Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3

by Bradley Wright

  His breath caught; then he made the only decision he thought he could make in the moment. All he could think of was being the last one to see Mary; then for some reason he saw Doug’s face. He couldn’t help but feel as though he had been set up.

  “Okay, who are you?”

  “My name is Sam Harrison. I’m a CIA special agent, but more importantly for you, I am part of a secret program called Phoenix. Mary Hartsfield was the only other person who knew about the program. If you help me, I can keep you safe until we figure out exactly what is going on.”

  “You think I’m in danger?”

  He knew it was a stupid question as soon as he asked it.

  “Did you kill Mary Hartsfield?” the woman said.

  “Of course not. She is—was a dear friend.”

  “All right. Then don’t you think whoever did might want you next?”

  Again, though he had no idea who murdered Mary, Doug Chapman’s face flashed in his mind.

  His doorbell rang downstairs. Bobby knew his secret service men at the front door wouldn’t let the men pass without his okay. Unless it really was the CIA.

  “Time’s up, Bobby. If they take you into custody, you can’t help me. If you can’t help me, I have no need for you.”

  “What do I do?” he said.

  “Take your wife and go out your back door. If you have men at the back, tell them to go and help stall the agents who have come for you.” Bobby grabbed Beth by the sleeve of her robe and pulled her toward the bedroom door as Sam spoke. “Then hop your fence, go around your neighbor’s house behind yours.” He pulled Beth down the stairs. She didn’t fight him; it was clear to her how urgent this was. “There will be a black Toyota Camry waiting for you there. Keep your heads down until you are clear of the neighborhood.”

  When Bobby reached the bottom of the stairs, he could see movement through the frosted glass that surrounded his front door. Their voices suggested things were getting heated. So far, going along with this Sam stranger seemed to be a good decision. He approached the two men guarding the back door. They didn’t question him. Then he and Beth jogged toward the fence at the back of their yard.

  “Where will the car take us?” Bobby asked.

  “Kentucky.”

  “Kentucky? What the hell is in Kentucky?”

  “A safe place to hide,” Sam said. “And an important document I need you to retrieve.”

  Bobby pulled himself up and over the fence, then reached back and helped Beth over. They continued their jog past their neighbor’s house.

  “Okay. Where in Kentucky, exactly?” he asked, short of breath, mostly due to the excitement but also because of a lack of sufficient exercise on the campaign trail.

  “We’re in this together now, right?”

  “Till the bitter end. I just ran from the CIA. Whether I did it or not, I look guilty as hell now.”

  “I have someone who will be able to fix that. You’re going to his home. No one will go looking for you there.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Bobby spotted the black Camry Sam had told him would be there waiting. There was a woman in the driver’s seat.

  “Remember the attack on the White House a year ago?” Sam said.

  “Yeah, of course. That King fella that used to be a Navy SEAL—the guy who had the racehorses, he died saving the president.”

  Sam didn’t answer right away, and it clicked for Bobby.

  “Phoenix . . .” Its definition—rising from the ashes—registered in his head.

  “Yeah, he’s not dead,” Sam said.

  “But now that Mary is”—Bobby’s wheels were turning—“he’s got no home. No allies at the agency. I understand. I’ll do everything I can.”

  “And so will we. But before I let you go, I just need to know one thing.”

  Bobby opened the back door of the Camry and ushered Beth inside. “Anything.”

  “Why did Mary say your name right before she was murdered?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Athens, Greece

  The white Mercedes that Sam had waiting for King at the Athens airport pulled away, headed for the city center. The Hotel Grande Bretagne where Sam was staying was about a half an hour drive—plenty of time for King to return the call he’d missed from Agent Roberts. And he was more than anxious to do so.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Roberts answered.

  “You’d be surprised, but go ahead.”

  “Alice rushed the dental on Karen Panos. Her real name was Althea Salameh.”

  “So she looks Greek but has a Muslim surname,” King said.

  “Crazy, right?”

  “I’m not sure crazy is the right word, but I see what you’re saying. The Maragoses are Greek and known for funding terrorists. But it would have been a little crazier if her last name had been Hammoud.”

  “Maybe there’s still something there,” Roberts said. “If you could somehow connect this Althea Salameh to Maragos and Husaam Hammoud, you’ve found what you’re looking for, right?”

  Roberts was right. This was what King wanted: to confirm without a doubt who the terrorists were who’d been working with the Maragos family. To tie the entire thing off with a nice, neat little bow. But the Greek and Muslim connection with Althea Salameh could just be a coincidence. Though his gut was telling him otherwise, he couldn’t yet see the connection.

  “Nice work, Roberts. I’ll try to run it down.”

  “Be careful over there. This thing looks like it’s getting complicated.”

  “Will do. Just focus on finding Bentley. Call me when you hear anything.”

  King ended the call and texted Sam. I’ve got the real name of the woman posing as Bentley Martin. Be there in ten.

  Sam replied, Now we’re getting somewhere. I also talked to Gibbons. We can download when you get here.

