Divide and Conquer

FOUR

David Battat awoke slowly.

The sea air was chilly and becoming raw. David was lying on his belly, his face turned to the reeds in front of the water. There was cool moisture on his cheeks, condensation from the Caspian.

He tried to move, but his head felt as if it were made of concrete. His throat was raw, and his neck hurt. He touched it gently and winced. The skin was bruised and extremely sore. His camera was gone. The CIA team back in Moscow wouldn’t be able to study the photographs he took to see who else might have been on the boat, or calculate how much weight it was carrying by where the waterline reached. Artillery and missiles weighed a lot more than explosives, currency, or drugs.

Battat tried to push himself off the ground. As he did, he felt as though a spike had been hammered through the back of his neck. He dropped, waited a few seconds, then tried again even more slowly. He managed to get his knees under him, then sat looking out across the dark water.

The Rachel was gone. He’d blown this big time. Like it or not, he’d have to let Moscow know as soon as possible.

Battat’s head throbbed, and he lowered himself back to the ground. He rested on his forearms, placed his forehead on the cool earth, and tried to get a handle on the pain. He also tried to make sense of what had happened.

Why was he still alive? Battat wondered. The Harpooner had never let anyone live. Why him?

Then it occurred to him that maybe he went down before the Harpooner even arrived. Maybe some water-front thug had happened by, saw his camera and backpack, and decided to steal them. Battat couldn’t decide which was worse: letting his target sneak up on him or being mugged. Not that it mattered. They were both bad.

The operative took a long breath, then rose slowly, first to his knees again and then to his feet. He stood unsteadily as his head pounded. He looked around for his backpack. That was gone, too. No flashlight, no chance to look around for footprints or other clues.

He looked at his watch. His wrist was trembling, and he used his free hand to steady it. It would be dawn in less than three hours. Fishermen would be setting out soon, and Battat didn’t want to be seen here. Just in case he wasn’t meant to survive, he didn’t want anyone to know that he had. He walked slowly from the shore, his head drumming. Each swallow was painful, and the collar of his turtleneck chafed his bruised neck.

But the worst pain was none of those.

The worst pain was the knowledge that he’d failed.