Crescent Dawn dp-21, page 23
part #21 of Dirk Pitt Series
He briefly searched the perimeter around the anchored line, then swam over the grid, following the length of the shipwreck. He hesitated as he crossed over the fourth grid box, noting that there was a large indentation in the sand where Gunn’s beloved stone monolith had previously rested. Scanning ahead, he spotted a blue object near the ballast pile. Thrusting his fins sharply, he quickly kicked over to the prone figure of one of the divers.
The body was wedged beneath the aluminum grid, with a number of ballast stones rolled onto the chest. A glance into the wide unblinking eyes behind the mask told Pitt that the NUMA scientist named Iverson was quite dead. Pitt searched the man’s equipment and noticed he seemed to be missing his regulator. A few yards away, Pitt spotted it on the seabed, a clean cut in the line indicating that it had been severed.
Pitt noticed a light above him and was thankful to make out the stout figure of Giordino descending upon him. Approaching within a few feet, Giordino motioned toward the body of Iverson. Pitt responded by shaking his head, then held up the severed regulator, showing where it had been cut. Giordino nodded, then pointed toward the stern of the wreck, and Pitt joined him in swimming aft.
They found the body of Tang drifting above the seafloor with a finned foot caught in the grid holding him anchored. He had drowned like Iverson, though he appeared to have flailed more wildly in his last moments of life. His mask, weight belt, and one fin had been torn away, and his severed regulator was visible in the nearby sand. Pitt drew his flashlight to the dead man’s face, revealing a large purple welt on the right cheekbone. The scientist had probably seen what happened to Iverson and tried to defend himself, Pitt thought. Only the assailants had been too powerful or too many. Pitt turned the light to the deep around them, but the waters were empty. The attackers had already returned to the Italian yacht.
Grabbing hold of Tang’s buoyancy compensator, he gave the corpse a tug upward as Giordino motioned that he would retrieve Iverson’s body. Pitt ascended slowly with his dead companion, kicking toward the drop line as he rose. Nearing the surface, he detected the low rumble of engines come to life. As the sound increased in intensity, he rightly figured that it was the yacht, throttling up, as it proceeded to flee the scene.
While Pitt’s hunch was correct, he never envisaged the yacht’s path. Rising to the surface, he realized too late that the engines’ roar had grown significantly louder and that a surface shadow was rapidly approaching. He broke the water alongside the Zodiac and chase boat, looking up to see the imposing hull of the yacht screaming toward him at high speed just twenty feet away. The large blue hull slapped against the surface while a fountain of white water sprayed from its churning propellers off the stern.
In an instant, the yacht burst upon the two small boats, instantly crushing the Zodiac with its battering hull and dicing propellers while batting the small chase boat across the waves like an insect. The demolished Zodiac quickly sank to the bottom as the yacht broke toward the horizon, surging like a bolt of lightning.
In the yacht’s wake, the drop-line buoy slowly found its way back to the surface after being pummeled to the depths. Cut free from its line, it bobbed gently amid a foaming boil of sea that was colored crimson with human blood.
33
Giordino saw the shadow of the yacht pass overhead and surfaced a few yards from the buoy, the body of Iverson still in tow. He manually inflated the dead man’s buoyancy compensator as he watched the mangled remains of the Zodiac sink nearby. In the distance, he spotted the partially deflated chase boat drifting rapidly away with the aid of a light breeze. He quickly scanned the waters around him but saw no sign of Pitt. It was then that he noticed a dark spot in the water near the drifting buoy.
Fearing the worst, he let go of Iverson and swam toward the buoy, intending to submerge and search for Pitt underwater. Reaching the buoy, he felt his stomach drop when he realized the darkened water nearby was created by human blood that pooled bright red. The center of the pool was suddenly disrupted by the rising presence of a wet suit-clad body. The body floated facedown, its head and extremities submerged, concealing its identity. The torso clearly displayed the source of the blood in the water. Sliced and mangled like it had been run over with a lawnmower, the body’s back side was a gruesome mix of shredded flesh and neoprene, mutilated by the yacht’s churning propellers.
