From Russia Without Love

26

Chris 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.

“What would you like to drink?” a bartender in a black-and-white crew uniform said in Russian with a smile. He had a laid-back way about him that helped Chris unclench.

Without thinking, Chris answered in Russian, “I’ll just have a water, please.”

“Drinks are free,” he said. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Chris said.

As the bartender turned to get his drink, Chris scoped out the area. The bar was unremarkable with shelves of bottles of various shapes and sizes filled with liquor, standing against a mirrored wall. A Coca-Cola refrigerator unit sat off to the side — a sign that capitalism hadn’t totally died in Russia — and the stainless steel counter was clean and shiny. He swiveled in his seat to scope out the rest of the lounge. Quartets of plush burgundy chairs surrounded small drink tables scattered throughout. Except for the bartender and the couple at the bar, there were no customers in the lounge, making it appear large and open. The air smelled clean, and one side of the space was mostly windows. Sunlight provided most of the light in the lounge, and outside the Caspian Sea sparkled.

An unpardonably pretty young lady appeared in the doorway to the lounge. Her hair was carnelian in color, red as she passed through the sunlight and brown when she walked away from the sunlight and sat down on the shady seat next to Chris.

The bartender placed Chris’s water on the counter, and Chris thanked him. When the bartender asked the woman what she wanted to drink, she looked at Chris’s water and said in Russian, “I’ll have a vodka, too. No, make that a Bubble Gum Vodka.”

“Certainly,” the bartender said.

The woman looked at Chris and said, “I love this river cruise.”

“This is my first time,” Chris said.

The bartender brought the lady her vodka, and she took a sip. “Oh, you’ll love it, too, especially Saint Petersburg. It’s lovely this time of year.”

“Looking forward to it.” Actually, Chris didn’t look forward to it, and he hoped he finished his mission before the ship got that far. The deeper he traveled into Russia, the more difficult it would be to escape.

“I work at a bank here in Baku,” she said.

Chris smiled. “That sounds like a good job.”

“Do you live in Baku?” she asked.

Damn. He hadn’t thought of a place of residence yet. “Canada.” He’d used the cover before, and there was no time like the present to resurrect it.

“Your Russian is good for a Canadian,” she said.

He’d hardly spoken enough for her to know whether his Russian was good or bad — she was just being friendly. “My parents were diplomats, and we lived in Moscow for a while,” he said. It was true, but his parents worked for the US State Department, not Canada’s.

“My name is Kisa.” In Russian, her name translated to pussycat, and he had to force himself not to react.

He smiled politely. “Chris.”

“I like that name,” she said.

Chris’s throat became warm and dry, and he took a drink. “Kisa is a pretty name.”

The ship’s purser entered the lounge then, and Chris’s stomach sank. But despite feeling he was about to be busted, he acted as if everything was normal.

The purser came to the bar and spoke in Azeri. Not understanding what he said made Chris more nervous. Whatever the words were, it caused the Azeri couple to look surprised. The purser eyed Chris.

“I’m sorry?” Chris said in Russian.

The purser spoke Russian back to him. “One of the passengers reported seeing someone sneak onboard.”

“How?” Chris asked.

The purser’s face was serious. “The passenger said the stowaway came in where the dockworkers were loading supplies on the ship.”

Me. Now I can make a run for it and dive off the ship, but will I be able to swim to shore before the Azeri Coast Guard picks me up again? Boy, will they be pissed.

“What does this stowaway look like?” Chris asked.

“Tall and fit,” the purser said.

Chris forced a grin. “Sounds like me.”

The purser stared at Chris for a moment. “No, this man was older and had a gray beard.”

Xander. He is here.

The purser leaned forward. “He should hope he gets caught before we reach Russian waters. Russia doesn’t tolerate stowaways.”

“How soon before we reach Russia?” Chris inquired.

“Tonight we’ll sail off the coast of Russia, and tomorrow evening we’ll pull into our first Russian port. At Olya on the Volga River,” the purser said. “One of the oldest fishing villages in that region.”

