The Opening Chase

by Cap Daniels

  “Yes, Anya. It makes perfect sense. It was my duty to flip you, but it was so hard for me to see you as an operative when, as you said, the person in me wanted to be your person.”

  Grace, obviously impatient, put the kibosh on our moment. “Yeah, yeah, okay. You two can write love letters later. We have an op to plan.”

  She was right. There was no time to get sidetracked.

  “Okay,” Grace said, “so, the bounty hunters were here to bring Anya back to Russia. They failed because she’s obviously much better at what she does than they are. The key here is that they knew where to look for her. That’s both good and bad. It’s bad because they—whoever they are—know where to look for Anya. It’s good because if they don’t already know, they will soon know that their men failed and were killed. Everyone here knows more about the Russians than I do, but I think it’s a pretty good bet that they’ll send others who are more capable than Moe and Larry.”

  “Wait!” shouted Anya. “I did not kill Moe and Larry. I do not know who that is. I killed Boris Novikoff and a, uh, novichok, whose name I do not know, but I do not think he was this Moe or Larry.”

  Dr. Richter chuckled.

  Grace said, “I’m sorry. That was an American TV reference, but what the hell is a novichok?”

  Anya wasted no time seizing the opportunity. “Novichok is what you are, Grace, a person with not much experience.”

  “At least I still have all of my toes,” Grace retorted.

  “Focus,” Dr. Richter said.

  I wondered how long the petty nipping at each other would continue. I feared it might become a tactical issue if I didn’t do something to quash it. I’m not afraid of men with guns, but snippy women are an entirely different animal. So, based primarily on my fear, I chose to let it play out and hope for the best.

  “Anya,” Grace said, “you’re the only one of us who knows how soon Moscow will know of Boris’s failure and when we can expect the next pair of bounty hunters, so we have to rely on you for the next decision.”

  I perceived that as an olive branch.

  Was Grace pandering to Anya or actually being sincere?

  Anya looked skyward and seemed to consider the tactical aspects of what would happen next. “Boris, and as you say, Moe and Larry, were very low level. They would make report to superior every day. I killed them at two in morning, so we must assume they would be required to make report within twenty-four hours. That was four days ago, so Barkov knows they are dead. I am not so important to risk more lives to find me right away, but there is one more thing we must consider.” She tapped her finger on her chin. “Hmm. If they believe I have come here to find Chase and help him, that is very different thing. They know I did not kill him when I was required to. They know also his mission was to kill Parchinkov, the man you call Suslik, not Barkov. If they think I am now helping Chase, they will send not bounty hunters next time. They will send ubiytsa . . . and not just for me.”

  By Grace’s reaction, it was obvious she knew the Russian word for assassin.

  Anya continued, “They will send Anatoly Parchinkov—who you call Suslik. They probably already have.”

  “Excellent,” said Dr. Richter. “That’s exactly what we want. Right, Chase?” He raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Precisely, Coach. If we know Suslik is looking for us, we cannot only be prepared, but we can also bait the trap for him.”

  “Is not so easy, Chase,” said Anya. “He is very dangerous and he does not fall into traps.”

  “His brother did,” I said confidently.

  “Yes, but now he knows you are tricky and he will not be so easy as his brother.”

  “Of course, you’re right, Anya. This time will be much more challenging, but this time, I’m not alone. I have the three of you. Here’s what I think we should do. If we anchor out aboard Aegis, say half a mile or so offshore, we can post a watch around the clock and see any threat approaching in time to mount a defense. There will be no way for Suslik to sneak up on us. We can—”

  Anya didn’t let me finish detailing my plan. She looked at me with disappointment. “Do not be naïve. Suslik will shoot each of us from two kilometers away when we show our heads on deck, or he will sink our boat from beneath and kill us as we try to swim away. Putting ourselves in middle of water would be perfect trap and would please Suslik. We must stop him where he does not believe we can. We must think five steps ahead of him because he is thinking at least four steps ahead of us.” She closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and let out a long, heavy sigh.

