From Russia Without Love (13 page)

Xander and his men must’ve guessed Chris would try to follow Hannah and Sonny around the west side of the building because Xander’s gang blasted a hail of bullets in that direction, preventing him from meeting up with his team. He wanted to talk to Hannah and Sonny, tell them where he was going, find out if they were okay, but his cell phone had been obliterated in the firefight and his earpiece was gone.

One of Xander’s men struggled to climb a section of metal fence surrounding the park, but he couldn’t get over it. The half dozen or so who made it over the fence, or found the gate opening, came in Chris’s direction just before he turned the building’s east corner.

Breathe
.

He sprinted with every part of his muscles he could muster, splashing as he ran. The water level seemed higher now, and it sucked his energy, but he tried to ignore it as he focused on picking up his thighs and putting them down, his legs like pistons.

Hannah and Sonny were nowhere in sight, but enemy shots came at him from behind. He cut sideways until he reached Carlton Street, where the groundwater became shallow, and raced south as swiftly as he could.

He arrived in St. James Park, a different location from the flooded park in St. James Square where he’d come from. He still didn’t see Hannah and Sonny, but Animus and his men—numbering half a dozen—sloshed through the water after him. With the team split up and on the receiving end of superior firepower, there was no sense in pausing to look for one another and getting the whole team killed. Being split up had the added advantage of splitting up Xander’s forces, but now Chris was on his own and had to escape. He switched into E & E mode and would try to make it to the River Thames. Hannah and Sonny would switch into E & E mode, too, pressing through the city.

There were a lot of civilians in the immediate area, some stopping and looking around. Chris was sure they’d heard the commotion up north, but these people had yet to find out what the noise was all about. He took cover behind a tree, turned towards Animus’s men, aimed, and fired at the nearest enemy combatant, a barrel-chested man, stitching up his barrel. A pedestrian squealed.

Animus’s men hid behind streetlamps, parked cars, trees—whatever was available. Animus only had a lamppost between him and Chris, so Chris took a shot, but he hit the post in front of Animus with a loud
thwang
, missing him. Chris
hoped
the near miss would slow Animus, but he
expected
it wouldn’t.

People in the area shouted and ran for safety. Chris met up with a man who stood immobile with shock. Chris gave him a push. “Get down!”

The man fell out of Animus’s line of fire. Off to the side, an older woman with white hair crouched down next to a man of similar age who was likely her husband, who was lying down. Chris couldn’t tell if he was wounded or just being safe. He neared St. James Park Lake, and a woman wearing a dark skirt and jacket was running away from the shooting. She fell and hit the wet grass with a
smack
, but he wasn’t sure if she’d tripped or been shot. She was too far away for him to help her, either way, and if he neared her, he’d bring Animus’s wrath with him.

He tried to visualize a map of the area in his mind. The River Thames was about half a klick east
.

If I can make it to the water, I can swim my way to safety. The water is my haven.

He ran past the lake, and as he came to a war memorial, he could see a dirt parade ground across the street and a massive building behind it.
Trapped.
To the right was the Cabinet Office and 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister resided. Police cars blocked off the street, and the officers were armed with submachine guns. They called out to Chris to drop his weapon and surrender, but with Animus so close to the north, he couldn’t just stand in the open with his hands up, waiting to be killed.

In the distance was the London Eye, the enormous Ferris wheel standing over a hundred meters tall on the other side of the River Thames. Knowing he was close to the river lifted his spirit.

There has to be an opening somewhere…

Chris zigzagged between the trees, away from the police to the east. They opened fire. One bullet tore through the tail corner of his jacket and another ripped the heel off his right shoe, causing him to lose his balance. He tumbled and almost fell over. Police sirens, megaphones and shooting sounded from another area, but Chris couldn’t focus on it.

He hoped Hannah and Sonny were okay, and he pressed forward harder, determined to get to rendezvous with them in one piece. He rounded the corner of the Ministry of Defense, where a police car screeched to a halt, and he ran past as two armed officers jumped out. They didn’t shoot, probably out of concern for hitting innocent bystanders in the area. The sound of thumping footsteps came behind him. The police were chasing him, yelling at him to stop, which caused him to run faster. His thighs felt like gelatin, as if he had no more power in them. He wished again he’d done more physical training, but it was too late now. He almost turned right but realized it led to a dead end and continued straight, instead.

Shooting sounded behind him, but instead of the smaller caliber reports of police submachine guns, the shots were more like those of the larger caliber AK-47s. Chris glanced over his shoulder and one of the policemen had fallen… shot.

