ips abandoned the area.”
“The Kerch?”
“You remember. We worked her about ten years ago. Pulled up an anchor and a steam condenser, if I recall. She’s a Russian destroyer. Sank in World War I. She’s sitting less than a kilometer from the Crimean Star. I’ve got something to show you from her, down in the machine shop.”
“I don’t care about that,” Mankedo said. “What about the uranium?”
“We wasted a lot of time searching the holds before one of our divers found it in the engine room. He was due to surface, so we had to send down two more men. In the meantime, we picked up a radar contact headed toward the site. I didn’t want to leave empty-handed again, so I dropped the claw and opened up the stern deck. The divers bounced in and dragged it within range and we grabbed it with the claw.”
“You got it?”
“We had to move fast. We barely got the divers up when we realized the approaching vessel was the same American ship, the Macedonia. They radioed us and said the Bulgarian police were aboard. We short-hoisted the claw, still holding the crate, and moved off to the Kerch site and waited. They dropped a submersible on the freighter, then went snooping around the site. We pulled in the crate, then roughed up the submersible.”
“What do you mean?”
“We dropped the claw back on the Kerch, and their submersible was there, poking around. They must have seen the damage to the stern of the Crimean Star and realized we’d taken something. I decided we needed to buy more time, so we destroyed the submersible and left the site. The weather was poor, so we feigned toward the strait before turning north. Radar showed that nobody tracked us to Burgas.”
Mankedo bit his lower lip. “They can identify the Besso.”
“They will be too busy recovering the submersible and its dead occupants. We’ll be rid of the package before they can possibly locate us and then it will be too late. What will they have? No proof of anything. We were there working the Kerch. And I brought back something for you that proves it.”
Mankedo brushed the comment aside. “We don’t need anyone tracking the Besso, now or in the future. I have a lot of money invested in this ship. I can’t afford to put it into hiding or move it to Georgia for months on end.”
“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.