  At least Gibbons was alive. As the Mercedes moved into the city, King couldn’t help but think about Bentley. How scared she must be. He had promised her he’d keep her safe, and he had been unable to do that. The hardest part about it was not being able to stay in Belgium to find her. It was eating away at his gut. He never left anyone behind. But he justified going to Athens because he knew in his bones that whoever had Bentley was absolutely connected to the person he was looking for in Greece. One would reveal the other, but that didn’t mean she would survive. The other thing that helped him move to the chase in Athens was that Agent Roberts was there in London, and seemed more than committed to finding Bentley.

  “The Grande Bretagne, sir.”

  King reached in his pocket for money to tip with. An old habit from a former life. Instead, it was in his bag. He handed the man a twenty and stepped out into the warming Athens heat—and to the most beautiful sight he’d seen in more than a year.

  Sam.

  Neither Sam nor King said a word. They just moved toward each other and he wrapped her in a hug, lifting her off her feet. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail; her sharp cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes hadn’t aged a bit. Holding her was like holding a piece of home. A home he’d been missing more than he knew.

  Sam pulled back. “You look like shit.” A smile crept up one side of her mouth.

  “And you look ten years older. And pale. Couldn’t you have at least laid by the pool for a few minutes?”

  Brother and sister till the day they die. Yet blood played no part.

  They hugged again.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get upstairs and dig in. We’ve got some real problems.”

  “What else is new?”

  King followed her through the lavish hotel. Through the glass on the opposite side of the lobby, he could see the Acropolis in the distance. A relic from a former world stuck right in the middle of a new one. King could certainly relate. He and Sam entered the elevator and turned back toward the lobby. Just as the elevator doors began to close, two men walked around the corner. With intent. So much so that King noticed Sam r
eaching for her gun at the same time he went for his own.

  The doors shut.

  “Who are they?” King said.

  Sam reached for the floor buttons and tapped one.

  “If they got to our agent here who’s been tracking them, most likely it’s Hammoud’s men.”

  “Great.” Out of habit, King ejected the magazine in his Glock, checked the rounds, then slid it back in. “Welcome to Greece. What’s your secondary exit plan?”

  “In case they’ve been watching, I got a second room.”

  “Adjoining,” King said knowingly.

  “It’s the only play. If they’re on to us, there is no way out of here without shooting our way out.”

  “Is there anyone we can trust?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “You and me.”

  “If Hammoud flipped our agent here, he knows the United States is on to him.”

  Sam readied her stance for the elevator doors to open. “Which means whatever timeline Husaam had on the button he was going to push for an attack just got moved up.”

  “What the hell does all of this have to do with Bentley Martin, Mary Hartsfield, and Bobby Gibbons?”

  “I have some ideas, but right now let’s try to stay alive long enough to talk about it.”

  “I’ll take left side,” King said as the elevator door opened.

  Sam moved at the same time and covered his right. The two of them fell right back into the rhythm that had gotten them out of so many jams in the past.

  King just hoped this time would turn out like all the others.

  Chapter Thirty

  When King and Sam checked the hallway from the elevator, it had been clear. They bypassed the room Sam had been staying in and entered the adjacent one. Once inside, they opened the adjoining door on their side, leaving only the one adjoining door closed that led to the next room. King and Sam were in enemy territory, so it was impossible to know how well-canvassed the hotel was. All they could do was take one step at a time. And the first step, the first sign of Hammoud’s men, had just opened the hotel door adjacent to them.

  “They had a key,” Sam whispered.

  She grabbed an empty glass sitting on the dresser beside the adjoining room door. She moved a few feet to her left toward the hotel room door. King shook his head at her. She gave a confident nod. He couldn’t help but smile. He had missed her, quirks and all. He knew what she was trying to do; he’d heard the same thing about using a glass to hear through walls. He’d just figured it was total bullshit. Either way, he readied his gun and stood in front of the closed adjoining door, awaiting her signal.

  She placed the rim of the glass against the wall, then put her ear to the bottom. She nodded at him. Then she began moving slowly his way along the wall, as if she was mirroring the enemy’s position in the adjacent room. King couldn’t hear a thing coming from the other room, but Sam nodded again. Then she held up two fingers.

  Two men.

  She pointed ahead to the door he was standing in front of. Then she kicked her foot out, showing him what she wanted him to do. He knew to wait for her signal. They’d been doing this long enough, communicating without words. He just hoped her glass-to-the-wall trick didn’t get them both killed. No matter how silly he felt it was, he’d follow her down any rabbit hole.

  Just as she reached the door, she pointed at it and held up one finger. Then she thumbed behind her and held up two fingers. She was giving him the position of the two men. Then she gave the stern nod he was waiting for.

  King took a step forward with his left leg, planted, then used his right to front-kick the adjoining door as hard as he could. The door busted off the lock and hit an obstacle as it swung left. King followed the door’s motion and slid on his knees across the threshold. His first two shots were low, the second of the two connecting with the leg of the man who’d been hit by the door. He quickly located man number two bolting out of the bathroom on his right. He moved his pistol up and to the right, squeezed twice more, hitting the man in the neck and shoulder area. The man collapsed to the floor and grasped at his throat.

