Shit, I’m losing him.
“Mikhail, how you doing?” Chris asked.
After stuffing the hemostatic gauze as deep as it would go, packing the wound, he used his hand to apply direct pressure with the remaining gauze. He leaned over and put his cheek close to Mikhail’s lips to feel his breath, but there was none.
“Mikhail, talk to me. Talk to me, buddy.”
Clank, clank, clank! It sounded like metal baseball bats striking the hull of the go-fast, but the sonic snap that sounded over Chris’s head confirmed they were bullets. Sonny leaned into his rifle, the barrel spitting hate up at one of Xander’s men on the tanker, who shrieked like a bird as he fired his AK down at them. Sonny muted him.
Chris maintained direct pressure for a couple of minutes until the bleeding stopped. Mikhail had closed his eyes. He’d lost a lot of blood and was still unresponsive. Chris reached into the blowout kit and pulled out a gray package containing an Israeli-designed military trauma bandage. He tore it open and pulled out the bandage, careful not to touch the sterile pad. After applying the pad to the gauze-packed wound, he wrapped the tail of the bandage around Mikhail’s torso and clipped the excess with the pressure applicator.
“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.