“Aaahhh!”
Xander heard a woman scream. It didn’t sound like Natalie, but distress can have an effect on your vocal cords.
“Stop it! Please! You’re hurting him!”
He heard the woman again. This time, he could tell she was shouting from above him and at the far end of the boat, closer to the stern. He remembered the large rooftop deck of the other dinner boat, so he knew that was where her shouts were coming from. Xander had a decision to make. The woman just screamed, “You’re hurting him.” He assumed that Kyle was the “him” she was referring to. He checked his watch, and he still had twelve minutes left to save Natalie. But what if the timing that Khatib gave wasn’t exactly correct? He didn’t have time to ponder the idea, but he couldn’t make the wrong decision.
“No! You’re going to kill him!”
That answered that question. Xander would have to trust that the timer was true. If it was Kyle being hurt, maybe killed, Xander had to do what he could for him. He couldn’t leave his closest friend hanging. He jumped up and grabbed hold of the roof’s edge and pulled himself up. In the bright cast shining down from the Eiffel, he could just make out a few people at the far end of the rooftop deck, at least a hundred feet away. He stayed low and sprinted along the roof past the wheelhouse. He didn’t have time to worry around with whether or not the captain saw him. Fifty feet closer now, he could see that two men were holding a woman, while a man dressed in black tactical gear was beating on a man who had fallen to his knees.
Kyle.
The anger that fired inside of Xander at that moment was unmatched by anything he had ever felt. All the battles he had fought for the US, all the vigilante missions, and even more recently the personal wars he had endured, all of them paled in comparison to the fury he felt then. All he could see was red, and tactical maneuvering went right out the window.
“Khatib!” Xander shouted as he stepped over the rail at the perimeter of the deck. Khatib had his fist cocked, ready to drive it down into Kyle’s mostly battered and semiconscious face. But when he heard Xander shout, he stopped and turned toward him, giving Xander his full attention. Xander took a long hard look at Kyle as he slumped over on his side. He let it fuel his rage.
Xander stalked toward Khatib, and without even realizing it, he dropped his gun on the ground. As he walked, his face was completely devoid of emotion. Khatib’s men raised their guns, and Khatib made a motion for them to stand down.
Khatib let a sinister smile grow across his face. “Alexander King.”
Xander continued his walk as he pulled his body armor vest off and tossed it to the ground. This left him in his black tank, his body now with total freedom of movement.
Xander growled, “Why don’t you try to see if you can make that karate shit work on me?”
“I’m right here, big man.” Khatib moved forward.
Xander swung at him with a haymaker overhand right. If it had connected, it would have wiped that smug smile right off Khatib’s face. But Khatib moved quickly to the left, and before Xander could recover, Khatib hit him twice in the ribs, hard. Xander came back over the top with a left hook, but he was throwing his punches in anger, and it was pulling him off balance. Khatib ducked Xander’s left and countered with a right hook to Xander’s kidney, and a millisecond behind that came a left hook to the jaw. Xander staggered backward. He wiped his arm across his mouth, leaving behind a trail of blood across his forearm. Khatib was much faster than Xander had anticipated. Much more powerful as well.
Khatib mocked him. “Looks like my shit works pretty good on you too.”
Rage again flooded Xander, and he lunged forward without regard for control or technique. Khatib stepped to his left and launched a Thai kick that landed directly in Xander’s midsection. He turned away from Khatib and sucked for the air that had just been stolen from him. If he didn’t get himself under control, if he didn’t regain his focus, Xander was not only going to lose this fight, but he was going to lose the ability to save Kyle and Natalie. If he couldn’t get it together for himself, he had to do it for them.
Khatib continued to mock Xander. “What’s wrong, Captain America? Never met a man who was better than you? Never been bested in a fight?”
