Mankedo ignored the blood dripping from his arm and stared at the lights of the distant spy ship. He spat over the side. “I want to know who they are!”
He was to never find out.
The two inflatables were nearly back to the spy ship when the detonator went off. A massive fireball erupted from the center of the Nevena, then a thunderclap sounded across the waves. The shock wave could be felt even at the distance of the small boats. Mansfield stopped the motor and watched as the salvage ship disappeared in a tower of smoke and flames. In minutes, the Bulgarian salvage ship broke in half and plunged beneath the waves.
The two inflatables eased back to the spy ship, where her captain stood on the deck fuming. Once the boats were hoisted aboard, he pulled Mansfield aside. “Four men! You killed four of my men and wounded a fifth!”
“I didn’t kill them, they did,” Mansfield said, motioning toward the Nevena’s former position.
“And a very subtle exit as well, not likely to draw any attention at all,” the captain said sarcastically. “I thought you were simply going to take the gold at gunpoint from some salvage thieves. Aside from potentially blowing our cover, you made that task a far sight more difficult.”
“I don’t think the ship has recovered any gold,” Mansfield said calmly. “I’ll dive it in the morning to be sure. If you have any further complaints, I suggest you take them up with the President.”
He turned on his heels and walked away, leaving the captain stewing. Reaching his cabin, he set his pistol on a bureau and rummaged through his suitcase for a bottle of Chivas Regal he kept wrapped in a sweater. He twisted off the cap and started to pour himself a glass, then thought the better of it, knowing in a few hours he would make another deepwater dive. He set the bottle next to a laptop computer, which he flipped on. An e-mail from Martina was waiting for him.
Captioned Cagliari, it contained a photo of a turquoise NUMA ship leaving the dock in Sardinia. The photo was centered on the ship’s bow, and Mansfield zoomed in to see the ship’s name. As he did, the figures of Dirk and Summer standing at the rail popped out at him.
Eyeing the twins, the normally restrained agent flung the laptop across the room, then proceeded to pour himself a double shot of Chivas.
66
The Black Sea was as flat as a billiard table when the two divers splashed into the dark green water. Neither hesitating at the surface, Pitt and Giordino descended within sight of an anchored shot line. The calm waters aided visibility, and they reached the one-hundred-and-twenty-foot mark before turning on their lights. A coarse, sandy bottom appeared thirty feet later.
Pitt checked a compass on his dive console and swam to the east, with Giordino following close by. A small school of sturgeon cruised past, then the dirty silver outline of an airplane materialized.
After returning to the site of the Ottoman frigate Fethiye, Pitt and the crew of the Macedonia had needed only a few hours to locate the plane with sonar. So far, Pitt’s growing list of hunches had been borne out. The body of the Russian airman had indeed come from a sunken aircraft, which he had predicted after the Bulgarian archeologist Dimitov suddenly disappeared. The cargo door at the salvage yard, if from the same plane, revealed a link to Mankedo.
The polished aluminum skin had tarnished, collecting a thin layer of silt. But under the glow of their flashlights, the aircraft was still impressive. It was huge, the fuselage extending nearly a hundred feet, while its lone remaining wing stretched another sixty feet.
The two divers approached the port wing, floating above its twin eighteen-cylinder radial engines. The outer engine’s propeller was absent, while the interior’s was bent from impact. The divers reached the fuselage and swam aft until reaching the large tail assembly that still rose skyward. Pitt brushed the silt off the vertical stabilizer, revealing a large red star. Beneath the star, in black paint, was the number 223002, which Pitt committed to memory.
He and Giordino swam to the other side of the plane and found a completely different scene. As Pitt knew from the sonar survey, the right wing had been sheared off and lay a hundred yards to the east. Astern of the missing wing’s mounting was a gaping hole in the side of the fuselage. The breach, Pitt saw, hadn’t come from the plane’s crash.
