From Russia Without Love (6 page)

_______

X
ander’s servant led Animus through the house to the master bedroom, where the walls were as white as the exterior of the mansion. The swinging windowed doors to his veranda were locked, but the curtains were open, displaying the Aegean Sea as it reflected the sapphire sky.

“I’m checking my bug-out bag to make sure I have everything needed to sustain myself until we reach London and our mission cache there,” Xander said. “The Americans will be looking for us here. The Hellenic Police will be looking for us, too.” He took a look around. “I’m going to miss this house.” He peered out the window. “And the view.” His eyes returned to his bug-out bag. “But in this job, adapting is the key to survival, and adapt we must.”

“Yes, sir.” Animus was going to miss Athens, too. He was born here, and although he thought he’d die in Athens, it now occurred to him he might die in London. Even if he survived, he might very well be the lone survivor. But dying was something Xander never talked about, and Animus didn’t dare to mention it for fear of crossing some unmarked line.

“Is Evelina packed?” Xander asked.

“Almost,” Animus said. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”

Xander stopped what he was doing. “My bag was all packed a minute ago, and I guess it will all still be there no matter how many times I check.” He turned to Animus. “Is there a problem?”

“Evelina doesn’t seem sure she wants to go with us on this mission.”

“Does not seem sure?” Xander said with disbelief in his tone.

“She said she doesn’t feel she has enough training or experience.”

“What do you think?” Xander asked.

“I agree. But I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t tell her anything. I just listened.”

“Do you think she should come with us?”

Animus looked him in the eye. “I think she’s right.”

“I agree,” Xander said. “She
should
stay here.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I think she is no match for the people we are dealing with…” Xander glanced at his watch.

“But…?”

“But she told me something different. She told me she still blames the West for December twenty-first when her mother was killed. It is why we still call ourselves 21D in the first place. Evelina wants revenge. More than ever. She told me she wants to go with us no matter what.”

Animus was puzzled at the contradiction. “Why would she tell me she’s not sure and tell you she’s going no matter what?”

Xander shrugged. “She probably does not want you to know these demands she is placing on me and the mission.”

“She’s afraid I’ll be angry,” Animus said.

“While she is not prepared, I am afraid she will take off like a loose cannon if we leave her here. She will do her own thing and interfere with Phase Two. We will not be able to protect her. It will be better for her, and us, if we go to London together.”

Animus nodded sadly. “I just don’t want anything to happen to her.”

“Nor do I.”

“She’s the love of my life,” Animus said.

“Me, too. But if we let her go off on her own, she will be in more danger and more likely to disrupt our mission.”

Animus swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

“Did you reserve the hotel rooms?”

He cleared his throat. “There is a symposium in London and most of the hotels were booked. The closest to our target was the Sofitel St. James, but there weren’t enough vacancies for our whole team so I also reserved rooms at the Grosvenor House.”

“It is probably better that way. If one hotel is compromised, the whole team won’t be compromised. And we’ll be less suspicious if we’re not all in the same building. Top-notch work.”

Animus smiled.

“I will stay in the Sofitel with some of the men,” Xander went on, “and you and Evelina can stay in the Grosvenor House with the rest of the team.” He looked at his watch again. “It is time.”

_______

C
hris, Hannah, and Sonny arrived at the Naval Support Activity in Crete and turned Michael’s body over to the SEAL Team Six commander of Blue Squadron. The SEALs placed Michael in a body bag and zipped it shut. One moment, he was full of life, and now his body was an empty shell. The part of him that mattered most was gone, like a projectile fired through the barrel of a gun, and there was no bringing it back.

The Blue Squadron SEALs’ faces and shoulders drooped as they loaded Michael onto the plane. They’d gotten all psyched up for a rescue, and they weren’t even given a chance to try. Now there would be no back slaps, high fives, or stories of momentous heroism—only feelings of helplessness and defeat. On top of all that, Michael was dead.

The plane’s hatches closed, and soon the big bird ascended into the clear blue sky. The higher it ascended into the expanse of the heavens, the smaller it became, and Chris felt himself become small with it. Then it was gone.

He wanted his senses to become numb. He wanted to take the emotions welling up inside and shove them in a box and store them with the others in the depths of his psyche, never to see the light of day again. But his emotions were loose. They started coming out of one eye, and soon a tear crept down his face. He was conscious of being in a public place, with Hannah and Sonny standing beside him on the tarmac, and he wiped it away.

Beneath his feet, the tarmac seemed to tilt and spin, like the teacup ride at Disneyland, and nausea overcame him. When Nikkia had died, little Chris had sat in a closet and wept, and now he longed for a closet to hide in.