The deeper they penetrated Russia, the bigger the chance Chris would be busted, and he wondered what life in a gulag would be like, if he survived to that point. “We’ll let you know if we see him,” Chris said.

“Bet you didn’t know this cruise would be such an adventure,” the purser said.

Chris gave the man a wink. “Not a dull moment yet.”

“Sorry to have bothered you. Enjoy your cruise,” the purser said before departing the lounge.

So Xander is here, but where? He obviously wasn’t using the hiding-in-plain-sight tactic.

“So what kind of work do you do?” Kisa asked, interrupting his train of thought.

Chris couldn’t think of a suitable answer other than the cover story his team had come up with when renting the office in London. “I work for Outdoor Mountain Clothing. We’re looking at expanding operations into Eastern Europe.”

She took another sip of her drink. “So you’re here on business.”

Chris nodded. He chatted with her for a little while longer before excusing himself to take a look around the ship.

While he searched the ship bow to stern for Xander, he kept an eye out for a place to spend the night. As he passed through the ship, he stopped by the reception desk and picked up a copy of the cruise itinerary and map. He figured either Xander was hiding in one of the restricted crew areas or he’d somehow acquired a room. As for a place for Chris to stay the night, the TV room seemed like a good option. Falling asleep watching the tube might appear natural, but if Xander found him before he found Xander, he wouldn’t have much space to maneuver and defend himself in the small TV room. Xander could effectively trap him inside.

Another option for Chris would be to fake like he was drunk and pass out in the lounge, which seemed like his best option, but as a teetotaler, he wasn’t confident he could pull off the drunk act.

At dinnertime, Chris journeyed to the dining room to search for Xander and get some food, but the seats were assigned to passengers by cabin, and Chris’s belly was shit out of luck. He read the names on the cards at the tables with no-shows, particularly the men. Maybe Xander whacked some poor dude and took his cabin. Chris wished he had a golf pencil and some paper in his pocket, so he could covertly write the names down.

Kisa arrived and spotted him before he could slip out of the dining room. She waved him down.

“Where are you sitting?” she asked excitedly.

“I’m not really hungry,” he said. “I’m going back to the lounge to have a drink.”

She smiled. “Drinking without eating, you must be part Russian. But you should really eat.”

“I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll grab a snack later.” He talked to her for a little bit more before excusing himself.

He returned to the lounge, and he was happily surprised to find others there, too. If he was going to do his passed-out-drunk act, he better get started, so he ordered a vodka and chose an area to sit with a view of the lounge and easy access to the exit. He sat down on a chair next to a table partly covered with empty glasses, hoping passengers would think the glasses were his. On the other side of the table was a tipsy man who spoke to Chris, and during the course of their conversation, Chris gave the man his vodka. The man asked where Chris’s cabin was and he tried to avoid answering, but the man insisted, so he gave a random number and told him dinner was being served in the dining area. The man thanked him before standing and making a slightly unsteady walk through the exit, leaving Chris with all the empty drinking glasses next to him.

“Thank you,” Chris said, but the man was already gone.

He’d been hanging out in the lounge for about an hour when Kisa arrived and sat down next to him. She had a new glow about her as if she’d freshened up. She was attractive, enjoyable to be with, and her companionship helped him blend in with the other passengers, but she might figure out he was a stowaway. It also occurred to Chris that she might work for Russia’s FSB, hunting for a prospective spouse, so she could obtain citizenship in a country like Great Britain or the USA — or Canada.

She seemed to notice the mass of drinking glasses beside him, and her eyes grew wide.

Chris shrugged.

She glanced at the ship’s itinerary in his hands. “Anything interesting?”

He needed to check the restricted areas for where Xander might be hiding. “I was just looking at the schedule and thinking that after dinner I’d like to go on the ship’s tour.”

“I was thinking about doing that, too,” she said.

“Great.”

“After that there’s a movie playing later tonight in the conference room up on the sun deck,” she said. “Brat.”

