From Russia Without Love (20 page)

_______

C
hris searched Xander’s pockets and cleaned out the Azeri cash and a cheap pocketknife—probably taken from the poor passenger he killed on the cruise ship. Chris used the knife to cut some vines to use as rope, then hog-tied Xander.

“You make one wrong move or sound, I’ll kill you,” Chris promised. And it was a promise he intended to keep. He took off Xander’s other shoe and sock, so if Xander miraculously recovered enough to make a run for it, he’d have to run in his burned bare feet. He stuffed the sock in Xander’s mouth as a gag and used the vine to tie it in place. Then Chris dragged him through the woods for several minutes, having to stop for a moment to rest, before he found his vehicle.

Still not functioning at one-hundred-percent strength, Chris strained to hoist Xander into the vehicle. Then he crawled into the driver’s side and started the engine. There would be trouble waiting for him to the south, near the Russian supply port where he and Xander had jumped ship and stolen the vehicles, so he drove to the nearest port and absconded with a boat, tarp, and two containers of fuel. He covered Xander with the tarp and cast off.

After motoring south on the Caspian Sea for a while, he was alone on the water with his prisoner. He uncovered Xander, who remained quiet and motionless. Xander had his eyes open, squinting at the sunlight, but he was still alive. The vines remained tied tightly. Chris undid the gag and let Xander breathe freely.

Chris observed him. “Did you think it would end like this?”

“I was fulfilling destiny,” Xander said, slurring his words, spittle dripping from the corner of his mouth.

“So was I.”

“I am KGB.”

“FSB,” Chris said.

“Whether I am called KGB or FSB, I am still alive and thriving,” Xander said.

“It’s true that you’re alive, but I wouldn’t call your present situation
thriving
.”

“Everything I did, I did for my country. You should understand that.”

“Maybe that was true for you at one time. It was true for me at one time. Immediately after 9-11, everything I did, I did for my country. But after a while, everything I did, I did for my Teammates. My guess is that now everything you do, you do for yourself.”

Xander said nothing.

“Did you ever try to be anything different?” Chris asked.

Xander groaned. “I have. More than once. This is all I know how to do. This is all I want to do.”

Chris shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like you tried very hard, then. And now your days as a spook are over. Your body is so paralyzed you can hardly speak without slurring your words and spitting on yourself. You
are
something different. A prisoner.”

The skin around Xander’s eyes drooped as if under a tremendous burden.

“And now you have no protégé to carry on your legacy,” Chris said.

Xander’s voice shook as he spoke. “You have no idea how hard I searched for him. And you cannot comprehend the investment of time, the laser focus, and Herculean efforts I made to polish him.”

“You speak of Animus as if he was a tool.”

“He was. A very valuable tool… You and I are not so very different. We both devote our lives to creating valuable tools.”

“Don’t confuse your life with mine.”

“As long as I live, I will remember you, and one day I will make you pay.”

Chris thought for a moment. “You’ll have to take a number and stand in line.”

Xander gave an odd stare as if he didn’t understand.

Chris spotted a vessel up ahead in the distance. He turned to Xander.
“Babushki bayu.”
He gagged Xander with his sock again and covered him with the tarp.

Chris kept composed and didn’t try to hide. On the boat was a net and a man who wore what looked like a wetsuit overall. He neared Chris’s vessel, so Chris waved at him and cruised past.

He sailed until the gas tank ran dry, and he used one of the cans to refuel. Then he continued until the sun surrendered to the evening, and he arrived in Baku. There, he broke into a car, locked Xander in the trunk, hot-wired the ignition, and drove to the Agency jet at Heydar Aliyev International Airport. Chris was so exhausted and weakened he feared he might lose consciousness at any moment. He parked the car and stepped out. Hannah and Sonny must have seen him approach the tarmac because they met him on the stairs.

Hannah was the first to join him, and they greeted each other with a hug. Her eyes filled with concern. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m alive,” he said. “Xander is in the trunk.”

Her face lit up like she’d been given a brightly wrapped birthday present.

“You’re shitting me,” Sonny said.

Chris barely had the energy to shrug. “See for yourself.”

Sonny pushed past Chris and Hannah, skipping steps as he raced to the bottom. He reached the vehicle, opened the driver’s side, popped opened the trunk, and hurried to the rear to peek inside. “Hot damn!”

