Without moving his head around like a lost passenger, he covertly searched the area for something he could use as part of his dockworker guise — uniform, hard hat, soft hat — anything. He thought posing as an electrician might be a good cover, but there was no utility belt around, either. Damn!
After he reached a stack of boxes of vegetables, he picked one up, carried it over to the chef, and placed it on top of the other boxes in front of him. The chef looked like he was about to ask a question, but Chris passed him, maintaining a busy pace. He worried the chef saw through him, but he didn’t dwell on it. He just kept going.
He passed an abandoned suitcase with a clipboard balanced on it. Chris snatched up the clipboard and took it with him. Maintaining his forward momentum, he stepped into the ship’s cargo hold, careful not to get run over by the forklift as it transferred a load of boxed provisions to the ship. His guts unwound a bit now that he was onboard, and he wanted to give a victory shout, but, again, he couldn’t show his emotions.
A wiry worker gazed at Chris’s clipboard, then him.
I hope this isn’t your clipboard.
Wiry said something in Azeri, but Chris didn’t understand. He could continue walking deeper into the ship and risk raising suspicion or stay and try to engage in a conversation that might raise suspicion. He paused and stared at the man.
“Your paper empty,” Wiry said in broken English.
Chris looked down at his clipboard. Wiry was right; the page was blank. Chris answered in Russian with a smile, but Wiry didn’t understand, so Chris said in English, “You’re right, the paper is blank. And that’s the least of my problems.” Confidence. Breathe. He took a shot of oxygen straight to his lungs and walked past Wiry.
Now he had to switch identities from worker to passenger, and he needed to ditch the clipboard. He climbed one of the ship’s ladders to the main deck and found himself in the reception area. A crowd was lined up at the counter to show their passports and tickets to the ship’s purser, who checked each passenger’s data on his computer before he handed out cabin keys.
“I don’t know who he is,” a large woman said loudly in Russian.
Surprise was etched on the purser’s face.
“He’s not with me,” the large woman said.
“Sir, where is your passport and ticket?” the purser asked.
The woman chuckled. “I’m kidding.” She nodded at the skinny man beside her. “This is my husband.” Then she handed his passport and ticket to the purser.
The purser smiled uneasily. “I almost thought you were giving me more work to do. Part of my job is to catch stowaways.”
The passengers laughed, but Chris showed no expression as he passed the mob of people, avoiding the purser. Traversing the central passageway, he found sick bay and noticed the numbers on the doors of guest cabins that lined the port and starboard sides. Sitting in the passageway was a maid’s cart, and there was a clipboard on top. The maid was inside a cabin with her back to him, making a bed, so Chris slipped his clipboard underneath the maid’s as he walked past. When he reached the end of the passageway, a couple descended the stairs, appearing lost.
The woman spoke in Azeri, gesturing erratically as she glanced between him and her companion.
Chris thought he’d been discovered, and his stomach jumped.
Then she turned to her left and pointed at the sauna, directing her companion’s attention to it.
Chris was relieved not to have been busted, but a voice came over the PA system, causing his gut to tighten up again. Maybe they were announcing that a stowaway was onboard and that passengers should report him.
I’ve got to find where the restrooms are, so I can hide out.
The announcement was repeated in Russian and then English. “All visitors must depart the ship now.”
This was the critical moment when he still had a chance to abort the mission, but he’d come too far to give up now, and he was taking Xander down, dead or alive.
He ascended the stairs to the middle deck, which was similar to the deck below, with numbered guest cabins port and starboard, with one exception at the stern of the ship, where the Tatiana Restaurant was. But it was closed.
The PA system came on again. “All visitors must depart the ship now.”
He spotted a restroom and made a mental note of its location so he could hide out there later. Other passengers milled about, and Chris blended in with them, climbing the stairs to the next deck.
Seeing the pool up there put a smile on his face, and he imagined going for a swim. He took a relaxed breath. Near the pool was a bar and another restroom — hideout number two. The cabins on the deck were junior suites, double the size of the other rooms, and toward the bow was a lounge.
Although Chris was getting thicker and thicker into this situation, he had no visual confirmation that Xander was actually aboard the ship. He’d seen Xander go in the ship’s direction, but he didn’t actually see him board, and he still hadn’t spotted him on the ship, either. But Chris’s instincts told him Xander was here. He heard Hannah’s voice in his head, pushing him on: You’ve got better instincts than any shooter I know.
He climbed the steps to the sun deck, the top deck of the ship. It was deserted. It would be ideal to catch Xander here at night. Because Xander was so slippery, and the situation so dangerous, this kill-or-capture mission had become a kill-or-be-killed mission. Eliminating him here and tossing him overboard seemed the best option. But Chris had to find him first.
The Tchaikovsky’s horn sounded, signaling that the ship was getting underway. It pulled farther and farther away from the Azeri pier. Chris looked around, realizing how conspicuous he must’ve appeared standing alone on the sun deck, and he headed below to mingle with other passengers, but most of them were gone. The ship’s library, TV room, and souvenir shop were all vacant. Even the mob of passengers at the reception area had cleared out.
They must all be checking in to their cabins.
As Sonny would say, Chris stood out like a pork chop at a bar mitzvah. His stomach twisted at the thought of Sonny, and with him, Hannah. When Chris escaped the Azeri Coast Guard and went after Xander, he hadn’t noticed whether or not they had escaped, too. Whatever happened to them, he hoped they were okay. But he had to keep his eye on the prize.
With the majority of passengers off in their rooms, it was time to hide out. He descended the steps to the deck below and pulled on the restroom door handle, but the door was locked. When he checked the other restrooms, they were locked, too. Apparently, he wasn’t the first stowaway with the bright idea to hide out in the restroom. His plan on the fly had crashed and burned. He could try to duck out in some inconspicuous place, like somewhere in the engine room, but if he was spotted, he’d suddenly become suspicious. The best place to hide was probably in plain sight.
He made his way to the lounge, where the Azeri couple he’d seen earlier was now seated at the bar. He took one of the low-backed stools next to them, and they seemed to be in their own little world, oblivious to him, and he was fine with that. Chris was a teetotaler, and he thought about ordering vodka for appearance’s sake but figured it would be odd to order a drink and not drink it, so he’d just get a water.
Now, if Chris was going to successfully hide out in plain sight, he was going to have to engage in conversation, but he needed to figure out his cover story before he did anything. As a frogman, he was used to planning on the fly — literally while riding in a plane or helicopter to the target area — and he was used to the fluidity of changing situations, but this stowaway fluidity was worse than diarrhea.