Breathe
, he tried to remind himself. He inhaled weakly, but he didn’t get much oxygen. It was more like a convulsion, an inward sob.

He sensed Hannah’s eyes on him. He turned to look at her but couldn’t maintain eye contact.

“Chris?” It was her voice. “Your shoulder… It’s all wet.”

Chris peered down at it. Wetness spread across his dark polo shirt like a sweat stain, but when he touched it with his finger, the wetness was thick and sticky. He pulled his finger away and it was red. More than once he’d been on an operation where he and his Teammates were flying home and a guy would suddenly realize he’d been shot. With all the adrenaline and laser focus on the mission, guys sometimes didn’t notice until later. He kept staring at the blood, still not feeling a thing.

Now Sonny was staring, too. “Dude, I thought that was water or some shit. You’ve been shot.”

“We need to get you to a doctor,” she said before flagging down a sailor for help.

“When did you get shot?” Sonny asked.

Chris pressed his hand on the wound, and the pain came, slicing through his flesh as he applied direct pressure. “I… I don’t know. Maybe after we crashed the BMW… I thought I felt a sharp pain, but with my adrenaline banging and everything else going on, I guess I forgot about it.”

With the sailor’s help, Hannah and Sonny got him to the Branch Health Clinic on base. While a Navy flight surgeon took care of Chris, Hannah stepped out of the room to make some calls. The surgeon removed the bullet, cleaned the wound, patched him up, and gave him some meds. He told Chris to avoid strenuous activity, which Chris interpreted as,
Give your shoulder some rest when you can.

When Hannah returned, he was already finished in the clinic, and they walked with Sonny to the parking lot to claim their new vehicle.

“The Agency took our shot-up car, and the Navy is loaning us this for use on base,” Hannah said. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Doc said to rest it when I can,” Chris said, fudging the truth.

They sat in the car with Sonny in the driver’s seat this time. He turned on the engine. “Where to?”

Hannah gestured toward the airfield. “We fly back to Langley for debrief.”

Chris’s brow furrowed. “Back to Langley? Why?”

“The mission is over,” she said.

He shook his head. “Don’t take me out of the box and wind me up just to stick me back in the box again. Please don’t do that to me.”

“What’re you saying?” she asked.

“I’m saying I want to get Xander. Dead or alive.”

“Hell, yeah,” Sonny cheered. “This has just turned into a kill-or-capture mission.”

Hannah gave Sonny a blank stare.

“Well it has, hasn’t it?” Sonny asked. “We’re not going to let that piece of shit get away with this, are we?”

“I can tell Langley we think Xander is trying to interfere with the construction of TAP, and I can request a mission to capture-or-kill him for the kidnapping and murder of Michael Winthrop. But I don’t know what they’ll approve.”

Chris nodded as Hannah took out her phone and made the call.

“We should clean up a little so we don’t stick out,” Sonny said. “Then stop by Xander’s house. He’s probably not dumb enough to return home after what he did, but we might find clues to where he’s hiding out.”

Sonny drove to the Gulfstream jet, where they freshened up. While they were on the plane, Hannah received a phone call. After she ended it, she turned to Chris and Sonny. “That was Langley. They’re going to send up our request.”

Chris and Sonny smiled at the news.

“It’s no guarantee,” Hannah said, “but it’s a start.”

“We better get busy,” Chris said.

“Better to ask forgiveness than permission,” Sonny added. “Let’s go.”

Sonny drove them off base to a local restaurant in Crete for a meal, but Chris didn’t have much of an appetite. The trio sat in a quiet corner of the restaurant, talking in hushed tones.

“We could drive within a couple blocks of Xander’s house and do a quick vehicle recon,” Chris said.

Sonny nodded. “If it looks safe, I say we move in on foot and take a closer peek.” He took a bite of roasted lamb in a pita wrap filled with tomato, onion, and tzatziki.

“If Xander is there, and he’s not heavily guarded, we can bag and drag him,” Chris said.

“And if he’s not there?” Hannah asked.

“We search for clues as to where he might be.”

“And if we encounter Xander’s assistant or others?”

Sonny swallowed a bite of his gyro. “We wrap ’em up.”

Chris nodded, and Hannah pursed her lips. She was warier than they were about going against orders. Or not waiting for them.

They spent the rest of the meal eating in silence, Chris only picking at his food. When they returned to the base, the Navy gave them a ride to the Greek mainland where the Agency loaned them another vehicle. And soon they were parking their new car within a block of Xander’s estate.

Hannah turned to Chris. “You know we’ll blend in better as a couple than as individuals.”

