The Unending Chase

by Cap Daniels

  He said, “Those Chinese are crafty little bastards. You’ve got to hand it to them . . . they’ll try anything.”

  He pointed to his water pitcher. I poured him another cup, and he managed to keep most of it in his mouth.

  “I knew that Leo, by the way. Crazy old coot. He’s the best chopper pilot I ever saw.”

  “Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said. “He could stick that thing down a chimney if you bet him he couldn’t.”

  “It sure is good to see you, Chase. It’s been too long, and now this’ll probably be the last time we ever get to sit and talk . . . just the two of us.”

  “Don’t say that, Dr. Richter.”

  “I’m too old and sick to dance around the truth, son. Now listen. I’ve got some intel you need. I need you to just listen and not interrupt me. Can you do that?”

  I nodded and poured him another cup of water. He held it up, and then leaned over the side of his bed and looked toward the floor.

  “What is it, Coach?”

  I started calling him Coach in college after I’d broken my hand and couldn’t play ball anymore. I thought of him as my coach back then, and somehow, it just stuck.

  He pressed the call button on the remote control hanging by his arm.

  A dislocated voice came through the tiny speaker. “What do you need, grouchpuss?”

  He tried to laugh. “The septic tank is full again.”

  “I’ll be right there.” The nurse came in, emptied the urine drainage bag attached to the end of Dr. Richter’s catheter and recorded the amount in his chart. He sighed a sound of relief, and the bag began to fill again.

  “Okay, so now are you ready to listen?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They lied to us, son.”

  “Who lied to us?”

  “I told you not to ask any questions. Just listen.”

  “Sorry.”

  “The CIA lied. Of course, that’s what they do, but they didn’t have to lie to us.”

  I was lost, but I’d promised to shut up.

  He continued. “Nearly thirty years ago, Katerina Burinkova and I spent four days in Vienna. It was the most unforgettable four days of my life. Every night before we fell asleep, I’d brush Katerina’s long hair and listen to her sing. Son, not a day of my life has gone by when I didn’t close my eyes and relive those four nights. At the end of our time together in Vienna, Katerina left for Moscow in a hurry. She left behind almost everything she’d brought with her. I was due in London, but there was no particular rush, so I packed up everything she’d left behind and took it all with me. I had no way to know that would be the last time I’d ever see her.”

  He paused to catch his breath and have another drink of water. “Boy, some nice scotch sure would be good.” He coughed, struggled to catch his breath again, and continued. “Anyway, when you brought Anastasia to the house in Athens . . . you remember that day, don’t you?”

  I’ll never forget that day. Dr. Richter had played right into Anya’s hand and let himself believe she was his daughter. It had all been part of Colonel Tornovich’s diabolical plan, and it worked nearly flawlessly.

  I nodded.

  “So, when the two of you were at my house for those two days, there hadn’t been a woman in there for years. Anastasia asked if I had a hairbrush, and I dug around and found a brand-new one still sealed up in the plastic.”

  I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “Where’s this going, Dr. Richter?”

  “Patience, my boy. Patience. I promise not to die until I finish the story. So, anyway, the brush. She used it and left it behind when we went back to Florida. After all that horseshit from the CIA came out about Anastasia being a double agent and not really being our daughter, I got to thinking about that hairbrush and the time I’d spent in Vienna with her mother all those years ago . . . and about brushing Katerina’s hair.”

  I leaned in closer to him.

  “I have no idea why, but I’d kept that old hairbrush I’d spent hours pulling through Katerina’s long, beautiful hair. I’d sent the bag where I’d kept it all those years and the brush Anya had used to some people I trust at a lab. They’re not only some of the best in the world, but they’re also some of the best at keeping secrets. You know, son, trust is a hard thing to earn, but damned easy to lose.”

  He raised his eyebrows above the rim of his glasses and looked down his nose at me. “I waited around a few weeks, and finally, one of the guys from that lab called me and said I should come down there. So, I went, and he took a DNA sample from me and did whatever those guys do under their microscope or whatever they have back there in those clean rooms. A few days later, he called and said there’s no chance Anya is anybody’s baby girl other than mine and the woman whose hair was in that old brush.”

  “So, she is your daughter?”

  He coughed again, and I poured more water. I was bursting with questions.

  After what felt like an eternity, he said, “I don’t know anything about the science of DNA testing, but if that girl was somebody named Captain Ekaterina Norikova, I’ll eat your shorts. That girl is Anastasia Robertovna Burinkova, and she is my daughter, just as sure as you and me are spies, boy.”

  I pulled open the curtains in front of the oversized window and watched the first shadows of the morning cover a gazebo and courtyard I hadn’t noticed when we’d arrived.

  “She’s still alive, isn’t she?” I heard myself ask the question, but it sounded as if someone else had spoken the words.

  He licked his thin lips and tried to clear his throat. “Listen to me, son. I’m never going to leave this hospital bed, and I’m not going out with the taste of that rancid water in my mouth. Go find us a bottle of good scotch. We’re both going to need a drink before I have the courage, and before you have the gut, for the answer to that question. Can you do that, Chase?”

  I could count on one hand the number of times he’d called me by my first name.

  “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Do you need anything else before I go?”

  He tried to smile. “I just need to have one more drink with the only son I’ll ever have before. . . .”

  I squeezed his bony shoulder, refusing to let him see me cry. “I’ll be right back.”

  I found my way back to the parking garage. Clark was sound asleep in the back of our rental car, and Penny was sitting in the front seat, braiding strands of hair into a long cord across her shoulder. She stared off into the distance as if she were lost in thought, or perhaps worry.