Giordino fought back his revulsion and swam hurriedly to the body. Dreading what he would find, he gently grabbed the torso and eased the head out of the water.
It wasn’t Pitt.
He nearly jumped out of his wet suit when he immediately felt a firm tap on his shoulder. Spinning around, he came face-to-face with Pitt, who had surfaced right behind him. Giordino noticed a faint streak of white paint on Pitt’s hood and shoulder.
Spitting out his regulator, Giordino asked, “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Pitt replied, though Giordino could see a tint of anger in his friend’s eyes.
“You and Tang were in the way of that freight train?” Giordino asked.
Pitt nodded. “Tang saved my life.”
When he’d surfaced in the path of the speeding yacht, Pitt had just seconds to react. He quickly tucked an arm through Tang’s buoyancy compensator and pulled the dead man to his chest, then leaned back and attempted to submerge. By then, the yacht was already upon them, slapping down hard onto Tang, and Pitt beneath him. Together, they were pummeled beneath the hull until they passed the wildly spinning propellers. Pitt had just been able to keep Tang above him, and the dead man’s body bore the brunt of the slicing blades.
Pitt felt revulsion and anger at having to use the scientist’s body as a human shield, but he knew that he would have otherwise been cut to ribbons.
“They killed him twice today,” Giordino said somberly.
“They…” Pitt muttered, gazing toward the receding profile of the yacht racing toward the horizon. His mind was already churning over the question of who would commit murder over an old shipwreck, and why?
“We better get him out of here before every shark in the Mediterranean shows up for lunch,” Giordino said, grabbing hold of Tang’s arm.
The Aegean Explorer had already weighed anchor and was creeping up to the men in the water. A group of deckhands lowered a crane and quickly hoisted the dead men aboard, then helped pull up Giordino and Pitt. The ship’s captain and doctor scurried to the scene, followed closely by Gunn. The NUMA Deputy Director had a dazed look about him as he held an ice pack to his head.
“They both died in the water,” Pitt said as the doctor kneeled down and quickly examined each man. “Drowned.”
“Both accidental?” the captain asked.
“No,” Pitt said as he stripped off his wet suit. He pointed to a severed air hose extending from Iverson’s dive tank.
“Somebody cut their air lines.”
“The same people that tried to iron us with the bottom of their rich Italian hull,” Giordino added.
“I knew they were lying when they came aboard,” Captain Kenfield said, shaking his head. “But I certainly didn’t suspect they would resort to murder.”
Pitt noticed a lump on Gunn’s head that he was rubbing with the ice pack.
“What happened to you?”
Gunn grimaced as he lowered the pack.
“While you were down, the yacht sent over a small launch filled with armed thugs. Claimed they were with the Turkish Ministry of Culture.”
“Policing the high seas in a luxury yacht?” Giordino asked skeptically.
“I asked for their identification, but was shown the stock of a rifle instead,” Gunn said, repositioning the ice pack to the knot on his head.
“They told us in no uncertain terms that we had no authority to be working on a shipwreck of the Ottoman Empire,” the captain said.
“Interesting, that they knew what the wreck was,” Giordino noted.
“What else did they want?” Pitt asked.
“They demanded all of the artifacts that we had removed from the wreck,” Kenfield said. “I told them to get off my ship, but that didn’t go over too well. They marched Rudi and me onto the bridge wing and threatened to kill us. The crew had no choice but to acquiesce.”
“Did they take everything?” Giordino asked.
Gunn nodded. “They cleared out the lab, then beat it back to their yacht just before you guys surfaced.”
“But not before ordering us off the site and threatening us to stay off the radio,” Kenfield added.
“I hate to tell you they didn’t just take all our artifacts, Rudi,” Pitt said. “They also dug up your monolith from the wreck site.”
“That’s the least of our losses,” he said grimly. “They’ve got Zeibig.”
