From Russia Without Love (17 page)

_______

A
fter fishing him out of the water, Chris kicked Xander’s feet out from under him and slammed him face-first into the deck. Sonny aimed at Xander’s head while Chris secured Xander’s hands behind his back with plasticuffs, cinching them tight. Then he bound Xander’s feet, too.

“You better hope this boat doesn’t sink,” Chris said. He searched every inch of Xander’s body for weapons or intel. “He’s clean except for a pocketknife.” Xander carried a Swiss Army knife like Chris did. Chris opened it, and unlike his knife, Xander had modified some of the blades to serve as lock picks. Chris put it in his pocket.

“He must’ve ditched his weapons, comms, and everything else,” Sonny said.

Chris’s and Xander’s eyes met.

“Bayushki bayu,”
Chris said.

Xander’s eyes widened for a moment, but his body was still.

“I know you had your wife killed,” he went on. “And you made a scene of mourning her. That was her house in Athens, wasn’t it?”

The edges of Xander’s lips rose to a half-smile.

Chris glared at him. “I guess you needed her for her Greek citizenship.”

Xander’s eyes seemed to study Chris. “It is a matter of public record. I inherited the house. Among other things.”

“How could you do that? To the mother of your daughter.”

“Neither of them meant that much to me,” Xander said coolly. “My wife had become suspicious and threatened my cover.”

“Evelina didn’t mean that much to you?”

“Evelina did not fit my needs for a protégé, but she did attract a number of candidates. Animus was the golden one. But they began to have troubles and she outlived her usefulness to me.” Xander became quiet for a moment before the corners of his mouth broadened into a full smile. “Then you took care of the Evelina problem for me, and at the same time, you instilled in Animus a stellar hatred for the West. I discovered the vodka, but you distilled it for me.”

Anger flared in Chris, so hot he wanted to put a bullet in Xander’s head and heave him over the side.

Hannah revved the go-fast’s engine.

“We need to get out of here before the Azeri Coast Guard arrives,” Sonny said.

Chris nodded, trying to keep calm.

Hannah pushed the throttle forward and the go-fast motored ahead.

“Do you know how you caught me?” Xander asked.

Chris thought for a moment. “How do you think we caught you?”

Xander sneered. “Because we are alike. A hunter has to think like his prey in order to catch his prey. You think you are better than me, but you are not. You and I are one and the same.”

Suddenly, Mikhail sat up in the boat. “Where’s Xander?” he slurred, thrashing around frantically.

The outburst jolted Chris. The man’s vital signs must’ve been too low for Chris to recognize as still having life in them. Or maybe he’d somehow misread them.

He tried to calm Mikhail. “We got him. We got Xander. You can rest now.”

“Holy shit! I nearly pissed myself!” exclaimed Sonny.

Mikhail closed his eyes and his upper body dropped, but Chris caught him and eased him the rest of the way to the deck.

“I thought he was dead,” Hannah said.

“So did I,” Chris said. “We need to get him medical attention ASAP.”

Hannah pulled out her cell phone and made a call while pushing the go-fast harder. “I’m on it.”

Behind them, a helicopter approached the oil rig as it sank lower into the sea, and a string of boats headed toward the shore, away from the burning platform.

“We’re going to look awfully conspicuous showing up on shore armed to the teeth like this,” Chris said.

Sonny shrugged. “We can ditch the long guns.”

A swarm of boats appeared on the horizon. “We got visitors,” Chris said.

“Who?” Sonny asked.

Chris squinted his eyes, trying to make out more detail on the boats. “We’re about to find out.”

Xander let out a laugh.

Sonny gagged him. “You laugh one more time or make one more sound, and I’ll personally screw a bullet through your skull.”

Gradually, three Stenka-class patrol boats and one Zhuk-class patrol craft—leftovers from the Soviet occupation—and two forty-eight-foot-long rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs) came into view. “Azeri Coast Guard,” Chris said.

“Probably heading to the oil rig,” Sonny said.

Hannah shook her head, putting away her phone. “They’re heading in our direction. We better strip down to our primary gear and play it cool.”

The trio took off their assault rifles, assault vests, comms, and overt gear and stashed them in every available compartment on the boat, pulling out life vests and other gear to make room. Now their only weapons were concealed pistols and some ammo. When they took off Mikhail’s gear, he awoke for a moment and shouted, “Happy birthday!”

Sonny shook his head. “Damn, Dirt Dan.”

Mikhail drifted out of consciousness again and became quiet.