_______

A
s Chris maneuvered through the streets, the sky continued to dump rain, and he wasn’t sure where he was until he spotted a statue of King Charles I on a horse.

The center of London. Northumberland Avenue leads straight to the river.

Like most frogmen in deep danger, he headed for the water. If he could get to the river, he still had a chance of escaping death.

He hurried along Northumberland Avenue but couldn’t see the river ahead.

Did I remember wrong? Is there another Northumberland Avenue?

Trees on both sides of the road formed a canopy overhead, blocking most of the skyline out. He ran a hundred meters, and he still couldn’t see the water.

Lord help me, please.

Not knowing what else to do, he continued down the same road. The upper pylon of a bridge came into view. The more he ran, the more pylons appeared. Some pedestrians climbed the stairs while others crossed the bridge.

This has to be the place.

To his right was the London Eye—closer now.

I’m almost there.

It wasn’t until he reached the intersection that he saw the River Thames. He didn’t wait for a pedestrian sign to flash green and raced across the street. One driver honked at him, but he didn’t care. On the other side of the road, he bounded over a wall. More honking behind him. Probably Animus’s men. A loud
thump
sounded, followed by a cry of pain.

Chris hopped over another wall, stripped off his jacket as he neared the water, and dropped it on the ground. He didn’t need his rifle and bullets weighing him down, so he threw his M4 in the river, and after tearing off his customized ammo-bearing vest, he threw it in, too, and both sank. His pistol still hung on his hip with some spare magazines of ammo, but they weren’t enough to sink him significantly, and he kept them.

He dove in. With Animus and company close behind, he expected the shooting to resume at any moment. If he could swim three feet below water, and Animus and his men fired from the shore at about thirty-degree angles, the bullets couldn’t kill him. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, he dove farther down and away from the embankment until he felt pressure on his ears and head. Thinking he had enough depth, he swam for distance.

Pop
-
pop
went the AKs. Chris’s cocoon of water mellowed their bangs.
Ploop
-
ploop
went the bullets as they hit the surface above. The River Thames put the brakes on each bullet, causing an aquatic audible
vzzz
. They sounded like zippers. He swam until his lungs ached for air, and then he swam some more. The current pulled him to the left, taking him east, and he went with it, happy to put more distance between Animus and himself. The outer edges of his vision became gray, and his head felt fuzzy. He needed oxygen, so he ascended slowly, but the gray edges of his vision became darker, and his vision closed smaller, becoming a tunnel. Now his need for oxygen was urgent. He swam harder toward the sky. His head broke the water’s surface. With lips forming a tight circle, he sucked in a bite of oxygen, making his chest expand. Gunshots banged the air again, louder than they’d sounded underwater, but Chris couldn’t sense where the shots landed.
Zing!
The sound was lighter than a heavy AK round and seemed to move more slowly, a ricochet, probably deflected by the water, like a skipping stone. If he’d been facing it, a ricochet could have put an eye out, but it wasn’t likely to kill him. Even so, he didn’t want a souvenir in the back of his head.

He dove underwater and swam again, but this time he didn’t push so close to blacking out. And this time, when he came up for air, the shooting was farther away. The next time he dove, he realized he was shivering. He must’ve been shivering earlier, too, but now he noticed. His fingertips and ears were numb—even though one of his ears was a prosthetic replacement from an injury in Iraq, now he felt it, like a ghost appendage. His heart strained against the cold. As he tried to comprehend what was happening to his body, his thought processes seemed to slow down.

When he came up for oxygen the third time, he’d traveled well over a hundred meters, half the width of the river. And the current had taken him under the bridge and beyond. He turned to see where Animus and his goons were. Police had swarmed the area, but the tangos appeared to have fled. The rain continued to dump on London. Chris’s cold body trembled, and his respiration was shallow and quick. He tried to take slow, deep breaths, but his body resisted.

It wasn’t a cold day, but having been out in the rain and swum the River Thames had resulted in a lot of wet time, which drowned the warmth in him. On top of that, he’d come down from his adrenaline high, causing his temperature to drop further. He’d burned through a lot of calories, and he didn’t have much fuel left in his tank, so he was losing heat faster than he could replace it, experiencing hypothermia. Many people couldn’t understand how someone could suffer from hypothermia on a summer day, but frogmen knew the danger all too well. In spite of the hypothermia threat, he wanted to make sure Animus and the police didn’t know where he was, so he swam farther downstream past the next bridge.

