Xander King BoxSet

by Bradley Wright

  “I must admit, you’ve got balls. Maybe not so heavy in the brain department, but you’ve got balls.”

  Xander stood stoic.

  “You’ve got nothing to say to your old man after all this time?”

  Xander held his posture, his arms down by his side. “I don’t have a father. He died ten years ago. You know, the CIA operative.”

  Martin King made a face.

  “You’ve been talking to Jack, I see. He also tell you he slept with your mother?”

  “He did. He also told me you were about to take down that fat son of a bitch.” Xander pointed at Dragov.

  “It’s true, I was.”

  “Let me guess, he made you an offer you couldn’t refuse?”

  “Xander, one last lesson if I may. Life is all about change, that’s the only constant really. Now, it’s not the change that makes a man, it’s how he adapts to it. I adapted to change when I saw the opportunity. I want to watch you put that into practice, right now. You think you can do that?”

  Xander just glared into his eyes.

  “I know you’re used to doing things your own way, I was too. Now, I’m not telling you it will be easy, but I think if you and I came together, we could make a lot of money. We could run shit, me and you. Maybe even change the world.”

  “And what would that world look like exactly?” Xander placated him.

  “That’s the beauty of it. It would look like whatever the hell we want. With what Dragov and I have built here, and with your connections and reputation in the US, we could do some great things.”

  “So, that would be the team? The World Dominators starting lineup would be you, me, and Dom Deluise over there? No thanks.”

  “I don’t understand you, boy. You left the military ‘cause they were doing things you didn’t agree with, right? So what’s the problem? We do things much differently here.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “You think you know it all, don’t you?”

  Xander kept a calm voice. “I know that you are a liar, a traitor, and you could really use a new tailor.”

  “I am not a traitor!” His father slammed his fist down on the hood of the Lamborghini behind him, losing his cool for the first time. The men around him shifted their guns to Xander. Martin King held up his hand, gesturing for them to stand down. What a sweetheart.

  “No reason to take out your frustrations on such an innocent Italian classic,” Xander prodded.

  His father took a few steps toward him. “Would you rather I take them out on you?”

  “You see me running?” Xander held stance. He hoped that no one could see his heart pounding in his chest. His muscles were begging him to do what he does best. His instincts screamed at him to end it, and end it quick. But Xander had to hold his cool while his father goaded him, giving him time to scan the hangar, piecing together a plan to escape after this—whatever this ended up being—was over. There was nothing jumping out at him at the moment. He had to remain calm. Suppress the dragon.

  “No, I don’t see you running. You may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but at least you aren’t a coward.”

  “See, I told you, you and I are nothing alike.”

  “You think I’m a coward? You think a coward could build what I’ve built here?”

  “No, I think a coward murders an innocent woman and leaves his children all alone.”

  Martin King took a couple more steps forward. He was within arm’s length now. His face morphed from a scowl to an arrogant smirk. “Boo-fucking-hoo.”

  Xander held his judging gaze.

  “Never thought you’d turn out to be a fucking baby. I knew your mommy coddled you too much when you were a kid.”

  Xander’s body temperature shot up several degrees with the mention of his mother coming from his father’s—her murderer’s—lips. He called her mommy.

  “What’s wrong, you gonna cry?”

  Then he shoved Xander. Xander’s expression didn’t falter. He swallowed his rage and stepped back where he was, never losing his father’s stare. He couldn’t react. Not until he—

  It was then that he noticed, off in the distance, through the open door of the hangar, almost like a boat a mile off the coast in the ocean, what looked like a helicopter. Xander blinked for the first time, making sure he wasn’t seeing things.

  “Awe, poor baby boy doesn’t like being pushed around?”

  His father pushed him again, a little more force this time. Xander was moved back a couple of feet; he shuffled his legs to maintain his balance. He looked back toward his father’s eyes, but his focus was over his shoulder, where it was now clear that it indeed was a helicopter. They were coming to get him. A wave of emotion came over him as he thought of his friends risking their lives for him. A wave of emotion that was abruptly cut off.