  Each of us sat silently, digesting what she said.

  Anya obviously sensed that the rest of us didn’t know what to say, so she continued. “So, here is what we know. Anatoly knows where we are. He knows also who we are, mostly. He probably does not know about my father and about her.” She cast her eyes toward Grace.

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Grace. My name is Grace. I don’t like being called her.”

  With that cold emptiness that Russians, especially female Russians, seem to master so early in their lives, Anya said, “I know you want me to believe your name is Grace, but I do not know yet if is your true name. I will know soon, and if is your name, I will call you Grace. We will see, but until then, you are her.”

  “Enough!” I slammed my palm onto the table and sent everything flying to the deck. “Damn it! Enough is enough! We’re all on the same team, and it’s time we start behaving that way. Anya, you and I are here because we have a common enemy and common threat to our lives. Dr. Richter is here because he loves his daughter. Grace is here because she wants to do what’s right and find and kill Suslik. Now there’s no reason to be acting like schoolgirls in a pissing contest. We’re never going to get anywhere like this!”

  Dr. Richter stared at Grace with sincere interest. I was steaming with frustration. Anya sat stoically, completely devoid of emotion, as if she were waiting for me to finish my rant. Grace narrowed her eyes and clenched her teeth.

  Before Grace could explode, Anya said calmly, “You are right, Chase. My father is here because he loves me and also you. You are, to him, son in many ways. You and I are here because Anatoly wants you dead and me captured. About all of that, you are correct, but you may not be so correct in what you believe about her. She is here because she has made you believe she wants same things as us. She is CIA. Is her job to lie, to deceive, and to make her way into situations where she should not be so she can make report back to CIA. She is spy. She can never trust me. I am Russian SVR agent. She will never trust you. You are nayemnik. She will never trust my father because she believes is relic of Cold War. She is here only to spy on you, on us. Why else?”

  Part of me wanted Grace to defend herself. Anya had a point. Grace had made a great effort to mole her way into my operation, and so far, there had been no effort on the part of the CIA to get her back. I was a fool for having not recognized that Grace may have, in fact, been a plant whose mission was to report back to Pennant on my every move.

  Maybe Anya’s right.

  “There is more.” In her native Russian, Anya said, “I think she may be more than a mole for the CIA. I think she might be a traitor, working with Suslik and the man who killed my mother.”

  “I’m no traitor, you communist bitch!” Grace roared as she sprang from her seat and drew her pistol from its holster at the inside of her left thigh.

  Grace leveled her pistol with Anya’s ear and cocked the hammer, but Anya didn’t blink. Instead, she turned, glared directly into Grace’s eyes and hissed in perfect Russian, “I thought you did not understand Russian, traitor.”

  I was blindsided, but Dr. Richter wasn’t. The muzzle of his government model 1911 Colt .45 pistol came to rest firmly against the flesh beneath Grace’s left eye.

  Calmly, Dr. Richter said, “Put your gun on the table in the next half second or I’ll blow most of your head overboard.”

  Grace ignored Dr. Richter and chose to fight. She spun around and struck the back of Dr. R
ichter’s gun hand, knocking the 1911 from his grip. She continued her rotation and made perfect use of her momentum when she wound Dr. Richter’s arm around his own neck, pulled his body against hers, and rested her pistol at his temple.

  Grace’s eyes met mine. “If you pull your gun, he dies,” she said.

  Without drawing my Makarov, I said, “If he dies, I swear to you that you will be dead before he hits the deck.”

  She never heard my threat.

  In a fraction of the second it took Grace to lock eyes with me and make her demand, Anya had sprung from her seat and launched herself through the air toward Grace. Anya’s palm struck Grace just above her lips, driving the cartilage of her nose upward and into her brain. Grace’s head snapped backward, and blood exploded into the air as her agonizing cry echoed across the water. The debilitating blow dissolved Grace’s grasp on Dr. Richter. Dr. Richter and I knew that Anya had killed Grace with the palm strike.