  The man who’d been hit in the leg was shouting. Sam rushed around King, grabbed a pillow from the bed, and held it over the man’s face.

  “Stop screaming or I’ll put you out of your misery,” she told him.

  The man did as asked. Sam removed the pillow, stood on his bleeding leg, and put her gun to his head. “Who is after us, and how many of you are there?”

  The man shouted in pain from the pressure on his wounded leg.

  King was on his feet and moved around the two of them to make sure the second gunman was dead. He was staring blankly up at King, blood pooling beside his neck.

  King went through the man’s pockets as Sam continued her interrogation.

  “Last time. Who are you working for, and how many of you are there?”

  King didn’t find anything of interest, so he took the man’s phone and joined Sam standing over the first man. She was holding her foot over the bullet wound in his leg, ready to press. King reached over and pushed down on her knee. The man let out another groan. King crouched down and placed his gun under the man’s chin.

  “She asked you a question.”

  “Husaam. Husaam Hammoud.”

  King looked up at Sam. She nodded in confirmation. Now they knew their target for sure. There was no question. But they were going to have to survive this attack, then find a place to regroup. Neither would be easy.

  “Okay, and how many?”

  “I-I don’t know. Ten? Twelve?”

  “Good,” King said. “Now one more and you live. I promise you that.”

  The man’s dark eyes showed worry. King felt like he must have a family. He hoped the man just answered the question.

  “Where can I find Husaam?”

  To King’s surprise, the man brightened—almost happy to hear that was the question. “He’s . . . he’s here.”

  “He’s here now?” Sam said. “At the hotel?”

  “Yes, please don’t kill me.”

  “No way,” Sam said. “A man like him doesn’t fight, he gets people like you to do it for him.”

  “No, please! Husaam is different. He has trained many years for something like this. Please! I have a daughter.”

  “We have to move,” Sam said to King.

  King went through the man’s pockets, took his phone, then lifted his leg to intensify the pressure. Sam had already moved through to the adjoining room to scout a way out. King extended the man’s phone back to him.

  “Call him.”

  Sam popped back in from the other room. “What? X, we don’t have time for this.”

  King shot her a look, then turned back to the man. “Call Husaam right now. Tell him we are on the top floor. If you don’t, not only will you end up like your friend”—King nodded toward the dead man by the bathroom door—“but I’ll find your daughter too. Please don’t test me.”

  Telling this man that he would find his daughter made King’s skin crawl, because it was something he would never do, but it was important that this man believed that he would.

  The man took the phone and dialed.

  “Tell him you have us pinned,” Sam said.

  “We have them cornered,” the man said into the phone. “Top floor.”

  The man handed King the phone. King pocketed it. Then he took the man’s leg in his hands.

  “I’ll check the door,” Sam said.

  “Please,” the man said, looking up at King. “You said you wouldn’t kill me!”

  “I won’t, but you did try to kill me. Don’t forget that. And I won’t have you coming back to do it again. Not today.”

  King pulled the man’s leg straight.

  “Please!”

  King stomped down through the man’s kneecap. It would be severely painful, but the man would heal and be able to play with his daughter again. He just wouldn’t be coming after King and Sam. Not today anyway.

  As the man sc
reamed, King moved into the other room and joined Sam at the door.

  “I would have killed him,” she said.

  “I know, but you’re heartless. Always have been.”

  Sam shrugged and opened the door to the hallway. “We’re going to need a lot more heartless to get ourselves out of this hotel.”

  King knew she was a 100 percent right about that. But there was no way he was leaving that hotel. And she knew it. Not with the man King had been hunting for so long being so close. In the same building.

  “You know this isn’t the right time. We aren’t prepared for this,” Sam said.

  “You have an extra magazine?” King said.

  Sam felt down by her hip. “Always.”

  King nodded. “Then we’re prepared.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sam stepped out into the hallway and King moved in behind her. She knew the hotel, so he had to follow her lead. She jogged to the end of the hallway and through the door to the stairwell.

  “What do you know about Husaam Hammoud?” King said.

  “His family grew up here. Dad was an Islamic extremist. It’s been rumored that he has been involved in some plots of terror, but never anything concrete.” They both started down the stairs. Sam spoke quietly to avoid an echo. “His brother, Saajid Hammoud, disappeared several years ago. Our agent here said no one has seen or heard from him in years, but obviously we can’t trust that. We’re in this situation right here because of him. However, according to my agent, out of the three Hammoud siblings, their sister, Jamila Salameh, is by far the most involved in terrorism.”

  King stopped in his tracks.

  Sam looked back. “What are you doing? We have to move!”

  “Did you say Salameh? Jamila Salameh?”

  “Yes, so what?”

  “Althea Salameh. That’s Karen Panos’s real name.”

  Sam started moving back down the stairs. “We have to beat Husaam to the lobby. He’ll be on the move once he realizes we’re not actually on the top floor. We can worry about the incestuous relationships of Greek gods and Islamic terrorists once we’ve left here without being in body bags.”