The jolt from the sudden stop sent a crack through the damaged mast. The massive timber splintered a few feet above the deck and careened over to port. Rigging snapped and the burning sail collapsed as the mast sank to the side until kissing the port rail. Canvas and rope dangled into the water as the yardarms poked beneath the surface. Flames coursed in a new, upward direction.
Amid the chaos, Pitt heard a cry that the captain was down. At the base of the mizzenmast he found an injured Valero sprawled on the deck, a pair of volunteers tending to him. He had taken a near hit from the RPG, and Pitt could see it didn’t look good.
The ship’s leader gazed up at Pitt through glassy eyes. “How did the Connie do?”
“She was splendid.”
“Stop them,” he said, then his eyes fluttered closed.
“I will,” Pitt said. “And I’ll never forget what you’ve done.”
He turned to the rail and was surprised to see the tug approaching. The first shot from the Parrott gun had wrecked the tug’s steering gear and hydraulics. The uncontrolled rudder had shifted back to center, and the vessel eased to its former heading.
Pitt caught a glimpse of Vasko in the shattered pilothouse, spinning the broken ship’s wheel to no avail. Advancing parallel to the Constellation, the tug sailed beneath the fallen mizzenmast—and directly into the lower yardarm. The yardarm snapped at the waterline, but as the tug drove forward, the remaining timber burrowed into its deck and wedged against the wheelhouse. The tug shoved against the yardarm but fought the full weight of the grounded ship. With the barge dragging from behind, the tug churned to a halt.
Pitt saw a pair of ropes dangling from the upper yardarm by the rail—and recognized an opportunity. He sprinted back to the gun crew. “Quick, load and fire a double shot of powder.”
He scooped up the two cutlasses he had brought from below and handed one to Giordino.
“What’s the plan?” Giordino asked.
“Follow me,” Pitt said. “We’re going to board her.”
84
Vasko looked out the shattered bridge window and cursed.
The tug had turned away from the shallows and was headed upriver toward Wagner’s Point—just where he wanted to go. He’d get one of his crewmen to manually manipulate the rudder controls below until they reached the target site, then release the barge and escape. The only problem was, the ancient ship that was sailing ahead of them.
The Constellation’s cannon had at least fallen silent, quieted by his last grenade or the multiple fires that burned aboard the wooden vessel. To make sure, Vasko stepped to the back of the wheelhouse and reloaded the RPG launcher. Rising to take aim, he was shocked to see the Constellation had run aground and was right off the tug’s bow. He lunged at the Lauren Belle’s wheel to avoid the fallen mizzenmast, but it spun freely in his hands. The tug barreled into the yardarm and ground to a halt as sheets of burning sail draped from above.
Vasko stepped out the rear of the bridge only to be met by the point-blank roar of the Parrott gun. No damage ensued this time, but a cloud of thick white smoke enveloped the tug. Then Vasko saw two apparitions emerge from the haze, a pair of men swinging onto the tug with swords clamped in their teeth.
Pitt landed first, his rope carrying him near the Lauren Belle’s stern. He dropped, took a step, and ran headlong into Vasko’s two remaining crewmen. One was kneeling to reload his rifle while the other stood, aiming at the Parrott gun crew. The standing gunman turned and swung his rifle stock, but Pitt was quicker. He ducked the blow, spun, and rammed the blade of the cutlass through the man’s torso.
The gunman staggered against him and Pitt released his grip on the hilt and pushed the dying man aside. He turned and dove onto the second gunman, attacking before he could reload his weapon.
The second gunman was bigger than Pitt and sprang up on powerful legs. He shoved his rifle into Pitt’s midsection and used it as leverage to throw him over his shoulder. Pitt tumbled to the corner of the deck, rising in time to catch a blow from the rifle’s stock to his left shoulder. Pitt countered with his right fist, catching the gunman’s cheek and dazing him. Pitt then reached down and wrestled for control of the gun.
Just behind the bridge, a similar battle took place. Giordino had landed near the wheelhouse and emerged from the smoke to find Vasko aiming another RPG at the Constellation.
