Odessa Sea Read online

  “Are they willing to pay a commission?”

  “Around six figures, I believe.”

  The general placed his empty glass on the desk. “I’m sure I could locate a dozen missiles in inventory that could be assigned to field exercises. But transport would be of concern.”

  “I’m told that if you can make delivery in Ukraine, they will handle the transport to Africa. Could one of their representatives contact you discreetly?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Zakharin rose to his feet, his eyes blurry. “I will let you know about the Peregrine.”

  “Thank you, General.”

  Zakharin returned to his limo and was driven off the airfield. Hendriks approached his technical assistant, who was packing up the Peregrine’s portable control station.

  “Are you going to leave the Peregrine here with the Russians?” he asked Hendriks.

  “So they can copy us blind? No. They’ve seen all I want them to see. Have it broken down, placed in the truck, and returned to the factory at once.”

  “Yes, sir. I will take care of it.”

  Hendriks stepped across the tarmac to a waiting private jet.

  The jet’s pilot greeted him as he climbed aboard. “We’re cleared for takeoff to Amsterdam at your convenience, sir.”

  Hendriks dropped into a leather seat. “Proceed with our flight plan to Amsterdam. But once we clear Russian airspace, divert us to Kiev. I need to make a stop there before we return home.”

  Minutes later, the jet roared into the damp sky, leaving the Russian airfield near Moscow hidden beneath dark clouds. Hendriks stared out the window with a dull sense of relief. It was the first glimmer of satisfaction he had known in more than three years.

  6

  The Macedonia cleared the Bosphorus Strait ahead of a gray dawn and retraced its path toward the site of the freighter’s sinking. A passing Turkish Coast Guard frigate reported the search and rescue efforts had been abandoned the prior evening and no additional survivors had been found.

  The lights of another vessel appeared before them, stationary in their path.

  “Somebody’s still on the site,” Captain Stenseth said, reaching for his binoculars.

  Ana and Ralin stood with Pitt on the bridge. They all gazed at the twinkling lights that cut the morning gloom.

  “Another Coast Guard vessel?” Ana asked.

  Stenseth deferred judgment until they drew close enough to see it was some sort of work ship or salvage vessel that teemed with cranes. A tattered white, green, and red flag of Bulgaria fluttered from the bridge mast. The transom conspicuously lacked a ship’s name.

  “Could they be an insurance investigator?” Ana asked.

  “Possible,” Pitt said, “though it’s not likely they would be here already.”

  “Then they have no authority to be here,” Ralin said. “May I borrow your ship’s radio?”

  Stenseth handed him the transmitter, and the police agent hailed the unidentified ship. “This is Inspector Petar Ralin of the Bulgarian National Police aboard the NUMA ship Macedonia. Please identify yourself and state your business at this location.”

  A minute later, a grumbly voice blared through the bridge speaker. “This is a private salvage vessel. We are engaged in excavations on the shipwreck Kerch. Please stand clear.”

  “You are near the coordinates of a shipwreck under police authority,” Ralin said. “Identify yourself and move off-site.”

  This time, there was no response.

  Pitt glanced at a nautical chart. “He’s right, on one score. There is a wreck marked less than a quarter mile from where the Crimean Star sank.” On the helm’s navigation screen, the freighter’s position was marked by a red X. Pitt turned to Stenseth. “We’re still a bit short of the mark.”

  “Are they on the Crimean Star’s coordinates?” Ana asked.

  “Near to it,” Stenseth said. “Looks like they are a bit to the west . . . and moving off in that direction.”

  In the faint early light, Pitt could make out numerous large cranes on the ship as it eased away. The salvage vessel slowed and held its position several hundred meters away, exactly over the position of the marked wreck.

  Pitt sat at a side computer terminal and typed in the wreck’s name, Kerch. “She was a destroyer of the Russian Imperial Navy, built in 1916.” He pulled up a photo of the ship. “It says she sank during an engagement with Ottoman naval forces off the Bosphorus Strait in February 1917.”