Khatib stepped forward and landed a quick one-two to Xander’s forehead and chin. Khatib was moving swiftly on the balls of his feet. Very good technique. But Xander let him come in once more. This time when Khatib bounced in and landed another one-two, he left behind all the information Xander would need. Without knowing it, every time Khatib threw the straight right punch, he left his ribs wide open. This time when Khatib hit him, as Xander ate the punch, he shuffled his feet into a switch kick and brought his left leg around his body like a whip, striking Khatib at the bottom of his rib cage. When the top of Xander’s foot connected, there was a pop, and Khatib reeled backward, grabbing at his newly-broken rib.
Xander began to bounce on the balls of his feet. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Kyle raise his head. He could see that Xander’s head was back in the game, and Kyle knew better than anyone what was coming next.
Violence.
Xander bounced forward, and when the injured Khatib threw a defensive right hand, Xander trapped it between his ribs and under his arm and whipped his head forward, shattering Khatib’s nose with his forehead. Blood gushed from Khatib’s face, but he ignored it and put his hands up, ready to defend himself.
It was Xander’s turn to do the mocking. “Ouch, that one is gonna hurt your chances with the ladies,” he said as he bounced around, hands up, ready to strike. Feeling like himself again.
Now it was Khatib who let anger get in the way of technique. He lunged wildly for Xander, leaving the left side of his face exposed. Xander capitalized by bludgeoning it with a powerful right hand. Xander could have sworn he heard the thudding sound his fist made echoing across the river. Khatib lost control of his legs, did the chicken dance, and dropped to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Xander noticed Kyle slithering across the deck toward the pistol Xander dropped earlier. The two men still holding Karol were so shocked that their leader was losing, they didn’t even notice Kyle going for the gun. Khatib staggered as he got up, but he managed to make it to his feet. He may have been a son of a bitch, but he was a tough son of a bitch.
Xander moved forward and easily blocked the lazy three-punch combination Khatib threw at him. When Xander countered, he nearly drove his right hand straight through the back of Khatib’s head. He had never hit a man so hard. Khatib collapsed again, this time on his back. Xander stalked over and straddled him, gaining full-mount position over him. Khatib was unconscious. Xander slapped him lightly across the face twice.
“Wake up, you son of a bitch. You are going to hear this.” He slapped him twice more and Khatib opened his cold black eyes. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
Khatib’s stare was blank, but Xander knew he was listening. Xander grabbed the dark hair on top of Khatib’s head in his left hand and held him in place, not letting him look anywhere but straight into his eyes. Xander glanced over to Kyle, and Kyle gave him the knowing glare that Xander was hoping for. Xander then looked back at Khatib.
“You said it would take a King’s Ransom to save Natalie . . . How’s this for a ransom?”
Xander held out his right hand, and Kyle tossed him the Glock 19. Xander caught it, put it to Khatib’s forehead, and just as Khatib’s eyes widened in fear, Xander pulled the trigger and blew the brains out of the back of his head.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Xander pivoted to his left and shot one of the men holding Karol in the neck and the other directly through his left eye. Xander turned back and rose to his feet. He stood over Akram Khatib and glared down at him. The vision he had seen in the murky river water earlier—Khatib with blood leaking out of his head—was now a reality lying there before his very eyes. Xander closed his eyes for a moment as he stood over Khatib’s lifeless body. He let a vision of his beloved horse, alive a
nd well, racing down the back stretch at the Kentucky Derby play like a movie in his head. This was the way he would remember his horse. The memory of finding him dead in the stall would now be able to die with the man who was responsible for it. His terrorist blood would wash that horrible scene from Xander’s mind forever.
Xander opened his eyes, and as he watched the blood leak from Akram Khatib, he tapped twice with his fist against his own chest, directly over his heart.
“For King’s Ransom.”
The Clock Is Ticking
The sound of a submachine gun firing from the other side of the boat and bullets hitting the deck and clanking against the rail around him broke Xander from his deadly trance. He dove to the floor and turned to shoot, but he couldn’t find anyone in his sights.
Xander shouted to Karol, “Get down! Get down behind one of those bodies and don’t move!”