  “Your mommy didn’t like when I pushed her around either.”

  His last thought about the helicopter, before Xander’s eyes glazed over with rage at his father’s statement, was that everyone else would notice the helicopter at any moment. It was almost time to make his move.

  Thirty seconds.

  His internal clock started ticking.

  “She definitely didn’t like these—”

  Martin King brought his left arm up and jabbed at Xander’s face. But Xander’s face moved in a fluid motion to dodge it, and it moved in the same fluid motion back to the other side to dodge his father’s oncoming right hand, and did the same to dodge the left hook that followed.

  “Zero for three, old man.” Xander had channeled his rage into pure, laser-like focus.

  Twenty seconds.

  Martin threw three more punches, which Xander easily parried, then with his forearm blocked a head kick that quickly followed. The old man had speed for his age, but it might as well have been slow motion for Xander.

  Xander couldn’t help but smile.

  “Zero for six. That must be hard on the ego.”

  His father’s face turned from aggression to frustrated rage.

  Ten seconds.

  The helicopter was within earshot now. If everyone wasn’t so entirely enthralled with seeing Martin King—their fearless leader—looking like a fool, they would have already heard it. They also would have seen Samantha Harrison poke her head around the corner of the open hangar door. Martin took a couple more swipes at Xander, missing wildly. Then, in a last-ditch and spineless effort, he attempted to kick Xander in the pills. Xander caught his father’s shoe, lifted, and pushed forward all in the same short, powerful burst, and sent his father flying several feet backward, landing with a thud on his ass. His overly tanned face flashed red, all the way down his neck. First in embarrassment, then in rage.

  Three.

  Sam had managed to duck inside the hangar and hit the button that lowers the massive, tri-folding vertical door. It lurched, making an awful cranking noise, and as it began to lower toward the concrete below, everyone’s attention was instantly divided.

  Two.

  Xander’s father looked back from seeing Sam rush out the doorway, his eyes burning into Xander’s.

  “Looks like your girlfriend is as dumb as your mommy was, just doesn’t know when to leave. She’ll be dead just like her too.”

  One.

  Xander stalked toward his father. Toward his mother’s murderer. Toward the man who had been trying to kill his own son. All he could see was red. Martin King rose to his feet. Frozen in shock that Xander was finally coming for him. Outside the hangar door, which was now only a few feet from being shut, Sam let off a few rounds from her AK-47, and it drew exactly the attention she was hoping for. Everyone in the hangar looked out toward the gunfire in surprise.

  Everyone but Xander and his father.

  Xander turned his stalk into two short bursts and leapt into the air, in what looked like the technique of a superman punch. But Xander, in midair—when his father had assumed he was pulling his arm back for a punch—instead had unsheathed his knife.
As he carried it forward, backed with the power of over ten years of built-up rage, he plunged its six-inch serrated blade straight into the right side of his father’s neck.

  42

  Cut and Run

  Before the blood had a chance to shoot from the hole in his father’s neck, and long before his lifeless body hit the ground, Xander was gone. As soon as Xander’s feet hit the concrete, he went into a hurricane-like spin and stabbed Vitalii Dragov in the left side of his fat neck. Blood spewed from Dragov’s open jugular like an open fire hydrant. But Xander didn’t stick around to see that either. He had already taken two steps onto the vintage Lamborghini’s hood, long-jumped over the back end, and was halfway to the hangar door. The hangar door, which was just a little over a foot from being completely closed. Sam hadn’t expected Xander to carry out the two assassinations before he bolted for the door when she went to shut it. In hindsight, she should’ve known. Otherwise, she would have never hit the close button. Now she was frantically waving her arm like a third base coach waving a runner home, as he raced for the closing door. The speed with which Xander was able to kill both his father and Dragov was so astonishing, so blindingly fast, that the hired guns hadn’t yet recovered. But as Xander reached max speed and the door rolled relentlessly toward the floor, he knew their reaction was coming.