He lunged forward and swung his cutlass in a powerful arc.
Vasko caught sight of him at the last second and raised the launcher in defense. The antique sword struck the steel frame of the launcher and the blade snapped at the hilt.
Vasko looked his attacker in the face, shocked to see it was Giordino.
“You again!” he swore.
“You were expecting Mary Poppins?” Giordino swung the sword’s hilt up and punched Vasko in the stomach.
Vasko grunted and swung the launcher in return, striking Giordino in the head.
Giordino dropped the hilt and grabbed hold of the launcher, turning the business end away from the Constellation and toward the rear of the tug.
The two men applied brute force against each other for control of the weapon.
“It’s no use, shorty,” Vasko taunted, holding firm on the launcher.
Giordino said nothing. He applied his strength against the bigger man until Vasko gritted his teeth and contorted his face. Giordino held like a rock, showing no sign of strain.
Realizing he was losing the battle, Vasko leaned away, dropped a hand to the pistol grip, and squeezed the trigger.
The mini rocket blasted out of the launch tube. The projectile skittered across the deck, struck the stern tow cable bitts at the center transom, and exploded with a deafening roar.
The burning exhaust had blown into Giordino’s face, temporarily blinding him.
Vasko took advantage. He kicked Giordino in the groin, then ripped the launcher away and pummeled his head.
With a vicious roundhouse blow, Giordino was knocked backward and bounced off the side rail. As he fell to the deck, he regained a fraction of his vision. He squinted aft across the deck but found it empty.
Pitt and the other gunman had vanished.
85
Pitt heard the rush of the RPG launch and squared his back to the stern. The grenade detonated barely twenty feet away. The explosive force blew him over the rail and could have killed him if not for his human shield. Still clinched with the gunman, the bigger man absorbed the shrapnel and the blast’s main concussion.
They hit the water together, and the other man’s grip went limp. Pitt let go of him, fighting a wave of pain and disorientation. His ears rang and his lungs felt purged of all air. He sensed he was drowning. He stretched his limbs and tried stroking, hoping to find the surface. A long object slid across his body and he reached for it and hung on. It was the hawser and it carried him to the surface for an instant. He barely had time to fill his lungs when the heavy cable began to descend, yanking him back under.
His senses returning, Pitt began pulling himself up the cable, slowly at first, then with more urgency. Straining hand over hand, he reached the surface once more, just a short distance from the black barge. He glanced over his shoulder. The Constellation and tug lay a hundred yards upriver. The barge was drifting free, and he was floating with it.
Outside the tug’s wheelhouse, Vasko tossed aside the grenade launcher and looked to the damaged stern. As the smoke cleared, he saw the end of the tow cable unravel from the mangled bollards and slip over the transom. The barge was free and there was nothing he could do. He watched for a moment as the barge floated toward the center of the Patapsco. It was still within the dead zone, and the water was plenty deep for his needs.
He stepped onto the bridge and felt the Lauren Belle start to move. Free of the barge, the vessel had regained enough power to battle past the Constellation’s mast and yardarm. Vasko looked past the sh
ip, eyeing the tall buildings of Baltimore, then stepped to his weapons crate. He retrieved the satchel with the radio transmitter keyed to the barge’s explosives.
On the deck, Giordino opened his eyes to see a wall of flames. It was a burning sail, ripped away by the roof of the tug’s pilothouse as it churned past the fallen mast. An antenna above the bridge caught a section of the flaming sail and dropped a curtain of canvas over the side of the wheelhouse.
Giordino sat up and saw the Constellation slipping behind. Two of the Parrott gunners leaned over the rail, staring at the tug.
Giordino called up to the men. “Powder. Toss me some bags.”
The gunner named Yates disappeared for a moment, then returned to the rail with three of the black powder bags. He expertly tossed them across the water, the aluminum foil cylinders landing at Giordino’s side. Giordino snatched two of the bags and threw them to the base of the wheelhouse doorway. Vasko stepped through it a minute later.
