“You’ll be able to buy three new ships after we make the delivery,” Vasko said.
“Show me the uranium.”
“I can’t, at the moment.” Vasko pointed at the deck. “Once we moored, I took the claw and dropped the crate onto the seafloor beneath the moon pool. If someone searches the ship, it’s perfectly safe. Once we’re ready to make the delivery, we can hoist it quickly and be on our way.”
“You confirmed it was the highly enriched uranium?”
“We didn’t open the interior container, but it was sealed in a silver case, as described, and the exterior crate was marked with radioactive warnings.” He lowered his voice. “Have you made contact with the Iranians?”
Mankedo slowly nodded. “You can be thankful that the transfer will take place on the open seas and not in port somewhere.” He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Vasko. “Here are the coordinates, thirty miles off of Sinop. The transfer will occur in about three days. I will advise you of the exact time when it is confirmed.”
“And we will be taking on a shipment of Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missiles in exchange?”
“Twelve of them. They will be hidden in a barge, which you will take charge of. Then you will head to Ukrainian waters near Sevastopol and await further instructions.”
“Back to where the uranium came from, eh?”
“Yes, but to a different side of the fence.”
“I will be looking forward to the payday.”
Mankedo nodded, his lips hinting at a smile. “The reward will be generous for us all.” He stepped to the bridge window and gazed at the first twinkling lights of the city shoreline. “It is too dangerous here. Move up the coast before daybreak and hold station out at sea. I want you out of sight until the deal is done.”
“Yes, Valentin, as you say. But first, come. There is something from the Kerch I must show you before you leave.”
He led Mankedo from the bridge to a cluttered work bay off the stern deck. Centered near some acetylene tanks was the Kerch’s concretion-covered safe. “The sands have shifted dramatically around the wreck since we worked her back in ’03,” Vasko said. “The forecastle is now almost fully exposed. We did some grappling while waiting for the search and rescue teams to go away and we found the captain’s safe. The boys think it’s still watertight, though I have my doubts. I had one of the men cut away the lock but waited to open it until you got here.”
He picked up a crowbar and handed it to Mankedo, who eyed the safe. Scouring the Black Sea’s depths for scrap and treasure had been Mankedo’s passion for most of his life. It began while fishing off the Burgas coast as a teen when his line had snagged on the bottom. Jumping over the side with a leaky dive mask, he traced his hook to the rail of a sunken trawler. After a dozen more free dives, nearly drowning in the process, he dislodged the vessel’s small brass bell and pulled it to the surface. The prize stirred his soul and sent him scouring the local waters from dawn to dusk.
He made a decent living at first, hiring his cousin Vasko and learning to dive, while befriending the local fishermen, who knew where all the good wrecks were. But salvage values waned with the flood of cheap steel from China. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, smuggling soon became much more lucrative, and he had the knowledge and resources to carve out a profitable niche along the western Black Sea. Small arms and drugs were his bread and butter, but recent contacts with a Middle East broker and a wealthy Dutch client involved in the Ukrainian conflict had elevated his business.
Mankedo’s salvage company remained operational, mostly as a cover for his smuggling, but also as his ingrained love. Like all good salvors, if there was money to be made at the bottom of the sea, he was first in line to grab it. No matter the value, a relic from the sea always stirred his soul.
He approached the safe with a gleam in his eye. Noting the seam where the welder had cut through the lock mechanism, he wedged in the tip of the crowbar and heaved. The safe door resisted, then opened with a rusty creak.
Both men crowded forward to peer inside. To their surprise, the interior was in pristine condition, the safe having remained watertight for a century. Their excitement dimmed when they saw that the safe was empty save for a thin folder. Mankedo opened it, finding a military report written in Russian.
“No payroll, I’m afraid.” Mankedo shook his head. “Not even a few emergency rubles for the captain.”
Vasko failed to hide his disappointment. “Nothing but sailing orders, I suppose.” He cursed. “I am sorry, Valentin. I had hoped a chest full of gold was waiting for us.”
