Treasure of Khan (Dirk Pitt 19)

"But the barmaid was married," Pitt replied. "You'd be wasting your time."

"I've never yet found drinking in a bar to be a waste of time. As a matter of fact, I have discovered that time often stands still while in a bar."

"Only until the tab arrives. Tell you what, let's find Theresa and her pals, and the first bottle of Stoli is on me."

"Deal."

Walking several feet to the side of the railroad tracks, they moved quickly toward the facility. The gate across the rail spur was as Corsov described, a swinging chain-link fence padlocked to a thick steel pole. Pitt pulled the wire cutters from his pocket and quickly snipped an inverted L shape in the mesh. Giordino reached over and pulled the loose section away from the fence so Pitt could crawl through, then scampered in after him.

The rambling yard was well lit, and, despite the late hour, a steady buzz of activity hummed from within. Keeping to the shadows as best they could, Pitt and Giordino moved alongside the large fabricated building on the east end of the yard. The building's sliding doors opened to the interior of the yard, and the men crept toward the entrance, pausing behind one of the large doors.

From their vantage point, they had a clear view of the facility. To their left, a dozen or so men were working near the rail line, milling over four flatbed railcars. An overhead crane loaded bundled sections of four-foot-diameter pipe onto the first railcar, while a pair of yellow forklifts loaded smaller drill pipe and casings onto the other cars. Pitt was relieved to see that several of the men wore mangy brown jackets and battered yellow hard hats that matched their own.

"Drill pipe for an oil well and pipeline to transfer it to storage," Pitt whispered as he watched the loading. "Nothing unusual there."

"Except they have enough materials to drill to the center of the earth and pipe it to the moon," Giordino mused, gazing across the yard.

Pitt followed his gaze and nodded. Acres of the yard were jam-packed with forty-foot sections of the large-diameter pipe, stacked up in huge pyramids that towered over them. It was like a huge horizontal forest of metal trees, cut and stacked in an orderly sequence. A side section of the yard was filled with an equally impressive inventory of the small-diameter drill pipe and casings.

Turning his attention to the open warehouse, Pitt inched around the corner and peered in. The interior was brightly illuminated, but Pitt saw no signs of movement. Only a portable radio blaring an unrecognizable pop tune from a small side office indicated the presence of any workers. Striding into the warehouse, he walked behind a truck parked near the side wall and took inventory with Giordino beside him.

A half dozen large flatbed trailers occupied the front of the building, wedged between two dump trucks. A handful of Hitachi heavy-construction excavators and bulldozers lined the side wall, while the rear of the building was sectioned off as a manufacturing area. Pitt studied a stack of prefabricated metal arms and rollers that were in various stages of assembly. A nearly complete example stood in the center, resembling a large metal rocking horse.

"Oil well pumps," Pitt said, recalling the bobbing iron pumps he used to see as a kid dotting the undeveloped fields of Southern California. He noted that they appeared shorter and more compact than the type he remembered, which were used to pump oil out of mature wells that were not pressurized enough to blow the black liquid to the surface on their own.

"Looks more like the makings of a merry-go-round for welders," Giordino replied. He suddenly nodded toward a corner office, where they could see a man talking on the telephone.

Pitt and Giordino were creeping behind the cover of one of the flatbed trucks and inching toward the warehouse entrance when two more voices materialized near the door. The two men quickly ducked down and scurried around the back of the flatbed and knelt behind its large rear wheel. Through the wheel well, they watched as two workers strolled by on the opposite side of the truck, engaged in an animated conversation as they walked to the office in back. Pitt and Giordino quickly moved through the line of trucks and exited the building, regrouping behind a stack of empty pallets.

"Any one of those flatbeds could have been at Lake Baikal, but there was nothing that resembled the covered truck we saw at the dock," Giordino whispered.

"There's still the other side of the yard," Pitt replied, nodding toward the warehouse on the opposite side of the facility. The other building sat in a darkened section of the yard and appeared sealed shut. Together, they moved off toward the second building, threading their way through a small collection of storage sheds that dotted the northern side of the yard. Midway across, they approached a cluster of sheds and a small guard office that marked the main entrance to the complex. With Giordino on his heels, Pitt circled well clear of the entrance, then picked his way closer. Stopping at the last shed, which contained a bin full of grease-stained yard tools, they studied the second warehouse.

It was the same dimension as the first warehouse yet devoid of activity. Its front bay door was sealed shut, as was a small doorway to the side. What also made the building different was that an armed guard patrolled the perimeter.

"What's worth guarding at an oil field depot?" Giordino asked.

"Why don't we find out?"

Pitt stepped over to the tool bin and rummaged through its contents. "Might as well look the part," he said, hoisting a sledgehammer off the rack and toting it over his shoulder. Giordino picked up a green metal toolbox and emptied its contents, save for a hacksaw and monkey wrench.

"Let's go fix the plumbing, boss," he muttered, following after Pitt.

The twosome marched into the open and toward the building's façade as if they owned it. The guard initially paid little attention to the two men, who, in their ragged coats and banged-up hard hats, looked like any other workers in the yard. But when they completely ignored his presence on the way to the smaller entry door, he snapped into action.

"Stop," he barked in Mongolian. "Where do you think you're going?"

Giordino did stop, but only to bend down and retie his shoelace. Pitt kept walking toward the door as if the guard did not exist.

"Stop," the guard yelled again, shuffling toward Pitt as his hand reached for his holster.

Pitt kept walking until the guard was only a step away, then he slowly turned and smiled broadly at the man.

"Sorry, no habla" Pitt said, shrugging his shoulders benignly.

The guard contemplated Pitt's Caucasian features and indecipherable phrase with a look of utter confusion. Then the blunt side of a green toolbox arced out of nowhere and struck him in the side of the head, knocking him cold before his body could hit the ground.

"I think he bent my toolbox," Giordino said huffily, rubbing a large dent on the end of the green case.