Ching. Handcuff links popped, but they weren’t Chris’s. They were Xander’s. Both of Xander’s hands pumped freely as he broke into a mad sprint. The Coast Guard yelled at him, and one sailor ran after.
Adrenaline surged into Chris’s system, but the sudden burst of dynamism coursing through his veins threatened to disrupt his dexterity.
I’ve got to stop Xander before he escapes.
He turned one hand over the other, but too much movement caused the links to slip. He took a deep breath to regain composure and tried again. The chain links bit into each other and jammed up. Good. Carefully, he applied pressure at an angle, using more torque than strength, until the link at the swivel snapped.
With his arms liberated, Chris sprinted toward Xander. He passed the Coast Guard sailors, but Xander was still twenty-five meters ahead. A gunshot sounded from behind. Chris didn’t know if the shot was a warning fired into the air or a direct attempt to hit him, but he wasn’t about to slow down and find out, and he didn’t bother to turn around.
26
Chris chased Xander away from the docks and into the city. As juiced as Chris was, he couldn’t seem to close the twenty-five meters between them. Xander was cranked. Chris wasn’t in top condition, but he didn’t allow Xander to put any more distance between them. Xander turned the corner of a building. After twenty-five meters, Chris turned the corner, too, but Xander was gone. A passerby stared at Chris’s handcuffs, and he pulled down his shirtsleeves and tucked in the dangling chain to conceal the cuffs.
He had lost Xander. He wasn’t straight ahead, so he had to have made another turn to the right or left. Or maybe he was waiting just around a corner to jump Chris.
Chris searched the ground for clues and noticed part of the pavement was wet. Not enough to form a complete footprint, but enough of the heels for Chris’s trained eye to spot. The dampness led into the building next to Chris, so he tracked them.
He entered an office building of some sort, but Xander was nowhere in sight. On a desktop was a cupful of pens, pencils, and a pair of scissors. Some of the pens had metal clips, and Chris knew he could use a clip to unlock his handcuffs. He calmly took a pen and continued forward. Ahead, he found dirty wet spots, dulling the shine on the linoleum under the fluorescent lights. As he tracked the footsteps, he bent the metal clip on the pen as far as it would go then bent it back to its original position. He kept bending the clip back and forth until it snapped, creating a shim. He’d only taken one pen and was relieved to see the clip broke cleanly.
He followed the partial footprints to the exit and opened it. Outside of the building, he slipped the smooth, broken end of the pen clip into the space between the strand of teeth in one handcuff and the ratchet holding it in place. It clicked, and he pulled the strand of teeth out, opening the cuff, which he let fall to the ground. Then he repeated the process for the other handcuff and pocketed his homemade shim.
He shook his hands out and scanned the city. Xander would use every trick he had to evade capture. Xander’s soles left a distinct mark, like a vertical tree bough with twigs branching horizontally. The soles also had deep lugs for traction, useful for steep or slippery surfaces outdoors. Chris followed the footprints, but they went dry. Xander had used busy public places on purpose, so he could hide among the people. He had sound instincts on top of his experience and FSB training, causing Chris to wonder if he’d even be able to take Xander down alone.
Chris assessed the situation. Xander had completed his objective of attacking the Shah Deniz Alpha oil rig, and now his main goal would be to get out of town. He had run away from the sea and into town, only to circle around and head back to the sea. Why? It all seemed part of ditching any surveillance, but maybe Xander was meeting someone at the mall, or maybe he had a countersurveillance team standing by to snuff Chris.
Not knowing where else to go, Chris continued forward until he reached Park Bulvar. The mall was six stories tall and its architecture was Eastern, but when Chris stepped inside, its interior design was Western. He quickly surveyed a map of the mall’s layout. There were movie theaters, a supermarket, and restaurants that served Turkish, Russian, and Azeri food, among fast-food places Chris recognized — McDonalds, KFC, and Sbarro. He recognized a Nike shop, too, but didn’t know the other retailers.
He ventured deeper into the building. While the shopping mall was dying out in the US, it seemed to be alive and well in Azerbaijan. He continued through the mall, trying to spot Xander or pick up his tracks again, but he’d lost him.
Chris stepped out of the mall and scanned the area closest to him — nothing. As he searched farther out, he spotted Xander seventy-five meters away, walking through a park. Chris hurried into the park, but Xander didn’t stay put, strolling off the grass and along a pier that jutted out into the Caspian Sea. Tied to the pier was the cruise ship Chris had seen when using Marine Finder to scope out the bay: the M/S Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
How did he plan to get aboard? Chris had personally searched Xander, and Xander hadn’t had a boarding ticket. Chris neared the pier, where he could see through the windows of a security booth. Inside, passengers showed their passports and tickets to a security officer, who seemed to be checking them against a passenger manifest on a laptop. A line of passengers proceeded through an x-ray machine before continuing to the gangway where a crew member greeted them for boarding. No Xander.
Chris looked aft to see if he might have boarded posing as a dockworker or ship’s crew member. Contrasting the orderliness of the passengers, a gaggle of dockworkers loaded the Tchaikovsky with luggage and palates of boxed food and beverages. A chef inspected a container of vegetables. Still, there was no Xander in sight. He must have boarded already.
Chris continued forward without a plan to get aboard himself, searching for a weakness to exploit. With each step, his gut twisted. The Azeri Coast Guard had confiscated his ID, so he’d need a passport from someone who looked like him, but most of the passengers were older. Even if Chris’s doppelganger was present, Chris wasn’t as skilled at pickpocketing as Hannah, and lifting both a passport and a ticket from the same person seemed impractical. He could try to gain access as a visitor, but he’d still need his passport.
The controlled access for the dockworkers and ship’s crew was guarded by a darkly tanned security officer who was paying more attention to what was going on inside his area of responsibility than outside. Chris’s best shot at boarding the ship still seemed to be to pose as one of the dockworkers or ship’s crew, so he headed in their direction, ignoring his first obstacle, the tanned security officer. Without slowing his stride, Chris ducked under the yellow security tape meant to restrict access. He needed a cover — fast. His mind spun feverishly: supervisor, galley hand, forklift operator, dockworker… Posing as a supervisor might be a problem if he ran into the actual supervisor he was impersonating. If he attempted to act as a galley hand, the chef would probably recognize him as an imposter. As for the forklift, there was only one, and the operator was running it. A common dockworker seemed the ticket, but the guys loading the luggage wore matching blue overalls, and Chris had none. His gut continued to wind around itself, but he didn’t let it show on his face. Confidence was key.