  “Do you think they are actually working on that wreck and not the Crimean Star?” Ralin asked.

  “Not likely, but there’s one way to find out,” Pitt said. “Who’s up for a dive in a submersible?”

  Ralin’s face went blank, while Ana produced a faint smile.

  “The lady it is,” Pitt said. “Come, follow me, Ms. Belova, for a guided trip to the deep.”

  “You’ll bring her back?” Ralin asked, only half joking.

  Pitt winked. “I haven’t lost a paying customer yet.”

  • • •

  ANA’S HEART WAS POUNDING forty minutes later when a rush of seawater washed over the acrylic bubble viewport of the NUMA three-man submersible. Seated in the rear, she looked over the shoulders of Pitt and Giordino at a rush of bubbles that dissipated into a wall of turbid green water. A slight claustrophobia crept over her when she realized visibility was only a few feet. “Is that as clear as the water gets?” she asked.

  “The scenery will get much better shortly,” Pitt said. “The deeper waters of the Black Sea are actually anoxic, or oxygen-depleted, which makes for crystal clear viewing. We’re not going very deep, but we should still get a taste of that.”

  Giordino tracked a depth monitor. “We should hit the mud at about three hundred feet.”

  Pitt’s words soon rang true. Like a veil being pulled away from the viewport, the visibility suddenly expanded to nearly fifty feet, aided by the bright LED lights on the submersible’s exterior.

  Ana felt her pulse slow with the improved visibility and the obvious calmness of the men at the controls. “My parents used to take me swimming in the Black Sea off Romania as a child, but I was always afraid of sea creatures.”

  “There’s not much to worry about in the Black Sea, except maybe jellyfish,” Pitt said. “You were born in Romania?”

  “Yes. I grew up in Bucharest. My father was a history teacher and my mother a seamstress. We would spend summer vacation at Constanţa, where my father loved to swim and snorkel in the sea every day.”

  “Sounds like my kind of guy,” Pitt said. “How’d you end up carrying a gun and a badge?”

  “My brother was killed by a drug smuggler when I was in high school.” The pain was still evident in her voice. “I found myself in law enforcement academy a few years later, perhaps as a subconscious means of avenging his death. I soon found I actually enjoyed the challenge of the work. After a few years with the Romanian police, I took an assignment with Europol and never left. It’s been a satisfying adventure.” She waved a hand toward the viewport. “I never know where the job might take me.”

  A faint, distant light appeared beyond her fingertips.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Must be an ROV or submersible from the salvage ship,” Giordino said. “Maybe they are playing on the other shipwreck.”

  The light faded as they neared the bottom. To their right, the dark image of the Crimean Star materialized a short distance away. Pitt adjusted the submersible’s ballast until they hovered a few meters above the sandy seafloor, then engaged the thrusters. A few seconds later, they approached the slab-sided hull of the ship near its bow.

  The freighter sat upright on the bottom, appearing mostly unscathed. The ship’s stern had struck the seabed and augered in, as evidenced by the rising slope of the bow. Absent any algae, encrustations, or entangled fishing net
s typical of most wrecks, the ship had an alien appearance.

  Pitt approached the freighter’s stern and headed to its port flank to investigate the explosion.

  “You sure it was this side of the ship?” Giordino asked.

  Pitt nodded, nudging the submersible alongside the hull. “The main damage must be concealed in the sand.” He squinted out the viewport. “Take a close look at those plates.”

  He pivoted the submersible so its exterior lights shone across the side of the hull. A slight gap was barely visible along a horizontal hull plate just above the seafloor.

  “You’re right, they’re buckled,” Giordino said. “There must be much more damage hidden by sand, given how fast the ship sank.”

  “Is there any way to tell if she was sunk intentionally?” Ana asked.

