The Opening Chase

by Cap Daniels

  She wasted no time initiating the conversation. “You said you saw me shoot. I do not believe you.”

  Although that wasn’t technically a question, she left it hanging as if she wanted a response, but I don’t think she was prepared for what I was about to reveal.

  “Yes,” I said, confidently. “I watched you shoot a horse at Belmont Park in New York.” I returned her stare and didn’t blink.

  She recoiled slightly and looked away. “I did not shoot horse. I only flashed laser in horse’s eye so proper horse could win race.”

  “Is that so?”

  Again, she didn’t answer, but the realization that I’d actually seen her at Belmont must’ve overtaken her. “How did you see that? Why were you there? How do you know was me?”

  For the first time, I sensed that she was at least slightly shaken.

  “I was hired to protect the horse you shot,” I said. I realized that I’d instantly given up the slight advantage I had.

  Her smile returned with renewed enthusiasm. “That was first time I beat you.”

  I poked her arm with the tip of my finger. “You’ve never beaten me at anything.”

  She laughed. “I shot horse you were protecting. That is one. I tied you and cut tongue. That is two. I tied arms and could have drowned you. That is three. I think I beat you always.”

  She had three very good points, but I had shot her toe off. That had to count for something, but playing that trump card didn’t seem like a good idea at the time.

  When she finally regained her composure after laughing, she asked, “So, if not to kill Dmitri Barkov, why were you in Cuba?”

  It didn’t take her long to get back to the question of who sent me to kill Barkov. I remembered her surprised reaction when I’d said I wasn’t there for Barkov. I didn’t think she was easily surprised, but it was clear she had no idea what my real mission was in Cuba.

  I gave it a long moment’s thought. I could tell her the truth or refuse to tell her anything. I’d promised I wouldn’t lie, so that was out of the question. Before I could come to a conclusion, she grabbed my leg with both hands. “Tell me, Chase, why were you in Cuba?”

  “Give me a minute. I have to decide if I can tell you.”

  “You can. You must. Why were you there, and who sent you?”

  I took her face in my hands. “Okay. I’m going to tell you, but you aren’t going to be satisfied with my answer. I wasn’t there for Barkov. He just got in my way. I was there to kill Suslik.”

  She jolted upright in the seat. “What? You were there to kill Suslik, the gopher? If this is truth, you failed. You shot Dmitri Barkov in shoulder and scared hell out of two whores for nothing. This does not make sense.”

  “I didn’t fail,” I said. “I pulled him from Barkov’s boat with a piece of 550 cord around his neck and chopped him into fish food with the propeller of my outboard motor. I watched him die, Anya.”

  She looked at me, then at the deck, as if she were trying to process the information. It was clear that nothing about what I was saying made any sense to her. I almost felt sorry for her, but she jolted back into the conversation as quickly as she’d looked away. “I am confused. You were there to kill Suslik?”

  “Yes.”

  “And to not kill Dmitri Barkov?”

  “No.”

  “And you think Suslik was on boat with Barkov?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who sent you?”

  I sighed. “This is the part you aren’t going to like. I don’t know who sent me. I never know who sends me anywhere to do anything. I get a message and instructions to go someplace and do something. If I do it, I get paid.”

  “You get paid?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I get paid. Don’t you get paid?”

  She shook her head, “No. No, I do not get paid. Well, yes, I get paid, but I do what is my duty and I am paid a . . . uh . . . a zarplata. I do not know word in English.”

  “Salary?” I asked. “Now I’m the one who’s confused. They pay you a salary to kill people and blind horses. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Is my job. Just like your job is CIA, I am SVR.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A Russian SVR agent had just revealed herself right in front of me. That simply does not happen. Russian SVR officers don’t reveal themselves to anyone, ever. I was more certain than ever she was going to kill me. There’s no way she would’ve exposed herself to that degree and let me live. She had made at least one critical error, though. I was not CIA.

  “You are CIA, yes?” she asked blatantly.

  She was guessing, just like I’d guessed her name.

  “No, Anya. I’m not CIA. I’m a contractor. The American CIA can’t do what I do. We have laws . . . .”

  “Yes, America’s silly laws. Those are for people with small mind. Do not play games with me, Chase. We are not children. You promised you would not lie to me.”

  I liked how she almost never spoke in contractions. I found myself dissecting her intellect and personality and finding so many things about her to be thoroughly irresistible.

  “I’m not lying to you, Anya. I do not work for the CIA . . . at least I don’t think I do.” After careful introspection, I said, “Anya, honestly, I don’t know who I work for. I do what I’m asked to do, and then I’m paid well for doing it.”

  She smiled as if I’d revealed something of deep importance. “Chase, you are nayemnik. A mercenary. Amerikanskiy nayemnik.”

  She was correct. I was a soldier for hire, a weapon used by those who treasured plausible deniability. I was an expendable, deployable scalpel used for slicing microscopic, cancerous bits of humanity from the planet. She was making me see myself through her eyes. If it was a psychological tactic designed to weaken my resolve to resist her efforts to flip me, I feared that it just might be working.