Mankedo tossed aside the crowbar. “Life’s riches usually do not come so easily. Let us remain focused on the payoff within our grasp. Keep yourself invisible, Ilya, until the deal is done. We will obtain our riches soon enough.”
• • •
HE DEPARTED THE SALVAGE SHIP, motoring out of the harbor under the cover of darkness. As he watched the lights of Burgas slip by, he opened the sailing orders from the Kerch. The contents startled him and he studied them again carefully to make sure of their details. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.
“Yes?” answered a sleepy voice.
“It’s Valentin. I need you to get me everything you have on First World War Russian submarines in the Black Sea Fleet, along with a destroyer named Kerch. I mean, everything.” He hung up without waiting for a response.
Perhaps, he thought, Vasko had in fact delivered much, much more than a chest of gold.
9
Ralin’s head had barely hit the pillow when his cell phone chirped. He didn’t have to look at the number to know who was calling. “Good evening, Ana.”
“Petar, how soon can you be ready to drive to Burgas?”
“About five minutes.”
“I’ll be there in three.”
Ralin dragged himself to his feet, dressed quickly, and exited his apartment. Ana was waiting on the street out front. Ralin smiled as he climbed into a gray Škoda sedan identical to the one she had crashed two nights earlier. “You mean to tell me that the directorate chief has already entrusted you with another state vehicle?”
“My first stop when we got back to Sofia.”
“And he actually said yes?”
“Not exactly,” Ana said, shrugging. “But I agreed to let the motor pool administrator take me to lunch next week in exchange for the car.”
“Extortion at its finest.” He laughed. “So what’s this late-night excursion all about?”
“Our salvage ship may have reappeared. The harbormaster in Burgas sighted a vessel moored in the harbor that matches our description. He thinks it arrived just a few hours ago.”
“They might have already offloaded the HEU—if they ever had it in the first place.”
“It’s a possibility. I’m hoping the fact that they didn’t bring the ship to dock means it’s still aboard.”
“What’s our plan? Do we have clearance to board her?”
“The Burgas police have the ship under surveillance. I just woke up some people in legal and have requested a search warrant. I propose going aboard at dawn and searching her from top to bottom.”
“You’re banking on miracles, my dear.”
“You don’t think there’s a chance the HEU is still there?”
“No, not that.” He shook his head. “Obtaining a warrant from the Bulgarian judiciary before dawn. The salvage ship could sail to Antarctica and back before that’s likely to happen.”
“Petar, when did you turn into such a pessimist?”
He smiled. “When I joined the police force.”
Leaving Sofia, Ana drove fast through the night, arriving at the port city of Burgas three hours later. They threaded their way through the empty streets, reached the waterfront, and drove to the commercial port terminal. At the complex’s security office, a sleepy guard
directed them to a small patrol boat docked nearby. Two uniformed city police officers sat in the wheelhouse, monitoring a distant ship with binoculars.
“I am Lieutenant Dukova,” the older one said. He dismissed his underling, who scurried off the boat.
“Where is the salvage ship moored?” Ana asked.
Dukova handed her the binoculars. “She’s the large vessel in the middle of the bay.” He pointed to the lights of a ship a half mile away.
Ana could just make out a myriad of deck cranes under the ship’s lights. She nodded at Ralin. “That appears to be her. How long has she been there?”
“Port security said she was identified around six this evening. She was already at anchor, so we are unsure as to her exact arrival. We’ve had her under surveillance since seven-thirty.” He stifled a yawn. “The harbormaster thinks she’s a local vessel named Besso.”
“Any external activity?” Ralin asked.
“A small black crew boat tied up alongside for about an hour at dusk.”
“Was anything transferred from the ship?” Ana asked.
“Not that we could see. A lone man boarded and later left by himself. There didn’t appear to be any transfer of goods.”
“Did you track the crew boat?”
