Treasure of Khan

  Pitt and Giordino eased the Zodiac away from the Vereshchagin, careful to keep the research ship between them and the shore guard.

  "A couple of nice friendly drinking establishments are just a short paddle away, and you want to take us on a fishing expedition," Giordino whispered.

  "Overpriced tourist traps that hawk warm beer and stale pretzels," Pitt countered.

  "Alas, a warm beer is still better than no beer," he replied poetically.

  Though they quickly melted into the dark night, Pitt had them row almost a mile from shore before pulling on the starter rope to the boat's 25-horsepower outboard motor. The small engine quickly coughed to life, and Pitt turned the boat parallel to shore as they putted forward at slow speed. Once the boat was moving, Giordino lifted a three-foot-long sonar towfish from the floorboard and slipped it over the side, feeding it out to nearly the full length of its hundred-meter electronic tow cable. Securing the line to the gunwale, he flipped open a laptop computer and initiated the side-scan sonar's operating software. Within minutes, a yellow-tinted image of the lake bed began scrolling down the screen.

  "The picture show has started," Giordino announced, "featuring an undulating sandy bottom one hundred seventy feet deep."

  Pitt continued running the boat parallel to shore until he was even with the black freighter. He held his course for another quarter mile before turning the Zodiac around and running back in the opposite direction, a few dozen meters farther into the lake.

  "The Primorski looked to be parked in this neighborhood when we flew over her last night," Pitt said, waving an arm toward the southeast. His eyes turned and studied the landmarks on shore to the north, which he tried to recall sighting from the helicopter.

  Giordino nodded. "I agree, we should be in the ballpark."

  Pitt pulled a compass from his pocket and took a heading, then set it on the bench in front of him. Tracking the bearing with the occasional flash of a penlight, he held a steady course until he passed a half mile in the other direction, then turned and backtracked again farther to the south. For the next hour, they continued the search, moving farther offshore as Giordino monitored the bottom contours on the laptop computer.

  Pitt turned his eyes to shore, preparing to turn at the end of an imaginary lane when Giordino said, "Got something."

  Pitt held his course, leaning forward to examine the image on the laptop. A dark linear object began scrolling down the screen, followed by another thin line that angled toward it. The image slowly evolved into a large A shape that had grown a few additional cross-members.

  "Length is about forty feet," Giordino said. "Sure looks like the structure we saw sitting on the poop deck of the Primorski last night. Shame on them for littering the lake."

  "Shame on them, indeed," Pitt replied, staring off toward the black freighter. "The question is, my dear Watson, why?"

  When Pitt leaned over and shut off the outboard motor, Giordino knew they were going to seek the answer. Something had bothered Pitt about the black freighter the first time he saw it. Finding out it was leased by the Avarga Oil Consortium had just sealed the deal. He had little doubt that there must be some connection to the ship and the disappearance of Sarghov and the oil survey team. As he studied the ship from afar, Giordino quickly pulled in the sonar fish and closed the laptop computer, then retrieved the oars for the rowing ahead of them.

  The Primorski sat dark and quiet at its still berth near the end of the village waterfront. The large trucks were still parked on the adjacent pier, the two flatbed rigs loaded with their concealed cargo. A tall chain-link fence secured the dock from passing villagers and was enforced by a pair of security guards lounging in a hut at the entrance. Around the trucks, a couple of men milled about studying a map splayed across one of the fenders, though the ship itself appeared devoid of life.

  Pitt and Giordino approached the ship's stern silently, drifting slowly under the shadow of its high fantail. Pitt reached up and grabbed the freighter's stern mooring line, which ran down to the water, and used it to pull them alongside the dock. As Giordino tied a line around a splintered pylon, Pitt climbed from the Zodiac and crept onto the wooden dock.

  The trucks were parked at the opposite end near the ship's bow, but Pitt could still hear the voices of the men wafting across the empty pier. Spotting a pair of rusty oil drums, he crept up and kneeled behind them near the dock's edge. A second later, Giordino silently appeared behind him.