The two men examined its clear rectangular cut and the telltale torching along the borders. Aiming his flashlight at the seabed, Pitt spotted the removed aluminum section a few yards away. Missing from its center was a cargo hatch of the size Pitt had seen at Mankedo’s salvage yard.
The two men entered the bomb bay, which was empty of ordnance. Pitt examined a single large support rack on the floor of the bay. Like the rest of the interior, it was well preserved in the oxygen-deprived water. Giordino spread his arms across the rack, showing it carried a weapon about five feet wide.
They moved forward inside the plane, scaring away a small eel, before they were halted by a wall of charred debris and twisted metal that blocked the passage. Judging by the ruins and a soot-coated ceiling, Pitt could see that a fire had brought down the plane. Given the amount of destruction, he was surprised that the aircraft had been able to ditch at sea relatively intact.
He checked his watch and saw that they had expended their bottom time. He motioned to the surface and Giordino nodded. They returned to the opening and exited the plane, swimming back to the opposite side. They followed their shot line to the surface, where an inflatable boat was moored a short distance from the Macedonia.
As they climbed into the boat and removed their gear, Giordino was the first to speak. “I thought she was a B-29 until I saw the red star. Looks like somebody took a can opener to her pretty recently.”
“Yep,” Pitt said. “And that was no ordinary bomb bay inside.”
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Pitt gave a firm nod. “It would seem our buddies from Thracia Salvage have a sixty-five-year-old atomic bomb on their hands.”
67
The abandoned farmhouse looked like any other in the rolling hills south of Kiev. Its white stucco walls had discolored to a dirty brown and were flaking in large chunks. The narrow windows had been boarded up, and the metal roof was streaked with rust. Its lone distinguishing characteristic, a crooked weather vane—the silhouette of a duck—swung loosely above the porch in the light breeze.
Vasko spotted the weather vane and turned his rental car into the weed-infested drive. He exited the car, stood, and listened. The faint sound of some cows in a nearby pasture wafted in the wind. He listened for other vehicles on the lonely farm road, but there were none.
He walked around the dilapidated house to the rear porch, which appeared to be an ongoing buffet line for a horde of termites. Vasko turned away from the house and paced in the direction of an adjacent potato field until he reached a small cellar door embedded in the ground. The door opened easily, and he stepped into the cramped room to find a large workman’s toolbox. He carried the box into the daylight and opened it.
Inside were freshly pressed green camouflage fatigues and a matching ball cap. Vasko held them up. They were adorned with patches from the Ukrainian Air Force’s 40th Tactical Brigade. He set aside the fatigues and pulled out a holstered Russian GSh-18 automatic pistol with a silencer and a pair of short-handled wire cutters. At the bottom of the box was a heavy rectangular packet wrapped in brown paper, along with an electronic detonator and a battery-operated timer.
Vasko carefully repackaged everything but the gun and carried the toolbox to the trunk of the car. He slipped the pistol under the seat and backed out of the farmhouse drive. Sticking to lightly traveled back roads, he drove west to the outskirts of Vasylkiv, a central Ukrainian city some thirty kilometers from Kiev. Finding a vacant field, he parked behind a high embankment and checked his watch. He had an hour until nightfall. With time to spare, he pulled out his phone and dialed Mankedo. The line was busy, as it had been the last few times he’d cal
led. He tried a satellite number for the Nevena and got the same result. Finally, he dialed Hendriks, who was still in Bermuda.
“I prefer you don’t call unless absolutely necessary,” the Dutchman said.
“My boss has gone silent. I fear a problem.”
“It shouldn’t affect you. I can make some inquiries if you give me his whereabouts.”
“I’ll do so when I see you again. Did you make the transfer for our recovery?”
“Yes. Wired to the account in Cyprus.”
“Have you received confirmation of its transfer?”
“Not from him, but I can assure you the funds were moved.”
Vasko fell silent, wondering what had become of his partner of twenty years.
“Are you on schedule?” Hendriks asked.
“Yes. I found the materials and am arranging delivery.”