“No. It left the harbor. I didn’t have the resources to follow it.” Feeling Ana’s eyes bore into him, he waved a hand toward a bench seat beneath a wide window. “Why don’t you sit down and get comfortable? There’s coffee in the galley.”
Ana and Ralin sat and took turns watching the Besso while loading up on Dukova’s coffee.
At half past three, Ralin cleared his throat. “I see some black smoke from the funnel. I think they’ve started their engines.”
Ana pursed her lips and pulled out a cell phone. After a quick call, she shook her head at Ralin. “Still no word on the warrant.”
Ralin studied the ship with the field glasses. “I see a crewman on deck. It had been deserted until now. I think she’s preparing to leave port.”
Dukova nodded. “She could be relocating her mooring, but I doubt it. A half hour to warm the engines and she’ll be on her way.”
“Where’s the rest of your assault team?” Ana asked Dukova.
He looked at his watch. “My team was to assemble at the security shack at four-thirty.”
“Can you get them here now?”
Dukova gave her a doubtful look. “I can try.”
Ralin kept scanning the salvage ship. “Perhaps we can just track her until we get the warrant.”
“I don’t have much range with this,” Dukova said, patting the boat’s wheel. “It could get difficult on the open sea, particularly in poor weather.”
“There seems to be some activity in the wheelhouse,” Ralin said.
“We can’t let them leave.” Ana stared at Dukova. “Take us to her.”
“We can’t board without a warrant,” he said. “We’re too few for an assault anyway.”
“I’ll take responsibility. Just get us aboard—unseen, if possible.”
Dukova looked to Ralin, but the Bulgarian agent saw the determined look in Ana’s eyes and merely nodded.
Dukova cast off the lines and motored the patrol boat from the dock. With its running lights extinguished, he guided the boat in a broad arc around the harbor to approach the salvage ship from her stern. A hundred meters from the ship, he cut speed to a bare idle.
No one was visible on the Besso’s stern as they approached at a cat’s crawl. Dukova brought the small boat alongside with an expert touch, allowing Ralin to leap aboard from the pilothouse roof. Ana tossed him a line and he tied the boat to a stanchion. The Europol agent climbed aboard with her gun drawn, Dukova following a few seconds later.
They moved forward a few steps and stopped in the shadow of a large generator. Ana jumped when the device suddenly churned to life with a puff of black smoke. Ahead of them, a circle of lights flashed on, illuminating a round moon pool in the center stern deck. Above the pool, the huge grappling claw dangled by a thick cable that wound through a crane. On the far deck, a bulky bald man sat in a glass-sided control booth that managed the crane and claw.
“Let’s hold up a minute and see what they’re up to,” Ralin whispered.
The three law officers clung to the shadows as an array of lights flickered on and the grapple mechanism was lowered into the moon pool.
“Is that the device that wrestled with you in the submersible?” Ralin asked.
Ana nodded as she watched it disappear into the water.
“Nasty-looking thing,” he said.
They waited as the bald man manipulated the claw’s controls with the aid of a bank of video monitors. Two crewmen in foul-weather jackets appeared and stood by the moon pool. After several minutes, the crane’s cable drum reversed direction and began reeling in the line. The claw appeared a short time later and rose out of the water. Clutched in its grip was a gray box the size of a small coffee table.
Ralin nudged Ana’s arm. “That has to be it,” he whispered.
Ana nodded as a cold chill surged through her. Her intuition was on the mark. Not only had the Besso taken the HEU, they had concealed it where a shipboard search wouldn’t find it. Now it was right in front of her. She watched as the grapple set the crate on the deck and the two crewmen approached it. “Let’s take it,” Ana said.
She stepped from the shadows with her gun drawn, Ralin marching alongside. Dukova followed a few steps behind, calling the harbor security office on a portable radio for backup.
The agents stepped to the near edge of the moon pool before they were spotted by a crewman on the far side.
Ana yelled out, “Politsiya!”
