Odessa Sea Read online

  Their vantage on the water allowed Pitt and Giordino one other sight. Peering through the gray, they could see a low rock outcropping just past the corridor. Crouching behind the rocks were two men with automatic weapons, waiting in perfect ambush for Ana and her men.

  53

  The two police cars approached the salvage yard with their headlights dimmed, stopping just short of the entrance. Ana led the team on foot to a rickety chain-link gate beneath a battered sign proclaiming THRACIA SALVAGE. A large anchor beside an old fishing net strewn across a boulder created the desired image of a low-budget operation. Had the law enforcement agents looked closer, they might have found a motion-activated video surveillance camera hidden in the net.

  Mikel opened the gate and the team moved down the shrub-lined entry, not knowing they had activated an alarm that was sounding deep within the facility. The road curved as they approached the compound’s true entrance, which the foliage had concealed from the main road. Ten-foot walls bordered a paved drive that ran toward the sea.

  The team moved past a thick steel gate that was standing open, the men accelerating their pace at Ana’s lead. Not until they had gone another twenty yards and the steel gate silently closed behind them did Ana realize they were into more than they had bargained for.

  She knew from the drone video that the corridor ran nearly to the water before opening left onto the dock, where they would have to backtrack inland to the shore facilities. The opening was in sight, just a few yards ahead, when a single gunshot split the dawn air. It was nearby but seemed to come from the sea and be aimed elsewhere.

  Ana froze and crouched low to the ground, as did the five-man assault team that had fanned out behind her.

  She didn’t breathe, feeling her heart thump, before the dawn erupted in gunfire.

  The hidden figures behind the rocks ahead opened fire on them. Ana dove to the ground as the chatter from a pair of AK-47s reverberated off the walls. Three of the men behind her went down hard and the other two scrambled to return fire. Ana did the same, pulling up a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun and firing a short burst at the rocks.

  “Keep moving!” she yelled at her team. They were sitting ducks in the confined corridor. She squeezed off another burst, then leaped up and sprinted a few yards before again diving to the ground. A second later, two of her comrades followed suit and slammed to the ground behind her. She saw it was Anton and Mikel.

  “Give me cover to get around the near wall and I’ll do the same for you,” she said. Not waiting for an answer, she popped up and bolted to the end of the wall. The opposing fire was reduced by half, and Ana saw it was now directed toward the sea entrance.

  As Anton and Mikel scrambled to her side, she took careful aim at a lone shooter visible behind the rocks and emptied her clip. The distant muzzle flashes ceased.

  She paused to reload. “Where are the others?” she asked Anton.

  “They’re all down.”

  Thoughts of tending to her team vanished when gunfire erupted from the main building ahead of them. Two or three figures emerged from the structure and scattered behind some heavy equipment. One of them looked heavy, muscular, and bald.

  The agents were exposed as they faced the compound, but cover presented itself in the form of a storage shed wedged against the wall. The trio sprinted for it but came under fire from someone on the dock. Mikel hit the ground, and Ana felt a stinging in her calf, followed by a hard blow to her side.

  She gasped and fell. As she tried to get up, Vasko approached from ahead and lobbed a rock-sized object in their direction. The shed was just ahead, so she tried crawling toward it, hugging the wall beside her.

  The ground near her erupted, showering her with rocks and debris. Her ears rang, blocking the sounds of battle. She coughed out the dust in her lungs and looked up to see a figure emerge through the haze. It was the gunman from the dock, firing his assault rifle. Ana tried to raise her gun, but her arm was too numb.

  The gunman stepped closer and centered his weapon on her face. As she waited for the gunshot, his dark eyes rolled back in their sockets when a red spot appeared on his temple. He dropped his gun and crumpled to the ground.

  An instant later, Pitt was at her side, gripping the smoking SIG Sauer. Giordino arrived beside him and they dragged her to the safety of the shed.

  The ringing in her ears lessened enough to hear Pitt say, “My mother’s not going to allow us to be friends if you keep getting us into trouble.”