  “Not without a bit of excavation,” Pitt said. “The ship’s insurer might find it worth the effort, if they have a chance of dodging a payout.”

  Giordino nodded. “Truth suddenly becomes important when a buck’s involved.”

  Pitt engaged the thrusters and brought the submersible up to the freighter’s main deck. As the sub glided over the side rail, he brought it to a hover beneath the accommodations block. Looking across the forward deck, they saw the freighter’s four large holds fully exposed. Each hold cover was lying to the side, extending over the starboard rail.

  “Were those removed or jarred loose when she sank?” Ana asked.

  “They look too orderly to have been knocked off by chance,” Giordino said.

  Pitt propelled the submersible to the nearest steel cover and examined its painted surface. Fresh gouge marks were clearly visible on one edge.

  “By the look of those marks,” Giordino said, “somebody’s scraped those pretty recently.”

  “The salvage ship would have the means to do so,” Pitt said. “Let’s see if they left anything behind.”

  He cruised to the first hold. The opening was more than double the size of the submersible, and Pitt easily dropped the vessel into the hold. At its bottom was a yellow tractor lashed to the deck, surrounded by miscellaneous farm equipment.

  Giordino smiled. “Looks like Old MacDonald’s barn is still there.”

  “The contents appear fully intact,” Pitt said. He elevated the submersible and hopscotched over and into the next three holds. Each looked identical, containing a tractor and related agricultural equipment. All of the holds appeared undisturbed.

  Giordino turned to Ana. “I guess your ship’s manifest was legit.”

  “Yes,” she said, “but it would appear that the salvors were interested in something else.”

  “If the HEU was carried aboard,” Pitt asked, “what size container would it require?”

  “Not large, depending on the quantity. If precautionary measures were used, it would be stored in a protective canister, which would then be enclosed in a small, secure crate. The engineer’s radioactivity exposure may indicate it was lightly protected—possibly disguised as ordinary goods.”

  “Then the engine room it is,” Pitt said.

  He turned the submersible around and traveled aft, cutting around the accommodations block to reach the squat rear deck. Unlike the forward area, the stern was a disrupted, mangled mass of twisted steel. A gaping hole was carved along a lower companionway, exposing the aft section of the engine room.

  Ana turned pale. “They’ve cut into the engine room,” she said in a low voice.

  “In a big way,” Giordino said. “Doesn’t look like they used explosives, though.”

  “Maybe a grapple device,” Pitt said.

  Giordino grunted. “They sure caused a lot of destruction. If it was just the HEU they were after, some divers could have carried it out.”

  Pitt maneuvered the submersible to the jagged edge of the opening and tilted it forward. The craft’s lights flashed across the deck of the engine room, revealing a clean and unmolested bay. The sight triggered his memory. “The crate. I should have remembered it. There was a gray crate in the engine room. The assistant engineer was sprawled across it when I found him.”

  They scanned the compartment, but Pitt’s gray box was nowhere to be seen.

  “That must have been what they were after,” Giordino said. “Your uranium story might have some teeth to it after all.”

  “I was hoping otherwise,” she said.

  Pitt ascended the submersible and hovered for a moment over the Crimean Star’s fantail. He eyed a digital compass and then propelled the craft on a westerly heading.

  “Are we surfacing?” Ana asked.

  “A slight detour on the way up,” he said.

  Giordino was already scanning the terrain ahead. After they traversed a thousand meters, he motioned to Pitt. “Possible target ahead on the left.”

  Pitt saw a dark smudge in the distance and angled toward it. A short time later, the corroded remains of the Kerch materialized. It looked nothing like the proud warship he had examined in the photo. The ship sat keeled over against a large sand dune that partially covered her stern. The bow was crumpled from colliding with the bottom, while the central part of the ship was a brown mass of concretion-encrusted, rusting steel.

  Pitt brought the submersible amidships, where more damage was visible on the remains of the superstructure. He noted an obvious difference in the mangled steel that was twisted open along the side of the bridge, where numerous raw gouges were evident. “Recent handiwork here as well,” he said. “Certainly not from 1917.”