When Hannah took her turn to look inside the trunk, she let out a
whoop
and high-fived Sonny. They wasted no time in dragging Xander out and dumping him on the tarmac. There, they searched him. When they picked him up to his feet, he fell.

“What did you do to him?” Sonny asked. “Looks like you stuck him in a bathtub full of electric eels. Holy shit. Dude can’t even stand up.”

Chris couldn’t see Xander’s face from his perspective, but he imagined Xander with slobber on his chin and a scared look in his eyes. He wanted to help them carry Xander onboard the jet, but he barely had enough strength to carry himself, so he boarded the plane and took a seat.

After Hannah and Sonny brought Xander aboard, Hannah told the pilot to go wheels up and take them to Langley.

While the pilot made preparations for flight, Hannah and Sonny checked out the homemade vine ties Chris had used on Xander and the dirty sock in his mouth. “You totally went primitive,” Sonny said with glee. “I love it.”

But they cuffed Xander to the plane, anyway, and put sensory deprivation headphones, blinders, and a black hood on him. Sonny volunteered to take the first watch over their prisoner.

Hannah returned to Chris and sat beside him. “You look like you’ve been shot out of a cannon.”

“I feel like it,” he admitted.

“Do you need medical attention?”

“Just some rest. Feels good to sit in a cushioned chair.” He paused a moment. “How is Mikhail?”

“He’s out of critical condition, but he’s undergoing surgery again,” Hannah said. “He’s got some tough bark on him, though, so we think he’ll be okay.”

Sonny had a bag of nuts and munched on them like a damn squirrel at a movie theater while he watched Xander. Chris let out a soft chuckle, then met Hannah’s eyes, his expression serious. “Did the Azeri Coast Guard mistreat you?”

“We had a cell to ourselves, and they were professional about it,” she said. “The Agency bailed us out pretty quickly. It was no big deal. But don’t worry about that now. We’ll do the full debrief when we return to Langley.”

He smiled. Being with her lifted his spirits. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I want to hear all about how you captured him, but you look like you could use some rest.”

Chris smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

“I have to make a couple calls,” she said before giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze and leaving him.

Chris savored the catlike grace in her stride as she made her way to the cockpit. He closed his eyes, keeping her in his thoughts. At Harvard, he’d read the writer-philosopher Elbert Hubbard who said,
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you
. Hannah knew more about Chris than he knew about her, but he hoped in time the scales would balance.

The plane’s hull rumbled beneath him and an unseen weight pressed his body back into the seat. He opened his eyes and continued to feel the heaviness against the front of his chest as the jet accelerated and lifted off the runway. Baku’s city lights became smaller and smaller and were eventually extinguished by the clouds. Soon, the weight melted off his body, and the plane reached cruising altitude.

Hannah returned from the cockpit, and Chris fluttered his eyelids open. She reclined his seat back before she sat next to him and reclined hers, and the cabin lights dimmed. He closed his eyes again, and just before he fell asleep he felt the softness of her hand on his.

And in the realm between reality and dreams, he thought he heard Sonny’s voice. “Bubkes.”

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Agency:
Central Intelligence Agency.

AK:
Abbreviated form of AK-47 and its variants.

AK-47:
Contraction of Russian,
Automat Kalashnikova abraztsa 1947 goda
(Kalishnikov’s 1947 automatic rifle). Holds thirty rounds of .308 (7.62 × 39 mm) ammunition.

Azeri:
Shortened word for Azerbaijani people or the Azerbaijani language.

Blowout kit
: Slang for first aid kit.

BUD/S training:
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. Where all prospective SEALs must begin training, located in Coronado, California.

Bug-out bag:
A three-day survival kit kept handy in the event of having to suddenly evacuate, or
bug out
.

Bubkes
:
Yiddish word meaning
nothing
, having no value.

Circus:
Slang for MI6.

Comms
: Communications devices.

Delta Force:
US Army’s Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta. Has used cover name of Combat Applications Group (CAG) and Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), but its men simply refer to it as “the Unit.” Recruits mostly from top-performing Army Rangers and Green Berets. Similar to SEAL Team Six, Delta Force is the Army’s Tier One unit that conducts counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. For the most sensitive operations, they also work under the CIA’s umbrella of Special Operations Group (SOG).

DEVGRU:
Development Group, one of the cover names for SEAL Team Six.

E&E:
Escape and Evasion. For each mission, SEALs make an E&E plan for what to do when they can’t make it to the extraction. They also carry a small kit to help them escape and evade the enemy.

