2

“S ir, there’s no response on the emergency channel.” The youthful third officer looked up from the communications station and gazed at a lean man studying the ship’s radarscope.

Dirk Pitt nodded in acknowledgment while keeping his eyes glued to the radar screen. “All right, Chavez. Let them know we’re on our way. Then you best go rouse the captain.”

Pitt straightened his tall frame and turned toward the helmsman. “We’re well clear of the Bosphorus, so you can open her up. The Crimean Star looks to be about thirteen miles ahead of us. Steer a course of zero-five-five degrees and give me everything she’s got.”

As the helmsman acknowledged the order, Pitt called the engine room and had the chief engineer apply all available power to the vessel’s twin screws. A low whine reverberated through the fifty-meter oceanographic research ship as its twin diesels wound to maximum revolutions. A few minutes later, the ship’s captain, a large, sandy-haired man named Bill Stenseth, stepped onto the bridge. He was followed by Third Officer Chavez, who resumed his place at the communications station.

Stenseth suppressed a yawn. “We’ve got a Mayday?”

“A single distress call from a vessel named Crimean Star ,” Pitt said. “Listed as a Romanian-flagged bulk freighter. She appears to be on a direct inbound course about a dozen miles ahead of us.”

Stenseth gazed at the radar screen, then noted his own ship’s accelerating speed. “Do we know the nature of their emergency?”

“All we picked up was a single distress call. Chavez hailed them repeatedly, but there was no response.” Pitt tapped a finger on the radar screen. “We look to be the closest ship in the area.”

“The Turkish Coast Guard Command might have some fast-responding resources nearby.” He turned to the third officer. “Let’s give them a call, Chavez.”

Pitt grabbed a handheld radio from a charging stand and stepped toward a bridge wing door. “Chavez, when you’re done there, can you ring Al Giordino and have him meet me on the aft deck in ten minutes? I’ll prep a Zodiac in case we’re needed aboard. Call me when we’re clear to launch.”

“Will do,” Chavez said.

As Pitt started to leave, Stenseth squinted at a bulkhead-mounted chronometer. It read two in the morning. “By the way, what were you doing on the bridge at this hour?”

“A loose davit was banging against my cabin bulkhead and woke me up. After securing it, I wandered up to see where we were.”

“Sixth sense, I’d say.”

Pitt smiled as he left the bridge. Over the years, he did seem to have a knack for finding trouble around him. Or perhaps it found him.

The Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency climbed down two levels, then moved aft along the main deck of the oceanographic research ship. A roar from the engine room revealed that the Macedonia was pressing her rated top speed of seventeen knots, kicking up white foam along her turquoise sides. She was one of several dozen research vessels in the NUMA fleet tasked with studying the world’s oceans.

On the Macedonia ’s fantail, Pitt released the lines of a Zodiac, secured to a cradle, and pulled back its oilskin cover. He checked the fuel tank, then attached a lift cable. Satisfied as to its readiness, he stepped to the ship’s rail and peered ahead for the distant lights of the Crimean Star .

He shouldn’t even be here, Pitt thought. He had joined the Macedonia in Istanbul just the day before, after traveling from his headquarters office in Washington, D.C. A last-minute plea for assistance from the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture to help locate a lost Ottoman shipwreck had lured him halfway across the globe.

Twenty minutes later, the NUMA research ship pulled alongside the black freighter, which drifted silently like an illuminated ghost ship. On the Macedonia ’s bridge, Captain Stenseth scanned the merchant ship through night vision binoculars.

“Still no response from the vessel,” Chavez said. “Turkish authorities report a cutter is en route, and a rescue helicopter is being scrambled from Istanbul, with an estimated arrival time of twenty-six minutes.”

Stenseth nodded as he held the binoculars firm to his brow. There was no sign of life aboard the ship. He glanced at the radarscope. A small image a half mile distant was moving away from the freighter. Retraining the binoculars, he detected the faint outline of a vessel with no running lights. He picked up a handheld radio. “Bridge to Pitt.”

“Pitt here.”

“The freighter is still silent and adrift. I see no signs of a list or physical damage. Turkish Coast Guard resources are on the way, if you want to sit tight.”

“Negative. There could be lives at risk. Al and I will attempt to board. Pitt out.”

Pitt turned to a short, sleepy-eyed man standing next to the Zodiac. He had a broad, muscular frame that looked like it had been carved out of a block of granite.

“Let’s get over the side,” Pitt said.

Al Giordino yawned. “This better be a real distress. I was cozy in my bunk, dreaming I was in a Turkish harem and the veils were about to come off.”