  I didn’t know what to say. There were so many questions I wanted to ask her, but I was engrossed in my own revelation of what I’d become. Perhaps she was a far better psychologist than me. I tried to return to the conversation and get as much information from her as possible, but I couldn’t make my mouth produce any words.

  “Is okay, Chase. You are not alone. There are many more like you all over world.” Her tone softened, almost as if she were concerned about me. “Well, I do not think exactly like you. Inside, you are not like others.”

  I didn’t know if she was being patronizing in an effort to garner my trust or if she was sincere.

  “You don’t know me,” I said. “You don’t know what I am inside.” I tried to refocus.

  “I know much of you, Chase. I know you are not killer without soul. You are man who has faith in much, but has also doubts. You are not—”

  “How did you find me? I left no trail. I made no mistakes. How the hell did you track me down?”

  I was angry—angry with myself, and even a little angry for what my life had become. I was a professional killer who was being interviewed and recruited by a Russian spy on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean. Why wasn’t I somewhere in south Florida in Spring Training with a farm team for the Braves?

  She withdrew a small knife from her pocket. The morning sunlight played off the metallic blade as if it were a mirror. I should’ve been frightened, but nothing in her expression led me to believe that she was going to hurt me. She had so many opportunities to take my life. As she had said, if she wanted to kill me, she would’ve done it by now. With a tenderness in her eyes, she placed her left hand behind my head and pressed her fingertips firmly into the muscles of my neck and shoulders. She stopped about two inches below my hairline behind my left ear, and she pressed more aggressively.

  She smiled a gentle, knowing smile, then sat cautiously on my lap with her legs draped around my waist. Last time we were in that position, we shared our first kiss. I hoped we were about to have a repeat performance, but I was soon to be very disappointed.

  She pressed her body against mine. “Hold me. This is
going to feel not good, but you will like result.”

  Timidly, I wrapped my arms around her body and enjoyed the feeling of her breasts pressed against my chest.

  She pulled my head tightly against her shoulder. “Take deep breath and hold,” she said. “Do not move. Do not jump. And do not bite me.”

  I did as she instructed and drew in a deep breath. I could smell her hair and skin. I closed my eyes and drank in the experience until I felt the blade of her knife puncture the flesh of my neck. Instinctually, I flexed every muscle in my body, but I tried not to flinch. At that moment, I understood why she’d instructed me not to bite her, because that’s exactly what my mind was telling me to do.

  As quickly as the blade had entered my skin, she removed it. “Okay. You now can relax. I have it.”

  “You have what?” I demanded.

  As I leaned away from her, she presented a small, metallic capsule dripping with my blood.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Is answer to your question. Is how your handler and I found you. It is state-of-art technology. They put this in neck while you were training in U.S. That is how CIA always knows where you are. I knew where you were because we have been able to track your people by . . . uh, what is word . . . ah yes, piggybacking on your technology for long time. Do not tell me you think Cold War is over because your Ronald Reagan said so.”

  I was astonished, and I felt betrayed. The technology that my country put inside my body made it possible for this Russian to find and kill Dutch, as well as track me down. I didn’t like the way that tasted.

  “So, is that why Dutch’s neck was cut open? You were removing one of those from his neck, too?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But that is not why he is dead. He is dead because he did not trust me. Dutch has been working for Russia for very long time. He is money whore. He is how I know so much about you. I tried to remove device from him, but he fought with me. I tried to let him live, but he would not stop trying to kill me. I had no choice. I had to kill him. My people are going to be very angry with me when they find out what I have done. I am afraid of what they will do to me. To them, he is valuable asset.”

  I saw genuine fear in her eyes. She wasn’t fearless after all.

  When she paused, the first question that came tumbling out of my mouth was, “What did you do with Dutch’s tracker?”

  She looked embarrassed. “I have with me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I really have with me.” She pointed toward her stomach. “I swallowed it. It does not work unless inside body. Is powered by chemistry of body, so they work only when inside person.”

  It occurred to me that in a few days, Dutch’s tracker would see the light of day again. I wondered if she had a plan for dealing with it at that point. The thought of her swallowing it again after its voyage through her digestive tract made me a little nauseous.

  “Do you have one?” I asked.

  She looked at me thoughtfully. “I think I do not.”

  “You think?”

  She nodded. “I think I do not have one because we know how easy it is to, uh . . . piggyback. I do not think we would give you chance to track us like we track you.”

  She had a valid point, but I wasn’t as convinced as she seemed to be. That idea needed to be explored.

  “So, if you don’t have one, how would your people know if you were killed on a mission? How would they know if I were to kill you and feed you to the sharks? I’ve heard stories of women being fed to sharks.”

  Her face took on a serious, even ominous look. “Chase, I am raskhoduyemyy, expendable just like you. If I die, there are hundred or thousand more girls waiting to become me. If you die, there are hundred or thousand boys waiting to become Yankee-Doodle badass.”

  That got my attention. “Where did you hear that phrase, Yankee-Doodle badass?”