  Anya’s momentum carried her and Grace’s corpse across the gunwale and into the water. I expected Anya to emerge seconds after disappearing below the surface, but she didn’t. After nearly a full minute without her resurfacing, I kicked off my shoes and prepared to search for Anya in the darkening water.

  Before I could leap over the side, Dr. Richter placed his hand on my forearm. “Wait. Just be patient and wait. If she isn’t back in forty-five seconds, I’ll let you go.”

  Patience was never my strong suit, but I tried to heed his words. I grew more anxious with every passing second. Dr. Richter released my arm just as Anya slid across the coaming and back into the cockpit.

  My hands shook as I asked, “Are you all right?”

  Anya coiled her legs beneath her body and wiped the water from her face. “Yes, Chase. I am fine. Are you all right?”

  I nodded, and Anya immediately turned to Dr. Richter. “And you, Father, are you hurt?”

  “No, my child. I’m not hurt. What have you done with Grace?”

  “I put her between the propeller shaft and hull of boat for now until we can find better place. She was going to kill me and probably you too, father. She had to be stopped.”

  I had never seen this side of Anya. She was, for the first time, explaining her actions I’d only seen the Anya who’d always gone about her work with cold, emotionless precision. It appeared as if she were almost apologizing for killing Grace, or at the very least, rationalizing her action.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” said Dr. Richter. “You had no choice. You saved my life, and in the long run, you probably saved Chase’s life as well. That girl was clearly working two sides, and perhaps even three. I was on the verge of questioning her loyalty, but you saw through her façade more quickly than me. Your mother would be very proud of you.”

  The mention of her mother impacted Anya more than Dr. Richter probably expected. She hung her head and fell silent. I looked at Dr. Richter, and he pointed his chin toward Anya, indicating that I should go to her. He’d never steered me wrong before, so I followed his subtle suggestion and reached for Anya. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her cold body, warming and comforting her by rubbing her back.

  “Spasibo, Chase. Spasibo.”

  “You are welcome, my angel. Thank you for saving our lives. Are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

  She held my face in her hands, grinned, then made her way to the cabin.

  Dr. Richter put his hand on my shoulder. “My boy. What a life you lead. You have a soaking wet Russian SVR officer changing clothes in your bedroom, a dead CIA agent stuck beneath your boat, and at least one Russian assassin waiting for you to walk into his crosshairs.”

  I laughed. “I’m living the dream, Coach.”

  “Indeed you are.”

  Anya returned on deck with a look of terror on her face. “The radio says someone has stolen police boat off Key Largo. I do not think that is common. Do you?”

  Dr. Richter and I stared at each other. “Suslik.”

  “Yes, it has to be him,” Anya said.

  My tactical mind roared into overdrive as I began planning and strategizing. “We have to get Grace’s body back aboard. We can make it to Bimini overnight. It’s less than seventy miles, but we have to go now.”

  Anya leapt into the water and reappeared less than thirty seconds later with Grace’s dead body in tow. Dr. Richter started the engine and waited at the wheel. I leaned over the gunwale and tried to haul Grace’s body aboard. Her wet, lifeless body was heavier than I expected. I finally wrestled her aboard as Anya climbed over the rail. Before I could catch my breath, Dr. Richter had Aegis motoring out of the marina through Dispatch Creek. We would soon be in the Gulf Stream, riding the current and southwesterly wind toward Bimini less than seventy miles to the northeast.

  Anya and I hefted Grace’s body into a locker aft of the cockpit. We couldn’t have a dead body lying on deck if the coast guard stopped by for a visit. I wondered what I would do if we were approached by a marine patrol. Aegis couldn’t outrun her own shadow, let alone an overpowered pursuit boat like most of the law enforcement vessels in the area. I also had to devise a plan to deal with Suslik if he approached us while we were underway.

  Anya and I returned on deck after drying off and changing clothes. Dr. Richter had us well on our way to Bimini with sails aloft and Aegis clipping along at just over eleven knots in the roaring Gulf Stream.