  I pulled open the driver’s door and slid onto the seat beside her. I half expected Clark to spring awake with his pistol drawn, but he didn’t budge.

  “Are you okay?” Penny asked through a frown.

  I turned the key and swallowed the lump in my throat. “No, I’m not okay. Dr. Richter isn’t going to make it. He insists that I find a good bottle of scotch for one last drink.”

  “Chase, you can’t take scotch in there. There’s no way they’re going to let you—”

  “Who’s going to stop me? That rent-a-cop with the pound cake addiction? That man lying in there dying has done more for me than anyone else on Earth. If he wants scotch, or anything else for that matter, I’m going to see to it that he has it.”

  She forced a brief smile and placed her hand on my thigh. “In that case,” she said, “let’s go find the man some scotch. I have an idea. Turn left out of the garage.”

  I followed her directions and turned north onto a two-lane street lined with restaurants, bars, and mom-and-pop shops.

  “What’s your plan?” I asked.

  “Just trust me. Turn right at the next stop sign and go slow. How much cash do you have?”

  “Maybe a thousand bucks.”

  We turned east onto a one-way street lined with delivery trucks.

  She stuck out her hand. “Stop here and give me what you’ve got. I’ll be right back.”

  Penny had never disappointed me. After
all, she had scored two coffee cups from the Waffle House. I pulled to the curb and handed her a wad of cash. She disappeared down an alley just as I heard Clark start to stir.

  “What’s going on?” he asked in his barely-conscious voice.

  “Penny’s scoring some scotch for Dr. Richter.”

  He mumbled, “Oh, okay,” and fell back asleep.

  I watched delivery drivers come and go, and I kept checking my watch every thirty seconds. Finally, Penny skipped around the corner of the old brick building and slid back onto the seat beside me.

  She held out a bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan. “Will this do?”

  “That’ll do just fine,” I said, “but how did you . . .”

  She winked. “Your girlfriend’s got skills.”

  “Is that what you are? My girlfriend?”

  She kissed me on the cheek. “At least. Now let’s get back to the hospital before the daytime rent-a-cops take over.”

  The maze of one-way streets took longer to navigate than I’d expected, but I finally found a vacant parking spot beside the gazebo I’d seen from Dr. Richter’s window.

  Penny and I stepped from the car.

  “Don’t you want to park in the garage?”

  “No, his room is right up there.” I pointed toward the window, and what I saw through the thick pane of glass sent the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I froze in my tracks.

  A woman was standing beside Dr. Richter’s bed. Her long, golden-blonde hair shined as she bent over and kissed him on the forehead.

  “Who is that?” asked Penny.

  “That’s Anya!” I broke into a sprint toward the hospital door.

  I bounded up the stairs to the second floor and burst through the heavy oak door, slamming it against the wall. Still at a sprint, I rounded the corner by the nurses’ station and saw a horde of nurses running nearly as fast as I was. They poured into Dr. Richter’s room in a chaotic rush, and I didn’t slow down. When I’d shoved my way through the door and into his room, the scene unfolding in front of me was beyond comprehension.

  The heart monitor displayed a long, flat line, and a continuous tone blared into the antiseptic air of the room. A young nurse had one knee on the side of Dr. Richter’s bed and both hands planted firmly in the center of his chest. I watch the nurse’s shoulders rise and fall rhythmically as his hands compressed my mentor’s chest. Another nurse pumped air from a respiration bag into Dr. Richter’s mouth while the bevy of nurses scurried about, all intent on saving his life.

  The world in front of me fell from focus except for the gaunt, pale face of the man who’d molded my mind into that of a psychologist, and who’d delivered my body into the service of my country; the man who’d been the greatest influence of my adult life. His gray-blue eyes drooped lifeless and bleak.

  Suddenly aware of my own heart pounding in my chest, I gasped for air. A thin, delicate hand slipped into mine, and I squeezed the familiar flesh.

  “Clear!” the doctor ordered.

  The body of the man I loved so dearly arched upward in rigid response to the shock of the defibrillator.

  “Clear!” he commanded again.

  Once more, Dr. Richter’s body lurched violently, stiffened, and fell back to the sheets.

  At my side, the woman whispered, “I’m so sorry, Chase.”

  She was the woman I knew I could depend on. The woman I so desperately needed and desired. The woman I loved.

  The doctor placed the paddles back on the cart and looked at his watch. “Time of death, seven twenty-four a.m.”

  Penny pulled me into her arms and held me tight as the room fell silent and my body succumbed to the exhaustion and despair I’d held at bay.

  About the Author

  Cap Daniels

  Cap Daniels is a sailing charter captain, scuba and sailing instructor, pilot, Air Force veteran, and civil servant of the U.S. Department of Defense. Raised far from the ocean in rural East Tennessee, his early infatuation with salt water was sparked by the fascinating, and sometimes true, sea stories told by his father, a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. Those stories of adventure on the high seas sent Cap in search of adventure of his own which eventually landed him on Florida’s Gulf Coast where he owns and operates a sailing charter service and spends as much time as possible on, in, and under the waters of the Emerald Coast.

  With a head full of larger-than-life characters and their thrilling exploits, Cap pours his love of adventure and passion for the ocean onto the pages of his Action Adventure Series, The Chase Fulton Novels.

  Visit www.CapDaniels.com to sign up for the mailing list to receive updates on coming novels, future release dates, and my newsletter.

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  Books in this Series

  - Book One: The Opening Chase

  - Book Two: The Broken Chase

  - Book Three: The Stronger Chase

  - Book Four: The Unending Chase

  - Book Five: The Distant Chase - Coming Spring of 2019