  She laughed. “That is how they recruit most of you Americans—just like your U.S. Marines are looking for few good men.”

  “You know way too much about us.” I was genuinely concerned. “How do you know so much?

  “We listen,” she said with a great deal of pride.

  “So, what are we going to do with my tracker now that it’s not inside my body?”

  “We could put in your tongue since is already open.”

  She laughed until she was almost in tears. I suppose I didn’t expect her to have a sense of humor, but I was wrong.

  I could be a smart ass, too. “I know someplace we could stick it, but Dutch’s would shove it out when it finally made its escape.”

  She clearly didn’t expect me to play along, and she pressed the palm of her hand into my chest. “You think you are funny. Let us see if you think this is funny.”

  She kissed me and wrapped her arms around me as if she were holding on for dear life. I loved the way she felt in my arms. I held her as we kissed for what felt like hours, and our hands explored each other’s bodies. I was appreciative of her tenderness since my tongue still felt like it’d been run over by a truck. There’s nothing like a mouthful of stitches and a swollen tongue to ruin an otherwise perfect kiss, but it didn’t seem to discourage her. We kissed as if we had been lovers our entire lives.

  Her life was one of death, fear, and unimaginable danger, but when she was in my arms, it was like she let that world melt away. She felt vulnerable and soft when I held her, but inside her chest beat the heart of the deadliest woman I knew. I wanted to believe that heart was also capable of loving me.

  Suddenly, she drove both of her hands into my chest. “I have idea!”

  “That’s quite a way to end a kiss,” I said. “What’s this earth-shattering idea of yours?”

  “Dolphins! We can catch dolphin and put tracker under its skin. When it comes up to breathe, satellites will see, and whole world will think you and Dutch are together on boat wherever dolphin goes. Is brilliant idea, yes?”

  “Yes, it’s brilliant,” I said. “All of it except the part about catching a dolphin. I don’t know how to catch a dolphin. Do you?”

  “That part is up to you. You are big strong American, and I am just silly girl.”

  “You are neither silly, nor a girl,” I retorted. “You are a dangerous, mortally serious, and astonishing woman.”

  She smiled. I loved her smile. I think I loved everything about her. Well, everything except her cutting my tongue in half and that icy Russian face she made.

  “I do like the basis of your idea, though. Do you still have any of those poison darts you shot me with?”

  “Maybe,” she said shyly.

  “Every island within three hundred miles of here is littered with monkeys. What if we shoot a couple of them with your tranquilizers, shove the trackers in their ears, then make our escape?”

  We laughed, enjoying the silliness we were able to bring to a moment so serious.

  When we’d gathered our wits, she tossed my tracking device onto her tongue and swallowed it. “There,” she said. “If your cooking does not kill me first, we will not have to worry about that for few more days.”

  26

  Lemonade Sunset

  The wind picked up to twenty knots, and Aegis began to heel over nearly twenty-five degrees. Anya had gone below to do whatever women do when they go below, and I found myself at the wheel, leaning hard as Aegis cut through the waves like a sleek racing yacht. She was not built to sail on her side like the racing boats that thrived on heeling over forty-five degrees or more. Aegis was an easy boat to sail, but she could become a handful when heeled over in high wind. Bonaire was my tentative destination, but the southwesterly wind would make for a very long and quite uncomfortable cruise. I stood at the wheel with one knee on the seat, and I was deliberating over other possible destinations when Anya peered at me through the companionway.

  “We are flipping over, no?”

  I chuckled. “I certainly hope not.”

  She looked uncomfortable. “Can you make it not do that?
I do not like being tilted over like this.”

  “It’s called heeling,” I said. “It’s one of the things that sailboats do. You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

  She looked up at me with eyes that were impossible to resist. “Please, Chase. I do not like this.”

  Little did she know, that with those words, she had just plotted our new course.

  I abandoned my thoughts of shore diving off Bonaire. “Have you ever been to Anguilla?”

  Her answer was perfect. “Not yet.”

  “I think we can change that,” I told her.

  I turned Aegis to port, and eased the sheets, allowing both sails to swing well out over the side, bringing us onto a broad reach with the wind blowing across the deck from left to right.

  As we turned eastward, the big boat left its side, and the mast pointed straight up toward the heavens.

  Anya mouthed, “Thank you,” then disappeared back into the bowels of my boat.

  I hated downwind sailing. It was boring and hot, but seeing my favorite Russian happy and comfortable was worth whatever it cost. I pulled out my chart. I had a perfectly good GPS chart plotter onboard, but for some reason, I loved the look and feel of paper nautical charts. Somehow, sailing with real ones made the experience richer and more fulfilling. I plotted a course for Virgin Gorda. There was a perfect anchorage there where we could spend the night watching the shooting stars, and then sleep through the next day so we could make the seventy-five-mile sail to Anguilla the following night. Arriving in a new anchorage is always best done at daybreak. There’s almost nothing more beautiful than sailing at night. Feeling the miles drift beneath the keel with a billion stars twinkling overhead is something magical that words can’t adequately describe.