Odessa Sea (Dirk Pitt 24)

“Can you help load two onto our trailer,” Hendriks said, “and the other two onto the drone?”

“Of course.”

The driver and Hendriks’s assistant loaded two of the one-hundred-pound missiles into a hidden storage compartment on the trailer, then attached the remaining two on the Peregrine’s underwing launch racks.

As the driver climbed back into his pickup, Hendriks stuffed a wad of Ukrainian currency into the driver’s hands. “Tell Colonel Markovich to put the other eight to good use.”

“We will,” the man promised, then drove away.

Hendriks inspected the armed drone, then turned to his assistant. “Gerard, let’s launch the Peregrine.”

Gerard wheeled out a radio control console, which Hendriks used to start the drone’s motors. The vehicle rolled forward and easily took to the air under its wide flared wings. Hendriks had it circle the field a few times, then sent it south. He switched off the local radio signal and transferred guidance control to a commercial satellite system relay. By the time the drone reached the Black Sea coastline a few miles away, it was cruising at twelve hundred meters.

Gerard opened a laptop and pulled up a map of the Black Sea showing green triangles that marked the locations of GPS-monitored commercial ships. He zoomed in on the coastal region near Odessa and studied a myriad of vessels.

“Mr. Hendriks, I show two Russian-flagged ships. One is a tanker, the Nevskiy, near the mouth of the Dnieper. The other is a freighter, the Carina, which appears en route to Istanbul.”

“Let’s take a look at the freighter. How far off is she?”

“Just under fifty kilometers. We’ll catch her before dark.”

Hendriks nodded.

Gerard programmed the freighter’s speed, direction, and coordinates into the flight control system. A half hour later, a red freighter appeared on the drone’s long-range camera. Hendriks took over manual control and approached the ship from the stern while maintaining a covert distance.

The Peregrine’s camera showed a small bulk carrier riding low in the water, its white, blue, and red Russian flag flapping at the sternpost. Hendriks turned the drone away and let Gerard program the vehicle to fly in a slow holding pattern.

“That will make for an acceptable target,” Hendriks said, stepping from the console. “Let’s engage in about five hours.”

The Dutchman retired to a small cabin that stood at one end of the trailer. At two in the morning, he awoke and returned to the console. The Peregrine was trailing the Carina by three kilometers, but it was close enough for Hendriks to lock on the drone’s laser targeting system to the freighter’s bridge.

“How is the surrounding traffic?” he asked.

“I’ll check.” Gerard yawned and consulted his computer. “The nearest vessel is twenty kilometers away, heading north.”

Hendriks nodded, then pressed a pair of red buttons. A hundred kilometers away, the two Vikhr missiles whooshed off the Peregrine and rocketed toward the ship. Hendriks held the camera tight on the freighter as the missiles struck in tandem at the rear of the Carina’s blockhouse. The bridge structure disintegrated in a bright fireball that was quickly swallowed by the night sky.

Hendriks watched for several minutes, then passed the controls to Gerard. “It will appear as an internal accident. Move the Peregrine off thirty kilometers to a remote section of sea. At dawn, bring her back to the area at low altitude and search for survivors. Be sure and run video when you find them. Hopefully, we’ll be the first to call it in to the Ukrainian Coast Guard.”

Gerard quietly nodded, then stared with discomfort at the sinking ship.

Hendriks felt no such sensation. He returned to his cabin bed and slept like the newly dead until morning.

48

The two ships slogged through a heavy rain, running parallel courses. Each towed a side-scan sonar towfish on two hundred meters of electronic cable. Working together, they took less than twelve hours to survey thirteen square kilometers of seafloor—and locate the remains of Alexander Krayevski’s aircraft.

Valentin Mankedo stepped to the sonar station wedged into a corner of the Besso’s bridge. Renamed the Nevena, the salvage ship looked like a different vessel. Several deck cranes had been removed and her moon pool covered with a temporary cover. Plywood bays had been added about the main deck to alter her topside appearance, plus a fake funnel was added well aft of the functioning one, which had also been altered. A re-spray of paint from gray to blue completed the Besso’s transformation. Mankedo knew it would deceive any casual observer.

“She should be coming up any second

now,” Vasko said from a seat in front of the sonar monitor.

Archeologist Georgi Dimitov joined Mankedo in watching the screen. Dimitov moved unsteadily, his ghost-pale complexion revealing a losing fight with seasickness.

On the monitor, a gold-tinted image of the seafloor scrolled by, the signal fed from the towfish. Gradually, a black linear object appeared on the screen, taking the shape of a thick letter T. It took little imagination to see the shadow as the remains of a large airplane. One wing and part of the tail were absent, but the rest of the aircraft appeared intact, sitting upright on the bottom.

“What do you think, Georgi?” Mankedo asked.