Without hesitation, Karol dove back behind the bigger of the two men Xander had just gunned down. Xander could see that the shock of what she had just witnessed hadn’t worn off, but at least she could still listen. It would be the difference between living and dying for her. He military crawled over to where she was, and Kyle followed behind him. Before he picked up the dead man’s MP5 lying just beyond the man’s hand, he checked his watch.
Four minutes.
Xander’s internal clock started ticking in time with the countdown on his watch.
A streak of panic flashed through Xander. He had to get to the dining room below.
Now.
“Kyle, is Natalie in the dining room below us?”
When Xander looked at his friend, his heart nearly broke. Kyle hardly resembled himself. He must have been taking that beating from Khatib for a while before Xander arrived. As Kyle propped himself up on his elbow, Xander could see that every movement caused him pain. Finally, Kyle nodded, confirming that Natalie was indeed in the dining room below them.
“I’m going to get us all out of here,” Xander said to Kyle as he handed him the second gunman’s MP5. “Just stay here and make sure no one gets close to you. It looks like the magazine has forty rounds in it. Don’t be afraid to use them.”
Xander checked his own MP5’s magazine, and to his relief it was completely full. More bullets came flying from the direction of the wheelhouse. The dinner boat had slowed to a stop, right at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. This would help Xander see what was coming. And if Xander could see what was coming, everyone else was in trouble. He fired a couple of rounds back in the direction of the wheelhouse. The yellow lights from the tower were reflecting off its darkened windows. That was when he heard Natalie for the first time.
A muffled scream came up through the roof to their ears. It was so faint that Xander had to look to Kyle to confirm. He had heard it too. Emotion swelled inside Xander. He was so close to her, but still she stayed strapped to the wall in danger. He couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms.
“I’ll only be a minute, buddy,” Xander assured Kyle.
Kyle managed a half smile through his bloody and battered face as he looked from Xander to the Eiffel Tower. “Take your time, I’m enjoying the view.”
Xander tousled Kyle’s hair and rose to a crouch. He put the butt of the MP5 to his shoulder and began to move forward toward the incoming bullets. For the first time he saw a shadow move just beyond the wheelhouse. He squeezed the trigger, and a string of bullets shot toward the shadow. There was no way to tell if he had hit anything, so Xander used his bullets as a moment of cover and sprinted forward, closing the distance between himself and the end of the deck in just two seconds.
Three minutes.
This time, Xander was close enough to see the man leaning out from behind the wheelhouse. When Xander fired from behind the deck rail, the man jerked and fell to the ground. In the next moment, it was dumb luck that Xander glanced back over his shoulder at Kyle. If he hadn’t, all three of them might have been dead. Instead, the man who had climbed the stairs to reach the rooftop deck behind Kyle was met with a burst of three nine-millimeter bullets in the chest. He collapsed backward and fell back down to the lower level. Kyle jerked his head from Xander to the man falling, then back again to Xander.
Xander shrugged. “Maybe don’t spend so much time enjoying the view?”
He didn’t wait for a response; he had to move. He jumped over the rail and sprinted across the roof, past the wheelhouse, but had to dive to the roofing when he saw another man hidden behind its wall. The man shot at Xander, but Xander managed to roll out of the way of the three bullets that clanged against the metal roofing right beside him. He quickly returned fire, and the man dropped when Xander’s bullets hit him. Xander rose to his feet and trained his gun toward the wheelhouse. There was an itch that he would never be able to explain––an itch at the top of his spine that told him someone was aiming at him from behind the tinted windows of the wheelhouse.
Instinct.
A veteran soldier’s sixth sense.
Xander shot out all three of the large windows that made up the front of the wheelhouse, and as soon as the glass crashed to the rooftop below, a man holding an assault rifle was revealed. Xander again dove to the flat rooftop below him, and because the man had been so startled by the crashing glass, he was an easy target for Xander, who fired four shots but unfortunately missed the man completely. The man in the wheelhouse recovered and returned fire. Xander shot back as he rolled to his left. The bullets clanged away beside him, and luckily one of his bullets landed, and the man dropped out of sight.
Two minutes.
