Odessa Sea (Dirk Pitt 24)

“Guess they like their privacy.” Pitt nodded to a video camera on a pole amid the rocky border.

From the barrier, they had a clear view of the compound. On their right a long warehouse faced the water, while a two-story brick building stood at the far end of the cove. Both appeared to have been built into the cliffside, and both looked more than a century old. Between the structures, open paved grounds were dotted with crates and equipment. Ahead and to their left was a thin wooden dock and the two boats Ana had seen with the drone. Left of the dock was another wall, creating a high corridor with the seawall as the facility’s lone shore entry.

Their vantage on the water allowed Pitt and Giordino one other sight. Peering through the gray, they could see a low rock outcropping just past the corridor. Crouching behind the rocks were two men with automatic weapons, waiting in perfect ambush for Ana and her men.

53

The two police cars approached the salvage yard with their headlights dimmed, stopping just short of the entrance. Ana led the team on foot to a rickety chain-link gate beneath a battered sign proclaiming THRACIA SALVAGE. A large anchor beside an old fishing net strewn across a boulder created the desired image of a low-budget operation. Had the law enforcement agents looked closer, they might have found a motion-activated video surveillance camera hidden in the net.

Mikel opened the gate and the team moved down the shrub-lined entry, not knowing they had activated an alarm that was sounding deep within the facility. The road curved as they approached the compound’s true entrance, which the foliage had concealed from the main road. Ten-foot walls bordered a paved drive that ran toward the sea.

The team moved past a thick steel gate that was standing open, the men accelerating their pace at Ana’s lead. Not until they had gone another twenty yards and the steel gate silently closed behind them did Ana realize they were into more than they had bargained for.

She knew from the drone video that the corridor ran nearly to the water before opening left onto the dock, where they would have to backtrack inland to the shore facilities. The opening was in sight, just a few yards ahead, when a single gunshot split the dawn air. It was nearby but seemed to come from the sea and be aimed elsewhere.

Ana froze and crouched low to the ground, as did the five-man assault team that had fanned out behind her.

She didn’t breathe, feeling her heart thump, before the dawn erupted in gunfire.

The hidden figures behind the rocks ahead opened fire on them. Ana dove to the ground as the chatter from a pair of AK-47s reverberated off the walls. Three of the men behind her went down hard and the other two scrambled to return fire. Ana did the same, pulling up a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun and firing a short burst at the rocks.

“Keep moving!” she yelled at her team. They were sitting ducks in the confined corridor. She squeezed off another burst, then leaped up and sprinted a few yards before again diving to the ground. A second later, two of her comrades followed suit and slammed to the ground behind her. She saw it was Anton and Mikel.

“Give me cover to get around the near wall and I’ll do the same for you,” she said. Not waiting for an answer, she popped up and bolted to the end of the wall. The opposing fire was reduced by half, and Ana saw it was now directed toward the sea entrance.

As Anton and Mikel scrambled to her side, she took careful aim at a lone shooter visible behind the rocks and emptied her clip. The distant muzzle flashes ceased.

She paused to reload. “Where are the others?” she asked Anton.

“They’re all down.”

Thoughts of tending to her team vanished when gunfire erupted from the main building ahead of them. Two or three figures emerged from the structure and scattered behind some heavy equipment. One of them looked heavy, muscular, and bald.

The agents were exposed as they faced the compound, but cover presented itself in the form of a storage shed wedged against the wall. The trio sprinted for it but came under fire from someone on the dock. Mikel hit the ground, and Ana felt a stinging in her calf, followed by a hard blow to her side.

She gasped and fell. As she tried to get up, Vasko approached from ahead and lobbed a rock-sized object in their direction. The shed was just ahead, so she tried crawling toward it, hugging the wall beside her.

The ground near her erupted, showering her with rocks and debris. Her ears rang, blocking the sounds of battle. She coughed out the dust in her lungs and looked up to see a figure emerge through the haze. It was the gunman from the dock, firing his assault rifle. Ana tried to raise her gun, but her arm was too numb.

The gunman stepped closer and centered his weapon on her face. As she waited for the gunshot, his dark eyes rolled back in their sockets when a red spot appeared on his temple. He dropped his gun and crumpled to the ground.

An instant later, Pitt was at her side, gripping the smoking SIG Sauer. Giordino arrived beside him and they dragged her to the safety of the shed.

The ringing in her ears lessened enough to hear Pitt say, “My mother’s not going to allow us to be friends if you keep getting us into trouble.”

Despite the pain in her leg and side, she smiled as he emptied the clip at a distant figure.

Gunfire converged on them from all directions. Then the ground shook under another concussion grenade, more powerful than the first. This one struck at the base of the wall, just ahead of the shed. It was followed immediately by a second explosion that obliterated the shed, along with a section of the rock structure beside it. Ana felt an avalanche of rocks and mortar rain down upon her. First the pain, then the noise, and finally the light around her slipped away to nothingness.

54

The ache began in Ana’s wrists and extended through her elbows to her shoulders. She shook her hair from her eyes and the fog from her mind—and the other pains returned. Worst was the hammering bruise to her side where her tactical vest had repelled a slug from an AK-47. A flesh wound to her calf still throbbed, but that was the least of her agonies. The ringing in her ears had been replaced by a headache. It was her wrists and arms, however, which vied for her primary attention. As she regained her focus, she saw why.

Her wrists were tied with a rope that stretched over her head to a warehouse rafter. Somehow she found the balance to put her weight on her feet and she stood erect, relieving the tension on her arms. With that minor relief, she gazed around the dimly lit warehouse. She wasn’t alone. A few feet to her right, Mikel hung from his wrists, unconscious. To her left, Giordino and Pitt were similarly bound.

“Welcome back,” Pitt said, “although sleeping it out like your friend would appear the wiser strategy.”

“How . . . how long was I out?” The words were scratchy from her dry throat.