The crewman dove behind the crate, calling out a warning as he hit the deck. His partner spun around, producing a short-barreled Uzi from beneath his coat, and opened fire.
The law enforcement agents, not expecting the crewmen to be armed, were slow to react. Ralin squeezed off two snap shots, then dove at Ana. He flew into her side as she returned fire, jarring her aim as they both fell.
Dukova was left standing, fumbling with his radio, and paid the price for it. The shooter paused, adjusted his aim, and fired a second burst. The Bulgarian policeman caught the full spray to his torso. He staggered backward a few steps, then fell over dead.
Ana and Ralin were lying in the open on the deck as they returned fire, driving the crewman to lunge behind a stanchion. Ralin eyed a hefty tool bin yards to their right. He nudged Ana and pointed to it. “Go when I fire,” he yelled over the renewed whir of the grapple crane.
Ralin rose to a crouch and emptied his clip at the armed crewman, who danced behind the stanchion for cover and immediately fired back. Ralin’s aim was better, and he tagged the man in the neck with his last two rounds. Spurting blood from his throat, the dying crewman held his trigger depressed and sprayed the last of his clip toward Ralin as he collapsed. His aim was low, but a bullet ricocheted off a deck grating and struck Ralin in the leg.
Ana was halfway to the tool bin when she saw her partner rise and stagger. “Petar!” she screamed, paying no heed to a dark blur to her side.
Ralin threw up a hand to halt her as he buckled forward. “No!” His eyes screamed in protest. The cry wasn’t for his wounds but to stop Ana. He tried to wave her back, but his leg collapsed and he fell forward into the moon pool.
Ana lunged to try to grab him—as the object in her peripheral vision grew large. Too late, she glanced to her side and saw the grapple claw. Having been swung like a pendulum, the huge mechanism was speeding directly toward her.
She dove to the deck, but not in time. The exterior band of one of the grapple’s claws caught her across her head and shoulder. She flew across the ship, her world turning to black before she hit the deck.
10
Ana’s body pulsed with a
low vibration, which intensified the shooting pain in her head. She took a leisurely journey back to consciousness, eventually raising a hand to feel a throbbing knot on the back of her head. She had to use her left hand, as her entire right torso was numb. Slowly, she pried open one eyelid, then the other. Blurry vision gradually focused on the heels of a scuffed pair of boots rocking in front of her.
As her senses aligned, she realized it was her head rocking, not the person wearing the boots. A gentle sea swell was the cause, as she detected a mixed odor of saltwater and diesel exhaust. The vibration was from the engines of the Besso, rattling the cold deck plate beneath her. She leaned up on her good elbow, shaking away the dizziness, and looked around.
Multiple high windows and the glow of an overhead radarscope told her she was on the salvage ship’s bridge. The man in boots was talking in low tones with another man at the helm. Ana’s mind cleared and she thought of Ralin. Was he dead? Images of him falling into the moon pool made her shudder. She reached for her kidney holster.
Empty.
The sea breeze from an open side door ruffled her hair, and she saw it was just a short crawl away. Escape was her best option, her foggy mind told her. Murmuring voices from the helm signaled the crewmen were still busy. Pulling forward on her side, she made for the doorway, moving at a turtle’s pace to avoid detection. She nearly reached it. Her hand was crossing the threshold when a deep voice cut the air.
“Going somewhere?”
Ana looked up to see a hefty bald man, the same one who had operated the grappling claw, step toward her. She tried to flee, but he was already there, grabbing the back of her jacket and yanking her to her feet.
A spasm of pain shot through her right arm and shoulder. The ache raced to her head, and she nearly passed out.
He grinned. “Feeling better after your kiss from the claw?”
Ana flinched from his rancid breath. She saw only malice in his dull, dark eyes, framed by a ragged scar that cut across his brow. The tentacles of an octopus tattoo on his back scalp seemed to reach out for her. She resisted the urge to scream. “I am a Europol police officer,” she said. “Release me at once.”