The captain nodded. “They asked who was in charge of the wreck excavation. Dr. Zeibig happened to be in the lab, and they forced him to go with them.”
“After what they did to Iverson and Tang, we know they won’t hesitate to kill him, too,” Giordino said quietly.
“Have you tried contacting anyone yet?” Pitt asked the captain.
“I just got off the satellite phone with the Turkish Ministry of Culture. They confirmed that they possess no yachts and have no policing resources assigned to this region. I also contacted the Turkish Coast Guard. Unfortunately, they don’t have any vessels in the immediate area, either. They have directed us to their base at Izmir to file a report.”
“In the meantime, the bad guys are able to disappear completely with Zeibig,” Pitt said.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much else we can do,” the captain said. “That yacht is at least twice as fast as the Aegean Explorer . There’s no way we could try pursuing them with any hopes of catching up. And once in port, we can alert our own government authorities as well.”
Giordino loudly cleared his throat as he stepped forward. “I know something that could keep pace with that yacht.”
He turned toward Pitt and gave him a confident wink.
“You sure she’s ready?” Pitt asked.
“She’s as ready,” Giordino said, “as a hungry alligator in a duck pond.”
* * *
Previously prepared for launch, it took only a few minutes to check that all systems were operational before Giordino’s new submersible was lowered over the side. Seated at side-by-side controls, Giordino performed a quick safety check while Pitt radioed the bridge of the Aegean Explorer .
“Explorer , please give me a current fix on our target,” he asked.
“Radar shows she’s holding on a steady course of zero-one-two degrees,” replied the voice of Rudi Gunn. “She’s now approximately ten miles north of us.”
“Roger, Explorer . Please follow at speed while we go try to catch the fox. Bullet out.”
Pitt was wary of the notion of playing chase in a submersible. Normally reliant on battery power for propulsion, research submersibles were historically slow, plodding vehicles designed for limited range. But the Bullet had broken the rules of submersible development.
Named for the vessel’s speed rather than shape, the Bullet was based on a design by Marion Hyper-Subs. The NUMA prototype mated a steel submersible cabin to a high-performance powerboat hull. As a submersible, the Bullet was capable of diving to depths of a thousand feet. On the surface, separate propulsion motors in a pressurized engine compartment along with a 525-gallon fuel tank allowed the Bullet to travel long distances at high speed. The design permitted the sub to reach remote dive sites without the need for an accompanying support vessel.
“Ready to engage surface drive,” Giordino announced, then reached over and pressed the starter buttons for a pair of turbocharged diesel engines.
A deep rumble echoed behind them as the twin 500-horsepower motors churned to life. Giordino visually checked several gauges on the instrument panel, then turned to Pitt.
“We’re ready to roll.”
“Let’s see what she can do,” Pitt replied, easing back the throttle controls.
They were immediately pushed back into their seats as the powerful diesels shoved the submersible ahead. In just a few seconds, the vessel was riding high on its sleek white hull, racing across the waves. Pitt felt the sub pitch and roll through the choppy seas, but as he gained a feel for its stability he gently added more throttle. With the control cabin perched near the forward edge of the vessel, he felt like they were flying over the water.
“Thirty-four knots,” he said, eyeing a navigation screen readout. “Not too shabby.”
Giordino nodded with a wide smile. “I figure she can do well over forty on a flat sea.”
They blasted north across the Aegean Sea, bounding for nearly twenty minutes before they spotted a speck on the horizon. They pursued the yacht for another hour, drawing slowly closer as they passed north of the Dardanelles, weaving around a pair of large oil tankers sailing from the Black Sea. The large Turkish island of Gökçeada soon loomed before them, and the yacht altered course to the east of the island.
Pitt followed on a zigzag course so as not to appear to be directly following the yacht, then eased back on the throttles when they approached within a few miles. The yacht slowly turned away from Gökçeada and angled toward the Turkish mainland, hugging close to the coastline as it gradually reduced speed. Pitt turned and followed on a delayed parallel tack, holding well out to sea while staying within visible range of the luxury boat. Skimming low in the water, from a distance the Bullet appeared to be just a small pleasure craft out for an afternoon cruise.