Chris knew Brat was Russian for brother, but he hadn’t seen the movie. “What’s it about?”

“It takes place right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and a young soldier loses his job in the Army so he travels to Saint Petersburg and joins the mafia. The movie received an award nomination at the Cannes Film Festival.”

Chris smiled. “I’d like to see that.” He really did want to see it.

“Would you like to go to my room for a drink?” she asked.

Maybe she was just inviting him to her room for a drink, or maybe this was a booty call, but Chris was a pastor and single pastors didn’t do booty calls. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Maybe later,” she said.

Chris smiled kindly without committing, but he still didn’t really have a place to sleep without sticking out as a stowaway. Maybe I can sleep on the deck in Kisa’s cabin.

They hung out in the lounge some more before going for a walk around the ship. Still no Xander, but they came upon a small buffet with leftovers from dinner. Chris filled a plate with beef stroganoff and a bublik, a Russian bagel with a large hole in it. “Are you hungry?” he asked Kisa.

“I had enough at dinner, thanks.” Instead, she took one of the teacups sitting next to an ornate silver-and-enamel Russian samovar shaped like an urn. From the top of the samovar, she lifted a teapot and poured a small amount of concentrated tea—zavarka being the most common — heated from the steaming water at the bottom of the samovar, into her cup. Then she used the spigot at the bottom of the samovar to pour in hot water, diluting the tea to her taste. She sat down with Chris at a small table.

Sautéed beef in a sauce of Smetana, a heavy sour cream, assaulted Chris’s taste buds. He tried not to make a pig of himself as he filled his empty stomach, but afterward, his body felt tired and his mind slow. He needed to rest, if only for a moment. He wished Xander was already captured and he was on a cruise with Hannah, but wishing didn’t make it so.

In spite of Chris’s fatigue, he and Kisa met with the other passengers in the reception area and the tour began. Their guide showed them the bridge, engine room, and other parts of the ship, and Chris closely inspected each area for Xander, but there was no sign of him.

As the tour ended, Chris spotted him. He was walking out of the cabin nearest the sauna and going up the stairs. It jolted Chris to such an extent it felt like his heart had stopped.

The bright sunshine had retreated, and dark clouds rolled in, rumbling with thunder. “Looks like a storm is coming,” Kisa said.

“Could I meet up with you later at the movie?” Chris asked.

“Huh?” she said.

Xander was getting away, and Chris tried to appear nonplussed as he walked in the direction of Xander’s cabin. “Could I meet you later?”

“Is something wrong?”

Everything was wrong, and it was about to get worse. “Everything is fine.” He tried to smile but couldn’t.

“Your eyes, they look different, like something is wrong.”

He wanted to break into a sprint, but there were others in the passageway and he didn’t want to draw their attention.

Kisa looked at the deck as they walked. “Mama says I try too hard sometimes.”

Oh hell. He felt sorry for her, but he didn’t have time for confessionals, and if that’s what Kisa was doing, he wished she’d hurry up.

She said, “If you don’t want me around, I understand.”

He stopped in front of Xander’s cabin. If he could get inside, he could wait there to ambush him. “I’ll catch up to you in a little bit.”

She smiled awkwardly, as if she wanted to believe him but couldn’t. “Okay. I’ll see you at the movie.”

Chris attempted to smile again, but he didn’t believe in it, and he knew she could see through him. Even so, he said, “See you there.”

There was less bounce in her gait as she left him, disappearing up the stairs.

He frowned, guilt creeping in at hurting her, but Xander could return at any moment. He glanced down the hall. No one was looking in his direction, so he tried the doorknob but it was locked. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the clip he’d broken off the pen he took in Azerbaijan. He inserted the shim into the lock and attempted to pick it, but his tool was too simple and the lock too complex. He cursed himself for wasting time on what he should’ve known was futile.

