where you want to be?”
Jack pointed up to the building across the street. “Third floor, far left window. I’ll be able to shoot the cherry off a kid’s ice cream cone at the museum across the river from there.”
“Works for me,” Xander said. “You gonna be able to tell the difference between me and the bad guys?”
Jack smiled. “Ain’t that what I got Viktor for?”
“Real comforting.”
Xander loaded the last magazine from his go bag into his Glock, racked the slide, and gave Jack a nod. Then he turned toward the river and walked down the stairs to the riverwalk and into the shadows of the wall above him. There were a lot of things to think about, a lot of things to distract him. Natalie strapped to that wall, Kyle held captive, Sam and company walking into an obvious ambush. But Xander took one look at the timer on his watch—forty minutes remaining—and everything but what was right in front of him disappeared. With a deep breath, inhaling the stale and moist river air, he settled into the shadows.
His mind focused.
In front of him, along the wall to his left, was a row of thick leaved trees. The leaves helped block the lights of the city and would help him stay hidden. On his right was the river, and just beyond that, Le Louvre was lit up in the distance. The millions of people surrounding him had no idea how close they constantly were to danger. If people knew what Xander knew, they would be hard pressed to ever leave the house, for every dark corner had the potential to hold something sinister. And if you happened upon the wrong corner at the wrong time, you could be caught up in something as minor as a mugging or something as major as what was about to happen here. A full-on terrorist attack and hostage situation. He feared for his niece in that moment. Even though the world wasn’t near as ruthless as it used to be, it was still unbelievably dangerous.
Xander walked slowly along the foot of the wall. Up ahead he could see a large dinner boat, just like the one he boarded from the water with Sam not long ago. He pictured the inside of the dining area, and unfortunately, his mind saw Natalie up on that wall. He shook this from his brain and trained his eyes on the right side of the boat. There was another slot in the concrete for another boat just like that one to be able to dock. Instead of a dinner boat, however, there were two smaller boats. Xander assumed one either had Kyle inside, or at the very least he knew the phone was there. There was absolutely zero movement on the dock. No people out for a stroll and no guards waiting to keep people away. A pit began to form in Xander’s stomach. They didn’t have time to be wrong about this being the right place. If Natalie and Kyle weren’t here, it was over.
Xander gave a glance over his shoulder back up at the building Jack pointed to a moment ago. Sure enough, three floors up, back inside the far left window, he saw three quick flashes of light.
Jack was in place.
It was time to see if Akram Khatib was as well.
Girls’ Night Out
Sam sent the cab driver away. She didn’t have any money, but one flash of her MP5 submachine gun and suddenly that didn’t much matter. He would live. She spotted the dumpster that Xander had mentioned almost immediately. The two beautiful women huddled behind it may have helped a little. Sam stayed close to the brick building as she approached Sarah and Zhanna, surprised at herself that she was happy to see them.
“You ladies have this figured yet?”
Sarah and Zhanna jumped and turned their pistols on Sam.
Sarah’s face went from “shoot to kill” to complete relief when she realized who had come up behind them. “Sam! Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.”
Sam said with a wry smile, “Hopefully Melanie will be as easy to sneak up on as the two of you are.”
Zhanna got down to business. “There is definite movement on first floor. And across street, there are two men on top of building.”
“All right, any movement from the underground parking garage?” Sam said.
“Nothing,” said Sarah. “That is definitely the way in. But how do we get up the elevator without them seeing us?”
Sam smiled. “Leave that to me. You girls ready for this? No telling how many will be waiting for us inside.”
Sarah handed Sam an extra pistol. “Glock 19’s your weapon of choice, right?”
Sam took the gun, gave it a press check, then smiled. “My kind of girl. What other goodies have you?”
“One smoke, one flash, and one frag grenade. Preference?” Sarah asked Sam.
“I like flashy. Xander is rubbing off on me.”
“And we both have backup guns as well.” Zhanna pulled her pistol and held it down by her side.
Sam smiled as she began to walk toward the exit of the underground parking garage. “Well, doesn’t this bring a whole new meaning to girls’ night out.”
Sam pressed the button that called for the elevator. The parking garage had a couple of vans inside. While that didn’t make the three of them nervous, it definitely helped them focus on what was ahead.
“So we’re just going to let them know we’re coming? Just like that?” Sarah asked.