“How do we explain the two bodies on the deck?” Sonny asked. “I vote we just put some holes in Xander now and dump him over the side.”

“Hopefully the Azeri Coast Guard sails by fast enough not to notice,” Hannah said.

As the Coast Guard boats came closer, Chris’s anxiety grew. The Coast Guard faced the go-fast head-on, forcing Hannah to slow the boat.

“This isn’t good,” Sonny said. From one of the Coast Guard vessels, a man spoke Azeri through a megaphone. When the Coast Guardsmen aimed their rifles at Chris and his teammates, the message was clear.

Hannah stopped the go-fast.

“This really isn’t good,” Sonny said
.
Chris, Hannah, and Sonny raised their hands in the universal language of surrender.

One of the RHIBs pulled up alongside, and armed men shouted in Azeri at them.

“I’m sorry,” Sonny said, “I don’t speak pig latin.”

“Let me handle this,” Hannah snapped at him.

An older Azeri, probably senior in rank, said, “You speak English?”

“Yes,” Hannah said.

“You big trouble,” the senior Azeri said. “You steal Minister of Defense rum-runner boat.” Senior held up an iPhone. “Minister have GPS on rum-runner, and we track you with iPhone.”

“Uh-oh,” Sonny said.

Hannah held out her diplomatic passport. “I am a legal attaché for the United States of America, and I can explain.”

Chris wondered how she was going to talk her way out of this one.

Senior’s eyes stopped at Xander and Mikhail lying on the deck, and then he looked at Hannah. “Yes, you will explain.” He motioned to his men to board the go-fast and said something in Azeri.

Hannah pointed to Xander. “This man is a terrorist. He crashed a ship into the Shah Deniz Alpha oil rig.” Then she pointed to Mikhail. “Mikhail works for MNS, and we were helping him find this terrorist, but Mikhail has been shot and needs medical attention immediately.”

“I don’t know anything about this,” Senior said.

Some of the Coast Guard men pointed their guns at the trio while others handcuffed them. Chris breathed deeply. He didn’t like being handcuffed. After being kidnapped as a child, he never wanted to feel imprisoned again. And because no SEAL had ever been held prisoner of war, he had a reputation to uphold. But the Azeris weren’t the enemy, and he went through the motions of compliance.

The Coast Guard searched Chris and his team, clearing out Chris’s pockets, too, leaving him with nothing but lint. He tried to make out the type of handcuffs they’d used—ironically, the cheaper ones were made of softer metal, more prone to bending than breaking; whereas, the more expensive handcuffs were made of a stronger metal that was more brittle and easier to break. But he couldn’t discern which type of metal these handcuffs were made of.

After the Coast Guard handcuffed Xander, they removed his gag and plasticuffs. “She’s lying,” Xander said. “They are the terrorists, and they kidnapped me. Her passport is a fake.”

The Coast Guard rifled through the boat and found the assault rifles, assault vests, comms, and overt gear stashed in the compartments on the boat. Now they gripped their weapons more tightly and moved more anxiously.

“This is going well,” Sonny grumbled.

“I can give you a phone number to call at the US embassy,” Hannah told Senior.

A gray-haired man appeared from the cabin of the Stenka-class patrol boat, and he shouted out to Senior. Gray Hair seemed to be the highest-ranking man in the group, but Chris couldn’t make out what he was telling Senior. When they finished talking, Gray Hair barked orders at his men before he left with two Stenka-class patrol boats, the Zhuk-class patrol craft, and a RHIB. Senior was left with one Stenka-class patrol boat and his RHIB. Gray Hair and his men sped away, pointed at the burning oil rig.

Senior called out orders to his men. One Coast Guardsman took the helm of the go-fast and motored toward shore with two men standing guard over Chris’s team and Xander. The other Coast Guard sailors followed in the patrol boat and RHIB.

Senior said to Hannah, “I call US embassy first.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I can give you the phone number.”

Senior took out his cell phone. “I have number.”

While the senior Azeri made his call, Chris covertly rubbed the chain of his handcuffs against the metal of the boat, roughing up the links. The links of a smooth chain would slip against themselves, but rough links would gain more traction against one another. After scraping the chain links, Chris turned one hand around the other with a slight in-and-out motion, while keeping the other hand still. The chain links weren’t biting, so he worked on scratching them up some more.

Senior shook his head in disgust. “You Americans and your damn robot phone answering.”

As they neared shore, Chris rotated one hand again, manipulating the links in his handcuffs, and they finally bit into each other.
Bingo!
For a moment, the links seized up, but then he lost it. He tried to freeze them up again.