Pitt smiled. “The girls in the harem will thank me.”

They lowered the Zodiac over the side, climbed down, and released its lift cable. Pitt started the outboard and spun the throttle, shooting the inflatable boat across the choppy water to the freighter’s side. Running down the ship’s length, he spotted a lowered accommodations ladder near the stern and ran toward it.

“Nice of them to leave the welcome mat out.” Giordino hopped onto the base of the ladder and tied off the Zodiac. He sniffed the air and frowned. “Smells like the Easter Bunny left us a basket of rotten eggs.”

“Something in her cargo, perhaps,” Pitt said. But the smell didn’t seem to originate from the ship.

The two ran up the steps and boarded the ship, finding the foul odor gradually diminished. Under the stark illumination of the deck lights, the passageways appeared empty as they moved forward toward the accommodations block. The deck hatches were secured and the ship appeared undamaged, just as Stenseth had reported.

Approaching a companionway to the bridge, they hesitated. A body blocked the doorway, that of a young man in dark fatigues whose hair was sheared in a short buzz cut. In its frozen state of death, his face expressed a mixture of confusion and agony, his open blue eyes searching for reason. His stiff hands cradled an AK-47.

“He was fighting off somebody.” Pitt toed the deck near a handful of spent shell casings.

Giordino played a flashlight on the body. “No visible cause of death.”

They stepped over the body and into the companionway, which they climbed to the bridge on the fifth level. There they found another macabre scene. An armed man in fatigues sprawled beside a crewman near the helm. An older, bearded man, likely the captain, had collapsed near a chart table. Giordino checked for signs of life, but bulging eyes, blue skin, and contorted mouths signified a quick but painful end.

“No external wounds, just like the guy downstairs,” Giordino said.

Pitt noticed a smell of sulfur and opened a bridge window. “Possible gas leak. Why don’t you check the crew’s quarters for survivors? I’ll let the Macedonia know what we’ve found, then see about getting this floating coffin under way.”

Giordino moved down to the companionway to the living quarters beneath the bridge. Pitt relayed a report to Stenseth, then engaged the freighter’s engines and turned on a course toward Istanbul, accompanied by the Macedonia .

The freighter slowly gathered speed, plowing through an endless line of high swells as it angled south. Pitt was checking for approaching traffic when a small explosion reverberated from the stern. He turned to see a fountain of white water erupt outboard of the port flank. The freighter shuddered as red lights flashed on the helm console.

“What was that?” Giordino’s voice crackled over the handheld radio.

“Explosion on the stern.”

“Somebody trying to scuttle her?”

“Could be.”

Pitt studied a navigation monitor. The nearest land was eight miles. He altered course, hopeful he might run the ship aground if necessary. Additional red lights on the console told him they wouldn’t make it. Some papers slid off a corner workstation, confirming the growing list he felt beneath his feet.

“The ship is flooding,” he radioed to Giordino. “How are you making out?”

“Two crewmen dead in their bunks. I think there’s another suite of cabins to check in the deck below.”

Pitt detected something out of the corner of his eye. To his side, a closed-circuit video monitor displayed live feeds from the bow, stern, and engine room. He had seen some sort of movement in the engine room. Looking closer, he could just distinguish a prone figure at the rear of the image.

“Al, finish up and meet me on deck in five minutes. I’m going to check the engine room.”

The helm console was ablaze with flashing lights as the flooding crept through the freighter’s lower recesses. The bow had already begun rising toward the sky as the stern sank lower. Pitt glanced at the distant lights onshore, then ran from the bridge. He reached the main deck and descended a companionway to the engine room.

Pitt found the floor of the engine bay awash, but the power plants continued to churn with a deafening roar. Through flickering lights, he spotted a figure stretched out on a gray case behind a generator. Pitt waded over to find a young crewman in oil-stained coveralls, his feet dangling in the rising water. His face had a bluish tint as he stared at Pitt through listless eyes, then blinked.

“Hang on,” Pitt said. “I’ll get you out of here.”

He hooked an arm around the stricken man, raised him to his feet, and muscled him up the steps. Pitt glanced around for additional survivors, but the bay was empty. He struggled up the steps with his load, a journey made harder by the ship’s list. They reached a hatch door, which Pitt kicked open as a generator below them sizzled to a halt from the rising waters.

Giordino stood near the rail and rushed over to help. “This baby’s about to go under. The Macedonia is ordering us to evacuate right away.”