  Despite the pain in her leg and side, she smiled as he emptied the clip at a distant figure.

  Gunfire converged on them from all directions. Then the ground shook under another concussion grenade, more powerful than the first. This one struck at the base of the wall, just ahead of the shed. It was followed immediately by a second explosion that obliterated the shed, along with a section of the rock structure beside it. Ana felt an avalanche of rocks and mortar rain down upon her. First the pain, then the noise, and finally the light around her slipped away to nothingness.

  54

  The ache began in Ana’s wrists and extended through her elbows to her shoulders. She shook her hair from her eyes and the fog from her mind—and the other pains returned. Worst was the hammering bruise to her side where her tactical vest had repelled a slug from an AK-47. A flesh wound to her calf still throbbed, but that was the least of her agonies. The ringing in her ears had been replaced by a headache. It was her wrists and arms, however, which vied for her primary attention. As she regained her focus, she saw why.

  Her wrists were tied with a rope that stretched over her head to a warehouse rafter. Somehow she found the balance to put her weight on her feet and she stood erect, relieving the tension on her arms. With that minor relief, she gazed around the dimly lit warehouse. She wasn’t alone. A few feet to her right, Mikel hung from his wrists, unconscious. To her left, Giordino and Pitt were similarly bound.

  “Welcome back,” Pitt said, “although sleeping it out like your friend would appear the wiser strategy.”

  “How . . . how long was I out?” The words were scratchy from her dry throat.

  “We’ve been stretching our arms for about twenty minutes,” Giordino said.

  Ana stared at the two men. They were covered with dust from head to foot, and their clothes were torn and spotted with blood. She looked down and saw her own appearance was little better. “What happened?”

  “A pair of grenades uprooted a section of the wall,” Pitt said. “Collapsed on top of us.”

  “What about Anton?”

  Pitt shook his head.

  “I remember now,” Ana said. “The wall came down right after you saved me from that gunman.” She shook her head at the memory. “You were supposed to stay in the boat.”

  “We saw two armed men setting up an ambush,” Giordino said. “Dirk tried to warn you.”

  “Yes, they caught us in the open.”

  “We had to contend with getting the boat over a chain barricade, otherwise we would have gotten to shore sooner.”

  “All you had was my pistol.” She looked at the men. “I’m sorry. I wish you had stayed in the boat and gotten away.”

  “And miss the chance to hang out together?” Giordino asked.

  Ana shook her head at the Americans.

  A door slid open at the end of the building and a lone figure entered the warehouse. A ray of light glinted off his shaved head. Vasko carried a capstan bar, using it as a walking stick. The wooden pole, once used by sailors for leverage on manual capstans to weigh anchor, clicked on the concrete floor as he strode toward his prisoners.

  He approached his first victim, Mikel, who hung like a side of beef in a meat house. Vasko eyed him, then swung the bar like a baseball bat, striking him in the ribs. The unconscious man gasped reflexively but otherwise hung limp.

  “Apparently, he is indeed asleep.” Vasko turned t
o the others and looked them up and down. “My three old friends, dropping in for a visit? You should have told me you were stopping by. I would have planned a warmer welcome.”

  “It was plenty warm, thanks all the same,” Giordino said.

  “Did I ask for you to answer me?” Vasko plunged the end of the bar into Giordino’s stomach. Most men would have gasped in agony, but Giordino looked down at the man and smirked.

  Vasko took another step and approached Pitt. “How about you? Do you have anything to add?”

  “Cut me down from here and I might.”

  Vasko turned the rod and swung it into Pitt’s midsection. Pitt tightened his stomach muscles and twisted to catch the blow beneath his ribs. He nearly lost his breath, but he mimicked Giordino and glared at Vasko with a tight grin.

  “Seeking to make things difficult, I see,” Vasko said. “We’ll see how tough you are after a thorough tenderizing.” He swung the rod within a whisker of Giordino’s face, then tossed it aside.

  He walked past the two men and slowly approached Ana.

