King's Ransom (The Xander King Series Book 3)

by Bradley Wright

  3 seconds.

  Xander pulled his knife with the steadiness of a surgeon. As he ejected the blade, he moved his hand toward the leather strap that held her head back against the wall. He sliced through the leather and when he pulled her head forward, the sharp tips of the rotating spear had already moved inside her ears, and the forward motion, though it saved her life, had ripped through the outside edges of her earlobes. As he held her head forward, he sliced through the leather strap holding her left hand in place and she fell forward into his arms. He reached behind her back as he held her and cut the strap holding her right hand. Most of her weight fell onto him. He quickly freed her feet, and when he took all of her weight, he cradled her in his arms.

  He had made it.

  Natalie was safe.

  For the first time, he and Natalie locked eyes. Her body jerked in his arms from her uncontrollable sobbing. Xander let her feet down to the floor and pulled the cloth gag from her mouth, then scooped her back up into his arms. Blood poured from the outsides of her ears, but she would be okay.

  “I’m so sorry, Natalie.”

  It was all he could think to say. Though he had saved her, he was still the only reason she had been in that position to begin with. For a moment he just let her cry.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She wiped the tears from her face, then looked him in the eye once again. She looked entirely exhausted. But without saying a word, she managed to throw her arms around his neck. She squeezed him. That hug around his neck would be a feeling that Xander would never forget. It meant far more than words. He squeezed her in return and continued to let her cry.

  “You’re safe now.”

  For a long moment, Xander didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t move a muscle. The weight of the reality of what was only a second from happening washed over him, it nearly overcame him. He let his head fall against hers as she wept on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and took in the scent of her hair. His heart pounded in rhythm with Natalie’s. He never wanted that moment to end.

  However, the buzzing of a motor in the distance forced the protector to push out the nurturer in him. Natalie heard it too, and once again fear masked her face. Xander remembered the cameras. He knew they hadn’t seen his face, and he knew it needed to stay that way. He put Natalie back on her feet.

  “It’s okay. I promise you are safe,” Xander told her as he backed away.

  For the first time, she spoke, and her voice was near panic as she reached for him. “NO! No, don’t leave me!”

  Xander took her hand from his arm, kissed her knuckles, and let go. “It’s okay. I’m just going to take out these cameras.” He pointed back over his head without turning toward them. “Then I am going to pick up the shotgun and make sure whoever is coming down the river in that boat isn’t going to hurt us.”

  Natalie nodded. Xander stepped back several more feet until he was under the chandelier. He reached up, took all three cameras down, and smashed them under his feet. The motor was close to them now. The boat would be there in seconds. Xander picked up the shotgun and blew out both cameras that were fixed to the walls above both rows of windows. Natalie jerked at each blast. Xander walked over to the dead man in the corner and traded shotguns so he could have full ammo. Then he turned back to Natalie.

  “I promise this will be over soon. Just stay right here and—”

  “Xander, no! I can’t be alone in here. What if that man wakes up?”

  “He’s dead. And it will only take me a minute. Kyle is hurt up on the rooftop deck. I have to make sure whoever is coming can’t get to him. I’m here now. I promise, I’ll keep you safe.”

  No One Knows

  Sam nearly dropped the phone on which she’d been watching the live camera feed. The moment she saw Xander walk toward Natalie on the small screen, pride swelled inside her like nothing she had ever felt.

  Xander had saved her.

  And somehow she knew he had already avenged the death of his horse, King’s Ransom.

  “It will take a King’s Ransom to save her, my ass! Ransom that!” Sam shouted and pointed to the screen for Sarah, Jack, and Viktor to see.

  The four of them erupted in cheers as a local fisherman steered their boat down the river toward Xander and Natalie.

  “That is my boss right there!” Viktor shouted and pumped his fist.

  Jack grinned as wide as his mouth would spread, and he put his arm around Sarah’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Sarah let out a sigh of relief but quickly looked away from the screen once she saw Xander take Natalie into his arms. Sam knew it was painful for Sarah to watch, so she clicked off the feed and put the phone away.

