Odessa Sea Read online

  “I’ll get Hiram right on it. What’s the draw of a dead zone?”

  “Hydrogen sulfide gas.”

  “Sure, anoxic waters are loaded with hydrogen sulfide. We’ve surveyed subsurface concentrations of the stuff off the Mississippi River delta and the Oregon coast . . . and in the Chesapeake.”

  “That’s the key, Rudi. The crew of the Crimean Star were killed by hydrogen sulfide gas and Mankedo was attempting to release a cloud of it outside Sevastopol.”

  “Create a cloud of hydrogen sulfide? Yes, it could kill thousands.”

  “Think what an atomic bomb set off in a concentrated dead zone could do.”

  Gunn fell silent at the thought.

  “Find us the anoxic zones, Rudi,” Pitt said, “and I’ll find us that barge.”

  Pitt and Giordino were back in the air when Gunn responded minutes later, with a call patched through to the helicopter’s radio.

  “Hiram just laid in a regional map of known dead zones, based on past water samplings combined with current data points. As you know, large portions of the Chesapeake Bay become oxygen-deprived in the summer months when nitrogen and phosphorous pollutants combine with warm water temperatures to create algae blooms. Unfortunately, the timing is perfect, as we are approaching the peak season.”

  “Where are the key hot spots?” Pitt asked.

  “It might be easier to define what’s not,” Gunn said. “A major seam runs nearly the length of the Chesapeake, beginning near the mouth of the Potomac and stretching up to Annapolis. It’s centered on the western side of the bay. There are some additional pockets farther north we’ll identify once Hiram finishes loading the data.”

  Pitt was already banking the helicopter to the east, crossing over Waldorf, Maryland, on a path to the Chesapeake Bay.

  “Washington doesn’t rate?” Giordino asked.

  “While I would think twice about swimming in the Anacostia River,” Gunn said, “both it and the Potomac have historically shown minimally active dead zones.”

  “We’ll shoot for Annapolis,” Pitt said.

  They soon reached the Chesapeake and Pitt banked the Robinson to the north. They cruised above the western side of the ten-mile-wide bay, performing flybys over several commercial vessels and a large sailboat Pitt recognized as a skipjack. The Severn River inlet loomed to their left and Pitt followed the waterway west, curling around Annapolis and its surrounding creeks. Aside from a few rusty dredge barges filled with mud, nothing resembled the black tow barge.

  As Pitt looped back to the Chesapeake, Gunn called again. “We found several more anoxic zones farther north.”

  “Any near population centers?” Pitt asked.

  “The Patapsco River is loaded with them.”

  “Baltimore?”

  “Yes, just outside the Inner Harbor.” Gunn paused for a moment. “Winds in Baltimore are currently out of the southeast at around ten knots. If your theory is right and they set it off in the Patapsco, they could kick up a cloud of hydrogen sulfide that would drift right over the city.”

  “There’s three million people there,” Giordino said.

  “The gas would be exponentially more lethal than the bomb itself,” Gunn said.

  “It fits the threat,” Pitt said. “Rudi, do you remember the letter to the President from the Ukrainian rebel group?”

  “Yes. Didn’t it say they were going to hit Washington?”

  “No. They said they would strike our historic capital. And they said the Star-Spangled Banner will no longer wave. Direct lyrics from our national anthem.”

  “Of course,” Gunn said. “Fort McHenry. Francis Scott Key. He wrote the original poem from Baltimore.”

  “Not only that, but if I’m not mistaken, Baltimore was an early, temporary capital for the Continental Congress before New York and Washington, D.C.”

  “I’ll alert the Baltimore Coast Guard station at once.”

  “We’ll be there in a flash. Pitt out.”

  Pitt nudged the cyclic control forward to squeeze more speed out of the Robinson as he angled back north up the Chesapeake. The entrance to the Patapsco River appeared on the horizon less than ten miles away.

  “I sure hope you’re wrong about all that,” Giordino said.

  “So do I,” Pitt said. “So do I.”

  But five minutes later, upon reaching the approach to the Patapsco River, they spotted a small black barge under tow to Baltimore.

