Xander didn’t so much as respond. He hung up, walked around the center console, and fired up the speedboat. As he backed out into the middle of the river, he could see the Eiffel Tower’s bright yellow lights off to his right in the distance. As he pushed the throttle forward, he heard Viktor shouting at him from the dock, wildly jumping up and down and waving his arms.
Xander didn’t acknowledge him.
Instead, he pushed the throttle to the max, and the boat lurched forward as he sped away toward his target.
Toward turning that last vision of Khatib dead into a reality.
Timber!
“What?” Melanie looked across the warehouse at Sam. “Have you nothing smart to say? Xander would make funny comment to try and throw me off. You should try this, Sam.”
“Why don’t you drop that fake Russian accent and go back to being my little assistant. Off you go, fetch me a coffee.”
Melanie grunted in frustration and fired an errant shot in Sam’s direction. Sam didn’t even flinch.
“That the best you’ve got Melanie, or Melania? Or whatever your name really is.” Sam continued to goad her.
When Melanie turned her pistol from Sam to Adeline’s forehead, Adeline squealed through her gag and struggled to get free of the two men holding her in place. “Actually, the best I have got is to put bullet in first daughter’s head. Will this satisfy you?” Melanie said.
Sarah stood from behind the cubicle. “And what exactly would you gain by doing that? What is it that you want?”
“I have no allegiance. I do what I do for love of money, not country. I have been trained by the best in Russia. Vitalii Dragov is dead, so I move on to Akram Khatib. Information about your precious Xander is very valuable, and it pays very well to have it.”
Sam replied, “Xander is worth far more than Khatib. He will pay you whatever you want if you let Adeline go.”
Melanie laughed, glanced at Adeline, then back to Sam. “But then, I don’t get to kill you.”
“Oh, it’s me you want, is it? Fine.” Sam dropped her arms and tucked her gun in the back of her waistband. “Take me. Let Sarah have Adeline, and you can take me.”
“Works for me, but you must come here first.”
Sarah shouted, “Sam, no! You can’t!”
But Sam walked around the corner of the cubicle and started toward the men holding Adeline. Adeline continued to thrash in their arms and whimper through her cloth gag. Her clothes were still soaked from being in the river, and the closer Sam got, she could see tears streaming down her face. Sam had a plan; she just hoped Sarah wouldn’t jump the gun.
“That’s far enough,” Melanie said. She took hold of Adeline and waved for the men to go and see to Sam.
“Sam,” Sarah begged. “Don’t do this. They’ll kill you.”
“Better me than her. Just don’t let them take us both.”
Sarah took Sam’s words to heart and refocused her gun on Melanie. “Let her go, right now.”
“You are in no position to make demands, Barbie.”
Just as the men began to frisk Sam, Sam whipped her head to the right to look at Sarah. She knew that was one of her triggers, and sure enough, Sarah broke. What happened next was a total blur.
Sarah shot Melanie in her arm that was holding the gun. Sam forced her right knee across the left side of her body into the forehead of the man that was frisking her left leg. Just after the smack against his face, Sam spun behind her, whipping her elbow around, and it connected with the other man’s jaw. Behind her she heard Zhanna shout, “RUN!” to Adeline, and as the man Sam hit with her knee rose back up to his feet, she brought her arm forward, the one that had just landed the elbow, and shattered his nose. She had to punch upward to hit him because he was so tall. Ruining his nose would hardly ruin his day; he already had a face that only a grandmother could love. The man didn’t have any quit in him. After pawing at his bloody nose for only a second, he lunged at Sam. Sam stepped to her left—to the outside of his punch—and delivered a left hook to the kidney. As he staggered back in pain, she wheeled her left leg up and around in a full 360, and the heel of her boot connected with the big man’s temple; and he toppled to the ground like a tree.