  Sam said to the group, “Okay, we know Xander and Natalie are all right, but we still don’t know about Kyle and the President’s daughter’s friend. When we pull up, we need to be prepared for the worst. There still may be men on the boat with them. We need to secure the four of them as quickly as we can.”

  The others dampened their celebrations as Sam turned her attention back to the water ahead of them. The Eiffel Tower was close, so she knew they were nearing the dinner boat. Her stomach turned at the thought of Kyle being injured, or worse. She knew Xander would have done everything he could to save him, but that didn’t mean he made it in time. As they rounded a bend in the river, Sam readied her pistol and steadied her nerves. She was going to do her best to listen to her own advice, but every ounce of her was hoping that they wouldn’t find the worst.

  Marv too was elated to see that Xander had made it to Natalie in time. Not only for the obvious reason that he saved her life, but also because Xander had thwarted the efforts of Khatib to have the entire world witness a horrible terrorist murder a beloved American live on camera. He knew the world had been watching live, so he switched over to the first news channel he could find: BBC news. A short-haired blonde woman was narrating the replay of Xander pulling Natalie down from the wall.

  Ladies and gentlemen watching all around the world, it seems as though Natalie Rockwell, in true movie fashion, has been saved. You are watching video of a man pulling her from the wall, saving her from the awful horror of those approaching spinning spears. The question now, and the Internet is already abuzz about it, is just who is that man who pulled her down from certain death? We have been in contact with our sources in the US, and no one seems to know. We are to assume that he is either part of US military or maybe a CIA operative, but for now we have no further information about Natalie Rockwell’s hero.

  Marv turned the television off and pushed his glasses back up to his eyes. He wasn’t sure it was over on that boat. He didn’t know whether or not Xander had been able to fully clear the threat. As soon as he had seen Xander pull Natalie free from the wall, he sent a car to pick them up and dispatched the French police to the location of the dinner boat. The only person he hadn’t heard from yet was—

  “Sir?” Marv’s second-in-command broke his train of thought and stole his attention.

  “Yes, Dana, what is it?”

  “It’s the President’s daughter.”

  Marv whirled around from his computer screen and gave the short, round, cropped-haired woman his full attention.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, um, no one knows where she is.”

  Marv stood up; he would have answered immediately, but all the air in his lungs escaped him before he could. He inhaled sharply and tried to keep his cool.

  “You mean, Zhanna hasn’t brought her in?”

  “No sir. I know you said that Sam told you Adeline was safe with this . . . Zhanna, but we haven’t heard anything. I told the police her last known location, but they haven’t found anyone alive there at the warehouse. They searched the place thoroughly after Sam handed Melanie over to them. But they only found a couple of dead bodies on the premises. No sign of Adeline Williams or—”

  Marv’s phone began to ring. He pulled it from his pocket, and when he saw the Langley, Virginia, number on the screen, his heart jumped int
o his throat.

  As the phone continued ringing, Marv said to Dana, “Get Sam on the phone, ASAP.” Then he answered the call. “This is Marvin.”

  “Marvin, what the hell is going on over there? Tell me good news, and I don’t mean what I just watched on the Internet.”

  Marv swallowed hard. This was the first time the newly appointed director of the CIA had called him, and he didn’t have good news. “Director Hartsfield, I am getting Samantha Harrison on the phone right now. She will be able to tell me where the President’s daughter is.”

  “She’d better. I don’t need to tell you what a shitstorm it is over here right now, do I?”

  Marv cleared his throat. “No ma’am. And you will be my first call after I reach Sam.”

  Dana walked back over to Marv. He looked at her, hoping for good news, but Dana just shook her head.

  “I want good news in sixty seconds, Marvin. Call me back.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Marv ended the call and immediately dialed Sam’s SAT phone.

  Dana spoke while he dialed. “Sorry sir, Ms. Harrison didn’t answer.”