  82

  “Wagner’s Point is three miles ahead.” The Lauren Belle’s helmsman pointed out the pilothouse window to a landmass just beyond the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

  Vasko glanced at the approaching highway bridge, then turned his attention to a nautical chart of Chesapeake Bay. Provided by Hendriks, it marked in purple highlights the bay’s low-oxygen zones. They were already sailing over such a zone, but their target was a southern tributary of the Patapsco River past the Key Bridge. It not only had a history of high anoxic rates during the summer but the site had the added advantage of being within sight of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

  He stepped across the small pilothouse and showed the chart to the helmsman. “Take us just off the tip of the Point. We’ll cut and sink the barge there. What’s our top speed without a tow?”

  “She’ll do close to fifteen knots.”

  “There’s a charter plane waiting for us across the bay at a place called Smith’s Field. Get us there as fast as possible, once we cut the barge loose.”

  “Will do.” A thumping noise vibrated through the bridge, and he pointed out an open rear door. “Looks like you’ve got a visitor.”

  Vasko turned to see a turquoise helicopter hovering over the barge.

  “Where’s the crate that was passed aboard?” he asked.

  “Right behind you.”

  Vasko kicked away some jackets to find the crate at the rear of the bridge. He unlatched the container to reveal four AK-47 rifles and some gas masks on a top shelf. He moved those aside in favor of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher that was fastened above a row of projectiles. He removed the launcher and loaded one of the rounds.

  Five hundred feet above the barge, the NUMA helicopter accelerated forward.

  “We better alert Rudi to get Homeland Security on them now.” Pitt was satisfied they had the right barge, affirmed by its three forward bollards. As they skimmed above the tow line, Giordino gave him a warning.

  “Man on the deck with a weapon.”

  Pitt had seen him as well. It was Vasko, raising a heavy weapon to his shoulder. Pitt pitched the Robinson’s nose down, to force more speed, while rolling sharply to the right.

  Vasko had little time to aim at the fast-moving chopper, so he simply pointed and shot. The RPG burst from the launcher just as Pitt flung the helicopter nearly onto its side.

  The projectile whistled past the Robinson’s fuselage, coming within a whisker of missing the helicopter altogether. But by the thinnest of margins, the RPG tagged the spinning tail rotor—and detonated.

  The blast demolished the tail assembly and sent a shower of shrapnel into the underside fuselage and engine compartment. The wounded helicopter shot past the tug before the mortal blow began to take effect. Inside the cockpit, smoke from the damaged engine filled the air. Pitt could feel the Robinson begin to spin from the loss of the tail rotor. He reached for the collective stick and cut the throttle.

  The seemingly counterintuitive move disengaged the engine from the main rotor, eliminating the torque-producing spin. It also created a state of autorotation, where the freewheeling main rotor slowed the helicopter’s descent. With some forward momentum, Pitt could descend in a semicontrolled glide. But he had only a few seconds before they touched down.

  “Wet landing,” he called out, knowing the shoreline was more than a half mile away.

  “Watch out for a large vessel
ahead.” Giordino choked out the words.

  The cockpit was filled with a thick blue haze. The two men could barely see each other, let alone anything in their path. Pitt had his face pressed to the side window, watching the water draw near, then glanced forward. The image of a large black mass was faintly visible, but they wouldn’t make it far enough to fear a collision.

  Out the side window, Pitt watched the helicopter drop altitude until they were fifty feet off the water. Then he pulled back on the cyclic control to raise the nose, flaring their speed. At just ten feet, he goosed the throttle for a burst of lift, then killed the power.

  The Robinson struck the bay with a hard jolt. Landing flat, the helicopter held afloat for just a second as smoke poured from the engine. The chopper then plunged beneath the surface, its main rotor slapping the bay. Two of the blades splintered on impact, spinning across the water.

  Amid a thrashing of white water and air bubbles, the Robinson sank to the bottom of the bay, disclosing no sign of its occupants.

  83

  “I guess there’s no avoiding a swim,” Giordino said as water swirled up to his knees.