A boat came his way, so he dove underwater to avoid getting chopped up by the propeller. He went straight down. The churning sound of the water became louder, and as he dove deeper, the water pressure squeezed his head. The boat’s engine passed above him, and the rumbling noise in the water dissipated. Slowly he ascended, and he could taste fuel in the boat’s wake.

Now his heart and lungs slowed their pace and the strain on his heart seemed to have lifted. At first he thought he’d succeeded in gaining control over himself, but something didn’t seem right. As he tried to figure out what wasn’t right, he experienced a mental fog. His arms and legs became less coordinated in the water, and he realized he was shivering violently—the hypothermia was worsening, and he needed to dry off. Soon.

Up ahead was a third bridge, or maybe it was the fourth—he was losing his ability to reason—and it was past time to head to shore. Still trying to keep a low profile, he continued underwater, rising up when he needed oxygen, until he made it to the other side.

Before coming out of the water, he realized he wasn’t wearing a suit jacket to conceal the pistol and magazines on his belt, so he made sure his shirt and T-shirt were untucked, so they could cover his weapon and ammo.

He dragged himself out of the water and stumbled into the city, south of the River Thames.
Or am I headed north?
It was still raining, and it didn’t seem to make much difference whether he froze to death in the river or in the rain. As he walked through street puddles, he felt like he was teleporting. He was at one street corner one moment and a different street corner the next. After doing this several times, he realized he was passing out as he walked, only to regain consciousness and find himself in a new spot.

Abruptly he stopped shivering—a bad sign. His outer body was shutting down while his core tried to stay warm. He wanted to strip off all his clothing, as if he could strip off the cold, but he wasn’t thinking rationally. He feared his lungs and heart would stop.

Now he had little idea of why he was walking in the rain or where he was walking to, but part of him wanted to dig a hole, crawl inside, and lie down. The other part of him had a vague notion he needed to get warm—his survival depended on it. When he spotted a café, he realized he could seek shelter from the rain there and find something warm to drink.

He didn’t remember stepping into the café or choosing a chair. Suddenly, he was just sitting at a table next to an unlit fireplace. He was the only customer. The waitress near him was a middle-aged platinum blonde, who welcomed him with a Scottish lilt and a universal smile. Her nametag read,
Catriona
.

“Something warm to drink, no caffeine, please,” he said.

Catriona replied, but he couldn’t focus on the words—probably giving him a choice of drinks? Then he realized there was a menu in front of him and a puddle of water on the floor around him, and he wondered how long he’d actually been sitting there.

He jumped forward in time again. Catriona nudged his shoulder. On the table sat a cup of liquid, steam rising from it. He grasped the handle. It was warm, and he lifted it until the rim of the cup touched his lips, and he tilted it back and drank. It was an herbal tea with a fruity taste he couldn’t place. The heat traveled down his throat to his chest, slowly spreading through his body.

Catriona stood to one side of him, steadying his hand, helping him drink. On the other side, the fireplace was lit. The heat felt good. His clothes smoldered as the fire burned off the wetness.

“Have I been here long?” Chris asked her.

“Be careful you don’t catch on fire.”

“Thank you.”

“I was afraid if you stopped drinking—” She glanced at a nearly empty glass teapot on the table. “Anyway, I’m happy you almost emptied it.”

He smiled courteously, but he worried about Hannah and Sonny. Their escape-and-evasion plan was to return to the plane, and he hoped to still find them there. Chris tried to act casual as he rested his hands on his hips, checking for the firmness of his Glock and its magazines under his shirt. He sighed.

I’m still armed. Good.

Still, he had the uneasy feeling something was missing. He remembered ditching some of his kit in the River Thames. Before that, he lost his radio in the shootout in St. James Square. Then he touched his ear…

My prosthetic is gone!

Wet and with torn clothes and the heel missing from his shoe, he looked like a homeless man.

She seemed to sense he was concerned about something and gave him a small smile. “You don’t have to pay for it.”

The fireplace made one side of his clothes so hot his skin burned, so he turned his chair and heated the other side of his body. When that side became too hot, he turned again. As he made small talk with Catriona, he continued turning himself like meat on a grill until his clothes dried out.

His body didn’t want to go back out in the rain, but his brain knew what needed to be done. “I need to get back to work.”

“It’s awfully wet out there.”

“I wish I could stay. But my coworkers are depending on me.”

She didn’t seem to believe him. Maybe she thought he didn’t have a real job. “Next time you come, you can bring them, too,” she said kindly.

He thanked Catriona again, paid her, added a generous tip, and was on his way.