  Marv heard her but gave no response. He was focused on the ringing he heard through the receiver. He was sending up silent prayers for Sam to answer.

  But the phone just kept ringing.

  Hide and Seek

  Zhanna cupped her hand over Adeline’s mouth. She could feel her shaking and doing her best not to make a sound. But there were still muffled sobs leaking and frightened tears running down her face. It was dark in the alley, but there was just enough light for Zhanna to hold Adeline’s eyes. She held the barrel of her pistol vertically to her mouth and pouted out her lips in a shushing motion, begging with her eyes for Adeline to calm down. She then motioned by patting her gun to her chest; Adeline understood and took a nice deep breath with her. That seemed to help.

  A man’s voice echoed down the dark alley. “There’s no way out of here, red! Hand the girl over and I’ll let you go. But if you keep hiding from me, I am going to kill you both when I find you. I never did like playing hide-and-seek!”

  The man had been tailing them for over half a mile now, ever since Zhanna and Adeline bolted out of the elevator and made a run for it through the underground parking garage. The sniper in the building behind the warehouse gave them away. They were just lucky he missed. The sniper had been able to trap them long enough for the other man with Melanie in the warehouse to come out after them. The last half hour had been nothing but dodging the men following them. Zhanna would have already taken out the three men, but having to protect Adeline meant she had to change her tactics. But now they were trapped. She didn’t know Paris very well, and in a last-ditch escape effort, Zhanna had accidentally run them into a dead end.

  There was a cluster of trash cans in the darkest corner of the alley. Zhanna pointed to them and whispered as softly as she could in Adeline’s ear.

  “Get behind trash containers. No matter what you are hearing, you do not move. It is only way I can keep you safe. You understand?”

  Adeline closed her eyes and nodded, and on all fours she slowly slinked away and tucked herself behind the trash cans. Zhanna unlatched the safety on her pistol and took a deep breath as she peeked up and over the dumpster between her and the man who earlier had introduced himself as Sebastian. She immediately saw three men at the edge of the street. She raised her pistol and fired at the man on the left. It was dark and the men were some fifty feet away, so she couldn’t tell if her bullet found its mark. However, the sound of her gun erupted through the quiet streets and seemed to reverberate a never-ending echo. Whether it was the sound or her hitting one of them, the three men dove for cover on either side of the alley.

  Zhanna bolted around the dumpster and sidled up behind a car parked about twenty feet in front of her. This changed everything. The lighting greatly improved, and now she was close enough to know whether she hit her mark or not. She raised up, and as soon as her head crested the roof of the car, a gun went off and a bullet grazed the top of the car and nearly caved in the right side of her face. So close she could feel the wind from the bullet. She dropped to her stomach as quickly as she could. Under the car she saw a man come out of the shadows on the left side of the alley.

  “I think I got her, Sebastian!”

  Zhanna didn’t hesitate and fired her gun. She aimed as high as the undercarriage of the car would allow, and she could see the man reach for his knee in pain. Immediately she rolled out from behind the car and took cover behind another nearby dumpster to her right. And it was a good thing she did. The other two men began firing on the car. One man blasted away with a semiautomatic rifle, and another was shooting a pistol. Glass blew out of every window in the car, and a couple of tires blew as well. Lights in nearby windows of the surrounding buildings began to dot the skyline like stars coming out at night. She knew the police would be on their way soon, but she didn’t think they would arrive before she had to handle this herself.

  Finally the blasting of the car stopped, and Zhanna wheeled out from behind the dumpster with her pistol raised. The tip of her gun found a man still holding his rifle on the car. She squeezed the trigger as her gun hovered over his chest, and after the recoil of her pistol bucked, the man dropped to the ground. She moved her gun to the man on the ground beside him. He was still holding his knee. He looked up just in time to watch Zhanna fire again, and she was the last thing he ever saw.

  Zhanna once again took cover behind the dumpster. “Now it is just one on one. I like these odds, Sebastian.”