In his hands, he held the radio transmitter. Aiming it toward the drifting barge, he pressed the transmit button. A second later, two muffled blasts erupted from the rear of the barge, accompanied by small puffs of gray smoke. Vasko smiled, paying no regard to a man in the water clinging to the barge’s hawser.
He turned and noticed Giordino sitting near the rail, leering at him with a sardonic grin.
“Still with us, my short friend?” Vasko said.
“Here to say good-bye.”
“It will be my pleasure.” Vasko leaned inside the bridge and dropped the transmitter into the crate, exchanging it for a loaded rifle.
As Vasko turned in the doorway, Giordino used his teeth to rip open the third bag of powder and tossed it at Vasko’s feet.
Vasko looked down in confusion as a trail of spilt powder ignited from the burning sail and sizzled toward the bundles at his feet. He didn’t have long to look.
The explosion echoed off the hull of the Constellation and covered the tug once more in a white haze.
When the smoke cleared, Giordino approached the shattered wheelhouse.
Vasko lay on the deck, his legs blown off and a look of shock in his fading eyes.
Giordino gave him an unsympathetic gaze, then uttered the last word.
“You can call me Al.”
After watching him die, Giordino stepped to the tug’s stern. He looked downriver and spotted the drifting barge, receding in the distance. A lean, dark-haired man climbed out of the water, then stood and gave him a wave from the prow of his atomic chariot.
86
Pitt was still in the water when he heard the muffled explosions from the far end of the barge. He pulled himself up the cable, rolled onto the deck, and caught his breath. As he labored to his feet, he could sense a slight list to the stern.
He made his way to the cargo holds. Each of the four compartments was covered by a light fiberglass cover. He uncoupled the first cover and found the Russian RDS-5 bomb secured to a large pallet. He regarded it for a moment, then checked the other three holds. They were all empty, save for a rusty drum and some chains in the second hold and a rising swirl of water in the fourth. Pitt guessed the barge had less than fifteen minutes afloat.
He returned to the first hold and climbed inside to examine the weapon. The RDS-5 was slightly bulbous, five feet wide and twelve feet long, tapering to a circular fin assembly. Its smooth black skin was broken by a raised panel near the tail. Pitt peered into the glass-topped panel and saw the bomb was very much alive. A myriad of LED displays glowed with numbers. Next to the panel box, a small dial protruded from the bomb’s surface—a simple depth gauge. He looked back at the panel. Two of the LED displays were marked with labels. One read CURRENT DEPTH and showed zero. The other read CHARGED DEPTH and was fixed at twenty-five feet.
A feeling of dread came over Pitt. While Giordino may have dispatched Vasko, it no longer mattered. The bomb was set to detonate at a water pressure depth of twenty-five feet. When the barge sank, the bomb would go off—simple as that. Pitt considered smashing the displays or shattering the depth gauge but feared the weapon was programmed to detonate with any outside interference.
He scrambled out of the hold and looked around. The barge was a half mile from land. With the barge having no means of propulsion, it would be impossible to get it across the current to the shallows before it sank. He scanned the river. There were numerous small pleasure boats nearby, most flocking to the burning Constellation. But they were all too small to move the heavy barge. Peering toward the bay, he spotted the skipjack he’d seen from the helicopter, tacking downwind.
The barge was listing heavily now, with water beginning to lap at the deck. Pitt gazed back at the skipjack. It was his only option.
The oyster boat had just entered the Patapsco and was sailing near the center of the river, far off the barge’s line. Pitt had to close the gap—and quickly. He ran to the second hold and muscled the empty drum up to the deck. Retrieving bits of rope and chain from below, he fashioned a harness around the drum and attached a twenty-foot leader of rope. He dragged the assembly to the upriver end of the barge and tied the leader to a starboard corner bitt. Then he lowered the drum over the side, letting it fill with water and drag horizontally behind the barge.
The makeshift drogue tugged on the inshore stern, nudging the downriver bow slightly to port. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to put the sinking barge on a more direct path with the skipjack.