Sam moved an orange construction barrel from outside the elevator over in front of the doors. “Just follow me.”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. After making sure the elevator was empty, Sam quickly moved in the barrel, hopped up on top of it, pushed in one of the tiles and climbed up through the ceiling. Af
ter a quick glance and a shrug of the shoulders between them, Sarah and Zhanna followed. The elevator doors closed and they began to move up to the first floor. Sam readied her flash grenade, while Sarah and Zhanna readied their pistols.
“According to Xander, there are cubicles that run along the walls of the space and more cubicles in the center of the room,” Sam whispered. “When the door opens and they see the barrel, they will let off some rounds out of fear. When that stops, I’ll throw the flash grenade. Cover your eyes and let’s get behind the cubicles along the wall on the left. From there, we’ll have some cover and can start to work our magic. Zhanna, if you see a cluster of men with guns, don’t be afraid to use the frag grenade. No sense hanging on to it.”
Zhanna nodded. The cables wobbled around them as they moved the elevator upward. Then the elevator came to an abrupt stop, jolting them as they crouched atop it. When the elevator dinged, Sam nodded to assure them she was ready. And just like she said they would, when the doors opened, blasts and pops came from the guns of the waiting enemy. Clinks and clanks and thuds rang out inside the elevator. Sam heard a man shout something, and before the last gun spit its last bullet, Sam had already released the flash grenade and it rolled out the front of the elevator, followed by a magnificent bright light. As the group that had been firing into the elevator reeled from the flash, Sam jumped from the top of the elevator, sprinted out the left side and dove behind the cubicles that were right where Xander said they would be. She immediately raised just her MP5 submachine gun above the top of the cubicle and let off a spray of bullets to serve as cover for Sarah and Zhanna. A split second later, they were on the floor beside Sam, readying their weapons for an attack.
“Melanie, give it up now and I promise I will only send you to prison,” Sam shouted. “You can write love letters to Kyle from there.”
A man spoke instead of Melanie. “Melania is not here. She had to retrieve something very important that we picked up for her. You are unlucky, you have to deal with Sebastian.”
“Sebastian?” Sam laughed. She was stalling as she ejected the magazine on the MP5. By the weight of it, she felt as if she had ten or so rounds left. “You are in the wrong story, Sebastian. This is not a romance novel.”
She had definitely spent far too much time with Xander. His dreadful humor was beginning to rub off on her. As Sebastian replied to her quip, she motioned to Sarah that she was going to move toward the back wall by the cover of the cubicles.
“Not many romance novels end with the pretty British woman getting her pretty little head blown off,” Sebastian said.
By the time he finished his sentence, Sam had already moved to the back of the room. She raised her head above the cubicle just in time to see Zhanna toss the grenade into a group of three men standing close to the elevator. Two seconds later a nasty blast filled the warehouse, and as Zhanna and Sarah began to trade fire with the men who were left, Sam continued on around to the other side of the room. Now she had a fantastic angle from behind them. She traded the MP5 for the Glock. Trading volume for accuracy. She bounced up from behind the cubicle, aimed her pistol, and shot two men standing on the left side of the room, some seventy feet away. Four quick squeezes.
Sarah or Zhanna one-dropped another man who was closer to them, and Sam could hear groans from men who must have been hit by the grenade. Sam moved up to the first cubicle in the center of the room. When she peeked over the cubicle, she could still hear a couple of people firing from the front center of the room, but like her, they must have been ducked behind a cubicle wall.
Sam shouted, “Tell me where Melanie is, and we will let you live.”
At the other end of the room, beyond where the gunmen were posted, Sam heard a door open and close.
“Sounds like a fair trade to me, Sebastian,” Sarah shouted. “Your freedom for Melanie, who you probably don’t really even know. You might want to consider accepting.”
Then a female spoke up from beyond Sebastian. “You want me? Well . . . here I am.”
Melanie.
That must have been the door that Sam heard open and close. A bolt of adrenaline flashed through Sam’s body. She stood up and trained her gun on Melanie. But she almost dropped her gun when she saw who was with her. Sam glanced over at Sarah, and Sam could see the terror written all over Sarah’s face.
This was bad.
Real bad.
While everyone held their weapons on each other, Sam reached her left hand into her pocket and slid out her phone. She thumbed to Marv’s contact and typed a one-line text message:
Melanie has the President’s daughter.
Visions of Violence Danced in His Head
As Xander crept his way to the water’s edge from the shadows, for the first time he noticed movement. Beyond the dinner boat, near the exact mark on the GPS where Kyle’s phone should be, two human shadows crossed in front of the boat. Xander had to be very careful how he approached. This was a heavily populated civilian area. These shadowy figures could easily be a couple of young lovers trying to—
POP-POP-POP-POP!