“Very well. I hope you hurry back. Your next delivery will be waiting.”
“Keep the rum chilled,” Vasko said, but Hendriks had already hung up.
As the sky turned black, he retrieved the toolbox and slipped into the fatigues. He tucked the silencer into the box and returned to the road. A few miles north of Vasylkiv, he located a military air base. Avoiding the front gate, he drove to the opposite side of the tarmac and parked near some houses in clear view of the main runway.
Hendriks had informed him that an American transport plane was making twice-weekly deliveries of civilian aid to the Ukrainian government while en route to a NATO air base in Turkey. If the schedule hadn’t changed, then a flight was due tonight.
Hendriks’s information was soon proven accurate. The screaming whine from four turbofan jet engines fractured the night air as a massive gray aircraft descended to the runway. It was a C-5M Super Galaxy transport, operating from the 9th Airlift Squadron based in Dover, Delaware.
The big plane taxied to a stop near an open hangar and its rear loading ramp was lowered. Vasko grabbed the toolbox, crossed a ditch and short field, and approached a tall chain-link fence. He made quick order of snipping an opening and crawling onto the base. Walking quickly, he strode across an unlit section of the runway and approached the main hangar. A handful of Ukrainian MiG-29s were parked inside, next to a growing mountain of pallets being unloaded from the American plane.
Vasko pulled his cap low over his eyes and approached the C-5. He waited for a loaded forklift to slip by, then climbed up the loading ramp and entered the cavernous plane. A pair of Ukrainian airmen stood by the nearest pallets, checking an inventory list. Wearing the same green fatigues, they ignored Vasko as he moved forward with his toolbox.
He moved past the pallets to a pair of Humvees secured to the deck in the middle of the plane. His eyes grew big at the sight beyond. Several rows of antitank missiles were secured in low metal racks, bound for Turkey. Hendriks was a lucky man, Vasko thought.
He threaded his way to the last rack and knelt behind it. From the toolbox he removed the brown-wrapped package, which contained a block of PPV-5A plastic explosives favored by the Russian military. He taped the block to one of the missiles and began to insert the detonator.
“Can I help you, pardner?” said a voice with a thick Oklahoma accent.
Vasko looked up to see a hefty American gazing at him from across the bay. On his shoulder he wore a starred insignia surrounded by a thick band of chevrons.
“Hydraulic leak, Sergeant,” Vasko said.
“Sorry, friend, but I’m the flight engineer on this bird and I didn’t authorize any local repairs.” He stepped closer, eyeing Vasko with suspicion.
Vasko set down the detonator and pulled the silencer from the toolbox. He casually raised the gun and pumped three shots into the airman. The sergeant gasped, then looked at his wounds in shock, before falling dead to the cargo floor. Inside the huge airplane, it all went unnoticed.
Ignoring the dead man, Vasko wired the detonator to the timer and powered it on. Setting the timer for ten minutes, he tucked the package under the missile rack, then dragged the sergeant’s body alongside. He was making his way to the rear of the plane when a crash sounded ahead of him.
The forklift operator had knocked over a pallet, which had burst and spilled its contents of portable radios. A Ukrainian officer had appeared and was admonishing the forklift driver as Vasko tried to slip by.
“You there,” the officer said, waving at Vasko. “Help clean up this mess. I’ll go get a cart.”
Vasko nodded and set down the toolbox, keeping his head low. As the officer set off down the ramp, he began gathering up the loose radios, waiting for the forklift to depart with another load. But the forklift driver dithered with caution, and by the time he started to remove the next pallet, the officer was returning with a cart.
Vasko quickly picked up the radios and threw them in the cart, his mind on the high explosives preparing to detonate. With the cart full, he began wheeling it down the ramp.
“Hey, wait a minute,” the officer called.
“Yes, sir?” Vasko said. Despite the cool night air, sweat was beginning to drip down his temple.
“You forgot your toolbox.”