He checked the hall again. There was a group of people there, but they were focused on talking to one another. Chris kicked the door, hard, near the doorknob, popping the door wide open. The group in the hall turned to see what the noise was as Chris slipped inside, closed the door, and locked it. He gave a tug to make sure the door would stay locked, but it opened freely. Upon examining it, the lock strike in the frame was knocked crooked, as was the lock set in the door. He straightened them before closing the door and trying to lock it again. This time, the lock held.

He took a brief examination of the compartment, and in the bathtub he found a man’s body, dried streams of blood exiting his nose and ears. Chris felt for a pulse. Dead.

Chris shook his head, and it struck him that the average person would feel horror at such a sight, but his eyes had been forced to see so much worse, each time tearing another piece from the fabric of his spirit. Such experiences were what helped motivate him to get out of the military in the first place, before his spirit was stripped completely. The adrenaline and the brotherhood could no longer bind him to the job — until Hannah had pulled him back in. Now his venom for evil men was full again. He had a mission to finish, and there was no turning back.

He figured he could wait in the bathroom until Xander entered the cabin. Once he was inside, Chris could knock him unconscious and tie him up, but there was no rope in the room. Chris opened a dresser drawer and found the dead man’s T-shirts. Those would work. Expecting each room to have lifejackets for its passengers, Chris was able to locate two in the compartment. He could use them for both Xander and himself. At night, when they neared a port, he could jump ship with his prisoner and swim them to the nearest boat and sail back to Azerbaijan. But it was risky. The water would be cold, and they wouldn’t be able to survive for too terribly long.

As he waited in the bathroom, he took another look at the dead man’s body. Xander probably viewed it with the same cold detachment as Chris did. Maybe Xander was right, Chris’s ability to think like him was what had allowed Chris to find him.

If I were him, what would be my next move?

Xander would need to debrief. Then he’d jock up to do the next mission. For Chris, the debrief would be in Langley; for Xander, the debrief would be in Moscow.

How would I get to Moscow?

Xander could simply take the ship to Moscow and turn himself over to the local authorities there and wait until his superiors bailed him out, but Xander had been under deep cover for so long and he seemed proud of his abilities as a NOC.

I wouldn’t turn myself over to the local yokels. I am a professional.

The PA system came on, and a voice announced the ship was nearing a port, where the Tchaikovsky would stop and take on supplies. The supply-port officials would probably have less manpower, training, and equipment to hunt for an illegal immigrant than big-city Moscow officials. By the time the search intensified, Xander would have already hot-wired a car and been on his way north. Then he’d ditch his stolen car in the next town and make sure he was “clean” of surveillance before making the rest of the journey to Moscow.

That’s it. He’ll jump ship here!

Chris rushed out of the room and up the stairs. He knew there was no convenient place to jump from on the middle deck, so he ascended past it to the next deck. There, he left the stairs, ran aft of the lounge, and dodged the other passengers. An imposing shirtless guy walked in the middle of the passageway, oblivious to others around him. As Chris ran by, he clipped the guy’s shoulder, causing him to shout angrily. Chris eventually reached the pool. It was deserted.

Blackness blanketed the moon and stars, and rain diffused the illumination of the artificial land lights, which stretched long reflected limbs across the water. The sound of the ship’s diesel engines churning, the rain pouring down, and the sky rumbling made it impossible to hear whether someone was swimming or not. The Caspian Sea extended like Tyrian ink from a bottle, and twenty-five meters away from the ship, Chris could barely make out what appeared to be splashes characteristic of a swimmer. The identity of the person wasn’t clear, but the swimmer stroked toward shore, unlike someone who might’ve fallen off the ship and wanted to be rescued. The swimmer only had a hundred more meters to swim before reaching the bank, not a difficult swim.

If it’s Xander, he’s getting away.

Chris climbed over the rail and prepared to jump.

If that isn’t Xander, I’m screwed.

The noise of hitting the water seemed so incredibly loud. It was always like that when hunting bad guys: Chris’s own noise was amplified in his mind, and adrenaline heightened his senses. Before becoming a frogman, he wasn’t as comfortable in the water, but through training and experience, it became instinct, allowing him to focus on the mission and nothing else: get Xander.