The Coast Guard boats and go-fast pulled up to a dock where the Coast Guard tied the vessels. As the Coast Guard escorted Chris and the others onto land, he tried to tighten up the links in his handcuffs again but failed. While walking, he attempted to rotate his hand slowly, so as to not alert the Coast Guard as to what he was doing.

Ching.
Handcuff links popped, but they weren’t Chris’s. They were Xander’s. Both of Xander’s hands pumped freely as he broke into a mad sprint. The Coast Guard yelled at him, and one sailor ran after.

Adrenaline surged into Chris’s system, but the sudden burst of dynamism coursing through his veins threatened to disrupt his dexterity.

I’ve got to stop Xander before he escapes.

He turned one hand over the other, but too much movement caused the links to slip. He took a deep breath to regain composure and tried again. The chain links bit into each other and jammed up.
Good
. Carefully, he applied pressure at an angle, using more torque than strength, until the link at the swivel snapped.

With his arms liberated, Chris sprinted toward Xander. He passed the Coast Guard sailors, but Xander was still twenty-five meters ahead. A gunshot sounded from behind. Chris didn’t know if the shot was a warning fired into the air or a direct attempt to hit him, but he wasn’t about to slow down and find out, and he didn’t bother to turn around.

_______

C
hris chased Xander away from the docks and into the city. As juiced as Chris was, he couldn’t seem to close the twenty-five meters between them. Xander was cranked. Chris wasn’t in top condition, but he didn’t allow Xander to put any more distance between them. Xander turned the corner of a building. After twenty-five meters, Chris turned the corner, too, but Xander was gone. A passerby stared at Chris’s handcuffs, and he pulled down his shirtsleeves and tucked in the dangling chain to conceal the cuffs.

He had lost Xander. He wasn’t straight ahead, so he had to have made another turn to the right or left. Or maybe he was waiting just around a corner to jump Chris.

Chris searched the ground for clues and noticed part of the pavement was wet. Not enough to form a complete footprint, but enough of the heels for Chris’s trained eye to spot. The dampness led into the building next to Chris, so he tracked them.

He entered an office building of some sort, but Xander was nowhere in sight. On a desktop was a cupful of pens, pencils, and a pair of scissors. Some of the pens had metal clips, and Chris knew he could use a clip to unlock his handcuffs. He calmly took a pen and continued forward. Ahead, he found dirty wet spots, dulling the shine on the linoleum under the fluorescent lights. As he tracked the footsteps, he bent the metal clip on the pen as far as it would go then bent it back to its original position. He kept bending the clip back and forth until it snapped, creating a shim. He’d only taken one pen and was relieved to see the clip broke cleanly.

He followed the partial footprints to the exit and opened it. Outside of the building, he slipped the smooth, broken end of the pen clip into the space between the strand of teeth in one handcuff and the ratchet holding it in place. It clicked, and he pulled the strand of teeth out, opening the cuff, which he let fall to the ground. Then he repeated the process for the other handcuff and pocketed his homemade shim.

He shook his hands out and scanned the city. Xander would use every trick he had to evade capture. Xander’s soles left a distinct mark, like a vertical tree bough with twigs branching horizontally. The soles also had deep lugs for traction, useful for steep or slippery surfaces outdoors. Chris followed the footprints, but they went dry. Xander had used busy public places on purpose, so he could hide among the people. He had sound instincts on top of his experience and FSB training, causing Chris to wonder if he’d even be able to take Xander down alone.

Chris assessed the situation. Xander had completed his objective of attacking the Shah Deniz Alpha oil rig, and now his main goal would be to get out of town. He had run away from the sea and into town, only to circle around and head back to the sea.
Why?
It all seemed part of ditching any surveillance, but maybe Xander was meeting someone at the mall, or maybe he had a countersurveillance team standing by to snuff Chris.

Not knowing where else to go, Chris continued forward until he reached Park Bulvar. The mall was six stories tall and its architecture was Eastern, but when Chris stepped inside, its interior design was Western. He quickly surveyed a map of the mall’s layout. There were movie theaters, a supermarket, and restaurants that served Turkish, Russian, and Azeri food, among fast-food places Chris recognized—McDonalds, KFC, and Sbarro. He recognized a Nike shop, too, but didn’t know the other retailers.

He ventured deeper into the building. While the shopping mall was dying out in the US, it seemed to be alive and well in Azerbaijan. He continued through the mall, trying to spot Xander or pick up his tracks again, but he’d lost him.