  "Empty as a church on Monday," Giordino whispered, eyeing the ghostly quiet ship.

  "Yes, a little too peaceful."

  Pitt peered around the drums and spied a gangway at the far end that ran up to the ship's forward hold. He then studied the freighter's side deck railing, which stood eight feet above the dock.

  "Gangplank might be too grand an entrance," he whispered to Giordino. "I think we can step over from these," he said, pointing to the drums.

  Pitt gingerly rolled one of the drums to the edge of the dock, then climbed on top. Bending his knees, he sprang off the drum and across three feet of water, reaching out and grabbing hold of the ship's lower side railing. He hung there for a second before swinging his body to the side, using the momentum to slip himself through the railing and onto the deck. It was a harder jump for the shorter Giordino, who nearly missed the rail and hung by one hand for a moment until Pitt jerked him aboard.

  "Next time, I take the elevator," he muttered.

  Catching their breath, they hung to the shadows and examined the silent ship. The freighter was small by oceangoing standards, stretching just over two hundred thirty feet. She was built of the classic cargo ship design, with a central superstructure surrounded by open deck fore and aft. Though her hull was steel, her decks were made of teak and reeked of oil, diesel fuel, and a candy store assortment of chemicals spilled and absorbed into the wood fibers over four decades of use. Pitt surveyed the stern deck, which was dotted with a handful of metal containers congregated near a single hold. Moving silently across the deck, he and Giordino crept toward the shadow of one of the containers, where they stopped and peered into the open stern hold.

  The deep bay was stacked at either end with bundles of small-diameter iron pipe. The center of the hold was empty, but even in the darkness, the scarred markings where the feet of the mystery trestle had recently stood was etched into the hold's decking. More intriguing was a six-foot-diameter deck cap that sealed an access hole through the deck at the exact center of the footing markers.

  "Looks like a string hole for a North Sea drill ship," Pitt whispered.

  "And the drill pipe to go with it," Giordino replied. "But this sure ain't no drill ship."

  It was a salient point. A drill ship contains the pipe and storage apparatus to drill into the earth for petroleum and collect the liquid aboard. The old freighter might have been able to set drill pipe, but obviously wasn't capable of collecting a drop of oil, if that was indeed the intended goal.

  Pitt didn't stay to contemplate the point but moved quickly toward the portside passageway. Reaching the corner edge, he stopped and pressed himself against the bulkhead then peeked around the corner. There was still no sight of any shipboard inhabitants. Moving forward slowly with Giordino on his heels, he breathed easier now that they were out of sight of the dock.

  They crept forward until reaching a cross-passageway that bisected the superstructure from beam to beam. A lone overhead light illuminated the empty passageway in a dull yellow glow. Somewhere in the distance, an electrical generator hummed like a swarm of cicadas. Pitt walked underneath the light and tugged his sweater down over his right hand, then reached up and unscrewed the bulb until the saffron glow was extinguished. Shielded from the dock lights, the passageway fell nearly pitch-black.

  Standing at the corner of the crossways, the latch to a cabin door suddenly clicked behind them. Both men quickly turned into the side passage, moving out of sight of the opening door. A dimly illuminated open compartment beckoned on Pitt's left and he ste
pped into it, followed by Giordino, who closed the door behind them.

  As they stood by the door listening for footsteps, their eyes scanned the room. They stood in the ship's formal mess, which doubled as a conference room. The bay was a plush departure from the rest of the shabby freighter. An ornate Persian carpet buoyed a polished mahogany table that stretched across the room, surrounded by rich leather-backed chairs. Thick wallpaper, a smattering of tasteful artwork, and a few artificial plants made it resemble the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria. At the opposite end, a set of double doors led to the ship's galley. On the bulkhead next to Pitt, a large video screen was mounted at eye level to accept satellite video feeds.

  "Nice atmosphere to chow down fish soup and borscht," Giordino muttered.