  He followed the damage to the rear of the superstructure, where an even larger hole had been carved out of a lower-level bulkhead.

  Giordino pointed to a black object sitting on the deck beneath the gap. “Take a look at that.”

  Pitt dropped the submersible to the deck level and faced the object. Its perfectly square shape was disrupted on one side by a protruding dial and handle.

  “It’s a safe,” Ana said.

  “Probably for the ship’s payroll,” Pitt said. “The salvors must have recovered it from the captain’s cabin.”

  “It still looks locked and sealed,” Giordino said. “I wonder why they left it here.”

  Like an asteroid from the heavens, a faint light approached from above, gradually growing brighter. The glow morphed into a half dozen xenon lights that radiated from the top of a massive lifting claw. The giant grapple drew to a stop midway between the safe and the submersible, dangling a few meters above the deck. Ever so slowly, the device extended its titanium-tipped fingers like a cat extending its claws.

  Ana watched, mesmerized. “It’s big enough to hoist a car.”

  “Or rip open the deck of a ship,” Pitt said.

  As if it had a mind of its own, the claw eased over the safe, using a bank of side thrusters. It hesitated, then reversed course and accelerated toward the submersible. Pitt had eyed the heavy thrusters mounted on the claw’s frame and reacted instantly. Hovering the submersible against the back of the Kerch’s superstructure, he drove the craft sideways across the deck.

  “What’s it doing?” Ana asked.

  “Trying to shake hands.” Pitt applied full power to his own thrusters.

  The streamlined claw was quick to move laterally and pursue the submersible, guided by its multiple video cameras.

  As they approached the rusting remains of the side rail, Pitt had no choice but to ascend. The action scrubbed off just enough speed for the claw to close the gap. As both machines slipped over the rail, the claw retracted its fingers to grab the submersible.

  A metallic scraping reverberated through the interior as the claw grasped at the submersible’s topside. Pitt jammed the thruster controls forward and tried to descend. The grating abated for a moment, then they heard a secondary clang. The submersible nosed forward and jolted to a halt. Ana shrieked.

  Pitt turned the thrusters
and tried to pull away, but the heavier grapple countered with its own propulsion. The lifting claw rotated, throwing the submersible against the hull of the Kerch. The submersible struck hard by the bow and skittered.

  Immediately, the claw spun in the other direction.

  Pitt countered the move with his own power, but it wasn’t enough. The submersible was whipped around and thrown stern first against the wreck. A clatter churned the water as the main thruster broke free and was smashed to bits.

  Giordino reached back and pulled Ana’s safety belt as tight as he could. “Hang on, sister, we’re in for a ride.”

  Powerless to counter the salvage grapple, Pitt, Giordino, and Ana clung to their seats as the vessel was pummeled from side to side. The submersible was repeatedly slammed against the old ship until its exterior resembled a dented soup can. Only when the vessel’s lights flickered out and a stream of bubbles sprayed toward the surface did the hydraulic claw cease its thrashing and release its grip.

  The salvage grapple returned to the Kerch’s deck and clasped its fingers around the ship’s safe. With its prize secure, the claw reeled upward toward the surface. As it rose from the bottom, its video cameras caught a final glimpse of the NUMA submersible. Lying inverted and still, the battered craft was left to the silence of the blackened depths beside the long-dead warship.

  7

  All Pitt could see was red.

  It wasn’t blood but a tiny emergency light that pulsed near his face. He blinked away a shooting pain in his head and shoulder, then called into the darkened interior. “Everybody okay?”

  “I’m good,” Ana said with a frightened voice.

  Giordino grunted. “I guess we survived the tumble dry setting.” Like Pitt, he had been pitched forward from his seat when the submersible flipped over and he lay prone on its ceiling. He rose to his knees, splashing water around him.