The cold water attacked Chris’s senses, but he knew if he swam fast, his body would warm up. While the swimmer stroked freestyle, splashing toward land, Chris swam a combat sidestroke, making no splashes. The petrol in the water fumed so deep and thick in the back of his nostrils he almost choked on it — but if he held his face above water, his hips would sink as if he were swimming uphill, so he stuck his face in it and maintained his horizontal balance. Chris stretched his body out to increase his length, make longer strokes, and swim faster, and he cranked his hips and utilized his core muscles to rotate his body in the water, boosting his engine. He was gaining on the swimmer.

A ship’s horn sounded, startling him, and an announcement came over the PA. “Man overboard!” It came from the cruise ship. “Man overboard!”

Before Chris could close the distance between him and the swimmer, the swimmer reached shore and climbed out of the water, silhouetting himself against the smattering of blurred lights behind him. It was Xander. Chris imagined being the water and avoided thinking directly about Xander, so as to not trigger any sixth sense in him. Then the man disappeared over the seawall.

Chris reached the shore and slinked over the seawall, as well, and into the mud on the other side, but Xander was already gone. Lying in the muck, Chris observed his surroundings. No one moved on him, so he assumed he hadn’t been spotted. He rose to a crouch and stalked through a parking lot looking for his target.

The sound of glass shattering cracked through the night air. Maybe someone was shooting at him through a window, but Chris wasn’t hit and there was no sonic snap of a round passing near him. The noise came from the parking lot ahead, and Chris noticed a small fleet of white trucks. An engine started up, and Chris hurried in the direction of the engine’s sound, but he was too late. The truck was driving away.

Chris rushed to the row of white vehicles, where Caspian Shipping was written on the sides and backs of the trucks. He took the shim out of his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole of the driver’s door but he couldn’t unlock it. So, taking a cue from Xander, he searched for something solid to break the window with. As he was searching, he noticed a compass on a dash inside another white truck and decided he wanted that truck instead, so when he found a massive rock on the ground, he used it to bust through the passenger’s-side window. Then he unlocked the door, climbed in over the glass, and sat in the driver’s seat. He tried the shim again, this time in the ignition, but he couldn’t start the vehicle. He wielded the rock like a caveman and busted the ignition cover. After hot-wiring the vehicle, he sped off to find Xander.

As Chris gained ground, the rain flowed through the broken passenger window, and he turned on the windshield wipers. He wished he had a GPS to help him locate a main road leading to Moscow. Although he could read Russian, there were no signs indicating the direction of a major street. He followed what seemed to be a main road leading north, but it terminated in a dead end and he had to backtrack. He followed the street until it veered west, away from the Caspian Sea. Then he turned onto another road leading north. As the windshield wipers beat a monotonous rhythm, he felt contained in a maze of little roads as he tried to navigate his way through a small village.

When he came to a body of water, he had no idea where he was. His compass indicated he was traveling north, but with the moon and stars being obscured by the rainclouds as they were, he couldn’t use celestial navigation to confirm its accuracy. All he knew was that he was getting deeper into Russia. If his luck didn’t change soon, he might have to abort the mission. He prayed he’d know where to go, but he didn’t feel like he received an answer. He felt like he was on his own.

Just because he felt disoriented in a strange land didn’t automatically mean the compass was wrong, so he decided to trust it some more and started driving west. The body of water ended as Chris continued to follow the road, but he ran into another dead end, so he had to turn and resume his northerly trek. In spite of the confusing array of streets and waterways, he finally ran into Route E119, which he hoped would go all the way to Moscow.

Although it was possible Xander had stayed put, he’d stolen a vehicle, and it was more likely that he was headed to Moscow. Xander knew customs officials and local law enforcement would be looking for the “man overboard,” so he was probably headed north for the first big town, where he could ditch his stolen vehicle and find his connecting transportation to Moscow. Chris was lagging and had lost more time navigating his way through the small village, so now he had to play catch up. He pressed harder on the gas pedal, pushing the truck faster.