  Pitt ignored the comment as he stepped closer to a series of maps pinned to one wall. They were computer generated, showing enlarged sections of Lake Baikal. At various locations around the lake, red concentric circles had been drawn in by hand. A map of the northern fringe of the lake showed a thick concentration of the circles, some overlapping the shore where an oil pipeline was depicted running from west to east.

  "Target drill sites?" Giordino asked.

  "Probably. Not going to make the Earth First! crowd too happy," Pitt replied.

  Giordino listened at the door as the outside footsteps descended a nearby stairwell. When the footfalls faded away, he cracked the door slightly and peeked into the now-empty passageway.

  "No one about. And no sign of any passengers aboard."

  "It's the shore boat I want to get a look at," Pitt whispered.

  Inching the door open, they crept into the side hall and back to the portside passageway. Moving forward, the freighter's superstructure quickly gave way to the open forward deck, which encompassed a split pair of recessed holds. Along the port rail near the bow sat a beat-up tender, stowed in a block cradle affixed to the deck. A nearby winch with cables still attached to the tender offered evidence that it had recently been deployed.

  "She's in plain sight of the bridge," Giordino said, nodding up toward a fuzzy light that shined from the forward bridge window twenty feet above their heads.

  "But only if someone's looking that way," Pitt replied. "I'll zip over and take a quick look."

  While Giordino hung to the shadows, Pitt crept low and scurried across the open deck, holding close to the port rail. Lights from the dock and the bridge itself bathed the deck in a dull glow, which cast a faint shadow of Pitt's steps as he moved. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the trucks on the dock and a handful of men milling about them. Dressed in black pants and sweater, he would be almost invisible to the men at that distance. It was the occupants of the bridge that concerned him most.

  Nearly sprinting as he reached the small boat, he ducked around its bow and kneeled in its covering shadow beside the rail. As his heart rate slowed, he listened for sounds of detection, but the freighter remained silent. Only the muffled sounds of activity from the nearby village echoed across the deck. Pitt peered up at the bridge and could see two men through the window talking with each other. Neither paid the slightest attention to the ship's forward deck.

  Crouching down, Pitt pulled out his penlight and held it against the hull of the shore boat, then flicked the switch on for just a second. The tiny beam illuminated a battered wood hull that was painted a crimson red. Rubbing his hand along the hull, flakes of the red paint chafed onto his fingers. As Pitt had suspected, it was the same shade of red that had rubbed off against the starboard side of the Vereshchagin.

  Rising to his feet, he moved toward the tender's bow when something in the interior caught his eye. Dropping his hand to the floorboard, he again flicked on the penlight. The brief flash of light illuminated a worn baseball cap with a red emblem of a charging hog sewn on the front. Pitt recognized the razorback mascot of the University of Arkansas and recalled that it was Jim Wofford's hat. There was no doubt in his mind now that the Primorski was involved with the attempted sinking of the Vereshchagin and disappearance of the crew.

  Replacing the penlight, he stood and glanced at the bridge again. The two figures were still engaged in an animated conversation, paying no attention to the deck below. Pitt moved slowly around the tender's bow, then stopped in his tracks. A sudden warning rang out in his brain, he senses detecting a nearby presence. But it was too late to act. A second later, a halogen flashlight burst on in his face and a screeching Russian cry of "Ostanovka!" split the air.

  -9-

  UNDER THE GLOW FROM the dock lights, a man emerged from the shadows and walked to within five feet of Pitt. He was slightly built, with oily black hair that matched the color of his work overalls. He nervously swayed back and forth on the balls of his feet, but there was nothing nervous in the way he held a Yarygin PYa 9mm automatic pistol aimed rock steady at Pitt's chest. The gunman had been sitting quietly in the forecastle behind the capstan, Pitt now realized, where he had a clear view of the gangplank. From that forward position, he had caught sight of Pitt's penlight and had crept over to investigate. The guard was barely past his teens, and stared at Pitt through darting brown eyes. Professional guard was not his first duty, Pitt surmised, noting the grease-stained fingers of a mechanic wrapped around the handgun. Yet he held the gun perfectly trained on Pitt and there was little doubt he would pull the trigger if pressed.