They were briefly blinded by a powerful searchlight from the NUMA ship that swept over the angled deck. Pitt glanced aft. Waves were washing over the stern rail. Metallic creaks and groans filled the air, along with sporadic crashes from shifting cargo. The freighter had only seconds left afloat.

Pitt and Giordino dragged the crewman across to the accommodations ladder. The freighter’s steep list had raised the stairway to a nearly horizontal angle. Giordino descended first, supporting the engineer over his shoulder as Pitt lowered the injured man by the collar. Alongside them, the freighter shuddered as it fought to stay afloat.

“We’ve got a problem,” Giordino said.

Pitt stared at the Zodiac. Partially submerged, the inflatable was standing on end in the water. As the ship settled, the lower section of the accommodations ladder had dropped underwater. The attached bow line had pulled the Zodiac down with it, leaving it bobbing upright like a cork in the water.

The freighter lurched again, its bow shooting skyward as its stern began sliding into the sea. They could simply wait a few seconds and step off into the water, but they would face the risk of being pulled under by the suction from the sinking ship. Even if they managed to swim free, there was a good chance the semiconscious engineer would drown.

“Take him and grab hold of the Zodiac,” Pitt yelled. Then he stepped off the ladder and dove into the sea.

Pitt struck the surface alongside the upright mass of the Zodiac, the cold water prickling his skin. As he kicked downward, he felt along the inflatable’s fiberglass hull. The Zodiac suddenly jerked away from him as the freighter began its final plunge. Pitt kicked hard to keep up, pulling himself along the inflatable’s surface wherever he could find a grip. In the dark water, he reached out and felt its pointed prow. Grabbing hold, he pulled himself forward while groping with his other hand for the bow line.

The rope was tightly secured in the Zodiac’s interior, so his only chance for a quick release was to free it from the ship’s ladder. He pulled himself hand over hand against the rush of water, a flurry of bubbles obscuring the minimal visibility. The growing water pressure squeezed his ears and lungs as he willed himself down the line. His outstretched hand finally banged against the platform and he grasped the cleat that held the line. The rope was pulled taut by the pressure, but he found the end and began working it loose. With a hard tug, the line broke free.

The accommodations ladder smacked his side as the Zodiac began to shoot toward the surface. Pitt nearly lost his breath but clung tightly to the line. With the freighter continuing to slide past him, he had no sense of ascending until his ears popped. A second later, he was flung above the waves by the momentum of the surfacing inflatable. He regained his bearings and swam to the side of the Zodiac. A waterlogged Al Giordino reached over the side and helped hoist him aboard. He grinned at Pitt. “I’m glad you didn’t wait to hit bottom before releasing the line.”

Pitt forced an exhausted smile. “I wanted to give you your money’s worth. How’s our friend?”

“If you understand Russian, he can tell you himself. He swallowed a bit of seawater during our thrill ride but actually seems better for it after a bit of retching.”

The crewman sat on the floor of the Zodiac, clinging to a bench seat. Though his skin was pale, his eyes appeared steady, and he breathed easily. He glanced up at Pitt and nodded.

Around them, a collection of flotsam coated the water. A motor sounded nearby and a second Zodiac from the Macedonia raced over and towed the battered inflatable back to the research ship. The freighter’s crewman was rushed to sick bay while Pitt and Giordino climbed to the bridge.

Captain Stenseth greeted them with mugs of hot coffee. “You boys cut your exit a little close there.”

Giordino savored the warm brew. “It being a nice night for a midnight swim, we opted for a dip.”

“Only one survivor?”

“Afraid so,” Pitt said. “The other crewmen showed no signs of injury. Looks to be a possible chemical or gas leak.”

“Something to do with that blast?”

“I’m not sure,” Pitt said. “It occurred well aft of the cargo holds.”

“She didn’t look old enough to be a candidate for an insurance policy scuttling,” Giordino said. “That leaves an accident or an aborted hijacking.”

They were interrupted by a call from an approaching Turkish Coast Guard helicopter.

Stenseth turned to Chavez. “Tell them the Crimean Star has gone down and that we’re at the site of the sinking. We’ll welcome their assistance in searching for survivors.”

The thumping drone of the search and rescue chopper sounded a moment later. Pitt and Giordino stepped to the bridge wing as it surveyed the freighter’s small field of floating debris. Its bright searchlight narrowed on a pair of drifting bodies.

Giordino shook his head. “All of her crew gone but one.”

Staring at the roiling sea, Pitt nodded. “A death ship that took her secrets with her. At least for now.” Z+pEzDZW5rYsnYO7wRjTEB/SsNwaOMK8P2sAUJhFWvDvus+p8VRHzrkVGzIJ0V1F