Sailing up the river, a grizzled oysterman named Brian Kennedy eyed the barge, noting it was drifting free of a tug. It was clearly sinking, and he turned to take a closer look. His boat, the Lorraine, was a large skipjack, a wide-beamed and highly maneuverable class of sailboat. Designed for oyster dredging on the Chesapeake, skipjacks once sailed in abundance on the waterway. Overfishing saw their decline, and the Lorraine was one of a just handful still in use.
Oystering was out of season, but Kennedy was testing a new sail on his prized vessel. When he saw a tall man wave at him from the barge, he tacked across the river and pulled alongside. Its head end was already submerged, and waves were splashing over its low deck from all sides.
“You better jump aboard, mister, she’s about to go under.”
“I’ve got a live cargo in the first hold I need to pull out,” Pitt said. “Do you have a power dredge?”
The oysterman stared at Pitt. He was dripping wet, yet his clothes were singed and marred with blood. Water splashed around his ankles, and there was urgency in his eyes, yet he stood with a remote coolness.
“Yep, I do,” Kennedy said. “With a freshly rebuilt motor. You’d best be quick about it.”
He swung a boom across that held a large dredge basket from a cable. Pitt grabbed the dredge and hauled it into the hold as the oysterman let out cable from a power winch.
The hold already had two feet of water sloshing around its bottom, with more spilling in from the wave action. Pitt heaved the dredge into a corner and uncoupled the cable from its mount. He groped in the water at the base of the bomb and located a lift chain he’d seen earlier.
“You better get out of there now, mister!” Kennedy yelled.
The water was pouring in faster as Pitt gathered the four end pieces. Holding them above the bomb, he locked them onto the cable. “Okay, lift her!” Pitt shouted.
He barely got the words out when a cascade of water poured in from all sides of the hold. Pitt grabbed the cable and pulled himself on top of the bomb as the compartment flooded. The cable drew taut and the bomb rose off the pallet, banging against the sides of the hold as the barge began to slip away. Pitt held his breath as a torrent of water flooded over him. He felt several more vibrations from the swaying bomb smacking the metal bulkheads. Then the noise stopped and the water around him calmed.
On board the Lorraine, Kennedy watched in shock as the barge sank, taking the tall man with it. The winch motor strained and the
taut cable drew the skipjack onto its side, the boom nearly touching the water. The oysterman thought the dredge had snagged on the barge and he was about to release the cable when Pitt’s head popped above the surface.
He shook the water from his eyes and looked up at Kennedy. “We got her. Bring her home.”
Kennedy held steady on the winch as the mechanism strained to lift the heavy weight. As the boat slowly righted itself, he stared agog as Pitt emerged from the water riding atop the massive black bomb.
“You’re . . . you’re sitting on a bomb,” he stammered. “Is it a dud?”
“No,” Pitt said with a crooked smile. “It’s atomic.”
87
The Army helicopter swooped low over Maryland’s Eastern Shore, hovered over an empty vacation cottage, and landed on its driveway. A team of military bomb disposal and nuclear weapons specialists climbed out and rushed to the backyard. The cottage overlooked a scenic cove off the Chesapeake called Huntingfield Creek, where a small dock stretched over the water. Sitting abandoned at the end of the dock was the Russian atomic bomb.
A high-power radio frequency jammer was activated next to the bomb to prevent detonation by a remotely transmitted signal. The ordnance crew then carefully examined the bomb, confirming it was activated by a depth gauge. They overrode the pressure sensor, disassembled some outer components to remove the triggering mechanism, then finally disarmed the thirty-kiloton weapon.
Halfway across the Chesapeake, Pitt stood in the bow of the Lorraine and watched in amusement as a Coast Guard boat shooed them toward Baltimore. A flurry of law enforcement boats raced around in a panic, attempting to establish a five-mile safety zone around the remote dock where Pitt had deposited the bomb.
The skipjack sailed back to the Patapsco River, where they came upon the grounded Constellation just shy of Baltimore Harbor. The old sloop of war was surrounded by a half dozen police and fireboats. Her dead and wounded had been removed, the fires extinguished, and pumps activated to relieve her flooded decks. Pitt noticed the tug, the Lauren Belle, was still alongside the ship’s port beam, a handful of police officers inspecting her every inch.