From Russia Without Love

by Stephen Templin

  “Mikhail, wake up. Wake up and talk to me.” Chris wrapped in the opposite direction, tightening the bandage. Completing the wrap, he used the clip on the closure bar to secure it.

  He flicked a glance at his watch. The ship was only about a minute away from impacting the oil rig.

  Chris felt Mikhail’s neck for a pulse—nothing.

  “Mikhail is dead,” Chris said, deflating like a punctured tire.

  Hannah pounded her fist on the dash.

  Sonny kicked the bench hard, making a loud crack before he dropped an f-bomb.

  Chris had lost Teammates and mourned them, but he’d packed those feelings away in the tidy crates in his mind. Now those feelings of loss came tumbling out—loneliness, darkness, and a need to withdraw from the world. The guilt of botching the hostage rescue in Athens returned. Ironically the hostage’s name was Michael, too. Different spelling, same ending.

  Why? Chris turned his face to the sky. Have I fallen out of favor with Thee?

  It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, he thought for a moment. Of course, he was unable to attend worship services. He’d brought his pocket-sized Bible with him, but it had stayed on the plane, and since leaving Dallas, he hadn’t cracked it open once. He didn’t pray as often as he did when he first became a pastor, not since returning to the world of black ops. This mission had worn on him, and he was too tired to read scriptures or pray—too tired in his body, mind, and spirit. Now Chris’s bag of tricks was empty, and he’d committed the frogman’s sin: allowing discouragement to creep in.

  Crunch! The Binagadi plowed into the oil rig, taking out a section of it. The rest of the platform groaned and twisted before fire and smoke bellowed out. Alarms went off on the rig, and someone spoke over a PA system. Chris didn’t have to understand Azeri to understand the gist of the speaker’s words. Soon a handful of the rig’s crew appeared, still strapping on their lifejackets, and launched lifeboats. Others donned firefighting gear and oxygen masks, but they seemed confused as to whether they should fight the fire or evacuate the rig.

  The burning platform leaned into the sea. Another voice came over the PA system, and the firefighters disappeared back into the structure where they’d come from. More men wearing lifejackets emerged and headed to the lifeboats.

  Chris tore his gaze from the horror, shifting to the ship. It had erupted in flames, too. It wasn’t clear if the fire had originated from the ship or if it had spread from the oil rig, but there was no sign of Xander.

  “Drown, Xander, drown,” Chris muttered.

  “I hope he shows, just so I have the satisfaction of plugging him,” Sonny said.

  “Kill or capture,” Hannah reminded him. She stopped the go-fast and let it idle.

  A stream of crewmembers evacuated the sinking oil platform, and Chris said a silent prayer the crew would make it out alive. He still hoped Xander would die, but he didn’t pray it.

  Hannah eased the throttle forward and motored around the ship.

  Chris spotted someone in the water. “Xander!”

  “We have to get to him before he reaches one of the lifeboats,” Sonny said.

  Hannah moved the boat in closer, and Chris and Sonny both aimed their weapons at him.

  “Xander, surrender now, or we shoot you!” Chris said.

  Sonny fired, but it missed. Chris didn’t know if the miss was intentional or not, but Xander stopped, treaded water with his legs, and raised his hands in the air. He lowered his hands to help him tread water, then raised them again. He appeared compliant.

  Some crew members evacuating the rig in lifeboats stared, but Chris and his team carried on with their capture. Hannah pulled up next to Xander, and Chris heaved him out of the water. All the while, Sonny pointed his muzzle at him.

  “I hope you do something stupid,” Sonny said.

  “Bag and drag him, boys,” Hannah said.

  25

  _______

  After 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.

  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.