  When the wind is from the north, the waters of the Straits of Florida are deadly, but with the southwesterly wind, the Gulf Stream had suddenly become our friend.

  “Nice job, Coach,” I said as I took his place at the helm. “It’s almost as if you’ve done this before.”

  Over the rush of wind and waves, he said, “As a matter of fact, this isn’t the first time a female Russian agent and I have run from Russian assassins and American agents. Some things never change.”

  Dr. Richter winked at Anya then turned back toward the uncertain horizon.

  37

  Confessions

  “How deep is water here?” asked Anya.

  “Only a few hundred feet, but it’ll be half a mile deep in another twenty or thirty miles. Why do you ask?”

  She motioned toward the locker containing Grace’s body. “We must do something with her. We cannot explain dead American in box on our boat. I think is best to sink her to bottom in very deep water and forget her.”

  There was the SVR agent I knew. I’d been waiting for her to show up.

  “As much as I don’t like the thought of sinking the body of a dead CIA agent, I can’t think of a better option at the moment,” I said.

  Dr. Richter looked at the locker. “I don’t think we have many choices at this point. I’ll take care of the dirty work while the two of you start planning what we’re going to do when we find Suslik, or more likely, when he finds us.”

  I set the chart plotter to alarm when the depth reached two hundred fathoms. I wasn’t certain that my sonar was capable of reading twelve hundred feet, but if not, I thought it would probably alarm when it reached its limit.

  I found Anya at the chart table with her head in her hands, and I brushed her hair back across her shoulders. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I do not make mistakes. I know every way to kill a person, and I know how to strike without killing, but I did not . . . uh, sderzhivat’ . . . I do not know the English word. YA ne smog vazderzhatsa, kogda nado bylo.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We all go further than we should sometimes . . . all of us. You’re no different.”

  “Yes, I am different! I am better. I should have knocked her out, but I should have not killed her. I did not think. I only reacted to protect you and my father. I do not like emotion commanding me. I am better than that.”

  I knelt at her feet and placed my hands on her arms, squeezing them gently. “Anya, if you hadn’t acted, at least one of us would’ve died before Grace could’ve been stopped. I’ve never seen anyone move as quickly as you did. What you did back there was the best possible reacti
on. Grace was going to shoot. Your father believes she was working with Suslik. He also agrees that she may have been working with DDO Pennant to keep an eye on us—and especially on me. I should’ve been smart enough to see that, but I was naïve and believed that she sincerely wanted to help find and kill Suslik. She wasn’t one of the good guys, Anya. She wasn’t on our side. We’re on our own, and we can’t trust anyone who isn’t on this boat right now. Despite being alone, we still have to finish what we’ve started. We have no other choice. We have to find and kill Suslik before he finds and kills us.”

  Anya covered her face with her hands then pressed her fingers into her temples. “Okay. I know some things that I have not told you. You should sit for this. You must listen carefully.”

  I obeyed, as the moment I’d been waiting for had finally arrived. When she lived her life on both sides of the Iron Curtain, her loyalties remained firmly on the cold side, but all of that changed when she abandoned her home to be with me.

  Learning that Dr. Richter was her father only served to solidify her newfound alliance. Sooner or later she’d come clean about everything I needed to know to catch and kill Suslik. She was about to spill her guts, and I hoped I had the courage and intellect to keep up.

  “Chase, there were things I could not tell you before now. I need for you to know I did not like keeping information from you, but I did not have choice. Please tell me you understand at least little bit.” Anya tried with great effort to look into my eyes.

  I knew she needed me to understand. I took her hands in mine. “Anya, I understand more than you can know. Of course you had to keep things from me, but that’s no longer necessary. You can tell me anything. Nothing you can tell me will change how I feel about you.”

  She pulled her hands away from me, obviously needing physical and psychological separation while she said what was on her mind. “This is not easy for me, and will not be everything, but is start. I will tell you what you need to know now, and I will always in future tell you everything.”