xXx Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  xXx: Return of Xander Cage

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785655142

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781785655159

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: January 2017

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  THIS ONE’S FOR JONATHAN MABERRY

  —WRITER, TEACHER, FRIEND.

  PROLOGUE

  Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. It was about the size of a beach ball, weighed only 183.9 pounds, and took 98 minutes to orbit the globe. Today there are approximately 1,490 active satellites in orbit, and 2,691 inactive, all traveling at least 17,000 miles per hour. The largest satellites are big as a school bus and weigh up to 6 tons, while the smallest weigh as little as 2.2 pounds. Altitude for satellites varies depending on type. They can orbit as low as 100 miles above the Earth’s surface or as high as 50,000 miles. They are owned by governments large and small, as well as private companies. There are hamsats, navsats, weather sats, photo sats, science sats, communication and broadcast sats, military comsats, and—of course—spysats. Some remain in geostationary orbit, others orbit the planet in circular or elliptical patterns, and some can move from one place to another as necessary.

  Basically, there’s a shitload of metal whizzing above us that we are completely unaware of, but which makes our tech-obsessed lifestyles possible. An intricate web of hardware and software representing the pinnacle of human scientific achievement. But when satellite orbits decay—as they eventually do—machines that cost between 50 and 400 million dollars to build and launch become useless junk plummeting back toward the planet that sent them up in the first place. One hundred tons of space debris fall every year—but there’s no reason to lose your shit about it. Most of it burns up on reentry, but even if some material survives this atmospheric cremation, the odds of it hitting a particular individual—like you—is one in twenty trillion. Damn good odds, right?

  But what if someone found a way to change those odds?

  * * *

  Augustus Gibbons stood at the counter of the Dumpling Palace, waiting for the owner to finish preparing his order. Normally, he would’ve sat at a table and let a waiter bring his food, but this wasn’t a normal day. No one else was present. No waiters, no other customers, only Gibbons, the owner, and Gibbons’s guest. And it was to this guest that Gibbons spoke.

  “You know how I came up with the idea for the Triple-X program? Skateboards and swimming pools. No shit. True story. Skateboards used to be stuck on the ground, adolescent transportation. But then 1977 happens. Big drought hits Southern California. Got so bad, rich suburbanites couldn’t afford to keep their swimming pools filled. And that’s when some kid realized he could skate all those empty pools, get some really nasty air. Dogtown and Z-Boys. It’s a movie. You seen it? Doesn’t matter.

  “Anyhow, before you know it, our hero was doing things on a board no one had ever seen before. Things the world thought were impossible.

  “The kid needed those empty pools. That’s why Triple-X.”

  The owner set two plates of steaming food on the counter one at a time, and Gibbons took a deep breath, inhaling the dishes’ delicious aromas.

  God-DAMN, I love Chinese food! Gibbons thought. One of the perks of his job was that he could choose the places where he conducted business meetings, which meant that he got to visit his favorite bars and restaurants and put the bill on his expense account. That way, if the meeting didn’t go so well, at least he got a few good drinks or an excellent meal out of it.

  Gibbon carried the two plates of food—which were both hot—back to the table as fast as he could. He set the mixed vegetable stir fry in front of his seat and the chow mein in front of his guest. He then sat down, took a sip of the hot tea he had previously ordered, snatched up his chopsticks and began to eat. A Louis Armstrong tune was playing over the restaurant’s sound system, his most famous: “What a Wonderful World.”

  “‘Red roses, too…’ I love that song. You know, they say the world’s a safer place than it’s ever been in the history of civilization. I call bullshit. Sure, there’s no dagger-in-the-teeth Kalashnikov-bearing Mongol hordes descending on the Beltway—but honestly, do you feel safer today than you did yesterday? I know I don’t. We got the biggest, most expensive military in the world, and we’re still scared of shoe and tighty-whitey bombs at the airport. Why is that? Because soldiers are built to take orders and fight wars… But we are not at war; we are at peril. That’s why Triple-X.”

  The Dumpling Palace’s décor was a blend of modern and old-fashioned. High windows lined one wall, letting in plenty of light and providing a view of the buildings across the street. Usually the downtown area was busy with pedestrians and traffic, but there weren’t any people out right now, not at this hour. The restaurant’s more traditional touches included real wooden chopsticks—not the dumbass plastic ones that Gibbons hated—and fake roast ducks hanging in the window. He liked the mix of new and old because he thought of himself in similar terms. He was in his late sixties—hence the old part—but he’d spent his career trying to find new and innovative ways to do his work. He had to if he wanted to keep on saving lives. The bad guys were always looking for new ways to fuck shit up, which meant people like him had to work overtime just to keep up with them.