  A clamorous orchestra of bullets rang out just as Xander slid feetfirst for the bottom of the door. As he slid underneath it, it was so close that his nose grazed the bottom of the gate as his head made it through. As the smooth, poured concrete floor of the hangar floor turned to the blacktop of the tarmac, tiny rocks and uneven pavement burned a rash up his back at the last of his slide. Like a symphony of firecrackers, the bullets that were meant for him smacked against the now closed metal door, a literal hair behind his head. The first thing he saw from his back was a helicopter hovering above him. Kyle, Sarah, and Zhanna were already on their way down a rope ladder, and he could see a cowboy hat peeking up behind the chain gun above them.

  Jack.

  It was a comical sight. Even in that moment of battle. It was like a terrible version of The A-Team. The B-Team, if you will. Sam reached down and lifted Xander to his feet.

  “You’re bloody crazy, Xander King,” she shouted over the deafening thwap of the helicopter’s rotors as she handed him the pistols he’d left behind in the parking lot just moments before.

  Just then Kyle came running over and threw his arms around Xander. “You made it! Let’s get out of here, Bob spotted your G6 over there.” Kyle pointed to the beautiful bird just as Sarah caught up and wrapped her arms around him. A hug had never felt so good. The plane was sitting off to the right of the hangar, about a football field and a half away. The sight of the silver crown on the tail of that plane sparked a pang of longing in Xander’s core. He was beyond ready to be done with this chapter of his life. And it was right here, in his grasp.

  They turned toward the jet together. Zhanna and Bob were in front of them, halfway to the plane.

  Sam shouted at Kyle, “Why wouldn’t you answer your phone, damn it?

  Kyle looked at Sam, then smiled at Xander and said, “I was busy.”

  Sam made a face.

  Xander pulled Sarah’s phone from his pocket, as Kyle showed his phone. Both cell phones were on a call. Sam didn’t have to ask; she already knew it was a call to each other.

  “You beautiful wankers, that’s how you knew not to come in too early!”

  “We could hear everything,” said Kyle. “We had been circling around for ten minutes!”

  Xander’s face went from smile to serious. They weren’t in the clear yet. “What about Jack?”

  Still running, Kyle shouted, “I tried to get him to let me stay behind and cover you. But he insisted. He’s gonna man the chain gun until we’re clear, then he’s going to go back to the Ukraine with Viktor, and wait for you to send a plane. Oh . . . here.”

  While Kyle was explaining, he had been doing something on his phone. The chain gun began to spit its venom above them, in the direction of the hangar. Jack was already pushing the Russian thugs back. Kyle handed Xander his phone. He had been dialing Jack.

  Xander heard the phone ring once. “Cowboy’s phone, this is Viktor!”

  “Viktor, get that helicopter out of here!” Xander screamed over the rolling thunder of the massive machine gun and the swoop of the helicopter. The four of them were at Xander’s jet now, and Bob had already begun firing up the engines.

  “Boss? Boss, you made it! Cowboy and Viktor are busy saving your ass, but will call you from Ukraine and tell you where to send big check!”

  Xander hustled onto his jet after everyone else was in and shut the plane’s door. “Okay Viktor, nice work! I’ll make sure the check is delivered by a couple of knockouts, just for you.”

  “Viktor like knockouts, boss. But Zhanna can deliver, okay? Sorry boss, time to go. Man have rocket launcher.” Viktor stated that last line with the casualness of a man watching a movie screen. Crazy bastard.

  The call ended. Xander looked out the window, back toward the hangar. Gunmen were crawling out from the side door like bees from a shaken hive. Some were firing at the helicopter, some were being ripped to pieces by Jack Bronson and his chain gun. Xander felt helpless as the jet began to move.

  Bob shouted from the cockpit, “Buckle up back there! This could be rough!”

  Sam noticed Xander eyeing the release button for the door.