As she turned back to face the man she had hit with her elbow, out of the corner of her eye she saw Adeline running toward the elevator into Zhanna’s waiting arms. And Sarah was closing the distance between her and the injured Melanie. The man in front of Sam reached for the gun inside his waistband. As he pulled it up to aim at Sam, she front kicked it out of his hand, and as soon as her foot tapped back down to the ground, she torqued her hip to the left, and the bottom of her shin bone landed flush against his jaw with the force of a Louisville Slugger. The instantly unconscious man did his best impression of his big friend, and Sam resisted the urge to yell, “Timber!” as he collapsed to the concrete below.
Sam turned her attention to Melanie and Sarah at the front of the room and stalked around the cubicles toward them. Beyond where Sarah was grappling with Melanie, Sam saw Zhanna pull Adeline into the elevator, and off in the distance, she could faintly hear sirens closing in. If she didn’t hurry, the police would steal her chance at returning the punch that Melanie had given her in Moscow as she was being held back by Dragov’s men. Some people never forget a face; Sam had never been able to forget a punch.
Just before Sam could get there, Sebastian emerged from the cubicles and tackled Sarah to the floor. Sarah’s gun skittered across the concrete, halfway between Sam and Melanie.
Sam said, “Let’s see how fast you are, Melanie.”
They both sprinted for the gun. After only a split second it was clear that Sam was going to get to the gun first, and Melanie decided to sidestep the gun and bolt for the door. Sam dove headfirst for the gun, grabbed it, aimed it, squeezed the trigger, and the bullet smacked against the door a millisecond after Melanie’s shoulder turned the corner.
Sam popped up to her feet and noticed Sarah was in full guard on her back, holding Sebastian off with some jiujitsu defense. Sam walked over as Sarah trapped Sebastian’s arm that was closest to Sam, leaving him completely defenseless against the kick that Sam delivered to the side of his face. Sebastian collapsed onto Sarah. Sam nodded to Sarah. Sarah gave the “I’m okay” nod in return.
Sarah said, “I’ll call the police and make sure they pick up Zhanna and Adeline. Then I’ll call Marv and have him coordinate a pickup for all of us. You go get that ugly bitch.”
Sam barely heard Sarah’s words. Her mind was already on running Melanie down. Finally, her body caught up with her thoughts, and Sam sprinted out the door after her.
A Quick Detour
Xander kept the speedboat at full throttle as he sped down the Seine. The river was nearly empty. The wind was cold in his face, and he squinted into the night, desperately searching for the first sign of Khatib’s dinner boat. The hum of the boat’s engine engulfed him. The slapping of the bottom of the boat against the tiny waves sprayed a mist of water all around him. He felt anxious. His mind continued to race, but he did his best to keep his breathing slow and his head clear. Worrying about whether Kyle was still alive and visualizing how he would pull Natalie from that wall were only clouding his mind. He needed now to rely on his instincts.
The Eiffel Tower’s thousands of lights sparkled just around a left turn in the Seine now. The lights were casting their rays all the way down to the river below. Xander caught his first glimpse of the back end of the dinner boat rounding the bend up ahead just before it disappeared. His stomach clenched and his grip tightened around the steering wheel of the speedboat. He was close. Then his phone began to ring. He almost didn’t answer it. He didn’t want to hear bad news if that’s what was calling. But it could be news about Natalie.
Xander shouted over the boat’s engine, “Marv, I’m a little busy.”
“Xander, we have a problem.” Marv’s voice was animated.
“No shit. Any other ways you want to try to blow my mind?”
&nbs
p; “Xander there is a boat somewhere, the boat Kyle was on. It’s got a bomb on it. Kyle told Sarah that the bomb on it looked big enough to blow up a few city blocks.”