Federal Security Service:
The
F
ederal’naya
S
luzhba
B
ezopasnosti
(FSB), Russia’s version of the CIA. Formerly part of the KGB. FSB headquarters is in the Lubyanka building, northeast of Red Square, in Moscow.

FSB:
See Federal Security Service.

Gulag:
Originally a Russian acronym for
G
lavnoye
U
pravleniye
Lag
ery, literally translated as the “Main Camp Administration,” the government agency in charge of Stalin’s forced labor camps. Although they imprisoned criminals, they also functioned to suppress opposition to Stalin.

KGB:
Russian acronym for
K
omitet
G
osudarstvennoy
B
ezopasnosti, directly translated as Committee for State Security. From 1954 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the KGB served as part of the Soviet Union’s military, acting as secret police within the country and spies abroad. Following the end of the Soviet Union, the KGB was divided into the Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service.

Kit:
Gear.

Klick:
Kilometer.

MI6:
The United Kingdom’s equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency.

MNS:
Ministry of National Security, Azerbaijan’s intelligence agency, similar to America’s CIA.

NOC:
Stands for Non-Official Cover. An illegal resident spy. Rather than work as an official spy with diplomatic cover in an embassy, a NOC works away from embassies and trade missions. If captured, a NOC doesn’t have diplomatic immunity, but he does have more independence and can mingle more easily in the target country in deep cover. Even if the embassy or trade mission in the target country is dissolved, the NOC can remain to continue conducting intelligence operations.

PC:
Precious Cargo, such as a hostage being rescued.

Resident spy:
An intelligence officer who operates in a foreign country for an extended period of time.

RHIB:
Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat. A boat with a solid, V-shaped hull and large inflatable collar at the gunwale, often used by SEALs and other military personnel.

RSO:
Regional Security Officer, who works for the State Department overseas and is in charge of law enforcement at US embassies.

SDR:
Surveillance Detection Route. A tactical route taken to notice surveillance, which can also be used to lose surveillance, making oneself
clean
.

SEAL:
US Navy commandos who operate in the environments of SEa, Air, and Land. The odd-numbered SEAL Teams (One, Three, Five, and Seven) are based in Coronado, California, and the even-numbered Teams (Two, Four, Six, Eight, and Ten) are based at Little Creek, Virginia. (If the Teams expanded, Team Nine would probably be created next.)

SEAL Team Six:
Team Six selects from the best SEALs to serve in its Tier One unit, also known as DEVGRU. Team Six SEALs conduct counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. For the most sensitive operations, they work under the CIA’s umbrella of Special Operations Group (SOG).

Selection:
The course for weeding out who would become a Delta operator and who wouldn’t.

SIGINT:
Signal Intelligence. SIGINT collects electronic signals and can break encryptions and analyze who is sending/receiving signals and the quantities of signaling.

Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki
:
Abbreviated as SVR. Russia’s foreign intelligence service, successor of the KGB after the dissolution of the USSR.

SOG:
Special Operations Group conducts high-threat military and intelligence operations that the US government may deny knowledge of, such as SEAL Team Six’s raid of bin Laden’s headquarters—each Team Six SEAL signed a contract temporarily placing him under SOG’s command. SOG also utilizes Army Delta Force operators and others.

SOP:
Standard Operating Procedure.

Southern Gas Corridor:
A plan by the European Commission for Caspian and Middle Eastern countries (Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and Syria, and possibly Uzbekistan and Iran) to supply Europe with natural gas. The plan includes a network of pipelines, part of which consists of SCP, TANAP, and TAP.

SCP:
South Caucasus Pipeline. The pipeline that carries natural gas from the Caspian Sea, through Azerbaijan, and to Turkey.

Spook:
Slang for CIA officer.

TANAP:
Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline, which would cross Turkey. Construction was estimated to be completed by 2018.

TAP:
Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. A pipeline to carry natural gas from the Turkish border, through Greece, Albania, and the Adriatic Sea, to Italy. The route (with originating pipelines in parentheses) would be from the Shah Deniz gas field in Caspian Sea (SCP)
Azerbaijan
Georgia
Turkey (TANAP)
Greece (TAP)
Albania
Italy.

TECHINT:
Technical Intelligence. The use of technology and gizmos to gather intelligence, as opposed to HUMINT, human intelligence.

UKP:
United Kingdom Petroleum.

The Unit:
See Delta Force.