  Pitt found himself in an awkward position, squeezed between the tender and the side rail, with open deck between him and the guard. As the guard pulled a handheld radio to his lips with his left hand, Pitt decided to act. It was either lunge at the guard and risk getting shot in the face or slip over the rail and take a chance in the cold lake water below. Or he could hope that Giordino would appear. But Giordino was fifty feet away and would be in immediate sight of the guard the second he stepped on the forward deck.

  As the guard spoke briefly into the transmitter, his eyes remained locked on Pitt. Pitt stood perfectly still, contemplating the penalty for trespassing in Russia and dryly noting that an exile to Siberia wouldn't require any traveling. He then thought of the dead fisherman aboard the Vereshchagin and wondered if a Siberian gulag wasn't too rosy an assumption.

  He subtly bent his knees while waiting for the radio to squawk back, which would create a slight distraction to the guard. When a deep voice blared back through the handset, Pitt inched his left hand to the side rail and tightened his legs for a springing vault over the side. But that's as far as he got.

  The muzzle flash flared with a simultaneous bark from the Yarygin as the gun bucked slightly in the guard's hand. Pitt froze as a baseball-sized chunk of teak splintered off the wood rail inches from his hand and splashed into the water below a moment later.

  Pitt made no further movements as a series of shouts erupted on the dock, inspired more from the gunshot than the radio call. Two men stormed up the gangway, each brandishing the same type Yarygin pistol carried by the Russian military that had nearly blown away Pitt's left hand. Pitt immediately recognized the second man as the missing helmsman from the Vereshchagin, a humorless icicle named Anatoly. A third man soon emerged from the bridge companionway and approached with an authoritative air. He had long ebony hair and surveyed the scene through a pair of callous brown eyes. Under the dock lights, Pitt could see a long scar running down his left cheek, the tattoo from a youthful knife fight.

  "I found this intruder hiding behind the tender," the guard reported.

  The man eyed Pitt briefly, then turned to the other two crewmen. "Search the area for accomplices. And no more gunfire. We do not need to attract attention."

  The two men from the dock jumped at his words and quickly fanned through the forward deck, searching the shadows. Pitt was led to the center of the deck, where an overhead light illuminated the scene.

  "Where is Alexander?" Pitt asked calmly. "He told me to meet him here."

  Pitt didn't expect the bluff to work but studied the man in charge for a reaction. A slight arch of the brow was
all he offered.

  "English?" he finally said without interest. "You would be from the Vereshchagin. A pity you have lost your way."

  "But I have found those responsible for trying to sink her," Pitt responded.

  Under the dim lights, Pitt could see the man's face flush. He checked his anger as Anatoly and the other crewman approached, shaking their heads.

  "No companions? Then put him with the other and quietly deposit them over the side where no one will find them," the man hissed.

  The guard stepped forward and thrust the barrel of his pistol into Pitt's ribs and nodded toward the portside passageway. Pitt grudgingly walked toward the shadows where he had left Giordino and turned down the passageway, followed by the guard and two crewmen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the scar-faced boss return to the bridge via a side stairwell.

  Marching past the crossways, he half expected to see Giordino lunge out of the shadows at his assailants, but his partner was nowhere to be seen. Reaching the stern deck, he was prodded toward one of the rusty cargo containers lining the rail. Acting calm and non-resistant, he waited until one of the crewmen fumbled with a padlock on the container before taking the offensive. The guard still poked him in the ribs with a pistol, standing off balance in the process. In a lightning-quick move, Pitt bumped the muzzle away from his body with a flick of his left elbow. Before the guard realized what was happening, Pitt had swung at him, carrying the full weight of his right fist with the momentum. The roundhouse hammered the guard's chin, coming within a hair of knocking him unconscious. Instead, he staggered backward into the arms of Anatoly as the gun clanked to the deck.