Chris took hold of her hand. It wasn’t hard for him to act like he had romantic feelings for her. He opened the door to all his boxed-up emotions and stepped inside, and his feelings for her were in the crate closest to the door. He didn’t need a crowbar to pry off the lid, either. She turned her face to him. Her eyes were smiling, and he sensed that her feelings for him were close to the door, too.

They strolled through the neighborhood of white stone mansions. The Aegean Sea came into view, and they stopped at a street corner and carefully observed Xander’s place. It seemed dead in comparison to the last time they’d visited. They continued until they reached Xander’s property, where they followed the cobblestone pathway to the front door. Hannah and Sonny readied their pistols, covering Chris while he picked the lock. Once it was disengaged, he opened the door and the three of them slipped inside. Chris drew his pistol then, too.

Beyond the entrance hall, they passed the grand piano and walked across the black marble floor. The spacious main room with the grand fireplace seemed empty without the crowd of people. They searched the house, but Xander’s laptop was gone and there was nothing of significant interest left, not even his staff.

They spent the rest of the day and all night in the mansion, waiting for Xander or one of his staff to return. Chris didn’t think he’d have to resort to pain killers while they waited, but the swelling around his bullet wound pressed against a nerve that ran between his shoulder and the base of his skull, causing him torment all along the nerve. He muttered some f-bombs before surrendering to a pill to relieve the hurt.

Swearing had always been a vice of his, but only once in his lifetime had he used the Lord’s name in vain. It was in elementary school, and guilt had riddled him immediately after. He never did it again. Once he began studying to become a pastor, he’d stopped swearing cold turkey, and when he became an assistant pastor, he’d continued to abstain. However, when he resumed doing black ops part time for the Agency and came under fire, he couldn’t stop the curses from falling out of his mouth. Old habits really did die hard.

Hannah and Sonny let him sleep while they took the first watch. Chris rested on his left side to give his shoulder some relief and fell into a deep sleep…

It was right after the Switchblade Whisper mission, and Chris flew from Dallas to Arlington to pick up Hannah in the dark of the morning. He drove from her house to the National Mall, and they sat down beneath Abe’s feet, on the top step of the Lincoln Memorial. They drank hot cocoa as they watched the sun surge up the horizon, the sky becoming a swirl of orange and grape sherbet, split open by the Washington Monument. The trees cast shadows on the ground, creating a V-shaped border. The long mirror image shone in the reflecting pool, which was smooth until ducks floated by, releasing ripples across the water.

Moisture formed in the white edges of Hannah’s chocolate-brown eyes.

“Is everything okay?” Chris asked.

She sipped her drink, the sun casting a warm radiance across her face. “I’ve been here before, and I’ve seen sunrises, but I’ve never been here at sunrise. It’s too beautiful.”

He’d seen sunrises around the world, and he’d seen Hannah, but he’d never seen Hannah at sunrise.
She
was too beautiful. He wanted to tell her so, but he worried that words would somehow get in the way. When she turned to look at him, he kissed her, and her lips tasted like the sweetest cocoa.

By morning, Xander still hadn’t shown. On the upside, although still feeling discomfort in his shoulder, Chris was in less pain. The medicine and the sleep seemed to have helped.

They returned to their Athens hotel to change and discuss what to do next. When a call came from Young, Hannah put it on the speaker.

“NSA just picked up Xander’s cell phone signal at Athens International Airport,” he said.

“Showtime!” Sonny exclaimed.

They dashed out of their room and to the parking lot. Hannah remained on speakerphone with Young, who was communicating real time with NSA, updating Xander’s location. Once in their car, Sonny drove them to the airport, arriving there in fifteen minutes.

“Can’t tell if Xander is inside the main terminal or outside,” Young said.

They parked and headed in that direction. “We’re nearing a main entrance, now,” Hannah said.

“Xander seems to be left of your position,” Young said. “Possibly outside of the terminal.”

Chris thought Xander would be going to the airport to catch a plane.
Why would he be outside of the terminal?

The three shifted to Xander’s direction, but he wasn’t there. “The only person over there is a smaller guy, dark complexion,” Hannah said.

“He may not be Xander,” Young said, “but maybe he has Xander’s phone.”

“Okay, we’ll check it out. Call you back soon,” she said and then hung up, tucking the phone in her pocket.

The three approached the man.

“Excuse me,” Hannah said when they got close enough for him to hear. But the man waved her off and walked past, heading in the direction of the parking lot.

The SOG three turned around, and Sonny called to the man, “Hey, asshole!”

The man picked up his pace to a trot, and the trio trotted after him. Then he full-out ran. Chris, Hannah, and Sonny ran, too.

The man looked over his shoulder, huffing and puffing. “Why you chase me?” he asked.

“Because you’re running,” Sonny called.

“Stop chasing me!”

“Stop running!”