“I’ve kinda got my hands full here, Marv. Can’t you let the French police look into doing something tonight? Call that George Costanza–lookin’ son of a bitch detective that took my Glock at the police station earlier. Maybe he’ll give a flying—”
Before Xander could finish his words, a boat came out of nowhere from his right side and smashed into the front end of his speedboat. It hit the boat so hard that Xander was thrown violently out of his boat and sent soaring through the air into the dark and cold water below. All he could see was darkness. Or maybe he wasn’t seeing anything. The water wasn’t nearly as cold as it should be. He felt like he was breathing fine. But he felt as if he were an astronaut floating in deep black space. No gravity, no sound…
Then he did hear a sound. It was like a fly buzzing around his head but very far away. He tried to move, but he couldn’t. He tried to look, but he couldn’t. Then he felt something burning. Not his skin, not from a fire, but it felt like fire in his lungs. He desperately tried to take a breath to extinguish the flames that grew inside his chest, but nothing was working. Then, it seemed the fly was getting closer, and closer, right up on him now. He tried to swat the fly away, but he still couldn’t move. Then, the fly was gone. Complete silence followed. Blackness.
Then, as suddenly as he had been thrown from the boat a moment ago, his head was pulled up out of the water by his hair and the world came crashing in on Xander. Pure instinct made him shoot his hand right for the throat of the man who was leaning off the back of the boat trying to pull him in. Simultaneously, Xander pulled in air through his mouth so hard that he nearly choked, and as he coughed out river water, his grip tightened as if it were a reflex around the man’s neck, and he pulled the man into the water with him. Xander managed to get his elbow up on the top rung of the ladder hanging from the swim platform at the back of the boat. As he let go of the man’s throat, he wrapped his legs around his body with the strength of a boa constrictor. As he squeezed with all his might, he forced the man underwater, holding him there as he uselessly writhed and bucked between Xander’s legs. Xander glanced at his watch; he only had twenty minutes left before Natalie was dead. As the man’s movements underwater eased to a halt, Xander regained his breath.
When the man was finally still, Xander opened his legs and the drowned man floated away. As soon as Xander turned and hoisted himself up onto the swim platform, he was forced to flatten to his back as the driver of the boat fired at him from inside the cabin. Xander quickly unzipped his pocket, pulled his knife, hit the blade release button, and, as the man stepped down on the swim platform, Xander drove the knife into the side of his calf muscle. The man screamed in pain and bucked backward, sending the bullet meant for Xander’s head somewhere in the direction of the Champs-Elysées. Xander removed the knife as he scrambled to his knees, then jammed the blade between the man’s fourth and fifth rib, straight through to the heart.
The man grunted, then collapsed after Xander twisted and removed the knife. Xander stood and then nudged the man’s lifeless body out over the edge of the swim platform where he could join his friend in a float-off to see who could reach the Eiffel Tower first. Xander wouldn’t be there to see who won; he immediately jammed the throttle and turned toward the dinner boat. He noticed a cell phone sitting in the cup holder beside the captain’s chair. He picked it up and dialed Marv.
“Who is this?” Marv answered.
“Do I have to do everything?”
“X? What the—whose number are you calling from?”
“Long story short, I found the bomb.”
“What? How could you possibly—”
“The timer isn’t running, but you have exactly sixty seconds to tell me which wire to cut so they can’t set it off remotely. Starting now.”
“You crazy son of a bitch. I’ll call you right back. Don’t you leave that—”
Xander ended the call and sped away toward the boat that he hoped would be holding Kyle, Natalie, and that dead-man-walking son of a bitch, Akram Khatib.
She Started It
Sam sprinted out the door of the warehouse and down the side street in the direction Melanie ran. For a side street it was fairly well lit. Yellow lights hung from the brick buildings, shining over intimate little cafes and bistros. At first, Sam didn’t see anything that resembled a cowardly woman running away from her like a little bitch. Then she thought if she were being chased by herself, she would run like hell too. But up ahead she noticed a shadow move to the left. Sam found another gear and dashed toward it.
She pulled to a stop at the street where she had seen the movement. It was much darker there. More like an alley than a street. There were plenty of nooks and cafe awnings to hide inside and behind. This was a dangerous game. Sam was exposed and at a major disadvantage. She searched the dark street for clues, but nothing turned up. She was surprised at just how empty it was. It was a nice enough night; people should be out and about. Maybe this wasn’t the best neighborhood for that. Sam took a step forward when she saw a glimmer of dark liquid on the ground, reflecting the only light nearby. She bent down, and upon further examination, she discerned it was definitely blood. She was in the right place.
