From Russia Without Love

by Stephen Templin

  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 con
necting 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.

  27

  _______

  A bolt of lightning struck less than a klick away, and Chris was driving directly into the storm. Carefully watching the road in front of his headlights, he drove as swiftly as he dared on the slick dark asphalt, somehow managing to keep himself between the ditches. He had to find Xander, and fast. As Chris rounded a curve, he nearly rear-ended a white truck with its lights turned off.

  Jackpot.

  The road became straight again, and Chris accelerated, moving alongside the other truck, and got visual confirmation it was indeed Xander inside. Chris backed off a bit and used his bumper to tap Xander’s vehicle behind the back wheel. Then he pressed down on the gas pedal and turned the wheel hard into Xander’s truck, causing it to lose traction. Chris steered clear as Xander lost control and skidded off the road into a ditch. Chris was still going fast, so he passed him and circled back. Xander was attempting to drive out of the ditch when he returned, but he’d only managed to entrench his vehicle more.

  Lightning struck, closer this time, flooding the forest with light. Xander leaped from his truck and ran into the woods. Chris pulled over beside the road, disconnected the ignition, jumped out, and gave chase. He ran for all he was worth, and then he ran faster still. A blinding flash of lightning struck, followed by a crack that sounded like a tree splitting open, and something heavy hit the forest floor with a loud thud.

  The lightning will probably kill me before Xander does.

  Branches whipped Chris’s face and the uneven ground made him stumble, but he didn’t let the obstacles slow him down. He ran until his lungs burned and his thighs ached, but Xander picked up his pace, too.

  Chris wanted to avoid tall trees that would serve as a lightning rod and rebound the lightning out of the trunk and hit him. He glanced up, but all the trees were tall, and it would be impossible to avoid them.