  “Just hand over the girl. What do you care anyway? You clearly aren’t American. Hand her over and I’ll let you live.”

  Zhanna stepped out from behind the dumpster and began to move quietly toward Sebastian’s voice. “You are right, I am not American. But I am human. And I am human who does not like bullies. And these bullies don’t last very long when I am around.”

  After her last word she sprinted toward where she thought Sebastian was hiding, behind a car of his own. To her surprise, he had moved closer as well, and when he sprang out from behind a dumpster, they collided and crashed to the ground. Zhanna lost her pistol and immediately wrapped both hands around the wrist of Sebastian’s gun hand. One bullet went off as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She was in full-guard position now, with Sebastian on top of her. He was trying desperately to free his gun hand. The problem for Zhanna, and she knew it, was that she was completely exposed. She had to use both of her hands to keep from getting shot, and this left Sebastian with a free arm. She knew it was coming, she just hoped it wouldn’t be enough to knock her out when it came. That was when she felt a sharp pain against her right temple. She had the wherewithal to figure it must have been his fist, because if he had used his elbow, she wouldn’t have been awake to contemplate it.

  For a moment she saw darkness, but she was sure she maintained her grip on his wrist. When the darkness faded, it became clear that she had indeed lost her grip. And instead of staring into Sebastian’s eyes, she was staring down the barrel of his pistol. The last thing she heard was the blast of a gun.

  Yahtzee!

  Kyle heard what Xander said; he wanted him to stay put. But after hearing a few gunshots and a lot of commotion, it had been a while since he had heard anything. Except for the motor of an approaching boat.

  “Karol, stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “Kyle, no! Please don’t leave me here with . . . them!” Karol looked in fear over the two dead men lying beside her.

  Kyle knew what it was like to see dead people for the first time. It was one of the many messed-up pleasures you get to enjoy being the best friend of Alexander King. His heart felt for Karol, but he didn’t have time for it. If something was wrong, the oncoming boat could be trouble for Xander and him.

  Kyle tried to look sympathetic, but even that hurt his battered face. “I know, it’s awful. But Karol, this will all be over in a minute. Then we’ll get you out of he
re, back to Adeline, and back to the States.”

  “What if she’s not okay?” Karol’s voice caught, and the quiver in it was hard for Kyle to bear. She was so young and innocent. Well, she used to be innocent.

  “Adeline is fine. I promise. Now hold tight, I’ll be right back.”

  Karol nodded and Kyle managed to get to his feet, which was somewhat of a miracle in and of itself. Khatib had really worn him out. Kicks to the legs, the liver, and the head. Every fiber of Kyle’s body ached. But hearing the motor of the approaching boat shutting off shot enough adrenaline into his veins that the pain became an afterthought. The boat had pulled up, and he needed to help if he could.

  He shuffled over to the rail of the rooftop deck. His right leg was dead, almost surely broken. But his left leg had enough strength left to move him. The shimmering lights of the Eiffel Tower continued to sparkle behind him, and when he peeked over the rail, it was just in time to watch Xander emerge from the interior of the boat and blow the man boarding the dinner boat back into the river with his shotgun. The blast echoed over the water, and he watched Xander rack the shotgun’s slide and fire another slug into the boat. What Xander couldn’t see, however, was what Kyle was able to watch from his vantage point on the roof. Another gunman on the opposite side of the boat was rounding the corner just as Xander stepped onto the boat. Kyle, as quickly as his beaten body would let him, began to raise the MP5 to his shoulder.

  He wasn’t going to make it in time. So he did the only thing he could think to do. Just as the man rounded the corner and raised his gun on Xander, Kyle shouted, “YAHTZEE!”

  Both Xander and the gunman whirled their guns toward Kyle, and Kyle fired a six-round burst at the man. The gunman took several of the bullets and stayed on his feet until Xander turned and blasted him with the shotgun. He fell to the ground in a thud, blood leaking from several places on his body.