Odessa Sea (Dirk Pitt 24)

“Wait,” she said, “the uranium.”

Pitt lifted up the container and heaved it up to Giordino, who hoisted it onto his shoulder as if it were made of feathers. Pitt scampered onto the dock and surveyed their surroundings. To their right, the Greek-flagged freighter was awaiting a thick stack of shipping containers. To their left, the dock fed onto a busy waterfront street that circled into the town center. At the moment, the entire wharf was empty. Lunch hour had arrived moments before, and the local dockworkers were congregated in a break shack, out of the rain, eating fish stew and beans.

Pitt got a gleam in his eye. The dock’s loading derrick was still harnessed to a full container atop the stack.

He pointed to the road. “See if you can find some transport out of here. I’ll try and slow them down.”

Ana hesitated, but Giordino grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the street. “You heard the man. No time for debate.” They took off at a run, Giordino leading Ana toward a dilapidated pickup truck parked near the dock entrance.

Pitt ran to the lift crane’s controls and fired up its diesel motor. Deciphering its controls, he hoisted the shipping container and pivoted the crane head toward the ship’s hold. But he kept rotating the crane until it dangled over the edge of the dock.

Pitt had no time to spare, as the orange inflatable roared up to the same spot as the NUMA Zodiac. Pitt jammed the cable release and the yellow container crashed to the lip of the dock, then teetered upright and over the side. The blunt end slammed onto the bow of the inflatable, crushing one gunman. The other two were hurled forward as the boat jackknifed under the container’s weight. One slammed face-first into the container, falling limp into the water with a broken neck. Vasko was more fortunate. Flung against the dock pylons, he managed to grab a steel ladder midair.

The crashing prompted a group of dockworkers to come investigate. A distressed crane operator ran up to the cab, waving his arms, as Pitt climbed out.

Pitt shrugged. “The controls, they’re a little loose,” he said.

He turned toward the street but froze when the glass windshield of the crane cab shattered next to him. At the edge of the wharf, a burly, bald, tattooed man was pulling himself onto the dock, holding a smoking pistol aimed at Pitt.

17

Ilya Vasko had recognized the tall, dark-haired man climbing from the crane as the pilot of the inflatable that aided Ana. He knew the shipping container that had dropped on him was no accident. With his assault rifle at the bottom of the harbor, he pulled a pistol from a holster. The best he could do was to fire a snap shot from the ladder before climbing onto the dock and catching his breath. He stood for a moment, shaking off the impact of his ejection from the boat, and glanced at the water. The bodies of his two crewmen floated alongside the punctured inflatable.

Vasko steadied himself against the dock and raised his pistol. A dozen dockworkers scrambled for cover as he scanned the wharf for the tall man with black hair.

Pitt had already jumped away from the crane and was sprinting down the dock. He zigzagged around a forklift and some assorted crates as the pop-pop-pop of gunfire sounded. A pair of bullets whistled past, striking a fence post just in front of him. He searched ahead for Giordino and spotted his partner, waving from the driver’s seat of a dilapidated pickup.

It was a Romanian-built Dacia, at least forty years old, used for light duty around the port. The HEU container lay in the truck’s open bed, and Ana sat in the passenger seat, urging Pitt on with her eyes. Blue exhaust smoke indicated Giordino had already found the keys and started the old truck.

“Go!” Pitt shouted while still a few yards away.

Giordino threw it into gear and rolled forward as another volley sounded from Vasko’s pistol. Pitt caught up to the truck and dove into its bed as a shot tore through the tailgate, followed by another that shattered the cab’s rear window.

Pitt called up to the cab as he lay low. “Fastest you could find?”

“Only thing I could find,” Giordino called back, “with keys.”

The old truck gained speed, and Giordino wheeled it through an open gate at the end of the dock and turned onto the main waterfront drive. Traffic was light, and he was able to accelerate ahead. Police sirens sounded as Vasko ran into the middle of the road after them. A college student on a motorcycle approached from the south and Vasko stood, rock-like, in his path, his gun raised. The startled rider skidded to a stop just a few feet away.

“Off!” Vasko stepped forward and grabbed the handlebars.

The student jumped off and backed away with his hands raised, then turned and ran. Vasko tucked his gun into his waistband and climbed aboard.

A quarter mile ahead, Pitt watched the scene as Giordino drove into the center of town. Like most Bulgarian seaside villages, Balchik was filled with stodgy but colorful buildings and shops that summer tourists found inviting. The truck wheeled around a large traffic circle with a marble statue of the Greek god Dionysus in the center, then sped past a row of cafés and coffee shops.

Pitt moved to sit with his back to the cab. “Gunman’s on a bike in pursuit,” he told Giordino.

“Where are those police cars?” Giordino asked.

Pitt listened to the wailing sirens in the distance. “Coming from the other side of the dock, I’m afraid.”

“Figures.”

Pitt glanced at a man lugging a sack of flour down the street, then turned to Giordino. “Pull to a quick stop, then go up a block and circle back around to the traffic circle. We ought to be able to catch the police there.”

Giordino stood on the brakes. “Okay, but why the stop?”

When he got no response, he turned back to see that both Pitt and the HEU canister were gone.