Chris stepped out of the mall and scanned the area closest to him—nothing. As he searched farther out, he spotted Xander seventy-five meters away, walking through a park. Chris hurried into the park, but Xander didn’t stay put, strolling off the grass and along a pier that jutted out into the Caspian Sea. Tied to the pier was the cruise ship Chris had seen when using Marine Finder to scope out the bay: the
M/S Pyotr Tchaikovsky
.

How did he plan to get aboard? Chris had personally searched Xander, and Xander hadn’t had a boarding ticket. Chris neared the pier, where he could see through the windows of a security booth. Inside, passengers showed their passports and tickets to a security officer, who seemed to be checking them against a passenger manifest on a laptop. A line of passengers proceeded through an x-ray machine before continuing to the gangway where a crew member greeted them for boarding.
No Xander.

Chris looked aft to see if he might have boarded posing as a dockworker or ship’s crew member. Contrasting the orderliness of the passengers, a gaggle of dockworkers loaded the
Tchaikovsky
with luggage and palates of boxed food and beverages. A chef inspected a container of vegetables. Still, there was no Xander in sight. He must have boarded already.

Chris continued forward without a plan to get aboard himself, searching for a weakness to exploit. With each step, his gut twisted. The Azeri Coast Guard had confiscated his ID, so he’d need a passport from someone who looked like him, but most of the passengers were older. Even if Chris’s doppelganger was present, Chris wasn’t as skilled at pickpocketing as Hannah, and lifting both a passport and a ticket from the same person seemed impractical. He could try to gain access as a visitor, but he’d still need his passport.

The controlled access for the dockworkers and ship’s crew was guarded by a darkly tanned security officer who was paying more attention to what was going on inside his area of responsibility than outside. Chris’s best shot at boarding the ship still seemed to be to pose as one of the dockworkers or ship’s crew, so he headed in their direction, ignoring his first obstacle, the tanned security officer. Without slowing his stride, Chris ducked under the yellow security tape meant to restrict access. He needed a cover—fast. His mind spun feverishly: supervisor, galley hand, forklift operator, dockworker… Posing as a supervisor might be a problem if he ran into the actual supervisor he was impersonating. If he attempted to act as a galley hand, the chef would probably recognize him as an imposter. As for the forklift, there was only one, and the operator was running it. A common dockworker seemed the ticket, but the guys loading the luggage wore matching blue overalls, and Chris had none. His gut continued to wind around itself, but he didn’t let it show on his face. Confidence was key.

Without moving his head around like a lost passenger, he covertly searched the area for something he could use as part of his dockworker guise—uniform, hard hat, soft hat—anything. He thought posing as an electrician might be a good cover, but there was no utility belt around, either.
Damn!

After he reached a stack of boxes of vegetables, he picked one up, carried it over to the chef, and placed it on top of the other boxes in front of him. The chef looked like he was about to ask a question, but Chris passed him, maintaining a busy pace. He worried the chef saw through him, but he didn’t dwell on it. He just kept going.

He passed an abandoned suitcase with a clipboard balanced on it. Chris snatched up the clipboard and took it with him. Maintaining his forward momentum, he stepped into the ship’s cargo hold, careful not to get run over by the forklift as it transferred a load of boxed provisions to the ship. His guts unwound a bit now that he was onboard, and he wanted to give a victory shout, but, again, he couldn’t show his emotions.

A wiry worker gazed at Chris’s clipboard, then him.

I hope this isn’t your clipboard.

Wiry said something in Azeri, but Chris didn’t understand. He could continue walking deeper into the ship and risk raising suspicion or stay and try to engage in a conversation that might raise suspicion. He paused and stared at the man.

“Your paper empty,” Wiry said in broken English.

Chris looked down at his clipboard. Wiry was right; the page was blank. Chris answered in Russian with a smile, but Wiry didn’t understand, so Chris said in English, “You’re right, the paper is blank. And that’s the least of my problems.”
Confidence
.
Breathe.
He took a shot of oxygen straight to his lungs and walked past Wiry.

Now he had to switch identities from worker to passenger, and he needed to ditch the clipboard. He climbed one of the ship’s ladders to the main deck and found himself in the reception area. A crowd was lined up at the counter to show their passports and tickets to the ship’s purser, who checked each passenger’s data on his computer before he handed out cabin keys.

“I don’t know who he is,” a large woman said loudly in Russian.

Surprise was etched on the purser’s face.

“He’s not with me,” the large woman said.

“Sir, where is your passport and ticket?” the purser asked.