  “And you, Agent Belova,” he said, reading a name badge clipped to her vest. “You must have missed me, to return so soon.” He slipped an arm around her back and yanked her toward him.

  Ana turned away, holding her breath as he pulled her tight. The bearded stubble of his face grazed her cheek.

  “Once I have finished with your friends, we’ll have some fun together,” he said. “Just the two of us.”

  The blindside blow struck Vasko in the kidneys, sending him sprawling across the floor. He sprang to his feet and spun around as Giordino swung backward on the rope after landing a flying kick. Vasko charged into him, arms flailing.

  Defenseless, Giordino absorbed half a dozen body blows to his midsection. His only weapon was his feet. He kicked when given the chance, eventually landing a counterblow to his attacker’s knee.

  Vasko staggered back, then reached to his hip. He produced a large folding knife and snapped the blade into place. He held it in front of him and flashed the serrated edge at Giordino. “Your time is over, my friend.”

  He turned an eye toward Pitt to ensure no interference from him, then crouched low and sprang forward. The tactic worked against him. Giordino braced and timed a counterkick that caught Vasko in the wrist. The kick threw off Vasko’s lunge and the knife skirted past Giordino’s leg. Vasko immediately jumped back, pulling the knife with him. He caught the side of Giordino’s leg on the backstroke, slicing his pants and sending a trickle of blood down his leg.

  Vasko learned his lesson and stood upright, turning his side toward Giordino. This time, he would rush high and deliver a quick, fatal blow where it could not be deflected. Raising the knife, he took a step forward—as a call sounded. “Ilya!”

  The low, measured voice stopped him in his tracks. He glanced at Giordino, then stood back and gazed toward the open door.

  The tall figure of Valentin Mankedo approached quickly. He wore an anxious look. “This is no time to be playing games.”

  “She is the Europol agent who boarded the Besso.” Vasko pointed the knife at Ana. “And her two friends are the ones from the NUMA ship who disrupted our Sevastopol operation.”

  Mankedo regarded Pitt and Giordino with curiosity, then approached Ana. “Why did you come here?”

  “To arrest you, Valentin Mankedo,” she said in a firm voice.

  He noticed a folded paper in her vest pocket and pulled it out. “My arrest warrant?”

  Ana tilted her head in a faint nod.

  He opened the paper and read it while walking away from the prisoners.

  Vasko followed at his heels.

  “What do they know?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Most everything.” Mankedo shook his head. “We’re suspects in the sinking of the Crimean Star, the hijacking of the Macedonia, and a possible attack on Sevastopol. Not to mention possible involvement in the trafficking of restricted nuclear materials.”

  “They must have identified and tracked the Besso to the yard.” Vasko spat on the ground. “It’s that female police agent.”

  “More will be on the way,” Mankedo said. “We’ll have to evacuate the yard at once.” His dark eyes narrowed. “I need you to dispose of the bodies and the police vehicles while I eliminate our records.”

  “We can’t leave that here.” Vasko motioned toward the end of the warehouse, where a flatbed truck held the weapon from the Tupolev bomber. The device was covered with heavy tarps.

  “The Dutchman is the only person with the resources to help us with that now.”

  “Does he know about it?”

  “Yes,” Mankedo said. “He was quite intrigued and was organizing the expertise to do something with it. I’ll call him now and see if he can arrange immediate transportation. When the yard is clear, drive it somewhere remote. If he can come through, it will be your ticket out of the country.”

  He looked out the warehouse as one of his men dragged a body past the door. “I’ll take the rest of the men on the workboat to Turkey and we’ll make our way overland to meet the Besso in the Aegean. We still have two large opportunities in front of us, and plenty of work in Ukraine when the heat dissipates.”

  “The heat.” Vasko turned and waved a meaty arm at the four prisoners. “What about our guests? We lost three men, on account of them.”

  Mankedo checked his watch, then glanced at the prisoners.

  “Don’t waste any more time. Bury them with the others,” he said, then turned and strode into the sunlight.