The yacht traveled several more miles up the Turkish west coast, then suddenly slowed and veered into a semiprotected cove. As they sped past offshore, Pitt and Giordino could make out a few buildings and a dock with a small freighter moored alongside. Pitt held their course until they were a mile or two north of the cove and well out of sight, before dropping his own throttle to an idle.
“Seems like we’ve got two choices,” Giordino said. “We can put ashore somewhere and make for the cove on foot. Or we can wait until dark and take the Bullet into the cove through the basement.”
Pitt eyed the craggy coastline a half mile away.
“I’m not sure there are a whole lot of good spots to run aground around here,” he said. “Plus, if Zeibig or anyone else should get injured, hiking back out could be problematic.”
“Agreed. Then into the cove it is.”
Pitt glanced at his orange-faced Doxa dive watch. “Dusk will be here in about an hour. We can start heading in then.”
The hour passed quickly. Pitt radioed the Aegean Explorer with their position and instructed Rudi to bring the research vessel to a holding spot ten miles south of the cove. Giordino used the time to retrieve a digital marine chart of the coastal area and program a submerged route into the center of the cove. Once underwater, an autopilot system would drive the submersible to the specified location using computer-enhanced dead reckoning.
As darkness approached, Pitt guided the Bullet to within a half mile of the cove entrance, then shut off the surface diesels. Giordino sealed and pressurized the engine compartment, then opened a pair of hull gates that allowed water to be pumped into the ballast chambers. The bow chamber flooded first, and the submarine was soon diving beneath the surface.
Pitt deployed a set of dive fins, then engaged the electric thrusters for propulsion. He fought the urge to turn on the vessel’s exterior floodlights as the watery world beyond the acrylic bubble faded to black. He eased the sub forward at low speed until Giordino told him to release the controls.
“The autopilot will do the driving from here,” he said.
“You sure that thing won’t impale us on a submerged rock or obstruction?” Pitt asked.
“We’re equipped with high-frequency sonar that reads out a hundred meters in front of us. The autopilot will make course corrections for minor obstacles or give us a warning if something substantial is blocking our course.”
“Kind of takes the fun out of flying blind,” Pitt remarked.
While Pitt had no aversion to computers, he was old-school when it came to piloting. He could never be completely comfortable letting a computer operate the controls. There was a nuanced feel to the pilot’s controls, both in the air and underwater, which even the best computers could not sense. Or so he told himself. With his hands free, he carefully noted their progress, standing ready to take the controls at a moment’s notice.
The Bullet submerged to a depth of thirty feet, then automatically engaged its electronic thrusters. The submersible moved slowly along its programmed path, compensating for a light current as it eased into the entrance of the cove. Giordino noted that the sonar screen remained clear as they crept to the cove’s center. A light flashed on the monitor, and the electric motors ceased whirring as they reached their designated end point.
“That concludes the automated portion of the program,” Giordino announced.
Pitt’s hands were already on the controls.
“Let’s go see if we can find a parking space,” he replied.
Purging the ballast chambers in tiny increments, they slowly ascended until just the top few inches of the cabin’s acrylic bubble broke the surface. Overhead, they could see that the sky was in its last vestiges of twilight while the water around them appeared black. Giordino shut off all interior lights and unnecessary display panels, then goosed the ballast tanks a final time to elevate them a few more inches.
Rising out of their seats, the two men gazed at the shoreline. They could see that the circular cove was populated on the northern shoreline by only three buildings. The structures fronted a wooden pier that stretched perpendicular to shore. The blue Italian yacht was clearly visible, docked to the right side of the pier behind a small workboat. On the opposite side of the pier was a large rusty freighter. A wheeled crane on the pier was busy loading cargo onto the freighter under the blaze of some fixed overhead lights.