  Pitt unbuckled his seat belt. “We’ll have to wait till she floods to get the doors open.”

  Though they had descended without power, Pitt had made a textbook emergency landing, without injury. Their only problem was they had landed in water.

  While the Robinson was completely submerged, the cockpit was only partially flooded. The two men calmly waited for the water inside to rise above the doorframes. The helicopter was twenty feet deep and sinking fast. They took a last breath from the remaining air pocket, shoved open their side doors, and stroked toward daylight.

  They broke the surface, gulping for air, and were orienting themselves for a swim to shore when a pair of ropes splashed into the water beside them.

  “Grab hold and we’ll pull you aboard,” a man yelled.

  Pitt turned and saw a massive black-hulled sailing ship moving down the bay. He reached for the nearest rope and was yanked to the vessel’s curved wooden hull. Cannon protruded from a white ribbon of gun ports a level beneath its main deck. Pitt recognized the ship with surprise. She was the USS Constellation, a pre–Civil War sloop and long-standing museum ship based in Baltimore Harbor.

  Hauling himself up the rope, Pitt reached the side rail and hopped onto her deck. A small group of middle-aged men gripped the other end of the rope while another team pulled Giordino aboard.

  “Thanks for the line.” Pitt shook off the water. “I didn’t expect to see the Connie out, stretching her legs.”

  A keen-eyed man in a yellow Hawaiian shirt approached. “She just came out of dry dock. We’re making a test run to prove she’s seaworthy. We hope to sail her to New York and Boston later this summer.” He reached out a hand. “My name’s Wayne Valero. I head up the Constellation’s volunteer sailing crew.”

  Pitt introduced himself as Giordino climbed aboard and joined them.

  “You boys were pretty lucky,” Valero said, eyeing them inquisitively. “One of my men said you were shot down.”

  Pitt pointed over the rail at the tug and barge passing in the opposite direction. “Would you believe that barge is headed to Baltimore with a bomb aboard?”

  “I’d believe it from two men who just swam out of a burning NUMA helicopter,” Valero said.

  “We could use your help to stop them.”

  Valero puffed out his chest. “That’s what the Constellation was built for. Tell us what we can do.”

  Under Pitt’s direction, the old warship made a sweeping turn to port. The veteran crew of sailors expertly worked the sails and rigging, turning the ship around and onto a northwesterly heading up the Patapsco River. With the sails on all three masts billowing, the ship moved briskly. Pitt could see they would soon overtake the tug and barge.

  As the city of Baltimore appeared off the ship’s prow, he approached Valero. “The Connie’s guns—are they operational?”

  Valero pointed to the stern. “There’s a twenty-pound Parrott gun on the aft spar deck that’s fired in demonstration all the time. We’ve got quite a bit of powder stored below, leftover from the Fourth of July celebrations.”

  “How about shot?”

  Valero thought a moment. “The Parrott’s a rifled gun, so it fires a shell. There’s a display case on the gun deck with a couple of samples for a twenty-pounder.”

  He led Pitt and Giordino down a level to the gun deck, where rows of eight-inch cannon lined the gun ports. They approached a wall display covered in an acrylic sheet that contained weapons and shot that would have been used aboard the Constellation after her launch in 1854.

  Giordino grabbed the acrylic covering and, with a heave, tore it from the wall. “My apologies to the museum,” he said to Valero, “but if we don’t stop these guys, there may not be any future visitors to the ship.”

  “I’ll take the heat,” Valero said. “You’ll want to grab the two shells on the lower left. The ten-pound round shot can also be used in a pinch. I’ll get the powder and primer and meet you topsides.”

  Giordino nodded toward Valero as he disappeared across the deck. “Lucky we found a guy who’s with us.”

  “Does seem like a kindred spirit,” Pitt said, prying a pair of cutlasses from the display.

  They hauled the swords and ammunition up to the spar deck and the Parrott gun at the aft rail. In 1860, Captain Robert Parker Parrott had designed his first rifled cannon, and copies in multiple calibers were used extensively by both armies during the Civil War. Known more for their accuracy than their durability, Parrott guns like that aboard the Constellation could fire a nineteen-pound shell over two miles.