Four shots rang out, and Xander jumped onto the dinner boat for cover. One bullet ricocheted off the bow, then whizzed past Xander’s head. After a glance inside the dining hall window showed him a completely empty room, he immediately jumped and grabbed the bottom of the rooftop deck rail above him. He fought the panic of Natalie not being there and pulled himself up and hopped over the rail. In five quick strides he was at the other side of the deck, raising his gun, and four shots later both unsuspecting men were on the ground. They had been expecting him to attack from the front lower level of the dinner boat.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement at the end of the dock. Xander dropped to his stomach on the floor of the deck just as two gunshot blasts echoed across the water. In front of him, in the open space between the deck floor and the first rail, he could see the man aiming in his direction. Just as Xander aimed his gun, he heard a crack in the distance and the man at the end of the dock jerked, then dropped flat on his face.
Jack.
Xander raised to a knee and scanned the area for any other possible gunmen. When satisfied the area was clear, he hopped the rail, dropped down to the lower level of the boat, then stepped out on the concrete dock that separated that boat and the two smaller boats, one a fishing vessel and one a speedboat. He took one last longing look back through the dinner boat’s window. He knew he wouldn’t see Natalie there, but hope springs eternal. And now he felt completely lost on how to find her. In a crouch he duckwalked over to the fishing boat and boarded. He quickly searched the outside and the cabin but found nothing. He did the same with the second boat, and just as he was getting ready to hop back out to the dock, something black on the white cushion of the outside bench caught his eye.
Kyle’s burner phone.
Kyle was gone.
Natalie was nowhere to be found.
The feeling of failing her slowly began to creep into his nervous system. Instinctively, Xander grabbed a nearby towel, picked up the phone that had been stuffed between his friend’s cheeks, and gave it a quick wipe down. When he unlocked the phone, there was a red alert at the corner of the messages icon. He tapped the icon, and it showed one text message that was clearly meant for him.
Captain America is always two steps behind Akram Khatib. Shame. I really wanted to play. Looks like that King’s Ransom I told you it would take to get your Natalie back comes in the form of your good friend. Remember the good friend of yours my brother shot in the head? Your friend here will wish for such mercy. Happy Hunting. —AK
The vision of Sanharib Khatib shooting Sean Thompson in the face in Syria a few weeks ago flashed in his mind. Then a vision of King’s Ransom dead in the stables, then one of Kyle being tortured, then a vision of those massive spikes being driven into Natalie’s ears. Xander dropped to his knee. Saliva filled his jowls, and he lost it all over the floor of the boat. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and took a deep breat
h. After another moment of those visions repeating themselves in his mind, everything went blank. He looked up at the fingernail moon that was half hidden by a moving cloud. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, rapid and erratic. The sounds around him were muffled.
He felt lost.
It was then that a cool breeze blew gently across the back of his neck. He took a deep inhale and slowly began to gather his wits. He could swear that the scent traveling in the breeze was Natalie’s perfume. He knew it was impossible, but the mind is a powerful force. A force he knew he had to harness to push him toward a different outcome. The smell of Natalie’s perfume, though one he couldn’t have actually detected, triggered a positive chain of visions that flashed before him.
His friend Sean Thompson smiling again. Spouting one of his off-the-cuff country-boy sayings.
King’s Ransom running for the win at the Kentucky Derby. Xander rubbing his nose and patting his back in the winner’s circle.
Kyle’s blazing smile and infectious laugh as they clanked glasses on the back of Xander’s yacht in the Virgin Islands.
Staring into Natalie’s eyes just before she kissed him on the lips.
Adrenaline filled Xander’s veins as he slowly rose to his feet. It felt like a high-octane sugar rush running through his system. The next vision he saw made him clench his jaw and ball his hands into fists. Before his eyes, in the dark water beside the boat, he could see Akram Khatib, blood leaking from his head as he lay on the ground. That was the vision he intended to see come to fruition next. Xander pulled out his phone and dialed Marvin.
“Xander! I was just getting ready to call you. I have eyes on Khatib! Cameras across the river show that he left where you are on a different dinner boat and is headed in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. I’m showing that you have twenty-five minutes to get to Natalie. You gotta get going!”
King's Ransom (The Xander King Series Book 3) Page 17