  At this stage in his life, Gibbons liked to dress well, and he paid for his clothes out of his own pocket instead of making taxpayers pick up the tab. In his line of work, you never knew when the Grim Reaper was going to catch up with you, so you might as well be dressed for your funeral, just in case. This day looking good meant wearing a pair of metal-rimmed glasses, a designer regular fit wool suit, and a striped men’s skinny tie. A stretch cotton-blend white shirt and Italian-made leather dress shoes completed his look. Total price tag, within spitting distance of $2000 dollars. Expensive, sure—especially on a government salary. But Gibbons figured he’d earned the right to enjoy some of the finer things in life. And it never hurt to look good when making a recruiting speech.

  Sitting across the table from Gibbons was a slender, fit man in his twenties. He was dressed more casually than the spymaster—long-sleeved white s
hirt, dark blue jacket, jeans, white sneakers, and a blue cap he wore backwards. He sported several days’ worth of stubble, not so thick it could be called a beard. If Gibbons hadn’t rented the entire restaurant for this meeting and there were other customers around, he had no doubt that his guest would be recognized by more than a few of them. Neymar—full name Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior—was one of the most famous soccer players on earth, and in 2016, ESPN had named him the world’s fourth most famous athlete overall.

  Neymar hadn’t touched his food the entire time Gibbons had been giving his sales pitch.

  “What’s the matter? You on a diet or something? You not hungry? I can get my man Yao back there to hook you up with a broccoli and beef that’ll make your balls tingle.”

  “It’s seven-thirty in the morning,” Neymar said.

  “So? It’s lunch or dinnertime somewhere in the world. Come, eat up. You know who does feel safe? The men in charge. The world beaters, the top-shelf, par-excellence, point-one-percent, the Ayatollahs With All the Dollahs.

  “Because somewhere down the line, those righteous bastards made a deal with the devil, traded liberty for safety and we, we the people, ended up losing both. That’s why Triple-X. We put out the fires those bastards profit from. We protect everyone, not just the chosen few. We watch the watchers. We can save the world in ways the world doesn’t even realize it needs saving. Everybody else is stuck on the ground. We’re doing shit on a board nobody’s ever seen before.”

  Gibbons paused a beat to let it all sink in.

  “Well, that’s my pitch. Always was a better spy than salesman. So what do you say?”

  “You got it all wrong. I’m no hero, just a footballer.”

  “My bad… I’ll stop wasting your time. Whoever said there’s no such thing as a free lunch?”

  Frustrated, Gibbons stood up and walked to the front counter, intending to pay for their meals—and for the early-morning restaurant rental. Looks like you’re losing your touch, old man, he thought. There was a time when he could talk a prospective agent into sticking his dick into a meat grinder for dear old Uncle Samuel. But it seemed those days were behind him.

  Despite the fact that the Dumpling Palace wasn’t officially open yet, a bell tinkled as someone entered. Yao had just walked up to the counter to settle the bill with Gibbons, and now both men looked over to check out the newcomer. But it only took a glance for Gibbons to know the man wasn’t here because he had a sudden early-morning craving for moo shu pork. The man wore a dark jacket and a black ski mask, and if the latter hadn’t been a tip-off the guy was looking for trouble, the double-barreled shotgun he carried was more than definitive proof. The masked man raised the shotgun as he approached Gibbons and Yao.

  “Down on the ground! Empty the register! Hurry up!”

  The motherfucker sounded like he meant business, and Yao raised his hands in a show of compliance. But instead of starting to lower himself to the floor, Gibbons glanced at Neymar.

  Moving with a fluid speed that was beautiful to watch, Neymar grabbed a metal napkin container from the table at the same time he rose from his seat. He tossed the container in front of him, but before it could hit the ground, he swung his right foot toward it. The kick had so much power behind it that the container became a silver blur as it streaked toward the would-be robber’s head. The container slammed into the man’s forehead before he could react. There was a sickening sound of metal striking bone, and the container bounced off the man’s skull. His eyes rolled white, and he collapsed to the floor, unconscious. The napkin container hit the floor an instant later, bounced a couple times, and then was still.

  For a second, neither Gibbons, Neymar, or Yao said anything. They just stared at the masked man, who looked as if he was going to be out cold for a very long time. The man had managed to hold onto the shotgun when he fell, and Gibbons quickly bent down and took it from his hand. Holding the weapon down at his side, he walked back toward Neymar. This was always the hardest part: Gibbons had to maintain a straight face when inside he was grinning from ear to ear. When the speech alone didn’t work, a little bit of interactive theater usually did the trick. Of course, Agent Dunlevy was going to have one hell of a headache when he woke up. Who knows? As hard as Reymar kicked, the poor sonofabitch might end up with a concussion. But if Dunlevy’s performance helped convince Neymar to join Triple-X, then Gibbons would buy the agent a case of scotch to help soothe his aching head.