  Valero arrived at the gun with a limber chest full of black powder bags, then called to some of the volunteers. “Vinson, Gwinn, Campbell, Yates—come over and help man this gun. I’ll take the helm.”

  “We’ll fire from the port rail,” Pitt said. “Have your men keep their heads down. They have weapons.”

  “No worries. I’ll bring her right alongside.” Valero stepped to the helm, ahead of the mizzenmast.

  Pitt and Giordino, with the help of the volunteers, rolled the Parrott gun to an opening along the port rail. Pitt placed a two-pound aluminum cartridge of powder into the muzzle, and one of the men shoved it to the breech with a ramrod.

  Giordino pointed to the armament lying on the deck. “What’s your choice?”

  “Let’s start with a solid shell.”

  Giordino placed a ten-inch-long solid shell in the muzzle, and it was rammed down to the powder. The crew shoved the gun’s carriage to the rail and secured it with ropes. Pitt jammed a friction primer into a vent on the cannon’s breech, puncturing the powder bag. He tied off the end of the primer to a thin lanyard and stepped away from the carriage with the other men.

  The tug was barely a hundred yards ahead, with Valero making straight for her. The tug seemed to notice the Constellation’s approach and veered to port.

  “They’re trying to elude us in the shallows,” Giordino said.

  The Constellation heeled to port in pursuit.

  “Apparently, we have a captain lacking in fear,” Pitt said.

  The Constellation closed on the tug. When it was less than twenty yards off, the ship swung slightly to starboard to bring the loaded cannon to bear. Pitt stood behind the gun and waited until the tug’s pilothouse came into view, then pulled the lanyard.

  The Parrott gun erupted with a boom and a belch of smoke, launching its projectile at point-blank range. The blunt-nosed shell blew through the tug’s wheelhouse, shattering the helm in a shower of wood splinters and severing the pilot’s left arm.

  Standing behind the carnage just outside the bridge, Vasko responded in kind. He reloaded the RPG launcher and fired a grenade into the ship. The armor-piercing round penetrated the orlop deck before deton
ating low in the ship, rupturing its hull planking and flooding the bilge. The tug’s three uninjured crewmen retrieved the AK-47s and began spraying the Constellation with fire.

  “Keep low and reload,” Pitt shouted. The volunteers pulled the Parrott gun back and swabbed its barrel with water.

  The wooden warship had pulled ahead of the tug, exposing the men on the aft deck to the opposing fire. Bullets chewed up the side rail and deck as the gun crew hurried to reload the cannon.

  “This one’s a canister round,” Giordino said as the next shell was rammed down.

  As the cannon was shoved forward, one of the gun crew fell to the deck, exclaiming, “I’m hit.” Pitt angled the weapon toward the tug’s aft deck and fired again. The canister shell was packed with lead balls that dispersed at firing like a giant shotgun. The Constellation was too close to the tug for the blast to cover a wide area, but the concentrated fire struck one of the gunmen, killing him instantly.

  Aboard the tug, Vasko reloaded and fired another RPG, this one better aimed. The projectile whizzed just over Pitt’s head and struck the mizzenmast a dozen yards away. The entire vessel shook, and splinters and shrapnel peppered the gun crew. The blast ignited the mizzen, sending flames skyward as canvas and rigging began to burn.

  Pitt tried to rally the gun crew for another shot as cries from the wounded mingled with the yells of men trying to put out the fires.

  “Last of the ammo,” Giordino said. He held up a twelve-pound solid shot that was made for a smaller, smoothbore gun.

  Pitt glared at the tug. “Let ’em have it.”

  The cannon was pushed out and aimed astern, as the Constellation had moved well past the tug. Pitt aimed for a man firing an assault weapon on the tug’s aft deck. As he pulled the lanyard, the ship jarred to a halt with a grinding sound from below. The gun fired astray and the men around it were knocked off their feet.

  “We’ve run aground!” a crewman shouted. “Watch out for the mizzenmast!”