Treasure of Khan (Dirk Pitt 19)

"Shame on them, indeed," Pitt replied, staring off toward the black freighter. "The question is, my dear Watson, why?"

When Pitt leaned over and shut off the outboard motor, Giordino knew they were going to seek the answer. Something had bothered Pitt about the black freighter the first time he saw it. Finding out it was leased by the Avarga Oil Consortium had just sealed the deal. He had little doubt that there must be some connection to the ship and the disappearance of Sarghov and the oil survey team. As he studied the ship from afar, Giordino quickly pulled in the sonar fish and closed the laptop computer, then retrieved the oars for the rowing ahead of them.

The Primorski sat dark and quiet at its still berth near the end of the village waterfront. The large trucks were still parked on the adjacent pier, the two flatbed rigs loaded with their concealed cargo. A tall chain-link fence secured the dock from passing villagers and was enforced by a pair of security guards lounging in a hut at the entrance. Around the trucks, a couple of men milled about studying a map splayed across one of the fenders, though the ship itself appeared devoid of life.

Pitt and Giordino approached the ship's stern silently, drifting slowly under the shadow of its high fantail. Pitt reached up and grabbed the freighter's stern mooring line, which ran down to the water, and used it to pull them alongside the dock. As Giordino tied a line around a splintered pylon, Pitt climbed from the Zodiac and crept onto the wooden dock.

The trucks were parked at the opposite end near the ship's bow, but Pitt could still hear the voices of the men wafting across the empty pier. Spotting a pair of rusty oil drums, he crept up and kneeled behind them near the dock's edge. A second later, Giordino silently appeared behind him.

"Empty as a church on Monday," Giordino whispered, eyeing the ghostly quiet ship.

"Yes, a little too peaceful."

Pitt peered around the drums and spied a gangway at the far end that ran up to the ship's forward hold. He then studied the freighter's side deck railing, which stood eight feet above the dock.

"Gangplank might be too grand an entrance," he whispered to Giordino. "I think we can step over from these," he said, pointing to the drums.

Pitt gingerly rolled one of the drums to the edge of the dock, then climbed on top. Bending his knees, he sprang off the drum and across three feet of water, reaching out and grabbing hold of the ship's lower side railing. He hung there for a second before swinging his body to the side, using the momentum to slip himself through the railing and onto the deck. It was a harder jump for the shorter Giordino, who nearly missed the rail and hung by one hand for a moment until Pitt jerked him aboard.

"Next time, I take the elevator," he muttered.

Catching their breath, they hung to the shadows and examined the silent ship. The freighter was small by oceangoing standards, stretching just over two hundred thirty feet. She was built of the classic cargo ship design, with a central superstructure surrounded by open deck fore and aft. Though her hull was steel, her decks were made of teak and reeked of oil, diesel fuel, and a candy store assortment of chemicals spilled and absorbed into the wood fibers over four decades of use. Pitt surveyed the stern deck, which was dotted with a handful of metal containers congregated near a single hold. Moving silently across the deck, he and Giordino crept toward the shadow of one of the containers, where they stopped and peered into the open stern hold.

The deep bay was stacked at either end with bundles of small-diameter iron pipe. The center of the hold was empty, but even in the darkness, the scarred markings where the feet of the mystery trestle had recently stood was etched into the hold's decking. More intriguing was a six-foot-diameter deck cap that sealed an access hole through the deck at the exact center of the footing markers.

"Looks like a string hole for a North Sea drill ship," Pitt whispered.

"And the drill pipe to go with it," Giordino replied. "But this sure ain't no drill ship."

It was a salient point. A drill ship contains the pipe and storage apparatus to drill into the earth for petroleum and collect the liquid aboard. The old freighter might have been able to set drill pipe, but obviously wasn't capable of collecting a drop of oil, if that was indeed the intended goal.

Pitt didn't stay to contemplate the point but moved quickly toward the portside passageway. Reaching the corner edge, he stopped and pressed himself against the bulkhead then peeked around the corner. There was still no sight of any shipboard inhabitants. Moving forward slowly with Giordino on his heels, he breathed easier now that they were out of sight of the dock.

They crept forward until reaching a cross-passageway that bisected the superstructure from beam to beam. A lone overhead light illuminated the empty passageway in a dull yellow glow. Somewhere in the distance, an electrical generator hummed like a swarm of cicadas. Pitt walked underneath the light and tugged his sweater down over his right hand, then reached up and unscrewed the bulb until the saffron glow was extinguished. Shielded from the dock lights, the passageway fell nearly pitch-black.

Standing at the corner of the crossways, the latch to a cabin door suddenly clicked behind them. Both men quickly turned into the side passage, moving out of sight of the opening door. A dimly illuminated open compartment beckoned on Pitt's left and he ste

pped into it, followed by Giordino, who closed the door behind them.

As they stood by the door listening for footsteps, their eyes scanned the room. They stood in the ship's formal mess, which doubled as a conference room. The bay was a plush departure from the rest of the shabby freighter. An ornate Persian carpet buoyed a polished mahogany table that stretched across the room, surrounded by rich leather-backed chairs. Thick wallpaper, a smattering of tasteful artwork, and a few artificial plants made it resemble the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria. At the opposite end, a set of double doors led to the ship's galley. On the bulkhead next to Pitt, a large video screen was mounted at eye level to accept satellite video feeds.

"Nice atmosphere to chow down fish soup and borscht," Giordino muttered.

Pitt ignored the comment as he stepped closer to a series of maps pinned to one wall. They were computer generated, showing enlarged sections of Lake Baikal. At various locations around the lake, red concentric circles had been drawn in by hand. A map of the northern fringe of the lake showed a thick concentration of the circles, some overlapping the shore where an oil pipeline was depicted running from west to east.

"Target drill sites?" Giordino asked.

"Probably. Not going to make the Earth First! crowd too happy," Pitt replied.

Giordino listened at the door as the outside footsteps descended a nearby stairwell. When the footfalls faded away, he cracked the door slightly and peeked into the now-empty passageway.

"No one about. And no sign of any passengers aboard."

"It's the shore boat I want to get a look at," Pitt whispered.

Inching the door open, they crept into the side hall and back to the portside passageway. Moving forward, the freighter's superstructure quickly gave way to the open forward deck, which encompassed a split pair of recessed holds. Along the port rail near the bow sat a beat-up tender, stowed in a block cradle affixed to the deck. A nearby winch with cables still attached to the tender offered evidence that it had recently been deployed.

"She's in plain sight of the bridge," Giordino said, nodding up toward a fuzzy light that shined from the forward bridge window twenty feet above their heads.