The woman chuckled. “I’m kidding.” She nodded at the skinny man beside her. “This is my husband.” Then she handed his passport and ticket to the purser.

The purser smiled uneasily. “I almost thought you were giving me more work to do. Part of my job is to catch stowaways.”

The passengers laughed, but Chris showed no expression as he passed the mob of people, avoiding the purser. Traversing the central passageway, he found sick bay and noticed the numbers on the doors of guest cabins that lined the port and starboard sides. Sitting in the passageway was a maid’s cart, and there was a clipboard on top. The maid was inside a cabin with her back to him, making a bed, so Chris slipped his clipboard underneath the maid’s as he walked past. When he reached the end of the passageway, a couple descended the stairs, appearing lost.

The woman spoke in Azeri, gesturing erratically as she glanced between him and her companion.

Chris thought he’d been discovered, and his stomach jumped.

Then she turned to her left and pointed at the sauna, directing her companion’s attention to it.

Chris was relieved not to have been busted, but a voice came over the PA system, causing his gut to tighten up again. Maybe they were announcing that a stowaway was onboard and that passengers should report him.

I’ve got to find where the restrooms are, so I can hide out.

The announcement was repeated in Russian and then English. “All visitors must depart the ship now.”

This was the critical moment when he still had a chance to abort the mission, but he’d come too far to give up now, and he was taking Xander down, dead or alive.

He ascended the stairs to the middle deck, which was similar to the deck below, with numbered guest cabins port and starboard, with one exception at the stern of the ship, where the Tatiana Restaurant was. But it was closed.

The PA system came on again. “All visitors must depart the ship
now
.”

He spotted a restroom and made a mental note of its location so he could hide out there later. Other passengers milled about, and Chris blended in with them, climbing the stairs to the next deck.

Seeing the pool up there put a smile on his face, and he imagined going for a swim. He took a relaxed breath. Near the pool was a bar and another restroom—hideout number two. The cabins on the deck were junior suites, double the size of the other rooms, and toward the bow was a lounge.

Although Chris was getting thicker and thicker into this situation, he had no visual confirmation that Xander was actually aboard the ship. He’d seen Xander go in the ship’s direction, but he didn’t actually see him board, and he still hadn’t spotted him on the ship, either. But Chris’s instincts told him Xander was here. He heard Hannah’s voice in his head, pushing him on:
You’ve got better instincts than any shooter I know.

He climbed the steps to the sun deck, the top deck of the ship. It was deserted. It would be ideal to catch Xander here at night. Because Xander was so slippery, and the situation so dangerous, this kill-or-capture mission had become a kill-or-be-killed mission. Eliminating him here and tossing him overboard seemed the best option. But Chris had to find him first.

The
Tchaikovsky’s
horn sounded, signaling that the ship was getting underway. It pulled farther and farther away from the Azeri pier. Chris looked around, realizing how conspicuous he must’ve appeared standing alone on the sun deck, and he headed below to mingle with other passengers, but most of them were gone. The ship’s library, TV room, and souvenir shop were all vacant. Even the mob of passengers at the reception area had cleared out.

They must all be checking in to their cabins.

As Sonny would say, Chris stood out like a pork chop at a bar mitzvah. His stomach twisted at the thought of Sonny, and with him, Hannah. When Chris escaped the Azeri Coast Guard and went after Xander, he hadn’t noticed whether or not they had escaped, too. Whatever happened to them, he hoped they were okay. But he had to keep his eye on the prize.

With the majority of passengers off in their rooms, it was time to hide out. He descended the steps to the deck below and pulled on the restroom door handle, but the door was locked. When he checked the other restrooms, they were locked, too. Apparently, he wasn’t the first stowaway with the bright idea to hide out in the restroom. His plan on the fly had crashed and burned. He could try to duck out in some inconspicuous place, like somewhere in the engine room, but if he was spotted, he’d suddenly become suspicious. The best place to hide was probably in plain sight.

He made his way to the lounge, where the Azeri couple he’d seen earlier was now seated at the bar. He took one of the low-backed stools next to them, and they seemed to be in their own little world, oblivious to him, and he was fine with that. Chris was a teetotaler, and he thought about ordering vodka for appearance’s sake but figured it would be odd to order a drink and not drink it, so he’d just get a water.

Now, if Chris was going to successfully hide out in plain sight, he was going to have to engage in conversation, but he needed to figure out his cover story before he did anything. As a frogman, he was used to planning on the fly—literally while riding in a plane or helicopter to the target area—and he was used to the fluidity of changing situations, but this stowaway fluidity was worse than diarrhea.