Xander jumped to his feet and ran for the back of the boat. Without taking the time to look, because he had no time to spare, he dropped down to the walkway below him. As soon as he landed, a man fired a shotgun and Xander felt the MP5 go flying from his hand and out over the rail into the river. A quick flashback of taking a bullet to the stomach on his yacht in the Virgin Islands sprang to his mind. But there would be no rescue from Sam and Sarah this time. This rescue was up to him.
When the man in black racked the slide on his shotgun, Xander did the only thing he could and dove at the man. The shotgun went off, and the hearing in Xander’s right ear went dead. He didn’t feel anything on his body burning as he landed on the man, crashing to the deck, so he pushed through. He forced the shotgun back over the man’s head and slammed an elbow down on his nose. When the man continued to struggle, Xander felt someone jerk him backward by the back of his tank top. All of a sudden, Xander was on his back, looking down the barrel of another man’s shotgun. Xander kicked at the gun’s barrel and threw it off aim just enough that the slug bore a hole in the teakwood walkway right beside him.
Now the hearing in his left ear went dead.
Xander whirled around, moved his left leg to the back of the man’s knees, and scissor-kicked backward on the man’s stomach at the same time, forcing the man onto his back. He was also simultaneously reaching in his pocket and pulling out his knife. He pressed the action button and the blade shot from the handle; Xander drove it down into the man’s Adam’s apple. With his right hand he grabbed the man’s shotgun, and as the other gunman sat up and aimed at Xander, Xander pulled the trigger and the man’s head disappeared in a bloody mist. The other man made a gurgling sound as Xander removed the knife from his neck, and as Xander stood up, he saw another gunman coming down the walkway toward him.
One minute.
Xander dropped his knife to put two hands on the shotgun, but it was too late. The gunman fired at Xander, and with a wall on his left the only move Xander had was to hop the rail separating the walkway from the water below. It was a massive gamble. If he lost his grip on the shotgun as he hit the water, the gunman would easily shoot him, and then Natalie would be dead. Xander’s feet hit the water, and he squeezed the gun in his hand as hard as he could as the cold wetness enveloped him completely. He kicked with his legs as hard as he could, and as his torso came up out of the water, he located the gunman looking for him over the rail, squeezed
the trigger, and the man blew backward onto the walkway.
30 seconds.
Xander dropped the shotgun into the water, reached up, grabbed the railing, and pulled himself out of the water. He immediately jumped the rail and bent down to pick up his knife. As he retracted the blade and pocketed the knife, he realized his hearing was finally returning to normal.
25 seconds.
Xander rushed to the back of the dining room and pulled on the door. Locked.
20 seconds.
When he kicked the door, it buckled inward but didn’t open.
“Natalie!” he shouted. He wanted her to know he was right there. He kicked again, this time with everything he had. But it yielded the same result.
The door wouldn’t open.
15 seconds.
Even though Xander was entirely enthralled in the current struggle to get to Natalie before time ran out, he still managed to picture her terrified on that wall. He had time to picture the millions of terrified viewers that he was sure would be watching all around the world. He couldn’t let this happen. Though Khatib was dead, he couldn’t let him win.
Xander picked up the dead man’s shotgun that lay at his feet, turned, and shot out the blacked-out window beside him. Glass blasted inward, shattering over the dining room floor. He immediately heard Natalie screaming madly through her gag.
10 seconds.
Xander hurdled the short seal of the window, and when his right eye found Natalie strapped to the wall with the long sharp spears just millimeters from her ears, the periphery of his left eye caught movement in the back corner. He squeezed the trigger of the shotgun without hesitation and blew the waiting gunman back against the side wall of the dining room. He dropped the shotgun and pulled out his knife as he sprinted toward Natalie.
5 seconds.
Though there was only a second between Xander and Natalie, he had time to see one of the worst sites his eyes had ever realized. The fear in her eyes was nearly debilitating. Her face was glistening from her tears, her voice strained as she screamed into the cloth gag.
King's Ransom (The Xander King Series Book 3) Page 19