  “And you say you’re no hero. Well, I call bullshit on that, too. You’re exactly the kind of hero this world needs. End of the day, it comes down to the same question I’ve asked my wife every Friday night for the last twenty years. You want some of this, or you just gonna—”

  Before Gibbons could finish his sentence, the restaurant erupted in a blast of fire and sound, the explosion so violent, so intense, so all-consuming, that within seconds the restaurant—and a significant portion of the area surrounding it—were reduced to little more than charred rubble and twisted, blackened metal.

  If Gibbons had still been present to gaze upon the destruction, his most likely reaction would’ve been to think, And I almost had the kid ready to sign on the dotted line, too. Ain’t that a pisser?

  1

  NEW YORK CITY

  An SUV slid smooth and silent through the nighttime traffic. New York might’ve been the city that never sleeps, but the traffic was lighter at night than during the day—if only marginally so—and the driver had no trouble weaving back and forth between lanes to get around slow-moving vehicles. The passenger in the back wasn’t worried about the driver getting pulled over by the police for speeding or reckless operation. For one thing, this was Manhattan. If the cops stopped every driver who operated his or her vehicle like a lunatic who’d downed a dozen cans of energy drink in one sitting, they wouldn’t have time to scratch their asses, let alone get anything else done. And if by some minor miracle a patrol officer did pull them over, then that overachieving do-gooder would quickly find himself in shit-deep trouble when he learned the man riding in the back was the director of the goddamned CIA.

  If anyone had been able to see through the vehicle’s tinted windows, they would’ve seen a man in his fifties, wearing a suit that cost almost as much as the SUV itself. At first glance, he would’ve seemed calm, almost relaxed. He sat back against the seat, legs crossed, hands resting in his lap. But a closer look would’ve revealed that his lips were set in a tight line, his eyes were narrowed, and there was a slight furrow in his brow caused half by concern and half by concentration.

  There was, to use professional spy jargon, a Situation, which needed the Director’s attention ASA-fucking-P. A text, email, or phone call—all double, triple, and quadruple encrypted, of course—wouldn’t cut it. No, this shitstorm required he put in a personal appearance. When you were the director of the greatest intelligence-gathering organization on the planet—and to hell with what the Russians and Chinese might say about that claim—sometimes you had to make a house call. So what if he’d had to leave his mistress alone in a hot tub with an unopened bottle of Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair La Romanee Grand Cru—a fine wine that cost almost $3,000 a bottle—sitting on the kitchen counter of her scandalously expensive penthouse apartment, which he paid for, naturally. She’d still be waiting for him when he got back and, more importantly, the wine would keep.

  The driver—Carl, the Director thought, but he was terrible at remembering worker-bee names so he wasn’t sure—slowed as they drew near a certain skyscraper. Its construction was modern—all gleaming steel and glass panels—but that didn’t make it stand out, not in Manhattan where there were so many buildings; it was like new ones popped up like mushrooms every time it rained. It was just another building, one thousands of people passed by day after day, without even giving it a second thought—and that was just the way the Director liked it.

  Carl—or whoever—pulled the SUV up to the front of the building, and the Director opened the back passenger door and ste
pped onto the sidewalk in perfectly polished thousand-dollar loafers. He entered the building’s lobby alone. There was a certain amount of risk to traveling like this—only one driver, no guards—but it had its advantage, too. He could make better time without an entourage, and the fewer people he had with him, the less likely he was to draw the media’s attention. He was hardly pop-star famous, and the average Jane or Joe on the street would pass him by without recognizing him. But travel with a collection of men and women all wearing the same basic clothes, sporting the same basic haircut, all wearing sunglasses, all on constant lookout for even the hint of a suspicion of an inkling of a threat to their boss, and you risked drawing so many eyes to you that someone was bound to recognize you sooner or later. And what kind of a spymaster would he be if he allowed that to happen when he was working? Really working, and not merely posing for the cameras.

  The lobby was empty, no security personnel present. No guards were necessary. They’d just be more eyes to see things they shouldn’t—and the CIA had put automated security procedures in place that were better than any human could ever hope to be. The Director walked across the lobby. The sound of his loafers was the only noise in the lobby, and he walked until he came to a featureless door in the wall on the far side of the lobby. A keypad was mounted next to the door and the Director entered a long alphanumeric pass code. When he was finished, multiple locks disengaged, and the door slid open. He stepped into a long, narrow hallway and continued walking, the door closing after him automatically.

  * * *

  A beautiful brunette woman dressed in skintight black leather darted down the corridor the Director had just vacated. She moved with astonishing swiftness, but for all her speed her feet made absolutely no noise on the floor. Her goal was to reach the door before it closed and locked, but despite how fast she ran, she knew she wasn’t going to make it in time. She gritted her teeth and poured all of her energy into running. And then, when she was within several feet of the door, she slid into splits and her right foot slipped between the door and the jamb at the last possible second. She wasn’t sweating or winded from her all-out exertion. She looked as if she’d done nothing more remarkable than get up off the couch and walk into the kitchen to make herself a snack. But there were few people on the planet who could do what Serena just had, and she knew it.