Vasko nodded and scooped up the toolbox, avoiding eye contact with the officer. “Thank you, sir.” He scurried down the ramp.
He ditched the cart inside the hangar and ducked outside, rushing down the flight line and away from the airplane. He reached the end of the hangar, cut around the corner, and checked his watch. It was too close now to be in the open, so he backed to the wall and waited.
As the antitank missiles erupted in succession, a ripple of concussions shook the ground. Vasko peeked around the corner as the entire midsection of the plane evaporated in a ball of black smoke. Debris rained down across the airfield, and he waited for the pelting to subside before stepping onto the tarmac.
As fire alarms rang through the night air, he crossed the runway, stopping only to pick up a charred gray fragment of aluminum from the C-5’s fuselage. He ducked through the hole in the fence, threw the toolbox and aluminum shard into the rental car, and drove away, not bothering to look back at the billowing inferno he had just created.
68
The Sofia office of Europol occupied a corner section of the Bulgarian Criminal Police Directorate’s headquarters, housed in a drab concrete building in the capital city’s center. Wearing a patterned skirt and silk blouse that showed the wrinkles of too many hours at her desk, Ana was rifling through yet another stack of border patrol reports when something caught her eye. She glanced up to see Pitt and Giordino standing in the hallway, smiling at her through the window of her office door.
Ana rushed into the hall and gave each man a hug. “I didn’t expect to see you two again before you left.”
“We booked our flight to Washington from Sofia so we could see you,” Pitt said.
Giordino shook his head. “Sorry to say, it’s more than just a social call.”
Ana led them into her office and pulled a pair of chairs close to her desk.
“How goes the hunt for Mankedo?” Pitt asked.
“We’ve had some interesting developments in the last few days but no luck in locating Mankedo, I’m afraid.” She sorted through some papers and pulled out a photo of a workboat tied to a crowded dock. “Look familiar?”
“That looks like the workboat that was docked at Thracia when we raided the yard,” Pitt said.
“It was found abandoned in Karaburun, a Turkish port near the Bosphorus.”
“So he fled to Turkey,” Giordino said. “Any chance of finding him there?”
She shook her head. “Istanbul is an easy place to disappear.”
“It seems a lot of people are disappearing lately,” Giordino said.
“Speaking of which, take a look at this.”
She handed them a copy of a short news article. It told of the discovery of Bulgarian Min
istry of Culture archeologist Georgi Dimitov, whose body was found washed ashore on a beach in Chios.
“Found dead in Greece?” Giordino said. “What do you make of that?”
“It’s very odd. Some local fishermen reported an explosion at sea the night before his body was found. The Greeks are investigating.”
“You may want to keep close tabs on that investigation,” Pitt said. “Dimitov wandered off the Macedonia after we discovered the Russian airman on the wreck of the Fethiye and we never heard from him again.”
“Do you think there’s some sort of connection?”
Pitt and Giordino looked at each other.
“When we were tied up in Mankedo’s warehouse,” Pitt said, “do you recall seeing a piece of wreckage behind the truck?”
“I don’t remember much.”
“There was a weathered sheet of aluminum. It looked to be a cargo hatch, from an aircraft built fifty or sixty years ago.”
“The plane that belonged to the Russian airman?”
“Yes. After our discovery of the deceased flier, not only did Dimitov vanish, but the Macedonia was hijacked. While it may be that Mankedo simply wished to use our ship to attack Sevastopol, he may also have wanted us away from the Ottoman wreck and the Russian bomber, which we now know is nearby.”
“For what purpose?”
“To get at the bomber’s cargo.”
“Do you know what is was?”
“I have an idea.” Pitt described the site of the wreck and its empty bomb bay.
“An atomic bomb,” she whispered. “You think that’s what was hidden on the back of Mankedo’s truck?”
“It’s a distinct possibility. We need to learn more about the aircraft to be sure.”
“That certainly ups the stakes,” Ana said, scribbling some notes.
“Any leads on the truck or our bald friend?” Giordino asked.