  55

  The four prisoners dangled by their wrists for another hour as the salvage yard workers scrambled to evacuate the compound. Mikel regained consciousness, only to moan continuously in pain. Pitt watched as a workman started the flatbed truck and let the engine run for several minutes before shutting it off.

  “How soon before the cavalry arrives, Ana?” Giordino asked.

  “The Bulgarian police are probably formulating a response now after our failure to report. Given our remote location, it may be a few hours before they can assemble and position a team.”

  “By which time, it would appear, Mankedo and company will be long gone.” Pitt struggled with his wrist bindings. “Anyone have a chance of slipping free?”

  “It must have been a former Boy Scout who strung us up,” Giordino said. “I can’t move a millimeter.” He flexed his powerful arm muscles to exert pressure on the ropes, but they refused to budge.

  Vasko entered the warehouse holding an assault rifle and accompanied by a young bearded man. He passed his folding knife to his accomplice. “You will remain positioned apart and walk in single-file. If anyone tries anything foolish, I will shoot every one of you.” He smiled as if hoping to be given the opportunity.

  Pitt watched as first Mikel, then Ana and Giordino were cut down. The bearded man had to stand on his tiptoes to reach above Pitt’s wrists and cut the thick line. He immediately jumped back, keeping the knife at the ready, as Pitt lowered his arms.

  The knife wielder moved back to Mikel and led the captives forward, with Vasko taking up the rear behind Pitt. Mikel tripped and fell several times, and Giordino was allowed to assist him along. As they approached the warehouse entrance, Pitt eyed the flatbed truck. He pretended to stumble, dropping to one knee to try to get a glimpse under the tarps. He saw just a rounded metal skin, the surface dark and smooth, before Vasko’s work boot landed between his shoulder blades.

  “On your feet.”

  Pitt stood and followed the others into the daylight. With their wrists still bound in front of them, they walked across the open yard toward the other building, then were led into an opening in the rocky cliff. A pair of rusty rails set in crumbling concrete led from the tunnel, and Pitt recognized the remnants of a mining operation, confirmed by a nearby slag heap. The site was a small tin mine that dated to the Byzant
ine Empire. Limited commercial operations had continued into the 1930s, until the main ore deposits were deemed tapped out.

  The tunnel soon opened into a wide cavern illuminated by dangling overhead lights. Pallets loaded with wooden crates, like the munitions stores Pitt and Giordino had seen on the barge, filled the center. Along the side walls, an assortment of boulders remained from the mine’s final days of blasting.

  Vasko guided them to a large front-end loader parked between two massive boulders, its blade to the wall. The bearded man climbed onto the rig and started its clattering diesel engine. He raised the steel blade and backed the loader away from the wall, exposing a low opening that led to another room.

  Vasko motioned toward the opening with his rifle. “It is time to say good-bye.”

  Pitt and Giordino eyed each other, but Vasko intervened, leveling his gun at Giordino.

  “You first, shorty.”

  Giordino glared at him, then ducked through the opening, followed by Mikel.

  Vasko motioned at Pitt next. “I’m sure you’ll have a tearful reunion. Now, go.”

  Pitt lingered near Ana, but caught Vasko’s gun muzzle to his back, and reluctantly ducked through the opening.

  Vasko lowered his weapon and stepped close to Ana. “You have created quite an inconvenience for us.” He leaned into her. “I wish I had the time to repay you for the troubles you’ve caused.” He grabbed her in a bear hug and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  Ana fought the urge to struggle against the vile assault and instead stood limp and cold. It had the desired effect.

  “No love today? Then that tears it.” He yanked her off her feet and tossed her through the opening. She had barely left his arms when he turned to the man on the front-end loader. “Seal it up. For good.”

  Ana would have nose-dived onto the rock floor but for Pitt. Waiting on one knee, he caught her as best he could with bound hands. Ana leaned over and spat, trying to remove the taste of Vasko from her mouth, before thanking Pitt.