Off to the side, Xander sat stock-still with his eyes open, as if paralyzed. His hair looked wiry, and his clothes were charred. One of his shoes and a sock were missing, and the bottom of his naked foot was fried.
“I need an ambulance,” Xander said with a moan, battling to breathe and slurring his words. “Get me an ambulance!” He drooled out of one corner of his mouth.
Chris’s hate for Xander bubbled inside him. Reverend Luther said hate could destroy a pastor quicker than most anything. He tried to heed the reverend’s warning and took even sips of air into his lungs. With Xander already incapacitated by the lightning strike, he wasn’t an immediate threat, he reminded himself. Killing him would be akin to cold-blooded murder, especially for a pastor. Even so, Chris was madder than hell.
Xander seemed to read his eyes. “You cannot kill me here,” he said quietly, “not in my own country.”
Chris had let the anger boil up until he was so full of it that all he could do now was explode. He moved into position and raised the ax high in the air.
“You cannot do this to me,” Xander objected, “not in my own—”
Before Xander finished, Chris brought down the ax with a mighty swing, stopping Xander midsentence. The ax split a fallen tree trunk.
Chris’s dark side chided him for not killing Xander right then and there, but he loved God more than he hated Xander. It was a small price to pay for giving his soul to a greater good.
28
Chris searched Xander’s pockets and cleaned out the Azeri cash and a cheap pocketknife — probably taken from the poor passenger he killed on the cruise ship. Chris used the knife to cut some vines to use as rope, then hog-tied Xander.
“You make one wrong move or sound, I’ll kill you,” Chris promised. And it was a promise he intended to keep. He took off Xander’s other shoe and sock, so if Xander miraculously recovered enough to make a run for it, he’d have to run in his burned bare feet. He stuffed the sock in Xander’s mouth as a gag and used the vine to tie it in place. Then Chris dragged him through the woods for several minutes, having to stop for a moment to rest, before he found his vehicle.
Still not functioning at one-hundred-percent strength, Chris strained to hoist Xander into the vehicle. Then he crawled into the driver’s side and started the engine. There would be trouble waiting for him to the south, near the Russian supply port where he and Xander had jumped ship and stolen the vehicles, so he drove to the nearest port and absconded with a boat, tarp, and two containers of fuel. He covered Xander with the tarp and cast off.
After motoring south on the Caspian Sea for a while, he was alone on the water with his prisoner. He uncovered Xander, who remained quiet and motionless. Xander had his eyes open, squinting at the sunlight, but he was still alive. The vines remained tied tightly. Chris undid the gag and let Xander breathe freely.
Chris observed him. “Did you think it would end like this?”
“I was fulfilling destiny,” Xander said, slurring his words, spittle dripping from the corner of his mouth.
“So was I.”
“I am KGB.”
“FSB,” Chris said.
“Whether I am called KGB or FSB, I am still alive and thriving,” Xander said.
“It’s true that you’re alive, but I wouldn’t call your present situation thriving.”
“Everything I did, I did for my country. You should understand that.”
“Maybe that was true for you at one time. It was true for me at one time. Immediately after 9-11, everything I did, I did for my country. But after a while, everything I did, I did for my Teammates. My guess is that now everything you do, you do for yourself.”
Xander said nothing.
“Did you ever try to be anything different?” Chris asked.
Xander groaned. “I have. More than once. This is all I know how to do. This is all I want to do.”
Chris shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like you tried very hard, then. And now your days as a spook are over. Your body is so paralyzed you can hardly speak without slurring your words and spitting on yourself. You are something different. A prisoner.”
The skin around Xander’s eyes drooped as if under a tremendous burden.
“And now you have no protégé to carry on your legacy,” Chris said.
Xander’s voice shook as he spoke. “You have no idea how hard I searched for him. And you cannot comprehend the investment of time, the laser focus, and Herculean efforts I made to polish him.”
“You speak of Animus as if he was a tool.”
“He was. A very valuable tool… You and I are not so very different. We both devote our lives to creating valuable tools.”
“Don’t confuse your life with mine.”
“As long as I live, I will remember you, and one day I will make you pay.”
Chris thought for a moment. “You’ll have to take a number and stand in line.”
Xander gave an odd stare as if he didn’t understand.
Chris spotted a vessel up ahead in the distance. He turned to Xander. “Babushki bayu.” He gagged Xander with his sock again and covered him with the tarp.
Chris kept composed and didn’t try to hide. On the boat was a net and a man who wore what looked like a wetsuit overall. He neared Chris’s vessel, so Chris waved at him and cruised past.
He sailed until the gas tank ran dry, and he used one of the cans to refuel. Then he continued until the sun surrendered to the evening, and he arrived in Baku. There, he broke into a car, locked Xander in the trunk, hot-wired the ignition, and drove to the Agency jet at Heydar Aliyev International Airport. Chris was so exhausted and weakened he feared he might lose consciousness at any moment. He parked the car and stepped out. Hannah and Sonny must have seen him approach the tarmac because they met him on the stairs.
Hannah was the first to join him, and they greeted each other with a hug. Her eyes filled with concern. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m alive,” he said. “Xander is in the trunk.”
Her face lit up like she’d been given a brightly wrapped birthday present.
“You’re shitting me,” Sonny said.
Chris barely had the energy to shrug. “See for yourself.”
Sonny pushed past Chris and Hannah, skipping steps as he raced to the bottom. He reached the vehicle, opened the driver’s side, popped opened the trunk, and hurried to the rear to peek inside. “Hot damn!”
When Hannah took her turn to look inside the trunk, she let out a whoop and high-fived Sonny. They wasted no time in dragging Xander out and dumping him on the tarmac. There, they searched him. When they picked him up to his feet, he fell.
“What did you do to him?” Sonny asked. “Looks like you stuck him in a bathtub full of electric eels. Holy shit. Dude can’t even stand up.”
Chris couldn’t see Xander’s face from his perspective, but he imagined Xander with slobber on his chin and a scared look in his eyes. He wanted to help them carry Xander onboard the jet, but he barely had enough strength to carry himself, so he boarded the plane and took a seat.
After Hannah and Sonny brought Xander aboard, Hannah told the pilot to go wheels up and take them to Langley.
While the pilot made preparations for flight, Hannah and Sonny checked out the homemade vine ties Chris had used on Xander and the dirty sock in his mouth. “You totally went primitive,” Sonny said with glee. “I love it.”