Sam continued forward. She jumped when she heard a couple laughing as they passed on the street behind her. She managed to avoid swinging the gun around when she turned to look. The sirens she had heard earlier seemed right around the corner now. A few steps forward and she noticed another cluster of blood drops settling down into the seams of the cobblestone. Goading her worked once, so why not try it again?
“Melanie? What are we really fighting about anyhow? It wasn’t that I disliked you when you were Xander’s assistant—my assistant. It’s just, you were a bit of a little twit.”
Sam walked slowly as she talked, listening for any tiny little movement each time she paused. The sirens just behind her now made it all the more difficult. If Melanie had another weapon, Sam was really putting herself in a bad situation.
“Look, I’m sure I wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, but, my God, you were secretly working for a mafia boss. I must have been a walk in the park compared to that fatty.”
The movement from Sam’s left was fast, but she managed to get her arm up to shield her face before Melanie sank the knife deep into Sam’s forearm. The piercing flame of pain was instant. Sam let Melanie’s momentum push her to her back, but when she landed, Sam continued to roll and she kicked Melanie up and off of her. Sam rolled on over to her feet and immediately took a fight-ready stance. After skidding to a stop a few feet away, Melanie too went into a fight stance, holding the knife out in front of her.
Sam gave her arm a quick glance and found blood pouring from the open wound.
“So she does bleed,” Melanie mocked.
“Let’s see you try that again.” Sam welcomed the challenge. Melanie was in way over her head, whether she knew it or not. Sam Harrison lived for this shit.
Melanie began to move toward Sam, knife out in front. Then she lunged for Sam, shoving the knife forward. Sam easily parried the stab and slapped Melanie across the face.
“Now . . . you’re going to have to do better than that,” Sam taunted.
Melanie stabbed again and Sam again parried. This time she countered with a quick punch to the throat. Melanie gagged and doubled over. Sam Thai-kicked her square in the forehead. Melanie flew backward on her ass, groaning in pain whenever she could catch a breath. Sam felt invincible in that moment.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
Melanie began to regain her breath as she scooted away from Sam on her ass. She glanced toward the street they had just come from.
Sam said, “Don’t even think about running. It will only make things worse.”
Melanie didn’t listen. She jumped to her feet and sprint
ed for the street. Sam pounced, and just when Melanie reached the street, Sam yanked her back by the collar of her shirt. Without letting go of the fabric, Sam turned Melanie around and delivered a knee into her solar plexus. Sam maintained a grip on her collar, and just as she stood her up to deliver another blow, a police car skidded to a halt and a man’s voice bellowed from the loudspeaker.
“Stop right there! Break it up. Let go of the shirt and back away!”
Sam didn’t let go. Nor would she. Not until they made her.
Sam said to Melanie, “You are lucky. I would’ve killed you.” She followed that with a devastating elbow to Melanie’s forehead. Sam could see she had put the lights out even before Melanie hit the ground.
Sam then turned toward the two policemen running toward her and held up her hands.
“She started it.”
A King’s Ransom
Under the thousands of sparkling little spotlights shining down on him from the iconic Eiffel Tower, Xander sidled his newly commandeered boat up to Khatib’s dinner boat. At the exact moment he shut down the power, he leapt onto the rail of the dinner boat. He figured it best not to leave the boat running unmanned at full throttle. In the couple of minutes it took for him to catch up to the dinner boat, he had managed to cut the wire that Marv told him to cut, disabling the bomb, and he also managed to fit his Glock with the silencer from his go bag. Hanging on to the outside rail with his left hand, he quietly smoked two armed men who were walking around the corner to investigate who had boarded from another boat. Nine-millimeter bullets have a hell of a way of saying hello.
Xander hopped the rail and hugged the wall. Everything on this boat was similar to the one he had encountered Melanie on. The major difference was that the wheelhouse was situated more in the middle. And to his dismay, the dining room windows had been completely blacked out. He couldn’t even tell if the lights were on inside. But he knew they were. What he didn’t know was how many gunmen Khatib had waiting for him.
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