  “Xander, step away from that door. You’ve cheated death enough today. You stepping out that door and firing the last ten bullets in those pistols will do Viktor and Jack no good . . . Xander . . .”

  Xander looked at Sam, then back to the door.

  Sarah leaned forward and placed her hand on his arm. “Xander, please don’t. You’ll just be unnecessarily putting us in danger too.”

  Xander knew she was right. He knew that Viktor and Jack were capable, and he knew there was nothing he could do to help.

  For once, he let that be enough.

  43

  Peyton Manning’s Got Nothing on Xander King

  As the jet backed away, Zhanna stepped in between Sarah and Xander, taking Xander’s attention with a worried look.

  “My father?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Her face held no expression. “You’re certain?”

  “By my hands. I don’t leave doubt.”

  Zhanna nodded. Her face slumped into concern.

  “Your father?” she asked.

  Kyle stood and looked at Xander, full of worry and concern. The plane jerked and started forward. Xander rebalanced and looked at Kyle.

  “Dead.”

  Unlike Zhanna, Kyle didn’t need Xander to reconfirm. He knew it was over. His heart broke for his friend. Never in a thousand lifetimes when they started this journey of searching for the person who killed Xander’s parents had either of them ever fathomed it would end this way. Kyle didn’t say anything, for he knew words could never suffice. He just wanted to be there for his friend.

  “Uh, Xander! We’ve got company!” Bob shouted from the cockpit.

  “Get us out of here, Bob. Let me worry about them.”

  “Roger!”

  The plane lurched forward and the engines screamed. Xander regained his balance, and as if the captain had come over the loud speaker and announced the Grand Canyon could be seen out your right side windows during a flight over Arizona, everyone in the G6 rushed to get a look at what was coming. In the distance, as Xander peered over Sarah’s shoulder, the rising sun was shining on a topless Jeep Wrangler, military green, pulling out of the now wide-open hangar door. The fire was still coming from the chain gun in Viktor’s helicopter, but Xander knew it couldn’t possibly have much ammunition left. It was also distracted by the few soldiers who were left beside the hangar, leaving the Jeep an open run at their plane, free from fire.

  “That fucking twat!” Sam shouted from her seat by the window. She was peering out at the oncoming Je
ep; somehow she had found a pair of binoculars.

  “What?” Kyle asked.

  With a stone-cold killer look, Sam looked over to Xander. “Melanie. I never did like that bitch.”

  She wasn’t joking. The two of them never seemed to mesh. Must have been some sort of primordial female instinct Sam had been tapping into.

  “I’ll kill her!” Sam launched herself from her chair. Kyle caught her.

  Xander tried reasoning as the plane began picking up speed, not far from the runway now. “Sam, we can’t stop this plane. What are you going to do? Jump out, shoot her, then jump back in? You’re starting to act like me.”

  “I’ll run from the plane and leave her a little present.” Sam produced a hand grenade from her back belt loop. “A little souvenir I found in a bin outside the hangar.”

  “Then what, Sam? We go all Star Trek and beam you up to the jet? Bob is talented, but he’s no Scotty, and this plane is fancy, but it doesn’t have the technology of the Starship Enterprise . . . yet.”

  Sam looked defeated. Xander knew how badly she wanted to end Melanie for turning on them. Xander would just be happy with getting everyone he loved in the air safely. He thought for a moment about how that was very much unlike him. Playing it safe. Had things already begun to change?

  The Jeep was gaining on them. Close enough now to where Xander could see Melanie’s short black hair blowing in the wind. Two men in the seat behind her.

  “Bob?” Xander shouted, glancing back between the window and the cockpit.

  “I see them, Xander. Turning onto the runway now. Time to buckle up!”

  Everyone heard Bob shout at them to buckle up, but no one listened. They all remained huddled around the windows, nervously watching as the Jeep grew closer. As the jet turned the corner onto the runway, the Jeep took an angle that if timed correctly, they would be within shooting distance around the middle of the runway.